September 17, 2024 • 38 mins
The women of Straitway Truth Ministry are there for one purpose: to serve the men of Straitway Truth Ministry. Kalyn shares the story of one source who lived at Straitway as a young girl and the life she and her sister endured. There are, however, some women who choose this life willingly - or do they?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we get started today, I want to let you
know this episode contains references to physical and sexual abuse,
including of children. There are also references to spiritual abuse.
Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask
for help if you need it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Seen and not heard. And that was one of the
criticisms that Shannon often had about me was my quote
mouth Sometimes I was maybe mouthy, but not in a
any little thing was considered mouthy. But I was loud, boisterous,
I wasn't quiet, I wasn't passive. I have a big personality.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Christy Rucker is friendly and open, quick to laugh, she
tells us. She has worked in graphic design and content creation.
She was a wife and stay at home mom for
many years, and she homeschooled her sons. Christy emailed me
after my article Pray for Kabir was published in twenty twenty.
Her husband, Shannon was involved in Straightway when they were married.
He's still involved and now Christy's talking to us from
(01:01):
her home in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Jezebel, that's what I was. That is the word he
used for me over and over and over again. Is jezebel.
And they don't mean that in a way that people
think he didn't mean like a slut or anything like that.
A Jezebel, they mean rebellious.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
But Christie says she wasn't rebellious unless that meant going
to her own church or socializing with family and friends.
She was just living her usual life, trying to be
the best wife and mother she could be. As Shannon
got more involved with Straightway, he wanted Christy to understand
why he was so into it, so she watched some
of Pastor Dowell's videos, but his brash preaching style really
(01:41):
wasn't for her. Brother Shannon became a regular at meetings,
and he'd eventually become the head of Straightway Pennsylvania. Christy
decided to go along with him to a meeting. She
sat next to Shannon like she normally would at her
own church, but then she noticed a different kind of
seating arrangement, women in the back, men in the front.
The meeting made her uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It was so awful. I only did one, just drained
the life out of me. The whole thing was bizarre, strange,
the whole experience bad. So I never went again.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Christy was never a Straightway convert, but she believed in
her marriage and wanted her sons to grow up with
their dad, and to Christy that meant going along, to
get along.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was a slow progression of his involvement, and it
was a slow progression of him putting that on me
and the children. It's a little thing, right, That's what
I kept thinking. Oh, it's just a little thing to
not eat pork. Oh, it's just a little thing. Who
cares if I cover my head? Who cares if I
choose to wear skirts over pants?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Am I willing to sacrifice my marriage to wear pants?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
She wasn't. She wore the skirts, she covered her red hair.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You kind of become willing to do whatever to save
the marriage. So by the end, I was covering my
head and I was wearing dresses and skirts like he
wanted me to.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That end was ten years coming. Shannon's beliefs deepened. Christy
says he even started to morph into Pastor Dowel, taking
on his look, the baseball hat, trimmed beard, and sunglasses,
and deepening his voice to sound more Dowel like. The
family had been living with Christie's parents, and to Christy
it seemed like their living situation kept Shannon and his
beliefs a bit more in check.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Then we bought a home. And when we bought the home,
Shannon thought, Okay, this is it. Now I can put
the crack down on my family and get my family
quote on his words, under control. There was nothing to
get under control, but in his mind we were heathens.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Shannon had been monitoring his wife's comings and goings. Her
work was she wore who she saw, and now he
increased his vigilance. Shannon started to take the control that
Dowell taught.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We moved here and it got really bad. It got
really really bad. He really cranked up his authority here
to the point where I was not allowed to go
out at night. I was not allowed to join the gym.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Christy realized the introverted guy she'd met when she was
a teenager was gone.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I'm the wife, I'm property. I don't get a say.
You know, I'm as good as a child to him.
So he made all the decisions about everything all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Christy says he would send money to Straightway, even if
that meant they couldn't pay the bills, and he didn't
want Christy to go to the doctor or get help
for her boys if they needed it. After ten years,
Christy faced the truth she was in an unhealthy marriage.
For her safety and that of her boys, she needed
to get out.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was being abused and did not realize that I
was emotionally mentally. I was being mentally abused. My children
were as well.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
She left Shannon and is now raising her two boys
on her own. It's been tough, but the last time
we spoke her bright outlook remains. She has a new job,
which she says is going well. She recently got praise
and a raised. In a reflective moment in our interview,
she describes one of the images that stands out to
her about the women of Straightway.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
All the women look the same way. They all have
that blank expression. They're not allowed to have expressions. It
almost seems like clearly very well trained.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
This is spiraled Episode four The Jezebels. I'm Kaylin Kaylor.
When I started interviewing people about Straightway Truth Ministry, there
was one theme that came up again and again, the
treatment or mistreatment of women.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
They put on women that are already bulkene and traumatized.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
They don't want someone to choose their church and be happy.
They want bodies to keep in.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Control, control coercion. There was one woman, a single mom
of two, who told me she was encouraged by the
women at Straightway to have her IUD removed. She said
she felt so much pressure from the sisters that she
even sent them a picture of the IUD as proof
that she actually got it taken out. Christy told me
about watching a live stream of one of Dowell's sermons
(06:40):
in which he brought a very young girl up on stage,
maybe around twelve years old, and started praising her beauty,
her developing body, her submissive demeanor, saying she'd be a
good milker someday.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She just stood up there, her hands were in front
of her, kind of clasped together in front of her.
She had on the long dress and the head covering
like the girls do and the women do, and she
was just looking down at the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Some women are willing to submit the money.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Good morning, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Pastor Dowell's YouTube channel is filled with videos of Straightway
sisters who say that their life is pretty special.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Are you ready for a good day?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
They tend to their husbands, they cook, they clean, they
raise their kids. Who made yeahwah, we planned this day.
And then there are women who won't submit, like Eileen
Kabir Basja Bamila's wife. Remember when Kabir joined Straightway, one
of the things that didn't sit well with Eileen was
the group's extreme stance on gender roles.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
He would make it a point to like tell people, yeah,
I'm the head, this is how Christian marriage is, and
like I call the shots.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
At first, that matched up pretty well with Eileen's view
of Christianity. She really did believe that Kabir, as her husband,
was the head of the family and the home. But
when he started to insist that their newborn daughter were
a head covering, when he became more strict with their sons,
their views diverged. Eileen went online to research Straightway, and
she says she came across some alarming claims.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
It was allegations of all these different complaints about like
gun confiscation, families being abused or messed up. It was
just pages and pages of these testimonies, and I'm like,
what in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
As part of my reporting, I looked into those claims
and that's how I found my anonymous source. In twenty twenty,
I've talked to a few people who lived at Straightway Tennessee.
But there's only one woman who I was able to
speak with who also lived there as a child. I
spoke to her as part of my original reporting in
twenty twenty. She did not want to go on the
record for this podcast, so I'm telling her story from
(08:56):
the original interview I did with her.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Then.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The source asked that we not use her name or
voice to protect her privacy and safety. But she says
she was abused physically and sexually by a man who
lived at Straightway. I also spoke to her mother for
the original story in twenty twenty, and she confirmed her
daughter's allegations of abuse. When the anonymous woman was little,
she lived with her mom, her older sister, and older brother.
(09:19):
The family moved around a lot. Her grandma was really
into collective living, so they'd hop from community to community
in their van, and in the early two thousands, when
she was about two years old, the family started visiting
one of the overcomer communities led by Ralph Stair, the
apocalyptic preacher who inspired and mentored past her Dowell. A
few years later, they met Dowell himself, and he invited
(09:42):
the family to live at Straightway in Tennessee. Within the community.
This woman said Dowell directed every part of their days
from sun up to sundown. Days were spent at church
services or Bible study. The homeschooling was a joke, she said,
just a show to keep the authorities from investigating. Said
Dowell controlled what and how much they ate.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
So let's go into the kitchen here, this is our
do at all. I need to get home.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And each family had chores assigned by Dowell. There was
a lot of physical labor, like carrying buckets of rocks
out of the garden and waking up at five am
to milk the goats. There were lessons on target shooting
and knife fighting for both men and women.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Now I'm gonna get your thing out for trigger, get
the break, take your thing out trigger pocket.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yet my source said she fired her first ar fifteen
when she was nine years old, aiming at human shaped
paper targets. My sources mom didn't speak to me for
this podcast, but I did talk to her for my
original article in twenty twenty, and she told me. Community
members had to keep a two way radio on them
at all times so Dowell could summon them whenever he
(10:52):
needed to, and if they did something wrong, Dowell would
blast them over the radio. At first, the structure in
the community mindedness, it was really appealing.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Pastor Dow, this morning comes to you from the great
country state of Tennessee, and as you can see, we're
way out here in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
As a single mom, her children's father had recently left
her and she needed a home. Like the Overcomer followers
we heard from last episode, she believed she had to
live in a set apart faith community in order to
have eternal life. Not long after they arrived at Straightway,
my sources mom said she was introduced to a man
who had become her quote unquote husband and my sources
(11:35):
quote unquote stepdad. Marriages at Straightway are not traditional legal
marriages with licenses and all the paperwork. Remember, the group
shares some beliefs and practices with anti government sovereign citizens.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Anytime the government gives you license or grant you privileges
for something that's already or right for you to do
in the first place, they've got perks.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
This is a subject that Dowell is super passionate about.
One of his videos from twenty eighteen, called never get
a Marriage License Here's Why, has over half a million views.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
The marriage contract has been one of the most expensive
contracts did lawyers and court systems has used against the man.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
From talking to several people who were part of Straightway,
we learned Dowell as the ultimate matchmaker. Men need to
ask his permission to marry someone in the community, and
if he doesn't think a couple is a good fit
for whatever reason, he'll prevent the couple from saying their vows.
Dowell approved of the union between my sources mother and
her new husband, who had status and was respected in
(12:39):
the community. But my source revealed to me in our
original interview in twenty twenty that when she was just eleven,
that man began to physically and then sexually abuse her
and her older sister. It started with beatings, you know,
spare the rod, spoil the child, and then when they
hit puberty, my source said this man started taking pictures
(12:59):
of her and her sister. In twenty twenty, she told
me that sexual abuse started gradually. She told me she'd
wake up at night to her stepdad holding her down
and touching her. She knew what was happening was wrong,
but as she continued telling me, she was so terrified
of this man, and it got to the point where
it was happening almost every night. She laid there frozen
(13:23):
with fear, she said in twenty twenty, thinking he was
a man of God. The abuse went on for over
a year. The two sisters would try to sleep in
their brother's room or outside of the trailer to get away.
My sources sister wouldn't talk to me for my original
story because it was too hard for her to revisit
her life at Straightway. At first, my source and her
(13:45):
sister didn't tell anyone what was happening, not even each other,
but their mom could sense something was wrong. She said
she'd noticed that her husband was paying an unusual amount
of attention to her older daughter. She said he would
go check on the kids during the night and be
gone for long periods of time. My sources mom said
she urged her daughter to speak up. Was her stepdad
(14:06):
touching her, but her older daughter denied it, she said.
My sources mom said her oldest daughter finally told her
what was happening when she found out her younger sister
was going through the same thing. When the girls finally
told their mom, she ran straight to Dowell and what
happened next. According to my source and her mom. The
(14:27):
three of them went to Dowel's house. My source said
Dowell told the sisters they were lying. The man that
did this to them was a man of Yaw. It
was the devil in them. They were Jezebels. They were
making everything up. But after that, my source said that
Dowell told her and her sister to sleep on cots
in his office for a couple weeks, and when they
went back home it started all over again. My sources
(14:49):
mom told me that Dowell did a little to punish
her husband her daughter's abuse her. He had been very
close to Dowell and after the abuse allegations, he lost
some of his responsibilities and saw his reputae suffer. But
she wasn't allowed to tell anyone why. My sources mother
told me that she did believe her daughters, She just
didn't know what to do. She never considered going to
the police as an option. She said, Straightway members were
(15:12):
told if you don't like it here, you can leave.
She had gone all in on this life and she
didn't even know what leaving would look like. How could
she make decisions for herself. Life at Straightway was particularly
hard for my source's older sister, who her mom said
was bullied by some of the women because they were
jealous of her beauty and her close relationship with Dowell.
(15:33):
Another woman who visited Straightway said she saw my sources
older sister massaging Dowell's shoulders in front of others when
she was around fifteen years old. This woman told me
it made her uncomfortable to watch, yes, a teenage girl
massaging the pastor. My source recalled in our twenty twenty
interview that they did their best to stay out of trouble,
(15:54):
and they would sometimes dream about life outside of Straightway,
away from their abusive stepfather, away from the people who
didn't believe them and who called them jezebels. They thought
about running away and even planned for it, sneaking and
hiding jars of peanut butter to fuel their escape, and
there was one thing holding them back. My sources mom
and her husband had a baby, and then when my
(16:15):
source was around fifteen, her mom told me she started
to hear that men in the community were discussing her
daughters as prospects for a marriage. Again, these were not
marriages in the strict legal sense, but biblical unions, and
Dowell has worked out a way to profit from these arrangements,
he sets up a couple and arranges a dowry that
the groom pays and Dowell receives. Here's Dowell in a
(16:37):
Straightway YouTube video posted two years ago. He's talking to
the men of Straightway about four young women who he's
called to the front of the congregation.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
So you getting read by value.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Let that sink in. Dowell was telling the men they
could buy value.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
You're getting ready by somebody that comes already already right
out the package, right out the package, ready for marriage.
Hey that beautiful. Somebody tell me.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
What's wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Often the bride doesn't have a biological father in the community,
because Straightway members are typically encouraged to break ties with
their natural family, so Dowel draws up his own marriage
agreements in plays of a license and receives the dowry himself,
supposedly on behalf of Straightway. The specifics of this process
are difficult to nail down, but we heard from one
former Straightway attendee that a groom paid six thousand dollars
(17:35):
for his bride. At first, marriages at Straightway were your
traditional one man, one woman affairs, But around twenty twelve,
Dowell introduced polygyny to Straightway's belief system, allowing men to
take multiple wives.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
First of all, it's totally irrelevant what I believe is.
It's all about what the word says.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
In an interview with Kabir in twenty nineteen, Pastor Dowell
describes the evolution of his thoughts on plural marriage.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
The patriarchs Abraham, who everybody say they love, had more
than one wife. Moses, the custodian of the law, had
more than one wife. Jacob, it's obvious out of him.
Come to twelve trials of Israel from four women.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
The women of Straightway were not very receptive.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I was still in there when it came out that yes,
he believes in polygamy.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Christy was watching a live stream and she remembers the reaction.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And the women went nuts. The women were like, no,
we're done. My husband can't have two wives.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So Dowell didn't push it. He stayed silent for three
years and educated himself on the topic. He wanted to
have biblical backup.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I'm gonna go straight to that book and get to
that word, and I'm gonna find out what it says,
and I'm gonna preach it and teach it, and I
don't care what people.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Like you follow.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I'm not in this of all popularity contest, and I'm
damn sure not in this to be liked.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
When practicing polygyny, by the way, you can't get a
marriage license. And when you don't have a marriage license,
you're not entitled to the same financial or legal protections
when a marriage ends, like if a wife wants to
leave her husband. That's another reason Dowell is so against
the licenses. One of the people we interviewed told us
he thinks Dowel opened up to plural marriages when he
(19:13):
met a married woman that he wanted to marry himself,
and after introducing polygyny, Dowell did marry her. He now
claims to have three eshas, or wives. When men started
taking multiple wives, a large number of group members left Straightway,
but others stayed. My source told me she bucked against
the roles that women in Straightway seemed to be forced into,
(19:35):
and her mom was worried about her teenage daughter's futures,
so she went to Dowell to discuss it. My sources
mom said she told Dowell she didn't want her daughters
to be sold off into marriage with a man just
because he had money or power. She wanted her girls
to fall in love. According to my sources, Mom Dowell
told her, well, they can always be concubines, not fit
(19:56):
to marry, but still fit to serve the men. My
sources mom told me she was stunned by that remark.
She realized her daughter's reviewed as property, nothing more than objects.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
A man, according to the way things are run, is
the head of a home, and women just don't seem
to understand it today.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
One time, after my source got a beating for making
a small mistake, she thought about committing suicide, and she
saw her older sister deteriorating too. She was depressed, her
hair was falling out, and she wasn't eating. My sources
mom told me she was able to meet up with
her own mother at a nearby hotel, and together they
created a plan to get her oldest daughter out. Afterwards,
(20:37):
she said, the community wondered where her oldest daughter went,
and everyone was told she was sent away because she
was too rebellious. With her big sister safely gone, my
source told me she was ready to leave too. She
sat her mom down and told her, tonight's the night
we're going my source, her mom, and her little sister
pretended to be sick so they could get out of
(20:58):
attending the Tuesday evening by will study. While the stepdad
was out of the house, they got ready to leave.
My sources brother chose to stay behind. At dusk, a friend,
someone who used to be involved in Straightway, came and
picked them up. They threw their things into the car
as fast as they could, hopped inside, and started driving.
(21:20):
Leaving Straightway was an immense relief for mother and daughter,
but assimilating back into the outside world was not easy,
something we'll talk about in a future episode. One of
the things that stroke me about my sources story was
that it wasn't just about what her stepdad did. It
was that Pastor Dowell didn't do much to stop it,
and that she was called a Jezebelt and made to
feel responsible for her own abuse. Kabir, who didn't join
(21:43):
the Ministry until years after my source and her family left,
told me in twenty twenty that there's zero tolerance for
violence against women at Straightway and that the ministry has
ways to guarantee that an abuser will not make the
same mistake. Twice Kabir didn't elaborate, and when we tried
to contact great Way about these allegations, Dowell would not
speak to us for this podcast. He did not respond
(22:05):
when I reached out to him for comment in twenty
twenty when I wrote the original story. But it's hard
not to see the story of these sisters and their
mother in the context of the broader Straightway culture that
Dowel has created and enforced.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
The Bible teaches that the younger women ought to marry,
bare children guide the house.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It's a culture where all the views about women are Dowels.
In a YouTube video from January twenty twenty two called
No Horrors in Israel, we see Pastor Dowell invite four
young women to the front of the tabernacle. He starts
peppering them, you.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Cook any clean?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Hey?
Speaker 7 (22:40):
You cook?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And clean?
Speaker 7 (22:42):
And you cook?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Hey?
Speaker 8 (22:43):
You clean?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Can you cook? Can you clean?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The women make no eye contact, their heads are bowed
and they stare at the ground, hands clasped in front.
Dawel continues to tell the men about these silent, pure,
obedient sisters, and straightway brothers look on and cheer.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
People sit there first night, probably end up getting preikant.
They're fertile Myrtles good Field.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
You know whow.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
That's real.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
These young women's value is their virginity.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Ain't no blood been shed in the field.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The land is not the file.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
The land is not the file.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
So that's the reason why this land commands a price.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Women who have been part of Straightway alleged that they
lack bodily autonomy, and that altogether these attitudes condone abuse.
Because of all this, it wasn't surprising to me that
so many of the people who reached out to me
were women, women whose husbands were drawn to Straightway, leaving
them reluctant to follow. But there were also women who
had joined with their husbands, and women who found and
(23:55):
joined Straightway on their own, though some in their lives
would question whether it was truly of their own volition.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
This all started, I could say, when I came into
the faith five years ago, when I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
More after the break.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
I've come before you today to dispel lies and rumors
that have been spoken against me and against the ministry
of Straightway.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And my pastor passed her own.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
This is Jordan West. Before the break, we heard from
my source who chose to leave the Straightway community that
she grew up in. When she was a teenager, Jordan
had a very different experience. She found Straightway As a
teen a friend's grandmother was watching Dowel's videos, and Jordan
started watching them too. She quickly became a devoted believer.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
This all started, I could say, when I came into
the faith five years ago, when I was thirteen years old.
It started when I stopped eating pork, and I started
to change my dress and I started to desire to
be holy.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
This is from Jordan's YouTube channel where she talks about
how she got involved in Straightway after that involvement led
to a huge rupture in her life. We didn't speak
to Jordan for this series, and Jordan's parents wouldn't do
an interview either. They said they were afraid that talking
to me on tape would put Jordan in danger. So
all the details you're about to hear were gathered from
(25:26):
other sources, social media posts and YouTube videos by both
Jordan and Dowell, and from conversations with people close to
the West family, including some of Jordan's high school friends
like Verily Boyd.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Jordan stood out in the sense that she was never
looking for attention. I remember being envious that Jordan could
be so comfortable being herself and that others saw her
merit more than her outside covering, because that was a
point where I felt like I didn't have that, and
nor did I have the courage to do so.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Verily in Jordan went to high school together in Alabama,
Verily saw Jordan as a brilliant student and talented artist.
Verlei's parents are Christian pastors, so she says she and
Jordan bonded over their nerdiness and seriousness about religion.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So her religion that she began to explain it to
me was the reason why she acts a certain way,
and the reason why she carries herself with a certain way
is out of not only respect for herself, but respect
for God.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Jordan wore long skirts and a head covering to school,
something she had learned from straightway, and at.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
That time, I'm like, wow, like that's so big. She
has so much trust and so much faith and she
doesn't even care that she's walking around in a skirt.
It seemed like Jordan had faith that she was doing
the right thing for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But for the summer, fall and winter of that school year,
Verily says, Jordan didn't share many specific details about her faith.
Then one day during art class, Verily says, Jordan told
her she'd been listening to a special man.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Everything she mentioned about this man was he's the light,
or he's going to show the way, or the world's
not ready, like this guy was the deliverer and that
everybody else was just helpless and lost until we followed him.
She wrote down on a sticky note how to watch
his videos, because she told me that it wasn't straightforward,
or that I would have to search a certain topic
(27:16):
on YouTube versus wherever to find his videos, And I'm
kind of looking at her like, oh okay, like who's
this pastor what's going on?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
The exchange made Verily feel uncomfortable. It was something about
the way Jordan wrote Pastor Dowell's name on a sticky
note and then passed it to her like it was
a secret.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
She was saying that this man was an amazing pastor
and he spoke truth and it's the light, and that
so many people weren't ready to handle. Just the conversation
was a very distinct us versus them terminology.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Verily was raised in a church that taught her to
value the doctrine, not a specific person. The way Jordan
talked about this pastor and the guarded way she shared
information about him set off what Verily called a five
alarm fire within her, but she didn't tell anyone else
about it at the time because she still wanted Jordan
to feel supported.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
If our whole friendship was the kiddie pool, that conversation
was suddenly I'm to fit deep in something I don't recognize,
and I'd let her stay ten feed deep in this pool,
and I was just like, oh, you know, I think
I'm just going to stay over here, and I do
regret that.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Actually, Jordan's parents also noticed their daughter's interest bordering on
obsession with Dowell, so they tried to limit her access
to Straightway and their videos, and even asked her high
school to restrict her Internet access. Jordan later talked about
this on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
They've taken away my internet, They've taken my phone so
that I can't hear the messages once again.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It had all started with the YouTube channel. It's a
big part of Straightway's recruiting. On Dowell's channel, there's a
new video almost daily, and Straightway is pretty savvy about
how they use YouTube. They have a team dedicated to
using search engine optimization and misleading video titles to drive views,
bury their critics, and manipulate the algorithm to get new viewers.
(29:07):
Their masters at creating content were people who are looking
for something else wind up finding Straightway. For Kabar, it
was head coverings. For Jordan, it was a video Dowell
recorded about pork being unclean. There are also videos starring
the willing women of Straightway, maybe to make the community
look more appealing and welcoming to women. Sister Ashley, sister Carol,
(29:29):
sister Nellie, Dowell's second biblical wife. They all show up
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
When how old was you when you first started calling me?
Speaker 8 (29:38):
Probably fifteen?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
After she watched Dowell's videos for a while, Jordan West
actually got in touch with one of the women there.
Sister Ashley, another high school friend, said that Jordan would
use her house phone to call Straightway. I wasn't allowed
to reach out to her zech correct.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
She always had to call me. I was right here.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We found a video of Jordan and Sister Ashley talking
about this. Time.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Never went past what she asked me to do, which was,
please don't call my home.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Please don't call my phone number.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
My family is not behind.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
What I believe.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Jordan's parents were very upset when they learned that she
was in touch with the group.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
Everywhere I go family gatherings, funerals, all the family members
are telling me that Pastor Dowell's a wicked coat leader.
I don't need to cover myself. We want to see
your body, we want to see your hair, show us
your legs.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
The West learned Jordan had been mailing silver coins from
her own collection to Dowell. They searched her bedroom for
more information, so Jordan left them a note inside one
of her notebooks, why don't you go be nosyat straightwaytruth
dot com. You're not going to find any dirt. Sorry.
Her parents called Straightway's main number and left a message
(30:50):
for Dowell telling him to stop all contact with their daughter.
But Jordan was persistent, and seemingly so was Straightway. Jordan
found a work around for every block her parents threw up.
After they tried to restrict her Internet access, Jordan's parents
found a tablet and phone that they didn't recognize. They
believed someone in Straightway gave it to her. Jordan met
(31:11):
up with a man from Straightway named Victor Rice the second,
who traveled across state lines to meet her at a
bowling alley. At the time, he was in his early
thirties and she was a sophomore in high school. She
stayed in touch with the group until she graduated and
moved with her parents to upstate New York. After she
turned eighteen. Jordan told her parents she was going to Straightway.
Speaker 7 (31:36):
I'm eighteen and a half and I tell my parents
that I'm moving to Georgia.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
They tried everything they could to stop her from going,
but Jordan headed for the airport.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
They're boohooing and the taxi Draba goes, why is your
mom crying? Are you coming back? No, I'm not so
I go to live as Straightway Georgia.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Her parents were panicked. They tried reporting Jordan as a
missing person, but were told by the sheriff that they couldn't.
She'd left of her own volition and she was eighteen
years old, but at their request, the Sheriff's office did
conduct a welfare check at the Georgia location.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
There was a knock on the door. I'm hiding behind
the bookshelf because I know it has to do.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
With my parents. According to the incident report. No one
responded to the sheriff's call. Ten days later, the West
got a letter in the mail from Jordan, Only it
didn't look like something an eighteen year old would write.
It was a formal cease and desist letter like a
lawyer might write, and it demanded that they stop contacting
her and trying to find out where she was. Around
(32:40):
this time, Jordan made her own video posted on her
own account titled Jordan West is not Missing. In the video,
she sits in front of a tree with another young woman.
She hugs her knees and looks straight into the camera.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
The people here in Georgia, the Israelites never met more
honorable people. Yes, they clothed me, take care of me. Yes,
I work on the land. This is a life to
live and I'm not going back. So no, Jordan West
is not missing. Jordan West is not in Alabama. Jordan
West is with the Saint's see that.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Eventually, Jordan relocated to Straightway, Tennessee, where her parents continued
to try and get in touch. All of these efforts
were bringing scrutiny and police attention to Straightway, something Dowell
actively works to avoid. Devil in the West met face
to face one time in September twenty seventeen, when Jordan
arranged a meetup in a Walmart parking lot to get
(33:36):
her birth certificate and Social Security card.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
They drove all the way down from New York, and
I told him, no, come back again. Because they come
back again, then we're gonna go ahead and press charges
for harassment.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And that's all it is to it.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
It's the last time the West have seen their daughter.
They did hear from another parent, though, a woman whose
daughter had also found Straightway's videos and also secretly got
in touch with women there, also moved down to Georgia
when she was eighteen years old. In a video titled
Natural Family, I Am Completely Done, Dowell called them all
(34:08):
out the West and the other families seeking their loved ones.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Don't have them to come up here and trespass on
his land, because I promise you I will hurt them,
and hurt them bad.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
A little over a year after she left, Jordan married
Victor Rice, the man she met at the bowling Alley.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Everything was way too strategic to be accidental. And that's
why I'd been angry ever since she was a minor
and she was already being groomed.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Twice, and then Verily lost touch with Jordan after high school.
But when she saw Jordan's parents post on Facebook asking
for information about their missing daughter, Verily remembered that strange
pastor on the sticky note and quickly realized where Jordan
had likely gone.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
It's pretty upsetting, it's pretty angry because it's to me,
it's plain to see what's taken place here and that
it happened well before she turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Jordan was eighteen when she left home. But to Verily,
the contact that Jordan had was Straightway members while she
was still a minor, including her future husband, is highly troubling.
Verily calls it grooming. Jordan was just a teenager when
she started learning about Straightway and cut off contact with
her family and friends who didn't understand her new beliefs.
(35:19):
So Verily wondered, how could she have made an informed choice.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's clear as day that she was grouped as a minor.
It's clearest day that even if she doesn't want to
be with this church anymore, what avenues does she have
to leave? Who's advocating for Jordan?
Speaker 4 (35:35):
We're drawing to mind all own business, So what is
it about the ministry that people are just sold?
Speaker 8 (35:40):
Now?
Speaker 1 (35:41):
From time to time, Jordan appears in videos posted to
Dowell's YouTube channel. Her wedding video is there, and she
really does look so happy, and it's clear that she
and Dowell see all of this very differently.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
Of course, you're under duress, right, not at all.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
You're under fear, no tyranny, No for hers, not at all.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I didn't talk to Jordan for this podcast or my
original story. I tried calling Straightway, but they hung up
before I could even ask for her. Jordan's family does
not have a phone number for her or a way
to contact her anymore, and I couldn't find a working
number for I wanted to understand why she chose Straightway,
but I didn't get to ask her myself. But in
twenty twenty, Dowell asked her to stand up in front
(36:23):
of the Saints and respond to my Sports Illustrated article.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
All right, so, Jordan, are you happy or Straightway?
Speaker 7 (36:32):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Do you want to leave?
Speaker 7 (36:33):
No? Never?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Are you free to go if you choose to? Yes?
I am thank you, sir, Jordan.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
You're not good.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Next time, unspiraled.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Friends of friends of ours who still live in Green Bank.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
They came into us Reggis and a coult.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
I don't think that Christianity and the NFL are intertwined
in sort of ways that INFL league officials have intentionally
sought to cultivate.
Speaker 8 (37:03):
So if you mix homesteading with guns in church and
a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that
we liked, whilla you got straightway.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
We reached out to Shannon Rucker to give him an
opportunity to respond. He never responded. We sent an extensive
list of questions to Charles Dowell, Kad Beer, Baja Bamila,
and TJ. Clemings to get their responses. We never heard back.
We tried to reach out to Lisa Harbin, no response.
We couldn't find a way to contact Jordan West directly.
If you need support to help address any of the
(37:41):
topics in this episode, please reach out to the National
Sexual Assault Hotline one eight hundred six five six four
six seven three. Spiraled as a production of Sports Illustrated Studios,
iHeart Podcasts and One on One Studios podcast The show
was reported by me Kaylen Kaylor, with additional reporting by
senior producer Buffy Gorilla. Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla
(38:04):
and Jen Kinney, Sound design, mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier.
Sarah Sneath is our fact checker, Scott Stone is our
executive producer, and Daniel Waxman is Director of Podcast Development
and Podcast Production Manager at One on One Studios. At
iHeart Podcasts, Shawan Tuton is our executive producer. Special thank
you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David Hudgin from
(38:24):
One on one Studios. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts,
go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts
Before we get started today, I want to let you
know this episode contains references to physical and sexual abuse,
including of children. There are also references to spiritual abuse.
Please take care of yourself and don't hesitate to ask
for help if you need it.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Seen and not heard. And that was one of the
criticisms that Shannon often had about me was my quote
mouth Sometimes I was maybe mouthy, but not in a
any little thing was considered mouthy. But I was loud, boisterous,
I wasn't quiet, I wasn't passive. I have a big personality.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Christy Rucker is friendly and open, quick to laugh, she
tells us. She has worked in graphic design and content creation.
She was a wife and stay at home mom for
many years, and she homeschooled her sons. Christy emailed me
after my article Pray for Kabir was published in twenty twenty.
Her husband, Shannon was involved in Straightway when they were married.
He's still involved and now Christy's talking to us from
(01:01):
her home in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Jezebel, that's what I was. That is the word he
used for me over and over and over again. Is jezebel.
And they don't mean that in a way that people
think he didn't mean like a slut or anything like that.
A Jezebel, they mean rebellious.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
But Christie says she wasn't rebellious unless that meant going
to her own church or socializing with family and friends.
She was just living her usual life, trying to be
the best wife and mother she could be. As Shannon
got more involved with Straightway, he wanted Christy to understand
why he was so into it, so she watched some
of Pastor Dowell's videos, but his brash preaching style really
(01:41):
wasn't for her. Brother Shannon became a regular at meetings,
and he'd eventually become the head of Straightway Pennsylvania. Christy
decided to go along with him to a meeting. She
sat next to Shannon like she normally would at her
own church, but then she noticed a different kind of
seating arrangement, women in the back, men in the front.
The meeting made her uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It was so awful. I only did one, just drained
the life out of me. The whole thing was bizarre, strange,
the whole experience bad. So I never went again.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Christy was never a Straightway convert, but she believed in
her marriage and wanted her sons to grow up with
their dad, and to Christy that meant going along, to
get along.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It was a slow progression of his involvement, and it
was a slow progression of him putting that on me
and the children. It's a little thing, right, That's what
I kept thinking. Oh, it's just a little thing to
not eat pork. Oh, it's just a little thing. Who
cares if I cover my head? Who cares if I
choose to wear skirts over pants?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Like?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Am I willing to sacrifice my marriage to wear pants?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
She wasn't. She wore the skirts, she covered her red hair.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
You kind of become willing to do whatever to save
the marriage. So by the end, I was covering my
head and I was wearing dresses and skirts like he
wanted me to.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
That end was ten years coming. Shannon's beliefs deepened. Christy
says he even started to morph into Pastor Dowel, taking
on his look, the baseball hat, trimmed beard, and sunglasses,
and deepening his voice to sound more Dowel like. The
family had been living with Christie's parents, and to Christy
it seemed like their living situation kept Shannon and his
beliefs a bit more in check.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Then we bought a home. And when we bought the home,
Shannon thought, Okay, this is it. Now I can put
the crack down on my family and get my family
quote on his words, under control. There was nothing to
get under control, but in his mind we were heathens.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Shannon had been monitoring his wife's comings and goings. Her
work was she wore who she saw, and now he
increased his vigilance. Shannon started to take the control that
Dowell taught.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We moved here and it got really bad. It got
really really bad. He really cranked up his authority here
to the point where I was not allowed to go
out at night. I was not allowed to join the gym.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Christy realized the introverted guy she'd met when she was
a teenager was gone.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I'm the wife, I'm property. I don't get a say.
You know, I'm as good as a child to him.
So he made all the decisions about everything all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Christy says he would send money to Straightway, even if
that meant they couldn't pay the bills, and he didn't
want Christy to go to the doctor or get help
for her boys if they needed it. After ten years,
Christy faced the truth she was in an unhealthy marriage.
For her safety and that of her boys, she needed
to get out.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was being abused and did not realize that I
was emotionally mentally. I was being mentally abused. My children
were as well.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
She left Shannon and is now raising her two boys
on her own. It's been tough, but the last time
we spoke her bright outlook remains. She has a new job,
which she says is going well. She recently got praise
and a raised. In a reflective moment in our interview,
she describes one of the images that stands out to
her about the women of Straightway.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
All the women look the same way. They all have
that blank expression. They're not allowed to have expressions. It
almost seems like clearly very well trained.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
This is spiraled Episode four The Jezebels. I'm Kaylin Kaylor.
When I started interviewing people about Straightway Truth Ministry, there
was one theme that came up again and again, the
treatment or mistreatment of women.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
They put on women that are already bulkene and traumatized.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
They don't want someone to choose their church and be happy.
They want bodies to keep in.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Control, control coercion. There was one woman, a single mom
of two, who told me she was encouraged by the
women at Straightway to have her IUD removed. She said
she felt so much pressure from the sisters that she
even sent them a picture of the IUD as proof
that she actually got it taken out. Christy told me
about watching a live stream of one of Dowell's sermons
(06:40):
in which he brought a very young girl up on stage,
maybe around twelve years old, and started praising her beauty,
her developing body, her submissive demeanor, saying she'd be a
good milker someday.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
She just stood up there, her hands were in front
of her, kind of clasped together in front of her.
She had on the long dress and the head covering
like the girls do and the women do, and she
was just looking down at the floor.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Some women are willing to submit the money.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
Good morning, Good morning.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Pastor Dowell's YouTube channel is filled with videos of Straightway
sisters who say that their life is pretty special.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Are you ready for a good day?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
They tend to their husbands, they cook, they clean, they
raise their kids. Who made yeahwah, we planned this day.
And then there are women who won't submit, like Eileen
Kabir Basja Bamila's wife. Remember when Kabir joined Straightway, one
of the things that didn't sit well with Eileen was
the group's extreme stance on gender roles.
Speaker 6 (07:48):
He would make it a point to like tell people, yeah,
I'm the head, this is how Christian marriage is, and
like I call the shots.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
At first, that matched up pretty well with Eileen's view
of Christianity. She really did believe that Kabir, as her husband,
was the head of the family and the home. But
when he started to insist that their newborn daughter were
a head covering, when he became more strict with their sons,
their views diverged. Eileen went online to research Straightway, and
she says she came across some alarming claims.
Speaker 6 (08:17):
It was allegations of all these different complaints about like
gun confiscation, families being abused or messed up. It was
just pages and pages of these testimonies, and I'm like,
what in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
As part of my reporting, I looked into those claims
and that's how I found my anonymous source. In twenty twenty,
I've talked to a few people who lived at Straightway Tennessee.
But there's only one woman who I was able to
speak with who also lived there as a child. I
spoke to her as part of my original reporting in
twenty twenty. She did not want to go on the
record for this podcast, so I'm telling her story from
(08:56):
the original interview I did with her.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Then.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
The source asked that we not use her name or
voice to protect her privacy and safety. But she says
she was abused physically and sexually by a man who
lived at Straightway. I also spoke to her mother for
the original story in twenty twenty, and she confirmed her
daughter's allegations of abuse. When the anonymous woman was little,
she lived with her mom, her older sister, and older brother.
(09:19):
The family moved around a lot. Her grandma was really
into collective living, so they'd hop from community to community
in their van, and in the early two thousands, when
she was about two years old, the family started visiting
one of the overcomer communities led by Ralph Stair, the
apocalyptic preacher who inspired and mentored past her Dowell. A
few years later, they met Dowell himself, and he invited
(09:42):
the family to live at Straightway in Tennessee. Within the community.
This woman said Dowell directed every part of their days
from sun up to sundown. Days were spent at church
services or Bible study. The homeschooling was a joke, she said,
just a show to keep the authorities from investigating. Said
Dowell controlled what and how much they ate.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
So let's go into the kitchen here, this is our
do at all. I need to get home.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
And each family had chores assigned by Dowell. There was
a lot of physical labor, like carrying buckets of rocks
out of the garden and waking up at five am
to milk the goats. There were lessons on target shooting
and knife fighting for both men and women.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Now I'm gonna get your thing out for trigger, get
the break, take your thing out trigger pocket.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yet my source said she fired her first ar fifteen
when she was nine years old, aiming at human shaped
paper targets. My sources mom didn't speak to me for
this podcast, but I did talk to her for my
original article in twenty twenty, and she told me. Community
members had to keep a two way radio on them
at all times so Dowell could summon them whenever he
(10:52):
needed to, and if they did something wrong, Dowell would
blast them over the radio. At first, the structure in
the community mindedness, it was really appealing.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Pastor Dow, this morning comes to you from the great
country state of Tennessee, and as you can see, we're
way out here in the country.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
As a single mom, her children's father had recently left
her and she needed a home. Like the Overcomer followers
we heard from last episode, she believed she had to
live in a set apart faith community in order to
have eternal life. Not long after they arrived at Straightway,
my sources mom said she was introduced to a man
who had become her quote unquote husband and my sources
(11:35):
quote unquote stepdad. Marriages at Straightway are not traditional legal
marriages with licenses and all the paperwork. Remember, the group
shares some beliefs and practices with anti government sovereign citizens.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Anytime the government gives you license or grant you privileges
for something that's already or right for you to do
in the first place, they've got perks.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
This is a subject that Dowell is super passionate about.
One of his videos from twenty eighteen, called never get
a Marriage License Here's Why, has over half a million views.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
The marriage contract has been one of the most expensive
contracts did lawyers and court systems has used against the man.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
From talking to several people who were part of Straightway,
we learned Dowell as the ultimate matchmaker. Men need to
ask his permission to marry someone in the community, and
if he doesn't think a couple is a good fit
for whatever reason, he'll prevent the couple from saying their vows.
Dowell approved of the union between my sources mother and
her new husband, who had status and was respected in
(12:39):
the community. But my source revealed to me in our
original interview in twenty twenty that when she was just eleven,
that man began to physically and then sexually abuse her
and her older sister. It started with beatings, you know,
spare the rod, spoil the child, and then when they
hit puberty, my source said this man started taking pictures
(12:59):
of her and her sister. In twenty twenty, she told
me that sexual abuse started gradually. She told me she'd
wake up at night to her stepdad holding her down
and touching her. She knew what was happening was wrong,
but as she continued telling me, she was so terrified
of this man, and it got to the point where
it was happening almost every night. She laid there frozen
(13:23):
with fear, she said in twenty twenty, thinking he was
a man of God. The abuse went on for over
a year. The two sisters would try to sleep in
their brother's room or outside of the trailer to get away.
My sources sister wouldn't talk to me for my original
story because it was too hard for her to revisit
her life at Straightway. At first, my source and her
(13:45):
sister didn't tell anyone what was happening, not even each other,
but their mom could sense something was wrong. She said
she'd noticed that her husband was paying an unusual amount
of attention to her older daughter. She said he would
go check on the kids during the night and be
gone for long periods of time. My sources mom said
she urged her daughter to speak up. Was her stepdad
(14:06):
touching her, but her older daughter denied it, she said.
My sources mom said her oldest daughter finally told her
what was happening when she found out her younger sister
was going through the same thing. When the girls finally
told their mom, she ran straight to Dowell and what
happened next. According to my source and her mom. The
(14:27):
three of them went to Dowel's house. My source said
Dowell told the sisters they were lying. The man that
did this to them was a man of Yaw. It
was the devil in them. They were Jezebels. They were
making everything up. But after that, my source said that
Dowell told her and her sister to sleep on cots
in his office for a couple weeks, and when they
went back home it started all over again. My sources
(14:49):
mom told me that Dowell did a little to punish
her husband her daughter's abuse her. He had been very
close to Dowell and after the abuse allegations, he lost
some of his responsibilities and saw his reputae suffer. But
she wasn't allowed to tell anyone why. My sources mother
told me that she did believe her daughters, She just
didn't know what to do. She never considered going to
the police as an option. She said, Straightway members were
(15:12):
told if you don't like it here, you can leave.
She had gone all in on this life and she
didn't even know what leaving would look like. How could
she make decisions for herself. Life at Straightway was particularly
hard for my source's older sister, who her mom said
was bullied by some of the women because they were
jealous of her beauty and her close relationship with Dowell.
(15:33):
Another woman who visited Straightway said she saw my sources
older sister massaging Dowell's shoulders in front of others when
she was around fifteen years old. This woman told me
it made her uncomfortable to watch, yes, a teenage girl
massaging the pastor. My source recalled in our twenty twenty
interview that they did their best to stay out of trouble,
(15:54):
and they would sometimes dream about life outside of Straightway,
away from their abusive stepfather, away from the people who
didn't believe them and who called them jezebels. They thought
about running away and even planned for it, sneaking and
hiding jars of peanut butter to fuel their escape, and
there was one thing holding them back. My sources mom
and her husband had a baby, and then when my
(16:15):
source was around fifteen, her mom told me she started
to hear that men in the community were discussing her
daughters as prospects for a marriage. Again, these were not
marriages in the strict legal sense, but biblical unions, and
Dowell has worked out a way to profit from these arrangements,
he sets up a couple and arranges a dowry that
the groom pays and Dowell receives. Here's Dowell in a
(16:37):
Straightway YouTube video posted two years ago. He's talking to
the men of Straightway about four young women who he's
called to the front of the congregation.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
So you getting read by value.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Let that sink in. Dowell was telling the men they
could buy value.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
You're getting ready by somebody that comes already already right
out the package, right out the package, ready for marriage.
Hey that beautiful. Somebody tell me.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
What's wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Often the bride doesn't have a biological father in the community,
because Straightway members are typically encouraged to break ties with
their natural family, so Dowel draws up his own marriage
agreements in plays of a license and receives the dowry himself,
supposedly on behalf of Straightway. The specifics of this process
are difficult to nail down, but we heard from one
former Straightway attendee that a groom paid six thousand dollars
(17:35):
for his bride. At first, marriages at Straightway were your
traditional one man, one woman affairs, But around twenty twelve,
Dowell introduced polygyny to Straightway's belief system, allowing men to
take multiple wives.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
First of all, it's totally irrelevant what I believe is.
It's all about what the word says.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
In an interview with Kabir in twenty nineteen, Pastor Dowell
describes the evolution of his thoughts on plural marriage.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
The patriarchs Abraham, who everybody say they love, had more
than one wife. Moses, the custodian of the law, had
more than one wife. Jacob, it's obvious out of him.
Come to twelve trials of Israel from four women.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
The women of Straightway were not very receptive.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I was still in there when it came out that yes,
he believes in polygamy.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Christy was watching a live stream and she remembers the reaction.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And the women went nuts. The women were like, no,
we're done. My husband can't have two wives.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
So Dowell didn't push it. He stayed silent for three
years and educated himself on the topic. He wanted to
have biblical backup.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I'm gonna go straight to that book and get to
that word, and I'm gonna find out what it says,
and I'm gonna preach it and teach it, and I
don't care what people.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Like you follow.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
I'm not in this of all popularity contest, and I'm
damn sure not in this to be liked.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
When practicing polygyny, by the way, you can't get a
marriage license. And when you don't have a marriage license,
you're not entitled to the same financial or legal protections
when a marriage ends, like if a wife wants to
leave her husband. That's another reason Dowell is so against
the licenses. One of the people we interviewed told us
he thinks Dowel opened up to plural marriages when he
(19:13):
met a married woman that he wanted to marry himself,
and after introducing polygyny, Dowell did marry her. He now
claims to have three eshas, or wives. When men started
taking multiple wives, a large number of group members left Straightway,
but others stayed. My source told me she bucked against
the roles that women in Straightway seemed to be forced into,
(19:35):
and her mom was worried about her teenage daughter's futures,
so she went to Dowell to discuss it. My sources
mom said she told Dowell she didn't want her daughters
to be sold off into marriage with a man just
because he had money or power. She wanted her girls
to fall in love. According to my sources, Mom Dowell
told her, well, they can always be concubines, not fit
(19:56):
to marry, but still fit to serve the men. My
sources mom told me she was stunned by that remark.
She realized her daughter's reviewed as property, nothing more than objects.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
A man, according to the way things are run, is
the head of a home, and women just don't seem
to understand it today.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
One time, after my source got a beating for making
a small mistake, she thought about committing suicide, and she
saw her older sister deteriorating too. She was depressed, her
hair was falling out, and she wasn't eating. My sources
mom told me she was able to meet up with
her own mother at a nearby hotel, and together they
created a plan to get her oldest daughter out. Afterwards,
(20:37):
she said, the community wondered where her oldest daughter went,
and everyone was told she was sent away because she
was too rebellious. With her big sister safely gone, my
source told me she was ready to leave too. She
sat her mom down and told her, tonight's the night
we're going my source, her mom, and her little sister
pretended to be sick so they could get out of
(20:58):
attending the Tuesday evening by will study. While the stepdad
was out of the house, they got ready to leave.
My sources brother chose to stay behind. At dusk, a friend,
someone who used to be involved in Straightway, came and
picked them up. They threw their things into the car
as fast as they could, hopped inside, and started driving.
(21:20):
Leaving Straightway was an immense relief for mother and daughter,
but assimilating back into the outside world was not easy,
something we'll talk about in a future episode. One of
the things that stroke me about my sources story was
that it wasn't just about what her stepdad did. It
was that Pastor Dowell didn't do much to stop it,
and that she was called a Jezebelt and made to
feel responsible for her own abuse. Kabir, who didn't join
(21:43):
the Ministry until years after my source and her family left,
told me in twenty twenty that there's zero tolerance for
violence against women at Straightway and that the ministry has
ways to guarantee that an abuser will not make the
same mistake. Twice Kabir didn't elaborate, and when we tried
to contact great Way about these allegations, Dowell would not
speak to us for this podcast. He did not respond
(22:05):
when I reached out to him for comment in twenty
twenty when I wrote the original story. But it's hard
not to see the story of these sisters and their
mother in the context of the broader Straightway culture that
Dowel has created and enforced.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
The Bible teaches that the younger women ought to marry,
bare children guide the house.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
It's a culture where all the views about women are Dowels.
In a YouTube video from January twenty twenty two called
No Horrors in Israel, we see Pastor Dowell invite four
young women to the front of the tabernacle. He starts
peppering them, you.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Cook any clean?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Hey?
Speaker 7 (22:40):
You cook?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And clean?
Speaker 7 (22:42):
And you cook?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Hey?
Speaker 8 (22:43):
You clean?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Can you cook? Can you clean?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
The women make no eye contact, their heads are bowed
and they stare at the ground, hands clasped in front.
Dawel continues to tell the men about these silent, pure,
obedient sisters, and straightway brothers look on and cheer.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
People sit there first night, probably end up getting preikant.
They're fertile Myrtles good Field.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
You know whow.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
That's real.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
These young women's value is their virginity.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Ain't no blood been shed in the field.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
The land is not the file.
Speaker 7 (23:28):
The land is not the file.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
So that's the reason why this land commands a price.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Women who have been part of Straightway alleged that they
lack bodily autonomy, and that altogether these attitudes condone abuse.
Because of all this, it wasn't surprising to me that
so many of the people who reached out to me
were women, women whose husbands were drawn to Straightway, leaving
them reluctant to follow. But there were also women who
had joined with their husbands, and women who found and
(23:55):
joined Straightway on their own, though some in their lives
would question whether it was truly of their own volition.
Speaker 5 (24:01):
This all started, I could say, when I came into
the faith five years ago, when I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
More after the break.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
I've come before you today to dispel lies and rumors
that have been spoken against me and against the ministry
of Straightway.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And my pastor passed her own.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
This is Jordan West. Before the break, we heard from
my source who chose to leave the Straightway community that
she grew up in. When she was a teenager, Jordan
had a very different experience. She found Straightway As a
teen a friend's grandmother was watching Dowel's videos, and Jordan
started watching them too. She quickly became a devoted believer.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
This all started, I could say, when I came into
the faith five years ago, when I was thirteen years old.
It started when I stopped eating pork, and I started
to change my dress and I started to desire to
be holy.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
This is from Jordan's YouTube channel where she talks about
how she got involved in Straightway after that involvement led
to a huge rupture in her life. We didn't speak
to Jordan for this series, and Jordan's parents wouldn't do
an interview either. They said they were afraid that talking
to me on tape would put Jordan in danger. So
all the details you're about to hear were gathered from
(25:26):
other sources, social media posts and YouTube videos by both
Jordan and Dowell, and from conversations with people close to
the West family, including some of Jordan's high school friends
like Verily Boyd.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Jordan stood out in the sense that she was never
looking for attention. I remember being envious that Jordan could
be so comfortable being herself and that others saw her
merit more than her outside covering, because that was a
point where I felt like I didn't have that, and
nor did I have the courage to do so.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Verily in Jordan went to high school together in Alabama,
Verily saw Jordan as a brilliant student and talented artist.
Verlei's parents are Christian pastors, so she says she and
Jordan bonded over their nerdiness and seriousness about religion.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So her religion that she began to explain it to
me was the reason why she acts a certain way,
and the reason why she carries herself with a certain way
is out of not only respect for herself, but respect
for God.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Jordan wore long skirts and a head covering to school,
something she had learned from straightway, and at.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
That time, I'm like, wow, like that's so big. She
has so much trust and so much faith and she
doesn't even care that she's walking around in a skirt.
It seemed like Jordan had faith that she was doing
the right thing for the right reasons.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But for the summer, fall and winter of that school year,
Verily says, Jordan didn't share many specific details about her faith.
Then one day during art class, Verily says, Jordan told
her she'd been listening to a special man.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Everything she mentioned about this man was he's the light,
or he's going to show the way, or the world's
not ready, like this guy was the deliverer and that
everybody else was just helpless and lost until we followed him.
She wrote down on a sticky note how to watch
his videos, because she told me that it wasn't straightforward,
or that I would have to search a certain topic
(27:16):
on YouTube versus wherever to find his videos, And I'm
kind of looking at her like, oh okay, like who's
this pastor what's going on?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
The exchange made Verily feel uncomfortable. It was something about
the way Jordan wrote Pastor Dowell's name on a sticky
note and then passed it to her like it was
a secret.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
She was saying that this man was an amazing pastor
and he spoke truth and it's the light, and that
so many people weren't ready to handle. Just the conversation
was a very distinct us versus them terminology.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Verily was raised in a church that taught her to
value the doctrine, not a specific person. The way Jordan
talked about this pastor and the guarded way she shared
information about him set off what Verily called a five
alarm fire within her, but she didn't tell anyone else
about it at the time because she still wanted Jordan
to feel supported.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
If our whole friendship was the kiddie pool, that conversation
was suddenly I'm to fit deep in something I don't recognize,
and I'd let her stay ten feed deep in this pool,
and I was just like, oh, you know, I think
I'm just going to stay over here, and I do
regret that.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Actually, Jordan's parents also noticed their daughter's interest bordering on
obsession with Dowell, so they tried to limit her access
to Straightway and their videos, and even asked her high
school to restrict her Internet access. Jordan later talked about
this on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
They've taken away my internet, They've taken my phone so
that I can't hear the messages once again.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It had all started with the YouTube channel. It's a
big part of Straightway's recruiting. On Dowell's channel, there's a
new video almost daily, and Straightway is pretty savvy about
how they use YouTube. They have a team dedicated to
using search engine optimization and misleading video titles to drive views,
bury their critics, and manipulate the algorithm to get new viewers.
(29:07):
Their masters at creating content were people who are looking
for something else wind up finding Straightway. For Kabar, it
was head coverings. For Jordan, it was a video Dowell
recorded about pork being unclean. There are also videos starring
the willing women of Straightway, maybe to make the community
look more appealing and welcoming to women. Sister Ashley, sister Carol,
(29:29):
sister Nellie, Dowell's second biblical wife. They all show up
on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
When how old was you when you first started calling me?
Speaker 8 (29:38):
Probably fifteen?
Speaker 1 (29:40):
After she watched Dowell's videos for a while, Jordan West
actually got in touch with one of the women there.
Sister Ashley, another high school friend, said that Jordan would
use her house phone to call Straightway. I wasn't allowed
to reach out to her zech correct.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
She always had to call me. I was right here.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We found a video of Jordan and Sister Ashley talking
about this. Time.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Never went past what she asked me to do, which was,
please don't call my home.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Please don't call my phone number.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
My family is not behind.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
What I believe.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Jordan's parents were very upset when they learned that she
was in touch with the group.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
Everywhere I go family gatherings, funerals, all the family members
are telling me that Pastor Dowell's a wicked coat leader.
I don't need to cover myself. We want to see
your body, we want to see your hair, show us
your legs.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
The West learned Jordan had been mailing silver coins from
her own collection to Dowell. They searched her bedroom for
more information, so Jordan left them a note inside one
of her notebooks, why don't you go be nosyat straightwaytruth
dot com. You're not going to find any dirt. Sorry.
Her parents called Straightway's main number and left a message
(30:50):
for Dowell telling him to stop all contact with their daughter.
But Jordan was persistent, and seemingly so was Straightway. Jordan
found a work around for every block her parents threw up.
After they tried to restrict her Internet access, Jordan's parents
found a tablet and phone that they didn't recognize. They
believed someone in Straightway gave it to her. Jordan met
(31:11):
up with a man from Straightway named Victor Rice the second,
who traveled across state lines to meet her at a
bowling alley. At the time, he was in his early
thirties and she was a sophomore in high school. She
stayed in touch with the group until she graduated and
moved with her parents to upstate New York. After she
turned eighteen. Jordan told her parents she was going to Straightway.
Speaker 7 (31:36):
I'm eighteen and a half and I tell my parents
that I'm moving to Georgia.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
They tried everything they could to stop her from going,
but Jordan headed for the airport.
Speaker 7 (31:45):
They're boohooing and the taxi Draba goes, why is your
mom crying? Are you coming back? No, I'm not so
I go to live as Straightway Georgia.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Her parents were panicked. They tried reporting Jordan as a
missing person, but were told by the sheriff that they couldn't.
She'd left of her own volition and she was eighteen
years old, but at their request, the Sheriff's office did
conduct a welfare check at the Georgia location.
Speaker 7 (32:14):
There was a knock on the door. I'm hiding behind
the bookshelf because I know it has to do.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
With my parents. According to the incident report. No one
responded to the sheriff's call. Ten days later, the West
got a letter in the mail from Jordan, Only it
didn't look like something an eighteen year old would write.
It was a formal cease and desist letter like a
lawyer might write, and it demanded that they stop contacting
her and trying to find out where she was. Around
(32:40):
this time, Jordan made her own video posted on her
own account titled Jordan West is not Missing. In the video,
she sits in front of a tree with another young woman.
She hugs her knees and looks straight into the camera.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
The people here in Georgia, the Israelites never met more
honorable people. Yes, they clothed me, take care of me. Yes,
I work on the land. This is a life to
live and I'm not going back. So no, Jordan West
is not missing. Jordan West is not in Alabama. Jordan
West is with the Saint's see that.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Eventually, Jordan relocated to Straightway, Tennessee, where her parents continued
to try and get in touch. All of these efforts
were bringing scrutiny and police attention to Straightway, something Dowell
actively works to avoid. Devil in the West met face
to face one time in September twenty seventeen, when Jordan
arranged a meetup in a Walmart parking lot to get
(33:36):
her birth certificate and Social Security card.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
They drove all the way down from New York, and
I told him, no, come back again. Because they come
back again, then we're gonna go ahead and press charges
for harassment.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
And that's all it is to it.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
It's the last time the West have seen their daughter.
They did hear from another parent, though, a woman whose
daughter had also found Straightway's videos and also secretly got
in touch with women there, also moved down to Georgia
when she was eighteen years old. In a video titled
Natural Family, I Am Completely Done, Dowell called them all
(34:08):
out the West and the other families seeking their loved ones.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Don't have them to come up here and trespass on
his land, because I promise you I will hurt them,
and hurt them bad.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
A little over a year after she left, Jordan married
Victor Rice, the man she met at the bowling Alley.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Everything was way too strategic to be accidental. And that's
why I'd been angry ever since she was a minor
and she was already being groomed.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Twice, and then Verily lost touch with Jordan after high school.
But when she saw Jordan's parents post on Facebook asking
for information about their missing daughter, Verily remembered that strange
pastor on the sticky note and quickly realized where Jordan
had likely gone.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
It's pretty upsetting, it's pretty angry because it's to me,
it's plain to see what's taken place here and that
it happened well before she turned eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Jordan was eighteen when she left home. But to Verily,
the contact that Jordan had was Straightway members while she
was still a minor, including her future husband, is highly troubling.
Verily calls it grooming. Jordan was just a teenager when
she started learning about Straightway and cut off contact with
her family and friends who didn't understand her new beliefs.
(35:19):
So Verily wondered, how could she have made an informed choice.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's clear as day that she was grouped as a minor.
It's clearest day that even if she doesn't want to
be with this church anymore, what avenues does she have
to leave? Who's advocating for Jordan?
Speaker 4 (35:35):
We're drawing to mind all own business, So what is
it about the ministry that people are just sold?
Speaker 8 (35:40):
Now?
Speaker 1 (35:41):
From time to time, Jordan appears in videos posted to
Dowell's YouTube channel. Her wedding video is there, and she
really does look so happy, and it's clear that she
and Dowell see all of this very differently.
Speaker 7 (35:53):
Of course, you're under duress, right, not at all.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
You're under fear, no tyranny, No for hers, not at all.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I didn't talk to Jordan for this podcast or my
original story. I tried calling Straightway, but they hung up
before I could even ask for her. Jordan's family does
not have a phone number for her or a way
to contact her anymore, and I couldn't find a working
number for I wanted to understand why she chose Straightway,
but I didn't get to ask her myself. But in
twenty twenty, Dowell asked her to stand up in front
(36:23):
of the Saints and respond to my Sports Illustrated article.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
All right, so, Jordan, are you happy or Straightway?
Speaker 7 (36:32):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Do you want to leave?
Speaker 7 (36:33):
No? Never?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
Are you free to go if you choose to? Yes?
I am thank you, sir, Jordan.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
You're not good.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Next time, unspiraled.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Friends of friends of ours who still live in Green Bank.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
They came into us Reggis and a coult.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
I don't think that Christianity and the NFL are intertwined
in sort of ways that INFL league officials have intentionally
sought to cultivate.
Speaker 8 (37:03):
So if you mix homesteading with guns in church and
a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that
we liked, whilla you got straightway.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
We reached out to Shannon Rucker to give him an
opportunity to respond. He never responded. We sent an extensive
list of questions to Charles Dowell, Kad Beer, Baja Bamila,
and TJ. Clemings to get their responses. We never heard back.
We tried to reach out to Lisa Harbin, no response.
We couldn't find a way to contact Jordan West directly.
If you need support to help address any of the
(37:41):
topics in this episode, please reach out to the National
Sexual Assault Hotline one eight hundred six five six four
six seven three. Spiraled as a production of Sports Illustrated Studios,
iHeart Podcasts and One on One Studios podcast The show
was reported by me Kaylen Kaylor, with additional reporting by
senior producer Buffy Gorilla. Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla
(38:04):
and Jen Kinney, Sound design, mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier.
Sarah Sneath is our fact checker, Scott Stone is our
executive producer, and Daniel Waxman is Director of Podcast Development
and Podcast Production Manager at One on One Studios. At
iHeart Podcasts, Shawan Tuton is our executive producer. Special thank
you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David Hudgin from
(38:24):
One on one Studios. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts,
go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts
Host
Kalyn Kahler
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