Don’t ridicule shamed Pathways church members – therapist

RESPECTED WESTERN Jamaica-based family therapist Dr Beverly Scott wants the members of the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries, where a deadly cult ritual took place last month, to be treated with compassion, not ridicule.

Scott said that several members of the controversial Paradise, St James, church are in need of extensive counselling and therapy for healing from trauma.

“The last thing we should do is to condemn these people because they did not go into this place expecting somebody to be killed, but they joined the ministry for refuge,” Scott told The Gleaner.

“I have spoken to a couple of them, and they are embarrassed and ashamed. They feel used, and they feel like they do not have any sense.”

In a bizarre sacrificial ritual on October 17, two congregants, Taneka Gardner and Michael Brown, were killed. A third, Kevon Plummer, was shot dead by the police when they breached the building.

Kevin O. Smith, the disgraced pastor of what has been widely described as a cult, died in a car crash a week afterwards while being transported from St James to Kingston to be formally charged with murder.

Thirty-nine of the 41 church members who were arrested in the aftermath of the police raid subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the Disaster Risk Management Act when they appeared before the St James Parish Court on October 27. They were each fined $30,000 or 20 days in jail.

According to Scott, the 15 children who were present during the ritual and raid will need special therapy and reassurance that they are not at fault for what happened. The children were taken into state custody following a special sitting of the St James Family Court. Some of them have since been released into the care of relatives.

“It is double trauma for the children, both what they saw and the fact that they were taken from their parents,” said Scott. “They would be wondering what they have done because children believe that when something happens to them, it is that they have done something wrong, but they have to understand that they are not the cause of what has happened.”

Andre Ruddock is the lone person facing a murder charge arising from the incident.

ANGUIN/PHOTOGRAPHER ASHLEY Scorched walls are telltale signs of an overnight fire that caused minor damage to the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries church in Paradise, St James, on Monday. The church was the site of an alleged cult ritual that claimed the lives of two congregants.