After moving into his daughter’s Sarah Lawrence College dorm room, Larry Ray slowly exerted control over a group of students.

Larry Ray gained the trust of his daughter’s friends by regaling them with stories of his successful past and taking an interest in their lives. According to authorities, he then used his influence to torment most of them for years.

After Larry Ray started living in his daughter's dorm at Sarah Lawrence, he was able to form a predatory connection with some of the students he met there.

“When you look at people who have been in a cult, you certainly can’t separate them out in terms of their intelligence level or their sophistication,” Dr. Joni Johnston, a forensic psychologist and author of “Serial Killers: 101 Questions True Crime Fans Ask,” told Oxygen.com.