PAGE 2 PAGE 3 PAGE 4 PAGE 5 PAGE 6

In the following criminal cases, the WatchTower Society - Jehovah's Witnesses religion served as the spiritual element of the perpetrator's and/or other actor's formative environment, or otherwise served as a major influencer of the perpetrator's and/or other actor's behavior. The following cases are often tragic, and speak for themselves.

****************

EVER-PRESENT MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

The WatchTower Society has proclaimed in its AWAKE! magazine that Jehovah's Witnesses are "the best oriented, happiest, and most content group of people on the face of the earth. They get along better with each other than do people of any other religion, tribe, or social group. [Jehovah's Witnesses] have the least need for psychiatrists."

In contrast, a former Jehovah's Witness Convert who had spent 8 years as a Jehovah's Witness Elder, including serving as the Presiding Overseer of a Massachusetts congregation, later revealed that during his relatively short tenure at that single Massachusetts congregation, that that Massachusetts congregation's Body Of Elders had had to deal with four Jehovah's Witness Couples who were engaging in wife-swapping; five incidents of Jehovah's Witnesses physically assaulting others -- including use of weapons; one case of drugs being sold at the Kingdom Hall; and a variety of miscellaneous domestic abuse cases, sexual abuse cases, thefts, etc. Yes, the WatchTower Cult is a virtual "spiritual paradise".

Visitors should be aware that our website (the BEST on the internet for little known JW info) has been "canceled" by the "woke crowd"  which now governs the international XJW community. Although they presently claim additional issues, their original decision was made because we refused to comply with their multiple demands for us to remove the descriptives "African-American", "Hispanic", and "Black" from our large number of criminal court case summaries. First, we will never kowtow to "people" whose only accomplishment in life is "licking feces" from body parts.

Second, is our life experience, from which we obviously learned more than those who would be our bosses. With only a minimum of exceptions, the WatchTower Cult has mostly failed the African-American community. The decades of thousands of hours annually wasted knocking the doors of disinterested homeowners should have been spent fathering the hundreds of thousands of fatherless A-A JW children. This editor's "only" friend during his elementary school years was a fatherless A-A boy three years older than editor. The BOE did nothing for that kid except assign him TMS talks and harass him to put in more hours in field service. When that kid entered high school, minor negative incidents began to increase in quality and quantity -- with the BOE's only response being to suggest more field service and more personal study. The kid was disfellowshipped his sophomore year, and he never again set foot inside the Kingdom Hall. That A-A kid with great potential wound up living for five more decades being nothing more than a leech on society.

NOT ALL SUCH A-A KIDS NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING. Click here to listen to KATT WILLIAMS (jump to minute 30:00 of Episode 1399) relate how this "hustler" had been a child prodigy reared by devout "Jehovah's Witness Parents" until age 13, when his BOE "tried" to disfellowship him for "porneia" although he was still a "virgin". For the first time, thirteen year-old Katt used his genius IQ to see through the BS and errors of not only his local Elders, but the WatchTower Cult itself. Allegedly, such led to a physical confrontation between Katt and his JW Father, and local authorities and child protective services may have become involved. Katt decided that the best solution for his JW Parents and two younger brothers was for him to run away from home. Dressed in "Kingdom Hall clothing", Katt gathered together his $2500 "hustlin'" savings, his Rott puppy, and his cigarettes, and he went to a local Dayton, Ohio truck stop, where he hopped a tractor-trailer that took him to Miami, Florida. There, Katt lived in a homeless encampment. Katt soon went to Haiti as a missionary for 17 months. After being ejected from the Marine Corps -- for being underaged -- Katt tried "pimping" before eventually entering show business traveling with JEFF FOXWORTHY and LARRY THE CABLE GUY. Katt still professes unclear faith in JESUS CHRIST and the FATHER.

**********************                           **********************

CYBERSEX ENDS IN SEXUAL EXTORTION

GHANA v. PAUL NIBORO. Jamie Terrell Wallop, age 40, of Brandywine, Maryland, is an African-American Jehovah's Witness Female with a degree in Computer Science. Wallop's WashDC area employer provides a variety of information technology services to pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, biomedical research organizations, and governmental entities such as FDA, NIH, and CDC. In September 2023, Jamie Wallop received a message from a male fellow member of JWMATCH -- an international Jehovah's Witness dating website -- named Paul Linux, who claimed to be a Canadian Jehovah's Witness who also was employed in the computer services industry. JWMATCH attempts to constrain membership to only verified Jehovah's Witnesses. Linux claimed to be looking for a devoted JW Wife. After multiple chats via JWMATCHs messaging system, Wallop and Linux added other online providers of telephone and video services for their communications, which quickly included "cybersex".

By mid-October, Linux began to ask Wallop for $$$$. In latter October, Wallop sent $75 to Linux. In mid-November, Wallop sent Linux $320 in response to his continuing solicitations. Two more solicitations of larger amounts quickly followed, but Jamie Wallop refused Linux's requests. Linux then informed Wallop that he had secretly recorded their cybersex encounters, and threatened to distribute such to Wallop's 16 year-old daughter, her JW friends, Wallop's Congregation, and a multitude of porn websites. In latter November 2023, Wallop sent $700 to Linux, and attempted to end their relationship. Of course, blackmailers do not "go away" that easily. Linux asked for another $2100, which Wallop refused. Linux then emailed selected stills to Wallop's Facebook Friends, and others. Wallop paid $100 to have some publicly posted photos taken down.

In early December, Wallop hired a private investigator who discovered that Linux was a 31 year-old Nigerian named Paul Efeturi Niboro aka Paul Kwame Niboro, who actually lived in Techiman, Ghana. Ghana authorities were contacted, and NIBORO was arrested in latter December when he picked up his last $50 from Wallop. NIBORO has been charged with 10 felonies, including forgery, fraud, and extortion. Outcome pending.

*********************

BRONX PSYCHO HENRIQUEZ BROTHERS REARED AS JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

CALIFORNIA v. CHRISTOPHER HENRIQUEZ is the still ongoing 1996-2017 DEATH ROW FAMILICIDE case of a successfully reared African-American Jehovah's Witness Minister. The second (1971) of six children reared in the Bronx by an A-A JW Mother and nonJW Hispanic father (died 1988), Christopher Henriquez was a faithful Jehovah's Witness Minister until age 22, when he "fell off the wagon", as already had brothers Michael and Timothy. JW friends and relatives testified that Christopher was an exemplary child and young man, who was devoted to his JW faith. As a teenager, he was well-mannered, trustworthy, and faithful. He was loving, sincere, respectful, and caring. He was helpful to others and sought to do good. He was described as sweet, cooperative, compliant, submissive, and as a person who would walk away from fights.

Then, in only three years after having married a fellow Jehovah's Witness, Christopher Henriquez began trafficking drugs, committing robbery, committing multiple murders, robbing banks, and finally in August 1996, Christopher Henriquez, age 24, BRUTALLY murdered his 8-months pregnant Jehovah's Witness Wife, Carmen Jones Henriquez, age 25, and their 2 year-old daughter, Zuri Henriquez. In 2000, Christopher Henriquez was sentenced to the DEATH PENALTY, but has been sitting in San Quentin Prison since. Final appeal denied in 2017.

NEW YORK v. CHRISTOPHER HENRIQUEZ. Henriquez had been paroled in New York in July 1995 after a 1994 robbery conviction. Henriquez robbed two banks in San Francisco one month before the FAMILICIDE. His JW wife had  moved out, but returned to her husband after he promised not to rob another bank. The FAMILICIDE occurred one day after Chris Henriquez had taken his JW wife, young daughter, and JW Mother, Deborah Henriquez, on a 4-day trip to Disneyland -- using money from the two recent bank robberies. The next day, Christopher told Deborah Henriquez that he had killed his wife and daughter in a fit of anger, because his JW Wife kept talking to her JW friends and relatives about the bank robberies -- past and future. Deborah Henriquez and three other JW relatives reported the murders to the police.

NEW YORK v. MICHAEL HENRIQUEZ (1994-2004) was the MURDER conviction of oldest child, Michael Henriquez, who in March 1994 shot his "baby momma" in the head multiple times as his infant daughter watched. Typically, Michael himself quickly reported the murder to police.

NEW YORK v. TIMOTHY HENRIQUEZ (1995-98) was rendered November 1995, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, and sentencing him as a second felony offender to a term of 4 1/2 to 9 years. Unanimously affirmed. Christopher also confessed that he, Timothy, and a third man had MURDERED a robbery victim in 1994.

**********************

"MAN WITH THE KILLER SMILE"

TEXAS v. GEORGE JEFFERSON HASSELL. George J. Hassell was executed in the Texas electric chair in 1928 after being convicted of a single murder of one stepchild. In fact, George Hassell had confessed to having murdered his sixth and latest wife, and all eight of his step-children, in 1926. Hassell also confessed to having murdered in 1917 his then common law wife in California, and her three children.

George Hassell professed to his prison guards that he was a believer and follower of the WatchTower Society -- rejecting spiritual comfort offered by one or more ministers who attended his electrocution.

George Hassell married his accidentally-killed brother's wife, Susan, in 1924. Susan Hassell was a well known local Russellite, and the Hassells' home occasionally hosted local WatchTower meetings. For whatever it is worth, Susan and Thomas Hassell had named a son born in 1915, "Russell". (Ignorant JW readers should know that it was common for early WatchTower followers to name their sons after Charles Taze Russell.)

Interestingly, the first wife murdered by Hassell in 1917 possibly was from Pittsburgh, or she at least had relatives there, and those murders were motivated by an argument about America's entry into WW1 and military service.

*************************

CROWN v. PETER NORGROVE was a 2023-24 British MURDER case in which a Jehovah's Witness Elder (caucasian) at the Dudley Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses murdered a 58 year-old fellow congregant divorcee named Sharon Gordon (negroid). Peter Norgrove, then age 41, had retrained as a builder after losing his government job in environmental health during the pandemic, before taking his first construction job at Sharon Gordon's home in Dudley, West Midlands. In April 2022, after completing a fence project for Gordon, they agreed that Norgrove would take on an estimated $40,000.00 addition project estimated to take 4-6 weeks. However, Norgrove was in over his head, and the project was still not completed by July 2023. Sharon Gordon was not happy, and she had been complaining to other fellow congregants. Gordon probably also had been complaining to the BOE -- unsuccessfully. Sharon Gordon was found murdered by her "best friend" in July 2023. Gordon had been beaten to death brutally and savagely with a hammer after Gordon asked Norgrove to reimburse her for a radiator that he had damaged. Days later, the murder weapon and bloody clothing were located at Norgrove's MIL's residence by both the police and Peter Norgrove's wife, Rebecca Norgrove. Norgrove initially denied having killed Gordon, but eventually pled guilty, and received a 15 years to life prison sentence in January 2024. Typically, the father of three had no previous criminal record, and was unanimously described as the "perfect family man, husband, and father."

***************************

NEW YORK v. JAMIEN L. HARRIS is an ongoing 2021-23 MURDER prosecution. In November 2021, Buffalo NY Police responded to a domestic violence report from neighbors of Catherine Jones, a 90 year-old African-American Jehovah's Witness Matriarch. Responding officers noticed that multiple windows had been recently broken out of the home. Their knock was answered by Jones' 40 year old granddaughter, Jamien Harris, a LPN who reportedly was naked and upset. The officers found Catherine Jones lying in the living room floor dead from a gunshot to her chest. Both the murder investigation and prosecution have been bungled. Harris was not indicted for murder until May 2023, and such has been dismissed. Pending.

*****************************

HAWAII v. MATTHEW SMITH is an ongoing 2023 Oahu ATTEMPTED MURDER prosecution. In September 2023, a Jehovah's Witness Pioneer named Matthew Smith, age 41, attacked his 79 year old JW ELDER-LANDLORD and two other JW Pioneer tenants (William Welch and Carlos Huerta) living at a Kalama Valley 3/2 home near Sea Life Park. It is believed that all residents at the home attended congregations meeting at the Diamond Head Kingdom Hall in Honolulu. Reportedly, around midnight on a Sunday evening, Matthew Smith and another tenant began arguing over food, when Smith picked up a steak knife and stabbed the other tenant. When the third tenant and the elderly homeowner attempted to intervene, they also were cut and stabbed by Smith. Matthew Smith has been charged with one count of first-degree attempted murder and three counts of second-degree attempted murder. See SAMOA BRANCH MURDERS on page 5.

The two year lease, signed in August 2023, was authored by JW ELDER Benjamin Maes, and stated in part:

"The three of you are baptized brothers and as such should show consideration and Agape love between each other. Having only one bathroom will require coordination. This is also true for doing your wash, cooking, and cleaning. Living together will require compromise. No one will get their way all the time but recognizing that Jehovah loves each of you should compel you to show love for each other."

The rental agreement further said that the three tenants were to "designate areas in the refrigerator for your own food. Share if you like, but please don't eat someone else's food without asking first."

***************************

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS RUGBY STAR

AUSTRALIA v. EMANI ETEUATI (2016), AUSTRALIA v. EMANI ETEUATI (2017), AUSTRALIA v. EMANI ETEUATI (2018), AUSTRALIA v. EMANI ETEUATI (2018) are multiple criminal and immigration cases involving a high profile Aussie RUGBY STAR originally from Samoa, who also happens to be a member of a prominent, large extended family of Jehovah's Witnesses. Juvenile criminal cases are NOT included. 2016 conviction was a serious domestic violence involving a weapon offense for which Eteuati was placed on a good behaviour bond for 12 months. 2017 conviction was burglary of a residence and eluding police in a high speed chase for which Eteuati lost his drivers license for 18 months and was sentenced to 12 months in jail. Time actually served unknown. 2018 conviction was for "affray", and it appears that Eteuati served only 4 of the 12 months jail sentence. Selected edited excerpts from 2019 immigration appellate case which reversed his visa cancellation:

On 21 May 2018, Mr Eteuati's visa was cancelled ... as the delegate was satisfied that he did not pass the character test because ... The delegate found that Mr Eteuati had a substantial criminal record ... and because he was then serving a sentence of full-time imprisonment at the Macquarie Correctional Centre in New South Wales for a criminal conviction. ...

He first arrived in Australia on 11 February 2014 when he was 16 years of age and he has lived here since then. He has a daughter aged three years, from his current de facto relationship with his Australian citizen partner. ... His [Jehovah's Witnesses] mother, step-father, two brothers, two sisters, four uncles and aunts, 11 cousins and two grandparents reside in Australia. ...

... Eteuati's violent offending, with the most serious offence being that of "affray", and an earlier offence involving the threat of violence in a domestic context, constitutes very serious offending ... I further find that his [juvenile] record of other offending [[which was NOT included in this record], which started less than one year after arriving in Australia, while individually less serious than the most recent act of violence, nevertheless amounts to serious offending, along with the danger to the community arising from his driving offences. ...

I further note a letter of support from Mr Eteuati's mother, Ms Sharon Eteuati, which states that Mr Eteuati is a caring young man who has a strong family bond and is very committed to the Jehovah's Witnesses church. Mr Eteuati is now facing the consequences of making the wrong decisions affecting his life through the influence of his friends. Ms Eteuati loves and misses her son very much and his deportation would greatly affect her adversely. A Jehovah's Witnesses elder is willing to conduct bible study with Mr Eteuati upon his release to assist in his rehabilitation. I note that the oral evidence given by Ms Eteuati in the hearing was consistent with her statements of support.

I have given consideration to a letter of support from Mr Eteuati's grandfather, Mr Faapili Faapiano Eteuati, which states that he is an elder of the Casula Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and he humbly extends his deepest, sincerest apologies for Mr Eteuati's misconduct and shameful behaviour. Mr Eteuati's grandfather stated that, while his grandson grew up without his father, Mr Eteuati attended Tuesday evening and Sunday church congregational meetings along with being an enthusiastic preacher and participating in many youth activities. Mr Eteuati stopped attending church after making new friends outside of church who were a bad influence on him. Mr Eteuati's grandfather believes his grandson can change for the better and he is prepared to take Mr Eteuati under his care. 

**********************

NEW JERSEY v. STANLEY C. WILSON was a 2020-21 WIFE MURDER prosecution in which the 79 year-old African-American Jehovah's Witness was allowed to plead guilty to first-degree aggravated manslaughter in exchange for a lenient 12 year prison sentence. The fact that this couple and many of the friends and relatives mentioned in news reports are Jehovah's Witnesses was buried until the victim, Sarah E. Wilson, was so identified in her later obituary. Weeks later, Stanley Wilson's public defender described Stan Wilson as a "man of faith with a clean record", with "ties to his community", another buzz phrase often used to describe JWs.

According to Wilson's signed confession, this argument began on the afternoon of Sept. 30. Wilson  punched his 76 year-old wife in the chest multiple times with a closed fist. The dispute continued throughout the house and included more punches and choking. The argument continued into the evening and the couple ended up in the den where they watched TV. Wilson began drinking and the argument resumed, and he allegedly pushed his wife into a lamp. Later, while Sarah was sitting on a love seat couch watching TV, she slid to the floor.

Stanley Wilson did not check on her. Instead, he left the home. After returning and finding Sarah still on the floor, Wilson resumed drinking and fell asleep in a chair in the den. When he awoke, he knew immediately that his wife was dead. She was cold to the touch. Instead of calling police, Wilson left the house and visited multiple "family friends" on Oct. 1. During one of those visits, Wilson described the fight with his wife and said he may have killed her. That "family friend" called 911 around 2:00 PM.

********************

FRANCE v. PHILIPPE GONCALVES is an ongoing 2018-23 ATTEMPTED MURDER prosecution in France of a French Jehovah's Witness business owner. In June 2017, Philippe Goncalves, age 34, took his JW Wife on a picnic at a local park after having attended the Sunday meeting at their local Kingdom Hall. The Goncalves couple's thirteen year marriage was threatened by the husband's wandering eye and recent lust for one of his employees. At the park, Goncalves led his wife to an isolated area where they ate their lunch. Goncalves then excused himself to go retrieve a gift for his wife. Goncalves returned, presented JW Wife with perfume, and told her to turn around. Philippe Goncalves then shot his JW Wife in the head. Goncalves also had hired a local thug to shoot Goncalves in his arm so as to make both gunshots to appear as if there had been a "mugging gone wrong". Unfortunately for Philippe Goncalves, the bullet from his typically sissy French handgun had not even penetrated his JW Wife's skull. JW Wife was released after only a two-day hospitalization. Allegedly, Goncalves had a young female employee awaiting his availability as a "widowed" husband. The only question remaining is whether "young thang" also was a Jehovah's Witness? Reportedly, earlier in his life, Goncalves had watched as his own JW Mother had once been disfellowshipped for marrying another man while she was not free to remarry.

**************************

ILLINOIS v. ALEXANDER GOROBETS is an ongoing 2023 Illinois Attempted Murder prosecution. Interestingly, both the Accused and the only slightly harmed Victim are BOTH Jehovah's Witnesses, and the shooting occurred in the parking lot of their Evanston Kingdom Hall.

The defendant, Alex Gorobets, age 66, of Gurnee, challenges the accuracy of the police report and prosecutor's allegations, and some details do seem to be incomplete and/or inaccurate. It is alleged that the unidentified Victim and two other unidentified adults had arranged to meet with Gorobets at the Evanston Kingdom Hall on a Sunday afternoon in February 2023. Curiously, reports stated that Gorobets  initially waited for the other three JWs inside the locked Kingdom Hall, but approached their car as it parked. After a brief exchange, Gorobets produced an automatic pistol, and fired two shots at close range. The victim deflected both shots with an Ipad. The first shot struck the Ipad and grazed a finger, while the second shot struck the pavement. The three unidentified JWs then tackled Gorobets and called 911.

Alex Gorobets, a Ukrainian immigrant, reportedly claims that the victim, who also is a Ukrainian immigrant, stole $250,000.00 from him while helping Gorobets move in 2019. Since then, Gorobets has went to the Victim's workplace and residence on multiple occasions demanding that the $250,000.00 be returned. Allegedly, the Victim has videotaped several of those visits, as well as this murder attempt. Jehovah's Witnesses are notorious for videotaping their enemies.

*********************

PENNSYLVANIA v. MARC ANDREW BROWN is the well publicized February 2023 Pennsylvania CHILD MOLESTATION prosecution, in which African-American Marc A. Brown, age 65, of greater Pittsburgh, PA, has been charged with the 2004 to 2006 molestations of two sisters -- then ages 11/13 and 13/15 -- for whom Marc Brown was a legal guardian. These reported facts would seem to indicate that Marc Brown was their step-father. Brown allegedly maintained each sister's silence by threatening to molest the other sister if his abuse of the one was disclosed. In 2006, one of the sisters finally wrote about the abuse in her diary, which she knew that her JW Mother secretly read. JW Mother reportedly kicked husband Marc Brown out of the home. However, did JW Mother report the molestations to the police, or to their BOE???

This tragedy is simply another chapter in the book which should be written about African-American Jehovah's Witness criminals living in the original home of the WatchTower Cult. Marc Brown's parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, as was his latest mother-in-law. JW Mother was from a large extended A-A family living in greater Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's most notorious MURDERER during the 1980s-90s was JW Mother's 20 year old brother, who killed a medical doctor while burglarizing the doctor's suburban home. The previously convicted BURGLAR reportedly selected his sleeping victim's home by knocking doors to see if anyone was home. JW Hoodrat reportedly spoke briefly with a few homeowners who answered their doors that evening. What do you suppose JW Hoodrat said to those homeowners? JW Hoodrat's own JWMother claims that his father was a married man with whom she had an ongoing affair when she was in her early teens.

**************************

NEW ZEALAND v. EPHRAIM JOSEPH BEAZLEY was a 2018-20 MURDER prosecution in which the 33 year-old Perp was yet another reared-JW castaside "time bomb". This murder was particularly horrendous given that the victim was repeatedly stabbed while the couple's 2 1/2 year-old son watched and cried for his mother.

Ephraim J. Beasley and Xi Wang, both late 20s, met in November 2014 and married in May 2015. When they separated in September 2015, Wang was pregnant. Their son was born in May 2016. Beazley attended the birth, but after that he had little contact with Wang or his son. Over the next 18 months, Beazley became increasingly frustrated at having to pay child support but not being able to see his son. He developed an online gambling problem. He contemplated suicide. And he thought constantly about killing Xi Wang, whom Beazley thought was taunting him with her new life and new lovers via her social media accounts.

On December 10, 2018, Beazley decided to put this thought into action. After finishing work around 5.30 PM, Beazley went home, showered, and changed clothes. He sharpened his Norwegian hunting knife. He drove to Auckland. At around 10:00 PM, wearing a cap pulled down over his face to disguise his identity, he knocked on Wang's door. After several knocks, Wang answered the door holding her 2 1/2 year old son in her arms. In less than a minute, Beazley cut and stabbed Wang a total of 18 times -- concentrating on her throat and pelvis. Once satisfied that Wang could not survive her injuries, Beazley left. He called the Police and told them what he had done, and then contacted a friend. Wang died in the hospital around midnight. 

Ephraim Beazley pleaded guilty to murder in March 2019, and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 17 years. On appeal, the sentence was upheld. The NZ Court of Appeals opinion included these disclosures:

In terms of Mr Beazley's association with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Dr Duff noted that he had been brought up in the Church and that this had led to a somewhat peripatetic childhood, as his parents moved around in order to spread the word. Dr Duff recorded that the religion dominated his childhood and adolescence and determined with whom he was permitted to associate. And she noted that his estrangement from the religion -- and his family -- at the age of 22 left him feeling like an outsider in the world. She opined that he longed to fill the void by establishing a family of his own but struggled to find long-term committed relationships. ...

Mr Beazley became increasingly depressed across 2018. His addiction to online gaming sites adding to his problems and reducing his future options. He describes the increasing internal anger with thoughts of lashing out at others playing increasingly on his mind. Mr Beazley however is not someone who readily breaks the law or even breaks rules or expectations. He increasingly feels he is downtrodden, an easy mark for others to abuse. He contemplates suicide but feels a strong sense that this would still not be 'fair' or 'just' and that his wife should be punished for her actions and not allowed to raise his child. ...

Mr Beazley has no prior history of antisocial or offending behaviours. He has been in steady employment and has shown no evidence or instrumental or impulsive aggression prior to the catastrophic events now before the Courts. His rigidity of thinking, under assertive response to perceived wrongs, relatively introspective and isolated existence allowed brooding and building of his sense of injustice and a lack of belief that any other options were viable. ...

On the face of the evidence Mr Beazley appears a cold and calculated killer. In the context however of his religious upbringing, the more pragmatic approach to life and death engendered by farm work, his rigid and concrete thinking processes, his sense of having been used, abuse and thrown away by his partner, just as he felt he had been by his family, coupled with his state of depression he reached a point where the unthinkable appeared to him to be the only viable option. ...

*************************

WESTERN AUSTRALIA v. QUENTEN HADFIELD were 60+ criminal convictions in Australia from 1993 through 2018. Quenten Hadfield, age 50, is a citizen and current resident of New Zealand. Quenten Hadfield arrived in Australia in 1990, when he was 17 years of age. Hadfield's first criminal conviction was three years later in 1993, when he was age 20 . Hadfield's 60+ convictions over the following three decades included violent offences against females and children, dishonesty, property offences, traffic offences, and multiple breaches of police and judicial orders evidencing a total disregard for authority. In November 2018, Quenten Hadfield, was sentenced to a term of 16 months imprisonment for a 2017 offence against his ex-wife of "aggravated burglary and commit offence in dwelling". As a result, Hadfield's visa was revoked in January 2019. 

The basis of the visa cancellation was that Quenten Hadfield did not pass the character test due to having a substantial criminal record as he had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than 12 months. Hadfield immediately sought a revocation of the cancellation, but was denied in July 2019. Hadfield immediately appealed such, but returned to New Zealand in August 2919. Hadfield's appeal was denied in January 2020, stating in part:

The Applicant also stated that, "I have strong community ties with the Jehovah Witness church, myself and my mother are a member of the Jehovah Witness Congregation" ... A letter from the Coordinating Chaplain at Casuarina Prison confirmed that the Applicant regularly attended sessions with the Jehovah's Witness faith-representative in the chapel on a weekly basis and engaged in "one-on-one work" with the faith representative ... A further letter from an acquaintance ... confirmed that between January 2019 and 31 July 2019 ... he had attended a bible study program with the Applicant. 

************************

NOT A YEARBOOK EXPERIENCE

JANE LIVIA v. SILAS LIVIA AND JOSEPHINE VOZOTO was a 1994-95 Solomon Islands DIVORCE case. Jane Livia and Silas Livia, of Naha, were married in 1982, and had two children -- Eddie Livia and Lorraine Livia. Jane Livia was an active practicing Jehovah's Witness, while Silas Livia appears to have been at least a passive JW given that he submitted to the scrutiny and governance of the local Body of Elders. Given the closeness of Solomon Island families, some relatives on both sides likely also were Jehovah's Witnesses. However, there are hints in the court decision that the JW status of everyone but the victim, Jane Livia, was intentionally kept out of the record to reduce the amount of "reproach on Jehovah's name", as were details noted below regarding involvement of the local congregation's BOE.

In 1992, Silas Livia committed adultery with one of Jane Livia's nieces. That adultery was condoned, and the parties resumed normal marital relations thereafter. In 1993, Silas Livia committed adultery with another one of Jane Livia's nieces. Jane Livia filed for divorce in 1994 claiming that she had not condoned the second adultery. However, the court denied the petition for divorce holding that Jane Livia had condoned the second adultery, based on the following:

In January 1994, prior to the divorce filing, Jane Livia first reported her husband's adulteries to their local Body of Elders. The court decision reports only that the BOE counseled the Livias, that Jane Livia forgave her husband and niece, and that "a trial period of 6 months given" by the BOE. The court was told only that that six-month period involved the couple's attempt at reconciliation.

However, the court decision also reports that the BOE gave Silas Livia the six months to change his ways. Silas Livia was told to refrain from alcohol, not to go out late at night, help his wife with the house-work, and not re-offend. While that sounds like Silas Livia was placed on Reproof -- private or public -- the court decision also reports that Silas Livia and the BOE had no further contact, which indicates the greater likelihood that Silas Livia had been disfellowshipped.

Interestingly, without any further details about the incident or a criminal prosecution, this court decision summarily reports that, in March 1994, Silas Livia was attacked and stabbed by JWWife's relatives, and had to be hospitalized for four days. 

Thus, this seemingly insignificant "jungle island" court decision proves the universality of the WatchTower Cult's efforts to deceive worldly courts and the surrounding community via half-truths intended to maintain the WatchTower Cult's facade of righteousness.

********************

NEW SOUTH WALES v. ROSS ALFRED SHANE SALES (1995-96), NEW SOUTH WALES v. GRAHAM THOMAS SALES (2013-18), and NEW SOUTH WALES v. GRAHAM THOMAS SALES (2019-20) are related Aussie criminal court cases involving two "lifelong" Jehovah's Witness brothers. It is not known if both parents were JWs, but the father was a monster who regularly physically assaulted the JW Mother, and physically and sexually abused the two brothers.

In November 1995, Graham Sales, age 30, was required to attend an AVO breach hearing involving his former girlfriend at Wyong Local Court. Carrying a newly purchased and sawed-off shotgun, Ross Sales, age 31, fired one non-fatal shot as the 24 year-old girlfriend entered the empty courtroom. Prepared to pretend to be mentally ill, Ross Sales was found not guilty by reason of mental illness in 1996. Ross Sales spent unknown time confined in mental health facilities before being released.

The AVO breach had occurred only a month earlier while the two brothers had been riding in an automobile owned and driven by a 61 year-old friend. Graham Sales had seen his girlfriend driving her car, and told the friend to follow her. She had stopped and called the police after realizing she was being followed. Thereafter, the two brothers eliminated the witness by murdering him in a forest. The body was never found.

Beginning in 2013, Graham Thomas Sales was investigated, prosecuted, and convicted in 2018, for 21 offences against six girlfriends, which included raping them with household objects, forcing them to eat their dinner off the floor, hogtying them, and putting them face down in the bath. Multiple children of both sexes also were victims. Graham Sales was sentenced to 36 years in prison. In 2020, Graham Sales was finally prosecuted and convicted (pled guilty) for both 1995 crimes, and had his existing sentence lengthened such that he will not be eligible for parole until November 2052. Ross Sales apparently went unprosecuted for his part in the murder in exchange for cooperating in the investigation of his brother.

*******************

DISHONOR THY ELDERLY NON-JW MOTHER was a 1994-95 Australia immigration case. Non-JW Greek Mother was born in 1921, and she lived in Greece until 1992. She was widowed during the Second World War. She had one married son living in Greece, and one married daughter living in Australia. Mother's religion is Greek Orthodox.

Mother's wish not to return to Greece arose as a result of difficulties encountered in her relationship with her Greek daughter-in-law, who is a Jehovah's Witness. Mother testified that she and her husband and their two children had had a very happy family life and that, as had been the case for past generations, the family had been very strongly involved in the Greek Orthodox Church, and they had expected their children to marry within the same religion. However, Mother's son had not done so. Mother found her daughter-in-law's WatchTower religion and attitude towards her hard to accept, and she asked her son to move out of the family home.

Eventually, elderly Mother found life alone difficult, and asked her JW son and his JW wife to move back to the family home. It was then that the real problems started. Mother wrote that her "daughter-in-law is a woman with an evil heart", who tried to stop the elderly Mother from practising her own religion, causing the elderly Mother to become ill. At the age of 71, elderly Mother moved to Australia where her married daughter lived.

At the Tribunal hearing, the Mother said that her JW daughter-in-law in Greece had not wanted her; had told her to go away (i.e. to leave her own home); and had referred to her as a "beggar". She had also physically manhandled the elderly Mother. Mother did not wish to evict her son and his family from her house, because she did not want her son's family to break up, and because she considered that she was unable to live alone. Nor could she go elsewhere in Greece. As a result, she asked her Australian daughter to take her in.

Elderly Mother said the fact that her daughter-in-law was a Jehovah's Witness was the cause of the problems. Mother owned the house in which the three of them lived and yet she was, in effect, forced to abandon it when circumstances became intolerable. Mother said that she has no other relatives in Greece and nowhere to go. She said she had been a widow since her youth, and she wanted the company of her children and grandchildren.

"The Applicant was asked whether any action by her country's government or any failure on its part to assist her had added to her problems. She said her government had nothing to do with the situation: it was purely a matter of her daughter-in law and her son not wanting her.

"The Applicant's daughter stated that she had arranged to bring her mother to Australia because here it was more comfortable and more relaxing for her, and because here she had more grandchildren than she had in Greece. Essentially, the Applicant had been brought to Australia so that her daughter could look after her. The Applicant's daughter said that there had been an improvement in her mother's medical condition since she had arrived in Australia. Mother can now walk unaided with the help of a walking cane. 

"It is clear from all the evidence that the Applicant's problems are entirely personal and arise out of individual religious and personality conflicts between herself and her daughter-in-law and, possibly, her son. It is clear in this case that the Applicant is not a refugee and is therefore not entitled to Australia's protection under the Refugees Convention and Protocol."

********************

SOUTH AUSTRALIA v. 3G JW IMMIGRANT, SOUTH AUSTRALIA v. 3G JW IMMIGRANT, and SOUTH AUSTRALIA v. 3G JW IMMIGRANT are merely the three most recent felonies of an ungrateful THIRD GENERATION Jehovah's Witness immigrant from El Salvador. Both of JWFelon's parents, as well as his maternal grandparents, are active JWs. JWFelon, age 12, and Brother, age 7, were relocated from San Salvadore to the Adelaide area, in 2007, by educated, middle-class JW Parents, who are both now employed at an Adelaide nursing home, where they can "recruit" dying senile patients.

JW Parents permitted JW Son to drop out of school when he was 14 years old, and then kicked him out of their home when he was age 15, because he had a girlfriend who was the young daughter of a drug using mother. Two bastards followed quickly.

Between 2010 and 2014, JW Immigrant appeared in Children's Court on multiple occasions on such charges as drug possession, dishonesty, deception, etc. Reared JW Immigrant had no sense of right and wrong, obedience to the law, or even compliance with court orders and the judicial system.

After 2014, in adult court, JW Immigrant continued to be arrested on multiple drug charges, and multiple motor vehicle violations of every type. In 2016-17, the hardass Aussie judicial system put JW Immigrant in jail for his first extended term -- 3 months.

Later in 2017, JW Immigrant was involved in a dangerous, high-speed police chase, after which was found stolen credit cards and jewelry, multiple false IDs, and the equipment used to make false IDs.

In 2018, JW Immigrant was convicted of carrying an offensive weapon, drug possession, and failing to comply with his bail agreement. Jailed for 7 days.

Later in 2018, JW Immigrant was finally prosecuted for the 2015 burglary of his job supervisor's home. Taken were two gun safes full of firearms and ammunition, as well as the Grand Cherokee SUV used to haul them away. In total, for all thus unprosecuted charges, JW Immigrant was sentenced to 81 months in prison.

In 2018, JW Immigrant was convicted of beating up his baby-momma and stealing her telephone back around 2016-17, and had 9 months added to his prison sentence.

Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Due to his lengthy criminal history, Aussie law required that JW Immigrant's visa be revoked, and that he be deported after serving his sentence. However, after extremely hard petitioning by JW Immigrant's Parents and brother, who all agreed to help JW Immigrant all that they could, an Aussie immigration tribunal, interestingly led by "Dr. N. A. Manetta", revoked the cancellation of JW Immigrant's visa, in October 2021. Do Aussie legislators know how federal bureaucrats are interpreting the laws they establish? Surely, Aussie society is not so degraded that such people benefit such?

JW Immigrant was eligible for parole in December 2021. Status unknown.

*******************

CONNECTICUT v. ELMAR BAKER is an ongoing 2018-23 MANSLAUGHTER prosecution which was plea bargained down from a murder charge probably to prevent further publicizing at a trial that not only was the 42 year old victim, Joseph Kolodnicki, a third-generation Jehovah's Witness Minister, but his killer was a "bible study" (cult recruit). Otherwise, explain why a third-generation A-A JW (probable) Elder would permit his new caucasian JW wife of two years (imported from Quebec) to work alone with the killer for weeks in her janitorial business. Note that Joe Kolodnicki was part of a large, extended, multi-generation African-American Jehovah's Witness Family, which easily could have provided the couple's janitorial business with all the employees it might need.

On Tuesday, October 30, 2018, Linda Kolodnicki, age 40s, picked up African-American Elmar Baker, age 37, at his apartment in Colchester, which he shared with his mother and girlfriend. The pair worked together cleaning a flooded basement, something the pair had done nearly every day during the prior three weeks. Just before 4:00 PM, Linda Kolodnick drove Baker to a second job at a food stand in Colchester, and waited for him to finish. They next went to a car wash. Around 7:30 PM, the pair arrived back at Baker's apartment, where they saw USPS employee Joseph Kolodnicki waiting in his car. Unbeknowst to them, Joseph Kolodnicki had been following them since he had got off work that afternoon.

Both Kolodnickis got out of their cars and began to argue. Elmar Baker went inside his apartment and retrieved the only weapon that he had -- a kitchen knife. Baker then made the mistake of going back outside. As Baker approached the Kolodnickis, the JW Elder yelled: "What are you fvcking doing with my wife?" Linda Kolodnicki testified that Baker remained calm and spoke to her husband in a low voice. She said Joseph Kolodnicki began to push Baker with both hands, so she left to go to Baker's apartment to get Baker's fiancee. As she left, she saw her husband punch Baker. She said by the time that she returned from the apartment, her husband was on the ground unconscious. The onetime LPN in Canada attempted CPR, but the state Medical Examiner said Joseph Kolodnicki died of a stab wound (one of three) to his chest. State police said they found the bloodied knife in an adjacent field the next day.

Baker told police that he blacked out after Jo-Jo Kolodnicki punched him, and that he didn't remember anything about the fight. Elmar Baker contended "self defense", and repeatedly rejected multiple plea deals. Baker finally pleaded guilty in October 2022 to first-degree manslaughter in exchange for 17 years in prison.

**********************                     **********************

YET ANOTHER SUPPRESSED JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES MURDER -- OBVIOUS REASONS

NORTH CAROLINA v. DAWN MICHELLE WHEELER WARD was a 2010-12 criminal prosecution which started with charges of Accessory to MURDER and INCEST, but ended with a plea deal to a charge of "Concealing a Death", with a sentence of only two-years probation. This "Jehovah's Witness true crime soap opera" involves a large, extended family of African-American Jehovah's Witnesses living in Charlotte, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and Montgomery, Alabama.

In May 2010, unidentified out-of-state members of either the WARD FAMILY or WHEELER FAMILY contacted Charlotte Police, who in turn made a welfare check at the apartment of Dawn Ward. There, the rotting corpse of Dawn Ward's daughter, Brittini Lauren Ward, age 23, was discovered. Eventually, Dawn Ward's nephew, Derek Ward, age 24, was arrested and charged with both the RAPE and the MURDER of his cousin, Brittini Ward.

Dawn Ward, age 47, initially was charged with being an accessory-after-the-fact to her daughter's murder, but that charge was eventually dropped without explanation. The INCEST charge resulted from Dawn Ward's alleged confession to police that she had been having a sexual relationship with her 23-years-younger nephew, Derek Ward, who only recently had moved into her Charlotte apartment from Atlanta, Georgia. That INCEST charge had to be dropped later, not surprisingly, when DNA testing disclosed that Dawn Ward and Derek Ward were not actually related by BLOOD -- as they both had been led to believe by family members.

NORTH CAROLINA v. DEREK WARD was the 2010-14 MURDER and RAPE prosecution of then 24 year-old Derek Ward. For four or more years after his arrest in 2010, Derek Ward was transferred back and forth between jail, prison, and mental health facilities. Originally, Derek Ward claimed that he had killed his cousin, Brittini Ward, because she was "demonized" -- a somewhat frequent accusation made by Jehovah's Witnesses against persons whom they do not like. As of 2014, Derek Ward still had not been found competent to stand trial, and now in 2022, Derek Ward may still be residing in a NC mental health facility. At some point prior to 2014, Derek Ward had broken the nose and jaw of a female staffer.

*********************

The September 2022 murder of Brandi Lee Davis, age 44, of New Mexico, provides interested persons with yet another glimpse into a tragic life which was made even worse by their connection to the WatchTower Cult.

In 1990, thirteen year-old Brandi Davis' father was murdered by a criminal poaching on the family's New Mexico ranch. Any connection by the Davis family to the WatchTower Cult is not known, but only four years later, seventeen year-old Brandi Davis made the mistake of marrying into a local Jehovah's Witness Family. Brandi reportedly first married John Schultz of Lindrith, NM, but soon divorced him and married his brother, Aaron Schultz.

NEW MEXICO v. AARON F. SCHULTZ. Aaron and Brandi Schultz began practicing as active Jehovah's Witnesses, and had a son and two daughters. However, Aaron Schultz was eventually convicted of criminal sexual contact with a minor. The JW Couple divorced, and at some point, Brandi Schultz was disfellowshipped. That apparently ended her relationship with her three teenaged children.

Brandi Davis' son, Tristan Schultz, now age 26, and apparently an active Jehovah's Witness, publicly stated that when he and his sisters -- Carrie Ann Schultz and Lily Holt -- became adults, they decided to sever their relationship with their mother because of her having been disfellowshipped.

"The last time I lived with her, I was 14 or 15 years old. It was very difficult, and anytime I think about it, it fills me with a lot of regret. I think about the time we missed out on. ... We're taught not to have too much contact with those who are disfellowshipped to keep the congregation clean and to give people motivation to come back and make things right."

Third husband Carl Stewart told reporters, "[Brandi] was a beautiful woman, and when she was happy, the angels sung and the world was a beautiful place. When she would flip to her dark side, hell hath no fury." Stewart said Davis was haunted by the loss of her children. "The edicts of the church prevented her from speaking to them," he said. "That was one of her deepest wounds. It kept her up at night, her inability to communicate with them on any level."

Stewart's description was of a woman tormented by her past and unable to deal with the lingering trauma of losing her father. On the anniversary of Freeman Davis' death in November, Brandi Davis shared her feelings on social media. "I can't believe I've had to live without your dear love and guidance for three decades. ... I still miss you in my life everyday. The emptiness and tragedy still reverberate constantly as I battle PTSD daily. In all of that though, I still try to love others and be upright and moral just like you instilled in me to the age of just 13."

Quotes/facts extracted from: "Talpa shooting victim recalled as 'beautiful soul'", by Marianne Todd, for the New Mexican, Oct 5, 2022.

*********************************

CALIFORNIA v. RUBEN ESPINOSA-ALVAREZ was a 2015-20 MURDER conviction. Ruben Espinosa-Alvarez admitted killing his wife, Esther, in December 2015. Ruben choked Esther until she was unconscious, then hit her in the back of the head with a claw hammer. Defendant testified, however, that he was having a hallucination, brought on by marijuana use, that his wife was a "reptilian alien", which was trying to kill him. In a jury trial, defendant was found guilty of first degree murder, and sentenced to a total of 26 years to life in prison.

Ruben and Esther were Jehovah's Witnesses who married in 2008. Ruben admitted to cheating on Esther multiple times during the marriage, and the couple separated but reconciled in 2012 and 2014-15. At some point, Ruben was disfellowshipped. On the night of December 16, 2015, Ruben and Esther smoked marijuana and watched David Icke videos together. After they both fell asleep, Ruben awakened and smoked even more marijuana. Ruben eventually began hallucinating that he was being attacked by a "reptilian alien", and fought back -- killing what turned out to be Esther. JWs can't even handle their pot.

****************************

Finding a faith that is stronger than death -- or my family's rejection (edited)

Religion News Service

By Heidi Hall

September 26, 2019

My mother [Claudia Haley and stepfather Randy Haley (must-see 2019 PHOTO)] would be surprised that I did not die alone. And that, in the end, about 25 people had volunteered to take care of me when I couldn't do that for myself anymore. It's one thing, after you find out you're going to die from metastatic colorectal cancer, to ask people to bring your favorite kind of Gatorade. It's quite another to ask them to stand in the place of DNA-sharing family and walk through hospice with you, but that's what I had to do.

At the age of 23, I turned away from the family of Jehovah's Witnesses who raised me. They had wanted me to be an uber-Witness. So my family forbade me to go to college and instead raised me to be a full-time, door-to-door minister who converted people to their way of thinking -- I actually succeeded with one in about 15 years of trying -- and to pay my bills by working menial jobs.

Every meaningful connection in my life was through a local congregation of [Jehovah's] Witnesses, known as the Kingdom Hall. That was by design. Because my family and congregation believed that the rest of the world, and that means all government and all non-Jehovah's Witnesses religious systems, is controlled by Satan and his legions, they were very insular except for when they were evangelizing. That Kingdom Hall was my world. And my place in the family depended on [my] being a [Jehovah's] Witness.

I left that for a couple of reasons. In 1993, I'd met a Southern Baptist boy, and we were doing the sort of things that 20-somethings do that Witnesses forbid on pain of disfellowshipping. In addition to that, despite a lack of formal higher education, I'd landed a job as a newspaper journalist in my small hometown of Sikeston, Missouri ... Eventually, I expressed ... doubts to my family. Even worse, I confessed what I was up to with the boy ... In response, a  committee of elders found me unrepentant of the sin of fornication and excommunicated me -- making me dead to my mother, stepfather, four siblings, and any other [Jehovah's] Witness who had ever known me.

None of [Jehovah's Witnesses] could have anything to do with me. They cut me off, hoping that I would eventually come to my senses and return. What this looks like, in a practical way, is that when you're in the waiting area at the Olive Garden, and your mother's best friend, who raised her five kids alongside the five in your family so much so that it just seemed like a giant tribe shifting back and forth from house to house, walks in, she pretends that she can't see you. This despite the fact that you are a woman of 6 feet 3 inches, and it's a really small Olive Garden.

The experience of being shunned is surreal and soul-crushing. It means, at the age of 23, you can't ask your stepdad for help navigating a used car purchase, or ask Mom what to do about your first horrible fight with that boy. You cannot go home.You are utterly alone in the world.

With that one boyfriend and a handful of acquaintances, I built up my secular life first. I was angry at my mother, my family, the Jehovah's Witnesses and all religions, and relieved that I was so above it. I told people that I was spiritual, not religious, which was a lie. I wasn't either. That was probably pretty clear to anyone who watched me navigating my hurt with overwork in the newspaper business, overeating and frequent drinking -- problems I ultimately sought outside help to manage after many years of using them to numb out.

I married that Baptist boy. Our friendship endures to this day although our marriage didn't make it past 10 years. Along the way, we both built our journalism careers -- careers that took us from Missouri to Florida and eventually to Nashville. For years, I studiously avoided church and religious people and really felt sorry for them, wishing they could put down that sticky opium of the people and be as enlightened as I was.

My return to religion happened in Nashville in 2008 after I divorced the Baptist boy -- though we remained friends -- and [I] had married a sweet Messianic Jew I met online. He invited me to church with him now and again but mostly left me alone about it.

I was working as education editor at the local daily paper, filling in as interim religion editor, when the Rev[erend ...] of Nashville's historic Downtown Presbyterian Church called, wanting to get an essay of his printed on our Faith & Values page. I told him I could help ... and then accepted his invitation to tour the historic church building, .... As much as I hated church, it seemed rude to turn it down. At least I'd get a chance to look at a remarkable example of architecture seven blocks from the paper.

I waited for him to bring up religion on the tour. He didn't. We enjoyed talking about the building so much, we decided to meet up in the future for coffee, where he still didn't talk about religion.  Eventually, we became friends. And still, nobody was talking about religion. I decided it was time. "In the church I grew up in, we said the world was like a stormy sea, and the husband was the ship's captain, and everyone had to line up behind his decision-making or sink," I finally said, one day when we'd met for breakfast.

"Shouldn't you line up behind the best sailor?" [RevK] asked. His direct and witty responses didn't end there. Next time, I told him I was spiritual but not religious. "That's like saying I play football, but not on a team," he said. ... Not long after that conversation, I joined the church. I often make the joke that I took a church tour, and drank coffee, and ate breakfast ... and then I was a Presbyterian elder. The fact was, I just couldn't find anything about the church and its denomination that I couldn't accept. ...

That's why I have a tough time with people today hurt by religion who can't understand my return to it. One even said I seemed too smart for religion. The fact was, I just had to find a version of faith I could do business with. My problem wasn't with religion. It was with bad religion.

Through both my church ... and outside help, I've been able to come to terms with my mother and her ending of our relationship. She reaches out now and again only to test the waters for my return to the Jehovah's Witnesses, but I assure her that I've found a community and a God who love me unconditionally. I think about something she used to say about her brand of religion: "If you're sinning and you try to pray, you may as well forget it, because you've cut the cord on that phone to God, and he can't hear you."

Today, I believe I could smash the phone to the molecular level, and God would still hear me because God loves me and wants to hear me. It may be tougher to believe that fact these days when my life looks so unmanageable and certainly not "blessed", but I see God in so much every day. Especially after learning that I was dying.

On Feb. 20, 2019, after I reported a nagging pain in my side, my oncologist found some suspicious shadows on a CT scan. We hoped for better news, but on June 6, I learned colorectal cancer I thought I'd beaten in early 2018 had indeed metastasized to my liver, lungs, and abdominal wall. There is no treatment for it. I was given six months -- "three of them good", the oncologist said -- to one year to live. As I am writing this, I've had to suspend my job and receive disability benefits. My three good months are gone.

Thank God, long before this happened, I had rebuilt my connections with both the secular and religious worlds, giving acceptance to my diverse friends in both of them. Because I need everybody. ... "The love of this congregation, the excitement of the young people who minister to us, the heartfelt preaching we hear every Sunday -- it is invaluable to me through this. What we accomplish for a congregation of our size with a budget of our size is nothing short of miraculous," I wrote in my [session] resignation letter. "I take comfort, too, in knowing that we worship a God who understands my pain, not in some academic way, but because They experienced it on the cross. You may see me get tearful in church because I am very disappointed about what's happened and sad to be leaving you, but know that I am prepared and willing to meet our God ... ." These days I am surrounded by dear friends walking the hospice journey with me, who do everything from rubbing me down with Biofreeze for pain to helping me to the toilet.

I've been able to forgive my mother for not being here during this, too. And I understand her choices a little better. My mother's faith means the world to her, because -- she has overcome so much with its help. I think about my favorite picture of Mom, where she's 18 and taking a nap with me. She's living in her in-laws' house while their son finishes college. In their mind, she's up and ruined the life of their only child, a boy on the basketball team at Widener University. They let her know what she's done by creating a thick air of disapproval in their house. She's wearing a Widener T-shirt and sleeping peacefully with her baby when that boy lovingly snaps a picture.

My grandparents eventually came around and helped us. But it was too late, at least to save my mother. My father was probably schizophrenic, but in the insular Jehovah's Witnesses, where they converted when I was 3, he wasn't diagnosed or offered professional therapy, just prayed for. He took off without explanation and called her from Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas one night, apologized, and overdosed while lying in the bathtub. Mom told the medical examiner to cremate him and do whatever with the ashes.

My father left her alone with no higher education, no job, and daughters ages 7, 4, and 6 weeks. That is when she got steely and made an arrangement: Religion would take care of her, and she would reject anyone and anything that didn't accept the arrangement. Asked to choose between her daughter and her religion, she chose her religion. That's not the kind of religion that works for me. I had to find one that did. When I lost the Jehovah's Witnesses, I ultimately gained everything. Those 25 people taking care of me? ... None of them would have been accepted by the faith I left behind -- where salvation was only for a chosen few.

I want an afterlife like my life has been:  one like Revelation 7:9, a great multitude of diverse people existing together in love of each other and their Creator. It's not up to me to say who qualifies. In my search, I left behind conditional, behavior-based love and traded it for the unconditional grace shown by a true family, whose bonds have nothing to do with DNA. And I'm dying grateful for that.

(Heidi Hall, who died Sept. 25, 2019, at age 49, was a veteran journalist whose award-winning career took her from the Standard Democrat in Sikeston, Missouri, and the Southeast Missourian to the Tampa Tribune and the Nashville Tennessean before landing her at Vanderbilt University's public affairs office. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service -- [nor this editor or this website].)

***********************                      **********************

CALIFORNIA v. JAY WARREN MALISPINA was a "settled" 2011 California "grand theft" and "elder abuse" prosecution, which local media labeled a Jehovah's Witness "family soap opera". While reporting on an unrelated December 2015 assault and battery arrest (outcome unknown), KSBW reported the outcome of the 2011 prosecution, "The day he was set to go to trial [Jay W.] Malispina reached a plea deal and wrote his mother a check for $31,500." Follows (edited) is one of multiple news articles published by the Monterey Herald in 2011, which contains most of the pertinent details of this 2011 criminal court case:

After numerous delays, jury selection began Tuesday in the embezzlement trial of Salinas police Sgt. Jay Malispina, who is accused of stealing $40,000 from his mother's bank accounts. ... Judge Terrance Duncan spent the day trying to cinch the limits of testimony to keep the proceeding from turning into a family soap opera. For the time being, he granted prosecutor Gary Thelander's request barring defense attorneys from mentioning that Malispina's mother "shunned" him for 25 years because she is a Jehovah's Witness. Thelander said the alleged victim's religious beliefs were irrelevant and "may be prejudicial to some folks".

Duncan also declared off-limits defense contentions about the relationship between [Jay W.] Malispina and his brother, Randy Malispina. Defense attorney Mike Lawrence said Monday his client's brother spent some of the "missing" money bringing "not one, but two foreign brides" to the United States and that Randy [Malispina] held a grudge against his brother for throwing him out "after one of Randy's ex-wives tried to burn (Jay's) house down with him in it." ...

Among other contentions made regarding the alleged victim, [Karolyn "Kay"] Malispina:

-- That she is a "hoarder" whose spending habits might have contributed to the disappearance of her nest egg. ... 

-- That her numerous medications make her forgetful and that she is known to feign incapacity and strokes. Lawrence said he fears she will use such tactics on the witness stand. Duncan suggested, if she did, the jury would be smart enough to see through it.

-- That she has made numerous false charges against her son and others. Among them was her initial allegation that [Jay] Malispina had stolen more than $100,000. Police later determined, according to prior testimony, that at least some of that money was taken by Malispina's drug-abusing ex-wife, Sandra. ...

Defense lawyers Lawrence and Juliet Peck said it's imperative for jurors to understand the full nature of the relationship between mother and son. They claimed [Jay] Malispina was first shunned by his parents over teenage transgressions, then "disfellowshipped" altogether, "when he had the audacity to join the Air Force," because he might kill someone.

It was only after her controlling husband died and the Jehovah's Witness elders [at the Angels Camp Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses] decided they didn't want to be responsible that she and they reached out to Jay Malispina to take over his mother's care, Lawrence said.

Thelander said he was tempted to let the pair pursue the defense since it established a motive on the part of Malispina, who is accused of stealing from his mother after he moved her to Salinas and she granted him power of attorney. The prosecutor alleges the defendant, who is on paid administrative leave from the Salinas Police Department, used the money on luxuries like a Mexican cruise and San Jose Sharks season tickets.

Duncan cautioned Lawrence that much of the evidence he was pursuing could confuse and distract the jury from the issue of Malispina's state of mind when he wrote 11 disputed checks between December 2004 and April 2008. ...

***************************

In 2003, a 33 year-old caucasian Jehovah's Witness Male received a "Kingdom Hall Funeral" at the Minnetonka Minnesota Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, when he died at a Bloomington hospital only hours after falling backwards two stories from an escalator at the Mall of America. Deceased JW Male undoubtedly possessed extraordinary lower body strength and control given that he had worked fulltime as a barber for several years. Additionally, JW Male's hobby was running, and he had prior sports experience. Given that this "accident" occurred at 2:00 AM on a Sunday morning (late Saturday night), the obvious question is whether JW Male was inebriated? Did JW Male actually die from head trauma as publicized, or did he die from a refused blood transfusion made necessary by internal bleeding? Did his JW family file a claim against MOA's insurance carrier, or even file a lawsuit against MOA?

********************

DEATH OF INTERNATIONALLY NOTORIOUS THIRD GENERATION JEHOVAH'S WITNESS NUTJOB. In September 2017, the Jehovah's Witness Family of 26 year-old Liza Jade Parker, of Aroostook County, Maine, and south Florida, filed a "missing persons" report after Liza J. Parker, who had been accompanied by her five year old son and 18 month old bi-racial daughter, failed to show up to a Sunday rendevous with her son's father. The following day, Liza Parker's automobile was spotted in the heavily wooded median of I-95 near Old Town, Maine. Liza Parker's auto had driven off a curving section of I-95 while at a high rate of speed, gone airborne, and crashed into multiple trees. Liza Parker had been killed in the crash, but her two young children survived with only minor injuries thanks to their being in carseats. Jehovah's Witness Elder Rory Merrill officiated the heavily attended graveside-only service.

Acknowledging Liza Jade Parker's 2016 HEROIN ADDICTION was unavoidable given that Parker had been featured as the "poster child" for a local drug recovery facility recently visited by Maine's Governor and Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. Liza Parker also had spent time in multiple Maine county jails in Summer 2016.

However, there appears to be even more to the Liza Jade Parker saga. In June 2016, a "Liza Jade Parker"  claimed to be a 29 year-old nurse living in Ontario, Canada, in a UK tabloid THE SUN article about "physical fitness" and "denied butt implants". Look closely at the nose, mouth, and chin of both "hair-color-changed Parkers" and convince us that these are not the same person. Note that Maine's "Liza Jade Parker" was also described as a "dancer" by her Jehovah's Witness family.

**********************

UNITED OF OMAHA LIFE INSURANCE CO. v. JONATHAN A. SEAY, Individually and As Administrator of the Estate Of Lewis Etheridege Seay, Jr. Lewis E. Seay, Jr. was a natural brother of Jehovah's Witness Elder Jonathan Augustus Seay, and also was a Jehovah's Witness. The alcoholic Lewis Seay was discovered shot-to-death at his home by Jonathan Seay. In March 2019, the Southern Georgia USDC ruled:

The Clerk of Court is directed to ENTER JUDGMENT in favor of Defendant Jonathan Seay in the amount of $219,254.79. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk disburse to Jonathan Seay the amount of $219,254.79 plus any accrued interest from the Registry of the Court. The Clerk is further directed to CLOSE this case.

The following (edited) facts of this case were summarized in a previous 2018 USDC opinion:

United issued an accidental death insurance policy covering the life of Lewis E. Seay, Jr. in the amount of $200,000. ... Defendant Jonathan Seay, Lewis Seay's brother, was designated as the beneficiary of the Policy. ... Lewis Seay died on June 1, 2016. ... The death certificate indicated the manner of death as homicide, specifically Lewis Seay died because of gunshot wounds. ... It is undisputed that as a result of Lewis Seay's death, United was obligated to pay the beneficiary, Jonathan Seay, $200,000. ... In fact. United received a claim form for the proceeds, dated October 26, 2016, from Jonathan Seay. ...

Because the death of Lewis Seay was a homicide, United conducted a routine investigation into the claim through the services of a third-party investigative firm. Worldwide Resources, Inc. ... On November 13, 2016, Special Agent Eugene Howard of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported to Worldwide that Jonathan Seay was considered a suspect in the death of Lewis Seay and that no benefits should be paid on the claim. ...

On December 6, 2016, Jonathan Seay sent another letter demanding the payment of the insurance benefits, which suggested that United had 60 days to pay to avoid bad faith penalties. ... Attached to this letter is a purported Release of Liability, allegedly signed by Lewis and Jonathan Seay's siblings (David A. Seay, Sarah Lou White, and Jael M. Connor), the other named defendants in this case. ...

On March 23, 2017, a representative of Worldwide again spoke with Special Agent Howard who stated that Jonathan Seay had not been cleared and had not been completely cooperative. ... Special Agent Howard added that Jonathan Seay appears to be the last person to see Lewis Seay alive and the first to find him deceased. ...

On June 20, 2017, Special Agent Howard advised Worldwide that the circumstances had not changed. ... On July 27, 2017, Special Agent Howard again advised Worldwide that there were no changes on the case. ... He relayed that the District Attorney had sent out subpoenas to life insurance companies to gather information about additional life insurance policies. ... Finally, on October 2, 2017, Special Agent Howard reported to Worldwide that Jonathan Seay is the main person of interest and there were numerous policies on Lewis Seay naming Jonathan Seay as the only beneficiary. ... Special Agent Howard also reported that Jonathan Seay had refused to take a polygraph test and was not being cooperative. ...

Upon issuing its progress reports regarding the information it obtained from Worldwide, United would put Jonathan Seay's claim "on hold," usually for thirty days at a time. ... United sent periodic letters to Jonathan Seay indicating that it was waiting on additional information before it could process his claim. ...

On October 24, 2017, Jonathan Seay's attorney wrote a letter to United renewing his demand for payment of the policy benefits and indicating that United could not "lawfully continue to refuse payment on this claim." ... The letter suggested that United file an interpleader action. ...

On February 6, United filed the instant interpleader action. Pursuant to this Court's Order, United paid $200,000 in to the Registry of the Court on March 12, over 16 months from the initial demand letter of October 26, 2016. Following discovery, United filed the instant motion seeking to be discharged from the case and seeking summary judgment on Defendant Jonathan Seay's counterclaims. The Clerk gave the nonmoving party, Defendant Jonathan Seay, notice of the summary judgment motion and the summary judgment rules of the right to file affidavits or other materials in opposition, and of the consequences of default. ... 

SEE ALSO: UNITED STATES v. JONATHAN SEAY (2021).

**********************

NEW HAMPSHIRE v. DAVID UNTO PETRELL is an ongoing 2020-22 New Hampshire criminal prosecution of David U. Petrell, then of Ashland, New Hampshire. On a Friday evening in March 2020, at around 7:00 PM, Holderness police received an anonymous telephone call CLAIMING that David Petrell was on his way to the Holderness NH Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses with the intention of committing suicide. (Friday nights are a favorite with JW Elders for holding Judicial Committee hearings.) Quickly responding police found an inebriated and armed David Petrell, then age 37, inside the Kingdom Hall. The highly intoxicated Petrell obeyed police commands to lay down his weapons, and fortunately the Holderness police were not the typical shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later dumbasses that now abound in many law enforcement agencies. Despite reports to the contrary, shots fired by Petrell were outside the Kingdom Hall, as was the pouring of the gasoline (on the door).

David Unto Petrell is the son of PROMINENT Jehovah's Witness Elder Paul U. Petrell, of Milford, Maine. Paul Petrell, a real estate developer, died prematurely in 1988, when David Perell was only five years old. Helen Petrell, a paralegal, never remarried, but reared David and his four siblings on her own. Helen Petrell was a Catholic convert who apparently was converted to the WatchTower Cult during her two-year service with the Peace Corp in Brazil during the 1960s.

David Petrell was an honor roll student in high school, who also was approved as an "exemplary" Jehovah's Witness to work on RBC projects. Prior to the events of March 2020, David Petrell's only run-ins with police were possibly alcohol related traffic incidents. At his arraignment, David Petrell entered "not guilty" pleas to charges of reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, criminal mischief, driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and arson to an occupied/historic structure. Outcomes unknown.

*************************                                 *************************

<<<------PREVIOUS PAGE----------HOME PAGE----------NEXT PAGE ------>>>