I went to RMA with Russ Decker. I arrived at the end of June, he arrived sometime in September or October. He was in the peer group below mine, but after some serious ass kissing and looking good, he and a girl from that peer group were pushed up in to my peer group. By "my", I mean I was the oldest in the peer group.
He was a jerk from start to finish. Tough guy, came from Pasadena, CA so he's generally from the region of CEDU as far as I know. I am not entirely sure where Lake Arrowhead is to be honest.
Anyway, Pasadena is a football town and Russ was a fairly big guy who always bragged about beating people up, and he did tell the story of setting a homeless man on fire on several occasions so it is likely true. He loved to intimidate people and when he wasn't looking good for staff, he'd try and be authoritative or intimidating when he could. But his shit never smelled. He got away with everything, and as one of Caroline Wolfe's (staff member) pets, he was shielded from any trouble.
Because he got bumped up to my peer group, we graduated together. As I recall, he did not leave after graduation but stayed on as a graduate. Not quite a staff member, but I don't think he left. Later he became staff and was probably staff at RMA before going to CEDU. But I am guessing at some point he tried his hand at college as some have said.
He was all about image. He put on a really good show of having his shit together within fifteen minutes of arriving at RMA. Never got in to trouble, but most students saw the scary side of him often enough. Propheets with him just sucked because when you have to go around and around while everyone tells their life's dirt, he had no end of stories about all the cruel stuff he used to do to people before going to Idaho. That he is now charged with some kind of beating is no surprise. He was one angry, violent person and nothing RMA did was ever going to change that. He had a lot of practice being a look good, but when you don't change, eventually you get caught. Glad to hear he has been caught and charged. Sad that it was a child, and his own that wound up being the victim.
So yes, RMA Russ Decker and CEDU Russ Decker are one and the same. I would say in 1984 he was 16. So in 1991 he would have been my age as well, 23.
Caroline Wolfe and her husband-thing at RMA Randy Eide were both CEDU grads who also became staff. This is what happens in cults. Some cultists don't leave when it is over, they stay on, having drank so much Kool Aid they can't get by without it. And Caroline and Randy were two of the most abusive, insensitive, uncaring staffers at RMA during my time there. Both had their cliques of students they protected and used, while making life a living hell for any who were not in their special little group. That Russ Decker became a staff member after having these two as role models is not surprising. Jackie Guber, the daughter of 60 minutes star Barbara Walters, was also one of Caroline Wolfe's clique members. And Jackie went on to start her own little school up in Maine, and Caroline Wolfe as I understand it went along to help. Thick as thieves. I knew Jackie. She arrived in 1985 and I gave Barbara the tour.
One can only hope Russ Decker gets convicted. Any conviction with a sentence could make up a little for all the hurt he has caused others in his life.
