Jan 6, 2020

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/6/2020




Jehovah's Witnesses, Psychic Scam, Mormon, Preparing A People, Mexico, LDS

'Authorities raided homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in northern Russia as part of a criminal probe into extremism against the banned religious organization, investigators said in a statement Monday.

Russia banned the Christian denomination known for door-to-door preaching, close Bible study and rejection of military service and blood transfusions in 2017. Rights groups have condemned the crackdown against the Jehovah's Witnesses as a violation of religious freedom.

Investigators in the city of Murmansk accused worshippers of "knowingly conducting the activities of the religious organization from April 2017 to the present time."

The believers "held meetings, personally delivered sermons, distributed religious literature and involved new people in the activities of an extremist organization," they said in an online statement.

The investigators identified the alleged perpetrators but did not appear to have detained anyone.

"It's unclear who the case is initiated against," the U.S.-based Jehovah's Witnesses organization said on its website.
Two Murmansk-based worshippers were earlier this year indicted as part of a separate extremism case that was launched in 2018."

"It was 2007 when the Med Student received what must have seemed like a sign from God. As she wandered into the Galleria, the 27-year-old was pondering everything that had happened to her recently—her mother's death, her breakup, the fact that she was now alone, a Brazilian immigrant in Houston, praying for guidance—when the girl spied her.

The girl, a teenager with large brown eyes and dark hair, walked up to the Med Student, introduced herself as Jacklyn Miller and, taking in her teary face, invited her to her reading parlor. The crying woman was in trouble, the 17-year-old said. And she was the only one who could help.

By the time Bob Nygaard, a Florida-based former police officer who specializes in investigating psychic scams, was on the case, seven years had passed. Over that period the Med Student had given the psychic—a woman from South Florida whose real name is Sherry Uwanawich—more than $500,000 to rid her of a family curse. (The Med Student, who has gone unnamed in court documents, declined to be interviewed for this story.)

How could such a thing happen? "The psychic is offering a very powerful product," Nygaard tells Houstonia. "They're selling false hope. And who doesn't want to hear that your terminal cancer won't kill you, that your husband will come back to you, or that you're going to get a better job than the one you just lost? It's human nature."

Think you'd never fall for such a scheme? Nygaard says it can happen to just about anyone. "There's an art to it, and kids in families that run these kinds of operations start learning how to do it when they're still toddlers," Nygaard says. 'I'm not saying there's no such thing as psychic ability. That's not what this is about. This is about how some people use the promise of these abilities to swindle their victims out of everything.'"

"Tylee Ryan, 17, and 7-year-old Joshua 'JJ' Vallow have not been seen since September. After they were questioned about the missing children, their mother, Lori Vallow, and step-father, Chad Daybell, disappeared from their home on November 26

"REXBURG, IDAHO: The parents of two children who went missing from Idaho two months ago were reportedly involved in a secret cult. 

Tylee Ryan, 17, and 7-year-old Joshua 'JJ' Vallow have not been seen since September. After they were questioned about the missing children, their mother, Lori Vallow, and step-father, Chad Daybell, disappeared from their home on November 26 and are yet to be located by the authorities. 

The children's aunt, Kay Woodcock, told Radar Online that after Vallow and Daybell wrote a number of books revolving around the end of the world, they were kicked out of the Mormon church. They eventually ended up becoming the leaders of a cult called Preparing A People."

"Authorities in Mexico have arrested a municipal police chief there for his alleged role in the killing of nine women and children in early November, Reuters reported.

The victims were all U.S. citizens who have lived in a fundamentalist Mormon community in the border-area between the U.S. and Mexico for decades. Three mothers and six children were traveling in a caravan of three cars near La Mora, Mexico, when assailants opened fire on the vehicles.

Reuters reports that Fidel Alejandro Villegas, who is the police chief of Janos in the neighboring state of Chihuahua, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the crime. While the news organization says he is suspected of having ties to organized crime, it doesn't say how he is allegedly linked to the slayings.

Police have said the victims were killed after being swept up in a fight between two feuding drug cartels, and the killings prompted comments from U.S. President Donald Trump, who said the U.S. would help "in cleaning out" the cartels, as well as from those who want polygamy legalized in the U.S."




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