Blind Devotion and Perversion of Earning God’s Favor

Frank (Left), and Harald (Right) on courtroom in 1970, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Moral-Based Murder

Throughout history, humans have been comitting various degrees of acts that go beyond what the

universal norm views as “ethical”. From acts such as taking properties owned by someone else,

threatening individual’s face in the form of insults or any verbal attacks, harrassing, torturing,

clawing at ilegal profits, and taking lives of other people. Often, uncovering the phenomena of

such uncommon and unethical acts ties back into the psychological and social nature that

enforces human’s mind, serving as the catalyst for such hideous acts. The various levels of

crimes are further complicated by the various reasons fueling these certain individuals to commit

atrocity. There are those who steal and kill to escape dire situations or due to being forced by

circumstance, and there are those who does vile deeds for personal gains, self-satisfactions, and

hedonistic entertainment, and yet combining all those, it doesn’t compare to the crimes enacted

under the fabricated principle of righteouness. Particulary unique are these individuals who

commit crimes under the deluded moral compass. The figure who stands in the center of it is not

a mere street thiefs, or hired shooters, but a prophet-like figure who spreads their belief to their

surroundings like a deadly plague. There have been many records of fatalistic demise of these

heretics such as The Manson Family, Children of God, and Heaven’s Gate, yet none match the

grisly and gut-wrenching details of the Tenerife’s Alexander Family.

The Root of Religious Delusion

Alexander Family was a family of six hailed from Hamburg, Germany. They lived a secluded

life ignorant of the outside world. Daily, they performed sex with each other, believing that every

person outside of their life was evil. Their blasphemous misconduct was rooted in the exploits of

the father named Harald Alexander. In his previous life, Harald was part of a radical religious

sect called Lorber Society. This sect promoted a strict and rigid way of worshipping god like

forbidding overindulgence in sex and food consumption and drinking, they also believed that

everyone outside of their sect was evil, and so came to light the first sign as to how the fabricatedreligion of Alexander family took shape. Harald became its leader after the previous one’s

passing and every word he said was absolute to the Lorber Society. Harald told them revelation

of the next prophet bound to appear. In 1953, Harald’s family had their first son named Frank,

and Harald determined that this baby was the long anticipated prophet of god Lorber had waiting

for. The worshipping by the Lorber Society shaped Frank Alexander into someone who looked at

himself as a savior to humanity and a messenger of god, so every members took his every words

as a god’s will. Frank grew up as a self-proclaimed prophet, ordering people around especially

his mother and three sisters. When Frank reached puberty, he started thinking about girls and

sex, but were conflicted because of the Lorber Society’s belief that everyone was evil. So he

turned to his own blood to satisfy his lust. The family engaged in incestous intercourse and

rumors begun spreading when the sister told her friends about how she was jealous of her other

sisters. Fearing that the Hamburg police would catch them and the people would not accept this

kind of behavior, The Alexander disconnected with Lorber Society and moved to Santa Cruz.

Since then, they faithfully committed their delusional self-made religion by worshipping Frank.

The Killing Hour

On December 21st, 1970, Frank woke up from a nap and went into his mother’s bedroom. He sat

on the edge of the bed and stared at her sleeping body. When her mother woke up and looked at

him, Frank saw it as an offensive act to a prophet, as he described as the wrong way to look at

him. At that moment, Frank decided that the killing hour was upon them. The killing hour was a

ritual invented by the Alexander that served to purify women because the believed women were

unpure. They believed that this act would grant them a place in heaven, and it was a sacred and

mutually accepted belief within the household. Frank grabbed a wooden coat hanger and begun

to beat her mother to a pulp in her bed. The mother offered her backside and spreaded her arms

so that Frank could easily kill her. Harald that was sleeping beside her wife begun jolting and

saw the scene excitedly. He reached a piano in the living room and begun playing it. The two

sisters woke up from the noise and realized what’s what happening. Harald said to them that the

killing hour was upon them and they headed over to the center of living room and begun to sit

cross legged, ready to be killed. Frank begun by hitting the 18-year-old Marina, the first

daughter, repeatedly in the head until she’s dead. He moved on to the 15-year-old, Petra, and did

the same thing until she died. Frank then went to the kitchen to grab a knife. What happened next

was a vomit-inducing moment reflecting the grisly nature of the murder. Frank begun to mutilate

the cleavages and genitals of his sisters and mother. Frank and Harald switched their roles

bwteeen playing the piano and the mutilation of the skin, and they nailed all the parts on a wall.

The cherry on top was they pulled out the heart of the mother and bound it with a cord, and

nailed on the wall as well. During the brutality unfolding, one family member, a young girl, was

working as a housemaid in a doctor’s house. Harald and Frank came over to the doctor’s house

covered in blood. The doctor was flabbergasted by the stain covering them but decided to

welcome them into his house when they told him of wanting to see Sabine, the girl. The doctor

heard of the conversation of the three Alexander. Harald said to Sabine “Sabine, we wanted to

tell you right away that Frank and I have just finished killing your mother and your sisters”. And

Sabine said “I’m sure what you did is necessary.” The doctor instinctively called the police and

they soon were arrested. In the trial, they both could be seen without an ounce of remorse in

them. Harald just started at the jury with forbidding eyes, cold as ice, and Frank maniacally

glared at another direction. The psychiatrists determined they were not mentally fit to follow the

trial and sent to asylum for the criminally insane. The venom still still further seeped into the

Alexander family as Sabine pleaded with the law enforcement to let her live with them. The

authorities rejected and she was sent to live among nuns. Nearly after 20 years since theirconfinement, the father and son duo escaped the asylum and their whereabouts remains unknown

to this day.

The Fatalistic Aftermath of a False Religious Indoctrination

The danger of indoctrination is present in the case of Alexander family. It restricts fundamental

right of freedom to make a choice and to live normally. The length of it is extremely generational

and affects many people close to the environment. It also distorts their reality of what it means to

be good and what is evil. The isolation creates a situation where they were not able to truly get to

know the knowledge of it.