Thirteen children—ranging in age from 8 months to 15 years—were starved, imprisoned, beaten, and medically neglected by their father, Winnfred Wright (left), and his four wives (from left to right) Carol Bremner, Deirdre Wilson, Mary Campbell, and Kali Polk-Matthews. Wright’s fifth wife, Susan Weber, who had left Wright’s cultlike home around 1990, had two additional children with him (one of whom died in infancy). The children were homeschooled.
The children were beaten with a belt, had their mouths covered with tape, and were forced to eat chili peppers as punishment. One girl was “tied to a playpen at night for two weeks as punishment for eating during a fast”. The children were kept to a strict vegetarian diet and many of them had bone deformities due to poor nutrition. They were not permitted to leave the house and the windows were often covered. The children never visited the doctor or dentist and most were found to have rickets when they were rescued.
The abuse came to light in 2001 when 19-month-old Ndigo Campisi-Nyah-Wright died of malnutrition and the women brought him to the emergency room. Authorities then removed the other children from the home. Bremner, who had leukemia, died in state custody, and the charges against Polk-Matthews were dropped. The others pleaded guilty to child endangerment; Wright was sentenced to 16 years in prison, Campbell to 10, and Wilson to 7.
Date: November 13, 2001
Location: Marinwood, California Read More
Posted: January 10, 2015 by clmccracken
4 Children by Daniel Sweetman
Four children, including a 9-year-old boy, his 8-year-old sister, and a 10-year-old boy, were sexually abused by their babysitter, Daniel Sweetman, around March 1991. Sweetman was the son of Julius Schacknow, the leader of a new religious movement to which the children’s families belonged. The children in the group had been homeschooled since 1988 on Schacknow’s orders after a teenager had disclosed abuse to one of his teachers.
Sweetman was convicted of sexual abuse and sentenced to a year in prison.
Date: August 28, 1991
Location: Hamden, Connecticut Read More
Posted: January 9, 2015 by clmccracken
Amber Dawn Lee, and 10 children by Arvin Shreeve
Amber Dawn Lee (b. 1971) is one of at least 10 children who were sexually abused by Arvin Shreeve, the leader of a polygamist new religious movement called the Zion Society. Like the other children in the group, Amber was homeschooled, which she states “consisted solely of singing, scripture, and penmanship”.
The abuse came to light when police raided the group’s compound in August 1991 based on Ron Van Drimmelen’s report that Shreeve had sexually abused his 7-year-old son and Kori Christofferson’s report of other sexual abuse of children that was occurring in the group. Shreeve pleaded guilty to sodomy and sex abuse of a child and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he later died. Nine other adults in the group, including Sharon Kapp, Jennifer Shreeve, Amy Partridge, and Mark W. Lichfield, were also sentenced to prison time for sex crimes against children.
Date: August 1991
Location: Ogden, Utah Read More
Posted: January 9, 2015 by clmccracken
Aaron Norman
Aaron Norman, age 10, died of untreated juvenile diabetes after a beating intended to heal him. His parents, Bobbie and Judith Norman, who were members of a new religious movement known as the No-Name Fellowship or Champaign-Urbana Ministries, believed in faith healing and failed to seek medical assistance for him. Aaron was homeschooled.
Bob Norman was convicted of first-degree manslaughter. Several other adults—including Douglas Kleber, founder of the Fellowship, and Jeffrey Siegel, the group’s former pastor—were convicted of criminal mistreatment in conjunction with the case.
Date: December 20, 1987
Location: Mead, Washington Read More
Posted: January 8, 2015 by clmccracken
Dayna Broussard, and 53 children by Eldridge Broussard
Dayna Lorrae Broussard, age 8, was beaten to death by four adults—Willie K. Chambers, Brian J. Brinson, Constance Zipporah Jackson and Frederick Paul Doolittle—in the Ecclesia Athletic Association, a new religious movement run by Dayna’s father, Eldridge Broussard Jr. After her death, 53 other children were removed from the compound, showing signs of systematic beating and food deprivation. The children were homeschooled.
Chambers, Brinson, Jackson, and Doolittle were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Broussard, along with three other members of the group, was later indicted for child slavery; Broussard died of natural causes before he could be brought to trial.
Date: October 13, 1988
Location: Sandy, Oregon Read More
Posted: January 7, 2015 by clmccracken
A.S. and L.S. by Wayne Bent
Two girls—A.S., age 16, and L.S., a.k.a. Healed Travesser (pictured), age 14—were sexually abused by Wayne Bent, a.k.a. Michael Travesser (pictured). The girls were the children of John and Elsa Sayer, who were members of the Lord Our Righteousness Church or Strong City, a new religious movement led by Bent, who claimed he was the Messiah. The girls were homeschooled.
John Sayer and his family left the church around August 2006 after Bent told him God had ordered him to sleep with seven virgins, including Sayer’s two daughters. The younger girl later returned to Bent’s compound on her own and was removed by social services along with two other children in April 2008. Bent was found guilty of criminal sexual contact of a minor (committed against the older girl) and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Bent was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Date: April 22, 2008
Location: Clayton, New Mexico Read More
Posted: January 5, 2015 by clmccracken
13 children of Winnfred Wright
Thirteen children—ranging in age from 8 months to 15 years—were starved, imprisoned, beaten, and medically neglected by their father, Winnfred Wright (left), and his four wives (from left to right) Carol Bremner, Deirdre Wilson, Mary Campbell, and Kali Polk-Matthews. Wright’s fifth wife, Susan Weber, who had left Wright’s cultlike home around 1990, had two additional children with him (one of whom died in infancy). The children were homeschooled.
The children were beaten with a belt, had their mouths covered with tape, and were forced to eat chili peppers as punishment. One girl was “tied to a playpen at night for two weeks as punishment for eating during a fast”. The children were kept to a strict vegetarian diet and many of them had bone deformities due to poor nutrition. They were not permitted to leave the house and the windows were often covered. The children never visited the doctor or dentist and most were found to have rickets when they were rescued.
The abuse came to light in 2001 when 19-month-old Ndigo Campisi-Nyah-Wright died of malnutrition and the women brought him to the emergency room. Authorities then removed the other children from the home. Bremner, who had leukemia, died in state custody, and the charges against Polk-Matthews were dropped. The others pleaded guilty to child endangerment; Wright was sentenced to 16 years in prison, Campbell to 10, and Wilson to 7.
Date: November 13, 2001
Location: Marinwood, California Read More
Posted: January 5, 2015 by clmccracken
Jessica Crank
Jessica Crank, age 15, died of bone cancer which her mother, Jacqueline Crank, and stepfather Ariel Ben Sherman left untreated. When she died, she had a tumor the size of a basketball. Jessica was homeschooled.
Sherman, who had been convicted of child abuse in Oregon in 1987, was the leader of the Universal Life Church, a cult-like group which practiced faith healing. In February 2002, Sherman and Crank took Jessica to a chiropractor, who urged them to immediately take her to an emergency room. They did not do so. It was not until June 2002 that authorities were successful in getting medical attention for Jessica. She died in September 2002.
Sherman and Crank were convicted of misdemeanor child neglect.
Date: September 15, 2002
Location: Lenoir City, Tennessee Read More
Posted: December 8, 2014 by clmccracken
3 Boys by Douglas Myers
Three boys, born in 1983, 1985, and 1986, were sexually abused by Rev. Douglas W. Myers, the minister at Bayside Baptist Church. The boy who was born in 1985 was homeschooled at the church by Myers between seventh and ninth grade (that is, around 1998); it is unknown if the other boys were also homeschooled.
The abuse came to light in 2012 when the boy born in 1983 wrote a letter to police to report it and an investigation turned up the other two victims. At that time, Myers was already in prison for sexually abusing the grandson of a parishioner in Eustis, Florida from July 2005 until his arrest on February 24, 2006. He was sentenced to 15 more years in prison for abusing the three Maryland boys.
Date: 1998
Location: Chesapeake Beach, Maryland Read More
Last Updated: July 2, 2018 by clmccracken
Aziza Kibibi, and 7 siblings
Eight children—seven girls, of whom Aziza Kibibi, b. 1978, was the oldest, and one boy—were physically and sexually abused by their father, Aswad Ayinde, a music producer for The Fugees. The children’s mother, Beverly, knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it. The children were all homebirthed and homeschooled, as Ayinde opposed birth certificates and modern medicine.
Ayinde began raping Aziza when she was 8 years old and eventually fathered four children with her, several of whom had a rare genetic disorder (Aziza and four of her children are pictured above). He also raped four of his other daughters and fathered a child with two of them as part of a plan to create his own “pure blood” race. He starved the children and beat them “using wooden boards and steel-toed boots”. He kept them isolated and forbade them from watching TV.
The abuse came to light for the first time when Aziza’s grandmother alerted the authorities; however, the investigation was unsuccessful. Social services got involved again when Aziza brought her sick child to the hospital; around that time, in 2003, Beverly and Aswad Ayinde separated and the children went to live with their mother. Aziza and her sisters did not decide to press charges until 2006 when they discovered Ayinde had young daughters with other women who were in danger of abuse. Ayinde was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the rapes.
Date: 2006
Location: Paterson, New Jersey Read More
Posted: December 7, 2014 by clmccracken
2 Children of Kimberly and John Quebe
Two children, a 15-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, were imprisoned and physically abused by their parents, Kimberly Joy Quebe and John Herman Quebe. The Quebes claimed to be homeschooling, but they did not follow any of the requirements and the children were not at grade level.
The children spent long periods of time with their wrists and ankles tied; the boy spent hours locked in his room. The Quebes also verbally abused their children. The abuse came to light when someone observed the children’s restraint marks at the community pool and called in a tip. The Quebes pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, child abuse, and corporal injury on a child and were sentenced to 12 years in prison. Because there was no trial, more details of the physical abuse were not made public.
Date: July 21, 2008
Location: Anaheim, California Read More
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