November 12, 2002 Cheryl Lewczyk In a large communal home members of the Twelve Tribes sect have established themselves. They see themselves as the true disciples of Yahshua (Jesus) but shockingly are true disciples of their “Apostle” and founder Elbert Eugene Spriggs. The Twelve Tribes are a Bible-based cult. Before the gathering starts where the…
Article by ex-member from USA Our households gather at the beginning and end of each day to thank and praise our creator and “Apostle” Elbert Eugene Spriggs for all that he has done for us. During the gatherings all baptized members regurgitate the teachings of our cult leader Elbert Eugene Spriggs (Yoneq). In an interview…
The Kansas City Star/August 5, 2002 By Matt Stearns Warsaw, Mo.– Here in central Missouri, members of the Twelve Tribes religious group welcome visitors with gentle smiles and quiet conversation. They break from dipping beeswax candles and baking bread to explain why they live the way they do: separately, simply, at odds with the wider…
Boston Herald Dave Wedge September 5, 2001 A New York man, distraught over his friend’s total immersion in the Twelve Tribes, has set up an “underground railroad” to help teens flee the allegedly abusive, mind controlling cult. “When we pick these kids up, they’re afraid,” Kevin Coughlin said of the former members he has helped…
Source: Boston Herald, Sep. 5, 2001 Former hippie Joellen Griffin left her home in the Midwest in 1975 for a booze and drug addled road trip with friends, but ended up taking a 21 year detour into the bizarre and dangerous world of Elbert Eugene Spriggs and his Twelve Tribes cult, she said. “I would…
Source: Boston Herald September 5, 2001 Dave Wedge While his loyal followers toil in shops and factories or work the fields for the common good of the Twelve Tribes, the controversial cult’s elusive leader Elbert Eugene “Yoneq” Spriggs travels the globe, bedding down in palatial homes in southern France, Brazil and Cape Cod, former members…
Boston Herald September 4, 2001 Dave Wedge The Cult Next Door: Teen Shares Chilling Tale Of Alleged Abuse Inside The Twelve Tribes Sect After years of being abused, forced to work in factories, brainwashed and denied a normal childhood, Zebulon Wiseman finally found the strength to run from the “high control cult” he says robbed…
New York Post Jeane Macintosh April 8, 2001 For some children of the Twelve Tribes, the beatings begin in infancy and sometimes don’t stop until they’re old enough to have kids of their own. They start working as young as 2 or 3, and by 13 or 14 are expected to quit home-schooling to work…
Jeffrey Brown’s trail of deceit extends beyond a Taunton home to Middleboro and Lakeville where he had ties to the New England Institute of religious Research. The Enterprise Newspaper Terence J. Downing Sept. 2ooo Air Force veteran Jeffrey F. Brown is charming, witty, intelligent, a super chess player, can fix just about anything and is…
Source: The Burlington (Vermont) Free Press From The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, June 18, 2000 By Nancy Bazilchuk ISLAND POND — John Dodge, 23, looked a little out of place at the Twelve Tribes church’s community gathering Saturday. An Island Pond native, he grew up calling the church members “Moonies,” threw pennies on the roofs…