An NBC Action News investigation has uncovered allegations of stillbirths and infants being spanked with a rod in a Missouri church which critics are calling a cult.
In undercover video recorded by NBC Action News in Warsaw, Mo., Elaine Elias is seen pleading with members of the Twelve Tribes church to speak with her daughter. A police officer tells Elias and our undercover news team to get off the street.
The woman’s daughter, 24-year-old Megan O'Leary, says she joined the Twelve Tribes of her own free will.
"I'm her daughter, and I'm here, and I want to be here," O'Leary is heard saying.
Twelve Tribes recruited O’Leary outside a Christian youth conference in Kansas City last December. They took her back to Warsaw, Mo., population 2200, about two hours southeast of Kansas City.
After researching the Twelve Tribes online, Elaine Elias flew to Missouri from Florida, determined to get her daughter out and to sound the alarm about what she had learned about the church.
Elias went door-to-door and business-to-business in Warsaw in an effort to turn residents against the Twelve Tribes church. Most residents had either never heard of Twelve Tribes or know very little about them.
"I want you to know who's living in your town," Elias said as she worked a Warsaw tavern like a seasoned politician.
Discipline, Modesty Pillars of Church Doctrine
Twelve Tribes' strict doctrine was established by Eugene Spriggs.
"Discipline is essential to this end," Spriggs says in a
church video from 2000.
There's no TV, and only approved books. Women dress modestly, even during recreational activities such as swimming.
Cult expert Rick Ross defines unsafe cults as groups that abuse or exploit their members. He says he has fielded repeated complaints about Twelve Tribes. He points to allegations of harsh corporal punishment of children when he calls the organization a destructive cult.
Although no one at the Warsaw Twelve Tribes community agreed to discuss the church with NBC Action News, the national group discusses past conflicts with the outside world on a Web site section titled
Controversies.
