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 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…
Scandal NY Post .com Jeane Macintosh April 9, 2001 A bizarre upstate cult that uses kid laborers to churn out products – some in Robert Redford’s catalog – is under scrutiny by state labor officials following a Post report on their practices. In the wake of the Post’s report Sunday on the Twelve Tribes cult’s…
MSNBC.com March 13, 2001 Beauty company Estee Lauder could be facing another ugly controversy. The cosmetics giant recently angered actors when Liz Hurley crossed Screen Actors Guild picket lines to do commercials. Now it seems the company was unwittingly using child labor. What’s more, the alleged young workers were apparently part of a group that…
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…
In 1987 my parents had been in a cult called “the Twelve Tribes” for two years. My mom gave birth to me without the assistance of any doctors, anesthetics, nurses, or hospital beds. It is forbidden to go to hospitals or have a normal life in our cult. Yoneq, our leader, had made these things…
Source: Twelve Tribes-ex.com Scholastic Scope March 9, 1998 Natasha was born into what most people would consider a cult, but what she came to call the “community.” She grew up moving from town to town and house to home with her parents, living with dozens of other adults and kids who weren’t part of her…
The Buffalo News Janet Gramza April 27, 1997 When the phone call finally came, Laurie Johnson’s heart soared. After an eight year search for her two sons, authorities had found them in a small town in Florida. But the moment she had prayed for held little joy. When she finally met them, her sons refused…
Teen Magazine 4/97 It’s weird how we found out about the New Kingdom Church. When I was 4, my Mom had some film developed- but it was accidentally sent back to the New Kingdom Church instead. They returned it with some papers about what they said was the “best community in the U.S.” My Mom…