Two young Kaua`i students at the University of Hawai`i-Manoa have disappeared, and their families fear they are involved with an alleged cult authorities call The Jim Roberts Group. Kellie D. Domen, 19, and her friend, Benjamin Eli Mejia, 21, haven’t
Two young Kaua`i students at the University of Hawai`i-Manoa have disappeared,
and their families fear they are involved with an alleged cult authorities call
The Jim Roberts Group.
Kellie D. Domen, 19, and her friend, Benjamin Eli
Mejia, 21, haven’t contacted their parents since early October.
Domen is of
Filipino/Portuguese heritage. She is approximately 5 feet tall and weighs
between 115 and 120 pounds. She has brown eyes and dark brown hair.
She
doesn’t have glasses or contact lenses, although she needs them, and she may be
wearing long-sleeved clothing and no makeup.
Mejia has dark brown hair and
eyes. He is about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs approximately 140 pounds. He
may be growing his hair longer and may not be shaven.
Domen’s mom and
step-mom both say the youths were recruited on the campus of the University of
Hawai`i.
The Jim Roberts Group, also known as the Brethren and nicknamed
“the garbage eaters” because of their penchant for eating out of trash cans and
dumpsters, have been active in small groups across the United States since
1971.
They have been the subject of various news reports, including a
“Prime Time” segment with Dianne Sawyer on ABC Television, broadcast nationally
in March 1998.
The Brethren live in small groups and move around the United
States, recruiting other youth in popular gathering places, including college
campuses.
Sawyer’s program interviewed parents of members of the group and
talked about Brethren members trying to recruit college students at Berkeley,
Harvard, Northwestern and on the campus of Columbia University in New York
City.
The Brethren have recently been active in Seattle and Minneapolis and
are also now in Hawai`i.
Domen and Mejia were approached by members of the
Brethren on the campus of the University of Hawai`i. Both Kaua`i students wrote
their parents that they had met “some genuine Christians.”
Recruiters talk
about Scripture to the youths they zero in on. Many of their targets, like
Domen, were active in church groups while living at home.
Jim Roberts began
collecting followers in the early 1970s. Although there are dropouts from the
group who surface, there are other people involved with the Brethren whose
families haven’t seen them for more than two decades.
Former members told
Sawyer that new recruits are moved far from where they are initially recruited,
and after lengthy Bible studies often are given ancient Hebrew names.
Women
in the group are always subservient to men and there is no sex outside of
marriage, and no marriages between members except those authorized by
Roberts.
Roberts, honorably discharged from the Marines in 1961, is
originally from Kentucky. He was, years ago, a Pentecostal preacher and also at
one time owned and ran a beauty parlor.
Cult experts say Roberts displays
no visible signs of gurudom: No fleet of sports cars, no armed bodyguards, no
public relations wing.
But every decision made in the group, including
minute details of the members lives, allegedly originates from
him.
Disobedience can get you “excommunicated,” which believers are
convinced equates with losing their soul.
Estimates of the Brethren’s
membership range from 50 to more than 500.
Honolulu Police and campus
authorities have been notified, but Domen’s mother, Julie Foster, and
step-mother Jayne Domen said authorities told them the group’s recruiters are
breaking no laws.
In a letter dated Oct. 10, Mejia told his family, “I’m
going to live off the islands, travel, live by faith and be open to what God
shows me and wants me to do.”
Domen, in a letter to her mother, dated Oct.r
12, expressed similar sentiments.
“The decisions I’ve been making have been
completely my own…I’ve made the decision to take a break from school and
leave the island…I’ve decided to travel and continue growing in my walk,” she
wrote.
Domen also told her mother she was leaving her car at a specific
place in Oahu because she no longer needed it.
Domen’s mother has a message
for her daughter.
“I want Kellie to know that we love her and if she sees
this we would like her to call us or contact us. We, her family and friends are
concerned about Kellie’s health and her whereabouts,” Julie Foster
said.
Anyone with information about Kellie Domen can contact Jeffrey and
Julie Foster at 808-245-7119 or Douglas and Jane Domen at
808-823-0658.
Anyone with information about Benjamin Mejia is asked to
call either Dave and Teri Mejia at 808-552-9588 or Pete and Melody Antonson at
808-742-2068.
Both families have posted flyers which also ask anyone with
any knowledge of their whereabouts to call the Honolulu Police Department at
808-955-8300.
Staff writer Dennis Wilken can be reached at 245-3681
(ext. 252) and [
HREF=”mailto:dwilken@pulitzer.net”>dwilken@pulitzer.net]
