Javier: When I walk around Spindale, North Carolina, I get the feeling that people are ignoring the elephant in the room. I mean, nobody, nobody wants to talk about the boogeyman who lives a few miles down the road. But today, today is different. Because today, former members and current members were about to collide at a community forum at the Spindale House in Rutherford County, North Carolina. And things are about to get pretty tense. I'm Javier Leva, and this is Pretend Radio, Season 3: The Prophet I'm attending a community forum hosted by former Word of Faith Fellowship members. They call themselves survivors. This forum is their chance to speak with citizens of Spindale and Rutherford County about the abuse they claim to have experienced. But first, I have to figure out where I'm going. I plug in the address for the Spindale House on my GPS. I'm guessing the Spindale House is like a community center. It shouldn't be hard to find. I mean, this is a very small town. I arrive early so I can get a spot up front. I didn't really know what to expect, but I sure as hell didn't realize that current members were gonna go attend, too. As I pull into the Spindale House parking lot, I looked over to the left and it was a car full of current members. You could tell too by the way they dress. The women had all big poofy hair that scooped around their ears, and the men looked like they worked at a shoe store wearing pleated slacks and a button down shirt. Their wardrobe was something out of like the '70s or '80s. And as we got out of our cars and made our way around the building, I politely asked them to lead because I have no idea where I'm going. I followed them upstairs and entered a large room with about 100 empty chairs. Towards the front of the room, there's tables set up with microphones for each speaker.

Jamie: Welcome everybody.

Javier: That's Ben Cooper, the brother of John Cooper, who you heard from in season one.

Jamie: Come here, and I was a former member of the Word of Faith Fellowship. One thing I will ask is that, you know, there are Word of Faith members here that I see in the crowd, so I want everybody to be respectful of them and polite to them.

Javier: This is Micah Cooper, the wife of Ben Cooper.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: You know, growing up there was always... You know, there's been negative news reports about the Word of Faith ever since I can remember. There was an article in the paper or someone called us a cult, and so I was, you know, brainwashed into thinking we're not a cult, 'cause I just heard that all the time. We're not a cult. We're not a cult.

Javier: But now that she's out, she realizes that she lived under Jane's rules, and if you break Jane's rules, oh, well, you'll be punished. Micah played a tape of Jane putting someone in their place authority in this place, young man. You sit down! You are wicked. Satan is in your eyes. Sit down It's a little hard to make out, but essentially Jane was screaming at this person's face and said, "You will not question the leadership in this place."

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: That's normal talk for Jane all the time. I mean, growing up, that's, that's even mild 'cause she was, like, in our face screaming this, "You'll not question the leadership in this place." There you go. I mean, she said it out of her own mouth.

Javier: We heard familiar stories of isolation.

Jamie: And I was put in a small room that was just big enough to fit a metal chair like I'm sitting in today and a t- a TV screen literally in front of my face, and that's what I spent eight hours a day watching tapes for doing things as small as smiling at another classmate, having a look on my face. Very, very, very minor things. And again, it doesn't matter what I did. That is the kind of punishment that happens in sadistic, sadistic groups, not in civilized countries, and not, definitely should not be happening here in Spindale. But people need to be accountable for the things that they did.

Javier: Danielle Cordes remembers being in the third grade and being taught to lie. She says her aunt, not a Word of Faith Fellowship member, told the Department of Social Services of the abuse that was happening inside the church. When DSS knocked on Danielle's door, they got a different story. Social workers sat down with eight-year-old Danielle and asked her a series of questions. "

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: Have you been spanked or beaten?" "No." "Have you ever seen a friend spanked or beaten?" "No." "Have you ever been in church discipline and separated from your friends?" "No." "Have you ever been left in a room alone?" "No." "Has Jane ever spanked you?" "No." But because all of the above were true, I couldn't understand why I was being told to lie. So from that time in my life forward, I tried everything I could to get out of this place, and that's why I'm here right now. I can't be a bystander. I can't let my nieces and nephews, who are still stuck inside this cult, to go through the same things I went through as a child without trying to help them. It's now been five years since I've been a free person, but with that has come the most worst thing I could have ever dreamed of, separation from my parents, who I so dearly love. So to my parents, I want to say what I have said so many times before, "I love you, but I'm not sorry for finally being able to stand up for what I believe

Javier: See, what I don't understand is what's keeping people like Danielle from ever leaving the church? Why did it take her so long? I mean, she wasn't, like, physically held captive, so what's keeping other people like her spiritually chained down? Former members all say the same thing. They no longer had free will. They belong to Jane. They go by her rules and will serve her day and night. How do they maintain 24-hour control? Well...

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: They keep you so busy. Cults keep you so busy doing things that you don't really have time to think for yourself and realize what's going on. Um, they have something at the Word of Faith called work projects, where it's, you know, so-and-so's getting married and their house needs to be redone or redecorated or painted or whatever.

Javier: Micah Cooper revealed screenshots of a church-wide text messaging system. She explains that Jane and other church leaders use this system to preoccupy church members.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: Jane thinks they're volunteer projects. Well, actually, she agreed in a recording with us that they're not volunteer projects. And so they'll send out a message that says, "Tonight, wear casual clothes." This is to church. "Bring whatever you need to go to projects after the service." So church gets out at, like, 8:15. You're expected to go to a work project after that, till 12:00, 1:00, 2:00 in the morning It's complete time control.

Javier: Apparently, it's way more than time control. Having a free workforce has its advantages, too. In May 2018, two Word of Faith Fellowship members were charged with an unemployment benefits scheme. You see, church members are typically only allowed to work at church-owned businesses, and according to the US Attorney's Office, sometimes these workers were forced to work for free. The two men charged with the scam are father and son, and they run a company called The Foot and Ankle Center of the Carolinas. Here's how the scam works. The two men made it look like they laid off their employees and all of a sudden they became eligible for unemployment benefits. Well, court documents show that these guys made off with more than $150,000 in assistance, $150,000 of your money. So where did this money go? Well, some say it went back to the church. The Associated Press interviewed a former member named Randy Fields, who owned a construction company while he was at the church. His business took a big hit in 2008 during the recession. He says he begged Jane to reduce the amount of money he and his family gave to the church each week. He says Jane had an even better idea. She said, "Hmm, what if there was a way to help the church and save your business at the same time?" Randy Fields says that Jane instructed him to file unemployment claims for his employees. Jane says it was God's plan. The Associated Press investigation shows that there are at least six other church-run businesses involved in similar unemployment schemes My name's Jenna Johnson. Um- The next speaker took me by surprise. You see, Jane Whaley would like you to believe that all these former members speaking against her are motivated by one family, the Coopers. But today was a show of force. It was not just one family who turned on Jane, it was her own family, too.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: I am part of the, the one family, the, the monarch family I guess you could say, of Word of Faith. I'm actually Jane Whaley's cousin. Um, people demonize us a lot, uh, for, for decisions that we have made since we've been outside of Word of Faith. I'm proud of every mistake that I have ever made, every single one of them- because I am a badass. Amen. And that's fact. it's not one group of people trying to antagonize another group of people. I remember being a kid and sitting in my closet and literally bawling my eyes out wondering why I was even born I literally wanted to know why I was born to live in the world that I was living in, because it was that miserable.

Javier: This event was a one-sided conversation with former members describing their tormented childhood, but in the audience sat a dozen or so current members in silence, and their silence was deafening. Here's John Cooper speaking directly to some of the current members.

Jamie: The stories about people being abused, um, y'all have all witnessed that. Um, and I know that you, you all tell yourselves that, um, you know, we don't abuse kids here, but you've seen the kids being, being thrown on the floor. Um, you've seen the kids being pushed up against the wall. I see some of my former teachers here. Y'all have seen it. You know that it happened.

Javier: Then things got really personal

Jamie: which I haven't seen my mother or spoken with her for a very long time.

Javier: This is Jamie Anderson. Jamie's mother is sitting in the audience.

Jamie: Very happy to see that whatever I've done has created a, I guess, a motivation for her to show up today. So it's at least good to see her. But one of the things that she said was that my life is destroyed, that none of what I said is true, and she went through quite a bit of things that aren't necessarily true.

Javier: Jamie is referring to a video posted on the Word of Faith Fellowship YouTube channel-

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: I'm Patty Dolan. This is my-

Javier: Where his mother, Patty Dolan- My daughter, Allison- His sister, and his grandmother- And I also have two sons, Peter Anderson and Jamie Anderson ... spent 30 minutes shaming him.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: Let me make it really clear. I am Jamie's mother. I love Jamie. I have always loved Jamie. My whole family loved Jamie. We tried everything to help him, and time after time again, he just would not be helped. But that doesn't change the fact that I loved him. I still love him. I mean, it's very hard for a mother to watch what has happened to her son and how wrong influences have, have destroyed his life. I mean, that's very hard to watch.

Javier: It's hard to believe that the mother in this video is the same woman who is sitting there in the audience, emotionless. Here she is again in the video.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: I'm here today because Jamie has gone to the Associated Press, and what he has said, even though he's very articulate and may be believable to you, but what he says is lies. There's nothing that he says that's

Jamie: true. In the YouTube response, um, to me from my, from my mom and the rest of my family, they sit up there and they say how much they love me and they care about me, but yet they couldn't even answer the phone to tell me that my grandfather was dying.

Javier: After Jamie left the church, he got word that something was wrong with his grandfather. This is Jamie talking with the Associated Press.

Jamie: There's a lot of cars over at your, um- grandfather's place, I knew that it was my last chance

Javier: Because he was excommunicated for leaving, he didn't really know what to do or who to turn to when he found out his grandfather was sick.

Jamie: Nobody answered, but Jane texted me, and at one point I just said, "Can you please at least tell him that I love him?"

Javier: The only person he knew who would allow him to return was Jane.

Jamie: And she said it wouldn't matter if I told him that or not.

Javier: This is Patty again, Jamie's mother.

Word of Faith Fellowship Member: Jamie did send a text to Jane, and you can see what it says. My dad wanted nothing to do with Jamie because of his characteristics and his lifestyle. He told me that.

Javier: You can tell that even today Jamie is struggling to break through to his mother and to current members from across the room.

Jamie: What this unconditional love that people develop for people, it doesn't have strings attached. They don't, they don't tell me how to live my life. I'm not a religious person. I'm not even a Christian at this point. Th- th- they wanna say this is an attack on religion. This is an attack on an identity of, of, of faith or something like that, and it's not. There's a lot of people that are Christian that have left that are continuing Christians. They, they don't like to take live questions. Guess why my mom isn't up here talking about it with me, and I hope that I get that opportunity with her. I hope that I get to interact with her and say, "Why do you do th- the things that you do?"

Javier: Call me naive, but I really hope that after this forum is over that Jamie gets a chance to finally speak to his mother face-to-face. But she never spoke to him the whole time she was there. After the event was over, she just got up and left. I caught up with Jamie after the meeting.

Jamie: When she showed up today, I was like, "Oh my God." Like, I had to go outside. I had to collect myself 'cause the emotions come rushing back because it's your family. So even with everything that she's done to me, I mean, she shut me out, um, when my grandfather was dying. She refused to answer my calls and texts. She's alienated me. She's talked so much garbage about me. She's lied about me. She's denied the things that are, that I've said, and when you see though your, someone who should care about you, the, the person that should care about you the most, and she can sit there stone-faced. She doesn't even come up to greet me. She had no response. She didn't tear up. There was no emotional reaction at all. When I tried to look at her, she looks away. She has absolutely no response to me. It's, it's so tough 'cause, I mean, you sit there and you go, it, even with knowing that I'm not doing anything wrong, it makes you look internal like, "What the hell is the matter with me? Why would someone hate me so much, someone that is my mom? What have I done?"

Javier: Jamie, who left the church several years ago, is now an attorney who lives in Charlotte. He strikes me as a very smart dude who managed to create a brand-new life outside of this church. If I met him at a bar, I would have no idea he grew up in a cult his whole life, unless I played him at trivia, and then it would be a dead giveaway

Jamie: Yeah, we had no i- I mean, dude, like I said, I, I sat there at Mi Pueblito for an hour. I had no idea what the hell anybody was talking about. I didn't know movies, I didn't know people. How are you now? Oh, I, I'm good now. I've caught up. You've- I've had over 12 years now of, like, just catching up, watching movies, watching- Watching Python and everything. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. There's a gap that I have-

Javier: I want to introduce you to one more person before we wrap this episode up. Her name is Nancy Burnette, and she is not a Word of Faith member and never was, but she has become a thorn in Jane Whaley's side. The local law enforcement cringes every time they see her coming. Why? Because she's made it her life's mission to stand up for those members who have escaped Word of Faith Fellowship, and she's here talking as part of the panel.

Nancy Burnette: They, they don't fight in this county for the children. These don't look like children to you. They're all young adults, but when they come out, they're very broken children. I don't care if they're 35 years old. We don't care what Word of Faith does, but we do care that they hurt the children there. They can do whatever they want inside that place, but breaking the law is breaking the law. When your Department of Social Services won't help you and the Sheriff's Department won't help you, where do you go? Where do you go? And at the end of the day, I'm not going anywhere. They've taken my jobs away. My husband is a police officer. They went to his police department to try to take his job away. They have followed me. They have videoed me, as they're doing right now. They should be sick of seeing me at this point- ... but evidently I'm still real interesting. Um, they have, they have tried their best to hurt me. It's not gonna happen. And Jane, I'm sorry, but I'm, I can be the harlot that you say I am. I can be the wicked witch that you say I am. I'm good with that. I feel like I'm doing something right if I feel that, if you feel that way about me. And at the end of the day, all of you guys from Word of Faith that are here today, I, I applaud you for coming here and putting yourself on the spot for Jane. It, it takes a lot of courage to do what you're doing, and we understand and we know that, uh, there's some of you here today that don't necessarily wanna be where you are in your life. And just know that whenever you do decide to come forward, there's lots of people here for you. There are lots of people who care about you and your children. When you come out, you won't do without. You will not do without. And that's all I have to say.

Javier: Today was definitely a very emotional day, no doubt. But we are just getting started. Next time on Pretend Radio, we'll hear Nancy's backstory and her first encounter with Jane Whaley.

Nancy Burnette: And the closer she got, the less comfortable I felt, and I had nowhere to go. I told Jane, I extend my arm, I said, "You need to back up." I said, "You are entirely too close to me. If you want to talk to me, we can, but you can't be this close to me. You got to back up." And that's when everybody else just came in. And all of a sudden, all these people are just all around us, and I have nowhere to go. So instantly, your fight or flight kicks in, right? And I'm thinking, we need to get the hell out of here right now.

Javier: Plus, we're going to uncover all the influence that the Word of Faith Fellowship has on local government.

Jane Whaley: But what was your reaction

Javier: from this, uh, this town hall?

Archival: Um, as a district attorney, it's probably better for me not to comment. And why is that?

Javier: Why is that?

Archival: Because we've got the pending cases and the rules of the state bar prohibit me from making comments in matters that are currently before the court.

Javier: But your office is a main character in this story in ter- I'm sorry? Your, your office is a main character in this story because it feels like, like, uh, the people in the community have a hard time trusting, you know, how, how independent you are.

Archival: Um, yeah, there are a lot of false rumors going around that, that we're very independent

Javier: This was a very tough episode to produce. There were so many stories to tell, and one of the biggest criticism I got during season one was that I only talked to one guy, John Cooper. Well, this episode actually gives you a chance to listen to some more stories. Now, there's a lot of similarities in these survivor stories, but each one is individually heartbreaking. But I couldn't fit them all into this episode, so I'm gonna post some other stories on my Patreon feed. You could find that on pretendradio.org. Just hit the Donate button. And also, I want to thank everyone who came out of the woodwork to tell me that they would have gone to Spindale, North Carolina with me. Now you tell me. But I know that a lot of you listening right now actually live in Spindale, in Rutherford County, or in the surrounding areas, and you might actually know more about the story than I do, and I'd like to hear from you, too. So look for the Pretend Radio Facebook group and share your story. I particularly want to know more about Jane Whaley. See, the, the last episode you heard was the best I could do. You know, I thought trying to find out about Jane Whaley would be easy. This is a small town. Everyone should know about her. But honestly, all I got was, like, the Wikipedia version of Jane Whaley. So if you're listening, and you know more about her history, like what was she like when she was younger if you went to high school with her? It's easy to paint everyone like you're either a good guy or a bad guy, but real people are complex, and that's what I try to explore on this show. You know, just because we are kinda shining a magnifying glass on this church doesn't mean that everything about them is bad. So help me bring this character, Jane Whaley, to life. If you'd like, you could also email me at javier@pretendradio.org. Okay, so we're just dipping our toes into the Word of Faith Fellowship. The next episode is pretty hardcore. Until then, maybe you should check out some of these shows

Archival: I'm Sarah Steele, and I host a podcast called Let's Talk About Sects. I look at a different cult each episode, examining the group's leadership, beliefs, recruitment methods, member experiences, and any notable incidents during its existence. It's a monthly podcast with a heavily researched, deep dive storytelling style. That's Let's Talk About Sects, and the website is ltaspod.com for all your podcast provider links. Hope you'll have a listen. On August 22nd, 1996, 22-year-old Debbie Dorian was discovered bound, gagged, raped, and murdered in her apartment. Her father was the one to have made the horrific discovery, and to this day, her killer has never been apprehended, and her case has gone cold. However, he did leave behind his genetic marker, his DNA. Though he would lay dormant for nearly three years, he did strike again, raping at least seven more women in the Visalia, California area, linked to all of those crimes through his DNA. But Debbie would be the only known victim to have died at his hands. With DNA technology having advanced by leaps and bounds over the last 22 years, as well as some recent very high-profile cases in California that had long been cold being solved, it is our hope to shine a light on Debbie's case, to bring this killer and rapist to justice, and a measure of closure for Debbie's family and friends who have waited much too long for answers. With the blessings of Debbie's mother, Sarah, and the help and guidance of her best friend, Katina, California Dreaming and Orbital Jigsaw are bringing you their story in Episode 64, The Unsolved Murder of Debbie Dorian.