Word of Faith Fellowship
Jane Whaley's Spindale, North Carolina church and the Brooke Covington case

Who is Jane Whaley?

Jane Whaley, whose maiden name is Jane Brock, was born in 1939, according to a 1995 State Bureau of Investigation file. She grew up Baptist in a small town in North Carolina. In high school she was on the swim and soccer teams. After graduating from Appalachian State University, she taught high school math, and she fell in love with a car salesman named Sam Whaley. They married and had a daughter, Robin. People who knew her then describe a motherly figure who offered spiritual guidance to people struggling with drugs, alcohol, or bad marriages. By all accounts, she lived a perfectly normal life.

In the 1980s, Sam Whaley went to work as a staff preacher at Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema ministries in Tulsa, Oklahoma, traveling the world to preach the prosperity gospel. According to former member John Huddle, while Sam was away, Jane began holding her own “Holy Ghost meetings” and deliverance sessions that Rhema hadn’t sanctioned, and they drew big crowds. Huddle says that when Hagin found out, he asked Sam to leave. The Whaleys returned to North Carolina with about 22 followers. Free of Hagin’s ministries, Jane began preaching her own version of the gospel. By the church’s own account, God told Sam that “Jane is the pastor.”

Who is Sam Whaley?

Sam Whaley rarely comes up. People who’ve met him describe a friendly man who’s always laughing and has a story for everything, the kind of person who can disarm you with a smile. He remains the only ordained minister at Word of Faith Fellowship; Jane Whaley is not ordained. John Huddle says he was there when Jane accused Sam of having “religious devils” and of reading his Bible too much.

“He was a good old boy. He wanted you to like him,” Huddle says. “When survivors come and they talk about being a youth or a child inside of that group, they don’t say they were afraid of Sam. They say that they were afraid of Jane.”

Word of Faith Fellowship Rules

Former members say Jane Whaley went from a sweet, motherly figure to a leader who controlled their every move. Former member John Huddle compiled a list of the church’s rules from memory, and it runs to more than 130 items. These are some of them, with their numbers from that list:

1. Don’t drink alcohol (includes beer, wine, or liquor).
2. Don’t cook with alcohol.
3. Don’t eat at places that serve alcohol.
4. Don’t drink root beer.
5. Don’t drink Cheerwine.
6. Don’t drink diet Cheerwine.
7. Don’t drink ginger ale.
8. Don’t smoke cigarettes.

64. Don't wear cargo pants.
65. Don't wear or own anything with Nike on it.
66. Don't wear black tennis shoes.

84. Don't decorate your house unless Jane or her helper can help you.
85. Don't buy a car without checking with Sam first.
86. Don't sell a car or truck without checking with Sam first.

132. Men: African American — don't shave your head bald.
133. Don't start a relationship without checking it out with Jane Whaley.
134. Don't decide who you will marry without checking it out with Jane.
135. Don't talk to the person you're in a relationship with unless someone is listening and "guarding the conversation."

See the full list of rules (archived PDF).

How PRETEND Got Inside

Word of Faith Fellowship rarely talks to the media, and the last outsiders invited to the compound before PRETEND ended up charged with trespassing. North Carolina state senate candidate David Wheeler had emailed Jane Whaley asking to meet, and she agreed to see him that afternoon. Wheeler arrived with news reporters, a cameraman, John Huddle, and former sheriff candidate Wayne Guffey, a distant cousin of Jane’s and a critic of the church, and broadcast the visit on Facebook Live. The church told them to leave and filed trespassing charges against everyone involved except Daily Courier reporter MacKenzie Wicker, who left when asked. Wheeler’s email never said he was bringing the media. A judge later dropped the charges.

Javier Leiva emailed Jane anyway, offering her an hour of air time to tell her side with “no tricks.” She wrote back at 2:20 a.m. on a Saturday: “I am checking with my attorney. I encourage you to listen to the testimonies on the radio. No children have ever been abused in our church. It is just the opposite everyone is greatly loved.” In a later email she said the family of former member John Cooper “purposed to close our doors with their lies,” and that she wanted to meet Javier before making any commitment. “I would like for you to come to one of our church services,” she wrote. “That way you can see truth.” The service started at 9:30, and his saved seat was right up front, behind Jane and her family. Jane spent the day with him and sat for an interview in her office. As far as PRETEND knows, he is the first journalist she has invited to attend a service, spend the day with her, and interview her there.

The Matthew Fenner Case

The best-known criminal case tied to the church involves Matthew Fenner, who says that in January 2013, when he was 19, he was held down, choked, and beaten for two hours inside the church while members prayed to expel his “gay demons.” Five church members were charged. Minister Brooke Covington, whom former member Sarah Anderson testified was the ringleader, was tried in 2017 on second-degree kidnapping and assault charges; that trial ended in a mistrial after the jury foreman brought his own research into deliberations. The church and Covington have denied that Fenner was mistreated.

A retrial was delayed for years by the COVID-19 pandemic, a fight over removing the original prosecutor, Rutherford County District Attorney Ted Bell, and deaths or retirements of lawyers on both sides. In December 2025, after Fenner asked the court to remove Bell, a judge appointed independent counsel W. Otis Walker IV to gather evidence. Superior Court Judge William Stetzer later denied the request, agreeing with the investigator that the delays came from a backlog of cases that grew when COVID-19 shut down the courts and from lawyers on both sides quitting or having health problems, and that there was no proof of special treatment for the church. Bell has called Fenner’s allegations false. In January 2026, Bell referred the remaining cases for a special prosecutor, and they went to District Attorney Jon David, whose district is on the North Carolina coast. On September 28, 2026, in a Buncombe County courtroom in Asheville, Covington entered an Alford plea to two misdemeanors, ending the case without a jury verdict. Read PRETEND’s courtroom report from the plea hearing.

The Unemployment Fraud Cases

Separately, federal prosecutors charged church members over unemployment-benefits fraud. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in 2008 church member Kent Covington, Brooke Covington’s husband, and his employee Diane McKinny laid off nearly all the employees of Diverse Corporate Technologies (DCT), Covington’s struggling plastics manufacturing company, and had them collect unemployment while they kept working. The scheme gave DCT more than six months of free labor, paid for by the government. Court records show the two then promoted the scheme to businesses run by other church members. Between November 2008 and March 2013, several businesses used versions of it, producing more than $250,000 in fraudulent claims.

Dr. Jerry Gross and his son Jason Lee Gross, who run The Foot and Ankle Center of the Carolinas, a podiatry clinic in Forest City, each pleaded guilty to wire fraud in May 2018 for a similar scheme and received probation. Covington pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud that September and was sentenced to 34 months in prison. “It undermined the entire employment security structure of the state,” U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger said. “It was sort of like picking the pocket of a dying man.” McKinny was sentenced in September 2019 to three years of probation, including 10 months of home confinement, with restitution of $466,960.30 owed jointly by her, Covington, and both Grosses. With her sentencing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office closed the investigation into church members that it had opened in July 2017. Jane Whaley wasn’t charged.

Public Money: Vouchers and a PPP Loan

The church’s businesses aren’t its only tie to public money. In 2020, the Charlotte Observer reported that Word of Faith Fellowship received between $150,000 and $350,000 through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, the COVID-19 relief program for small businesses, according to Small Business Administration data. Church attorney Josh Farmer wouldn’t say how much the church received or how it was used. Asked whether members’ support for Republican candidates played a role, he said the church qualified “in the same manner presumably used by nearly 700,000 other businesses and non-profit entities,” and called the suggestion “absurd.”

The church’s K–12 school, Word of Faith Christian School, also takes public money. In 2026, PRETEND’s State of Corruption: The School That Didn’t Exist reported that the school, with about 77 students according to Niche.com, receives more than $329,000 a year through North Carolina’s private school voucher program, according to state voucher data. North Carolina sets no curriculum, testing, or teacher-qualification requirements for private schools. Former student Stephen Cordes told PRETEND he was sent to the lower building in 10th grade and didn’t see his parents for about two and a half months. In court filings, the church acknowledges that a child’s contact with peers, friends, and family may be limited during the in-school portion of what it calls discipleship, but maintains that “discipleship training does not involve isolation.”

Latest Reporting

September 28, 2026

What Happened in the Brooke Covington Case? Word of Faith Minister Avoids Trial With Alford Plea

Brooke Covington entered an Alford plea 13 years after Matthew Fenner's beating at Word of Faith Fellowship. Here's what happened in court and what it means.