Jehovah's Witness Crime Cases Page 6 of 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.

Around 1977, when most WatchTower loyalists were still faithfully awaiting "Armageddon", a third generation JW female, who had married a non-JW Husband about ten years earlier, finally succeeded in getting her non-JW Step-son and his most recent common-law wife to take interest in "the truth". This was a delightful surprise to the local congregation given that third generation JW Female's non-JW Husband had attended KH meetings and even "studied" for 3-4 years so as to prevent the BOE from sanctioning his new JW Wife for having married a non-JW. However, by the time that his Son started attending KH meetings, non-JW Husband had stopped studying and stopped attending KH meetings, and never showed any further interest in "the truth". (The street-smart mid-40s older husband, who had completed only the eighth-grade, gave up on "Armageddon in 1975" by 1973 -- openly pointing out the many hypocrisies of local elders and even circuit servants. Of course, his much younger JW Wife eventually had the last laugh -- later giving him a JW funeral.)

For several months, Step-son and wife faithfully attended every KH meeting, and each studied separately with an Elder and his elderette wife. The unmarried couple even quietly got married civilly in another state, and otherwise qualified as "unbaptized publishers", and started going out in field service. BUT SOMETHING HAPPENED. About 2-3 months before the circuit assembly where the couple were going to be baptized, local JWs helped Step-son find a better paying job in an adjacent county. The BOE in both counties helped the couple rent a home in the new county, which was owned by a nutjob couple who had "studied" off and on for decades, and were considered "persons of goodwill". Both BOEs assisted the move. Shortly, however, the couple started to skip meetings, stopped field service, and failed to complete the "80 Questions" -- thus missed their baptisms. The couple quickly had not one -- but TWO -- BOEs chasing their delinquent arses on weeknights and weekends. On weekdays, elderette and servant wives dropped by to "help" the unemployed wife with a baby and a young child.

Within weeks, the couple's small, wooden rental house "accidentally" caught fire one morning -- shortly after Step-son left for work while the other three occupants slept. Wife made it outside despite heavy smoke inhalation, but the couple's recent newborn and the older child by a previous boyfriend DIED in the fire from smoke inhalation. The fire and two deaths were quickly judged to be "accidental" (see below). The two Innocents received a JW funeral -- not KH due to the size of the crowd. The two children's mother attended the funeral home in a state of shock still suffering from the smoke inhalation. Despite his previous "con-artist" experience, Step-son struggled to show any negative feelings whatsoever. Step-son socialized, told jokes, etc. outside the funeral home. Step-son could turn on-off the waterworks at will.

Local "worldly" people who didn't even know the newcomers donated roughly 98% of what was donated. A month later, the couple supposedly moved to a small city about 100 miles away, and dropped off the local JWs' radar. A year or so later, local JWs began whispering that instead of moving to the aforementioned city, the unburdened couple had went their separate ways. Later, some JWs began whispering that the couple had never gotten married legally. Eventually, some JWs began expressing doubts that the fire and deaths of the two children had been accidental. Those JWs finally got something correct, but no one reported what they discovered to the authorities. WHY reveal this nearly five decades later? Everyone, including the murderer, has finally died.

Puzzlingly, three days after the funeral for which he did not pay a cent, mid-20s Step-son physically took and passed the state driver's license test. Not his birth month. A little over a year later, Step-son was employed for six months as a police officer in aforementioned small city -- until the PD background checkers finally uncovered all of his additional aliases, and his actual criminal and military records. After that -- employed as OTR truck driver. His Wife never moved to small city. She moved out-of-state within days of the funeral. Later, for decades, Step-son lived only ten minutes drive from his father and JW Step-mother, but she never again attempted to convert him despite fact that he gradually ceased his serious illegalities. JW Step-mother knew about the arson, murders, and attempted murder, but kept her mouth shut for four decades. Amusingly, Step-son could never stop lying. Step-son spent decades relating at VFW, VFD, etc. never-ending stories of his many heroisms in Vietnam -- where he had not set a foot. Even the branch of service was edited. ("Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC!")

Interestingly, the Managing Editor of the only media outlet to cover the fire-deaths was the same Jehovah's Witness Presiding Overseer who assisted Step-son to relocate to that town. JW Editor assigned story to a non-JW reporter, and published that short article as it had been written without any insider knowledge. One can only wonder if JW Editor also influenced the police and coroner investigations, or if they were even told of the JW connections.

NEW YORK v. WALTER JOHNSON (1982), NEW YORK v. WALTER JOHNSON (1983), NEW YORK v. WALTER JOHNSON (1984), NEW YORK v. WALTER JOHNSON (1990s), NEW YORK v. WALTER JOHNSON (1996-97). On a Friday evening in June 1982, while services were ongoing, 19 year-old African-American Walter "King Tut" Johnson, and two accomplices, "stuck up" and robbed nearly 300 members of his own mother's Brooklyn area Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. While out on bail, Johnson and accomplices robbed six passengers on a NYC area bus. The gang was also suspected in a subway car holdup one week later. Re-arrested, Walter Johnson was eventually convicted and served three years in prison before being paroled and returning to a life of even more serious crimes. Through the mid-1990s, Johnson amassed more than a dozen arrests and served numerous sentences in jail and prison. Johnson was acquitted in a 1993 nonfatal shooting of two off-duty New York City police officers during the robbery of a Brooklyn barbershop that had led to a shootout.

In 1997, Walter Johnson was convicted of robbery, cocaine possession, and witness tampering, and sentenced to FIVE LIFE SENTENCES in prison without the possibility of parole, under a "three-strikes" law. Johnson had led quite a notorious life between 1976 and 1996. Either not prosecuted or not convicted, "King Tut" Johnson was a suspect in numerous robberies, shootings, and other crimes over the years. In the 1996 prosecution, a female named Crystal Winslow claimed that Johnson had raped her in 1995 during a separate home-invasion robbery, but Johnson went unconvicted for that crime. Johnson claimed relationships with several of the top name east Coast Rappers and their production companies, and even was a suspect in the first shooting and eventual murder of Tupac Shakur.

Typically, in prison, Walter Johnson's disciplinary record was described as "stellar" and "sparkling". The warden even called Johnson the "model inmate". Johnson had immersed himself in prison programs and "helping other inmates". In October 2024, the same federal Judge Frederic Block whom had sentenced Johnson in 1997, now 90 years old and now quite "liberal", COMMUTED Johnson's five life sentences to TIME SERVED. Walter Johnson, now age 61, currently walks the streets of Stamford, Connecticut with his new wife Natoka Johnson. ("Very thankful to Jehovah forgiving in a large way Isaiah 55:7") Interestingly, even rape victim Crystal Winslow advocated for Johnson's commutation -- stating that she had forgiven Johnson, and that Johnson's "incarceration serves as a constant reminder of a painful past, hindering my ability to fully embrace the present."

In January 1980, international news media reported the MURDERS-SUICIDE of an African-American family living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The MURDERER, 27 year-old Samuel Andrews, who committed SUICIDE, was portrayed as a MUSLIM MADMAN spouting nonsense about Ware's two young children being demonized (a belief also common with JW nutjobs). For less than two days, Samuel Andrews had held hostage 22 year-old pregnant Arlene Ware, her 4 year-old daughter, Kimberly Ware, and 18 month-old Fred Ware, in their Pittsburgh home, before Andrews shot the two children in their heads while they slept. Andrews then shot Arlene Ware twice in her upper chest, but she survived long enough to be transported to Mercy Hospital. Samuel Andrews then shot himself in the head. EVERYONE was perfectly satisfied with the INSANE MUSLIM portrayal of this tragedy even though bits and pieces of an alternative story slowly were scattered in multiple different newspapers.

One local newspaper reported that one of Samuel Andrews' multiple hostage demands was that all local Jehovah's Witnesses gather at Three Rivers Stadium, so that he could speak to them.

Although initially portrayed as recent acquaintances, some newspapers eventually reported that Samuel Andrews and Arlene Ware had been living together for 18 months, and that Arlene Ware was six months pregnant with Andrews' daughter. Other relatives of Arlene Ware lived in the same apartment house, and later spoke with police and reporters.

INTERESTINGLY, 22 year-old Samuel "Sammy" Andrews had experienced a similar psychotic episode in 1975, while vacationing in the Bahamas with a supposed wife and two children, whom he also held in a hostage standoff with police. Andrews escaped foreign prosecution only by failing a competency exam. The Pittsburgh native was deported back to the USA.

One local newspaper reported that Arlene Ware was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. However, related info was contradictory. Supposedly, Mercy Hospital E.R performed emergency surgery, including administering blood transfusions, before they learned that Ware was a JW. Yet, at the hospital, Ware's JW Mother, Emillie Jean Terry, reportedly had signed a release authorizing blood transfusions, telling reporters that such was okay because Ware was not a "practicing" JW. Yet, the hospital quickly sought and obtained a court order to administer transfusions to Ware and her newborn daughter, who was delivered via caesarian, but died the next day. Arlene Ware died after 12 days at the hospital.

A local WatchTower spokesman contacted the media, and claimed that Ware's JW Mother, Emillie Terry, had asked him to tell the media that while Arlene had attended multiple Pittsburgh area Kingdom Halls, that she was not a JW because she never had been baptized. What are the odds that the WatchTower Society had an appellate court overrule the local court, PLUS had their crisis team make certain that the international media never report ALL "the truth" about this MURDERS-SUICIDE.

CROWN v. CHRISTINE SAWBRIDGE and TREVOR ANTHONY CAMPBELL was a 1984-99 British MURDER prosecution. Christine Sawbridge had been reared as a Jehovah's Witness by JW PARENTS Thelma Sawbridge and xxx Sawbridge, of Smethwick, West Midlands. Brother, Neil Sawbridge was 18 years old. The victim, Ethel Cawood, age 84, also of Smethwick, West Midlands, was a fellow JW who attended weekly "book studies" held at the Sawbridge home.

Typically, once the crap hit the fan, local JW ELDERS attempted to obscure the truth as much as possible. It is unclear whether Christine had been a baptized teenage JW who had been disfellowshipped, or otherwise sanctioned, but Christine had been "marked" after she had confessed to stealing from the homes of one or more elderly fellow JWs.

By June 1984, when Christine was only 15, she was dating a 19 year-old non-JW black West Indian named Trevor Campbell. Sawbridge talked Campbell into helping her rob the elderly Ethel Cawood. When Cawood physically resisted the robbery, Campbell stabbed her 19 times with a kitchen knife.

Later that Saturday night, Christine accompanied her JW Family to a local pub where they sang karaoke. The next morning, the Sawbridge Family all attended their local Kingdom Hall. Later that Sunday night, Sawbridge and Campbell returned to the scene of the crime to set Cawood's home on fire, and destroy the evidence. A neighbor saw and reported the fire, which was extinguished before the evidence was destroyed, and initiated the murder investigation.

Christine Sawbridge was an immediate suspect, and she and her boyfriend were soon arrested. Sawbridge attempted to place all the blame on Campbell, but he claimed that he simply had done what Sawbridge had told him to do. Trevor Campbell was convicted of murder, and sentenced to life in prison. However, Campbell was released in 1999, after it was determined that his confession, which played the major role in his conviction, had been improperly obtained by police.

Christine Sawbridge was placed in juvenile detention until she was 18 years-old, and thereafter placed in prison. Sawbridge was paroled in 1994. Sawbridge reportedly changed her name, and relocated.

ILLINOIS v. LISA FORBES was a 1986-90 Illinois MURDER prosecution. Lisa Forbes was the youngest of six children in a poor southside Chicago African-American Jehovah's Witness Family dominated by a devout Jehovah's Witness Mother, who went mostly unassisted by a routinely unemployed alcoholic non-JW husband. Typically, the negatives of the WatchTower Cult's child-rearing scheme far outweighed the positives, and only one sister and Lisa Forbes' own daughter, Mercedes Bankston, went on to be "Jehovah's Witnesses" as adults. Notably, the WatchTower Cult's education program resulted in Lisa Forbes being advanced two grades during her elementary school years. However, being younger than her classmates in southside Chicago schools only exasperated the plethora of negatives that came with being "one of Jehovah's Witnesses". When Lisa Forbes was only 14 years old, as an "unbaptized publisher", Lisa Forbes was "publicly reproved" for unknown reason, and the resulting "shunning" by her only "friends" and family members only guaranteed that Lisa Forbes would gradually completely reject the WatchTower Cult.

Having graduated high school at the age of 15, Lisa Forbes was employed as a clerk at a downtown Chicago insurance company. There, Lisa Forbes met an older office equipment repairman named James Bankston, and she soon became pregnant. Mercedes Bankston was born in latter 1983, when Lisa Forbes was herself only 16 years-old. Typically, after the birth of his daughter, James Bankston would have only limited contact with his child and his "baby-momma", and only token amounts of child support were ever proffered. On a Sunday in December 1985, Lisa Forbes went to the owned home of recently married James Bankston. There, 19 year-old Lisa Forbes pulled a butcher knife from her purse and stabbed Bankston to death. Lisa Forbes was convicted of Bankston's murder, but was sentenced to only 25 years in prison -- from which she is now released and continuing her life positively.

RHENETTA LEE HAYMAN FAMILICIDE. In January 1962, African-American Bercher Scott Hayman, age 41, of Wash D.C, returned home from work late on a Saturday night only to discover that his wife and his two daughters were dead. Rhenetta L. Hayman, age 35, was found in the basement where she had hanged herself. Lynetta Hayman, age 6, and Geraldine Hayman, age 5, were found smothered to death in their beds. Rhenetta Hayman was a college graduate who had held multiple federal government jobs in Wash D.C. Rhenetta Hayman also had taught Sunday School at a nearby Presbyterian Church until only a few months previous -- when she had joined the WatchTower Cult.

The needless "suicide" (or even possibly "assassination", see LAOS) of a Thailand Jehovah's Witness Female in the late 1950s has been repeatedly reported by multiple former Jehovah's Witnesses over the decades. Without exception, the details of those redundant reports have come from a former Jehovah's Witness who worked at WatchTower HQ at the time. However, that former Bethelite offered no personal, firsthand knowledge about the Thai Jehovah's Witness Female, nor her alleged "suicide". All of that former Bethelite's information came from President Nathan Knorr's "cover story" put out after the alleged "suicide" was mistakenly broadcast throughout Brooklyn Bethel, and from the self-serving information privately related later to former Bethelites by the WatchTower Society's Transportation Secretary, Worth Thornton.

Curiously, no other former Brooklyn Bethelite, nor former Gilead student, nor former Gilead instructor or administrator -- in the United States, Thailand, or elsewhere -- has ever publicly related anything whatsoever about this Thai Female, or her time at GILEAD SCHOOL, or her time at the Brooklyn Bethel Home. Given her alleged multiple "streakings" at GILEAD SCHOOL, and her alleged suicidal attempt to jump from the Bethel Home, someone who personally saw some of these alleged events should have eventually said something at some point in their later lives.

Sometime after President Nathan Knorr's visit to Thailand in April 1956, and after Vice-President Fred Franz's visit in January 1957, a decision was made to bring an unknown number of native Thai Jehovah's Witnesses to the 31st Class of the WATCHTOWER BIBLE SCHOOL OF GILEAD, in January 1958. Their graduation would thus coincide with the largest ever 1958 WatchTower International Convention to be held at Yankee Stadium, in July-August 1958. The display of those (believed) two single males and two single females Thai Gilead Graduates would make quite an impression on the JW crowd and the non-JW reporters in attendance. The Thai Jehovah's Witnesses selected for that "special privilege" were all "fully vetted", fully experienced, full-time PAID WatchTower "Special Pioneers", who as teams, previously had been assigned to the multiple foreign-led WatchTower "missionary homes" scattered throughout Thailand.

Shortly after these Thai Special Pioneers started classes in January 1958 at the WATCHTOWER BIBLE SCHOOL OF GILEAD, in South Lansing, NY, one of the (reportedly younger) Thai Females supposedly was spotted outside her room in an unspecified hallway at GILEAD SCHOOL with less clothing on than what was deemed the necessary amount of clothing. Former Brooklyn Bethelites can only imagine the reaction and response to such an accusation from that Thai Female's fellow Gilead students -- particularly the married females -- much less the reaction and response from the Gilead instructors and administrators.

The distraction was so disruptive that that Thai Female had to be removed from GILEAD SCHOOL, so the decision was made (undoubtedly by President Nathan Knorr), to bring the possibly attractive Thai Female to Brooklyn Bethel, where she was assigned to work at the Bethel Home -- where President Knorr could personally keep an eye on her, so to speak. It is believed that Knorr kept this Thai Female at Brooklyn Bethel until sometime in Summer 1958 -- probably until after the Gilead Graduation and the International Convention -- when Knorr instructed Transportation Secretary Worth Thornton to ship her arse back to Thailand "by the cheapest method possible". Worth Thornton put the Thai Female on a train to San Francisco, where Thornton had arranged passage on a merchant ship going to Thailand. Thornton supposedly later claimed that he did such against his better judgment -- simply because President Knorr had ordered him to do so. Thornton later claimed that Thai Female had begged to be allowed to fly home, but Knorr denied her request. Thai Female then begged to be accompanied on the merchant ship by one of her fellow Thais, but Knorr also denied that request.

A couple of weeks or so after Thai Female's departure from WatchTower HQ, the Brooklyn Bethel switchboard operator, Arthur Barnett, received a radiogram from the merchant ship relating that the Thai Female had jumped overboard -- conveniently somewhere near the Hawaiian Islands. The ship allegedly had attempted to search for her or her corpse, but to no avail. Arthur Barnett repeated the news of this tragedy to Bethel Receptionist Russell Kurzen, and the news quickly spread throughout Brooklyn Bethel. President Nathan Knorr was outraged when he found out that the news of Thai Female's "suicide" had been broadcast throughout Brooklyn Bethel. Both Barnett and Kurzen were reprimanded by Knorr.

President Nathan Knorr's eventual "cover story" alleged that Thai Female had suffered a "mental breakdown" at GILEAD SCHOOL, which allegedly had been caused by the pressure and stress of her difficult classes at Gilead. In turn, the "mental breakdown" allegedly had caused Thai Female to have "spells" or "seizures" which allegedly had "compulsively" caused Thai Female to "repeatedly" remove all of her clothing and run through the hallways of GILEAD SCHOOL. Knorr's "cover story" claimed that Thai Female then had been transferred to Brooklyn to work at the Bethel Home so that she could rest and recuperate from the stress and strain she had experienced at GILEAD SCHOOL. (How many former Brooklyn Bethelites buy that?) Instead of getting better, Thai Female's mental health allegedly eventually deteriorated to the point that she allegedly had attempted to commit suicide by attempting to jump from some unspecified part of the Bethel Home.

Taken together -- Knorr's own cover story and Thornton's later self-serving additional details -- both the WatchTower Society and President Nathan Knorr were IRRESPONSIBLE and NEGLIGENT in shipping an allegedly unaccompanied, suicidal female home on a "slow boatride" back to Thailand -- thus their being both morally responsible and legally responsible for the death of Thai Female.

However, there even is something more suspicious that seems to be seeping from the "cover story" about Thai Female's time in Lansing and Brooklyn. Often, when anyone -- much less people in positions of power -- rush forward to voluntarily admit to "negligence", the "details" turn out to have been much worse than admitted. Sometimes the "accident" even turns out to have been an intentional act. We know that WatchTower President Joseph F. Rutherford had a string of Bethel Mistresses from around 1915 through the late 1930s, as did other high ranking WatchTower officials. Whose to say that that "perk" ended when Joe Rutherford died? One can't help but wonder whether Thai Female's "suicide" occurred before that merchant ship put in somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands, and if "someone" disembarked and caught a flight back to the mainland, or even possibly eastward -- Manila, Okinawa, Saigon, or Bangkok? Does anyone know the name of Nathan Knorr's personal bodyguard during the 1950s -- the guy some have described as a "thug"?

PENNSYLVANIA v. EDNA KOHLER. In 1980, in Bucks County Circuit Court, a "devoted Jehovah's Witness" named Edna Kohler was acquitted after a jury trial of charges alleging that she had attempted to hire a third-party to murder her lesbian lover.

AULENBACH FAMILICIDE. The January 1947 deaths of Jehovah's Witness Samuel Pierce Aulenbach, age 66, and his wife Helen Ethel Aulenbach, age 59, of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, were too quickly judged even by a coroner's inquest. Just after 10:00 AM on a Saturday morning, responders found an unconscious severely injured Helen Aulenbach in the couple's dining room, and an unconscious injured Samuel P. Aulenbach only a few feet away in the kitchen. Helen Aulenbach died seven hours later at the local hospital without regaining consciousness. Samuel Aulenbach died 40 hours later -- also without regaining consciousness.

Fred Lewis Aulenbach, the couple's 30 year-old divorcee son, who then lived with his parents, claimed that he had arrived home from his job as a train engineer at around 3:00 AM. After eating and relaxing, Fred Aulenbach went to his bedroom. Shortly before 10:00 AM, Fred was awakened by the sound of the door to his bedroom opening, and Fred saw his father holding a hatchet. Sam Aulenbach struck a glancing blow on the side of Fred's face. Fred then grappled with his father, trying to hold him, "but no blows were struck because he knew of his mental condition". The father and son wrestled down the stairs, where Fred saw his mother lying on the floor. "With a break in his voice, he told of his father's size and strength, told of his asking his father what he had done to the mother, and further wrestling on the first floor of the home which resulted in the father's falling to the floor. No further blows were struck."

INTERESTINGLY, Fred L. Aulenbach only reported the "killing" to Dr. Tihansky's home. INTERESTINGLY, Dr. Tihansky testified that the first time that he ever had seen Samuel Aulenbach was on that prior Monday, and that he had diagnosed him with "dementia senilis". Dr. Tihansky also testified to the injuries to Fred Aulenbach, "which could have been made by a hatchet". He also observed further injuries "later in the day" to a toe, finger, and left arm.

Chief of Police Frank Deibert responded to a call from Mrs. Tihansky, who said there was "a killing" at the home of the Aulenbachs. Chief Deibert apparently arrived before Dr. Tihansky. Entering the dining room, he found Fred Aulenbach sitting on a chair, very much excited, holding a towel on the right side of his face. Helen Aulenbach was lying on her back in a pool of blood, her face resting on a cushion. She was moaning and unconscious. Turning to Fred, he asked, "Who did this?" Fred Aulenbach replied, "My father." Chief Deibert then asked where he was. Fred replied, "In the kitchen." Sam Aulenbach was found lying on his right side and unconscious.

Ambulances were called to transport all three Aulenbachs to local hospitals. Fred was taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital where he was treated for a large contusion of the right cheek, severe bruises of the big toe of the left foot and bruises of the arm and body. After being treated, Fred was discharged.

Deputy Coroner Matonis gave the jury a report on the autopsy findings with respect to Helen Aulenbach. There were evidences of severe blows to the head by a heavy instrument, severe contusion to the head and scalp, and head fractures, and severe cerebral hemorrhages. The post mortem examination of Samuel P. Aulenbach indicated that death resulted primarily from lobar pneumonia, and that there were contusions of the head and chest, and a fracture of the right cheek bone, together with evidence of hardening of the arteries. The coroner's inquest ruled that Helen Aulenbach died from the injuries received from the attack by Samuel Aulenbach, while Samuel Aulenbach died from lobar pneumonia.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESS ELDER DROWNS DURING BAPTISM CEREMONY. In July 1958, a 23 year-old African-American Jehovah's Witness Elder at a Houston, Texas area Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, named Clifton W. Payne, DROWNED while performing baptisms at a nearby "sand pit". "Witnesses" stated that the baptismal ceremony was being held at a section of the sand pit which had been staked-off to keep anyone from walking into deep water. However, after baptizing two "candidates", and awaiting the third, Clifton Payne took a few steps backward and sank into 32 feet of water. The "witnesses", who apparently did NOTHING to rescue Payne until his corpse floated back to the top about 20 minutes later, stated that, "He just seemed to disappear and never came up."

EDITORS NOTE: I simply can't resist relating this. During a college P.E. course river canoeing trip, I watched a 6'3" lanky African-American basketball player nearly drown in less than two feet of water. At the end of our three hour trip, in a section of the river where the water was so quiet and so shallow that you could see the bottom, several of us were still paddling around while waiting for stragglers to arrive, when "Albert Barnes", the highly annoying son of an African-American Pentecostal preacher (typically - whose mouth ran continuously), who had prematurely removed his life jacket as his sign to the rest of us that he was no longer afraid of falling into the water, tipped over his canoe right next to my canoe, and then proceeded to go into a death struggle -- flailing his arms and legs, and during instances when hishead came far enough out of the water, his screaming for me to save him. I literally could see the fear of death in his eyes. "Stand up you FOOL!!!" I shouted as the others broke into laughter. My unkind and hurtful shout, along with the resulting laughter, served a useful purpose, because the stunned, bug-eyed Albert immediately stopped his death roll and did as I had told him. Albert drew his legs up underneath himself, pushed down against the river bottom with his hands, and stood up until the water level was lapping at his knobby knees.

CITY OF EFFINGHAM ILLINOIS v. WOODROW W. BLACKBURN was a series of arrests and convictions in 1942 of Woodrow "Woody" Blackburn and his pioneer partner, Wallace Edwin Bunt (first Gilead class in 1943), on charges of selling literature without a license and provoking a breach of the peace. Bunt and his wife eventually were sent by the WatchTower Society as missionaries to India, while Woodrow Blackburn and his wife were sent to the Caribbean. Woody Blackburn was soon promoted to Assistant Branch Servant in Costa Rica, before then being sent to Honduras as its new Branch Servant.

Sometime between Fall 1954 and Spring 1955, the then relatively small and insular WatchTower Society international Heirarchy experienced its first internally widely-publicized SEX SCANDAL in some years. Later, in 1955, the WATCHTOWER magazine acknowledged to rank-n-file Jehovah's Witnesses and other readers worldwide that the WatchTower Society's BRANCH SERVANT in Honduras had been disfellowshipped and shipped back to the United States after he had been caught cheating on his JW Wife with a local Honduran female whom the short, succinct article referred to variously as a "prostitute", a "harlot", and even more interestingly as a "girl of ill fame".

Thus, most readers back in 1955 probably automatically assumed that this was just a typical "pay-to-play" prostitution scenario -- without giving much thought to the fact that that article also mentioned that Branch spies had observed the Branch Servant "regularly" visiting that "prostitute/harlot" at her "one-room house" (apparently she was not very successful financially) -- as many as three or more times per day. Branch spies even observed the Branch Servant taking that "prostitute/harlot" out on regular dates to the theater -- apparently on more than one occasion. Later, Woodrow "Woody" Blackburn confessed that he had been regularly seeing his Honduran girlfriend for "many months".

Readers, that is NOT a "typical" pay-to-play prostitution scenario. What difference does it make whether the WatchTower Society's Honduran Branch Servant had a regular Honduran "girlfriend", or whether the WatchTower Society's Honduran Branch Servant was merely paying a "prostitute" for occasional sex? None today, but back in the 1950s, it made a difference in Honduras with the WatchTower Society's local recruiting activities and local recruits. Note the opening paragraph of the "HONDURAS" section of the 1952 YEARBOOK OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES:

In July 1953, Woody Blackburn was one of the Speakers at the WatchTower Society's prophecy-fulfilling NEW WORLD SOCIETY Assembly held in Yankee Stadium in New York City. The following remarks included in the "HONDURAS" section of the 1955 YEARBOOK OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES were taken from Honduras Branch Servant Woody Blackburn's annual 1954 service year report to WatchTower HQ:

What ever became of ol' Woody Blackburn after he was disfellowshipped and shipped home to the United States? Sounding like one of Blackburn's Wife's relatives, one online poster claims that Woodrow Blackburn was eventually reinstated and promoted to the level of "Circuit Overseer" and later, even "District Overseer", by the WatchTower Cult. Why not!!! Woody Blackburn certainly displayed all the qualities needed by a top level WatchTower Cult corporate henchman.

TEXAS v. BRUCE WADE SMITH was a 1977-1983 Texas MURDER prosecution. Reared by a JW Parent (mother?), in October 1977, Bruce W. Smith, age 22, and married with one child, of Center, Texas, shot to death his own father, Carl E. Smith, while stealing $30.00 and his father's automobile. The apparently mentally ill Bruce Smith later told authorities that "demons" had been communicating with him -- telling him to kill his father in preparation for the Battle of Armageddon. In 1979, a Texas jury rejected Bruce Smith's plea of "innocent by reason of insanity", and sentenced him to 99 years in prison. The Teaxs Court of Appeals overturned that conviction. Outcome unknown.

In 1970, Harry Edward Stewart, Carl Travis Strothers, and Howard Hedges were all residents of Alachua County, Florida, who attended the same Gainesville, Florida Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Harry E. Stewart, married with one child, was a MIGHTY AUTO PARTS distributor (as were numerous other JWs throughout the United States), whose territory included parts of northeastern Florida and southern Georgia. On Friday, December 11, 1970, Stewart left home around 8:00 AM, but did not come back home that evening. Authorities were told that Stewart had a JW Meeting that evening that he was supposed to attend, but authorities evidently did not know enough about JWs to ask whether such was a regularly scheduled meeting, or a "special" meeting. On the following Sunday, December 13, Stewart's stepvan was located abandoned with a flat tire on the side of a state highway near Ocala. (Curiously, MIGHTY AUTO PARTS distributors stocked all the products needed to fix flat tires.)

On Thursday, December 17, Howard Hedges, age 36, and Travis Strothers, age 34, allegedly went up in Hedges' light airplane to search for Stewart. Curiously, Hedges buzzed Strother's rural mobile home, and a note was dropped to Strothers' wife, which read, "MEET ME AT THE AIRPORT WITH A SHOVEL". The airplane then flew on another 300 yards, when it then nosedived into the ground.

Hedges and Strothers were transported to the University of Florida Medical Center, where Strothers died a few hours later. Hedges was in better condition, but his family refused to consent to needed blood transfusions. Hospital officials were forced to seek a court order authorizing such, and a court order was finally obtained the next day. Hedges eventually died on January 3, 1971, without ever regaining consciousness.

Around midnight on Friday, December 18, Harry Stewart phoned home, supposedly from New Orleans, to let his family know that he was okay. Supposedly, Stewart had hitchhiked from his step van to Jacksonville, and then took a bus to New Orleans. Stewart arrived home later that weekend, and was admitted to the psychiatric unit of the UF Medical Center.

Police reported that they were unable to get Stewart to provide details which would explain all the unusual goings on. Interestingly, one detective stated that he was more interested in HOW Stewart got to New Orleans, than WHY, which would seem to indicate that Stewart's name was not found on any bus (or airlines) passengers' list.

MINNESOTA v. LAWRENCE LEE JENSEN was a 1975-76 Minnesota ATTEMPTED MURDER prosecution of a former Jehovah's Witness Elder, named Larry Jensen, who attempted to murder another Jehovah's Witness Elder from Jensen's congregation. Despite the fact that this criminal case went to trial, neither the murder attempt nor the trial received much media coverage. Interestingly, this attempted murder occurred during October 1975, the month that the WatchTower Society had been predicting as the date for "Armageddon" since 1966.

On Thursday, October 16, 1975, Lawrence Jensen, of Moorhead, Minnesota, went to the Pelican Lake, Minnesota home of Jehovah's Witness Elder, George Rohde, then age 69, and pretended to have run out of gasoline. At some point, Jensen attacked both George and Mary Rohde with mace. Jensen eventually shot George Rohde three times, and severely beat Mary Rohde. The Rohdes managed to escape the scene and made it to a neighbor's home, where help was summoned. Both Rohdes survived.

Later, the Rohdes described Laurence Lee Jensen as a former Elder in their local Fergus Falls Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Media reports described Jensen as a recently failed real estate agent and local business owner. At trial, Jensen blamed George Rohde for his recent troubles, including his recent divorce and loss of children, as well as Jensen's loss of his position as a Congregation Elder in 1974. Outcome unknown.

MARK MILES SUICIDE-FAMILICIDE. In September 1978, a 24 year-old Jehovah's Witness named Mark Miles, of the West Auburn, Pennsylvania area, murdered his estranged 18 year-old non-JW wife, Annette Carter Miles, Annette's 38 year-old Mother, along with Annette's 14 year-old Sister and 8 year-old Brother. The only survivors were Annette's father, who was not home at the time of the massacre, and Annette and Mark's NINE DAY OLD DAUGHTER, Carey Lynn Miles.

TYPICAL of most people, Annette's parents, who had no connections with the WatchTower Cult, thought that Jehovah's Witnesses were just regular people with peculiar religious beliefs and practices. Annette's parents agreed to permit their 17 year-old daughter to marry the 23 year-old Jehovah's Witness in Summer 1977 on the condition that Annette finish High School. After the couple married, Mark Miles refused to permit Annette to return to school for her Senior year in Fall 1977. Mark Miles also attempted to force Annette to join the WatchTower Cult, but Annette refused and resisted.

Possibly indicating that BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS had been an issue during the delivery of Carey Lynn Miles in August 1978, Annette Miles moved back in with her parents after the birth of Carey Lynn Miles. After being served with separation/child support documents in September 1978, Mark Miles took a rifle to the home of his non-JW in-laws, broke through the locked front door, and proceeded to shoot everyone there in the head except for the newborn baby -- before committing suicide.

Dorothy Miles, the JW Mother of Mark Miles, blamed the massacre on Annette's parents, who Dorothy Miles claimed interfered in the marriage because "Mark was a Christian and lived a good life". In actuality, neighbors described the massacred Carter family as "the finest people you could find". Police stated that Mark Miles had BEAT Annette on multiple occasions prior to their separation.

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FLORIDA v. MERCEDES BRENNER was a 1977 Florida theft prosecution that finally resulted after Mercedes Brenner, a/k/a Mercedes Duvallon, had been arrested 58 times (mostly on trespassing charges) due to her romantic obsession with fellow Jehovah's Witness Rolanda Duvallon. Brenner, a widow, and Duvallon, a widower, met in 1971, in Miami, through their common WatchTower religion, when Brenner was age 41 and Duvallon was age 47. Duvallon worked for the state of Florida as a Supervisor for Florida's Department of Social Services, and Brenner was the secretary for the Miami Philharmonic. Duvallon and Brenner reportedly dated for two years, and Brenner later alleged that Duvallon had proposed marriage. Duvallon evidently ended the relationship around 1973, but Brenner apparently could not move on.

In Spring 1977, there was a fire at Rolando Duvallon's apartment, and Brenner took photographs belonging to Duvallon from the rubbish. Brenner arranged the photographs into a photo album for Duvallon, along with appropriate Bible excerpts, and sent the photo album to Rolando Duvallon, who promptly had Mercedes Brenner arrested for stealing the photos. That judge released Brenner from jail after she promised she would leave Duvallon alone, which she failed to do, and was re-arrested. Eventually, both Brenner and Duvallon had their legal competency examined -- but both apparently passed.

Once this saga hit the newspapers in 1977, Mercedes Brenner was disfellowshipped, but even that did not end her love for Rolando Duvallon. Readers should be aware that the published media articles make out Mercedes Brenner to be a "nut", who was completely at-fault in this matter. That may or may NOT have been the full story, because over the decades we have witnessed several "marital disasters" which were created behind the scenes and out of the public's eye by a combination of incompetent JW Elders and their attempting to apply ludicrous WatchTower interpretations regarding engagement and marriage to real-world situations. Despite the media coverage of this decade-long saga, and Brenner's later arrests for public nudity, neither Brenner nor Duvallon ever shared the full, intimate specifics of their relationship with the media, or evidently even the courts. We find it interesting that at some point that Mercedes Brenner started using Duvallon as her last name; started referring to Rolando Duvallon as her "husband"; and later accused Duvallon of "bigamy" during her nude picketing.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. MERCEDES DEVALLON and FLORIDA v. MERCEDES DEVALLON. Brenner's obsessive behavior continued to get her into legal hot water for several years thereafter after Brenner began not only picketing Duvallon's home, place of work, and his Kingdom Hall. Around 1982-83, Mercedes Brenner picketed in Miami and Washington D.C. wearing nothing but picket signs, which resulted in her arrest for public nudity, and contested prosecutions for such.

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ALABAMA v. EUGENE A. HERBERT was a 1975-78 Alabama murder court case. Readers should bear in mind that in 1975 the WatchTower Society had been forecasting since 1966 that Armageddon would occur in October 1975. On May, 28, 1975, a newlywed Jehovah's Witness named Gene A. Herbert shotgunned to death his pregnant wife while she was reading the WatchTower Society's "Daily Text" and preparing breakfast. Gene Herbert then called police to the scene and openly confessed to his wife's murder without benefit of legal counsel, because "as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, he did not trust attorneys". Herbert told police that he killed his wife because she was a "wicked demon angel", and that he too was a "demon angel".

Prior to trial, Gene Herbert was ordered committed to Bryce Hospital for an investigation of his sanity. Three months later, the Forensic Evaluation Board found that Herbert was competent to stand trial, but that he "was probably psychotic and not legally sane at the time of the alleged crime". The trial judge refused to to give the affirmative charge and instruct the jury that the evidence of insanity was so clear and the proof so strong and undisputed that they were bound to accept such testimony of insanity. The jury found Herbert guilty of second degree murder, and fixed his sentence at 25 years in prison. On appeal, the state appellate court noted the "undisputed and substantial evidence" of Herbert's legal insanity, and reversed and remanded for proceedings accordingly.

Gene Herbert was employed as a wireman at a U.S. Steel plant, and the Jehovah's Witness brought his NEW WORLD TRANSLATION bible to work with him every day to read and study during breaks. Herbert's IQ tested in the "borderline retarded" range. Although Gene Herbert's age is not known, he apparently was a middle-aged man at the time of his marriage in November 1974. Herbert reportedly had not been married previously, nor had he even dated prior to meeting his soon-to-be wife. The very next day after the wedding, Herbert became paranoid that his new wife was trying to poison him. Herbert stopped eating and lost 60 pounds between then and the murder. Co-workers testified to multiple examples of Herbert's "insanity" during that six months period. On the morning of the murder, Herbert first fired a blast into the ceiling above the dining room table, and then followed his fleeing wife to the bathroom where Herbert killed her with a second blast from his shotgun.

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PENNSYLVANIA v. KENNETH DAVENPORT was a 1973-4 Pennsylvania murder court case. On Sunday night, March 11, 1973, an 18 year-old Jehovah's Witness, named Kenneth "Martian Head" Davenport, of suburban Philadelphia, bludgeoned to death his JW Parents, Alexander Davenport, Sr., age 55, and Rowilla Davenport, 50, and his two teenage brothers, Edwin, age 14, and Peter, age 12, while all four family members slept in their beds. An older brother, Alex Davenport, Jr., 20, who attended Drexell University, fortunately was not at home at the time. The Davenports were described as "devout Jehovah's Witnesses", and "a model family". The JW Parents were described as "strict disciplinarians", who "expected much" of their children.

Kenneth Davenport was described as a "chess wizard" and a "loner", who earned the nickname "Martian Head" due to his "strange" behavior. Possibly indicative that the Davenport family had converted to the WatchTower religion only within the past few years, Kenneth Davenport held the "Life" rank in the Boy Scouts, and was infamous for bringing WatchTower publications along on overnight BS functions. [Initial media reports contained some factual errors. It is possible that it was the eldest brother, Alex Jr., not Kenneth, who had been extremely active in the Boy Scouts. That would allow for the family to have been JWs for a much longer time -- which would be more consistent with all the other details.]

Although Kenneth was only 18 years-old, the media reported that Kenneth was attending Drexell University (as was Alex Jr.), but that he had stopped going to classes a few weeks previous after getting into a fight (another report stated that Kenneth had "dropped out" of Drexell). Kenneth and his father supposedly had been arguing during the past week or so over Kenneth's "grades", and the father supposedly had ordered Kenneth to get a haircut, because Kenneth's hair was too long. The media also initially reported that Kenneth was "high on drugs" when he committed the murders, and that he had not known what he was doing. Yet, after the murders, Kenneth had driven the family's station wagon into Philadelphia (apparently going to his dorm or apartment), where he was arrested around 3:00 AM for "no registration" after he was stopped for a) speeding, and/or b)running two red lights.

The bodies were found after the family failed to answer an aunt's telephone call on Monday, and she telephoned Alex Jr. at Drexell, and he went home to check on the family. Initially, the police and even the coroner told reporters that all four victims had been shot in the head with either a shotgun or a high-powered rifle. However, they actually had been so savagely beaten with a metal pipe that the professionals could not distinguish the wounds from gunshot wounds. The only additional info on this case is that there was still some court activity going on in 1986.

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IN THE MATTER OF EZRA WADE AND HADASSAH WADE was a 1974 Oregon termination of parental rights proceeding. It is important to remember that at the time that, since 1966, the WatchTower Society had been forecasting Armageddon to occur in October 1975. In 1971, the State had taken custody of Ezra Wade and Hadassah Wade, then ages 3 and 5, children of Ralph Wade and Claudia Wade, and placed them in foster care. In 1974, the State pursued termination of parental rights and such was granted. The local court based this action on its finding that although the Wades were well-meaning and had maintained contact with the children throughout almost four years of foster care, the "unfortunate condition of mental illness of the mother and mental deficiency of the father" made them "physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically unable to function as parents." On appeal by the parents, the case was remanded to allow the children to have independent counsel, who would have the option of offering further evidence on behalf of the children, or, upon consideration of the record already made, waive production of further evidence. Outcome unknown. Pertinent remarks from the appellate court opinion:

The record shows that Mrs. Wade's illness includes a systemized set of delusions by which she is able to maintain that as a child she was transported to Earth from the planet La Moria in the galaxy of Andromeda, and has since the age of 13 been regularly corresponding, by way of a messenger, with her family remaining there. Mrs. Wade also believes that her children will be able to receive messages from La Moria when they reach adolescence in spite of the fact that they are "part Earthling." Dr. Morrison also testified that Mrs. Wade's condition would not change in the foreseeable future and that there were no social or mental health services available "that would help her beyond what she has already received." Ralph Wade apparently has an intelligence level which is within the "borderline range," and while he can do a reasonable job of taking care of himself he could not be expected "to cope with the problems of child rearing." Dr. Morrison also testified that the children are normal and active, and that, in effect, the necessity of their adjusting to, accepting, or compensating for the delusional peculiarities of their mother if they were to live with her would have a devastating effect on their future well-being.

Several witnesses testified that when asked about her plans for the future care of her children Mrs. Wade consistently responded by stating that no plans were necessary because of the imminence of the "millennium." The parents suggest that this disregard for the future care of the children cannot be considered as evidence supporting a decision to terminate because it is part of Mrs. Wade's religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. As a witness for the state, Mr. Forrest Farmer -- an "overseer" of the Witness faith -- testified that the parental obligations of Witnesses include the responsibility "to educate their children, to materially care for their children and to comfort them and take care of them in time of need." Mr. Farmer also indicated that these parental duties will remain the same after the commencement of the millennium.

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CALIFORNIA v. BRUCE LAVALLIS was a 1973 California murder court case. In May 1973, a Jehovah's Witness family argument on Campbell Street, in Oakland, California, ended in the death of Clemmie Parker, 34, after he was shot outside his home by his 18 year-old brother-in-law, Bruce Lavallis. Parker and his 22 year-old bride, Barbara Lavallis, had married in November 1971, and had moved into a house only one block from her family's home. At Providence Hospital, Clemmie Parker, Barbara Parker, and an unidentified Jehovah's Witness Elder all refused attempts to convince the Parkers to consent to needed blood transfusions. Parker died within a few hours. Outcome of prosecution unknown.

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ONTARIO v. DAVID BODEMER was a 1971-72 Ontario Canada KIDNAPPING-RAPE-MURDER prosecution of a Jehovah's Witness Minister and father of five children, named David Bodemer, then age 27, of Kitchener, Ontario. Although David Bodemer confessed in late 1971 to the kidnapping-rape-murder to some of the Elders at the Aylmer, Ontario Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, Bodemer pled "Not Guilty", and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1972. Tyically, in Canada, David Bodemer was released from prison in 1982. It is not known whether the currently PROMINENT Kitchener, Ontario JW Minister, "David Bodemer", is one and the same person, or possibly a son, or other relative.

In February 1966, Georgia Jane Jackson, a 20 year-old female member of the Aylmer, Ontario Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, went missing while walking home from work at the Aylmer Dairy Bar. David Bodemer, then age 21, and also a member of the Aylmer Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, participated in the "searches" for the missing fellow Jehovah's Witness. Georgia Jackson's corpse was not found until nearly a month later -- having been raped and smothered to death.

An interestingly part of this case is Dave Bodemer's confession. Dave Bodemer was employed as a sectionman by the Canadian National Railway. In 1970, the then 25 year-old Bodemer's secret criminal activities began to be publicly exposed. First, Bodemer was investigated by the police for theft and fencing of property stolen from CNR railcars. Shortly thereafter, Bodemer was arrested in Kitchener on charges of Breaking/Entering. That was followed by an arrest for Exhibitionism. All of these criminal activities resulted in multiple ongoing interactions with a "Judicial Committee" at the Aylmer Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. By Fall 1971, the Elders comprising Bodemer's Judicial Committee suspected that David Bodemer may have been the person who had raped and murdered Georgia Jackson back in 1966. Those Elders confronted David Bodemer with the WatchTower teaching that Armageddon was going to occur in October 1975. Bodemer was told that if he did rape and murder Jackson, and did not confess before Armageddon, that he too would be destroyed along with all other non-JWs. Bodemer confessed, and was disfellowshipped. Bodemer's confession was also reported to the police. Bodemer's arrest, prosecution, and conviction followed.

Interestingly, David Bodemer's father-in-law, Albert Crooker (daughter Elaine Crooker Bodemer), was the Congregation Servant of the Aylmer Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, but was demoted after Bodemer's arrest in January 1972. Critics claim that Crooker had covered for Bodemer for years with local law enforcement -- dating back to the initial police investigation of Georgia Jackson's murder in 1966 -- and that Crooker also had manipulated his fellow Elders at the Aylmer Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses until he could no longer do so due to Bodemer's well-publicized crime spree in 1971.

More interestingly, although Bert Crooker no longer controlled the Aylmer Body of Elders by 1973, when Daniel D'Haene's INCEST and child molestation was revealed to the Aylmer Congregation in 1973, D'Haene's crimes too were covered up by the Aylmer Congregation, and NOT REPORTED to police. Critics claim that given the recent BODEMER SCANDAL that there is no way in the world that the new Aylmer BOE would also have covered up this second D'HAENE SCANDAL unless they were directed to do so by the Legal Department of the WatchTower Society of Canada.

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ILLINOIS v. MAJOR PEERY was a 1971-79 Illinois murder case. In February 1971, Major Peery's Jehovah's Witness Wife moved out of the couple's home, with two or more of their younger children, and moved in with an older son, named Henry Peery, who was living-in-sin with a woman not his wife. Six weeks later, Major Peery went to the home of an older daughter to speak with his wife, where the couple got into a physical altercation in the kitchen, and Peery ended up stabbing and killing his wife. It is not known whether Peery was a JW, but if he was not, then he was someone who could interpret WatchTower doctrine better than many active JWs. During his trial, Peery testified that he told his JW Wife that he had reported to the Elders the fact that his wife was currently living with a son, who was living a life that violated WatchTower teachings regarding fornication and adultery.

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CHAUNCEY YOUNG SHOOTING. In August 1990, a 16 year-old African-American Jehovah's Witness, named Chauncey Darnell Young, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, died from an accidental shotgun blast to his head in his own home. Shortly after school, Chauncey Young, his older 19 year-old brother, and three "friends" visiting in the Young home began horse-playing with the Jehovah's Witness Family's arsenal of at least three firearms. A 12 year-old "friend" discharged the shotgun, and was later arrested. A JW spokesperson named Leon Buggs told reporters, "I'm sure it was accidental." Buggs described Young, who had a 3.5 GPA as "a model child". Leon Buggs stated,"[Young] taught others the Bible and spent many hours spreading the message door to door."

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JOHN BLACK SHOOTING. In December 1957, a 19 year-old African-American Jehovah's Witness, named John Black Jr., and a "friend" were "playing" with a .22 caliber gun, when it accidentally discharged -- with the bullet striking Black in the neck. Black still lived with his father and mother at their Kansas City home. When both he and his parents refused to consent to life-saving blood transfusions, the boy died two days later. Unknown if Black's "friend" was prosecuted.

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MARSDEN FAMILICIDE. In June 1953, in Noroton, Connecticut, 29 year-old Jehovah's Witness minister Harry E. Marsden arrived home from work only to discover a gruesome scheme. The headless corpse of his 25 year-old wife, Patricia Marsden, was lying in the hallway. She had blown off her head using a shotgun. Three year daughter, Patricia Marsden, also was dead in her bed -- from kitchen knife stab wounds, and from having her skull crushed with a hammer. Police closed the investigation speculating that Patricia Marsden simply had "snapped". You can damn well bet that there was much more to the story than that, but Jehovah's Witnesses have two responses to such happenings. LIE, or clam up.

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THE LELAND AGEE TRAGEDY. In August 1943, a Jehovah's Witness, named Leland Agee, 40, of Westley, California, died from "unknown causes" per the ruling of a coroner's inquest. Agee's death had initially been deemed "death by drowning" in an irrigation ditch. Agee's death may have been a suicide, but it is possible that Agee's death may have been accidental, and it is even possible that Agee may even have been murdered.

The main witness to the events of August 21, 1943, was his wife, Elna Agee, 28. Some of the details she provided either were contradictory, did not make sense, or raised more questions than they answered. Some details obtained from family and friends also were contradictory. Some of Leland Agee's eleven surviving brothers and sisters were suspicious. Such may have been due to the fact that Elna Agee's first husband was Leland Agee's brother, but it is not known whether Leland and Elna married due to that brother's death, and if so, the circumstances of that death are not know. In any event, Leland had been rearing three of his brother's children, as well a toddler and a 5 month-old baby of his own.

One main issue was the Agees' Jehovah's Witnesses religion. One media report described Leland Agee as having been a Jehovah's Witness for only "a few weeks", while another report had family and friends describing both Leland Agee and Elna Agee as "fervent followers" of the WatchTower Society for some time. Given that Jehovah's Witnesses are notorious for disclaiming any member who brings notoriety to the religion, how long Leland Agee had been a Jehovah's Witness is anyone's guess. Both claims may have been true in that the Agee family may have been associated with the JWs for some time, but possibly Leland or Elna had only recently been formally baptized. Whatever was the case, Kenneth Horton, a Jehovah's Witness "servant", from Modesto, California conducted Leland Agee's funeral.

One interesting detail that the authorities apparently overlooked as being unimportant in this case was the fact that JWs in this locale were away attending a WatchTower Convention on the weekend that Leland Agee's death occurred. That fact perks the ears of those familiar with JWs, because they know that all JWs are required to attend such conventions. The fact that the Agee family was at home that fateful Friday evening most likely is significant to what eventually occurred early Saturday morning.

The seven Agees were a poor family. Leland Agee worked as a farm laborer on a ranch where the family also lived, near Westley, California. Around 3:00 AM, on Saturday, August 21, 1943, Leland Agee woke his wife, and allegedly told her to get the family ready to go for a ride "to see St. Peter" -- verbiage reported by Elna Agee, which may or may not have been something a poorly educated Jehovah's Witness in the 1940s might have used, assuming that was what actually occurred, and assuming that was what Leland Agee actually said.

Supposedly understanding that Leland Agee was intending to kill the entire family, Elna Agee curiously willingly roused her five children and put them in the family's auto. According to Elna Agee, they drove for a short distance until Leland spotted an electric pole for which he aimed the family auto, but managed only to graze that one. Leland Agee supposedly laughed loudly and aimed directly for the next pole, crashing into it head-on. The pole broke off, and the power lines fell onto the car, and burned holes through the metal roof.

Curiously, if any of the children were injured in the crash, such was not reported. In contrast, Elna Agee claimed that she was knocked senseless in the crash, plus she also suffered a broken nose and a badly bruised knee, as well as other cuts and bruises. Elna Agee claimed that when she regained consciousness, Leland Agee claimed that one or more of the children told her that Leland had taken off across a field "on his way to heaven". Elna claimed that she simply told the children, "No use looking for him, he's gone to heaven." Elna Agee claimed that she and the children then walked back home and went to bed. The next day, Saturday, she and the children walked and hitch-hiked to Wesley, where they reported the events to the police. A search near the accident scene failed to find Leland Agee.

However, on Tuesday, the body of Leland Agee was found in an irrigation ditch about two miles from the accident scene. The coroner did not do an autopsy, because Agee's body was supposedly already too far decomposed in the hot California weather. Most people simply dismissed Agee's death as the result of mental illness due to religious fanaticism. They probably were correct -- but just not the way they thought.

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KENTUCKY v. HIRAM HENRY JONES was a 1934-36 Kentucky capital murder prosecution of a Jehovah's Witness Minister which has been both HIDDEN and OBFUSCATED since the 1930s by the families of Hiram Jones' four now deceased Jehovah's Witness Daughters -- Fanny Mae Hines of Middletown, Ohio (wife of Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Columbus Hines); Gertrude Hale of Piqua, Ohio; Mellie Gilliland of Piqua, Ohio; and particularly Beatrice "Rose" Jones of multiple locations in Ohio and Kentucky -- all of whom, including their father, "professed" to be "one of the 144,000", or "one of the Anointed Remnant".

Although the fatal shooting which gave rise to this CAPITAL MURDER PROSECUTION had been occasionally mentioned over the decades, children and grandchildren of Hiram Henry Jones's own children were told that Hiram Jones was NOT PROSECUTED because he had shot Herschel Gilliland in self-defense. We know of no current survivors of Hiram Jones who knew that this court case existed -- until now. That's the "hidden" part. The "obfuscated" part is the fact that whenever the shooting and surrounding circumstances were mentioned occasionally by Hiram Jones' children to their own children and grandchildren, those circumstances were so LIED about that no two current survivors were ever told the same set of circumstances, thus, none of Hiram Jones current survivors had even a halfway accurate account of the shooting and surrounding circumstances. ALL of Rose Jones' own children believed that the shooting had occurred in Crab Orchard, Kentucky (wrong), and some believed that Herschel Gilliland died at the time of the shooting or shortly thereafter (also wrong). This criminal prosecution of Hiram Jones only recently became known to his 21st century survivors after a brief blurp about the court case was posted in a "News From The Past" type column published in February 2014 by the Somerset Commonwealth-Journal. Interestingly, the Managing Editor of that newspaper is Ken Shmidheiser, who is also the COBE/Presiding Overseer of the Somerset Kentucky Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. THANKS, KEN!!!

Hiram Henry Jones was born in 1872, into poverty in Bell County, Kentucky, which is located in the Appalachian mountains of southeastern Kentucky only a few counties over from where the Hatfield - McCoy feud was ongoing at that time. From 1893 to 1896, H.H. Jones spent three years in California as a "Private" in the U.S. Army. After returning home to Kentucky, Hiram Jones may have been employed by the L&N Railroad -- possibly working in some type of administrative position at the Corbin, Kentucky regional facility around 1900. Thereafter, still in the mid 1900s, Jones went to work for the East Tennessee Telephone Company. In 1904, Jones was transferred to Stanford, Kentucky, and made the new Manager of the telephone exchange in Lincoln County -- just in time for a controversial rate increase. Spending only six months at the Stanford office, Jones was transferred to the Nicholasville telephone exchange in adjacent Jessamine County, in late 1904.

2016 ADDENDUM: KENTUCKY v. HIRAM JONES was a MURDER prosecution conducted in Bell County Circuit Court from 1901-03. In October 1901, a worktrain was derailed by obstructions allegedly placed on the track by a Bell County resident named "Hiram Jones", whom newspapers described as a disgruntled former L&N employee who had once worked as a "brakeman". The engineer died, and many other L&N employees were seriously injured. Notably, our "Hiram Henry Jones" was not the only "Hiram Jones" who was born in Bell County, or who may have been living there, during this same time period. However, we can't connect any of the other suspects to being L&N employees just prior to the derailment. To make a long story short, despite the trial initially being set quickly for December 1901, continuances and a resulting appeal pushed the prosecution into 1903 -- when the case was either dismissed by the Prosecutor, or tried with Jones being found "not guilty". Whichever happened, this Hiram Jones then attempted to sue L&N for slander, but lost that civil lawsuit at trial level. However, that decision was reversed, and we don't know if there was a new trial, or whether L&N may have settled. Frankly, this fits with our newly named "H. H. Jones" then being found working for ETTC in Lincoln and Jessamine Counties in 1904-05, and relocating to Tennessee soon thereafter.

Around 1905-06, Hiram Jones relocated his family to Scott County, Tennessee, on the Kentucky border. It is not known whether Jones was transferred there by the East Tennessee Telephone Company, which was constructing new service in Scott County at that time, but Jones eventually went to work at a new booming lumber mill in nearby New River, Tennessee. It is believed that it was while the family lived in Tennessee from around 1905 to 1911 that Hiram Jones became interested in the teachings of Charles Taze Russell and the WatchTower Society.

Around 1911, Jones relocated his family to a farm which he had purchased on Greasy Ridge, back in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Sometime between 1912 and 1915, in nearby Waynesburg, Kentucky, Hiram Jones started a small factory to manufacture steering wheels for the new automotive industry. (Given his prior employment at the Tennessee lumber mill, Jones may have initially opened a lumber business in Waynesburg.) It is also believed that Hiram H. Jones began spreading the WatchTower gospel -- that Jesus Christ was going to literally return in October 1914 -- throughout southern and southeastern Kentucky during his business travels to purchase raw timber. After the failure of the WatchTower Society's predictions for 1914 and 1915, and failure of Jones' manufacturing business possibly due to his religious expectations, Hiram Jones relocated to Piqua, Ohio, in early 1916, where he was employed by the Hartzell Walnut Propeller Company, which manufactured aircraft propellers for the Wright Brothers and other aircraft manufacturers. Jones progressed to Plant Superintendent.

During his ten years spent in Piqua, Ohio, Hiram H. Jones also founded a small oil prospecting company named the Greasy Ridge Oil & Gas Company (original capital of $10,000.00 quickly increased to $20,000.00), which unsuccessfully attempted to prospect in the McKinney oil field of Lincoln County, Kentucky, from 1919 to 1921. Jones and four other local Piqua investors apparently never made a profit, and sold their equipment in 1921/22. Jones may have partnered with the local Lincoln County purchasers of such to form I.J.(G.?) R. Oil Company, in 1922, which had initial capital of $15,000.00. There is no indication that Jones ever made any money from these direct prospecting ventures, but Jones did make money investing in the stocks of other oil and gas companies. Even in 1934, Jones was identified as an "oil man". (Fellow researchers should note that an oil prospecting company which newspapers called "Greasy Ridge Oil Company" prospected in both southeastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania around the exact same time -- late 1910s. May be the same, but probably not. Beware that there was a Greasy Ridge oil field in southeast Ohio around that same time -- which misdirected us on this sub-topic for some time.)

Just as Jones had felt it necessary that he leave Lincoln County, Kentucky after the WatchTower Society's promises for 1914 and 1915 failed to come true, Hiram Jones also felt that he should leave Piqua, Ohio, after the WatchTower Society's promises for 1925 also failed to come true. In 1926, Hiram Jones relocated back to Kentucky -- only this time to Science Hill, in Pulaski County, which is adjacent to Lincoln County, on the then main north-south U.S. Highway 27 route through central Kentucky, where Jones and his four adult sons opened a combination lumber, oil, and gasoline business.

FOOTNOTE: Hiram's wife, Mary Ellen Jones, who remained a true tobacco-chewing, whiskey-drinking "hillbilly" until her death in 1972, was "sharper" than her white-collar corporate manager husband. Mary Ellen Jones became known as "Granny" by the time her grandchildren started getting older in the 1940s, and the 1960s Beverly Hillbillies character by that same moniker was a clone of this real-life outspoken hillbilly "Granny". After the WatchTower's predictions for 1914 and 1915 failed, "Granny" had seen enough, and she not only distanced herself from the WatchTower's nonsense, but she attempted to keep her eight teenage children from getting caught up in it again. It wasn't until the early 1930s that Hiram's four grown married daughters finally embraced the WatchTower's gospel (over the later decades they failed to mention that they had at one time OPPOSED the WatchTower Society). In her elderly years, "Granny" had no choice but to tolerate her four daughters' WatchTower religion. However, she would mock both the WatchTower Society and individual JWs whenever she was forced to listen to their formal and informal preaching. "Granny" had lived through 1914/15, 1917-19, 1925, the Depression years, WW2 years, the Korean war years, etc. and she knew what the WatchTower Society had taught and preached through all those trying times. According to outspoken "Granny", the WatchTower Society's prophecy teachings were "all bullsh!t". Such did not stop Granny's JW Daughters from claiming that Granny was a loyal JW. Granny received a JW funeral when she died in the early 1970s.

From 1926 until 1936, Hiram H. Jones was a prominent businessman in central Kentucky who opened gasoline station combination businessesalong US 27 and SR 39, in Stanford, Somerset, Science Hill, Crab Orchard, Eubank, and possibly other small towns in Pulaski and Lincoln counties. Anointed Jehovah's Witness Daughter Beatrice "Rose" Jones and her "*common-law*" husband, Herschel Gilliland, operated two of those businesses for Hiram H. Jones from around 1930 until 1934 -- first, a grocery store/gasoline station located in Crab Orchard, and thereafter, a restaurant/gasoline station located in Stanford. They had one child born apparently out-of-wedlock in April 1931 -- a son named Carroll Victor Gilliland (deceased). (**No marriage records have been located for Herschel and "Rose". Their son was conceived in July 1930. The 1930 Census, taken prior to her May birthday, listed "Rose" as living in Piqua, Ohio with her sister Mellie Gilliland, who was married to Herschel's older brother -- Aubrey Gilliland. "Rose" was not going to school, nor was she employed. Her marital status was "single".)

Under definitely obfuscated circumstances, and at some possibly obfuscated time prior to his being transported late on Sunday night, October 14, 1934, to a hospital in Danville, Kentucky (adjacent county), Herschel Gilliland was shot one time by his employer/partner -- Rose Jones' father, Hiram H. Jones. The bullet reportedly entered Gilliland's upper abdomen three inches below his heart, and exited out his back near his spine. Mysteriously, Herschel Gilliland's condition was reported as "good" on Monday morning (making us wonder whether the shooting might have occurred sometime prior to the alleged time of 8:00 PM the previous evening, and that there had been prior treatment before Herschel was finally taken to the hospital in Danville). However, after "suffering intensely" for more than 12 days, Herschel Gilliland, age 27, died on Saturday, October 27, 1934, at the Danville Hospital. Herschel's funeral was held Sunday afternoon at the home of decades-long Lincoln County Court Clerk, Victor C. Gilliland, the namesake of Herschel's three year-old son, Carroll Victor Gilliland. Herschel H. Gilliland was apparently buried in an unmarked grave in the Gilliland Family Cemetery located near Eubank, Kentucky.

Hiram Henry Jones was NOT immediately arrested, but was later indicted on a charge of first-degree murder by a Lincoln County Grand Jury on November 22, 1934. Hiram H. Jones was tried on June 4th and 5th, 1935, but the jury "hung" -- reportedly with 8 of the 12 jurors voting "Guilty". H. H. Jones was tried again on May 28th and 29th, 1936, but the second jury returned a quick "Not Guilty" verdict. (Apparently, someone (Rose) did NOT testify at trial #2 whom had testified at trial #1.)

The shooting and drawn-out prosecution greatly upset the life of the Jehovah's Witness Minister who had had loudspeakers installed on the roof of his Science Hill, Kentucky home so that he could blast the small town with WatchTower President "Judge" Rutherford's recorded sermons. Jones was reportedly continuously ill after the shooting and death of Herschel Gilliland. Hiram Henry Jones died in his sleep less than five months after finally being acquitted -- on October 21, 1936. Jones' obituary claims that he died of a heart attack.

Herschel Gilliland's status as one of Jehovah's Witnesses "typically" can not be established. Decades later, on top of all the other negatives connected with his early demise, Herschel Gilliland's already sufficiently disgraced non-JW family is not about to have remembered nor be willing to admit anything which might point to Herschel's possible association with the "Jehovah's Witnesses", and obviously, under the circumstances of his death, Rose Jones' Jehovah's Witness family would never admit that Herschel Gilliland ever had any connection whatsoever to the Jehovah's Witnesses.

This court case is actually more about Rose Jones than her father (deceased 1936) or her husband (deceased 1934). Rose Jones eventually lived all but a few months of her remaining long life only a short distance from where all the aforementioned events occurred. Professing to be "one of the 144,000", or "one of the Anointed Remnant", Rose Jones maintained much respect and prestige within the local Jehovah's Witness community for decades until her death in the 1990s. Yet, non-JWs -- wherever she lived -- did not have the same "gut feeling" about Rose Jones as did her fellow Jehovah's Witnesses.

Although the events of this murder prosecution occurred in the 1930s, over the decades there have been isolated instances of people who recalled old memories regarding such. One man, whom had been a teenage customer of the grocery store in Crab Orchard, vaguely recalled decades later that local Lincoln County residents had placed the blame for Herschel's shooting and the deaths of her husband and her father entirely onto Rose Gilliland. Others have allegedly recollected that Rose Gilliland continuously stirred the "jealousy" of the alleged alcoholic Herschel Gilliland -- either by feigned or actual "affairs" with other men -- and that she would then seek refuge with her parents whenever Herschel was sufficiently enraged to lash out at her. In plain language, some people believe that at best Rose Jones was a "flirt", and at worst, Rose Jones was a serial adulteress.

After Herschel Gilliland died in October 1934, Rose Jones and her young son moved back in with her parents into their Science Hill, Kentucky home. By only August 1936, the 26 year-old Rose Jones was pregnant with her second child, and was "claiming" to be re-married to a younger 23 year-old "mamma's boy" who was living in Science Hill with his much older brother. However, the only marriage license which we can find for Rose Jones and this second husband is dated "June 1941". By June 1941, Rose had already had her third child, a daughter named Shelby Jean, in 1940. It is not known what triggered the ANOINTED JEHOVAH'S WITNESS to decide to finally get married in accordance with "the law of Caesar" in June 1941. Interestingly, rather than getting married in central Kentucky and revealing her hypocrisy, Rose and her second husband traveled out-of-state to Scott County, Tennessee (where Beatrice "Rose" Jones was born) to obtain their marriage license, which they then proceeded to obtain by providing FRAUDULENT information to the county officials. Rose Jones and her second husband both provided fraudulent variations of their birth names and inaccurate residences. In fact, "Rose Jones" -- apparently NOT her birth name -- signed the marriage license simply as "B. Jones", rather than signing the paperwork with her birth name -- "Beatrice Jones" -- which she reportedly had disliked since childhood and had informally changed to "Rose B. Jones". "B. Jones" also fraudulently listed her June 1941 residence as "Piqua, Ohio", even though she had not lived there, or anywhere else in the state of Ohio, since 1937/8.

In later decades, particularly when she was mad at her Second (actually First) Husband, Rose Jones privately told both her second Son and other relatives that "Second Husband" was NOT the father of her second Son, even though that second son had been named after "Second Husband", and even though "Second Husband" was listed on Second son's birth certificate. Interestingly, after the death of her father in October 1936, the "supposedly married" Rose Jones went to live with her two sisters in Piqua, Ohio, and she delivered "Second son" in Piqua, in May 1937. If Rose Jones was married, why was she not living with that new husband back in Science Hill, Kentucky in May 1937? (Interestingly, Rose Jones' last child, a son born in 1945, favored Rose Jones' famous male Anointed Jehovah's Witness BFF more than he favored her husband. Interestingly, Rose Jones openly admitted that her famous male Anointed Jehovah's Witness BFF had picked the name for her last child.)

Who did Rose Jones later occasionally allege was the actual father of "Second Son"? Rose claimed that the father was actually the much older married brother of "Second Husband". Interestingly, sometime after "Second Son" was born in Piqua, Ohio, OLDEST BROTHER set up Rose Gilliland and his Youngest Brother in a business located in London, Kentucky (two counties away from Science Hill), around 1938. There is NO EVIDENCE that they had lived together until they moved to London. When that London business soon burned down, OLDEST BROTHER once again set them up in a business located in an adjacent county. After running that business for OLDEST BROTHER for several years, Oldest Brother simply GAVE that business to Youngest Brother. Decades later, at his retirement, Youngest Brother, in turn, essentially GAVE that same business to "Second Son". When he died in the 1990s, Youngest Brother still split his estate equally between ALL CHILDREN (including step-son Carroll V. Gilliland, who spoke terribly about his step-father at any opportunity), without consideration that he had already GAVE the largest asset in his lifetime to the Son whom Rose Gilliland had long privately alleged was actually the SON of OLDEST BROTHER.

As noted above, the circumstances of the fatal shooting of Herschel Gilliland by Hiram Jones has been both HIDDEN and OBFUSCATED from the time such occurred, and particularly afterwards by Jehovah's Witness members of the Jones family. Practically all family members related that the shooting had occurred at the Crab Orchard business location, and different family members tell differing tales as to the circumstances.

In the latter 1960s, while they were alone, a JW grandson of Rose Jones asked her to tell him in detail about the events of Herschel Gilliland's death. Rose Jones stated that Herschel and she had gotten into an argument at their Crab Orchard home/business, and that she took her son, Carol, and fled to her parent's home in Science Hill. Sometime later that evening, Herschel came to her parent's home to retrieve his wife and son. Rose's parents denied Herschel entry into the home because he was drunk and angry. When Herschel attempted to force open the locked front door of the home, Hiram Jones "shot through the front door" and struck Herschel. Herschel was taken back to his Crab Orchard home, where Rose cared for him several days before he eventually died. (Interestingly, over the decades, Rose Jones repeatedly related to various persons how 3 year-old son, Carol, had laid in the bed with Herschel AT THEIR HOME during the days leading up to his death. However, there is no indication that once Herschel was taken to the Danville Hospital immediately after the shooting supposedly occurred on Sunday, October 14, 1934, that Herschel ever returned back home. That is why we suspect that the shooting may have occurred earlier than was told to law enforcement, and that the entire story told to law enforcement and to two different juries may have been FABRICATED to keep Hiram Jones from going to prison.)

At the two trials, Hiram Henry Jones' defense team related to the court that the routinely drunken Herschel had once again routinely beat Rose, whom had fled withher three year-old son to her parents' home in Science Hill. Hiram Jones traveled to the restaurant/gasoline station managed by Herschel and Rose just outside Stanford, Kentucky to "talk" with Herschel. (We can't help but wonder whether Herschel and Rose -- who BOTH drank like fish -- were also "bootlegging" at the both "dry" Stanford and previous Crab Orchard locations.) There, at around 8:00 PM, on Sunday, October 14, 1934, with supposedly NO OTHER PERSONS AROUND, Hiram Jones and the inebriated Herschel Gilliland supposedly got into an argument. When the 30 year-old Gilliland threatened the small, 5'8" tall, 62 year-old year-old Hiram Jones with physical violence, Jones pulled his pistol, which he had fortunately brought with him. Gilliland then physically attacked Jones. Gilliland and Jones allegedly struggled over the pistol, and Herschel was ACCIDENTALLY shot in the upper abdomen. Herschel was quickly transported to the Danville Hospital in an adjacent county. (We wonder whether the shooting did not occur Saturday night rather than Sunday night, and whether Rose was actually present, and whether Herschel might have been treated at home for a day prior to being taken to the Danville Hospital, or even first transported to the Crab Orchard location, where Rose usually later told that the shooting occurred.)

Unfortunately, we don't know if Hiram Jones testified in his own defense, and we don't know whether Herschel Gilliland spoke with law enforcement, or even doctors and nurses, during the 12 days that it took him to die, and if so, what he related. We don't know if Rose Jones testified at either trial, nor what she said if she did so. Which one of the above version of events was the "truth", and which were "fabrications"? If you were arrested, indicted, and being prosecuted for FIRST DEGREE MURDER, which story would you rather have told to a jury in hopes that they would find you "Not Guilty" by reason of "self-defense" -- that you had shot the deceased while he wrestled with you in an attempt to take your pistol away from you, or that you had shot the deceased "through your front door", while he stood on your front porch?

During the remainder of her life, the "Anointed" Jehovah's Witness Rose Jones maintained a number of other "secret habits" which essentially DESTROYED the lives of her sons and daughters, and severely NEGATIVELY IMPACTED the lives of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren -- all while she lived her own double life on a Jehovah's Witness pedestal.

2016 ADDENDUM: We just discovered what triggered H. H. Jones' death, which is listed as Wednesday, October 21, 1936. On the day of or before Jones' death, Tuesday, October 20, 1936, there was an ABSOLUTE AUCTION of H. H. Jones residence and businesses at Science Hill. Jones sold his main "beautiful" residence, which was located on 2.5 acres one mile south of town, and his multiple businesses located inside Science Hill -- restaurant, gasoline station, multiple fuel storage tanks, two storage buildings, and two residential dwellings.

Since we now know that Jones' home actually was one mile south of Science Hill, instead of inside the city limits as Rose Jones always portrayed, assuming that her story was true about her father having loudspeakers installed on the roof of his home so that he could blast Judge Rutherford's sermons, then the loudspeakers were installed on the roof of one of his multiple other buildings located inside the city limits -- not on top of his home.

The ABSOLUTE AUCTION scenario raises many new questions. Keeping in mind that October 1936 was still in the GREAT DEPRESSION, why would anyone put up at absolute auction his prize properties unless that person was being forced to pay off business creditors? Or, pay his large legal bill? Or, was the extremely mobile Jones' going to once again relocate somewhere out of state? Jones was dealing with both the MURDER and being a JEHOVAH'S WITNESS. Whatever actually motivated the ABSOLUTE AUCTION, did it really cause Jones to have a heart attack later that night, or DID JONES COMMIT SUICIDE???

What happened or had happened to Jones' other properties in Somerset, Stanford, Eubank, and Crab Orchard? Were they sold due to possible financial problems, or for similar reasons as the Science Hill properties??? This raises YET ANOTHER LIE TOLD FOR DECADES BY ROSE JONES. She consistently claimed for decades that her father "left" all of his estate to his four sons, and left his four daughters little or nothing -- Rose Jones receiving ZERO. In actuality, there is no evidence that Jones' sons received any significant assets after the death of Jones. Most indications are that Jones' resume as a MURDERING JEHOVAH'S WITNESS MINISTER, along with the Great Depression, resulted in the total failure of his small business empire, and that death by SUICIDE is equally as possible as it from a heart attack.

Still more questions come from additional research that indicates that Jones' wife, Mary Ellen Jones, continued to live at Science Hill for several years after her husband's death -- until she relocated back to Ohio. Did some of the dwellings go unsold, or did she rent, or did she move in with one of the sons who may have had his own home somewhere in or around Science Hill? Son, Stanley "Ned" Jones, divorced his SH wife and left his SH children at some point, and relocated to Dayton, Ohio. Had Mary Ellen moved in with him, and caused the divorce? (If any MIL could do it, she could.) Were Ned's and his mother's departures from Science Hill to Ohio simultaneous?

Rose Jones and her siblings, and all their children, LIED so abundantly and so frequently, and attempted to rewrite history so much so, that the phrase "the truth" is reduced to a JOKE!!!!

2021 UPDATE: The 1936 obituary of H. H. Jones that was published in the Piqua, Ohio newspaper based on information supplied by Hiram Jones' four Jehovah's Witnesses Daughters listed daughter "Rose" (Beatrice, actually) with the surname of the man whom Tennessee legal records PROVE she did not marry until 1941. INTERESTINGLY, the H. H. Jones Obituary published in the local Somerset, Kentucky newspaper listed her correctly as "Rose Gilliland".

Another INTERESTING fact contained in that Somerset Obituary was that H. H. Jones' wife, Mary Ellen (Jackson) Jones, and Son Stanley "Ned" Jones, were vacationing at a Tennessee resort at the time of Hiram Jones' probable suicide the night after the forced sale of the family's businesses and residences. NOW, is the time to REVEAL that over the decades multiple family members quietly expressed their suspicions that Mary Ellen Jones had carried on incestuous sexual affairs with her four sons and had sexually molested her four daughters -- whom nearly all were sexual perverts and/or addicts.

Unknown by surviving family members, Hiram Jones' brother, Ewell Jones also owned a house at Science Hill, Kentucky. He sold such and relocated to Stearns, Kentucky not long after this MESS.

Hiram Jones' widow, Mary Ellen Jones, apparently had secreted away MONEY that was NOT captured by the family's creditors, which she used to purchase another home in Science Hill (possibly Ewell Jones' home). In March 1949, Mary Ellen Jones placed an advertisement in the local newspaper offering her home for sale. Only a week later, her home was a total FIRE loss that occurred while she was home alone. Fortunately, Mary Ellen Jones had INSURANCE, which she pocketed, while she then moved in with her children.

"FERD"

For those family members who are familiar with "Ferd", hang on to your shorts. Well, "Ferd" was NOT a left-behind high school friend of "you-know-who". "Ferd" was 11 YEARS older than "YKW" -- making "Ferd" a grown man when he first began continuously associating with the teenaged "YKW". "Ferd" later followed "YKW" to London and then MV, where "Ferd" lived above YKW's business, and where the never-married 43 y.o. "Ferd" mysteriously died six years later -- possibly from complications of his repeated tonsils infections. Maybe there were multiple reasons that Arthur was anxious to relocate away his mid-20s also-uninterested-in-females baby-brother and the "Rose". (Of course, this is even more evidence pointing to Arthur being the real father of baby-brother's first child, and famous JW being the father of baby-brother's last child.) One grandson of YKW relates that he never was comfortable with the way YKW looked at him when YKW would occasionally see him naked. An at-the-time-17yo granddaughter relates a forced "enema" incident with old YKW that could be viewed as sexual molestation.

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THE EMMANUEL SHAPIRO TRAGEDY. Sometime around 1938 or 1939, a Jewish teenager then living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came into contact with local Jehovah's Witnesses, who eventually were able to turn the "boy" into one of their own. Having been reared in Judaism, the Jehovah's Witnesses were the boy's first and only exposure to "christianity" and the New Testament.

At first, this must have been quite a shock to his Jewish parents, Mr/Mrs Julius Shapiro. But, the shock likely did not last long as reality set in, and their Jewish relatives, friends, and neighbors whispered about young Emmanuel Shapiro preaching the WatchTower gospel on the streets and sidewalks of Pittsburgh. Undoubtedly, there must have been a lot of stress in the Shapiro home as Emmanuel probably continued his recruiting efforts once he went home.

On Monday, March 18, 1940, young Emmanuel Shapiro prepared to leave his home to go handout WatchTower flyers and play Judge Rutherford's records. His mother encouraged him to eat something, but he left home without eating. Emmanuel's mother did not see him again until sometime Thursday. Emmanuel either stayed with some of his new Jehovah's Witness "family", or he had fashioned himself a bed and living quarters in the basement of the "Kingdom Hall" he attended, which was about a mile from his parent's Hill District home. (That so-called "Kingdom Hall" sounds as if it was a typical old downtown multi-story masonry building.)

When Emmanuel's mother answered his knock at the door on Thursday, she instantly knew that something was wrong. Emmanuel was as white as a sheet. Emmanuel smiled, and pulled his arms from his coat pockets Emmanuel's mother probably nearly feinted. Emmanuel proudly displayed both blood-soaked arms. It would have been easy to see that his hand was missing from his bloody left arm. It probably took some time to figure out that only one finger was missing from Emmanuel's bloody right hand.

Fortunately, for both Emmanuel and his mother, the Police soon arrived, and Emmanuel was transported to Mercy Hospital. The Police hopefully had been notified by the Jehovah's Witness who was the first person to learn of Emmanuel's self-mutilation, and not someone who saw or talked with Emmanuel during his mile-long walk back to his parent's house.

The Jehovah's Witness, who first discovered Emmanuel's self-mutilation, found Emmanuel sitting in a chair in the basement of the "Kingdom Hall". Blood was everywhere, and Emmanuel's left hand was laying on the floor. On a nearby workbench, a butcher knife had been clamped into a vise sharp-side up. A bloody large hammer laid on the workbench. Evidently, Emmanuel had first amputated a finger from his right hand before amputating his entire left hand. The amputation was performed by laying the finger and the hand across the knife's blade, and then striking the body part with the hammer. It was probably the cleanness of the cuts that kept Emmanuel from dying from blood loss before he received the delayed medical attention, that undoubtedly include blood transfusions.

Emmanuel was eventually transferred from Mercy Hospital to St. Francis Hospital for psychiatrist observation. Emmanuel was eventually transferred to a local mental facility. Emmanuel refused to explain to his parents or doctors why he did what he did, but his "mission from Jehovah" was not over. Emmanuel now believed that it was Jehovah's will that he die, so he refused to eat as a way of committing suicide. Emmanuel Shapiro slowly died in early June 1940.

It is unknown whether Pittsburgh JWs were guessing based on previous conversations, or whether Emmanuel had explained his actions to the JW that found him, but the JWs believed that Emmanuel had been obsessed with Jesus' statement: "And if thy hand cause thee to stumble, cut it off; it is good for thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having thy hands to go into hell." One local JW commented regarding such, "You can find anything in the Bible."

A JW Overseer indicated that Emmanuel had been staying in the basement of the so-called "Kingdom Hall", rather than staying at home, because he had been intensely studying the life of Jesus Christ in preparation for the upcoming annual celebration of "The Lord's Evening Meal", or "The Memorial", which is the WatchTower equivalent of Passover.

It is anyone's guess as to what "crap" the Pittsburgh JWs had initially put into the mind of the immature and obviously unstable Jewish boy in order to get him to convert from Judaism to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Additionally, at the time of Shapiro's conversion, the WatchTower Society was changing its' teachings regarding whether new converts would go to heaven, or live forever on earth. Then, there is the question as to why Emmanuel would want to mutilate himself, and then later commit suicide. It is almost like Emmanuel Shapiro had been given a "messiah complex" by "someone". The Jewish boy's given name was an easy target for anyone wishing to manipulate someone naive with regard to Christianity and New Testament teachings.

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JEHOVAH'S WITNESS MOTHER

DROWNS HERSELF AND TWO YOUNG DAUGHTERS

In August 1932, at around 10:00 P.M. on a Sunday evening, an unidentified motorist stopped to get water for his car's radiator at Duck Pond, which was just outside Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when he heard a cry for HELP from 10 year-old Louise Simmons. Louise had been marooned on a small island located in the center of the pond for about an hour before that motorist conveniently was forced to stop for water.

Earlier that same Sunday evening, at around 8:30 P.M., Louise Simmons' father, William Simmons, had heard his dogs tree a possum, and he had went out to the nearby woods to retrieve his dogs. When he returned home, Simmons discovered that his automobile was gone, as were his wife and three daughters.

Louise Simmons, whose family lived about 12 miles outside Tuscaloosa, eventually explained to her rescuers and Alabama authorities that on that Sunday evening as her bedtime neared, that after her father left to retrieve his dogs, that her mother, Ottie Simmons, told Louise and her two younger sisters, Dorothy, age 8, and Helen, age 6, that they were going to go somewhere in their car.

Ottie O. Kirkland Simmons (mother), age 28, first drove to Druid City Lake, which she circled several times -- fruitlessly hoping for several persons to leave. Ottie Simmons then drove into Tuscaloosa to the home of her parents, but they were still at a late religious camp meeting. Ottie Simmons then drove to the nearby Duck Pond, where she stopped. There, Ottie Simmons told her three daughters that she was going to "baptize" them.

After taking off their dresses, Ottie Simmons and her three girls held hands and waded out into the pond. There, Ottie Simmons apparently attempted to drown Louise first. Louise broke free from her mother's grip and managed to make it to the small island in the center of the pond. Thereafter, Ottie Simmons proceeded to drown Dorothy, Helen, and herself.

William Simmons told the authorities that his wife had been behaving strangely ever since she had converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses and had been attending their meetings and distributing WatchTower literature. Undoubtedly, there were events that occurred that Sunday which were not related to the media.

For multiple instances of Jehovah's Witnesses converting isolated and lonely Wives/Mothers and thereafter destroying the homes/lives of their unconverted husbands, read our multiple DIVORCE court cases -- starting with the 1940s cases.

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ROY MACIVOR SUICIDE. In July 1918, a Canadian "Bible Student" named Roy MacIvor unbelievably shot himself in his head because he was a "conscientious objector", and he was anticipating receipt of a draft notice as were other local males.

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MORE MILLENNIAL DAWN DEMONS!!!

Until Sunday, March 1, 1896, Charles W. Ramsey, age 40, and his wife, Effie Kunkle Ramsey, age 35, were "numbered among the most highly respected and intelligent people residing in the Tuscarora Valley". The Ramseys lived and worked on a farm belonging to Charles' father near East Waterford, Pennsylvania. "Their married life has been without issue, and in consequence no sorrow and wretchedness is entailed upon the offspring."

On Monday morning, March 6, 1896, Charles Ramsey's father, Samuel Ramsey, on arriving at the Ramsey's farmhouse, discovered the Ramsey's furniture and most other household items thrown outside of the house. Effie Ramsey was found murdered inside -- lying face down on the kitchen's hearth, with her head and face pounded into a pulp and her brains scattered about the room. The nearly naked, nearly frozen, and badly beaten Charles Ramsey was found hiding in a nearby barn.

Arrested and jailed, the erratic -- passive/aggressive -- Charles Ramsey asked to be taken to the Insane Asylum at Harrisburg. Ramsey claimed that around10:00 P.M. on Sunday evening that a DEMON had entered the couple's home and told the couple that one of them was be a "sacrifice". Ramsey supposedly fought long and hard with the Demon, but he had been unable to stop the Demon from sacrificing Effie. At the same time, Ramsey also realized that it was Effie with whom he had been fighting, and that it was he that had beaten Effie to death with a club -- but only because he somehow had become subject to the Demon's authority, and the Demon had commanded him to kill Effie. Charles Ramsey died a week or so later. We are unsure whether Ramsey died as a result of his injuries and exposure, or whether he committed suicide.

This news story received national coverage. At the inquest, neighbors had claimed that Charles and Effie Ramsey had recently been reading one of the MILLENNIAL DAWN volumes, and that as a result, BOTH of them had been acting very strangely in recent days. The Ramseys had become especially fearful of others, and had locked themselves inside their home for several days, and had refused to come out. The Ramseys even spoke to neighbors standing outside about a pending "sacrifice" -- making their own neighbors afraid of them. One nationally syndicated and distributed news article revealed:

HE DRANK HER BLOOD. FIENDISH CRIME OF A PENNSYLVANIA FANATIC. ... For nearly two years past, Ramsay had been reading and studying the Bible and the various theological works embraced under the general heading, "The Millennial Dawn". Latterly, he had become completely absorbed in the novel plan of salvation therein described, and was an enthusiast, in season and out of season. Not only Ramsay and his wife, but certain members of both of their families had become involved with the new doctrine. Some of them had become active canvassers for the publications, and were occasionally persistent to the verge of offensiveness. ...

When Charles Taze Russell caught wind of this news story, he directed some "unknown" local Bible Student to obtain affidavits from the Ramsey's local doctor, Effie's brother, John Kunkle, and Samuel Ramsey, which claimed that only Charles Ramsey was "insane", and that he had been so since he had been hit on the head by a robber 18 months previous. Those persons claimed that it had been six months since the Ramseys had read any WatchTower literature, and that Charles had not even accepted Russell's teachings. Charles Taze Russell then sent the three affidavits along with his own letter to publishers of the original reports. Some apparently published Taze's rebuttal, while other did not. In his own egotistical insanity, Taze Russell failed to realize that in 1896, noone knew or cared who had published the literature read by the Ramseys -- just like today, 120 years later. Who do you suppose gave the Ramseys that WatchTower literature. Guaranteed to be one or both of the testifying family members. What did the neighbors have to gain by lying?

Interestingly, Charles Taze Russell included this letter from one of his followers in the July 1, 1897 issue of his WATCH TOWER Magazine:

One of the simple modern devices for awakening interest and leading on to fuller "mediumship," "possession" and "control," is described in a letter just received, dated March 11, '97, from a Christian lady, a school teacher in Georgia, and a deeply interested student of God's plan of the ages. The writer says:--
" ... My husband's brother is a Spiritualist, Some time ago he bought a Psychograph, an instrument used by mediums for communing with spirits, but he could not use it.
"A few days ago it was placed in my hands, and, as I found I was a medium, I resolved to "try the spirits." ... When asked what he (a demon) wished to say he cited us to Titus 3:5, said MILLENNIAL DAWN doctrine is true, ...
"The next day I tried the wheel or Psychograph again, and was told that a dear good friend of mine who had lived in speaking distance of me for several years was talking to me. ... She (another demon) said she regretted that she had not given DAWN the attention that I had wished her to, ... one claiming to be Eastman ... One claiming to be Cephas ... Another, claiming to be my father ... all (demons) professed to believe in Christ and that [MILLENNIAL] DAWN is a correct exponent of God's Word, ... "

In the very next issue of the WATCH TOWER magazine, Russell included a second similar letter:

Another letter received recently from Florida, from a brother in Christ, a WATCH TOWER reader, well educated in several languages, informs us concerning some peculiar experiences recently had with these "seducing spirits." He became aware of the presence of invisible spirit beings, and they (demons) seemed to manifest a curious interest in his work: he was translating MILLENNIAL DAWN into a foreign language.

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In the Second Adventist religious community, May 1879 is notable for Charles Taze Russell's publishing/printing of the first July 1879 issue of ZION'S WATCH TOWER and HERALD OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE magazine, and the EDITH FREEMAN MURDER, as reported by The New York Times (edited):

"Charles F. Freeman, the Pocasset [, Massachusetts] farmer who lunged a knife into the heart of his little daughter Edith on Thursday morning last, became converted to the ultra views of Second Adventism about a year ago. ...

"Farmer Freeman became a leader among the Second Adventists. He believed it his mission to preach, and was a zealous exhorter. That great things were in store for him as a missionary among the faithless of the world he did not doubt. As time passed, he came to regard it as his duty to make some great sacrifice, which should result in a miracle and fix the attention of mankind upon the new faith. Some time ago he announced this belief to several of his fellow worshipers. Two weeks ago, as he says, the long-expected revelation of the necessary sacrifice came to him in the night. It was then indicated to him that a member of his family must die by his hand. He talked the matter over with his wife, and persuaded her not to stand in "the Lord's way," as they both considered it. They had two daughters, Bessie, 7 years old, and Edith, 5 years old. The latter was a sunny-haired child, the pet and idol of the household. The father prayed long to know who was appointed as the victim. He says that he prayed that it might be himself, but it was not to be. After patient waiting the second revelation came, late in the night of the murder. The pet Edith was pointed out as the sacrifice. The father was taken aback, but dared not resist the command of God. He awoke his wife and told her what was demanded. Then the mother's heart refused to acquiesce in the unnatural deed. She begged hard for her darling's life, but the husband was inexorable. Working on his poor wife's fear of displeasing God, he at last gained her consent. The scene that followed is horrible beyond precedent. After Freeman had knelt and prayed that he might be spared the test of his faith, he nerved himself for murder. He felt he that he was another Abraham, and that God would either stay his hand or else raise his daughter from the dead, as a reward for his obedience. Then he and his wife went into the bedroom, where their two children lay sleeping, side by side. The mother carried the eldest to her own room. Freeman turned down the bed-clothes from the form of little Edith, raised the knife which he had provided for the occasion, and waited to see if God would not interpose. After a vain watch, he bent forward over the child, and with great care plunged the knife into Edith's heart. There was an exclamation, and all was over. The insane father clasped his pet in his arms, and held her until he was certain life was extinct. Then he laid down and slept by her side, satisfied that he had done the will of God.

"When the news of the murder was told to his fellow believers, although staggered by such a proof of faith, they joined Freeman in holding that God would restore the child to life. There was some protest, but so infatuated was this entire following, comprising more than a score of respectable people in Pocasset and its vicinity, that they did not look upon the action as a crime, and beloved with the perpetrator that it was done by God's command.

"There was among the Second Adventist band, therefore, the deepest surprise, chagrin, and confusion today at the failure of little Edith to rise from the dead. Their faith did not waver in the least; and as an instance of this unparalleled credulity a Journal reporter telegraphs that last night he talked with Mrs. Swift, the child's grandmother, who begged him not to mention to [Bessie], the other child, anything about the murder, saying that there was no need of her knowing anything about the affair, because Edith would be alive again in the morning. Two or three of these peculiar people, however, doubted whether the resurrection would take place to-day, all, nevertheless, being sure that it would come soon. These few are not disheartened, but claim that the truth of their doctrine will yet be shown. But others mutter about 'God breaking his promise.'

The funeral services took place in the Methodist Church this afternoon, the little edifice being crowded to suffocation and hundreds standing around the outside of the building. The Pastor, the Rev. Mr. Williams, assisted by the Baptist clergyman of the village, conducted the services and improved the opportunity to give the deluded Adventists, who all the while kept their eyes on the coffin, some sound advice. He said a great deal in a few words, warning them to give up their false belief while their reason remained. The funeral being over, Alden P. Davis, the leading spirit in the Advent company, now that Freeman is in jail, attempted to make a speech, but was ordered to keep quiet or submit to arrest. When the body had been removed to the little grave-yard, Davis mounted a grave and made just such a speech as might have been expected, saying that he was an infidel until two years ago, when God revealed himself to him. He eulogized the murderer until the crowd interrupted with cries of "Choke him," "Bury him in the open grave," and a scene unparalleled in recent New-England history ensued over the coffin and the grave. No violence, however, occurred."

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DARWIN E. ELMER SUICIDE. In December 1859, a 25 year-old sewing notions store operator in Cleveland, Ohio, named Darwin Elmer, was found dead in his store. Elmer had moved to Cleveland from New England only a few years previous. Elmer was a Second Adventist of undisclosed affiliation; as were his relatives, and the Clevelanders with whom he boarded. Elmer had hung himself. Elmer's cash, notes, and other valuables were in his pockets. Second Advent literature was scattered about the store. A suicide note blamed depression caused by dred of a recently failed Second Advent prediction.

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In May 1844, 21 year-old Elizabeth Trimble, of Buffalo, NY, committed suicide by jumping in the Niagra River. She was mentally disturbed after attending a Second Adventist meeting the evening prior. She also may have had SA family given that she was from Rochester -- a SA hotbed.

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RECOMMENDED READING:
Short BIBLE TOPIC Readings Selected For Those With Jehovah's Witnesses Backgrounds
Wifely Subjection: Mental Health Issues in Jehovah's Witness Women
Jehovah's Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness
The Theocratic War Doctrine: Why Jehovah's Witnesses Lie In Court

Blood Transfusions: A History and Evaluation of the Religious, Biblical, and Medical Objections (Jehovah's Witnesses perspective)

Blood, Medicine, and the Jehovah's Witnesses: The Hidden History of the Watchtower's Position on the Blood Issue

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