The Death of a Prophet

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at www.William-brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of christiangospalchurch.org.

And together we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles, I think I'm going to preface this episode by simply saying nothing, absolutely nothing in this cult was normal, not a single thing.

And that's the show, that's all we need to say, right? But this is one of the most requested topics that we've had to my website since I began. When people begin to realize the sheer depth of the criminal side of things that was going on behind the scenes, whether William Brannum was connected directly doing involved in it or not, when they realized that he's connected to key figures that were involved in the anti-civil rights movement and that those figures were being thoroughly investigated after the Kennedy assassination, so many questions come in about the death of William Brannum.

Because, like I just said, nothing about this cult is normal. Even the death, nothing is normal. And a lot of people, when they begin to realize this, they go down the path of conspiracy theories I did too.

And for years, I felt that there's enough question about what happened when he died, that it really, really looks like it might have been the government getting involved in maybe witness protection, extracted William Brannum from the scene.

And I've almost come full circle, there's still a few lingering questions, but I think in today's episode we're going to answer most of the questions that have been asked. And interestingly, I haven't even told you this yet, but even just three days ago, we got a request to talk about this subject that we're getting into.

So, this is a hot topic, a lot of people want to know, I spent a lot of time on this topic. among the crowd that was in it, and realize how sinister this message cult was.

They want to know what happened, and hopefully today we give them some answers. Yeah, we're finally reaching the climax of our historical research into William Brannum, and today we're going to start examining the events around William Brannum's death.

And if our listeners will recall from our last episodes, William Brannum's death came as a really unexpected surprise to everyone in the message. They're still basically sitting there on the edges of their seats hanging on his every word, waiting breathlessly for him to reveal the secret of the seven thunders and the secret of the rapturing faith, that will allow them all to escape the doomsday.

And all of them were in total expectation that that was about to happen just at any moment, so you can imagine just the total shock of William Brannum's followers when he suddenly died. He left them dazed and confused, and that confusion, along with his unfinished explanation of the thunders and the rapturing faith, set the stage for the in message to evolve into what it would in the aftermath of his death.

Right, you know, I kind of think of this as like theater, which in many ways it really ironically was, but picture a whole crowd of people that's in the theater, and you have stage one, act one, and you give this little subplot, and then you transition to stage two, subplot two, and those two are really disconnected, and you go to three for up to 50, and they're all kind of disconnected, but they're leading up to one big climactic event in the play, you know, that you're watching in the theater.

And then suddenly the curtain drops, and it stops, and all of this build up just leaves everybody in the audience hanging. Well, in the normal world, after you sit there a while, you get up and you walk out of the theater, right?

But that's not what happened here, everybody. Let's leave the curtain down, and let's just keep going, and let's pretend that none of this happened, and even though there's this climactic event that's supposed to happen, let's just disconnect ourselves from it, and point it into the future, and ignore all of the prophetic details of this big climax that's about to happen.

Yeah, William Burnham had been traveling a lot the last years of his life, so obviously he died in a car accident, so he was traveling a lot. And let me give just a quick summary, maybe, to explain William Burnham's travels in the 1960s, because one part it might be possible people's kind of got that exaggerated, and also give you an idea of just how much driving around William Burnham was doing, because he's doing most all this by car.

But during the last few years of his life, he had kind of developed this circle of loyal churches around North America that he would travel around and visit. And they were mainly where he was going in those years.

There was no more overseas revivals after 1955. His really last overseas revival was in 1955. After all, the splits in the latter rain movement had started there in the mid-50s. And the sanctions from the denominations had started to hit William Brennan really hard.

He just wasn't able to hold any large international campaigns after that. William Brennan only left North America twice after 1955 in 1960. He did a short trip to Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean where he held some small revivals that were sponsored by the full gospel businessmen.

And then in 1965, he tried to have hold up a revival tour in South Africa. But the government ended up putting restrictions on his visa, no doubt related to what had happened the last time he was in South Africa.

And he ended up not being able to actually hold any revivals while he was there. So his 1965 South Africa trip had just more or less turned into a big hunting trip and social visit.

It was really all it came of that. So from 1956 onwards, William Brennan was mainly just traveling the same circle over and over each year, visiting the same groups and the same churches that were loyal to him.

He'd usually kind of start in Arizona. And you can see this just by looking at his sermon locations. He'd usually start in Arizona. He'd work his way up the friendly churches in California up into Western Canada.

And then he'd come through Canada, come down through the Midwest, Chicago, come back down to Jeffersonville. Then he'd head into the South. He'd go to the Carolina's kind of round that corner. Then he'd come back to Shereeport, have big meetings in Shereeport.

Then he'd work his way across the South Texas ending up back in Arizona where he started again. And so that was the basic pattern he followed most of the last 10 years of his life.

And of course, he generally did that by car. And in 1965, he finished that circuit in November. His last big sermons were preached in Shereeport at Jack Morse Church. And that's that sermon where he talked about the demon squirrel, the tormenting him for so many years.

And after Shereeport, he continued on and he held a few small services in Texas, Arizona, Southern California. And his last service was in the Tucson Tabernacle of the Parade Green's Church on December 12th, where he preached a sermon on or service for communion.

And one really interesting thing about those final messages is that there is some odd red flags at all of them. And his second to last message, for example, he kept calling his life a pest house.

This pest house, I went out of this pest house. And he said, I don't want to be in the pest house anymore. And death was his way out of the pest house. And people in the message will say, some of that is for telling his death.

They would even, they even brought that up at his funeral, that he was for telling his... death in those final sermons. But I think the truth of the matter is, is that's actually more indication that William Brannum was in a suicidal state in his final weeks. He was describing suicide ideation, suicidal thoughts. And I think there's clear evidence in those sermons that he was in a worsening spiral of mental distress in those past few weeks. It really gets weird after the Kennedy assassination. William Brannum's travel patterns, everything seems to be somewhat different. His mental health state gets a lot worse. We know, for fact, we've examined the evidence

that many people who were connected to William Brannum, such as Roy Davis, all are under this investigation and scrutiny by the government. Well, two days after President Kennedy was shot, William Brannum says, if they shoot me down or whatever they might do, they'll never stop that message so you'll still go on the same. And there's clear evidence that he truly believed that the government was going to take him out. And I think it wreaked havoc on his mind because, like you said, he started becoming, he started talking about his suicidal thoughts a lot more on

recording. And you can see this progress as we go from 1963 until his death in 1965. He truly feared that something was going to happen. Why did he worry about this? I don't know, I can't explain it, but I can see according to the timeline, President Kennedy is assassinated.

Two days later, William Brannum starts talking about getting shot from, you know, to take out the message and those two, although in the message, I would say they're unrelated. Now that I know the whole history, they may not be that unrelated, right? So he, you know, he's fearing for his life, basically. And he starts worrying about his own suicide, taking his life. So that gets really key. One of the other interesting parts you mentioned, he traveled between the Tucson Tabernacle and the Jeffersonville Tabernacle. It was during the later years of this. See, William Brannum had

no consistent place to call his home or his headquarters. So had the government been looking for him, where do you find him? Is he in Arizona? Is he in Jeffersonville? Where is he at? And Perry Green came up, who was the pastor of the Tucson Tabernacle, came up with this device called the television, or the telephone hookup, they called it, but it went through a television set. And they, you know, here's a cult who, by and large, is condemning anybody who has a television.

And he's got a television set in the church that he's rigged up with a phone, and they can listen to William Brannum sermons as though he's there through this weird telephone television hookup. That sounds a little fantastical to me, John.

It's unusual, man. My understanding of the telephone hookup was that they just hooked it into the PA system in the churches that we're listening in, but a pair of green invented a machine to also broadcast the picture to the television, and that's interesting.

I'd like to see the tape. That must mean there's recording somewhere, right? I'd like to see how this was invented, because again, you can't have a television in this call. Use the guy that gets to have the television to practice making this thing, right?

It makes for some interesting study. Hey, let's watch the Western on television, and then let's practice with William Brannem Sermon. Yeah. Yeah. William Brannem definitely had a... I think you can say, for sure, William Brannem had a death wish.

Probably the last five plus years of his life. He definitely had a death wish, and he definitely flirted with a lot of suicidal thoughts the last few years of his life. Now, people in the message that will take that and say, you know, that sign he was prophesying his death, or that was the burdens of a prophet or what have you.

I mean, that is just ridiculous. I mean, that is ridiculous. I mean, God doesn't give people suicidal thoughts. God doesn't make people hate their lives. God doesn't make people wish they were dead, right?

Like, there's no way that those things are flowing from something divine, right? That kind of thoughts. But William Brannem was the last number of years of his life, had a clear death wish, was frequently sharing suicidal thoughts.

That was not prophetic of his death. That was not indication that he was a prophet. That was indication he was a mentally unstable man, struggling with some severe mental health issues. And what that was evidence of.

And so William Brannem's last church services were on December 12th. And then on December 18th, William Brannem and his family were traveling back to Jefferson ville to spend the Christmas holiday with their family there in Jeffersonville.

And it was during that car ride back to Jeffersonville where the fatal accident happened. And one thing that really sticks out to me when you read the eyewitness account of what happened that day is there was something going on on that day that made William Brannem become very upset.

He was very worked up. And I'm not sure if we want to speculate about what that was, but whatever it was, it boiled over into a family argument while the Brannem family was having dinner that evening at a roadside diner.

And Sarah Brannem published an eyewitness account of those events in the 1990s, early 1990s, late, I think maybe even been the late 80s when she put that out as I'm thinking. Might have been 1989.

Somewhere between 1989 and 1992, she put that letter out if you'd like to read. those first-hand accounts of what happened that day in the events leading up to the accident? Yeah, those letters are very interesting because while portraying themselves as a, you know, a very loving family unit and there's just a different side to the story. You know, my family was there. My family was very close to the Brandon family. In fact, my aunts and uncles and fathers spent a great deal of time with the family and it's just really odd when you read her letter because she makes it sound like

there was some some very heated discussions in that car before the death.

Yes, I mean, definitely there was some very serious argument going on and whatever it was, right, whatever was going on just before the accident. It is a little bit of a message legend, right, at least where I come from and there's just so much speculation about that situation.

I'm personally, I'm not terribly sure even what to believe. Raymond Jackson claimed to know the secret. William Branham had supposedly got a call from George Wright just before they started on the road trip and had supposedly William Branham had supposedly told George Wright what was going on. So that's, that's the, that's where my message is, sect of the story comes from to explain all this. William Branham called George Wright, told George Wright what had happened. George Wright and his family, the Mosures, the rights were in our church. They told Raymond Jackson all about it and told a lot of people in the church about what William Branham supposedly told them

after William Branham died. So I'll, I'll, I'll say part of the, I'll say the story, I guess, because you know, they're all dead now. The rights are dead, Raymond Jackson's dead and all the people involved in the story are pretty, are dead. But Rebecca Branham was probably carrying on a secret relationship with somebody that William Branham did not approve of. And that is what had supposedly got William Branham very upset that day. That's the same matching story that I heard growing up. And again, I, I wasn't there. I don't have all the details. This is rumor.

It's nothing more. So if, if you're looking for a historical fact, this is not it. But my family's, and not just my family, I've heard it from multiple people who were in the inner circle, but there was something going on with Rebecca Branham, William Branham's daughter. And it, like you said, the rumors were that it was a relationship that William Branham did not want.

And there were two people implicated in it. According to, and again, it's rumor. It's, it's not even my opinion. It's just what I heard. And what matches, what other people who weren't involved in new testified to me. But they claimed that Perry Green was somehow involved. And that when Rebecca was having this thing, whatever she was doing, that Rebecca Brannum and Perry Green and my aunt was all involved in this thing. I don't understand what it was or they gave some details which I won't share because, again, it's rumor, it's not fact that I can prove, but

something was going on that was significant enough to anger William Brannum and in the months leading up to this. Apparently, according to family who was in the Brannum home, William Brannum was having some very, very heated conversations on his telephone to the extent, I think they even described him as yelling in the phone and it was just out of character in the home, even though the home wasn't, according to people that were there, it wasn't as happy of a family as you picture from the tales that are told by the stage persona, but especially in the later years leading up to the

death or something going on and whatever that was, I don't know, but it kind of matches what you heard from your sect. So here we have the two or three witnesses that told me about it and you now telling me from your witnesses. So we can say that at minimum something happened, something was going on. Yeah, you know, even if it's not true, I think it's just notable. This is the legend in the cult anyway about what was going on, but the cult talks. So the legend is Sarah Rebekah was having a relationship with William Brannum, was not pleased with, and that's why he was upset.

But, you know, whatever the case, whatever it was, one thing is for sure, William Brannum was very worked up at the day of the accident. He was very emotional. He was very angry about the situation. And Sarah Brannum said that he didn't even finish his meal that day at the diner. He was just so worked up, he didn't finish eating. And so when they finally got back into the car to continue their journey, you know, the argument just kept going on. William Brannum and his wife Mita were setting up from the car. Sarah was in the back seat of the car, and then Billy Paul, his

wife and kids in Joseph were in a second car. And as they drove off from the diner, Mita Brannum had broken out into tears. She was crying because the argument had become so hard. So she's in tears, crying. And according to Sarah, William Brannum was saying a lot of very threatening things there in his last moments. Let me read you an excerpt of Sarah's letter. She wrote, mother started crying, saying, please, Bill, please, Bill, I lay in the back seat of the car because I was very upset too, as this was the first time I had seen or heard them argue in that tone. My father said, I'm going to

expose many things in name. games this time. My mother kept begging, please, no bill, no bill, and you have to remember this is William Brannum. I mean, the whole cult believes William Brannum's wife has got cancer for talking back to him, right? And so here she is begging him, no, you can just, you can just, he's even convinced her. William Brannum is even convinced her as wife that God gave her cancer for talking back to him, right? So John, you and I know, you know, exactly to why Nida would be crying over this thing, right? You know, this is a very normal

pattern for abusive message preachers here. William Brannum here is threatening to publicly shame and humiliate people. That's what he's, that's what he's doing here when he says, I'm going to expose many names and things this time. He is threatening here to humiliate people, basically break them down, ruin their lives, have them shun, turn all their friends and family against them, right? This is what William Brannum is, is suggesting here. He's so angry here that he's saying he is going to destroy some people's lives when he gets back to Jeffersonville, right? And when Mita's saying, please, no, please, no, this is what she's

saying, please, no, please don't destroy those poor people's lives, right? And I, I think we can trust, you know, if we can trust Sarah Brannum's story here, it's pretty clear that William Brannum was having a fit of rage in that car, threatening to destroy people's lives. And that was what was happening when this accident happened. And I kind of find that a bit ironic. Yeah. And to anybody who was in this cult, who has not yet read it, if you go to my website, William-brannum.org and just type in, take it with you. That's how Sarah Brannum titled her letter because her mother instructed her to what, what you

knew about this event that happened, right? In the moments leading up to death, take it with you to your grave. That was her instruction from Mita Brannum. Was Sarah in the, what was it in 1989? I think it was. She, she published this so that the whole message world could hear and understand what happened. And, you know, like I said, it is rumor. What I, what I overheard was rumor, but Sarah Brannum's letter also confirms what the witness testimonies have said to some extent. She, in that letter, she wrote, I remember my father was very troubled

before we left Tucson for the Jeffersonville meetings where he was to preach the trail of the serpent and expose the names of the people, the message that were doing wrong, including family members. In this tension, we left Arizona in the last argument was because my sister Becky wanted to stay in the apartment with her friend Betty Collins, which is my aunt.

So when my family is talking about the aunt who's staying with Rebecca Brannum, well, Sarah is confirming it right here. So I have to assume that that's that part of the testimony. probably correct. That was at all correct what I've heard. I don't know, but there was some sort of a relationship apparently going on if you read between the lines and take the testimony.

But what's interesting is in the next paragraph she talks about the travel plans and you mentioned he was at the table upset. Well right after she mentions him being upset and not eating, she said, when we left, Joseph went in the car with Billy Paul in Lois and she says which would have never happened at any other time. And that statement alone combined with the details that we're about to get into about the death because it is so unusual what happened. People take that statement and they think, okay, this was planned. We'll even brand them planned for something to happen. So we put

Joseph in another car. But like you said and from the details that I have, it's not really so much that is he's wanting to take little Joseph out of the picture so they can just really hash it out in the car. And he doesn't want Joseph exposed to him be rating the people that he's about to expose. Watch his mommy cry. Yeah exactly. So while William Pranum is enraged, right? He's enraged. He is threatening people. He's making his wife cry, right? He keeps looking away from the road. And it's during one of those moments when he takes his eye off the road that suddenly he has a

head on collision with another car. And the collision was quite catastrophic. The driver of the other car, his name was Jimmy Ramos. He was killed and died on the scene. And one of Ramos's passengers was also critically injured and sent to the hospital. Then William Pranum, he also had very severe injuries. He went through the windshield. His body was badly crushed. He'd mangled. He suffered some very severe head trauma to his head, of course. And Sarah, who was in the back seat, had some minor injuries. And then William Pranum's wife Mita suffered some broken bones and

contusions of different sorts too. But William Pranum was definitely in the worst shape out of their car. And looking at the car itself, it's honestly hard to know how William Pranum survived it at all. I mean, the whole front side of that car, especially on the driver's side, was just crushed all the way back to the front seat. And basically, it's this hard to imagine how he survived that at all. But somehow he survived. And he was taken to the hospital in a very critical condition.

From the newspaper reports, it said it took two hours for the cars to be cut open and the people got out of the car. Two hours to clean that up. Yeah. And this is the part that I get the most questions about. Was the car wreck? In fact, few days ago, whenever I was asked recently, That was exactly what they're asking because when you see those cars, especially when you see William Brannum's car, your mind instantly thinks there's no way that this guy survived.

And Jim Jones, we've talked about before he put a death curse on Brannum and he claims that he prophesied that William Brannum's head would be chopped off and his head was chopped off, he says, well, it's not exactly what happened.

And I remember deep conversations with a man who, like myself, was a auto mechanic. And when you think about the cars hitting each other head on at a high rate of speed, I don't know what they were traveling, maybe 55, 65, 70, who knows.

Whenever they hit head on and they're crushed like that, you think of a car today and that impact would just chop you in half because when the car impacts, the engine is shoved through the cab and the person sitting there because the seat belt is pushed back, the seat belt itself would just chop you in half.

And this whole thing would just come towards you, right? I had to call in the big guns, Charles. We had an expert examine what is possible to examine, which is basically the little tiny black and white photographs, which isn't enough to accurately examine.

But there was enough that he could gather some details and give me some new perspective. And like, like everybody else who's looked at these things, I for a long time thought that this just didn't make sense.

There's no way to explain what happened logically. And I gave into the conspiracy theory for years I gave in. But this guy reminded me something that I knew and had just, I had not really, I had not really linked that knowledge together to this story.

Cars back then were built different than today. Today if you had a Honda Accord and a Ford Taurus hit each other head on like this, there is no way that that driver of either vehicle would survive.

They would just completely crush this car because there isn't a solid frame like they had back then. Back then the frames went all the way to the bumper and the steel of the cars were made of steel, not plastic and tin and aluminum like they are today, fiberglass.

It was thicker steel, but more to the point the bumper was really thick steel and the frame went all the way to the bumper. So whenever Raymos' car hit William Brandham's car and they both clipped the bumpers, they both hit each other's frame.

And according to the expert who examined the photo and now I can see it now that he's explained it, when the two frames hit what happened was William Brandham's car it just kind of demolished that hole.

side and you can see from his photo, you can see it buckled all up, Ramos' car which looks in the photo at a quick glance like it doesn't have enough damage to even match this car wreck.

But it does, if you think logically about it, the two frames hit each other at the bumper and the frame of Ramos' car twisted. And you can tell this because the hood of the car, has buckled up to almost the height of the cab of the car. And that whole side, when the frame twisted, that whole side just kind of buckled up. And when it did, it crushed him and he died on the way to the hospital. Now William Bramham had this big old station wagon, so there was more to, there was more steel between him and the other car. So it hit. But there's another key aspect,

back then seat belts were not as enforced as they are today. Everybody in a car wreck, almost everybody is wearing a seat belt today because you see these commercials and the media telling you you need to wear it, the laws, etc. Those laws weren't the same back then. And people like my grandfather refused to wear his seat belt. William Bramham, I'm certain, was in the same category.

So the story goes, and it's not in any newspaper that I've found, but the story goes that whenever the car was impacted, William Bramham was shot out of the front of the car. But as the hood buckled up, he had to have hit that. So it looks very much like from the photographs, we have an explanation as to what happened. Yeah, and the wreck itself still has the blood stains on it and so forth. So it is quite apparent that the physical wreck, the cars, the wreck cars actually still around. It's pretty apparent that William Bramham was laid across the hood through the windshield when the accident

happened. Yeah, it's something else. And there's some very strange things to John, I think we should mention, strange things about the way that message leaders tell the story of the accident that we should point out. And one thing they definitely don't tell us is they don't tell us that William Bramham was in a fit of rage, making his wife cry, distracted from the road and threatening to destroy people at the moment the accident happened. They definitely leave that part out, don't they?

And then besides those details that they leave out, they've also invented quite a number of legends. And I think the first legend to point out is how they supposedly meet a Bramham was killed in the accident. This is one legend. Meet a Bramham was killed in the accident, and Bramham used his last bit of strength to crawl over her to her and perform one final miracle and to raise meat from the dead.

And I believe the way that story goes is that Billy Paul arrived on the scene, and he told Billy Paul to take my hand and lay it on Mita, and that's how Mita was raised from the dead at the scene of the accident.

And that is a really incredible story, if it's true, but from what we know, William Brown's lower body was terribly crushed. There was no way he was crawling around anywhere, and he probably was not even conscious, right?

I mean, we know Mita and Sarah were definitely unconscious, according to their testimonies, and they never woke up until well after the wreck, you know, in the hospital or on their way. So it's hard to imagine that every other single person there was knocked unconscious except William Brown, who was the most seriously injured of them all.

So, you know, and Mita Brannum was very friendly with people in our church, John. Lots of people knew her, and nobody heard Mita say she had been raised from the dead, like the story, she never bore witness to that at all.

Her story, she woke up in hospital, and never remembered a thing. And personally, I think it's pretty safe to say the story of Mita Brannum is just a fake story. It's just her resurrection story did not happen. That is a fake story.

Yeah, it definitely is. There's so many details about this, you know, they claim that Ramos was a drunk driver, and see they have to take the critical thought away that William Brannum could have potentially caused this.

And if you read Sarah Brannum's letter and you see the wreck, it looks very much like William Brannum likely caused this wreck. You know, he's angry, he's yelling, he's not, he's not paying attention.

It's interesting because they want to say that the drunk driver caused it, and they want to focus your attention to the alcohol. And there are studies out there that, you know, distracted driving is just as dangerous if not more than drunk driving because you're not paying attention, and you're like this, you're like this missile going down the road.

William Brannum was a distracted driver, so he in effect was actually worse than the claim that they make. However, as we've studied with A.A. Allen, if you are this level of famous and there's alcohol involved back during this time, it's going to be plastered all over the newspapers if alcohol was involved.

There is not a single shred of evidence that alcohol played any factor at all. And most of the people who question all of this will get into this further later, but his body after he died was held from the grave until April of that year.

So the car wreck was a week before Christmas, if I remember correctly, the dates. And then he died, what was it, Christmas Eve, I think, as whenever he died. Well, then it wasn't until April.

that they buried him, and they claim falsely that the reason why it took so long to get his body into the grave was because Mita was suffering and she was barely conscious. She was unable to attend, which is irony, right?

Because if William Brannum did heal her, as is the other claim, well then that's not the case because she's healed, right? But that's not what happened. And then there is a newspaper report from December 30th, 1965.

So we're talking less than a week after William Brannum died. And it's almost, it's a little bit less than two weeks after the rack. The headline is Reverend Brannum's widow reported to be improving.

And it reads, Dr. Samadair, the physician for the family of the late William Brannum, said today that Mrs. Brannum is getting along fine and goes on to say that she's in the Clark County Memorial Hospital in, quote, Satisfactory condition.

So the newspapers don't match the legends that were spread by the cult.

All of the claims to try to take the mind of the cult members' attention from the fact that William Brannum likely caused this rack and try to focus it somewhere else. None of it seems to be true.

Right, and it's so ironic that, you know, they say William Brannum, you know, it loves his wife so much. He's crawling over her with the last of his energy to resurrect her from the dead.

When in truth, 30 seconds before that, he had been screaming and having a fit of rage and actually had her in tears. That's actually what was happening. That he wasn't raising her from the dead.

He was driving her tears in that car. That is actually the eyewitness testimony, right? And so I mean, it's just what do you believe? Do you believe the lady who was in the backseat watching it all happen, right?

Or do you believe the legends made up by message preachers? And I mean, I'm going to choose to believe Sarah, right? I mean, that's just, that's just where I am. You know, and as you mentioned, John, it's another odd thing that message preachers say is that Jimmy Ramos was a drunk driver and that he caused the accident.

That's very, I mean, it's just, that was, I mean, my whole life. I mean, that was just it. He was killed by drunk drivers, what we always believe. There's just no even second thought that it could have been anything else.

But I really wonder where they got that idea from, John. Because not a single one of the newspaper articles covering the car accident say that Jimmy Ramos was a drunk driver. In the newspaper articles, the government records, the death records, there is nothing.

And you know, that is the sort of thing that would make big news when it happens, right? I mean, drunk drivers, that's still big news today. when a drunk driver kills somebody in a car accident.

That's a lead news story. And it's very hard for me to believe that all of the news reporters left out a detail like that when they wrote the news articles on this car accident.

Where in the world did message preachers get the idea that William Brennan was killed by a drunk driver? And John, I think it's almost certain that the drunk driver's story is just another message legend.

I don't think it really happened that way at all because if it's true that William Brennan was killed by a drunk driver, then that would mean the corner and the police on the scene and the newspaper reporters and everyone else, all somehow forgot to record the fact that this guy was a drunk driver in the news reports and the death records and the death certificate, etc. said, and I just find that too hard to believe.

That is not possible. That's just not possible. They would leave that fact out. Yeah, and there are people who, you know, again, William Brennan has been talking about being assassinated during his final years of his life.

And there are people who escaped the cult and they think, well, was this an assassination? Because you've got these warring factions among the clan and the mob and all of this different criminal underworld that seems to be somehow related to this thing.

I don't, even still today, I don't fully understand all of that and how the dynamics of how that worked. But when you consider the Ramos family was Hispanic and especially if you bring Colonia Dignidad into the scene, now you've got the government, the DIA, which is the military branch of the CIA, working with Chileans and they've got Chilean operatives and they're Hispanic and was to say Colonia Dignidad assassination.

You know, I've ruled out pretty much all of that because if it were to be an assassination, then I don't see it as a family of people hitting William Brennan. And if it were to be an assassin who planted a family there, the family would not be alive to witness that this was a planned assassination, right?

So the whole thing just doesn't make sense. This was an actual family of Hispanics who were involved in Iraq likely caused by William Brennan and as weird as the details grow from here, most of the weirdness is a result of the cult.

It's not weird because of what happened. This was just a normal car wreck. And in a normal situation with a normal preacher who is having a fight with his wife or whatever was going on in this car, he would die simply.

They would bury him a few days later and life would move on because they don't look at this normal preacher and my hypothetical scenario to be God or the voice of God or whatever they consider.

or William Brannum at this point in time. That's not what happened in the cult. So the cult has to spend these new tales to make it sound even more fantastic rather than just simply the details.

Had we been given the true and simple pure details and not all of this nonsense that we were given, there really would be no conspiracy theory. This was a wreck, a family hit, another family, and people died.

Yeah, and it is really incredible that for the past 60 years, message preachers have been accusing, false accusing, this poor guy of being a drunk driver with zero evidence. I mean, is that that's terrible?

I mean, honestly, that is terrible. You guys are terrible, false accusing this guy of being a drunk driver for 60 years. It's in violation of the 10 commandments, man. I know, right? And that speaks volumes about the lack of integrity among message leaders, right?

And as stuff's even been published in their literature and in their books, there is no evidence. This man was not a drunk driver who hit William Brannum. And everyone who tells that story is flat out lying.

And more to the point, the people who invented that lie weren't even there. So how on earth are they even gonna know? There's not a single newspaper report that claims that he was drunk.

How do they make this claim? They weren't even there to see it, right? And Sarah Brannum, she is pretty thorough in this letter what happened and the aftermath of what happened. There's no mention of drunkenness in her letter either.

She, you know, this was something that was made up after the fact. I'm pretty certain I know who it was that made it up. And there's a lot of other things that they've made up.

I won't get into it. But it's not a really the same one who made up the meat of Brannum, healing story. It is the same person. It's not a reputable source. I'll just simply say that.

In my opinion, it's not a reputable source. I'll just leave it like that. But there's another detail in Sarah's letter that I'd like to mention that it is significant because this is for me.

The wreck is actually the birth of the cult of personality. We've talked about the build up and how William Brannum is putting himself in the place of God in the later years. And it was starting to be adopted, but it really wasn't until he died that he became exalted as the prophet God among people.

And there's something interesting, Sarah says in her letter. She says, also, I would like to mention that something that happened after the accident that has always bothered mother and me. My father, so this would be William Brannum, needed a blood transfusion immediately after the accident.

He had a rare blood type and they had to send to another city for it. If he could have had that blood transfusion in time, maybe his life could have been spared. How strange that his own son, would not donate blood in that emergency case.

And then she goes on to explain that even a few days later, she says, just imagine while my father was still alive, my brother appeared before a notary public, proclaiming that he was William Brannum and transferred the William Brannum Evangelistic Association into another corporation.

So Sarah, she's airing all of the dirty laundry. And I can guarantee you if there were dirty details that have been spun out of control by the cult leaders, that she would have put it in this letter because she's holding nothing back.

And it's further confirmation that the stories they're giving to people are simply untrue. Right, John. And I have copies of the, oh, not only did she give those letters, she gave all kinds of documentations that actually verify pretty well everything she said as far as the startup of the William Brannum Evangelistic Association and so forth.

And she provided those copies directly to the leaders at our church, like we receive them directly from Sarah. Right, and so I have copies of all of those information, right? So we got them from the source.

I can verify the chain of custody, even on the documents in our possession. And it is very strange, John. You got the deity people teaming up with William Paul Brannum, Billy Paul Brannum to basically take control of all of the institutions of the cults, you know, for whatever reason.

Again, why, how, what? I don't know. But I mean, clearly it happened. They got together and they transferred control of everything into Billy Paul's name. They did. And there's another key significant point in the name itself.

We've talked about how William Brannum changed his identity and very, very early on. I want to say it was, I don't even remember the number, but it hadn't been less than 10. We talked about why William Brannum changed his identity and William Brannum's official government name was William Marvin Brannum.

But we also found another newspaper article where it says William P. Brannum. And according to Sarah's letter, Billy Paul signed the documents as William Brannum Jr. To be a junior, that would imply that William, our William Mary and our William Marvin Brannum had to have been a Paul in order for him to be a junior.

So it had yet another false identity or alias to William Brannum. It would be William Paul Brannum Sr. If this was William Paul Brannum, Jr. They're so... much weirdness. I mean, and here's the truth. I mean, here's the truth. These guys are just sloppy dishonest, you know, people. I mean, that they're sloppy dishonest people. They're doing shady things, right? And that's what causes a lot of this. These are shady people behaving in a shady way, right? And yeah, I think read Sarah Brannum's, read Sarah Brannum's letter.

Otherwise, we'll have to go down that rabbit hole this time. Maybe we need to. Maybe we need to do a whole episode where we go down the Sarah Brannum rabbit hole, John. It might be a good idea.

But yeah, you know, it might be. It might be. Yeah, so coming back to the car accident, right? So I have read the newspaper reports over and over and over again. And I really do have the question.

And I, it's an unthinkable thing when you're in the message. This is unthinkable if you're in the message. But on this side, looking in, honestly, I have to ask the question, is it possible that William Brannum was actually the one at fault in this accident? And John, every single newspaper report on this, all the records it is ambiguous about who was at fault here.

Let me read you one news news story just so you can kind of get the flavor of how they reported this. The title of this article is Tucson minister dies of injuries. It says the Reverend William Brannum, 56 of Tucson died yesterday in an amorello hospital of injuries he received in a two car collision about 70 miles west of here on December 18. The accident occurred near free owner, Texas, when an automobile driven east on us 60 by Mr. Brannum collided with another vehicle. And so reports like that, they just say the two vehicles collided. And I, I, I find it

odd just how they worded it. It was Milton William Brannum's vehicle that collided with the other car, right? Just the way they word that I find is a bit odd. And then when you take that with the photos of the wreckage, it is the same sort of a situation. It's just a bit ambiguous here about who caused the accident. And it, it appears that William Brannum's car may be caught five to ten inches of the front bumper on Jimmy race, Ray Moses car, and then kind of plowed into his driver's side. But it is entirely possible here that William Brannum is the one who caused this accident.

Right. You know, I mentioned earlier that the, a lot of the conspiracy theory can be explained away. There are still some details that exist. And even in the answers that we found leading up to, you know, while researching this episode, it's raised more questions than it's given answers. But William Brannum was very suicidal. And he was, he mentioned this all throughout his ministry, how he was, suicidal. And he was angered enough to be in a very bad state of mind. He had also, as we've already discussed, he had just been, you know, recently told that by the Mayo

Clinic that he had an incurable mental health disorder, whatever it was. We don't know exactly what it was. But he was not in a good mental state. So you have literally a person who could be insane driving a car down the road, who's in a very heated fight, very angry, not in the frame of mind to even be driving, distracted driving, more, he's worse than a drunken driver at this point, according to what Sarah Brannum's letter is describing.

Did he commit suicide? That's one of the questions that, you know, there is some good plausible evidence that that could be the case. I'll say it like that. I don't know that that's the case. You know, Sarah Brannum did not say that. But, you know, who knows? Maybe you don't know what was in his head right before the accident. All you know is that his head was not in the right place. Yeah. So I, I don't know, John, you know, I know we've consulted with some people who do have expertise in automobiles and collisions before the episode.

We've got the, we've got some photos. There's even some video footage of the car wreckage when Brannum smashed car and I've, I've actually seen the car myself back about 30 years ago, somewhere in the 90s, they had the smashed up car on display at Voice of God. They're around Sellersburg at one point. And it was kind of like a special event where lots of people can come see it. And voice of God still nothing about this cult is normal, man.

Voice of God. World, do you do this? Voice of God still has William Brown to smashed up car in a garage here, okay? Like some sort of a shrine, right? It is weird, isn't it? It's weird. You know, they condemn the Catholic for the Catholic relics. And here's the, it's the biggest relic you've ever seen that they keep on. It's like a piece of the true cross, right? Except it's the whole car he died on instead of the cross, right? Like it's, it's something else. But yeah, the point is there's quite a bit of evidence there that anyone

with some expertise could get and look at these things and do a bit of an accident reconstruction. And anyways, the experts we were in touch with did tell us the photos were consistent with the head on collision where the two cars would have clicked each other's bumpers. And there is photos of that, but not there's not quite enough there to really give us an indication at which party was it fault in the accident. And I think the truth is it's, it's an open question who caused this accident? It's an open question. And so I do think it's fair

for us to look and ask. I mean, is it possible that William Branagh was actually the one who drifted over into the other lane and not Jimmy Ramos, right? And according to Sarah I'm right. William Brandon was having a fit of rage. He was not looking at the road.

I mean, she explicitly says he was looking at the road. Let me just read that, you know, that excerpt from her letter too. She says, I know my father was a very cautious driver.

Always keeping speed limits and observing the traffic. Under normal circumstances, he would have reacted and avoided the car coming towards him. While speaking, he looked over to mother during this unpleasant conversation, just then it happened. The last thing I remember from the, that was the last thing I remember from before the crash until I came to myself in the ambulance. So very plainly, the person sitting in the back seat when the accident happened said, William Brandon was looking away from the road at his wife at the moment that the accident occurs. And I'd say that leaves open a possibility that he could have

been drifting into another lane. Because I know, you know, you drive, John, I drive. If you take your eyes off the road, it's not too hard to accidentally start drifting, especially if you're kind of heated intense, you know, of the way you hold the steering wheel can even drift a little bit. Especially driving a car during that era. I know that there are a lot of listeners who are younger and have never driven one of the old cars. But it's not like the cars today. Cars today, you can actually take your hand off the steering wheel and some of them drive straight enough. They'll stay right in between

the lanes for you. And they're, they're made where they, they try to as much as possible. Well, back then, none of that technology existed. And a lot of times you had to turn this steering wheel somewhat sideways, deep and keep it going straight, right? But more to the point, well, what Sarah Brandham has testified in this bit of evidence that we have, the only piece of evidence that we do have is the eyewitness who was there. She admits that William Brandham was at fault because he wasn't looking at the road. He wasn't paying attention.

He was distracted. What she is described is worse than drunk and driving. There are people who drive drunk. Again, they're distracted with drunkenness. It's, it's the same. It's the equivalent thing. But then there are levels of drunkenness. There are people who are tipsy and they can drive in between the lanes. There are people who are flat out drunk and they should not be behind the wheel. Those are the state of people that William Brandham is in. And that's what Sarah is describing.

Right. So, so for me, it's inconclusive who caused this accident. But I am, I am sure on this subject that message leaders have definitely misled everyone about the circumstances of William Brandham's death. And I think the public deserves to know that This accident occurred while William Brannum was having a fit of rage, had his wife meet up in tears, and was threatening to destroy the lives of people when he got back to Jeffersonville.

I think the public deserves to know that is what was happening in that car at the moment of the accident, because those are facts that are very important for evaluating all of this. I gotta say, John, I am very thankful, very thankful that Sarah Brannum published this information back in the 1990s and shared it with people in our church.

Sarah Brannum shared this information directly with our sect of the message. We obtain these things directly from Sarah. Message leaders, I know a lot of people were the Blackbirds, right? I didn't know one wanted anything to do with our church.

We had as much of the Brannum family friendly with us as the main sect, but anyways, we won't get into all the sectional message disagreements, but we had lots of friends, and we had more witnesses of the message, old days, in our churches than even the tabernacle did to tell you the truth, which again, people hated that about us, right?

But I mean, we did, and message leaders just failed to tell their congregations, the true circumstances of William Brannum's death, and were still, they make up legends about him raising a meta from the dead and false accusing Jimmy Ramos of being a drunk driver.

And in fact, it could well be that William Brannum is the one who caused the accident. My goodness, John. And you know, it's very telling that Sarah Brannum was on the outs. The one witness to what happened is the one person that is outcast from the cult.

And that is before her letter, right? She's writing the letter because she's outcast, and I know that you have the insights testimony because your sect was very close to her. Why have family who were in the course sect of the message, and they're like everybody else, they're Sarah Brannum, a shun, she's outcast in their groups.

But I also have family who are also the black sheep, and they were very close to Sarah. I won't give names or details, but you know, I can't tell everything that Sarah has told my family.

But I can say that some of this has been confirmed even through my family. And my family is mentioned directly in Sarah's letter. They were there. They have details too. And you know, like I said, there's just no reason for this to have blown up into the weird fictional tale that it did. And it just goes to show that nothing in this nothing, and this cult is normal.

I know. And so there's some more strange details, John, about things that happen during William Brannum's days in the hospital, leading up to his death then on Christmas Eve. You know, several people claim William Brannum was conscious in the hospital.

so much so that they were able to go to visit him and have conversations with him. And then of course those guys claim to be special because they receive final messages from William Branham, you know, you know, they parlay that to their advantage. But when you look at the accident photos, it is clear that William Branham must have suffered terrible, terrible trauma to his head, right? He was smashed through the windshield and his death certificate, which we got a copy of, he has death certificate right here, you can get Jimmy Raymos' too, but William Branham's death

certificate here says that he died from suffering severe, a severe brain contusion, cerebral endema, which is swelling of the brain, and cerebral thrombosis, which is blood clots in the brain. And John, from everything I have read, it says that someone suffering those conditions would be in a coma. And those conditions would be causing severe strokes and seizures to the person experiencing those things. And so John, I even asked my doctor about this, as I was kind of studying this out. I asked my doctor about those conditions and he told me, yes, someone with that would most likely be in a coma. So it's really hard for me to understand

how all these people went and had private conversations with William Branham while he was in a coma. Yeah. And that kind of leads me to believe it's very possible that all the stories about these final special messages and private conversations William Branham had on his deathbed, they're probably all just fake stories. And I think that all the guys claiming that were probably just making those things up in order to capitalize on the situation.

I'll give a good example of making things up, which is, it's actually related to this. I have a cousin who was at one time very, very close to me growing up. And I won't give his name or the details, but he's connected to people that we've talked about in this episode. I'll just say like that. And he, things were not well in the families of the cult leaders in the elite, the elite group of people in the cult. And this person had a very, very, very hard life.

His, my aunts and uncle, his parents, did not treat him very good. And in fact treated him very poorly. He emancipated himself. And I won't go into details of how badly they treated him, but I'll say it like this, there should have been jail time for the parents. That's how bad it was.

It was horrific what he went through. Because of his abused childhood, he took the wrong path and got in with the wrong people. And he started producing meth and made national news when he blew up a house.

I mean national news right? The people here in Jefferson built a lot of people didn't catch it because they didn't put two and two together who this person was and probably missed the news but he burned over 50% of his body in that explosion. I went to see him in the hospital and when you go to the hospital like I had or some finding him because they put a fake name so that cult members wouldn't find him. So I had to figure out okay who's the fake name go go into the go into the hospital and it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. They flayed his arms

because the burned skin had became a tourniquet on his arms and his legs. That's how bad he was burned. Over 50% of his body and the family tried to faith him out of the situation he was in by playing these recordings of William Brannum nonstop around the clock and you know they'd go and flip the tape, flip the tape, flip all the the whole weeks and weeks that he was in the hospital.

My grandfather from behind the pulpit and I knew everything that had happened right I knew every single detail of this. My grandfather said that he got in a motorcycle rack and please pray for the guy that got in a motorcycle rack. He gets out somehow he survived that and did it again a second time and the second time almost the same exact situation. My grandfather said he had he got into a gasoline explosion and it was met again a second time. Methylade exploded.

Well this year he got beaten to death in Chicago got in with the wrong people in the wrong place and they beat him to death but before he died he was medically in the same exact condition that William Brannum was in. They had to fly him from Chicago to where he lived I won't give the details but he was in a calma for weeks on end and there was no brain activity. I mean once your what's your head is beaten to that condition there's no brain act that you're not speaking you're not giving prophecies you're not giving details of how to run the cult and where I'm headed with

this is the cult as we know it is not the same cult that William Brannum was even in that he created even though he established the foundation for this after his death a new thing was birthed and it is called the message there was a different message there was a different group of people that was in quote unquote the message and it was the latter rain message and we've talked about the history of this after he died there were men who gave very very false details my grandfather included who brought this thing into a new level to a new plane to a new control of the

people that William Brannum himself did not even go there. Yeah, you know, when William Brannum died, everybody was desperate to figure out what happened next. And one of the things that they thought maybe the secret to the rapturing faith is in William Brannum's sermonos that he was about to preach when he gets back to Jeffersonville, you know, maybe the secrets are in that.

And very famously, I mean, everybody knows William Brannum was going to preach the trail of the serpent when he got back to Jeffersonville, right? I mean, I, we knew that in our sect. I think everybody knows that was, again, it's a fairly openly known thing.

That was going to be William Brannum's next sermon, the trail of the serpent. And there's just widespread speculation about what he was going to preach and what was in that sermon. And everyone was desperate to get a hold of his notes or the information on that.

They tried to find his Bible and different things in order to see if maybe he had something wrote in his Bible note somewhere to try and give them the clues about what happens next, but nobody could ever find anything.

There are some people who claim to have actually saw his sermon notes, who claim to saw some of these things, but they totally disappeared. The notes disappeared. All of these different things that William Brannum had claimed that he had written down, just like the prophecies in the cornerstone.

Nobody could find anything when they went to look for it. So of course, naturally, you get all of these conspiracy theories in the message built up to explain how all of this stuff disappeared, right?

And you have to imagine these people are desperate to get a hold of these, right? I mean, their ticket to heaven just died in a car accident and hope maybe somewhere he wrote down the secret to the rapturing faith, right?

They're desperate to find this information out. And they're looking hard and when they can't, they've got to come up with some explanations. Some people say, Billy Paul destroyed it all, Sarah kind of alleged to that.

Other people say that angels came and took it all away so people couldn't find it, but I wonder if it's not possible that this stuff just didn't even exist, right? William Brannum just, it never even existed and William Brannum was making it up as he went, but basically in this, in this period of time, all of William Brannum's notes and everything disappear.

Yeah. And the notes aren't even the important part, right? This, we talked about it before, the snake wall salesmen or the magical liquor salesmen from Bananza, the guy that's going to step right up, step right up, I'll heal your diseases and afflictions.

And William Brannum says, here's a quote from 1953, God in heaven who's performed right in our meetings, testimonies, boxes of testimonies, and anyone who read a book or literature that's been published by us.

There are bona fide testimonies backed up by doctors and law. It'd be illegal for us to publish them.

And in what world is it illegal to publish a testimony? This guy is clearly lying through his teeth. And the sad parts are all, it breaks my heart and I'm laughing at the same time.

But there were people who were so dooped that they actually believe this nonsense that it's illegal to publish a testimony in the United States. There are third world countries today that believe that in the United States, you can't publish a testimony because this is ridiculous man said this.

Well, on the flip side, say it did exist. Where are they? After he died, I want to see those boxes and boxes of bona fide testimonies. And this is not the only time he claimed this throughout his whole ministry.

He has, he's taken the pattern of John Alexander Dowey saying, I've got all these things. All you got to do is look at him, but I'm never, ever, ever going to show them to you.

It, there's so much bizarre stuff that happened right in this window of, of between the accident and then basically his burial and funeral. You know, all of this stuff just disappears, right? You know, did it ever exist?

I have my doubts that ever existed, honestly. That's where I'm, I just don't think this stuff ever existed. Because they would, there's no way they would have got rid of that stuff. If it actually existed, you know, all those momentos, I mean, you, that, that stuff's worth a gazillion dollars.

People will fork over their life savings for, you know, for a little clip off a William Brenner shirt, you know, it'd be in a store, man. They'd be selling these things, right copies of it.

I know. So I, I very much have my doubts that these things ever existed personally. That's, that's where I'm at, but, you know, you got that, all of that stuff disappearing. You got all these people going and having secret conversations with a man in a coma.

You know, you've got, you've got the, the, in the background, the William Brenner Evangelistic Association being taken over or, you know, William Brown, Billy Paul's name going, we're William Brenner's name should have went.

All of these unusual things are happening. And that's just going on and on. And so it's, it's so strange. And so William Brenner, he finally died on Christmas Eve, 1965, and his body was taken back to Jeffersonville for the funeral when it's all said and done.

And so I think that they did draw some symbology out of him, be dying on Christmas Eve, right? They did, even though, you know, they didn't believe Christmas was December 25th. They did draw some symbolism out of that and all kinds of people, John.

I mean, I don't know if you've heard it, but they'll tell stories about how there was some weird eclipse of the moon and there was this special star that shined in the heavens and they are given all of these astrological things that supposedly happened the moment he died, which I cannot find any cooperating evidence for any of that whatsoever, right?

Like there is no evidence that the moon went through an unusual eclipse. There's no evidence of a special star, like there's nothing, right? So again, I think they totally made all of that up.

I think the, you know, astronomers would have noticed an out-of-cycle eclipse. I think they would have noticed, you know, a new, a bright, great new star shining in the heavens. Like somebody would have noticed this stuff, but that's what they said happened.

And so then they're taking the body back to Jeffersonville. And so the news goes out among the followers that William Brannum has died. And message believers were just in total, total shock. And it's, it's hard, I think, for people outside of something like this to imagine what it would have been like.

So I have been through the death of a cult leader. I live through the death of Raymond Jackson. And I think it would have been like that probably times 10, that experience. And it's something else.

And you look at maybe Deppertibito's interview. Remember when he we interviewed her, she explained how her group heard the news of his death. And they all went into deep mourning. And she said she felt for the first time like the group didn't even know how to function.

It was almost like God had left to them, right? And a lot of people really, in a sense, believe that William Brannum was God to them. And it was God, God had left in a sense.

And it's like the bottom fell out. And everyone lost their dearest friend, their closest loved one. The person they were depending on so much, they all lost him at the same time. And they were in a lot of them in deep fear about what would happen next.

You can detect that even in the eulogies of the men who officiated William Brannum's funeral. One of the men talks about how they are surrounded by their enemies now. And their enemies are all after them, right?

Every fear-based, something, you know, the enemies are all about to destroy us, even in the funeral sermon. And others, as you listen, you can tell they're deeply invested in his body resurrecting, hopefully in that same service.

You know, as they sing, only believe, only believe, I think only believe gets really creepy in the funeral sermon. I got to say, when they sing, only believe, that's very creepy. They're really looking at William Brannum like he was a savior in one sense.

They had been expecting William Brannum to bring them the rapturing faith so they could escape the doomsday. But he died and he left him to fend for themselves without bringing them the rapturing faith.

And you can just imagine the horror and confusion that these people were facing as the news one out that he had died. Yeah. I've heard the same stories, people, I have family who drove a long way to the funeral and they claim that they saw the signs in the heavens as they were driving and like you, man, if this were a real thing, if this really happened, right now we have access to how many hundreds of that millions of newspaper articles, not a single one will tell you that there was anything unusual.

Now, what I believe did happen is that, you know, whenever there is a geological event in the sky, maybe it's rain and the rain parts and there are different colors of the sky, maybe it's all red sky who knows, to a person who has been manipulated to think that this is our prophet God, which by this point of time in his ministry, this was widespread, this is our prophet God.

You're gonna start looking for things for the God to show you and you're gonna see things that aren't even there. You're gonna see, you know, you would associate a rainbow with, oh, that's the sign that God is showing us peace to the earth.

You're gonna see a dove flying and you're gonna say, oh, that's the dove, that's the sign that God gave Noah. And I've heard, I've actually heard those on the way to, you know, people who told their trip to the death burial of William Brannum, but they were looking for the death burial and resurrection of Brannum, like you said.

And it's just not a Christian movement at this point, but what it grew from there is even worse. Right, it's so, so sad looking at the people, you know? And even the people in our sect of the message, John, I know that the majority of them were expecting William Brannum's resurrection too.

You know, the ones who say they weren't, are generally just lying to you. They absolutely were at that time. They later changed their minds about it, but they were generally all looking for the resurrection of William Brannum in those days.

And it's so sad because, you know, it's like a sinking ship and you're on the sinking ship, William Brannum was your lifeboat. That was your way to escape what was coming. And suddenly your lifeboat sinks before you can get onto it.

And your ticket to safety just vanished, right? And so these people are suddenly now, we're on a sinking ship without a lifeboat anymore. And they're just grabbing for anything to keep them afloat, anything that'll just keep them going, right?

And I think that just speaks volumes because they were heavily invested and dependent, not on Jesus Christ, but on William Brannum, right? And that is why they reacted in this way. To his death.

I mean, the reaction to his death, I think, just speaks volumes to about how. they had deified the man in different ways and allowed him to usurp the role of God. And as he died, some people woke up, John. There are some people who woke up and realized, wait a minute, he wasn't supposed to die. There were supposed to be the end. Some people woke up and actually left the message in that time period. I think Banks Woods is a really good example of one of those people. Banks Woods woke up. He and his, he left the message at that

point. He went to assemblies of God Church for the rest of his life after that. But a lot of people didn't wake up. A lot of people got sucked in even deeper as William Brannum's lieutenants began to use that situation to draw together their own cult followings. And I, I look forward in our next episode, John, where we can explore the events around the funeral and the burial and talking more about the reaction and aftermath of William Brannum's death.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that episode too. And, you know, for me, whenever I look at the way in which this played out, I find it highly interesting that people that did not stay in it.

When you hear the name Banks Woods and you're, you know, the historians who are listening to the show just to get the information on the cult and how it worked, that name means nothing.

But you are in the cult. You know the name Banks Woods. This was one of the key figures that has mentioned all throughout the message and the fact that he didn't stay in what was created after, which, you know, again, it's what was created after does not even resemble what it was before.

It's really telling that the cult that emerged from the cult that there were key figures that did not stay in it. Right. And, you know, as we bring this episode to an end, I hope our listeners will let the picture of what was happening in William Brannum's car just before that accident let that sink in. Because I think it's a scene that's not hard to visualize, you know, in the mind's eye. William Brannum was enraged. He was driving down the road in a fit of rage. He was angry.

He was speaking harshly and harsh tones. He had his wife in tears. He was breathing out threatening against people that he was going to destroy when he got back to Jeffersonville. And his youngest daughter is cowering in the back seat listening to the whole thing.

That is what was actually happening in that car in the moments leading up to the accident that took William Brannum's life. William Brannum did not end his life expressing himself as a kind, humble, loving man. The truth is, William Brannum ended his life in a fit of rage.

And the final memory that he left with his wife and daughter who, when the car with him was him, dying in a fit of rage. And you just can't, of course, judge a man's whole life by his last minutes. But I do believe that message leaders do everyone a terrible disservice by failing to tell us the truth about this car accident. I think for me, Charles, the bottom line is this. If you were in, Brandham's call to personality and you're listening to this podcast and you've escaped.

You've escaped something that was even different than what it was when what your brand ham was alive. You've escaped a new splinter group of the ladder rain message cult. That's that's literally what it was.

It was a splinter group of the original message called the original message cult as we've examined had Jim Jones in it and had some other figures that you just you never associate with quote unquote the message because they're two different things.

They're not the same cult and we've even received that feedback in the comments. That's not the message cult. Those people aren't message. Well, after the death, something happened and if you examine what went on with the men immediately after the death and in the years after this, what they're bringing together, performing a new splinter group, a new group of people with a new strategy, a new intention, all the prophecies are being, they were already being rewritten in William Brandham's days, but they're being rewritten again and they're being repurposed and refocused and that's why when you sit in these church services, if you were in the message, they're pointing

the female prophecy, first they pointed it to Hillary Clinton when Bill was president and then they repurposed it again and again and again, now the latest one they say that our vice president today is the fulfillment of that prophecy and that presidential term is coming to an end, they're going to focus it on the next one.

I actually hope there is an actual female president because they'll go berserk. This is it. This is the big one. This is the female president and then after that presidential term ends, then I think more people will escape because they're starting to see this pattern of these people and what they're doing, but the message cult that I grew up in was not the same message cult that existed when William Brandham was alive.

I knew this while I was in the message. If you were in the elite group of people in the cult, everyone knew this, every single person and that's why you find all these people that wander from church to church, they will tell you that this is not what William Brandham taught and so they get disgruntled and they move to the next one and then they find the same thing.

There's not a single message church that exists today that is preaching what William Brandham preached because how do you do this? William Brandham changed significantly with every single version of his stage persona. Which version are you going to match and if you match that one, will you not match the later ones or the ones in the middle, right?

So there's no way that you can even match William Brandham's message, quote unquote message because, number one, it doesn't exist, number two, every single prophecy. that he made that had specific timelines for their fulfillment. Those timelines no longer exist.

The events surrounding the details surrounding those prophecies, they're in the past. There's no way that you can make it happen. For me, I see I have a bit of pity for William Brannum because he did lose his mind at the end of his ministry.

I feel sorry for him because mental health is a serious problem. In the fact that people had taken somebody who had such severe mental health issues and put him on the pedestal as a God, that's even worse.

But even worse than that, many of the same men that did this saw the financial benefit of doing so. And then they carried it on and created something new. And what they created new was far worse than what it was before. So I'm excited to get into the next episode because we're now talking about, I know we've already used the name and we can't use it.

We're now talking about the birth of the message, but it's a different message than the previous one that we talked about. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming. We'll see you next week.

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