Mom seeks to save kids from cold hands of cult

The Palladium Times

Andrea Schrader

December 16, 1991

Scriba – A pained expression came over her face and her eyes widened and welled with tears.

“I’m afraid of repercussions the church might take against my children because of what I’m doing,” she said.

Laurie Marrano Jonson’s children have been missing for two years.  The Northeast Kingdom Community Church which is a cult and also known as “The Community” is allegedly hiding Jonson’s children.

But as Anthony Padrone, chief assistant investigator of children’s rights of Pennsylvania says: “Where does it say in the Bible that it’s right to keep children from their mother?”

Twelve year old Nathan and eight year old Seth may be with their father, Northeast Community Church member Stephen Wooten, 34, near the church’s Island Pond, Vermont location.  However, children’s Rights founder and chief investigator Tom Watts believes the children may have been separated from their father and each other.

Wooten has had an Essex County, Vt., arrest warrant out on him for two years for the charge of custodial interference.  The maximum penalty is five years in prison and/or $5000.

“Separating the boys would make things more difficult for us,” Watts said.  “It’s a cult thing.  Not only does it make things harder for us, but it makes the boys more vulnerable.”

Under the guidance of Watts and Padrone, Laurie and her second husband Dave, a nuclear mechanic with Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., have launched a full-blown search for her children.  The Children’s Rights investigators ask only for the payment of expenses, but it adds up.  The couple has already taken out a $5,000 loan this year for the search.

When the people Dave works with at NMPC learned of the search, they collected $800 to help out.

“When they gave me the money, one of the guys said this is from our children to your children ….. It reminded me of that saying, ‘The world’s tallest man is the one who kneels down to help a child.”

Cult tactics

Laurie married Wooten, an ordained minister, in 1976.  The family joined the Northeast Community Church at Island Pond in 1986.  After what she describes as two years of intense emotional and physical trauma, Laurie said she was finally able to break away from the excessively male-dominated cult.  She said she had no money, no identification and no sense of self worth.  “They broke me,” she said.  “I needed four months of complete bed rest before I felt well again.”

 Family desperately seeks two children

Watts said Laurie’s poor health could be attributed to cult power tactics, including brainwashing and a diet low in protein and other important nutrients.  The cult strips people of their identity making them extremely dependent on the church and “less likely to leave,” when they are persuaded to hand over their personal identification and other belongings, said Watts.

When she fully recovered and gotten her life in order, the Essex county Family Court awarded custody of Nathan and Seth to Laurie but that same day, Wooten and the boys disappeared.

Today, Laurie worries continually for the mental and physical well being of her children.  She is concerned about the alleged fanatical “spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality of the cult and believes her boys are hammered with untrue, terrible stories about why she left the church.

Watts, who has been involved in several missing children cases involving cults, claims Laurie’s fears are justified.

The cult certainly tells stories about how evil their mother is …. They probably have been told she’s dead,” Watts explained.  “When Laurie gets her sons back, she can expect two very traumatized children that will need intensive care.”

“My biggest fear is that when we do get them back, that much physical and psychological damage will have been done that they won’t want to come out of the church,” Laurie said.

Legal developments

Vermont attorney Susan Davis, of the Essex County State Attorney’s office, said that Nathan and Seth have been spotted in the Island Pond area over the last few months and that church members allegedly tear down posters of the missing boys.

According to Davis, the attorney general has already granted law officials approval to expedite Wooten outside of Vermont.  Davis also said a federal flight to avoid prosecution warrant on Wooten is also in the works.

“These people (the church) hide and abuse children, and we’re going to take them out, we’re going to stay on them until we find Laurie’s boys or until they give them up,” Investigator Padrone said.  “These kids are treated in a criminal manner and the children have no choice.”

Efforts to contact officials and legal advisors of the Northeast Community Church in Boston and Burlington, Vt., who can comment on the case have proven unsuccessful for more than a month.  The Palladium Times left numerous messages for church officials but they have not responded.

Mom recalls extreme abuse

Scriba – During the mid – 1980’s newspapers from coast to coast carried reports on court actions taken against the Northeast Community Church for the alleged thumping of children as well as truancy.

Ex-church members came forward with detailed accounts of how church children were punished; stripped naked, boys and girls, from toddlers to teens, and hammered for hours upon hours with a thin wooden stick.  Reports indicate the children were belted from neck to ankle.

With search warrants in hand, Vermont state officials and police raided the communal homes of the church members and rounded up all the children for physical and psychological exams.  However, before the examinations could take place, a Vermont district judge stepped in and refused the state permission to conduct the examinations.  According to court reports, the judge felt that insufficient evidence negated a mass raid on the church people.

During her two years with the cult, Laurie Marrano Jonson said she was aware that such buffetings were taking place.

I remember a mother whose infant son would cry at the (communal) dinner table,” the former cult member recalled.  “She often took the child out of the room and begged him with tears to stop crying because she was terrified (the elders) would bash her one-year old son.”

She remembers with great pain witnessing the punishment of a six year old boy whose father recently died.

“His father was known as a liar in the community.  The elders wanted everyone to believe his lying caused his death….  No one really knows how he died; some kind of accident,” Laurie said.  “They continually told the boy he would be a liar because his father was.  One day the little boy told a meaningless fib and as punishment, he was laid in a box (used to symbolize a coffin) the lid was closed, and he was told he was dead.  We all gathered to watch, even the children.”

Laurie paused, wiped the tears from her eyes and continued, “He was crying and screaming and begging to be let out.  Nathan was crying and pulling on my arm and saying, “Mommy, please let him out.”  I didn’t move…..I couldn’t believe what was happening.  I just couldn’t believe it.”