RedHanded - Episode 102 - Yahweh ben Yahweh: The Prophet, The Cult & The Temple of Love

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

Ruthless cult - The Nation of Yahweh - hit its peak in the late 80s as the self-proclaimed leader, and son of God, Yahweh ben Yahweh promised the people of Miami salvation through messages of black power, total devotion and obedience. His message spread, but so did the fear and control as reports of beatings, extortion, arson, and grisly murders - at the hands of his notorious "Death Angels" - shocked a nation.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome, my red-handed friends. We've got another cult this week. And over the last week, I've got very into what differentiates a religion from a cult. I've got no interest in being crucified, pun absolutely 100% intended, for my own personal views on Jesus or being fair-gamed by Scientologists. But there are a lot of parallels you can draw between accepted religions and what we would classify as cults. Obviously, we've discussed a few cults on the show before, but we've never explicitly broken down what makes a cult on this show before.

So here we go. A cult is generally defined as a formal religious veneration and a system of religious beliefs that has a body of adherence. Cults are regarded as unorthodox or spurious with a great devotion to a person or an idea. Where they do differ from accepted religions and how they make themselves stand out is that the general public and or government officials view the group as having potential to do harm. The most famous paper on this topic was published in the early 80s by Robert J.

Lifton, who is a psychiatrist, and at the time, he was teaching at Harvard Medical School. The paper was called Cult Formation, and if you've looked into cults even a little bit, you will have come across it. So basically, this paper outlined three characteristics of destructive cults. Destructive is the important word. Number one, charismatic leader who has no meaningful accountability and is the only source of authority within the group. Number two, a brainwashing process that causes members to act against their own best interest. And number three, exploitation of group members in a sexual, economic or some other way. I think this is the key thing with the difference between a religion and a cult, obviously my own personal views on religion aside, I do think there is a fundamental difference in the sense that you can be part of a religion and still be a full functioning, well-rounded, of course, member of society.

If you're in a cult, you have to be a part of that cult and not be a part of anything else. I think that's the key thing. It's kind of all consuming in a way. Exactly. Now, more recently, 10 warning signs have been added to the cult checklist, and they are absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability, no tolerance for questions or critical inquiry, no meaningful financial disclosure, fear of the outside world, impending apocalypse, etc.,

no legitimate reason to leave, former members relating similar stories of abuse, and there are records of abuses by the cult leader. Followers feel like they can never be truly good enough, the group leader being beyond reproach, and the only source of truth in the group. So that's what you need to look out for. That's your checklist. Exactly. This has worked out quite neatly for us, really, because the group that we're discussing today ticks almost every single one of those boxes. Cults develop and grow because people are looking for something that they think is missing in their life. And in this case, what was missing was fair treatment of black people.

So slightly more exotic than the Peter Braditches we took you to last week, we are going to Miami. And we're going to the late 70s and early 80s. Miami was prime territory for a cult at this period in time. So before we get going, put this out there right now, we're not saying that every activist group is a cult. And I also think it is interesting why in the late 70s and 80s, we feel like Miami, even the whole sort of United States was prime territory for cult behavior. I don't know, what do you think? Is it like that kind of the back end of the hippie movement, people feeling quite disillusioned with that not having been everything that it was hyped up to be and feeling a bit lost out of that? I think the hippie movement, certainly, I also think the civil rights movement to a certain

extent. And there's a big vacuum now left in the lives of a lot of these people that feels like it makes them prime territory, makes them prime targets for charismatic leaders like this. Yes. Not every activist group is a cult, but today's group certainly is. Let's get a bit of a flavour for Miami at the time. Miami was racially segregated. Maybe not officially, but it definitely was. There were black neighborhoods and there were white neighborhoods. The neighborhoods that housed predominantly black people had fallen into woeful disrepair. No money was invested in the black sides of town. Crime rates were high and substance

abuse was rife. So the civil unrest created by this neglect of the population came to a head on the 17th of May 1980, when five white police officers were acquitted of the murder of Arthur McDuffie by an all-white jury. Arthur was an insurance agent and he was black. He was involved in a police chase while riding a motorbike. Arthur had borrowed this motorbike from his cousin. It was 2am and he was speeding. He was spotted by a patrol car that started to chase him. Then another cop car joined and then another. The police were shooting from their cars at Arthur, so it's hardly surprising that he continued to increase his speed and go through red lights. When police eventually caught up with him, all five of them beat Arthur into a coma.

His skull had been cracked like an egg. Arthur died in hospital days later. Once he had got off his bike, Arthur had made no aggressive actions towards the police. The police tried to cover up the attack, but they didn't get away with it for long. Beating someone to death with torches and nightsticks is pretty difficult to hide. The trial took place in Tampa, and when the news of the acquittal spread to Miami, full-blown riots ensued, and they raged for three days. 18 people were killed, and over 400 were injured. Arthur McDuffie's death was the final straw. Miami was at breaking point. And here is just a selection of reasons why. In January 1979,

a white state trooper molested an 11-year-old black girl and he was let off with three years probation and no jail time. In February 1979, Miami-Dade detectives by accident served a search warrant for the home of a black school teacher, Nathaniel LeFleur. When the white police officers entered his home, Nathaniel was seriously injured in a struggle. The police officers suffered no consequence and were acquitted by a grand jury. In September of the same year, a white off-duty police officer working as a security guard shot and killed 22 year old black man, Randy Heath. This also went to a grand jury who found the death of Randy to be negligent and not criminal. And we've seen this in the UK too, like the Brixton riots started

because the police shot someone for an out of date tax disc. The Tottenham riots in, when was that? 2010, 11, something like that. We've seen this in the UK too. This is not just specifically an American problem. But given all of these very public acquittals, especially in such a short space of time, it's hardly surprising that Miami was a tinderbox. And we're not ever going to say that it's okay to riot. Of course not. Like the damage that that causes, the death that it causes the injuries it does but we're saying we can understand why this set up yeah i think there's a difference between a protest and a riot people call the student protest riots all the time they weren't they were protests it's

a different you have the whole what is it kettling oh i've been kettled i got kettled under waterloo bridge that was the worst day of my fucking life i thought i was gonna die so no absolutely protests all day long riots not great but it is can be also the reaction of the police and the people sort of um manning the uh protest that can lead things to turn into a riot when there was a women's march and people kept being like oh there was just no violence it was so nice and quiet and calm and it was like there was a comment made by a police officer said well, well, we're going to police the Women's March a bit differently to how we're going to do something for Black Lives Matter.

So it can be absolutely the mentality with which people go into, and I mean people including law enforcement, go into that protest. That can turn it into something else. But just saying, riots, not great. They are like a mass mob of vigilantism. And you know how we feel about vigilantism. But I also think, quickly, I also think that there are definitely multiple periods of time in history where the only thing that got people's voices heard were riots. I don't disagree with you there. And, you know, that's definitely happened.

And you can look throughout history when there's been riots, but you can also look at situations where there have been sit-ins and there's been civil disobedience through peaceful pacifistic Gandhi the Indians managed to get the British out with elements of that and they tried oh yeah that's true I'm not saying how dare you do this you bunch of pricks because of course you were racially segregated and still shouldn't be rioting. I'm just saying it can just also allow the powers that be to demonize you more. So it's a tricky thing that gets out of hand. But anyway, what we are saying here is that the riots were all over the place. People were angry and they wanted change. And that's where the nation of Yahweh comes in.

The nation of Yahweh borrowed quite heavily from both the nation of Islam and the Black Hebrew movement. The message was that black people were the true descendants of the tribes of Israel, and they were to be led to their redemption by the leader of the nation of Yahweh, the son of God himself, Yahweh ben Yahweh. The racial tension in Miami meant that a lot of people who felt unseen flocked to Yahweh ben Yahweh, who not only told them that they mattered, but that they were in fact God's chosen people. And that's an inviting offer for anyone. And the word of Yahweh resonated with Miami's black population. Yahweh ben Yahweh means God, the son of God and or Lord, son of the Lord. And it's not a name that anyone gets born with.

Yahweh ben Yahweh was born with the name Houlon Mitchell Jr. in 1935 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He was the oldest son of a staggering 15 children. And one of these 15 kids would grow up to be Grammy Award winning opera singer

Leona Mitchell. But it was her brother Houlon who would grow up to be the most famous. That would piss me the fuck off. She worked so hard to become a world-class opera singer

and your brother starts a cult so everyone knows who he is and not you. Jesus. Classic. So Hulon, who would later rename himself Yahweh Ben Yahweh, grew up with Christianity, Pentecostal Christianity to be precise. His dad was a renowned preacher and little Hulon would claim in later life that by the time he was three years old, he knew that he was different from everyone else. He had been touched by God. He was divine. I don't think I knew my ass from my elbow when I was three years old. You were probably on your dino blog with your fountain pen, overachieving. So Little Hulon soon grew up to be Big Hulon and he studied psychology for his undergrad and then got a master's in economics from Atlanta University.

Then Hulon wiggled over to Chicago to join the Nation of Islam. Quick rundown of the Nation of Islam. It's an African-American movement that started back in Detroit in the 30s, and they mix traditional Islamic theology with black nationalism and have a distinctly race-based theology. Hulon didn't last long in Chicago. He didn't last long with Islam either. By the late 70s, he had moved to Miami and legally changed his name to Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Although he had left Islam behind,

Yahweh Ben Yahweh's newfound Hebrew ideology was heavily influenced by the most extreme teachings of the Nation of Islam. And that is made reasonably clear by his blatant rip-off of their name. Yahweh Ben Yahweh started to preach in Miami about the oppression of black people. He also, stealing from the black Hebrew Israelites, claimed that Jesus and many central figures of the Bible were black. He used passages from the Bible to back this up, like Jesus' feet being described as bronze. And I think you can use passages from the Bible to prove basically anything. It's like statistics. They can show you whatever you fucking want them to show you.

But I think there is quite a lot of evidence that suggests that Jesus was not right. Firstly, being from the Middle East is a bit of a dead giveaway, really. Have you seen all of the excellent memes that have come out recently? Because you know, Halle Berry's going to play Ariel in the new live action Little Mermaid and people are sort of up in arms about this being culturally insensitive and changing the story and blah blah blah and there are so many memes that like oh you're upset about Ariel wait till you hear about Jesus. Brilliant. And Yahweh took another lead from the Bible and started dressing in long white flowing robes and wearing a jeweled turban. And he also started to carry a big wooden staff like the one that Moses used to part the Red Sea.

Yahweh ben Yahweh quickly gained quite a following in Miami, not only based on his, you know, frankly, eye-catching appearance, but also on his sermons that championed black people as God's chosen tribe. He taught that black people should become self-reliant and how the black areas of Miami needed desperately to be refurbished and renewed. By 1979, Yahweh Ben Yahweh had caught the attention of enough people to build his own church. And so, the Nation of Yahweh was born. At the height of its popularity, the nation of Yahweh boasted 20,000 members across 45 cities. How they're counting that, I'm not sure. So take that with a pinch of salt. But Miami remained the heartbeat of the institution. All of Yahweh's

followers wore white robes and covered their heads, both men and women, which I thought was interesting. And they wear white because Yahweh told his nation that, quote, he that overcometh the white man shall be clothed in white. A lot of his Miami-based followers lived communally in the nation of Yahweh HQ, which was called the Temple of Love. And it was in Liberty City, which is a traditionally black area of Miami. Yahweh also taught that, quote, we are white people's property as long as we keep their name. So many members of the nation changed their surname to Israel. Yahweh spoke a lot about regenerating neighbourhoods that had been neglected by the city of Miami because black people lived in them.

And he was true to his word. The nation of Yahweh bought up real estate in predominantly black areas, some of which had bad reputations, and they cleaned them up. They opened hotels, motels, apartment complexes, soap factories and a supermarket. By 1980, the nation of Yahweh's real estate portfolio, according to the New York Times, was worth $9 million. Members of the nation were expected to contribute to the group's wealth by selling goods and soliciting donations. Each member had a daily quota that they had to meet. Again, classic cult behaviour.

Oxygen, the, like, TV network. Are they a network? Whatever we call them. I suppose so. Yeah. A channel, I think. The channel, that's the one. They've really taken a big deep dive into true crime recently. I think it's their whole vibe.

Oh, I don't think it was when they first started. I think it was something else, but who knows. Okay. Anyway, they have recently made a documentary about the nation of Yahweh. And in that documentary, there is footage of Yahweh Ben Yahweh telling a reporter all about the new supermarket that he's just opened up. And you can tell he is a salesman. He has his patter all ready to go. And the nation of Yahweh was certainly all about making money.

It's quite something to behold him talking about the supermarket. He literally is like a used car salesman. He's like better products, less prices, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it's just all completely ready to go. So I can completely understand why people were taken in by him. And even the FBI agents who will come on to later, who investigate him, they're like, I can completely get why people were drawn to this guy. I always find with cult leaders, and especially reading this case, it's like how we talk about on an individual like micro level when we talk about how somebody becomes a killer. You know, like in last week's episode, we talk about there needing to be the conditions that are there, the trigger that's there, how it manifests itself, and then

you have the repercussions. Here it was the social and political climate that was existing at the time, the frustration that people felt. Yahweh Ben Yahweh as a character in himself and how convincing he is as a salesperson. He comes along and tells these people what they want to hear. And it's the perfect storm that leads to him having a successful cult. Successful? Yeah, I guess successful. We'll call it that. For a few years, I'd definitely say so. And it's still going. It hasn't stopped. No, no, no, no, of course. So from the outside, all of the generated money was seen to be being used for good, to further renovate buildings in the impoverished areas.

They were, quote, cleaning up the ghetto. The nation of Yahweh was moving on sex workers and shutting down drug dens. This was welcomed and celebrated by many, even those in government office. Yahweh Ben Yahweh's social outreach program was so respected that the mayor of Miami, Javier Suarez, made the 7th of October 1990 Yahweh Ben Yahweh Day. That's the day after I was born. I was a whole one day on the 7th of October, 1990. Now, less than one month later, Yahweh would be arrested on suspicion of a whole host of charges. But less than one month later, Yahweh would be arrested on suspicion of a whole host of charges.

Those charges ranged from racketeering to murder. But before all of that caught up with him, Yahweh Ben Yahweh was having the time of his life. He was famous. He was interviewed on the news. An LA-based radio show owned by Stevie Wonder wanted to do a piece on him. London-based newspapers wanted to interview him. He was being hailed as a saint and showered with praise. It's like they think he's Mother Teresa, honestly. Yeah. And she's problematic enough he's Mother Teresa, honestly. And she's problematic enough. Oh my God, absolutely. And it's crazy that this guy, unlike other cult leaders that we see, other cult leaders just take in their own followers

and are fine to be ostracized and demonized by the rest of the public. And often are. He won all of them over in the start as well. And I think this is the key thing, is that you never really know what's going on until you're inside the temple of love until you're in the inner fold. Like obviously, their sort of exterior public relations are going to be spotless because they know what they're

doing. And I do believe that genuinely there were people in within the nation of Yahweh who genuinely wanted to do to do good. And who's to say maybe Yahweh Ben Yahweh himself started out wanting to do good. But power does things to people. Andweh Ben Yahweh himself started out wanting to do good. But power does things to people. And we've seen this before. I mean, anybody who knows the Jim Jones story, he started off wanting to create this utopia where racial segregation didn't exist. And, you know, we all live together as one. I genuinely believe that his intentions were pure in the start. But look where that ended up. Spoiler, it wasn't good. You might have already guessed, but inside the Temple of Love, things were not as rosy as they may have seemed to outside eyes. And I think the most important thing here is successful cults are

successful because they convince people that they are doing good. Cleaning up Miami is a good thing. It's a pure message. Scientologists are told that if everyone was a Scientologist and the whole earth became clear, then there would be no more war or disease. It's the same thing. It's the hook that gets you. And once you're in it, it becomes increasingly difficult to leave. And that is what happened to Khalil Amani. He gives an extensive insight into life inside the Temple of Love in the the Oxygen documentary, and a couple of others. I will say now that anybody giving a negative interview about the Nation of Yahweh, it is him. He is the only one, which we will come back to. I'm not saying I don't believe him, but that's an interesting detail. Khalil first came across Yahweh ben Yahweh when he was 19 and at college.

One of his fraternity brothers had some of the Nation of Yahweh's literature lying around, so Khalil went down to one of Yahweh's sermons and was totally convinced, within minutes, that he was in the presence of the Son of God, who could lead him to the Promised Land away from the oppression of the white man. Khalil dropped out of college within the next two weeks and moved straight into the Temple of Love with his wife. Khalil was drawn to the Nation of Yahweh because of their teachings on black identity and black awareness.

He now says, on the other end of it, having come out the other side, he's like, I could have learned those things without Yahweh, but I didn't. His whole life, he had been taught that Christianity was a white people religion, and Ben Yahweh showed him that the Bible was specifically about people of colour. When Killil first met Ben-Yahweh, he described him as, quote, a mild-mannered, leisure suit wearing, very light-skinned black man who spoke softly. I thought he was very eloquent, but I was actually afraid of him for some reason. I thought I was in the presence of Jesus. He didn't call himself Jesus, but he alluded to the fact that he was someone in the Bible.

He called himself the spirit of truth. And he had these hazel blue eyes that seemed to change colour on me. And he had these long manicured fingernails with a clear coat of polish on them. They were immaculate. I would be scared of that. Long fingernails. No, thank you. Terrified.

No, thanks. This is very interesting. Khalil was taken in by the colour of Ben Yahweh's eyes, because brown is the most common eye colour for black people, but Ben Yahweh's eyes were greyish green. And Khalil, who had been brought up with Christianity, was immediately reminded of a Bible passage, which I think is in Revelation,

in which Jesus is said to have eyes made of fire. His name is Yahweh, Ben Yahweh, God, Son of God. I thought Bar meant son of, like Barabbas, the one that they let go and then kill Jesus. But maybe my ancient Aramaic is not up to scratch. I don't know. Mine certainly isn't. You're asking me. I'm like, maybe. But I do think with Yahweh ben Yahweh, the whole idea of even the colour of his eyes, it reminds me of like Rasputin or something. Oh yeah, he's such a Rasputin. He's kind of looks like a of like Rasputin or something he oh yeah he's such a Rasputin he's kind of looks like a mix between Rasputin and Osama bin Laden you know how Osama bin Laden's

got that beard that's black on two sides and then white in the middle yeah he's got the same thing oh wow he is he's very like in every sense of himself like personality wise appearance wise he stands out from the general group therefore he, he elevates himself to stand out to them as their natural leader, which is very interesting. So once he was a fully fledged member of the nation of Yahweh, Khalil Amani stuck close to Ben Yahweh. Ben Yahweh was the father that Khalil had been looking for his entire life. And he was welcomed into the Temple of Love as Yahweh ben Yahweh's spiritual son. And once a person moved into the Temple of Love, they would not have any free time. I guess it's kind of like starting a podcast when you have a full-time job. So Yahweh ben Yahweh had complete

control on you. Everything about you, what you ate, when you ate, when you slept. Again, classic cult behavior. We know from the Ant Hill Kids episode that we did, which is, I believe it's Patreon only, so... It is. If you haven't, if you're not a Patreon, you should go listen to that. You want to listen, got to pay for it. Absolutely. We are going to, we're going to self-reference all of our own episodes. As we know from the Ant Hill Kids episode, that limiting people's sleep is one of the most effective ways of keeping them under control. This is the thing with humans in episodes. As we know from the Angel Kids episode, that limiting people's sleep is one of the most

effective ways of keeping them under control. This is the thing with humans in general. If you can control our sleep, you can do anything. And Yahweh, with his degree in psychology, would absolutely have known that. Now, Khalil will tell you that Yahweh also administered control over the nation's sex lives. Again, classic. He taught that sex should only happen if it was for procreation. And I don't think that that is that out there. I can think of plenty of faiths that teach the exact same thing. Plenty of accepted religions that teach the exact same thing. Absolutely, and plenty of cultures. But according to Khalil, he and the other members of the group went weeks without having sex with their wives. And this was just because

Yahweh, like so many other cult leaders before him, wanted to have everyone's wives to himself. And this is the thing with cult leaders. A lot of them do boil down to sex wherever they start out. And I do think a lot of them, my theory is, this is just like one person who had a like very bizarre, you know, set of sexual proclivities or way of thinking about them thinking like david berg children of god like all of that shenanigans and then it's just like a great way to get what you want out in the open without having to be like a weird solo serial killer that goes and does it in hiding what just making everyone obsessed with you and then be like by the way i, I'm the truth. So put it in my bum, please. It's like the ultimate way of getting this thing that you think

is unacceptable to the rest of society to be accepted by a group of people to make yourself feel better about it and to get yourself access to those people. And after joining the nation of Yahweh, Khalil was soon invited to be an elder. But he was never called in to the innermost circle of what Yahweh called his death angels. It was the death angels' job to reap revenge on anyone who hurt the nation of Yahweh. And this would quickly develop into hurting anyone who got in their way. The death angels would make a point of beating people in public, just like the mafia, and to send a message that no one wanted to mess with the nation of Yahweh. Inside the walls of the Temple of Love, things were getting pretty dark. Yahweh

had started to ask during his sermons who would die for Yahweh and who would kill for Yahweh. Everyone in the Brotherhood of Death Angels and everyone else would raise their hands, questioning their leader was not worth the cost. Ben Yahweh was the object of their worship, not a higher power. He was always right and he could not be questioned. The members of the nation were totally convinced that Ben Yahweh was the son of God. I don't think it's very particularly likely that I would think this, but if I truly thought that someone was the son of actual God, then I would probably do what they said.

It doesn't matter if it's against the law of man. If only God can judge you and God is standing opposite you, literally telling you to do it. If you hold those beliefs, you're going to do it. No, absolutely. I'm not condoning it, but I get it. Absolutely. And of course it is like you have to fundamentally shift the way you think that these people are thinking. If your new way of thinking is this person is genuinely the son of God, what does it matter what the law of man says? Of course I have to obey what this person is

saying. And these people are very good at profiling exactly the right kind of people who should be in this cult who will follow obediently. In fact, they're probably the kind of people that have tattoos that say only God can judge me. And there you go. You've tagged yourself for life. You are cult bait, mate. No rag raps. So according to Khalil, Yahweh would send his death angels out with the express purpose of killing white people. He wanted, quote, white devils killed in retribution or revenge for any black person that was being murdered out in the community. They were instructed to bring back the ears of their victims as proof that they had carried out their task. If you brought back white ears, you earned Yahweh Ben Yahweh's approval. But being a member of the exclusive death angel

club wasn't all praise and glamour. Allegedly, Yahweh ben Yahweh demanded to know if all of his brotherhood was circumcised. And if they weren't, he would circumcise them himself. I just, I can't, I can't, I can't. Circumcising a fully grown man, Jesus. Just leave it alone. Leave it alone. Unless, of course, you medically need it and then a surgeon does it. That's acceptable. Because sometimes people do need it. Not a cult leader with a machete. With no medical training. He has a degree in psychology and a master's in economics. That does not qualify you to cut off a bit. Did you not cover machete circumcisions in your master's in economics?

No. In my master's in economics, we did not. Maybe it was just in one of those modules I didn't play. Things started to escalate rapidly in 1981 when a former member of the Nation of Yahweh was found decapitated in the midst of the Florida Everglades. It was clear from the bruising on his face that he had been stomped on by multiple people. Khalil Amani knew that this was the work of the Nation of Yahweh, because he was there. He had seen it all happen.

The man who had been found was named Ashton Green, and he had started to question Yahweh Ben-Yahweh's teachings. And obviously, this had not gone down very well. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was

Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. And this is always the thing that I find so interesting about religion when people are like, well, this is what God says I should do. And if I don't do it, he's going to be filled with vengeance and

wrath and I'm going to have to pay for it. If God is that powerful, and in this case, Yahweh ben Yahweh is that powerful, why would somebody questioning him, because he is after all, the son of God and surely omnipotent, why do you need to stamp on their face and kill them? Why does it matter? If you can't stand up to some criticism, are you really that great? Are you really God? But that's a very big question. There was a schism developing in the nation of Yahweh. Lots of people were becoming disillusioned and leaving.

And the word on the street was that they had plans to build another Yahweh religion. And this is the thing with cults. They need an endgame. You need an endgame. You need an endgame. You need an apocalypse. You need a something. You need a promise that this is going to happen. Because otherwise, you can't keep up that momentum of keeping people along with that journey with you. You need it to be heading somewhere. Otherwise, this happens that people sort of filter off. So Ashton Green was one of these so-called hypocrites. He went to the temple and asked for an audience with Ben Yahweh,

but he was refused and taken into the back room by the death angels. And this is what we're getting at. This is another, oh, this is a warning sign from our 10 cult warning sign red flag checklist

that we did at the top of the show. If a religious leader cannot take questioning, they are probably a cult leader. David Mitzkevich. If it doesn't stand up to questioning, what even is it? And join us next week where it will just be me

because Hannah will be gone. Fair game. I don't know how good they are at fair gaming people outside of LA. That's true. I don't know. I'm banking on that. We can just never go back to LA. Now, Khalil had been standing guard while the death angels stomped Ashton Green to death

in the temple's back room. Then they had wrapped him up in a carpet, stuffed him in the boot of a car, cut his head off and left him in the Everglades. Ashton Green lived with two other members of the Nation of Yahweh. They were called Carlton Carey and Mildred Banks. They were married and also thinking of leaving the sect. So the rumor was that Carlton Carey was the leader of the hypocrites, basically, and he was going to start his own sort of subsect, but also completely

separate. He was going to take away the people who were disillusioned and start his own thing. So he was the ringleader, if you like, but Ashton Green was the one who'd gone to talk to Yahweh Ben Yahweh about it and ended up decapitated in the Everglades. So when Carey and Mildred learnt about Ashton's fate, they went straight to the police. But when they got home from the police station, the death angels were waiting for them. Mildred and Carlton were ambushed outside their own front door.

Carlton was shot dead on his doorstep, and Mildred sustained several machete blows to her neck. Bloody hell. But miraculously, she survived. How does she survive machete blows to the neck? I don't know. But she is a I don't even know how to just like an absolute woman made of stone, iron, all of the strong things together. Like she's incredible. Like I think she like drags herself to her neighbor's

house because the phones were down that night. So she couldn't even go into her house and ring anyone. She had to go to her neighbor's house and then they took her to hospital. But Mildred couldn't identify her assailants. She only gave the police background information on the nation of Yahweh. I'm not sure if she didn't actually know. She didn't live in the Temple of Love, but she spent basically every day there. I think she probably did know who it was, but she was just too scared to say. And I would be too if my husband had just been shot dead on my doorstep. After the dust settled after this decapitation, shooting and machete attack, Khalil Armani claims that the whole incident didn't really shake his faith.

And he knew that he couldn't leave because the same thing would happen to him. He'd be labelled a hypocrite and left in the Everglades with no head. Even though Khalil himself had no plans to leave the Temple of Love, his spiritual leader had other ideas. Yahweh bin Yahweh wanted as many temples in as many cities in as many countries as he could get. So he started to send the elders of his church off to different cities and told them to build him a temple there. Khalil Armani was one of these lucky missionaries. He was not allowed to take his wife and children with him. They had to stay in the temple of love with

Yahweh ben Yahweh. Three guesses why that was. So Khalil was sent off to New Jersey on his own with no money. All he had was a one-way bus ticket, not even a plane, a bus ticket, and a box of God books. And this is when his faith started to get a little bit wobbly. He became so disillusioned with the movement that he was no longer sure if he wanted to live at all. Yahweh ben Yahweh got wind of this and Khalil Armani was no longer his spiritual son. He was the weak one in the pack. So when Khalil returned to the Temple of Love after a year in Newark, where his wife and children were still living,

he was told that he could no longer live there. But for a while, too afraid to leave and sign his own death warrant, Khalil continued to serve the nation of Yahweh. But in 1985, he failed to meet his donation quota a leave and sign his own death warrant. Khalil continued to serve the nation of Yahweh, but in 1985, he failed to meet his donation quota that meant he was going to get sent to the Room of Understanding. Now, the Room of Understanding was in the Temple of Love, and if a member misbehaved, questioned Yahweh, or failed to meet their donation quota, they were sent to this room to kneel on very thin carpets for hours, sometimes days on end.

I tried kneeling and I couldn't do it for more than five minutes. It's painful. I do love how like 1984 this whole thing is like the temple of love, the room of understanding. And they've all got these robes on and these staffs and these turbans. He's very like pop culture aesthetic, the whole thing, isn't it? Yeah. In agony in the room of understanding, Khalil had an epiphany. He was caught up in some bullshit. And that was when Khalil knew that he

had to leave and bear the consequences of that action. But as he had fallen out of favor with Yahweh, and he couldn't be with his wife and children, it didn't seem to him like he had anything even left to lose. So Khalil said goodbye to his wife and children and asked that they give him a half hour head start before telling anyone that he was gone. So Khalil got on a bus and headed to his old neighborhood and started a new life without the Nation of Yahweh. And as the cult forbade contact with non-members

he started his new life without his wife and without his children. He spent his first night as a free man sleeping in his dad's car. So Khalil left in 1985 and in 1986 things really started to kick off in the nation of Yahweh. A neighbourhood in Delray Beach was firebombed after residents didn't take well to the nation of Yahweh's evangelical attempts to recruit them. So basically what had happened is they'd gone round knocking on doors trying to convert people. The residents have been like, no way. A couple of them got into fights. So there's pictures of Yahweh Nation members with like black eyes and broken noses and stuff. And then a few days later, the neighborhood is firebombed. And then Yahweh,

the Nation of Yahweh have the gall to go on TV and be like, we're the victims here. Look at the pictures. They look at what they did to us. We were just there trying to spread the love of black Jesus and they beat us. Khalil Armani was still living in Florida in 86 and he heard about the firebomb fast and he heard that there was a Nation of Yahweh connection. So he decided that he had to do something. So in quite a brave move, I thought, he walked straight into the Miami FBI office and told the lady on the desk that he had information about the Nation of Yahweh. He was called into an office and he told the FBI agents everything he knew. He was convinced that he was going to be arrested, but instead he was given the code name El Indio and placed in a federal witness protection program.

He was given a new identity, the whole shebang, because he was sure still that the Nation of Yahweh were out for his blood. So we know already that the Nation of Yahweh were renovating apartment buildings, but what we haven't discussed is how they were getting the people out of them who lived there already. By 1986, the Nation of Yahweh were just fully intimidating people out of their homes to make way for Nation of Yahweh members. In October of the same year, so we're still in 86, the nation had their eye on an apartment complex in Opa-Locka. All of the tenants resisted eviction and two residents,

Anthony Brown and Rudolf or Rudy Broussard, were particularly vocal about how they were not leaving. And they said that in a news interview that was broadcast on TV and Anthony Brown even said, fuck the Yahwehs. Are they black? Yeah. Interesting. It's a black complex. Everyone living there is black. If someone just opened my front door and started moving my shit out, I'd be furious as well. Yeah. And I'd say, no, show me an eviction notice. Where's your warrant? Do you own this building? Absolutely not. I'm not going anywhere. It's just such aggressive behavior, isn't it? They're really like, no, we're're gonna do this is what we want to do so get out it's amazing the um the confidence

that they have i don't know if confidence is the right word the sort of gall they have to go and just do this brass ball territory seriously but it's because they believe that like they're like we're doing this for everyone's best interest it doesn't matter for the people who are already living here and have nowhere to go anthony and and Rudy had been advised by their lawyer that until they got an eviction notice, there was nothing the nation could make them do to leave, which legally is correct. I don't know how the nation were clearing out these apartment blocks, or whether they were getting planning permission, or whether they were just showing up with Moses staffs and machetes and making people leave.

The nation of Yahweh claimed that they had bought the building and they were only clearing out the unoccupied apartments. The tenants of the complex, on the other hand, said that they were barging into occupied homes and moving furniture out onto the street. And I know which story I believe. And either way, Anthony and Rudy were not having it. They told the nation of Yahweh that they were not leaving. Later that evening, on the 30th of October, both Anthony Brown and Rudy Broussard were shot to death outside their apartment building. Coincidence, right? Now, after the shooting, the police arrested Nation of Yahweh member Robert Rozier, who claimed to have carried out seven murders in 1986 alone at the behest of Yahweh Ben Yahweh, bringing his victim's ears back as trophies. Now, sure enough, in 1986 alone at the behest of Yahweh Ben Yahweh, bringing his victims' ears back as trophies.

Now sure enough, in 1986 alone, the police had nine unsolved homicides, where all of the victims at least had one of their ears missing. But not all of them would be linked with Rozier. So Rozier was charged with four of these alleged seven murders, and he would go on to serve 22 years. And that may seem light, but he was offered his reduced sentence in return for being the prosecution's star witness at the trial of Yahweh Ben Yahweh himself. Using the witness accounts from both Khalil Amani and Robert Rossier, the FBI branded Yahweh Ben Yahweh as the most dangerous criminal in South Florida. And in 1990, along with a dozen of his disciples, he was charged with racketeering, 14 murders, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, arson, and sexual abuse involving girls as young as 10 years old. The trial started in 1992 and Khalil

Armani was the first witness on the stand. The trial dragged on for five months and hinged on the testimony of Robert Rosier. But this was a bit of a problem. Robert was not the most reliable or believable witness. He was a convicted murderer for a start and he'd escaped the death penalty for this testimony. So he's just going to say whatever some people thought. He had a history of drug abuse

and he also claimed to be 400 years old. Oh God. Something's not quite right with robert rosier imagine you're like made this plea deal and then you're the he's your prosecution star witness you just be like shut shut up shut up shut up shut up so apparently he was a football star um so he was good at PE and he went on to he did play professional american football um but i think he actually played it in Canada, which was weird. But he definitely, one of the university, the California universities,

he was on their team, which is a big deal. But then he got kicked out of the NFL because he was smoking weed, basically. I don't know if other drugs were involved, possibly. So that's when he finds the Nation of Yahweh. So the Nation of Yahweh will still say that he's an incredibly unreliable witness because he was just doing drugs the whole time and was just a bit of a maniac. Like he's massive. He's like 300 pounds and like six foot nine. And he's a football player. So he's they he doesn't. He's not who you want in the box really as a prosecution attorney. The other

kicker is that there was absolutely no physical evidence to link Yahweh Ben Yahweh to any of the 14 murders that he was charged with. And it has actually been really difficult to find the names of these 14 murder victims because most of the articles that you'll come across just do a body count, which I don't really like doing. So we found them. First off, we have Aston Green. We know about him. He's the one who was beaten in the temple and then left in the Everglades. Secondly, we have Carlton Carey, the one shot on his doorstep in 81. Then we have Leonard Dupree, who we haven't met, who was actually the former US karate champion. And he was attacked in the Temple of Love in an altercation with a female nation member in 1983.

He was 22 and his body was never found. Then we have Glendale Fowler and Kurt Doerr who were discovered stabbed to death in their bed in 1986. Then we've got Claire Walters who had his throat slit and ear cut off again in 86. James Lee Myers was stabbed to death again in 1986 and his ear was cut but not totally removed. And then we've got 22-year-old Lyle Austin Bellinger who who was found stabbed to death in 1986, and he had been eviscerated. Jesus. Again, in 1986, Raymond Kelly was found stabbed to death with both of his ears severed. And this is one of the murders that Robert Rossier confessed to.

Yet again, in 1986, 45-year-old Cecil Branch was stabbed 25 times, and the top of his right ear was taken. Cecil had been bound and gagged in his house. 68 year old Harry Byers was found in 1986 without his left ear. He too had been stabbed to death. And just nine days later, Ronaldo Echevarria was stabbed to death by a member of the Nation of Yahweh. Then finally, we have Rudy Broussard, 37, and Anthony Brown, 28, who were shot outside their apartment block in Opa Locker, as we said, and they were obviously killed for daring

to speak out against the Yahwehs. It's a lot. It's a lot of people. It's 14 people, the majority of which in the same year. Days apart, some of them. And the ears missing, like, at the most, the police must have thought they had a fucking serial killer on their hands, surely. Oh surely oh they absolutely did i think the first one they found was um raymond kelly was the first one that the police came across and he just like been been to

the bar had drank a little bit too much and instead of driving home he's sleeping off in his car then the police find him the next day and both of his ears are gone and he's been stabbed to death it feels like a completely random attack basically Basically, the only profile was white men, apart from Rudy and Anthony, obviously. Yeah, they absolutely thought they had a serial killer on their hands. When they found Raymond Kelly, they rang the coroner's office

and they were like, do you have anything similar to this? And they were like, yeah, we've got fucking nine. And the thing is, as Hannah said, most of these murders happened within the same year. There's no way that Ben Yahweh didn't know that they were happening. Absolutely no way.

But there was just not enough evidence. All the prosecution had was the word of the less than credible Robert Rossier, and this caused the jury a lot of problems. Yahweh's defence attorney asked the jury to consider whether, if a Catholic murders someone, does that make the Pope responsible? I hate this guy so much. Is the Pope responsible for the actions of every Catholic? No. Is he responsible if he

literally tells them to do it i think yes so members of yahweh ben yahweh's own family testify against him and then they've also got khalil and robert rosier but i think you have to sort of write him off because just no one believes the words coming out they didn't pick a great like i know why they had to but he's not a fucking great star witness is he but then they have so many more people who say that you know Ben Yahweh is the best thing that's happened to Miami. He's changed my life. He saved my kids. Like, so it must be very difficult to sit on a jury and be like, I don't know which one is true. And to this day, there are people that say that Ben Yahweh had nothing to do with it.

And it was Robert Rosier just going off rogue on his own. There just wasn't enough. Yahweh's whole defense was that he had nothing to do with any of the killings and it was just the beast Robert Rosier just going rogue. Also, Ben Yahweh's sister and nephew testified against him. They told the court that he preached racial hatred and above all, he preached violence. He told his followers that all except they who followed the true word of God,

by that he means himself, deserved death. So after hearing from 150 witnesses, the jury agonised over their verdict for five days. If you're doing jury duty, you've already been there for five months and then your deliberation takes five days. I'd be ready to jump out the window. Absolutely. 150 witnesses. It's like that whole jury overload.

Loads and loads and loads of information. And just make them feel completely worn out and exhausted. Exactly, and it's not even just that. Like, Yahweh Ben Yahweh's not even the only one on trial. He's got 15 co-defendants. So you've got to, like, get through all of that at the same time. So it must be absolutely exhausting. And they had a hell of a lot to get through.

So the jury spokesperson declared the jury to be hung several times. And the final time she said, I'm actually scared here because I don't know what's going to happen. We're absolutely hopelessly hung. But then just a few hours later, the jury agreed to acquit Yahweh Ben Yahweh and all of his co-defendants of the murder charges. But Yahweh and six of his followers were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Some of the other followers were cleared of all of the charges against them. And also what I found really interesting, the racketeering charges led to nothing. But again, that's because the claims were based entirely on the testimony of Robert Rosier,

who everyone had just had enough of at this point. Yahweh's attorney, who can just get straight in the bin in my opinion, predicted that Yahweh's conviction would only boost the nation of Yahweh's numbers. And they literally say, quote, what kind of message did it send when Jesus Christ was convicted? I mean, I think we can just leave that there to hang. Just leave it hanging in the air like a festering sock. In the end, Ben Yahweh was sentenced to 18 years in prison and received a $20,000 fine.

When he heard he was going to prison, he told the press that he should be applauded for all of his hard work. He literally says, like, everyone pales in comparison to me. Like, nobody has done what I've done. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then when they talk about his prison stay and how he feels about that, he says, oh, prison's going to be a learning experience. He says, quote, I take this entire experience as an opportunity of correction. Yeah, that's literally the point of prison. That I might be perfect in everything I do.

And then he says, I have a message for all of you. I love you. Sounds a bit like Mona Fanday to me, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. And I find it so sinister that he describes his approach to prison as being a learning experience. He is going to radicalise and form little cults in prison. That's what he's going to do. Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. Now, after sentencing, Khalil Amani moved to Denver and started yet another new life.

And now he's an author or a lab technician, depending on who you ask. So he actually moved to Denver as part of this witness protection program. And I thought it was really interesting. Apparently, the FBI sat him down, showed him a map of the United States, and they were like, circle every state you've been to ever in your life or where you have family. Those are off the table. Khalil, he has started a new life.

You know, he's either apparently writing or being a lab technician in Denver. But the thing is, nightmares of the Yahwehs still follow him. And sometimes he wakes up in the night thinking that Yahweh Ben Yahweh is knocking at his door. Even now, Khalil has moments where he thinks that Ben Yahweh really is God. It must be so hard to unpick that shit, man. Of course. And he went in so young, completely convinced that this guy was a God and be going to change his life. Absolutely. That stays with you. He says

that the more I studied after the cult, the more I realised how he became who he was. He grew up during segregation and racism, a time period that was very difficult. He evolved from being a Christian to a Muslim to a Hebrew sa hebrew savior all in the effort to save black people but along the way he lost himself at the end of the day he was an evil man and i'm grateful i got out when i did yahweh ben yahweh served 11 years of his sentence before he was released he died in 2007 of prostate cancer at his home in opa locker florida aged 71 now i don't know if he lived in the apartment building the Nation of Yahweh kicked people out of,

but it does seem likely, because I guess they bought that whole block, but it was definitely back in Opa-Locker. Yahweh Ben Yahweh may be dead, but his bin attorney was right. The Nation of Yahweh is still going, although its numbers are not what they once were. It's also had some financial difficulties. I believe that the Temple of Love has actually been repossessed by the bank. Interestingly, Ben Yahweh's daughter, Venita Mitchell, she's in the Oxygen documentary as well,

and she's convinced that her father was innocent and was penalised by the court system because he was a black man wielding power. She is certain that his conviction was just an attempt to demonise a community activist. Which of course does happen. Look at Martin Luther King. But is that what we're looking at? I don't think so. It of course happens. I completely agree. It comes back to that point at the start about finding any excuse to demonise people who are shaking up social change. But I don't think that's what we've got here. I think we have a genuine, legit, bona fide cult leader who was ordering people to be killed.

I agree. And I think the only sticking point that I have, which I'm not even sure I'm completely stuck on really, is that the only person who is talking about it is Khalil Armani. And if their numbers were that big, why is it just him? That is a good point. And I wonder if it is. And this is just a thought. Because they feel, on one hand,

Yahweh ben Yahweh was abusing them, was controlling them. They were in a cult. He was killing these people and they believe it to some level. But on the other hand, let's not give the outsiders or society as a whole

another reason to demonise a man who did do some good things in turning around these ghettos. Is good point obviously you should always believe the victim and i'm not saying that i don't believe him i'm just thinking it's an interesting point but then also if he's fucking got death angels and he's killing people probably a bit too scared i think mildred banks did some interviews when um after her husband was killed but she i don't know where she is now i don't know if she's talking about it. But like in every article or every documentary, every clip I have come across,

it's Khalil Armani that's talking about it, which makes it easier for people to take him down because he's a bit of a lone wolf, which I just think is rude because I'm trying to think of other cults that I've watched documentaries on or anything. And I don't think I've ever come across one where it's just one person.

No, you're right. I do think that it is a good point for people who are wondering if this is all just a conspiracy. But I do think, I do feel like I will advocate for the idea that it is because people know that he was bad. But let's not, we don't have to admit it to these people. Because the people in this group, they did feel segregated. They did feel ostracized. They felt a huge sense of loss from the society they were a part of. And Yahweh ben Yahweh gave them reassurance that they were the chosen people.

I think now they can look back at the cult and see it for what it was. But I think ultimately, we don't need to admit to the rest of the world and air our own dirty laundry in public to some extent because he did do good things and we don't need to undermine that maybe. Who knows? Let us know what you think. It's an interesting, yeah interesting yeah weigh in if you can find anyone else who's talking about it then please let me know i'd love to read it it's oh it's just i don't know and i think that is the perfect way to end this case i don't know once again we are in the dark not chill probably so yeah we hope you guys enjoyed that and we did have um you know some plugs in there if you do love cults we know a lot of you do you should definitely go get yourself a patreon membership

if that's what it's called whatever it is you can listen to our episode on the anthill kids on there we hope you guys enjoyed the warrior gene episode that came out earlier this week we were really excited about doing that so yes if you are not currently a member of patreon go check us out at patreon.com slash redhanded. There's bonus content, all sorts of good stuff on there. You can also follow us at redhandedthepod on all the social medias. As Hannah said at the start, we also would love you to come to our live show. Link is in the description for the episode. Get your tickets now, please. And back to Patreon. Here are some people who have become pledgers. I feel like I'm just calling everybody all sorts of things today.

I don't know. Pledgers, patrons, whatever. We love you. We thank you. So I'll start and hand over to you when I lose the will to live. Okay, cool. Thank you, Kelly Park, Vicky Weevil, Karen Queen, Nicole Gaza, Tracy Morrison, Dakota Jensen, Montez, Janie Snyder, Katie Warren, Carrie Kowalski, Maya Wellborn, Sarah Kelly, Yvonne Jordel, Tab Spangler, great name, Tab Spangler, Megan White, Kristen Learnard, Anne Caroline Soares, Jessie Doll, Laura Gonzo,

and it's a shorter list today, so I'm going to stop there. Okay. Erica Johnson, Louise Hawthorne, Mordrigan of the Cult of Tea and Dice. I'm pretty sure that's a podcast. Hi, guys. Miranda Lowe, Mimi Cross,

Carol Ann O'Malley, Francisca Navarro, Megan Murphy, Adriana Rich, Kelly Anderson, Bernice Johnson, Hayley Baldwin, Elizabeth,

Michaela Martinez, Mary Tomizawa, Sam Haber, Maximum, Maximum Bibu. Is that your name? Is it? Pedro Knowles and Melanie Hodge.

Thank you so much, guys. You're all excellent. And stickers are coming out this week. If you have been waiting for them, the wait is over. So keep an eye on your postman, not only because they're usually shifty, but they might have your stickers.

We'll see you next week. Bye. Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've

never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding

Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada,

as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.