The latest episode of the Stop Christian Nationalism podcast recasts the 2024 presidential election in the frame of Donald Trump’s proud announcement of the endorsement of fundamentalist preacher Tom Sooter. What Donald Trump didn’t tell voters about was the story of the tragedy of Tom Sooter’s daughter, Jennifer Sooter.

As a child, Jennifer Sooter was only allowed to spend one night away from the home of her controlling father. She was allowed to sleep over at her grandparents’ house. According Tom Sooter, that one night of freedom exposed Jennifer Sooter to evil temptations.

Tom Sooter convinced his wife, Mary Lee Sooter, that their daughter was possessed by demons – not metaphorical character flaws, but actual evil monsters from the pit of Hell. So, Tom and Mary Lee Sooter kept their daughter in their home even after she became an adult, only allowing her to leave the house in order to go to church or to join her father in going door to door “saving souls”.

At the age of 24, Jennifer Sooter decided she wanted to be free. She wrote a letter explaining to her parents that she was leaving the church led by Tom Sooter. She packed her things into boxes and prepared to move into an apartment of her own.

Mary Lee Sooter, convinced that her daughter was still being controlled by demons, and would join a Satanic cult if she was allowed to live freely, shot Jennifer Sooter several times in the head, then turned the family’s gun on herself and committed suicide.

Tom Sooter has never acknowledged his own responsibility for the deaths of his daughter and wife. In the 2024 presidential election, Sooter is a member of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, working to help Donald Trump put all of America into the kind of Christian Nationalist religious captivity endured by Jenny Sooter.

The story is told, often in Tom Sooter’s own words, in the podcast episode of Stop Christian Nationalism. It’s also explored in more depth in the new book Donald Trump’s Army of God.