Photo: Berkeley Police Department
Authorities in Missouri are searching for a group of four adults and two children who went missing in August and fear they may have joined an online cult started by a convicted child molester.
Officials said that Naaman Williams, 29, Mikayla Thompson, 23, Ma'Kayla Wickerson, 25, and her 3-year daughter, Malaiyah, were living together in a rented house in Berkeley before they disappeared in August.
They were last seen with Gerielle German, 26, and her 3-year-old grandson, Ashton Mitchell, at a Quality Inn near St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
Their families told police they believe they went to join an online cult run by Rashad Jamal, who was convicted in August of child molestation and cruelty to children and sentenced to 18 years in a Georgia prison.
Jamal claims he is innocent and denied being involved in a cult during an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. When asked about the missing people, he claims he never met them.
"I am pretty sure I have never met these people," he told the newspaper. "I get on my phone, and I give a lecture. I go live, and then I get off the phone. I do not know the people that are in my live[stream]. It's too many people."
Despite claiming he is not running a cult, Jamal routinely refers to himself as a God during his live streams.
"I'm just giving you my opinion on a plethora of different subjects: from metaphysics to quantum physics to molecular biology to marine biology to geography to Black history to world history. I'm giving you my opinions on these things," he said. "That doesn't make me a cult leader."