OFF THE GRID
New Mexico has seen its share of fringe groups in remote places
There are plenty of wide open spaces in New Mexico where people seeking to live off the grid can find starry nights, the sound of the wind through the trees — and few prying eyes.
Some of those folks are loners. Others are just checking out of the urban rat race. Others come to practice their religion in monasteries or remote farms in ways that harm no one.
But New Mexico’s remote areas have also attracted groups on the fringe of society who end up in the crosshairs of law enforcement — and often it’s because of their treatment of the children who live in the communes.
Groups like the five adults and 11 children found living in primitive and squalid conditions north of Taos earlier this month. Or the self-described revolutionary Christian group that Cibola County Sheriff’s deputies moved in on last year near Fence Lake,
removing roughly a dozen children. Or a 70-member compound in Union County where “Messiah” Wayne Bent ended up being convicted in 2008 of criminal sexual contact.
Calling such groups “cults” is something the FBI rarely does. The FBI doesn’t even like the use of the word cult because it is easily misused and was historically used to describe religious groups like Mormons, Quakers and other groups now considered mainstream religions.
Instead, the FBI has issued risk factors to law enforcement on when they should be concerned about a religious group, couched in careful phrasing because the Constitution protects an individual’s right to religious beliefs. The key issue in those risk factors is a threat of violence to members, children or to people who don’t belong to the group.
Calling the group living north of Taos a “cult” would be pushing the limits of the information so far released by law enforcement agencies.
The father of one of the men and two of the women arrested at the compound is an imam at a New York City mosque that was linked to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center because a member of the mosque was involved in the bombing. And there are allegations of “terrorism,” but they are based in large part on the single statement from one of the children while in foster care that he was being taught to shoot so he could commit a school shooting.
In fact, the FBI was treating the case as a domestic kidnapping across state lines.
All five adults have been charged with child abuse based on what deputies found when they raided the compound — little or no food; children dressed in rags; putrid living conditions with no electricity or plumbing.
The group came to the attention of federal and local law enforcement last December when Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, allegedly kidnapped his 3-year-old son, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj — who was medically fragile, had seizures and walked with a limp — during a custody dispute with the boy’s mother.
During a search of the property, investigators found the remains of a small boy, believed to be Abdul-Ghani, buried on the compound. The Office of the Medical Investigator says it could take weeks before a positive identification is made.
But the grandfather, Siraj Wahhaj, told reporters that family members identified the remains as that of his grandson. He also said he has been cooperating with the FBI in trying to locate the child since he was taken and his information led the FBI to the compound in New Mexico.
Federal agents had the compound under surveillance for two months but didn’t move earlier because agents never sighted the father or the boy.
Taos County Sheriff’s deputies finally acted after receiving word that the people inside the compound were starving.
Deputies found the compound filled with firearms and ammunition, as well as what was described as an escape tunnel.
But other than the alleged threat to the well being of the 11 children living there, and the custodial interference charge, the adults arrested in the raid of the Taos County compound didn’t seem to meet the FBI’s other risk factors for dangerous religious groups. These include recruiting members; setting an exact date for the imminent transformation of life on Earth; promulgating specific prophecies; or targeting violence against specific enemies.
That cannot be said of several other communes that called New Mexico home.
Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps
Last year, Cibola County Sheriff’s deputies moved in on a remote area near the sparsely settled Fence Lake area south of Grants after receiving allegations of child abuse by members of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a selfdescribed revolutionary Christian group that uses anti-Semitic and antiLGBT language on its website.
Deputies had been investigating the death of 11-year-old Enoch Miller for almost two years before the raid.
Investigators said they were stymied by members changing their names, failing to register the births of children with the state, and moving between properties owned by a church supporter.
According to deputies, former members said the sect’s leaders had physically abused adult members and children and forced them to work in slave-like conditions.
James Green, the group’s co-leader, told The Associated Press the allegations were “all fake.”
The group was formed in the early 1990s in Sacramento, Calif., and left there after losing a $1 million civil lawsuit filed against them by a former member.
The church had a paramilitary organizational structure, with the leaders called generals.
Green and co-founder Deborah Green face charges of kidnapping, obstructing an investigation of child abuse and tampering with evidence.
He is scheduled for trial in December. Her trial is scheduled for September, according to court records.
Another leader of the group, Peter Green, also known as Mike Brandon, faces 13 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, two counts of kidnapping, seven counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor and other felony charges.
Cibola County Undersheriff Michael Munk gave a glimpse into his agency’s two-year investigation of the sect: Former members say followers were treated like slaves and children were often beaten. Several of them were born at the compound, with no records filed anywhere of their births.
That investigation led to the raid last August of the group’s Fence Lake compound during church services and the arrest of four members.
Firearms and silencers were seized by deputies during the raid.
While former members say the group was able to keep abuse quiet by training children not to talk to police, Munk said the sect also evaded the law by moving and operating in seclusion.
About a dozen children were taken into the custody of the Children, Youth and Families Department.
Wayne Bent and The Lord Our Righteousness Church
Wayne Bent, now 77 years old, claimed to be anointed by God to be a messiah in 2000 at the time he brought his 77 followers to the Strong City compound in Union County northwest of Clayton.
For years, The Lord Our Righteousness Church operated there until he was charged in 2008 with criminal sexual contact with two teenage girls, contact that he maintained was a “healing exercise.”
The parents of the girls left the church, taking their children, and told another former member about Bent lying with the naked girls and touching them. The former member called the authorities, leading to the investigation and criminal charges.
When visited by a Journal reporter in 2008, the compound was described as serene with small modular homes shaded by trees where the 70 members of the church lived. Church members were conservatively dressed and voiced their support for Bent, who they believed was the “son of God.”
Bent began a starvation fast to protest the criminal charges. His followers joined in his fast. He denied he was leading them on a suicidal path.
In an interview with a Journal reporter, Bent said he had a religious conversion in 1967, moved around as a minister until God spoke to him while he was a Seventh-day Adventist minister in Idaho.
Bent said after God spoke to him, he moved his ministry and followers to the compound in northeastern New Mexico.
He predicted that the world would end Oct. 31, 2007. His followers say he was misunderstood.
He was convicted of one count of criminal sexual contact with a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but received an early release to supervised parole because of health problems in 2016. He is registered as a sex offender in Union County.
After his release, online postings on his website said he had been persecuted.
“My greatest offense in all the world was that I showed myself independent from them and my testimony was that I was led of God. For this they called me a ‘cult leader,’ but there is no ‘cult’ greater than theirs. Our church does not persecute those who are different, but they have persecuted us. The ‘free country’ myth has been exposed,” according to what was called his “final letter.”
Heaven’s Gate
One of the most infamous religious groups that settled for a while in New Mexico was Heaven’s Gate, founded in 1975 by Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles.
More than 20 years later, 39 members, including Applewhite, committed suicide by taking phenobarbital mixed with applesauce and washing it all down with vodka in a gated community in San Diego.
Applewhite’s New Mexico connections began in the early 1970s prior to his religious conversion when he ran a restaurant in Taos. He would return later seeking followers.
Applewhite told people he was related to Jesus and that his followers would reach a higher state of being if they took up his teachings.
In 1995, members of Heaven’s Gate purchased a former youth camp and rented office space in the small ranching community of Mountainair, southeast of Albuquerque.
Heaven’s Gate members were adults from around the country. Some had left good jobs to join the group. Others were considered New Age hippies.
Group members left Mountainair in 1996 when they put their property up for sale.
The group had also camped on Bureau of Land Management property 15 miles west of Bernardo, south of Belen, without causing any problems. As many as 40 or 50 members would join the camps, which lasted for a few weeks each summer for two years.
About 10 members occupied the youth camp off and on for about a year.
Applewhite eventually set up shop in Southern California. Applewhite’s teaching evolved into a complex New Age/ UFO belief system that attracted people from diverse backgrounds.
To simplify: They believed the Earth was going to be “wiped clean” and they needed to evacuate. Applewhite claimed a spacecraft was trailing the comet Hale-Bopp and that the souls of those committing suicide would board the spacecraft.