What the Coroner Found—and the Church Hid: The Death of Hobart Freeman

Hello and welcome to another episode how the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chino Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding, scripture, and truth by Chino D. Ross, YouTube channel.

Chino, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. We were both off. I was down with the flu and you're out partying, so I'm joking, but we haven't been able to reconnect and record, and we were right in the heart of the climax of this entire thing, Hobart Freeman's death. And I know that there are many people who are following this build up and got really interested and then, oh no, we're going to see a podcast by John talking about what to talk about, free masonry. We're going to see a podcast about John talking about free masonry. I

tried to fill the gap while we were out, but anyway, it's good to be back and to get back into the heart of things and talk about the surprise that came in the cult when Hobart Freeman died. John, and you said I was out party, and the only person I partied with was you, because you and I had lunch together one day. So that was about the extent of my partying over the last couple of weeks. The last time we were talking about Hobart's poor health, I'm going to continue to do that today. Some of the contributing factors that led to his death. So I'd

like people to envision were headed toward his death, but there are a lot of different roads that led to that. There were a lot of contributing factors in his own life. There were other factors happening in the church and around them.

And so it's going to take us a little while, which means several podcasts. And the reason that I'm doing this is I think that the people from Freeman's ministry deserve to know the truth and deserve to have the facts. And you and I both know you're not going to get that from cult leadership. They're going to gloss everything over and you simply are not going to be able to get to the bottom and hear the truth. So last time we were talking about the heart attacks that Hobart had. We referenced four of them from his own recorded

messages. And people have probably heard me say is before that the information, most of the information that I'm providing is not through any kind of secret documents I have, they come right off of the man's recorded messages.

They're available for anyone. He has 1157 messages, full length messages. There are probably a couple of hundred other little short, 10 or 12 minute ones, and those were radio broadcasts. He intended to put out some of most of which he did put out, but there are 1157 main messages.

If you want to listen to every one of those, you'll find every single one of these things that we've talked about and more. So the last time we were talking about his heart conditions, one of the factors in his death was severe according to the medical documents, cardio-fascular disease.

That's not my word versus the cult leadership's word. That's what's in the medical documents as we'll talk about later today and later on in future podcasts. It was always surprising to me that Hobart never used a particular verse for his heart condition and that because there are so many of them in the Bible that talk about my heart and your heart, that's a common word.

Therefore, you could find many verses for it in the Bible. It's always interesting to me looking back on it that he never used a verse, never used a specific verse because as I've shared in past podcasts, he was a master at proof texting.

He loved to have verses and he had verses for everything. Yes, I hope we're showing that they were pulled out of context, almost like a group of beads strung together and then worn as a necklace around your neck.

But he had verses. So for his view against doctors, you go to second Chronicles 16. Aiza had a disease in his feet and he didn't seek the Lord. He sought to the physicians and he died.

Second Chronicles. Yeah, you have to go in the middle of the book of Chronicles and he found a verse, a narrative that had to do with King Aiza regardless of the context. That was never discussed.

Just he found a verse that said that Aiza, King and Israel went to a doctor and died and so therefore doctors are not allowed. Couldn't borrow money because of Romans 13.8. You couldn't have a car loan.

You couldn't take out a mortgage on a home because Paul said, oh no man anything but to love him. So there you go, that literal wooden headed approach without taking anything in the context into consideration.

No Christmas tree during my 10 talks about it. It's interesting that that's 600 years BC and Hobart also said that Christmas came from Roman Catholicism. But Jeremiah predates Roman Catholicism by a thousand years and yet he found a passage Jeremiah 10 that talked about Christmas trees. You're not allowed to have those You can't be a part of a club because of 2nd Corinthians 614. Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers You can't be a part of a denominational church because Roman or Revelation 18 Talks about great Babylon come out of her my people. Don't partake with her of her sins

Babylon in his mind is the denominational system so You can't be a part of that women can't wear pants a favorite one of his and what's the basis for that? Deuteronomy 22 5 That's in the old covenant and When we get to the new covenant it is made so clear by the Apostle Paul that if you Try to obey one part of the mosaic legislation Then you're a debtor to do it all and Paul says in Galatians 3 very clearly that If you do that you put yourself under the curse He said cursed is every man that continue with not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them

So it's interesting all of these lists of Don'ts they're based on a particular verse and I think even that last one I just mentioned John it It the pants and women not wearing them. That's not just in Freeman's group That is widespread in all of your old Pentecostal sex it is widespread in all of your old order non Pentecostal groups like brethren churches men and I Amish I mean it is a Big deal in those groups to make sure that they keep a woman in a dress and not in a pair of pants and You just can't the Bible just does not legislate on certain articles of clothing. It just doesn't thankfully. It doesn't

And and that is a huge problem in the world And I think they're I think they're probably plenty of Freeman followers to this day women Who won't put a pair of pants on wherever they go they're gonna wear a dress and they may say you know No, I'm not basing this on Deuteronomy 225. I understand I can't do that But I just think that What you know, no, they're still under the mindset of the cult and bless their hearts. They just can't they probably really can't help themselves And so it's interesting. Hope our didn't use a heart verse when he used a verse for everything else and

We know there are plenty of verses that talk about the The believer's heart. Here's a verse. I looked up Psalm 112 and verse 7 My Art is fixed. Wouldn't that be a good one for a heart patient?

My heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. Psalm 112 and verse seven. But to my knowledge, he never used a particular verse and I'm not exactly certain why because he was so prone to do that on everything else.

But there is a great verse that could have been used. Of course, we know you can't use that verse. It's not talking about the physical organ. It's talking about the Psalmist is settled on a certain course of beliefs or a certain course of action.

My heart is fixed. I'm going to believe God and trust God. It's not talking about your physical organ. But he easily could have used that while he didn't as a mystery. That type of hermeneutic approach and all hermeneutics means is the way you interpret scripture is going to result in a train wreck in a person's attempt to understand scripture.

Whatever the Bible means to us is what it meant when it was originally written. So why he didn't use a heart verse, I simply don't know. It's interesting because you have just described the majority of my 37 years of being in the Brannum call.

Every single rule, every single doctrine, they all were summed up pretty much how you just summed it up. However, I won't take this back to Brannum. This is actually following in the error of Dauy.

William Brannum was mentored in the Revivalist by F. F. Bosworth, who was a leader in the Zion city. I think he was leader of the Zion city band, even if I remember correctly. He wrote the book, Christ the Healer, and he did exactly what you're talking about.

He would take these passages and make it, basically, I take the idea of he's trying to take something that doesn't really fit and bang it in with a sledgehammer. Well, he's sledgehammering verses that have no context, whatsoever with what he's saying, but they sound really good if you think about just the words of what he's ripped out of context.

And he was doing that, you can read Christ the Healer, and if you're not indoctrinated, you'll understand what I'm saying. But he takes these things out of context. Well, he was doing this, taught Brannum how to do it.

Brannum basically furthered the doctrine of Dauy. And what you end up with is this hodgepodge collection of verses that really don't go together at all, but when you string them together, it's like cutting those little angels in the paper.

I don't know if you've seen it and you pull it apart. They all kind of look pretty, but they're not really angels. They're just a piece of paper and somebody has made them decorated it to make it look good.

Yeah, it reminds me, John, of a story. Everyone knows a story in the Bible where it's in Acts 17. Paul had been, let's see, Paul had been at Thessalonica, then he had traveled to Berea, and he left Berea alone and went down to Athens, and he was waiting on the rest of his party to join him.

And down in Athens, Paul was gonna share the gospel every opportunity he got. So if there's a synagogue in an area, there was in Athens, it was a big city, and all you needed were 10 Jewish men, and you could have a synagogue, you could have multiple synagogues.

So he'd share the gospel in a synagogue, and he'd share it in the marketplace, and that's what he's doing when he first gets to Athens, and in the marketplace, this cultured, philosophical city in Athens, the marketplace was full of people who had all kinds of ideas and thoughts and philosophies and religions, and Luke, the author of Acts, mentions a couple of them, the Epicureans and Stoics, and they were listening to what Paul was saying, and they were a little puzzled, they thought he was teaching two new gods they hadn't heard.

One, the God's name was Jesus, and the name of the other God was resurrection, and they just thought, this is really strange, we would like to hear more of what, and the King James translates the Greek word, babbler, what more of this babbler has to say, they go on and invite him to speak to the full Ariopagus, and that's the big discourse at the second half of Acts 17 gives us that Paul gave on Mars Hill.

But what that word babbler is very interesting and unique word in the Greek language, and if you study out what a babbler was, or where that word came from, it reminds me so much of Dr. Freeman, because the word could easily be translated a gutter sparrow, a gutter sparrow, and what they meant by that, and what the Epicureans and Stoics meant by that, was someone who simply went around, like a bird, picking up this little trinket, this little shiny object, this little twig, this little seed, this little twig of grass over here, and carrying it all back to its nest

and make something out of it. I cannot think of a better way to describe Dr. Freeman, then to call him a gutter sparrow. That's what Paul was falsely accused of by the Epicureans and Stoics, but I think it applies to Dowie, Brannum, Bosworth, Freeman, plenty of people today, who just run through the Bible, picking and choosing, grabbing these little snippets, a verse that has the word, or has the phrase that you want it to have, you grab that out of its context, and you take it and attach it to something else.

I think is happening so many times with his interpretation of these things. So if we can go on today, we'll go past his cardiovascular disease and his heart condition to what the medical documents will refer to as your distal lower extremities.

It is a medical phrase and all it means is things below the hip, especially below the knee, which would be the legs, the ankle, and the feet. Dr. Freeman did a series of studies in the book of Exodus in the summer of the year he died, 1984.

And he has a particular one in that series entitled Children of Providence. We're actually not going to play a clip from that one. I'm just going to give the reference, but I'm going to summarize that so we don't have to play what he actually said.

What you'll find in this Exodus series, John, is very alarming. I know when I was a young person, whenever I would see coming out from faith ministries and publications, a new group of tapes done by Dr. Freeman on a particular book, I was genuinely excited and thought, well, I'm going to really learn some things about this particular book.

And he just was never as fulfilling as I had hoped. When I would listen to the series, I did not learn what was in Philippians or Jude or Jeremiah, what I heard was a new opportunity to put the old lady in a new dress.

He wanted to talk against denominations. He wanted to talk against doctors. He wanted to talk against JDS. He just wanted to talk against a lot of things and he would find a new way to do it.

And this is exactly what was going on in a terrible fashion with the book of Exodus. He in no way was educating people on what this second book in the Pentateuch was all about.

What he was doing was thinking that he could see parallels between what Moses experienced and what he was experiencing and what the children of Israel had gone through and what faith assembly was going through.

So in this message entitled Children of Providence, here are my own typed notes from 40 years ago. I'm just going to refer to a few things that you will find from the timestamp of 27 minutes, 51 seconds through 31 minutes and 8 seconds.

What he's trying to do is say to the congregation, I am like Moses. Just like Moses had gone through all... all of this preparation by God and all the wisdom of the Egyptian court. So God called me to go to college and seminary and he prepared me not to work in Egypt, i.e. the denominational system, but once he delivered me from that, then I would be helping God's people. And he does the same thing with Moses being rescued from the basket in the river in Exodus 2. He goes through this correct story, how Moses could have been killed, but by the divine providence of God, Moses' life was spared

and he was spared so that he could be raised up and then help deliver the children of Egypt. And so what Holbert does in this little three or four minute clip is he goes through his own life to show how God providentially has preserved him. So he starts off by saying at six months of age, here in one little segment, you can get this medical health history of Dr. Freeman.

At six months of age, he had double pneumonia. He talks about it, said, you know, most people die from that, especially in infant and especially if you have double pneumonia, if you have it in both lungs, six months of age double pneumonia. At 16 months of age, he contracted the dreaded childhood disease of polio. This was before the Jonas Salk vaccine. This was a dreaded disease that parents did not want to see their children contract and Holbert contracted that when he was a little younger than a year and a half old. And it affected his right leg and his right foot.

At 10 years of age, he almost drowned in a swimming pool and he tells the whole story, you know, miraculously God saved my life. At 13 years of age, his other leg, his left leg was, he said basically shredded the muscles, tendons, everything ripped out, torn apart, destroyed when he was run over by what he calls a big factory truck, 13 years of age. Then I think he talks about some other issues, but then he ends by saying that the enemy's tried to put a heart attack on me, you know, on several occasions and we looked at that last time. So the reason I point this out is for people to look at

both of what the medical authority's call your distal lower extremities, both his. Right foot and ankle damaged my polio when he was let's just say a year and a half old and then he's 13 years old The left leg was damaged. This is really going to come into play as we develop this podcast today Believe it or not, and it's really going to come into play Whenever we get to his death You were talking about Hobart talking through Moses and making the similarities in comparisons trying to build himself up As a Moses figure. I'll never forget whenever that hit me. I was going through the sermons of Branum

Much like you were going through the sermons of Hobart and I was starting to notice that whenever he did talk about biblical figures He would say in this biblical figure did this that and the other and then he would go into his own life story And he would give details that sounded eerily similar to that figure and Suddenly a dawned on me what he's doing. This is what every con artist does They try to suggest that they're greater than they actually are and to the people listening They didn't they don't really make that association in the middle of a sermon because they're not expecting somebody to do this and

When it first hit me, I thought you know, that's not so bad I would like to see myself as a David or a Moses or a Paul But when I continued going through that line of study That's right make it into the New Testament It doesn't he does the same thing about Jesus Christ and that's the point at which I realized not only is he pulling the same tricks as a con artist He's diving really deeply into heresy because this if you compare yourself to Jesus Christ you basically Self-promoting yourself as a deity and I could not take the self-promotion as well in Branum anything close to Jesus Christ

So that's when I began to back off and Interestingly as it relates to the podcast work that you and I are doing That's what drove me deeper into studying some of the others I wanted to see did Hobart Freeman do it did Mike Bickle do it and You can almost go right down the line every single destructive cult leader that I have examined in Christian cults they all do the same thing with some biblical figure and I came across an article I doubt I'll find it for the for this podcast, but as I was digging through the research

I found this one article in 19 I think that he was 1910 and the newspaper reporter says what in the world are we coming to we've Got all of these men claiming to be Moses's or David's or Jonas or whatever it is and they're all Essentially in other words, they're scamming the people he said when are we gonna wake up and realize when somebody claims that they're Moses They're not Moses I did not realize and probably don't realize to the extent you do John that other people have done this But it was to me really obvious with Dr. Freeman and it was really disturbing and you're right

It wasn't just the Exodus series when he did the Jeremiah series when he did any series He'd ever claimed that he was them, obviously. He just did what you described. He would talk about the biblical figure enough, and I think as I just described from this children of Providence message, and then he would go right into talking about himself, and the people just follow that, and they become afraid because they know Moses was a true authority figure.

And he had carefully explained how God had preserved Moses' life, providentially, which he did. God definitely did do that, planning to use Moses in the future. Hobart saw himself 100%. Maybe not as Moses, but he saw himself 100% in that same form or fashion, and he demonstrates that.

He was saying, look at all these things that could have and should have killed me as a child. But God knew he was going to call me to receive the end time message of faith, the only man he was going to give it to.

So yeah, Moses was a unique figure, Hobart very much claimed he was a unique figure. He said he was the only one that God had given this message to. But two of those things have reference to his legs, one to his left and one to his right.

The polio affected the right foot, the truck running over his left leg affected the left leg. So now I do want to play a few clips, and I just want people to keep in mind.

One of these is both of these incidents are childhood experiences of Hobart. So this is something he has gone through his entire life with. I don't think even though people knew that he had polio and he limped and he had a problem, maybe until these podcasts, people have not been able to sit down and really think about what that does to a person never able to run and play with the other children as a child, never being an athlete in school and getting the recognition of all your peers because athletes in high school are a big deal.

He was never able to be a man's man. He couldn't play sport. He couldn't go hunting in the woods. He couldn't do any of these things. His whole life. That can have a profound psychological effect upon a person.

And I have argued that this is my personal belief that it did for him so that whenever he heard Kenneth Hagen teaching name and enclavement that healings in the atonement, all you have got to do is ask asking for that and receiving it is just as easy as asking for salvation and receiving it.

They're equally in the same atonement. We talked about this before. I've got to do is pray and ask and you've gone. it. Well, it didn't work the way he probably thought it was going to work. When you do ask for forgiveness of sins, you do receive that. When he asked for his healing, he didn't get it. And so then you have to create a new doctrine called waiting for our manifestation doctrine.

And Hobart waited and waited and waited. And as we will demonstrate in this podcast and the ones to come, he was never healed of any of these things. Not my opinion. It's a medical report.

So John, if you could play a little brief clip from a message entitled Our One Remedy of Healing from the 11 minute and 22nd mark to the 14 minute and 33 second mark. Well, I know what I'm talking about. I don't come here and tell you about my physical trials.

I'll just tell you one to make my point. I've got an ulcer right now on my ankle that's been there for two months. And it hurts. And it doesn't look a bit better. But praise God, it was healed at Calvary. And I practice what a preach. If God will heal your ulcer, heal, heal mine.

Hallelujah. And I don't go for what I see or what I feel. I practice what a preach. And there are other things we could mention that's nobody's business. You have to walk out. So I know what it is to go through a trial. Well, this is one time, remember in Florida, you had an ulcer in the same place and it never did heal. Well, it finally did by certain treatment, but even the doctors, nothing they could do. They said there's nothing there. It just takes a creative miracle to put flesh back where there isn't any. You know what an ulcer is? An ulcer that's

gone. The flesh is missing. You can feel sorry for people with stomach ulcers. There's nothing there. I mean, it's just eating a hole in their stomach. But praise God. If a medical treatment, which finally healed it, and I treated myself by the way, and God healed, that's many years ago before it was even saved. If medicine could do it, then he who created the ankle can do a much better job and will. As I say, I don't talk about trials I go through until they're over, but praise God. I know what it is to go through a trial and all the questions and the doubts you've

been taught in your denominations began to surface. Well, it isn't gonna work this time. It's been two months. It's not any better. And then you hit it again on the lawn more and knocked it open when it was looking a little better. Or sometimes at night, if we're going to sleep, I say, I just want to go on record again, Lord. It was healed at Calvary. I want to make my witness in heaven.

Before the pit of hell, and before this world, that I was healed at Calvary. Well, you say not a big thing. Well, maybe you don't know what ulcers are. To just keep Seeding, it doesn't get any better. It has to take a creative miracle to put something there that isn't there.

And you know on your ankle, you don't have anything but a little skin. The next thing's bone.

Shall we go on or you want me to describe it a little more to tell you? Which I could, but I'd have some of you looking at my circumstances. I refuse to praise God.

So we'll just get off of that and get on to what we're saying. That all of this stuff, I didn't get that out of the word. Well, it isn't going to be healed this time.

I got that from my old Baptist church and theology and seminary in college. That's where I got it. Why would I be thinking these thoughts? I overcome them. I reject them, but they're there.

Why do you think those because that poisons in your system? So look to that. If you want to know why some people are not healed because they'll start looking at the circumstances and start listening to the devil and that poison will paralyze them.

They'll have to go to the doctor, take their pills or finance company or whatever. This was a message and I want to, I need to date these so people realize when all this is happening, this actually was in the early 1980s.

Keep in mind, he doesn't die until the very end of 1984. And what you just heard three years or more prior to his death is that he has an ulcer on his ankle. He says, it's been there two months.

You can tell he's aggravated. He says it hurts and then he kind of yells, but I was healed at Calvary.

So this is a man three months prior, I'm sorry, three years, if not a little more, prior to his death is announcing the fact that he has an ulcer on his ankle. That ulcer is on his left ankle.

It's not the right one. It's on the leg, not the polio leg, but the one that was damaged by the big factory truck that ran over him. It's been there two months. He's in pain.

He says that it hurts. And then as you can hear, he's I hear frustration. I hear exasperation in his voice when he yells, but I'm healed at Calvary instead of this quiet, but passionate and faithful trust in Jesus.

But I know beyond a shout of a doubt that I'm healed. I don't really hear that. I hear more frustration and I don't really fault Dr. Freeman for being frustrated. I think he was in pain for a lot of the end of his life.

Any of us who are in pain tend to be a little short and are nerves and short with people around us. So I would always give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to that.

But I want people to think as we continue and finish this podcast, he's going to go on for the next three and a half years with his wound on his left ankle. It never does get better.

We're going to play some other clips as the time goes on. That is getting worse and worse and worse and it's going to be one of the things that contribute to his death. 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 McCummery, 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.

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You know, growing up and studying all of these different cults, you can't say that they're all attributed to similar factors, but knowing that Hobart Freeman was suffering and then watching the change in his demeanor after the suffering begins, you can clearly see a shift in a change.

And what's really interesting, if you go back to the early years of when all of this was being birth, right after the latter-een revival had broken out, latter-een movement starts to spread and before it had been condemned, Brannum never had any sort of a physical ailment, but he did have a mental condition.

We don't know what it was, but he talks about being a neurotic and he says every seven years, it plagues me and I've even had to go off the field. I'm told by private reports that he was actually taken to a facility in Mexico for severe mental health issues.

I'm not going to say what they said it was because I can't prove it, but the point I'm trying to make is, if you consider things like this and then consider how they act afterward that explains a heck of a lot of things, whenever Hobart starts acting angry and violence at different people who aren't part of the cult, well, I've experienced chronic pain myself.

I know how easy it is to be angered about something that irritates you. You're already being irritated. So when you factor that in, the thing that you really need to realize is sometimes that factor is into the doctrines and doctrines will bring it into a merge that would have never emerged had he not been in chronic pain.

thing. If you can look at any of this with a good positive outlook, the fortunate thing is actually that he died because as that pain developed and got worse, think of how much worse the cult destructive nature would have become.

Yes, John. Of course, I agree. Of course, neither you nor I are justifying any of their bad behavior, bad doctrine, but we are trying to humanize it and look at it and say, yeah, if I was in that much pain, I might have been yelling at people around me as well.

But of course, the problem is you shouldn't have been in that much pain because you shouldn't have been believing your false doctrines. However, if you want to believe your false doctrines, by all means, go right ahead. Just don't put that on other people. When you were saying and sharing what you were there about William Brannum and maybe a mental state,

I was looking at because I do have an autopsy report, which I'm not going to put up on the screen and show, but I knew I had read something in it and I'm looking at the last page of the autopsy report and it does note some type of disease in cerebral arteries. So that's all I'm going to say about that, but it does make you wonder what's actually going on inside Hobart's mind.

I know what was going on in his body and it was pretty bad, pretty damaging and pretty painful. So there were other occasions during the early 1980s, John, where Hobart references this ulcer or as we're going to see in a moment, he ends up calling it a hole in his foot because the ulcer has never healed and it gets worse and worse and worse. We're not going to look at all of those.

I'll just mention a couple of things. We are going to play one toward the very end of his life so that I've got this book end from whenever he's first beginning to talk about the ulcer on his left ankle to where he's going to end up dying partially as a result of what's going on on his foot.

But on some of the messages, he will say things like, well, if you see me leaning on the pulpit, he said this on more than one occasion. He's leaning on the pulpit on his right leg. If you see me leaning, it's not because I'm nervous or something, but it's because I'm hurting in my other foot and I can't put any pressure on that. In this article, which I can show because this came from Charisma Magazine, the February 1985 edition. There is a picture that you can see of Hobart Freeman.

This was a couple of months prior to his death. This was on the same day that he was arrested. book, fingerprinted, and what before a judge, because of complicity in the death of 15 year old Pamela Meeney.

And what I wanted people to notice in the picture is he actually is holding on to the arm of the sheriff's deputy trying to navigate his way out of the courthouse and down the steps.

He's actually holding on to his arm. That is Mark Yoder, by the way, in front of him. And just almost out of view, I'm pretty sure I can see Pamela Meeney's mother. The only way I would know that's heard because I saw her in so many other newscast.

But the reason I was bringing this particular article to focus, again, it's Charisma Magazine February 1985, page 110, is because they share, they did some interviewing of people in the church. And they knew from these people that Hobart had not been well and they even referenced the fact that Hobart had to sit the weeks preceding his death.

He had to sit while he preached and he explained. The reason I'm doing that is because I have open sores on my foot, couldn't even stand up. He had to sit to preach. So he went from having an ulcer to it hurting enough that he would lean on the pulpit to it hurting enough where he had to sit to preach to it hurting so bad that it put him in bed.

So we are gonna come John to another clip that I want you to play. This again is back to the series on excertations from Exodus. If you wanna hear Hobart at his worst, this was the last summer of his life.

I think there were about nine messages. He preached in Exodus, he didn't get very far in the book because he didn't live, but you will see him transferring everything from Exodus to faith assembly and to himself.

He expected to be delivered. He called faith assembly the burning bush, just like Moses saw a burning bush. Faith assembly is the burning bush, the light in the community, the light in Northern Indiana.

And he said, just as no one could put out that burning bush, no one can put out faith assembly. Guess what, Hobart died. They put the fire of the bush out, the church split up, those people are all gone.

So the people who won, unfortunately, were not the church members, but the people who won were the legal authorities, the educational authorities, the health department, the law enforcement authorities, because Dr. Freeman was operating a very dangerous cult.

And one other comment, and you said the only good news is, that he did die, and I have to agree, and I don't mean that in any hard-hearted or cold-hearted fashion. But the day I found out that he had died, I will share that story on a future podcast.

The day I found that out, you will not believe who I called on the phone immediately. Because I was so thankful that he was finally off the scene because for this one reason, not because I'm glad Hobart's dead, but I thought if he was off the scene, surely that will open people's eyes.

Didn't do it one eye-oda. It just entrenched people in their belief. But if we could play this message from the exhortations from Exodus, it's entitled The Night of the Lord. That's the Night of the Lord when God went through and killed all the firstborn except the Jewish people, The Night of the Lord, from 10 minute, 41 seconds through 11 minute and 12 seconds.

That hole in my foot that's healed by faith, that looked bigger today than it did six months ago.

Dear friends, if you take thought, it begins to hurt. But when I don't take thought, I forget it's air and I just go ahead and walk on it. You see, there's a relationship of what you think and the way you feel.

And there's a relationship by what you think and your deliverance that's about to come on The Night of the Lord. So when was this done? It was done in the summer of 1984. We just heard an earlier clip from the early 80s.

Now we are the summer prior to his death in December of 1984, where he says, that hole in my foot looks bigger than it did six months ago. Poor guy. So he has an ulcer, you know, just like a boil.

He has a boil and ulcer that he has never treated. So it is highly, highly infected and it has turned into gangrene. That is one of the things we'll see both in the Corners verdict and which was also told in much detail, more detail than we will share in the autopsy report that just literally ate away his left ankle with a tremendous amount of pain involved.

And he references it in this message saying that hole looks bigger than it did six months ago. And I want to mention you've said it a couple of times, but you have the full autopsy report.

It's not legal for us to put that out. So we can't just show it on the screen or put it on the website. However, there are things that we have been, you've been documenting all kinds of things and we've held up.

of research for people to see on the screen. This year, I am building out the Hobart Freeman section of the website, William-Brandom.org. So eventually, later this year, you'll be able to go and see many of the things that you've been holding up.

And some of it is priceless because it might be a chicken scratch note by Hobart Freeman. The point I'm trying to make is, it's not just that we're saying these things with no substance, you have the evidence, otherwise I wouldn't have even put it on the podcast.

And very clearly, he died of things that he was telling other people that they could be cured of, if they would just simply believe, yet he died. And that's really the crux of all of this.

You're talking about the church kind of imploding and all of that. It's really odd and scary when you think about it because it is almost, if you're a fan of movies or sci-fi, it's almost like people turn into a zombie-like state.

I'm not gonna say there's zombies, but mentally they turn into a zombie-like state when the cult leader dies because you're faced with the question. Either A, is he a true man of God and everything that he said true?

Or B, did we just witness the whole thing implode because he was lying to us? And sadly, people who are indoctrinated and under the mind control of a cult leader, they will never really accept the fact that their leader was, in fact, lying to them.

And so cognitive dissonance sets in and they'll actually burrow themselves more deeply into the cult doctrine. So it actually becomes worse after the leader dies. And the weird irony of what you said, which was sparking all these memories, many cult leaders do this.

Branum did it throughout his ministry. I'm certain Hobart probably did as well. As they get more destructive, they realize that they're getting destructive and going off the rails and they say things randomly like the government's gonna be cracking down on us.

One day, they'll close our doors. You just watch. One day, they'll close our door. Branum did this continually. There's another cult that spun off a Branumism just right down the road where there's a female cult leader and she had this bulletproof glass put up in her church.

She said, one day, the government's gonna come in and they're gonna take shots at me. I mean, that's how it works because mentally, they're so unstable when they go destructive that they're on edge the entire time.

The irony of all of this is, like you said, with your cult, once I started publishing the tax documents, the cult themselves shut the headquarters church down and they moved into another building. It's kind of a funny story because after Branum said one day, the government will shut these doors down.

Well, the cult leadership after he died, shut the doors down. But nobody really remembers that because of that cognitive dissonance. The leader died. They burrow deeper and deeper into the cult doctrine and just basically put their heads in the sand.

Hobart said all the time, John, from way, way, way back when that we'll not always get to meet freely in this country like we are today. Hey, from the early 70s, just sewing, and there may be, maybe we won't.

We, you know, nobody knows what's going to happen in American history with regard to Christianity. But to your point, I just think it's part of that. Eliteism mindset, it's always us against them. Our little group here.

We're not going to always be able to meet freely. So why is it you, some of you people are missing some of the weekly services. You know, God only going to make this available for so long, and then, yeah, the authorities will come in and shut us down.

And whenever in these podcasts, we get through talking about Dr. Freeman's death. And that's not the end of this series. It's not the end of this podcast. We have a lot to say about what happened at Faith Assembly post Hobart Freeman's death.

And for people to know, to be precise and factual, I can say this, pursuant to Indiana code 36-2-14-18

when a coroner investigates a death. And the coroner was Gerald Eastlin. He went by the name Gary, but Gary Eastlin was the Casiosco County Indiana coroner at the time of Dr. Freeman's death. When a coroner investigates a death, the public must have access to records that include, among other things, there are more things you can research, the following.

The name, age, address, sex, and race of the deceased, this is all Indiana documents. You can get them online. The location where the body was found, and if different, the location where the death occurred, the name of the person reporting the death, the name of the person certifying the death, the date and location of the autopsy, the name of the person who performed the autopsy, and probable calls, probable manner, and probable mechanism of death.

And those are just a few of the things, but you can check out that Indiana statute or code, and there are many things that are available to the public concerning someone's death, especially concerning a public figure, and especially concerning a public figure that had a held a big sway over a group of people so that post this person's death, researchers need to have available to them certain medical, legal records, and documents so that it's not just our word against their word, so that these are the actual facts, and these are the proofs.

And look John, I know I occasionally hear people saying, why are you continuing to talk about Hobart Freeman? The people who asked me that, or who asked that online, are always the people... who are not quite free of the call.

The ones who are out or on their way out or learning how to be out, they can't get enough information because they tell me, I can't believe all of this stuff. I was a member of the church and you're telling me things that were happening behind the scenes that I had no clue.

And I said, of course not. Leadership is not gonna tell you what's really going on. You see Dr. Freeman in the pulpit, you hear a message, he walks out the door and leaves, and that's it.

And unless you do the research, you aren't gonna know these things. So the people who are headed out of the cult, they wanna know. It's always those people who, I guess they're still just ashamed.

I even had this one woman send me a flurry of emails when she first found the podcast several years ago, email after email thanking me and so curious. And how did you know that?

And do you know this person? And did you know that? And I just tried to share with her what I knew in addition to what I was already sharing publicly on the podcast. And then as time went on, the emails became less from her.

And at the very end, I haven't heard from her in a long time. And I would never name any of these dear people's names. I feel sorry for them and the mindset they're in.

But the last couple of emails went like this, John. She said, well, okay. So maybe some of what you're saying is true. So okay, maybe Hobart was off in some areas. But why do you just have to keep giving all of these illustrations and talking about all the ins and outs and all the wrong doctrines?

She said, you're just making all of us who were a part of it look so gullible.

And I said, I'm sorry, that's not my intention to make people look gullible. But I have to say this to cover all of the bases and at the end of the day, guess what?

We were really gullible. That's a fact of the matter and I have included myself in it. You know, and you just have to get to the place where knowing the truth and bearing true witness instead of false witness is more important than your pride.

I was, obviously I was dumber than a boat anchor to follow this stuff. And we have ways to explain it why we were dumb. Well, I wasn't yet mature and I didn't have critical and all of that's true.

But at the end of the day, you know, you just believed a bunch of garbage. So I don't mean to be hurting people's feelings and if you're appearing to be very gullible for having followed Hobart Freeman, guess what?

You were, so was I, so was anybody. who follows a cult.

With the small amount of time we have left, I do want to come to the end of Hobart's life just with regard to what we've been talking about and that's his two feet. He had serious problems with his feet.

This is a copy of the coroner's verdict, which we can put this on the line. This is a legal document. The autopsy is a medical document. This was signed, sealed, stamped on December the 19th,

1984 by Gary Eastlin, Gerald Eastlin, who was the Casiasco County, Indiana corner. I'm just gonna share a little bit of this and there's a lot more we'll share as it pertains to other parts of Dr. Freeman's death.

But this, let me just say again, is available to the public. You can go get your own copy or this is something that we can actually share with the public.

Whenever a person dies, John, what happens is the family member contacts a funeral home, the funeral home in Warsaw was tight as funeral home. And there's a lot I can say about tight as funeral home.

Let me just sum it up by saying this, that tight as funeral home was the funeral home involved in the deaths and the services for so many faith assembly people.

They were actually the funeral home in charge of the funerals of all of the infants and small children that died. And I know from people that I've talked to that faith assembly actually covered the costs many times of the funerals for those infants and small children.

So once the funeral home is notified by the surviving relatives, they contact the corners, the corners all shows up at a person's house with law enforcement just to see what's going on. There was no hanky-panky with Dr. Freeman's death.

I mean, if you've watched enough date line shows, people kill their spouses all the time, all kinds of things happen. So in any death, the law enforcement personnel are going to show up to see what's going on.

And let me just say again, there was no hanky-panky legally going on with regard to Dr. Freeman's death as you will hear from the coroner's report. So, Eastland said that we arrived at the home along with Cosiasco County Sheriff Alan Rovenstein.

And with special detective Lieutenant Tom Kitch. Upon our arrival, we were met by a woman. who identified herself as Mr. Freeman's daughter, Pamela Hill.

Mrs. Hill stated the subject had been bedfast for four weeks. And that family members had been taking turns sitting in the bedroom with him. Reading from another document, said witness, Pam Hill also stated that the patient, Dr. Freeman, her father had had a recent illness

with a reported infectious process in his left foot. This process was treated with soaks and dressings. And that is it. There was no medicine in Hobart's body, there was no reports of him going to the hospital to seek any help.

This man who had this open, infectious wound on his left ankle that had grown and grown, it was full of bacteria. It was literally had turned colors and his, you know, what gangrene is, your flesh begins to rot away.

And that's what was happening with him. I know this is rather horrifying to hear this, but I think it is so important for the cult members to know these are the facts, not what was told after which.

And I will always fault the leadership of that church, starting with June Freeman, the wife. I feel so sorry that she had to be an abused woman and go through having to take care of your husband like this, the man that she loves and watch him suffer and watch him literally die in his own bed and his own house.

She should never have had to go through that. But after all that happened, those people, including June, including the daughters, including high ranking ministers, they knew exactly how Dr. Freeman died. They were there.

They saw it, they witnessed it, they saw the man, they knew exactly how he died. And not one of them came out to announce to the church, this is what happened. Everything is pushed under the rug.

We're going to talk about this later. They're actually waiting for him to be resuscitated and come back to life and come back to the podium. And that was a horrible thing for those, for the leadership in that church to be a part of.

You know, John, this is just basic Christianity. This is basic Judaism, thou shalt not bear false witness. This is the mosaic under the old covenant law. You've got to be transparent and you've got to tell the truth.

Other people in the church knew that Dr. Freeman was suffering. I have an interview I did on December the 29th of 2024 with a member of that church, Eileen Neier, that I am still friends with today.

This sister lives up in the state of Michigan. She told me that when she found out that Hobart had such a bad ulcer on his left foot, she went over to the Freeman home, knocked on the door, got to go in, was able to speak with June and Hobart, and she had brought him some K.M.

I don't know if you know what K.M. is, you can look it up online. But it is a, it's a, it's a dark liquid potassium health supplement. And she was trying her best to help him out.

She told me Hobart took one drink of it and said, I quote, I'd rather die than drink that stuff. It was, to be honest and fair, it was way too late for K.M. to do any good.

He needed immediate medical treatment, but the people were trying to do what they could to help him and to alleviate the problem. Another document, medical document I want to read from, says this, and I quote, his remote past history included polio, which had left the left right lower extremity with extreme muscle wasting.

In addition, he had a previous automobile accident causing damage to the left lower extremity. Just what I said, just what he said, he had polio when he was 16 months old. He was run over by that truck when he was 13 years old.

In light of that, listen to this. This is actually this is, this is from the coroner's report. So you can, you can actually read this yourself if you don't trust what Chino is telling you.

Apparently, Mr. Freeman suffered from severely deformed feet plural due to early childhood polio and accident. Here's the sentence, I want everyone to hear, and I bet they probably never heard this in their life.

And probably the only people that knew this would have been June and Hobart's daughters. But this is available. I'm going to say it for the fifth time, six times, seven times, it's the coroner's verdict.

It's not a medical document, it's a legal document, it's available to everyone. Totally constructed orthopedic shoes were a must for the man to even get out of bed. according to Mrs. Freeman couldn't even get out of bed without specially made orthopedic shoes one for the left foot one for the right foot. Now here's where we're going to end this John and I know he might have gone a little long but this is just critically important for everyone to know. How did that ulcer first arise on his foot? We also know the answer to that question. How did that ulcer first arise on his foot? This is not private information.

This is on Dr. Freeman's tapes most of what I have said are on Dr. Freeman's own messages. Dr. Freeman when he became a member of the Charismatic Movement in 1966 he claimed his healing for his polio. He claimed his healing for his heart condition. He threw away all of his heart medication. He was on two different medications nitroglycerin and something else for life. He threw away his heart medication. What he did not do he did not get rid of his orthopedic shoes.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s growing legs out that was just the end thing and we've talked about this on previous podcasts everywhere you went. People were saying don't you know Jesus is growing out everybody's short leg. We're not going to go down that path. That's on an earlier podcast. Hobart submitted himself to people praying for him on numerous occasions because he wanted his legs to be normal. Never happened. In the early 70s he finally realized I can't ask for prayer anymore. I've got to stand on my original prayer. What Hobart was asking for John was not a quarter

inch leg length. He needed creative miracles in both of his ankles and both of his feet. He needed an at and he didn't need a healing. He needed an absolute new testament biblical miracle like people did receive in the Bible. The cripple and the lame were made hold and they were able to run and dance and walk and leap and praise God. Hobart always wore those shoes but he said on his messages on many of them and we play this before that in the trunk of my Cadillac is a pair of new shoes whenever my healing is manifested and when I heard those things even young in my

agreement with Freeman I wondered about that. To me that seemed like a contradiction to what he was claiming and to me it seemed like it was inconsistent with what he was requiring of everybody else.

If somebody else had a pair of glasses on you had to take them off and destroy them and that was how you showed you would act your faith and what I marveled over is why didn't that church band together and go up to Hobart and say, when you get rid of your orthopedic shoes, then we'll deal with our eyes.

But as long as you're wearing specially made orthopedic shoes waiting for your healing, as long as you're doing that, I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna wear my glasses and wait for my healing.

And when you wanna get rid of your shoes, maybe we'll all do it together and we'll get rid of our glasses. Hobart never did that. What calls the ulcer? Hobart had to have specially made shoes which were made at a company up in Chicago, Illinois.

That company went out of business. Hobart had to find these shoes elsewhere. And when he found them, they were not a proper fit. And what did he do? He wore them anyway. He wore these shoes anyway.

And you know what a bad shoe fit will do to your ankle. We've all experienced that. It will rub a blister before you know it. We can just change shoes, just wear another pair of shoes.

We can go without shoes if we have to. Dr. Freeman blesses his heart. Simply couldn't do that. According to June Freeman, this isn't me. This isn't channel reporting. This is the corner quoting June Freeman, Hobart's wife.

She said the man couldn't even get out of bed without special shoes on both of those feet. So I just find it, John, so ironic, so ironic that this man who put people under so much pressure and fear and bondage to get rid of their glasses, don't go to the doctor, get rid of your pills, no medication.

And these people faithfully followed him and did that. And some of them died as a result. This man who told them to do that actually did not do that himself for his orthopedic shoes.

And it's one of the contributing factors leading to his death. So we've gone long and the only thing that I'll add is this in comment to you mentioned that you had somebody who was saying, why are you publishing these things about Hobart Freeman?

Since day one, before I even had a YouTube site or a podcast, anything like this, people were saying the same things about me. Why are you doing this about William Brannum? And then when I branched out to all of these other cults that came descended from Brannumism, it's like left and right, onslaught of these kind of questions.

Why are you doing this? Why don't you just publish the positive? We have to understand this is like a balanced scale of truth. And they have waited the scale in one direction. And because they've done this, people run with it thinking these things are true and they will continue to spin off similar destructive groups.

And unless somebody balances the scale, this will continue in error. But more to the point, if you go back to the early histories of Hobart Freeman, William Brannum, a- Alan, all of these different groups that were in this type of movement.

In the early years, whenever the news was positive, they proudly held it up in their summons. They published it in their magazines. They said, look what the news is saying. This is real, folks.

And the moment the news discovered that they weren't being truthful and started publishing critical information, they would come out heavily and strongly against the news. The news is filled with demons. You can't listen to anything the news says.

Look how bad the news is today. They've all switched. But if they were to continue in truth that was newsworthy truth, then you would have newspapers just praising them. Look, look, Hobart Freeman. He healed his own crippled legs.

He can heal everybody's legs, right? What happens is you don't want the truth to be published, and that's the sad truth of all of this. So thank you for helping me balance the scales.

Thanks for having me, John. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.Williamdashbrandom.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.