These criminally minded leaders used charm and deception to have a loyal flock before abusing their unwilling followers. Who are they - these terrible people who skillfully led the crowd in the wrong direction?
Sect Leaders - Who Are They Really?
Masters of manipulation is the best description of the people that will be discussed below, who are subject to criminal liability. Few of these convicted cult leaders confess to any wrongdoing and continue to preach their strange teachings even from the safest prisons. While the manifestation of their depravity took many forms, each of these supposed leaders systematically lured into their cult of young, vulnerable and oppressed individuals. We doubt that anyone can find the slightest bit of humanity in these former leaders.
Tony Alamo demanded complete devotion from his followers
As head of the community of Santa Clarita known as the Alamo Christian Foundation, founded in 1969, Tony Alamo had access to a lot of cash and an approach to a host of vulnerable minors who followed him unquestioningly. The group stalked teens and young adults on the streets of Hollywood before expanding into multiple cities and recruiting hundreds of members in the late 1970s. The Alamo and his wife focused their efforts on attracting drug addicts and schoolchildren, promising in return housing, free meals, and anti-Catholic and anti-government religious teachings.
Promotional video:
What went wrong with Tony Alamo?
By the mid-1990s, everything had changed rapidly: the church operated under a new name and status, and was completely exempted from taxes. Soon, the relevant authorities intervened in this, as they believed that the church almost completely benefited the Alamo and, therefore, did not exist solely for charitable purposes. In 1994, the leader was convicted of tax evasion and the federal government demanded that he pay $ 2.5 million in moral damages to his victims. The Alamo's more vicious crimes surfaced in 2009, when he was convicted in ten criminal cases involving child molestation. The Alamo was sentenced to imprisonment for 150 years in federal prison, because that is where he belongs.
Wayne Bow from Strong City
You may know Wayne Bant as Michael Travesser (his pseudonym). Bunt founded The Lord Our Righteousness Church. He did not use his influence for righteous purposes. The Strong City sect followed Wayne in everything, and he acted like the Messiah. Like many of the leaders on our list, Bunt has used his significant influence to manipulate vulnerable and underage individuals.
As part of his leadership, he performed sexual acts with members of his sect. Authorities reacted when a story leaked in which Bunt attempted to rape children to heal them. In a documentary about cults, he even admitted that he was just lying completely naked next to underage girls and women from his sect, but flatly refused to admit that his actions were sexual in nature.
In 2008, Bunt was found guilty in several cases at once: the first - for seducing his underage followers, and two more cases in which he strongly contributed to juvenile delinquency. Ultimately, Bent was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Matthew F. Hale and His Racial Sacred Mission
Matthew ("Matt") F. Hale was the third Pontiff, the founder of the Universal Church of the Creator. In fact, it was an atheistic racial religion whose followers believed that the white race was a superior civilization and advocated a "racial holy war" to create a "white world." In short, Hale personified it all.
Hale's future racist and criminal tendencies began to manifest itself at a young age. As a teenager, Hale loved to read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and even formed a National Socialist group at school. Hale soon became a major supporter of white separatism and a friend of the Ku Klux Klan. He founded his church in 1996 and decided to "populate the lands of this planet with exclusively white people."
By 2002, Hale's criminal activities surfaced when he was found guilty of forcibly trying to get an undercover FBI agent to kill a judge, but he refused. On April 6, 2005, Hale was sentenced to 40 years in prison for involvement in murder.
"Harem of Death" by Erville LeBaron
Erville LeBaron led a particularly bloody activity, killing at least 25 people. He is the leader of a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon group. LeBaron was an ardent supporter of atonement for sins with blood, he was in a huge number of marriages, and many of his 13 wives at the time he married them were still underage. The Church of Jesus Christ officially abandoned the practice of polygamy in 1890, but the LeBaron family did not agree with this.
Erville's father moved to New Mexico and set up his own polygamous sanctuary in Baja, California. Erville quickly rose to power in this organization, which consisted of 30 families in California and Utah. Erville and his brothers did not get along, and he created his own sect, known as the Church of the Lamb of God, in 1972. By the late 1970s, this passionate leader had killed, or at least tried to kill, his brothers, children, and numerous polygamous leaders whom he regarded as rivals.
How did it all end?
In 1980, he was sentenced to life in the Utah State Prison. Before dying in prison, Erville wrote a 400-page "bible" called The Book of New Testaments, which contains a commandment calling for the murder of disobedient church members and lists his best rivals. Some of the family members took this "bible" seriously. More recently, in 2011, one of LeBaron's daughters confessed that she ordered the killings on behalf of her father.
Carl Drew's Satanic Ritual Murders
In the 1970s, manipulative pimp Karl Drew used the trappings of his satanic religion to control the prostitutes who worked for him. The Drew Cult, known as the River Fall Cult, was founded in Massachusetts with up to 10 members. Drew claimed to be the son of Satan and is closely associated with the Fall River sex trade. The group was known for their satanic ceremonies that took place in the forest, and during the ceremonies, Drew constantly spoke in different voices and in different languages.
The further - the more?
Initially, he was satisfied with the way he performed his rituals, that is, through sex and drugs, but soon Drew demanded more from his followers. As a self-proclaimed son of Satan, he wanted to sacrifice a human in one of his ceremonies. Drew killed three young prostitutes before he and all of his followers were detained. Each of the young female victims was beaten or stabbed to death as part of the ritual. When one of the women tried to go to the police, Drew killed her and executed her in front of the rest of the cult.
After the surviving followers were arrested in 1980, Drew and his entire team received life sentences. One of the cult members, Robin Murphy, testified against Drew in exchange for a lighter punishment. All members came out to confirm that Murphy is far from the victim, she willingly participated in three brutal murders.
Victoria Ivashura
