The Disappearance of Sarah Branham: The Message Cult’s Greatest Scandal

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannem Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannem Historical Research at William-Brannem. And with you may I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org, and the author of Come Out Of Her My People.

Charles, it's good to be back and I don't know if you've seen it or not. I've been watching some of the feedback that we're getting on the episodes and we're recording way ahead. So we're getting feedback for episodes way in the past, but it's a really positive feedback for the most part. I think whether people were either in the message or people who have escaped the message or even those who are on the outside looking in, they're all curious to see, what was this mess and why was it created?

And you know, looking back, I remember that feeling while I was in it, I knew that there was something wrong. I just really couldn't put my finger on it. And there wasn't really, I know there were a few people out there, but there wasn't like today where there's a lot of people talking about the problems.

So you just kind of had to in the back of your head think, well, there's something wrong here. It doesn't feel right, but this is a movement by God. And so you just kind of ignored that that still voice in the back of your head, you know, and so I'm watching through the feed back and you know, we get some haters, we always will, but we actually are getting some positive critiques by people who are even in the message.

So this is amazing to me to watch it kind of unfold. We're just showing the history as it as it was recorded, but kept from the members. So I think the other appealing part for people who were in it is they knew something was being withheld from them. They just didn't know what it was. And today we have one of the biggest things that has been withheld from them.

Oh, yes, John, we got a good one today. You know, you're so right. You know, why you're in there? Sometimes you, you know, things are wrong. I know, I mean, for a number of years, I was that way till like, you know, I know something's not right here, but we're God's only people in the whole world. He's got to fix it, right?

So you, you endure it because, you know, you, you still, you know, part of the ideology makes you think, well, there's nowhere else to go. And God has to fix us. I mean, we're it, right?

It's very self-centered in some ways when you think about it, but yeah, that is, I know exactly the rationale. a whole lot of people's mind in the message. We see there's something wrong, but we're just going to suffer through it because this is the trial to make us perfect and lead us to glory and we're God's people and he has to fix us and they'll suffer through all kinds of horrible things, you know, in order to reach the other side, you know, it's unfortunate. I don't in our last few episodes, John, we're getting close to the end of where we're heading with a lot of this

stuff. I think we've got at least one more episode here on the history of the message, but we've been working our way through all the sex of the message, the major sex anyway. We also kind of did a couple lightning rounds on some of the other notable sex of the message. And for our listeners sake, with like two very minor exceptions, every group we've talked about is a splinter group out of the main sect of the message, John. And that's where really I kept my book focused on the splinter sex out of the main sect. I didn't go into the splinter groups or the splinter groups.

It's entirely just splinters off of the main group in my book. And if our listeners wonder, I'm just going through my book, come out of my people volume two chapter by chapter and we're in chapter nine right now. So talking about the main sect of the message, yes, John, in our last episode, we got up to the 1980s and we talked through a crisis that struck the central institutions in the early 1980s. And that crisis had its roots in one, the death of Roy Borders, who was the director of spoken word publications. He died relatively young and not suddenly though, his health

declined and then he passed away in 1982. And with the decline of his health and him passing away, put spoken word publications into a crisis. The other aspect of the crisis was actually caused by the collapse and implosion of the park, which was led by Leo Mercer, who had control of the master tape library of William Brown observance. And so the collapse of the park and Leo's diagnosis with HIV because there was a lot of homosexual stuff happening there led to the other part of the crisis. And in response to that, in my opinion, that's why voice of God was organized. It was organized

to consolidate the operations of tape production and literature publication in the aftermath of the downfall of Leo and the death of Roy Borders. And voice of God recordings then became one of the more important central institutions to continue forward the literature publication and recording publication of the message institutions. Well, that was not the only crisis to stretch the message in the 1980s, John. And that was a lot, it was very heavily covered up a lot of that stuff. You know, there was a direct, there was, I absolutely a directed cover up.

of what happened with Leo and Jean and the park and all that. So a lot of people in the message, they just saw, oh, the big ground opening and voice of God and they just saw all of these things and it was celebratory. They didn't understand what was happening in the background driving it all.

Okay. That was very well covered up. But this next piece was not so covered up. This was very public. It was very out there and especially here in the Jeffersonville area and in the other major centers of the message, this was the biggest event of the 1980s. And we're talking about the case of Sarah Brown, I'm ladies and gentlemen, that's what we're going to be talking about today.

It's such an interesting and sad case all at the same time. I remember the moment that you're talking about when voice of God was opening. I was actually quite young, but I remember traveling here and touring the big building and because of my family, I got to spend some time inside the offices of the head haunches of the place and it was like you described. It was a big event.

We thought God was moving. God was coming down in this little building. And I want to point something out because people who are connected to the main sect and even some of the satellite groups don't really remember this. But as with everything, whenever something happens, some big event, they always spiritualize it. This is God's plan. God is moving. God has put us in this building.

This is it folks. This is the last days. We're here. We have a headquarters. Now the message, they would equate it to the Bible going around the world. Now the message is going to go around the world and when it does, that's it folks. The rapture is going to come get you. And as a kid, you're terrified, man, because what about all my friends? What about my neighbors, the neighbor kids who I play baseball with in the streets. Are they going to die in your kid's mind? You're going through those things in your head and it scares the heck out of you. But that's what you went through.

And then if you, I don't know if you your sect was involved with this probably not because of the separation. But when they got the new building, which was outside of the city limits of Jefferson ville, there was this weird problem because they they had to like claim that it was Jeffersonville, even though it's really out, it's out of town. It's not Jeffersonville. It's because Selenburg, you know, the whole thing is just kind of weird. But that was the move of God that it was going to go around the world. So they like move the milepost and to the younger crowd,

they're going, oh, the power of God, just like I did for the original building. Now the younger crowd's doing that. Well, you also have this flood of people from all over the world who are coming to see the new multi-million dollar building that they built. And they're all thinking the same thing God is moving. This is it. This is it folks. And then and it doesn't happen just like just like whenever the elections of the president happen or whenever the Pope every single time they kicked that mile post back further and further and further. Well, I remember it for the original building and

it was a big deal whether they want to move that mile post or not. I know what you mean. And no, John, we were not there in any aspect of support or finance, but we were there because we were spying on the whole thing. Every time they we were there, I assure you of that. But I got to see William Brownham's car that he died in even at one of those events. Yeah, yeah, that was pretty interesting.

I still have the blood stains on it. You know, yeah, and they actually had his car. I mean, I mean, up until the up until the early 90s, they had his car in a garage on on on Tenth Street in Jeffersonville. Actually, the first car I bought was from the guy who owned the garage where Brandon's crashed car was at. I haven't got to have a peek at it then when I got and I got my my very first car when I was younger. But anyways, coming back to our story, yes, ladies and gentlemen, just like the piece of the true car. It's like Catholic church.

The piece of the true car is somewhere in a garage in Jeffersonville for the proper William Brownham. But anyway, coming back to Sarah in the central institution. Yes, John, I mean, I think it's also worth pointing out how all of those this is it. This is going to lead us to the how all that was a lie. Even the second building is more or less defunct today. I believe they took all of the stuff out of it. I there's not they took the signs off it when Billy Paul died.

I think it's all it was all just a scam, ladies and gentlemen, like everything they told you about all that was a lie and it's closed down today and moved on and evolved into something else.

Some other new way to trick people into giving them money still, right? I mean, it just keeps going on. But coming back to our information today about Sarah. So the stuff with Sarah really started to boil in the same years. And I think it's fair to say the roots of what happened with Sarah lay in the immediate aftermath of the death of her mother. So when Mita Brandham died and Mita Brandham died, I believe it was 1982, John. It might have been 1984. I think it was 1982 when Mita Brandham died. It's basically right in the same years. When she passed away,

obviously, then William Brandham's estate is up for being divided between the children, right? William Brandham had four children, the oldest Billy Paul, who was the guy running the central institutions. The second oldest was Rebecca, who married George Smith. The next oldest was Sarah, who married, what was his name? His name was De Carrado. I can't think of his first name, but Sarah De Carrado Eddie was his first name, Eddie De Carrado. And then the youngest was Joseph. And Joseph was a minor when his father passed away. And

Joseph was not really in any sort of a leadership capacity, not really until the mid-90s. He had other things going on in life that while on paper he was certainly on some documents and paper. He was not in a really functional leadership capacity until the mid-90s. Now Sarah, though, when her mother died and they divided everything up, Sarah, I think, felt that she got the short end of the stick on it all, John, because the truth is, the truth is, and I do think if anyone sits and reasonably looks at all the facts and evidence, the truth is Billy Paul really took most of everything for himself.

I mean, that is kind of the honest truth. Billy Paul pretty well took everything for himself and kept all of the money and assets and everything. And yeah, Billy Paul, Billy Paul got the lion's share of the father's inheritance. Nevertheless, some of it was divided up and a little bit did get to go to Sarah. And by a little bit, I mean, it would be, it would be several hundred thousand dollars in today's money.

So Sarah got that inheritance. And, you know, I think things probably would have been okay had not Perry Greene robbed Sarah of that little bit of inheritance. So Sarah was a missionary spreading the message in Central America back then. Her husband was, I believe her husband was from Guatemala. My recollection serves me or El Salvador or something like that. And she married. She was spending a lot of time down there doing mission work. Well, Perry Greene had said to Sarah, hey, give me your family inheritance that you got, you know, from your mother's death.

I will invest it. And, you know, send you a regular check of, you know, the income that comes off of it to help fund your missionary efforts in in Honduras and Guatemala and whatever you're doing down there. Well, of course, like so many people, Perry Greene totally robbed Sarah of her inheritance.

And I think that is what really started the issue with Sarah because then she is intent to get her money back and have her first share. And that's what, that's what starts

the situation that we're going to start describing with Sarah. And before we get into that, I want to clear some of the error because I, so the Sarah Brannum issue, what happened to Sarah, is probably the number one, actually, it is the number one most visited page, video, etc. that I have. People want to know what happened to Sarah. And because of that, from time to time, I go look at the comments and just kind of scan through them and see, does anybody have any information on Sarah? And you see a wide variety of comments. So you have people in

the message who absolutely hate the fact that this big issue exists. And they want to condemn me for trying to find Sarah. And so you have all this hate, hate mail, which I kind of ignore that.

But embedded in their statements is also a slam against Sarah. They want to say she was money hungry, she was, you guys are focusing too much. We need to focus on our blessed headquarters, which breaks in a hundred million dollars because Sarah didn't have food for her children to eat.

That's really the essence of what they're doing. And you find all of these comments from the other side, people who are never in the message, every once in a while you get the self-righteous person who says, well, good riddance.

This was another person spreading the message around the globe she needed whatever happened to. There are some awful, awful people out there. And I want to separate all of that and ignore the fact that she's spreading heresy around the world if she's spreading the message, she's spreading heresy.

Ignore that. Just think of the human being and think of her children and think of what it is that they're doing. So, so the commenters who are never in the message, if you've came out of a normal church and your church, your church takes a basket and offering it says, we're sending these missionaries around the globe, they need some money, they're going to go spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The logistics of that, when they go into another country, they're not earning any money. So I think the number, if I recall, and you can correct me from wrong, I think Sarah had like $50,000.

Well, if you think of what it takes to survive with a husband and multiple children in another country where you don't have a home, you don't have anything, you're just going with the clothes on your back, that's a small number for even one year, that's not, that's not an inheritance, it's, it's not a lot of money, right?

Well, so they're doing this for multiple years, they need the support of the people and they're acting as missionaries basically for the headquarters because they're connected deeply to the main sect. Now I know from experience that the headquarters, they don't give a lot of money to their people, and their missionaries, and the missionaries suffer, however, many of the missionaries at least got more than she got.

So there's this weird, weird rift in the family. Why did they not give them money to survive? And they have children. Why did they not want the children to survive? It says though, whatever it was that Sarah knew, they did not want people to be able to question her and get what was out of her head.

They did not want her going out into the mission fields. So they did not support her, they did not give money. Now that's all my opinion, I can't say why they didn't want them.

In the end, all I can say is they did not want this family to survive, they wanted them to suffer and starve so they could come back. I think you are exactly right, John, and I have a very similar opinion, so what you were correct in describing their situation.

They are absolutely financially dependent on the main sect of the message for them to have food on their table, right? Because they are main sect missionaries in Central America. And in addition to that regular little bit of subsidy or stipend that the main sect would send them, they also had this investment with Perry Green, they were hoping to get a little income out of, to continue to help them to spread the message.

And in their eyes, if you take the cult aspect out of it and just look at it more as a normal missionary, Sarah, I believe they were true believers back then. I believe Sarah was a true believer, I believe Eddie was a true believer.

I think they ended waking up that this thing was all a scam, but back then they were true believers for sure. And so there they are, and as Perry Green steals her inheritance, Sarah responds to that situation by demanding her money back more or less privately and trying to pressure the leaders and the main sect to take some action to get her her money back.

And as part of doing that, John, as you and I know, she told some things that she knew about the main sect of the message, about a few people. And more or less, you know, blackmail is not the right word here, but more or less said, I am going to tell these things, you know, if you guys don't do something to help me.

She actually had threatened to tell some things that she knew if they wouldn't help her. And that is then what led to yes, not only then had she lost her inheritance and that money coming from Perry Green, then the central institutions cut off her money completely.

And her and her family are left in a situation in the mid 80s where they are in Central America. Their money is nearly exhausted. They are impoverished and they are in a very, very desperate state.

And that is where you're at as you come up into about 1985-1986. Her and her family, and they were all young children, minors, I believe she had four children at that point in time.

John, her children would probably be roughly our age right now, I would say, maybe a little younger than us, some of them, but they've been our age range. And they are just left in that desperate situation where she had been totally cut off by the main sect of the message and they were destitute.

You hit the nail on the head. I don't know. So, I've got her letter that she sent around to all of the people of the message she sit to to the bride of Christ, I think, or something like this. Take it with you as the title of her letter. So on my website, you can type in, take it with you and you can read it. But to the casual rank and fall member who reads it, they just read a woman who's destitute. They don't read much into it. But for those who know the inner workings of how

the people and leadership work, you're exactly right. Blackmail is not the word for it. It's leverage. What she had was leverage. She wanted to push their buttons because she's in a desperate situation. She needs the money. And if she's going to be a missionary for this place, will they have to fund her? Because that's that's how missionaries work, man. You can't just go and take your kids and have them die where you're in the mission field. So she's using leverage and she pokes every button, man. I don't know if you caught it, but she starts talking about how

I think it I think she said to her mother called Collins corner how she was she was basically making fun of the tabernacle and how they're all my grandfather had become the central figure of that subsect, which is absolutely correct. And everything that she said in her letter, if you knew what she's talking about, she was right. And I'm reading through it whenever I first come across them like, oh my gosh, man, she let she held nothing back. She let it all fly.

And then she got into talking about the inner workings of the money. I can't say much because one of the two brothers is still alive. And I'm going to fully avoid talking about that brother.

But I knew about the money. And I knew how they handled the money. And it was widespread. So Billy Paul, who is now dead, I can talk a little bit about him. I can remember conversations with men who are in leadership who were saying, and you you got to be careful because if Billy Paul gets his hand on that money, X, Y and Z, and that conversation like repeated itself, she said something to that same effect in her letter. And to the rank and file member, you're reading it, thinking, oh my gosh, she's just a liar. I've heard people say this when

they read the letter, she's just a liar. But no, man, if you knew the people she's talking about, she is holding nothing back. You're right, John. And when you go back to that point in time, the early, even the early to the very mid 80s, there was still a, remember, Ewald Frank's thing had just happened, Mita had just died. And Mita got along with Faith Assembly Fellowship. I'll put it like that, John. There was for the sake of Mita, even there was a lot of peace that was kept. And

the Brannum family knew how to play all the sex against each other. They were on every side of everything. Okay. And Sarah is, she's going down that list, John, she's using buzzwords to, you know, to touch the other sex of the message. Okay. And they, and in a sense, that's exactly what happened. Sarah, just like her, you know, here's the thing, we're back a new how to do it. Billy Paul knew how to do it. Sarah knew how to do it. Joseph didn't know how to do it. This was part of Joseph's problem. He didn't

know how to do it. But Sarah's playing the sex off against each other and, you know, using that to get somewhere. So Sarah, um, Sarah in, in that letter, John, is, is saying things that she knows is going to make the faith assembly sex come to her side is going to make you all frank set come to her side. It's going to make Joseph Coleman's people come to her side against the main sect.

That's what, that's very much what she's doing in that letter as well. And, and as she does, she, she finally comes out of Guatemala and she goes to New York City and she meets Joseph Coleman.

That's what she does. That's her first stop, John. And in New York City, you know, it is a great prize to have a member of the Brandon family in your church. That is one of the highest honors, you know, a message church can be bestowed is to have a member of the Holy Family in your church.

So, so Sarah is going to Joseph Coleman's church. The thunder's sect of the message, John. And, and the thunders have been on the outs with the main sect by this point for, for, you know, for, for nearly a decade. And so for her to come in, I mean, this is a huge prize for Joseph Coleman, okay. And so, so Joseph Coleman starts, you know, you know, given her money basically, you know, to help take care of her family and stuff. And, and she stays there for a while. And then, John, here's the thing. She finally tells Joseph Coleman the secret. She tells Joseph the secret,

Joseph Coleman the secret that she had been, that she had threatened to release to her brothers. And when she told that to Joseph Coleman, Joseph Coleman says, I think you need to go see Ewald Frank.

Okay. Now, I'm, now here's the thing, John. I'm, I'm going to just crack the door into what the secret is a little bit before, you know, here. But after, after she tells us to Joseph Coleman, this was roughly 1986. I think she tells us to Joseph Coleman. And Joseph Coleman encourages her, okay, you need to go see Ewald Frank next. You need to send, you need to start getting evidence together. And so that's what happens. Sarah then goes to Ewald Frank next. She goes to Europe next.

And now Ewald Frank is helping financially support her, right? So now she's moved to another sector of the message. And same thing getting money. And she tells the story to Ewald Frank about what she knows. And when she does, Ewald Frank then encourages her to actually write that open letter. And that, that letter that we all have in the message community that came after Ewald Frank's recommendation. And same thing, Ewald Frank at that time releases a statement and comes out very strongly on her side, right?

Because you remember, he's just been through the sex scandal and everything. And so this is all enabling him to distract, well, my sex scandal is not so bad. Look at these terrible things happening in the main sect of the message.

And so Sarah's navigating this. And here's the thing, Sarah, as she moves through this, she sort of eventually gets turned into actually a pawn of all of the central leaders of the message, right?

Because she loses her leverage over time as they become aware of these things. And she becomes actually their pawns. So finally, she leaves Ewald Frank. And she comes back to the US, John. And that's when she then intersects with my sect of the message with Raymond Jackson.

And we're roughly 1988, 1989. And now Raymond Jackson takes up her cause. And also, and he starts actually and acts as the mediator between her and her brothers and sister and the main sect of the message.

And so that is what is going on here. And so she comes to Raymond Jackson. She also tells Raymond Jackson the story. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm Raymond Jackson's successor. I can tell you what the story is.

I know the story. I know it all. I mean, I know everything. And she gave copies, Sarah gave copies of everything to Raymond Jackson, all of which I have in my possession. Hold up that thing.

Hold it up before the people. Hold it up before the people.

Last year in our summer convention, you remember some things I said about Sarah Brown.

That was just the beginning of a slow growing process, of a situation between the children.

And believe me, there's two sides to the coin. I know it.

I've got letters in the file at home because in the following months after the convention, I had both opportunity to communicate with Billy Paul and Rebecca and Sarah and her husband. I've got various letters from different sources.

More or less bring it out different details. But the condition kept grinding on. Actually, it got so confusing. I just actually wanted to get completely away from the picture of it all because it was actually mind-boggling and worrisome.

The letter that I sent to Billy Paul, I had sent Sarah a copy of it. I'd also sent a copy of the track that the Lord gave me the dream on the shaken of all things.

As the months came and gone, back in the month of May this year, we printed our last article just before this convention. I've told both of them. I said put that track in there, but I said that last part about the Brennan movement. I said leave it all.

I'm going to respect those children long enough until we see what happens. The Brennan movement and I have to say it with respect. Billy Paul and his brother Joseph have allowed Satan

to use them to take a position over a movement of people they should have run from. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources

and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. So, before we go on, Charles, I want to talk about Sarah going to the different sects of the message for a minute, because not many people understand this. If you're on the outside looking in, you see a church and you see leaders and you see, yes, it's a cult, but they truly believe the cult doctrine, etc. You really don't understand the inner workings of how all of this happens and works. So, the central figure has died. William-Brannum is dead. You have all of these splinter groups that are branching off of the main sect, all of them

trying to gain power. They want to be the next William-Brannum. So, they're all trying to rise up and they will do anything. When I talk about Sarah-Brannum having leverage, that's nothing compared to what each minister had on each other minister, because if you get too far ahead of me, I'm going to let the cat out of the bag and everybody's going to know you're dirt. So, they all had dirt on each other. And just the simple fact that Sarah went to another sect, because she went to this thundersect, her being there, whether she said anything or not, that was a message, because whoever saw her there

would report back to headquarters. Headquarters would say, oh my gosh, Sarah's there. What if she talks? They have these closed door meetings. I know how all this works, right? So they're up in arms because she's in another sect.

Is she gonna tell? Is she not? What can I do? What leverage do I have on Sarah? That's how all of this works. And that's how these people think. So you have to understand her being in the sect was a problem for them.

Now when she's hopping from sect to sect, she's really getting too far, brother. She's, boy, she's getting out there. I better find something quick on her or I need to make her destitute. One of the two, she's either gonna suffer or I'm gonna find leverage and I'm gonna make her stop.

That's how all of this works, right? So Sarah is doing this, Sarah is doing her power play. And what's interesting, if you understand how these people think, it's not even that she is doing this to be evil.

If you're on the outside and you're an actual Christian, who's in an actual Christian church and not one of these cult churches, you look at this and you think, oh my gosh, she's a bad person.

But you have to understand, when you're in this type of religion where you really have severed consciences and there's no simple way for me to say that. That's what this religion does to you.

It's severed your conscience. She is not thinking about what she's doing to the other people, she's only thinking about how can I make my children not suffer? That's the only thing that's going through her head.

I want some money because my kids are hungry. They can't eat, we need money. So she's doing all of these power plays likely for the sole purpose of her children. And to all the arguments that I have read where it says she's just wanting to make money, you go try to live off of what she lived in another country with children with nothing, absolutely nothing except for the support of this little tiny amount of money.

And compare it to the missionaries in other churches, how much money they get, they actually get a salary allowance to go. Compare all of that and you find out that she was actually quite poor and she actually needed the money.

So all of this leverage that she's trying to, these power plays she's trying to do, this is really for the sake of her children. You know, John, if you think about what they did to her, it is not unlike they try to do to the average person who tries to leave the message, right?

They cut off their finances, they cut off their family access, they cut off their house, they basically do everything they can do to utterly destroy your life. And that is what they did to Sarah, okay?

That's what they did to her. While she was a missionary in Guatemala, okay? I mean, it's a miracle, if Joseph Coleman's the one I think who had to buy her plane tickets to get her back to the United States, she was in a desperate situation.

I mean, how was she even gonna get out of there if she didn't pull some of those things that she did? And so it's awful, John. I mean, it's absolutely awful what they did to her.

And unlike the average message believer, John, you know, who gets ex-communicated. and all of these sort of things happen to them. Sarah's not your average message, believe it, she's William Graham's daughter. You can't do this to her, man, I mean, come on.

And she is not gonna go quietly. You, I mean, and the fact that they ever thought that she would go quietly, I mean, it's just absurd, judge, it's just as absurd for her to go quietly as they would think people like you and me who are also from levels of senior leadership that they could just treat us like trash and throw us away and think we're gonna go quietly.

I don't think so. No, no, no. Okay, and now here's what Sarah, here's what Sarah did, John. And when she got back here to Jeffersonville, she told the story to Raymond Jackson and a number of other people here.

There are, I know she told Joseph Coleman, I know she told E-log Frank, I'm also aware of a number of private individuals here in the Jeffersonville message community. She also told it too. And I'm gonna be super, super, super careful here and very, I'm gonna go with this with a scalpel.

Okay, John, and how I describe this. Sarah, during her lifetime, discovered a number of secrets about the message. Some of those secrets are not all that bad and didn't really bother her brothers too much that she knew.

She knew, she alleged that Billy Paul forged her father's signature to get control of the William Brandon Evangelistic Association. She alleged that. Maybe that's true. That's one of the things that she alleged. Okay, but I don't think that was really the big deal.

She also knew the circumstances of her father's death that he really wasn't killed by drunk driver hitting him head on, she knew those things were not true. She also knew about her father being angry and stuff.

And again, I don't think any of that was really the big deal. The big deal is this last part I'm gonna tell you. Sarah ran on that one point in her life, claimed to have stumbled on to a homosexual orgy

in which several members, leading members of the main sect of the message were involved. That is what Sarah knew and that is what Sarah saw and Sarah was telling their names. George Smith was walking behind me.

He walks up beside me. He said, brother Jackson, he says, I understand you've been helping Sarah. I said, I sent her a little offering. He said, I'd like to talk with you. I said, okay, he says, we're gonna be in town a few days.

So as I said, all right, this was on a Sunday. So then on Monday morning, you wanted to meet me in a certain restaurant, humanist wife. I met him, we had breakfast together. So while sitting there, I was told a story that is almost unbelievable.

But at the same time, I had talked with Sarah and I got another story. Just as unbelievable. That is what made the response have to happen to Sarah the way that it happened, John.

And that is what she was alluding to and hinting to in a number of her letters and documents and stuff that she put out. That is what was going on. You know, people have asked me about that as well as Sarah.

Probably the second most common question that I get on my email. And I'm going to tread very carefully here too because this is the grounds for lawsuits if you're not careful. No names mentioned.

So for the sake of my historical research, in order to publish something as historical fact, you have to have something to confirm that fact. You have to have a piece of evidence. The fact that Sarah Brannum said this, and I'm aware that she made the claims too.

I'll stop right here and say whether she was correct or not in the claims, that's her opinion. I'll just phrase it like that. I'm aware that the claims were made. But because she made these allegations, it doesn't mean that I can document it.

And when people ask me, was William Brannum homosexual or was so-and-so who's in leadership where they engaged in homosexual acts, I can't answer that because I can't tell you the hearsay that she claimed.

It's hearsay. It's not historical fact. So I'm going to stray a bit from my historical mind and I'm going to just talk a bit about, oh, how can I phrase this? In the mouth of two or three witnesses.

I'll phrase it like that. That is a biblical position. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, you establish things. So Sarah made this claim, right? If I were in leadership, which I'm not, if I were a minister, which I'm not, and parishioners were to come to me and say, this homosexual act was happening among multiple men.

I knew these men. Oh my gosh, I knew these men, right? And I was in a position of pastoral authority. And I saw the fact that some of the men were victimized. I would have to put a stop to it as a church leader.

If I were to be one, I'd have to go to the authorities and say, this is a huge problem here. I have had multiple parishioners tell me the same thing. And I would have to engage the authorities and go after these people, because there are prey for a predator, right?

I'm not a pastor. I can't do this. All I can say is that if I were to have been, and if I were to have been a pastor in leadership, At that time, I would have had to go to the authorities.

Now, the fact that Sarah knew whatever it was that she knew and claimed, the fact that she didn't go to the authorities is a strike against her because the things that I wish we could talk more, we legally can't.

The things that she is describing is so bad that it should make international news. This is a big, big deal, and she's not the only one who is aware of this. I have, as late as, gosh, I want to think it was late last year, I've had multiple conversations on the phone with people who were aware of the situation.

They all are saying the same thing, so it's not like we're getting a random witness who's making some bogus allegation. I can't confirm that it happened, and I'm not going to, but they're each saying the same thing, and they're essentially, they're confirming her allegations if you're in a position of leadership, which I'm not, so I think I've danced around it as much as I can dance.

You get the picture, Sarah made allegations, and other people have made allegations. Correct, John, and I think for our purposes, we don't need to go into the details of her allegation and whether or not the allegation is true, but for the purpose of the response that came to her from the central institutions of the message, from people in the central institutions of the message, maybe let me put it like that, it was based on her making the allegation.

This is really what can be proven, what can be documented, is Sarah did make the allegations. Whether or not the allegations are true, circumstantial, right? Sarah is doing this, John. There is a concerted campaign against her person and character that is going on at the same time by her enemies, and the people that she named, to some extent, even, and they are doing everything they can to make Sarah look crazy, to look foolish, to look like a liar, and basically discredit her and have her ex-communicated, and basically to, you know, send him back to Guatemala so they can starve to death.

I mean, I think it's very fair to say what they would like to see happen to Sarah. And Sarah is not having it, though, Sarah is not having it. And what Sarah does, I mean, John, this thing keeps escalating.

As you get up into, I want to say, 1988, 1989, Sarah reaches out to Gerald Lee Walker. Now who's Gerald Lee Walker? Gerald Lee Walker was the treasurer of the Full Gospel Businessmen, international, right?

He was a trustee on the international board of the Full Gospel Businessmen, right? So she's even now reaching... two message believers in powerful positions outside of the message and she gets Gerald Lee Walker to basically come be her attorney and put together a lawsuit that she's going to press against leaders in the central institutions of the message.

Lo and behold, before the contender even come out almost, in the mail comes this thing. This is an attorney, a lawyer by the name of Gerald Lee Walker, his office is in California. When he got a hold of this report, he's a Christian man. He's the same thing you and I do. He got to correspond. So he got some information. He went to New York and he talked with Sarah and her husband and believed me. He's not a fly tonight. Because the first page is there, he introduces himself who he is, the various firms he has worked with and he's one

of them. Go get her kind. He tells you what he's one. I talked with him twice. But he plainly tells you in there. He got the story. He went to investigating and I'm telling your brothers and sisters. He's done things all the woodwork. Nobody knows that's been going on for the years. She puts the lawsuit together, documents together. I mean, again, I have all those documents. A lot of them, I genre up on your website. And in this, she's alleging all the financial crimes. And basically, she is demanding a, she's demanding the money back that Perry Green stole her

from her. And she's also asking for an equal share of the assets that Billy Paul had kept the line share for himself, right? So she escalates. She wants her money back Perry Green stole and she wants a more appropriate division of her fathers inheritance. And she presses this lawsuit. And John, we know that as the lawsuit comes out, it was about 1991 that the lawsuit stuff finally gets mailed out and the threat to sue comes in 1991, 1992, 1993. And then Sarah just kind of disappears, doesn't she? Sarah just drops off the face of the earth

disappeared. And it gets to the point nobody has seen Sarah in, I would say over 20 years now, John, nobody has seen Sarah, no message person has seen Sarah in decades at this stage, something happened in all this. And Sarah just disappeared. Very unusually. And not only did she disappear, her husband and children disappeared too. It's unbelievable. You know, I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but before Sarah, disappeared. She was in contact with my family and she was making her rounds to the different sects, like we've mentioned. She was explaining how she was homeless and destitute. Now I

wasn't there. So even though this is here, say the family members involved, I trust them fully. But she described her situation. She said that she had to go to a place. I'm not going to mention the place. She had to leave. She would be back the following month and never came back. So my family was waiting and waiting and waiting and she just simply never came back. So after all these years, you know, it's funny because I never really thought about what happened to Sarah. It wasn't until long after I left and I'm reading, I had read her

letter to the message cult people. Take it with you. I'd read that and I'd read the places that she'd visited. It really wasn't until I started into my colonial Dignidad research where I'm discovering, oh my gosh, the message was also tied to a torture compound. And some of the key figures were involved in that torture compound. It wasn't until I started that research that it really clicked. There's something wrong here. She disappeared and she's talking directly with these people. What happened? And that's whenever I paused a bit to try to find out. And we Charles, you and I worked on this a bit together. We

went as far as we could go until we reached a point where there is, there's some real danger in going further with this. So we just kind of cut it off. For all the parties involved, we don't want to put anybody in harm's way. So we just kind of cut it off.

But this, this is a mess, man. This is one of the biggest scandals that this message has ever had. I would agree with you, John. And, you know, whatever happened, I mean, my best hope is that Sarah found a way to escape and go live, you know, a peaceful life somewhere the rest of her life. I really hope that's what happened. But, you know, whatever the case, she very mysteriously disappeared, you know, after all of these things transpired.

And there is, I mean, I do think there are serious concerns that it might not have been, you know, a peaceful disappearance. So, anyways, that's, that's, that's where we, I think we end the episode at the day, John. Sarah Brannum's disappearance.

So there's another aspect of this that I want to point out, because unless you really understand that letter, which I'm going to be throwing it on the screen multiple times during this episode, if you're in the audio only feed, you can go to the YouTube site and you can see it or you can go to the website, just type in, take it with you. You can read it.

As she is doing all of these power plays, leading up to her disappearance, she's, she's holding nothing back. She's letting even the financial numbers out, and she's describing things that have been kept secret, but the elite in the cult knew.

For example, William Brannum's massive amounts of money. Every single, I can remember sermons where we were hearing how, oh, this was a blessed humble prophet sent by God. He wasn't after money like these other guys that are out there.

He just lived on just enough to get by. And then Sarah releases, no, he had millions of dollars in investments and banging accounts. And when she wrote that, I'm like, oh my gosh, man, because I had heard stories about the money that William Brannum had.

And yet from the same people that I've heard the stories about, I have heard them preach from behind the pulpit that he could not scrape two pennies together. And we would hear things like, oh, he was not after the glamour and the action like the other people.

They didn't tell us that he had a tent in today's money, a $10,000 watch on his wrist. They didn't tell us that even though he claimed I would never drive a Cadillac like this other minister out there, they didn't tell you that Gerald Lee Walker's organization, the full gospel businessman, gave him a Cadillac and he's driving it around.

My family has seen the Cadillac. In fact, I may even, I'm trying to remember the photos on my grandfather's wall. I may even have had a picture of my grandfather with that Cadillac at some point.

I know I've seen his Cadillac. So he's living this other lifestyle. Sarah has let the Cad out of the bag and now everybody has to scramble to suppress it. What's interesting about her letter that I don't think many people caught.

The person who rose to leadership, Profit Junior, I'll use that name, Profit Junior, as he rose up into leadership, she doesn't care at all. He's actually going mostly after Billy Paul, which reiterates, it reiterates, I mentioned either last episode or the one before, it's like a pen and teller show.

You've got the face of the organization, you've got the brains. She knew who the brains was and she was targeting the brains in all of her leverage. You're exactly right, John, and Billy Paul was the guy in charge, I mean, he was and you know, it's, you know, we just got to be careful.

I guess some things that we say, hey, I got more in my book, ladies and gentlemen, maybe necessarily more saying here, but, you know, Billy Paul was the man in charge and yeah, you're correct.

Joseph didn't really begin to transition into true leadership until the mid 90s. Maybe we'll talk about that in our next episode a little bit. But, you know, as you think back through this, there's one other thing I'd maybe like to come back to.

You know, and as we've talked about the central institutions, the one we've talked about the least is the William Brandon Evangelistic Association and in the message in those years, especially the. The WBEA was the top of the pyramid of the message.

It was the controlling institution. And what Sarah does when she goes after the WBEA and her lawsuit and stuff is, she's pointing out something very interesting. Basically, what happened is in the last month of William Brown's life is when the WBEA was organized.

It was organized the last month of his life. And on the document, there is a signature for a line for William Brown, but the signature on that line is not the signature of William Brown.

The signature on that line is William Brown, Jr. Billy Paul. And Sarah essentially alleges that Billy Paul forged and impersonated her father to open the William brand of evangelistic association. And as that happened, John, after William Brown had died, as you come into the next year after he died, all of the assets of William Brown's ministry, the intellectual property, copyrights, all of that stuff, Billy Paul transfers all of that into the WBEA.

So it's after William Brown dies that really the WBEA becomes the controlling institution. And it is Billy Paul amassing all of the finances and power and copyrights and intellectual property controls all in the WBEA.

And at that point, he had, according to Sarah, very questionably, impersonated his father in order to do all of that. And Sarah was making those allegations because she basically wanted to have, you know, share those funds as part of her inheritance.

And she was alleging that was part of the way that Billy Paul was able to steal essentially her father's assets and having for himself rather than divide them out in the inheritance. So I think that that's all very noteworthy, you know, to just, you know, understand a little bit of the backstory and also the, you know, the origins of the William Brown Evangelistic Association.

It is important backstory. And I'm going to have to end this podcast, this particular episode a bit different than any of the others because of the subject matter that we've been going over. And I'll end with this legal disclaimer.

The allegations that Sarah Brannum made before she disappeared from the face of the earth are her allegations and nothing to do with our opinions. Whether she's correct or not, we don't know. We're just telling what we have heard.

And with that, I'll end it if you've enjoyed this episode and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-brannum.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For more about the history of William Brannum and the... Revivals read come out of her my people and for more about the dark side of the new apostolic Reformation read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR both available on Amazon Kindle in Audible.

Revival read Come out of her my people and for more about the dark side of the new apostolic Reformation read Come out of her my people and for more about the dark side of the new apostolic