It was the most ghastly crime scene law enforcement officials in Marin County had ever seen. Friederike Kruse, a schoolteacher from Germany and dedicated member of the Rajneesh community depicted in Netflix's Wild Wild Country, had violently stabbed fellow Rajneeshee Angela Bretnall, a 39-year-old housekeeper and Australian immigrant, to death. It's one major storyline in the rise and fall of the controversial religious commune that was left out of the wildly popular documentary series.
Netflix’s addictive Wild Wild Country depicts the foundation—and ultimate downfall—of Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon and its leaders, the Rolls Royce-driving guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his secretary Ma Anand Sheela. The six-part series, directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, tells a true-cult story rife with corruption and brainwashing, wiretapping, free love, bioterrorism, incredible wealth, drugs, and attempted murder between 1981 and 1985.
The Way brothers obtained incredible footage from within the commune and land shocking, exclusive interviews with former members, including Ma Anand Sheela, who, along with fellow follower Jane Stork, was convicted of the attempted murder of Bhagwan's doctor. Both women served jail sentences.
The story of Kruse, however, never came up in their search, the Ways brothers told Esquire.com. "Even if it did, we would have not included it in Wild Wild Country. Our series primarily focuses on the events in Eastern Oregon from 1981-1985, and this horrific murder occurred five years after the collapse of the commune in Northern California," they said in a joint statement released through a publicist.
"After reading the article [about her], I would imagine the murder of Angela Bretnell deserves a documentary all of its own," they added.
According to court documents, Friederike Kruse, who lived in Rajneeshpuram, moved to California after the commune was abandoned and worked a variety of odd-jobs.
When her father died in 1989, Kruse became suicidal. But it was Bhagwan's mysterious death on January 19, 1990—reportedly of heart disease, although some suspect he was poisoned by confidantes eyeing his riches—that truly changed her. The traumatic loss of her beloved leader drove her to insanity: Demons took over her body and controlled her thoughts, she claimed, eventually urging her to kill.
Kruse stopped working, lived out of her car, and, in March 1990, was hospitalized at Marin General Hospital multiple times. Later, in court, she admitted to slashing car tires and then cutting her own wrists with a razor blade. One day, a voice in her head instructed her to climb the Golden Gate Bridge and jump. She climbed, but she didn’t take the deadly leap.
It seems Kruse was also inspired by the insidious bioterrorism plot carried out by her fellow Rajneeshees in 1984 to contaminate open salad bars in restaurants with salmonella (the attack infected 751 individuals in Oregon). According to court records, she sprayed poison on plums in grocery stores after leaving the commune and, on August 14, 1990, claims that voices in her head told her to do “bad things” like pour lice shampoo into Gatorade bottles at a Mill Valley grocery store.
Later that day, those voices told her to commit murder.
Kruse went to a home on West California Avenue in Mill Valley to meet up with her friend Angela Bretnall, who was working as a cleaning woman at the house. According to court documents, Kruse stripped down naked and ran around the house screaming. She repeatedly stabbed Bretnall with a knife, before turning the weapon on herself, stabbing her own neck and body.
Kruse was found by police, naked and with the murder weapon in her hand. She was screaming: “I killed her! I am a demon! I was making love to her.”
Bretnall’s naked body had been cut open from the chest to her left hip. Kruse then placed her entrails on a pile on the floor next to the body. And, according to a 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article, Kruse cut out Bretnall’s eyeballs and covered her own face and mouth with her victim’s intestines. At the time, deputy district attorney Kathryn Mitchell said it was the most ghastly scene that law enforcement officers in Marin County, where the murder took place, had ever seen.
Kruse was found not guilty of murder and poisoning by reason of insanity. She was committed to a California state mental health hospital for a term of 20 years to life.
At a later hearing, Kruse said her relationship with Bretnall had nothing to do with the murder. "I never hated her, I was completely delusional," Kruse said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2004. "I feel terribly sorry for what I did."
Former Marin Independent Journal reporter Nancy Isles Nation, who wrote about the crime at the time, told Esquire.com that Mitchell was in charge of calling Bretnall’s mother in Australia to break the tragic news. "She, of course, was so upset, [Mitchell] lied to her and said her daughter didn’t suffer," Isles Nation recalled. "I don’t blame [Mitchell] for sparing her mother the pain, but that poor girl."
Isles Nation also remembers Kruse looking "very innocent and girlish in court."
"She seemed to be somewhat stable," Isles Nation said. "But prosecutors spoke of her misbehavior in the state hospital, including having sex in hiding places with male patients.”
According to court documents, while residing at Patton State Hospital (a forensic psychiatric facility in San Bernardino County) Kruse “engaged early on in some physically assaultive behavior” and was described by her treating psychiatrist as “something of a terror.” After Patton, Kruse resided at Napa State Hospital, where she apparently ran an illegal laundry business washing people’s clothes for money.
In 2003, a representative from Conditional Release Program, or CONREP, deemed Kruse unsuitable for outpatient treatment due to depressive episodes and “involvement with a dangerous cult,” as revealed in court documents. According to the CONREP transcript of her interview at the time, Kruse described the cult as a “big support group” and didn’t mention the bio-terror attack at all.
At a petition hearing in 2004, a CONREP consultant and doctor reported that Kruse suffered from bipolar disorder and personality disorder, with narcissistic features. Despite recommendations from medical professionals, a trial court denied Kruse’s petition to be placed in CONREP, stating that her treating psychiatrist had made his recommendation for release without proper examination of Kruse’s relationship with the Oregon cult and the lasting impact membership took on her mental health.
For now, Kruse remains at the state hospital, according to additional court documents.
