When news that a kidnapping had gone down at the church next door and that prosecutors alleged cult-like conditions within, Robin Jernigan was not surprised.
Jernigan said she knew something bad was going to happen “ever since they moved in here.”
For the past nine years she’s lived at her current home on Minnesota Avenue in the Patch neighborhood. Her backyard abuts the Mount of Olives Ministry church property.
This past weekend, police responded to the church after getting reports of a woman who was found bound by ropes and bleeding from the head. Prosecutor Chris Faerber said in court the woman had been “crying out to passersby who were not members of the church.”
The woman, who as of Monday was in an undisclosed hospital and has not been identified publicly, told police she had been confined against her will in a room at the church. Three men were charged with felony kidnapping and assault.
Things got weirder at a Monday bond hearing for one of the men who was arrested, Grace Kipendo.
At that hearing, Faerber said that officers at the scene reported that women church members were referred to as “angels” and there was a “white room” where the “good angels” wore white veils.
“Officers tried to lift their veils to check on their well-being and the women started screaming,” Faerber said.
The kidnapping victim, however, told police she had been locked in a different room than the “white room” where was only allowed to have water and had to use a bucket as a makeshift toilet.
“If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Faerber quoted one officer on the scene as saying. Faerber said in court he’d be reaching out to federal authorities to look into the church.
Kipendo’s attorney Chris Combs said at the Monday hearing that the injured woman was indeed a victim but that the police had the wrong men in custody. The church’s congregation is primarily comprised of Swahili speakers and Combs said that the men’s arrest stemmed from confusion caused by a language barrier between many of the people involved and the police. “There are some serious issues in this case that are going to come to light,” Combs said.
In the meantime, the city’s Building Division has taken action. A notice from the agency is now attached to the church’s front door, saying that it is condemned for occupancy.
The paperwork, dated Monday, says the building is condemned because it is “used or intended to be used for purposes which are illegal and may endanger the health or safety of persons.”
Jernigan said that men have regularly hung out behind the church in the area that backs up to her backyard. She said they broke branches off trees, sharpened them and threw them at her dog. They threw rocks at her dog, too, she says.
“I got to sit outside with a pistol,” she said, adding that one church member regularly wore a makeshift security outfit and stationed himself between the church’s property and hers.
Jernigan said that it’s “mostly men” she sees hanging out outside the building, and she recognized two of the men who were arrested earlier this week. When the church is at its busiest, she estimates 100 people have been on site.
Kipendo was denied bond. His two co-defendants, Pasi Heri and Mmunga Fungamali, have bond hearings Monday.
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