Season 1 • Episode 4
LatestIn 1977, the Los Angeles Times reports on the nine-day abduction of Frances Winn by Synanon. Lawyer Paul Morantz wins a settlement case in her favor. With media focus heating up, Chuck spends $62,000 on guns and ammunition, at the time the largest single firearms purchase in California history. Soon thereafter, he allegedly orchestrates an attempt on Morantz’s life. He is sentenced to five years probation. Drinking again and diagnosed with mental illness, Chuck loses everything and dies in a nursing home, leaving a troubled legacy as a creative, but unchecked genius. Many adherents are left to piece together their lives in the aftermath without Synanon.
Explore the rise and fall of the Synanon organization — through the eyes of the members who lived it — from its early days as a groundbreaking drug rehabilitation program to its later descent into what many consider a cult.
Direction
Kennedy and Bailey let survivors steer, no sensationalism needed.
Editing
Archival footage that ages like milk—chilling time-capsule effect.
Creators
Rory Kennedy, Mark Bailey
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
US
