Survivors seek a reckoning as FBI investigates child sex abuse in little-known Christian sect
BOISE, Idaho– Nearly every detail about the religious group to which Lisa Webb’s family belonged was hidden from the outside world. The followers met in homes instead of churches. The leadership structure was difficult to discern, the finances opaque. It didn’t even have an official name.
But for decades, no secret was more closely guarded than the identities of the sexual predators within the group known as the “Two by Twos.”
Now a growing number of public accusations from around the world have prompted a wide-ranging investigation by the FBI and placed an uncomfortable spotlight on the long-silent Christian sect. Survivors say the group’s leaders protected ministers from child abuse by pressuring victims to forgive, ignoring legal reporting requirements and transferring abusers to new locations to live with unsuspecting families.
Ministry leaders have publicly condemned the abuse, but several leaders declined to answer questions from The Associated Press.
For Webb, who was sexually abused as a child by one of the group’s ministers, the attention has brought an unexpected sense of “strength in numbers.”
“There are so many people who are frustrated and discouraged,” Webb said. “But there is also camaraderie and support in that.”
A websitea hotline and social media pages set up by victims have documented allegations against more than 900 abusers, with survivors in more than 30 countries and cases continue to emerge. Over the past year, news reports and a Hulu documentary have focused on the cult’s predatory preachers and the leaders who enabled them.
Although perpetrators have been sentenced to prison in isolated cases, the sect has largely avoided legal consequences, protected by its decentralized structure, hidden finances and state laws that limit the timeline for criminal prosecution.
The sect, also known to its members as ‘The Way’ or ‘The Truth’, was founded in Ireland in 1897 by William Irvine, who railed against the existence of churches. The only way to spread Christianity, he argued, was to do what Jesus instructed in the book of Matthew: send out apostles to live among those they were trying to convert.
The sect grew as volunteer preachers – known as workers – took to living ‘two by two’ in the family homes of followers for days or weeks at a time. Cult historians say there were only a few million members a few decades ago, but current estimates put the number at 75,000 to 85,000 worldwide.
Unlike the Boy Scouts or the Catholic Church, which have paid out billions to sex abuse victims, the sect’s aversion to property leaves it without clear assets that can be used to pay settlements, legal experts say.
Workers are expected to shun worldly possessions and depend on followers for food, shelter and transportation. But that also ensures that abusive employees have access to potential victims.
Webb was abused by a pastor who stayed with her family in Michigan when she was 11. The man, Peter Mousseau, was convicted much later – after he expressed interest in visiting her in 2008 and she decided to press charges. A regional supervisor to whom she had previously reported the abuse was later convicted for failing to report allegations of abuse against another local employee.
“You have the mentality that they are angels in your house. They can do no wrong, so there is no wall,” she said. “It was just the perfect storm that was created, the perfect recipe for this kind of behavior.”
Sheri Autrey had just turned 14 when a 28-year-old employee moved into her family’s home in Visalia, California, for two months.
He immediately began abusing her, sneaking into her room at night and taking her for rides during the day. Whenever he was in the Hall, he turned up the radio & Oate’s song “Maneater” came on and sang, “Watch out boy, she’ll eat you.”
When Autrey revealed the abuse to her mother a few years later, her mother reported it to the sect’s regional supervisor, who was in charge of all workers in the area.
The supervisor refused to warn other families. Instead, he sent the worker back to Autrey’s house to apologize.
Autrey, raised to be meek, exploded. Her family took her to the district attorney’s office but declined to prosecute her.
“I would have to explain explicitly what happened,” Autrey said. “And I was in no way prepared for that.”
Decades later, Autrey was at a baseball game when “Maneater” came on. She had to walk around the stadium to calm down, and she decided to send a letter about the abuse to hundreds of cult members.
“I wanted everyone who was a victim to know that they weren’t alone,” Autrey said. “She needs to know there is help.”
A worker from Peru, Americo Quispe, was sent to Garland, Texas in the early 2000s after facing allegations of inappropriate behavior in his home country. He soon found new victims, some of whose families went to the police. He returned to Peru before he could be arrested.
Quispe was later convicted of sexual assault in Peru and sentenced to 30 years. He never faced charges in Texas.
Another worker, Ruben Mata, abused dozens of boys, including 10-year-old Douglas Patterson, who was lured away from his family during a cult convention in the early 1990s. Patterson said he kept quiet about it because he feared his family would leave the cult — and thus be excluded from eternal salvation — if he told it.
Mata was eventually convicted in 2006 in a separate sexual abuse case. He died in a California prison.
A few months before Mata’s trial, the overseer of Saskatchewan, Canada, Dale Shultz, sent two letters to colleagues.
One of them had to be shown to all members involved. It was acknowledged that Mata was a pedophile and that employees had been informed of his abuse at least three times. According to the letter, the sect only informed authorities after Mata resigned.
The second was for the staff. It stated that no copies were to be made of the first letter.
“The purpose of the letter is to help those who are concerned, not to announce a kingdom problem to those who don’t know about it or have no problem with it,” Shultz wrote.
In another case, Ed Alexander, a regional overseer for Arizona, wrote a letter in 2005 to an elder who abused children, noting that “we love our people deeply and do not want to report their wrongdoing.”
The letter suggested that the sect could meet its mandatory obligations to report abuse by recommending that offenders receive professional counseling, as counselors – rather than sect leaders – would then be required to report it to the Police.
“They believe that child sexual abuse is just a sin. Like, you’re a sinner, they’re a sinner, it’s all just a waste,” said Eileen Dickey, one of the man’s victims. She reported the abuse to cult leaders because she feared other children would be targeted.
“I was told never to talk about it,” she said.
Alexander declined to speak to The Associated Press: “Unfortunately, the media coverage is so negative and one-sided that I will have to decline an interview,” he texted.
Jared Snyder spent more than two decades as an itinerant minister before becoming disillusioned and resigning. No one told him directly about abuse, Snyder said, but he occasionally heard rumors.
The cult’s culture – which makes gossip taboo and puts enormous pressure on members to be merciful – meant that major and minor misdeeds were downplayed, he said.
“One supervisor just told me explicitly, ‘The less you know, the better off you are,’” he said.
As an employee, Snyder received no paychecks, retirement benefits or health insurance, and was discouraged from using banks. But he was never without money to spend: Followers regularly offered workers cash, and Snyder said he often had thousands of dollars in his pocket.
Most of that money would be spent on building materials, food and other supplies at regional conventions, Snyder said.
In June 2022, a regional supervisor named Dean Bruer died in a motel room in Oregon. Bruer, 67, had served in at least 22 states and territories and seven countries since 1976, according to a timeline compiled by Pam Walton, a former member who has used historical records and photographs to track the movements of predatory preachers.
Nine months after Bruer’s death, Idaho and Oregon Supervisor Doyle Smith wrote a letter to members. Evidence left on Bruer’s phone and laptop showed that he had raped and abused multiple minor victims, Smith wrote.
“Dean was a sexual predator,” Smith wrote. “We never respect or defend such totally inappropriate behavior among us. There is a very unanimous consensus among us that the only thing we can do is to be transparent with all of you, for obvious reasons, even though this is very difficult.”
That transparency did not extend to dealings with local police. Only after Autrey, another abuse survivor, and private investigator Cynthia Liles — all former cult members — pressured Smith did he give Bruer’s laptop to investigators, Autrey told the AP.
By then, the computer had been tampered with, according to records from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon. The web browser search history has been cleared. Bruer’s Apple ID had been changed and files from his DropBox account had been transferred. Bruer’s phone was never given to police and the “Find My iPhone” feature was disabled.
“What browsing history was present on the laptop that someone didn’t want anyone else to know about?” Detective Jeffrey Burlew writes this in a police report. Unable to find any evidence of a crime within its jurisdiction, the agency closed the investigation.
Smith did not respond to telephone messages from the AP.
Although Autrey and others had long sought reforms in the sect, Bruer’s death proved to be a catalyst. Autrey, Liles and another survivor launched a hotline, website and Facebook pages for survivors.
In February, the FBI field office in Omaha, Nebraska, announced an investigation.
The outrage prompted some sect leaders to condemn the abuse and ask counselors for advice on how to better protect their members. But at least some regional regulators ultimately refused to adopt the recommended child abuse prevention policy – saying the only real code of conduct is the New Testament.
And some leaders still warn members against criticizing the sect.
At a conference in Duncan, British Columbia, in August, a staffer who chaired the meeting did not directly mention the abuse scandal but told members to put aside “bad statements.”
“It is easier to be critical than to be right,” preached Robert Doecke, a worker from Australia. “If you feed on problems, it will only create more problems. But if you focus on the Lord, it will lead to solutions.”