Donato’s Past & Private Investigator

Donato’s Marriage(s)

This image is labeled August 29, 1968, however their marriage certificate is dated July 15th 1964 in Los Angeles County

Below are pictures of Patricia and Donato at Disneyland. That’s Linny/Rada-Amie (their daughter (they also have a son Mark)) peering in from the left of the one image.

The image below: We’re still in the process of identifying the woman accompanying Donato. We’ve learned of two prior marriages, neither of them actually ending with a legal divorce (admin ’24 – only his first marriage was legally ended by divorce). Until we can accurately identify this companion, and get permission to use her image here, we’ll have to blur her face.

Detective Interview of the Sperato’s Past

Compiled by Colete Blackburn (Sirisa)

Personal information that could effect the innocent has been removed, such as last names.

The following is from a report by a private detective that I hired in 1996 to look into the background of the founders of Morningland. People have asked me why I did this. Frankly I don’t know why someone didn’t think of this before. We were all devoted to these persons and their “cause” for a very long time knowing very little about their background. It just made sense to me in the process of sorting all of this out to find out who these people really were. I have left out identifying information on the persons discussed in this interview to protect them. I hope that this will help others who are trying to make sense of what happened in Morningland.

On December 16, 1996 Clara ——(Maiden name spelling declined although it sounds like ——-), New York ——was reached at her home telephone ——-, conversation with her was quite disjointed and skipped around a lot but the following is the general sense of the conversation. It should be remembered that CLARA and this investigator are strangers to each other and the conversation was conducted on long-distance telephone.

1. She is the legitimate widow of DANIEL MARIO SPERATO, a subject of this investigation. She cannot recall the date of their marriage but it was in a city or town in Pennsylvania.  
2. She and DANIEL had one child together (DANIEL, JR.)
3. She now lives on the Social Security survivorship from her husband’s death. She knows he died in 1976, but is not sure where.
4. Both her father-in-law LORENZO and mother-in-law LUCY (LOUISE) are deceased.
5. DANIEL abandoned her and their child on Christmas Eve (she does not recall the year) and left ———-with PATRICIA (last name unrecalled if she ever knew it) and disappeared. PATRICIA had been married before and possibly had one child. She does not know PATRICIA’S married name (allegedly WOOD) and does not know if she divorced or abandoned her husband, as DANIEL abandoned her, CLARA.
6. DANIEL had also been married and had two children, a boy and a girl, before he married her. He reportedly had to go to Florida (Possibly a town called Aranda (Phonetic) to get his divorce inasmuch as for some unknown reason he could not get a divorce in ——–(She believes it may have had something to do with the Catholic Church). His divorce wife is Genevieve ———–, ————————————-, New York. She reared their two children alone and never re-married.
7. Daniel’s brother LAWRENCE (LARRY) SPERATO, would probably be willing to furnish information about DANIEL and PATRICIA. She believes PATRICIA was also from ————-but she is not sure and did not know PATRICIA or her family.  
8. She believes DANIEL’S Sister ANGELA ————-, who lives on ————-in ———— (husband TIMOTHY) would be willing to furnish information regarding DANIEL and possibly PATRICIA.  
9. CLARA advised that she would be willing to furnish additional information but the events discussed happened so long ago (and she is getting older) that she cannot remember names, dates and details as well as she once could.  

A short time after this interview was conducted, probably about a month, I spoke to Clara on the phone myself. My recollection of the conversation is not precise because I did not think to write down what we had discussed at the time. I remember her telling me that she had just come from work so apparently she did something to supplement her Social Security. She was a very pleasant lady who had had to struggle to support her son by herself. I thought she was very kind to be willing to talk to me, I told her that I was writing about the church that her husband had founded. She told me that Daniel had worked in his family’s Pizza restaurant when they were living together and that that is where he met Patricia. She said that Patricia used to come in and sit at the counter. She did not know anything about Morningland or her husband being involved in any kind of church. She did not know what had happened to her husband after he abandoned her, which would have been in the early 1960′s. She felt certain, however, that his family in New York stayed in touch with him throughout all those years. She never remarried. I told her that I respected what she had been through and empathized with her situation because, ironically, I had a very similar circumstance in my own life with my natural father. She reiterated that I might be able to find out more from Daniel’s siblings. I did try but was unable to contact them.

Additional Information not from private investigator
Patricia had two daughters before Lynnie (Rada Ami). She abandoned them. So, between them, Daniel and Patricia abandoned a total of 5 children before her later abandoning of Lynne and Marcus (Seroth) who came later – making a total of seven children abandoned.

Neither of them ever made any attempt to contact their children. Most disciples don’t even know they HAD children.

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