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William Branham and sexual abuse: Difference between revisions
→The Park
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=The Park= | =The Park= | ||
[[Image:WMBwithPLawrie.jpg|thumb|200px|William Branham in Jeffersonville with Paulaseer Lowrie. The trailers in the background went on to The Park in Prescott, and Paulaseer Lowrie went back to India and started a cult-city near Tirunelveli, India that was founded on the premise that the rapture would happen in 1977.]] | [[Image:WMBwithPLawrie.jpg|thumb|200px|William Branham in Jeffersonville with Paulaseer Lowrie. The trailers in the background went on to The Park in Prescott, and Paulaseer Lowrie went back to India and started a cult-city near Tirunelveli, India that was founded on the premise that the rapture would happen in 1977.]] | ||
Pine Lawn Trailer Park (the "Park") in Prescott, Arizona | |||
In the summer of 1962, about sixty members of several large extended families moved across country seeking a place away from the world to wait for the rapture. They were driven by William Branham's comments that Rapture was at hand. | |||
They settled in the Pine Lawn Trailer Park (the "Park") in Prescott, Arizona. They were lead by William Branham's "tape boys", [[Leo Mercer]]and Gene Goad, who had been close friends since college. Leo's mother was associated with the School of the Prophets, which may have led to Leo's interest in William Branham. | |||
Leo and Gene quickly became close and trusted confidants of William Branham, managing all appointments and preaching schedules, correspondence, tape making and sales, and finances. You couldn't see William Branham without going through them. William Branham directed this on tape, saying that those boys will never tell you anything that will hurt you. | |||
Some of the elder followers were aware of the homosexual past between Leo and Gene but it was understood that they had repented of this, and William Branham advised them to find wives (which was not uncommon advice in the 1960's). He played a role in the selection of their wives. | |||
William Branham visited the Park on several occasions and Leo actually wrote the Hebrews book. Leo's wife typed it. William Branham approved it and put his name on it. | |||
By 1963, Leo was dissatisfied with his salary, and began diverting some of the donations to himself. There was a falling out, and Leo gathered his followers to benefit from the special, personal teaching William Branham had given him. Ed Daulton asked William Branham about the planned move and he said at first that he shouldn't go. Later he changed his mind and said that they should go - "I see it come out alright in the end." | |||
Leo took steps to limit the influence of the family elders, and appointed young men in their 20s and 30s as his lieutenants. Duties included beating lines of children, and beating men he felt were out of line. Beatings could be administered with a belt, electrical cords, or fists. Sometimes young offenders were circled by taunting men and made to fight it out. Women were not usually physically punished, but might be slapped or isolated. | |||
William Branham continued to support the group with extended hunting trips to Spider Ranch. He preached two sermons - "The Odd Ball" and "Leadership" at the Park. The group always had a phone hookup to his major sermons. | |||
Leo and Gene kept all of the original master tapes they made during their tenure. They told people that there were things on their tapes that were not on any others. | |||
Leo found a source of medical drugs through a local doctor, who thought he was prescribing drugs for the whole group. Leo received daily pain injections and large quantities of Percocet and other pills. As a result of the drugs, his control of the group weakened in the period between 1970 and 1974, ultimately leading to the Park group's breakup in 1974. | |||
Leo died in Prescott several years later of abdominal cancer. | |||
Gene and his wife, Connie, had several more children after the group broke up. They eventually separated and Gene ended up living in a cave. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the mid-1980's. | |||
==The Lokers== | |||
Marietta Loker and her husband, Roger, lived in the Park. We understand, from a reliable source, that Gene and Leo used to take Marietta's husband and beat him so badly that his whole body would be covered with bruises. | Marietta Loker and her husband, Roger, lived in the Park. We understand, from a reliable source, that Gene and Leo used to take Marietta's husband and beat him so badly that his whole body would be covered with bruises. | ||
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:''The cases are People v. Wilson, 08 S.O.S. 4471 and People v. Loker, 08 S.O.S. 4497.''<ref>Metropolitan News-Enterprise, July 29, 2008,"S.C. Tosses Death Sentence Over Removal of Holdout Juror", by Sherri M. Okamoto, page 1</ref> | :''The cases are People v. Wilson, 08 S.O.S. 4471 and People v. Loker, 08 S.O.S. 4497.''<ref>Metropolitan News-Enterprise, July 29, 2008,"S.C. Tosses Death Sentence Over Removal of Holdout Juror", by Sherri M. Okamoto, page 1</ref> | ||
=Testimony given in Court= | =Testimony given in Court= | ||