AFFIDAVIT

T!lE STATE ~
COUNTYOF ~

TEXAS

z,(\J_
of

+
au thor i ty, day a Notary Publ ic in ....... ouLh,
Cl

DEFORE I'm, the

undersigned on this

nd

the

State

Texas,

personally
by

appeared sworn

__
did

Affiant, st<lte that the

nfterbei_pg facts

me duly true

on her

following

are

and correct:

"My name is _---I am 17 y eu r s old. I stayed at New Bethany home ~s for approximately one year and fi ve mont.hs , from October 24, 1994 to Decembe r 22, 1995. I will be t ne first to admit that when I entered New Bethany at the age of 1S that I wa s in need of guidance. My life had not been ve r y s u c c e s s f u L, New Bethany did not do anything to help me, nor UIP other residents. What they did was scare us. Inside those gules a person is no longer considered a member of the outside wo~ld. 'I'h e r e is no c on t.ac t; with it whatsoever. The law there is thi:ll: according to Bro. Mack Ford. He makes up the rules and if they are nat followed to his satisfaction a person is dealt witl1 severely. I renlized this my first day there. ::: had been <It New Bethany approximately 2 hours whe n I 1: i r s t iue t, Bro. M<lck Ford. I was not h appy to be there. At the time lie cu me in I WuG sitting in the first lounge as you come i.n , on Ll1(~ couch. He approached me and asked me what my name was. 1 r e I u sec! to answer him. He asked me several times. I didn t answer. Ill! b(:;gan s Lapp i nq my f ace repeatedly while continuing to yell at me t.o t(.~11 him my name. He was slapping me with the palm of h i s ha nd on o.re c he e k and the back of his hand on the other. I began cry illg. Ht~ grabbed my hair and began pulling it while he continued slClpping m0 with his other hand. I kept crying and he yelled for someone to gel hi s paddle. I still would not tell him my name. Then h e j'=rked me off the couch by my hair and grabbed my arm, paddling my b,)c!" legs, and but tocks with the other. I was try ing to get away bllt he had my arms so we only succeeded in going around in circles. After around 5 or 10 minutes, I finally screamed my name. He said I hadn't had enough until T said my name calmly. Then he threw lite bac k on the couch. I was hyperventilating. Several girls at the home witnessed this. I don't remember who all it was. The ones I d() remember were: Andreu Marqu e z, Su zanne Burch and Kahria Sck. Ms. Chen, a staff member, also witnessed this. After he lefL lhe room I was still hyperventilating. I asked the girls in the Lounq Lv let me call CPS (Child Protective Services) and/or the police. They told me that we weren't allowed to use the phone. That ~~ when it hit me. I was going to be in a place like this for a year.
1

I didn't believe that a place like that existed. I thought I wou I d qe t "padd Led " if I did anything wrong. So I tried my best to do wila<;:.ever it took to make it. Over the ri me I was at New Bethany, I saw many things that :' be I i ev ed were wr oriq . But there wasn't anything I could say about; i~ without getting myself in trouble. One time in July of 1~9S, I m ed e the mistake of saying t ha t "If there is a God Li ke they s().y he re . then why do so many people hate it and never f ee l U).: c onv i ct.Lo ns that Bro. Mack has." The girl I told this to told :)11 );)2 tor saying it and I was "silenced for a month". That lTIeans 1 couldn't tCllk to anyone and no one could tCllk to me. NO ONE. :0 t ae end of June, 1995, a q i r I, came in named Bolly Smith. She w ou Ldn 't eat her meal so they ma<ie. us carry it back to the donn. T~ere, Mrs. Ford instructed us to hold her down and shove the food into her mouth. Me, Andrea Marquez and several other girls held her down. Ms. Joann Madden pried her mouth open, clawing her f acc i~ the process and shoved some peas in her mouth. She tried ::0 spi t; them out, Oil t we kept shoving them back in. She begun gagg inc] a~ri choking. Mrs. Ford said thut if she threw-up, she would get "paddled". Holly said she didn't care, so they flipped her' over a~d ~rs. Ford paddled her 15-20 licks. She was in hysterics. She ~JS then made to finish her meal. Several days later, Holly tried to ~Ilrow herself down the stairs. She hoped to either die or get to go to the hospital, but she wasn't injured bad enough. The she ~:::led to run away, but she was caught. She was put on "yellow dress", silenced and wasn't allowed to have socks or shoes. I'III Il()7". sure if she was paddled again or not. In June of 1995, a girl i~ my room sang a song she was not allowed to sing, and got a p. a dd Li.n q for it. The girl's name was April Johnson. In June 0:: 1')95,a girl came in named Michelle Pitman. She didn't want La !)(.> t nere , and was crying hysterically. I'm not exactly sure wha t, h~ppened in her room, but a bunch of girls and Mrs. Ford dragged he r in to the lounge and tried to tape her hands together w i.t, h :nasking tape so she couldn't fight them, but she broke the tape. They told her she had demons in her. She then struggled to get loose from the girls that were holding her and they pinned her down (0r several minutes. The second time I was sent to New Bethany, it was for about 3 mon t hs , from March 21, 1996, to June 15, 1996. In April of 1996, a girl named Misty Mayo wouldn't do something her helper told her to do so she was made to stand with her nose against the wall. ;'1::en she wouldn't do it, Mrs. Ford instructed me, Jenny Russo, K.~mberly Burch and April Russell to hold her against the wall. So w'~ d~d. We had a struggle and ended up with her pinned against the wdll. Misty began yelling how she hated the place and hated God 0r sending her here. At this point, Kona Xiong, another girl, j;.. irnp ed up from the ground and grabbed Misty's head and beqe n b~ating it against the wall repeatedly. I grabbed her head und held it against my chest and yelled at Kona to stop. Misty Mayo \VdS also beaten up upon her arrival to New Bethany because she didn't want to be there Clndshe got mad and started yelling. ! did not witness this first hand, but several of the girls that .,
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p.a r t i c i pe t ed in the beating confirmed that it was true. 'I'b eso g i r Is ,a rc : Kimberly Burch, Kara Jordan and Kona Xiong. Ot her girls of the home also confirmed that Misty had a bluck eye f or severa I days afterward. In around December of 1995, an incident occurred. Cheryl 'I' lylor got very angry with Ms. Joan Madden, and wa s gonnil hi t her 0:: she did hit her, I'm not sure which. Cheryl is about 5'4" .:lnci 1 L5 Ll b s . and Ms. Joan Madden is about 5' (3" and 200 lbs. fvirs, Joann Madden became infuriated with her and several other girls dr aqqed Cheryl down the stairs, and Mrs. Ford started paddling he c. A Eter several licks Cheryl refused to take anymore. Then around S girls, Mrs. JOilnn Madden and Ms. April Russell tried to hold Clleryl down. Cheryl fought them and ~~s yelling for them to get off o[ her . Ms. Joann Madden hither sev.eral times in the f ace . Chery i. was trying really hard to get away~from them, but it WilS 7 to 1, S;')e ended up with a bloody lip and bruises. She tried to [iCJIl L t nern off until she was so tired she couldn't. She was "sil0.nced" a.rd put on "yellow" and no socks and shoes. In Auqu st, 1995, a girl, Jennifer Thigpen, stated she ha t ed the p~ace und wanted to leave. She waG in my room. Jenny Russo <lnG : t o Ld on her. Jennifer Thigpen, Jenny Russo and I were called into Mr s . Ford's room. Mrs. Ford said "she wa s tired of her mou t h ". M~s. ford began paddling her. After several licks, Jennife~ (el~ down ~nd begged her to stop but she didn't. Jenny Russo and 1 werp. told to hold her against the chair. She struggled. Jenny ~nd I I,."! f t severa 1 brui ses and scratch marks allover her ann. She goL b8Lween 15 to 20 licks. During her stilY at New Bethany, Jenni[e~ o::V'> over 22 "pudd Li.nq s I didn't per t i.c i.pat,ein these t h i nqs b0ca~se wanted to. I was scared that if I didn't I would be looked clown on. The home says that they change people's 1ives an": v i.s i t o rs marvel when they corne in on how well we be have . They don't see behind the scenes. If anyone talks about things, they d o n t; think are right, or does things that don't coincide with t ae i r beliefs, they arc looked down upon. Brother Mack Ford ccn st arrt Ly called the girls "whores". He said if they wore pants O~ "bull-fighting" britches as he called them they were asking to be ruped In this facility the only thing heard is Brother Mack Ford. IL~ is the law. The strain is so great that one of two t h i nqs h.appe ns . 1) The child becomes truly brainwashed and boq i no beIieving what he says, or 2} The child pu ts on a really good 5110\'" u~til they leave, to keep themselves out of trouble, then tries lo Iorqe t the place ever existed. In the girl's dorm there are no windows. The only way to see outside is through the locked glass door. When visitors come, they take the chain off the door and hide it in the piilno bench beside the door. When the producer from 20/20 came, they hid the lock a~d k8pt the dorm doors unlocked. They cleaned everything really nice right before he came. Brother Mack preached different in church that night. He said that he supported the government ctc. Dut ill r8al life he'd say how the government was all messed up and how the C~inton's were going to Hell. He would say that they really didn't
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c lose down all the army bases they said they did, that RU::;:.;i.c:l11 t roop s were being trained in there. 'I'hey were preparing for the Ailti-Christ takeover. Brother Mike (from Mt. Enterprise Church) w~o helps on the boy's side would also preach that slavery was pe rf ec t Ly legitimate. Brother Mike preached about his church qo i 1IC] to Montana, and marching and supporting the Freeman, and Bro t he r M,1Ck said he should let him know I he might want to go too. Brother Mike said according to Genesis, one of Noah's son s "uncovered hi s n~kedness" and was cursed, his descendants are Canaanites. They a .~p. black. They are supposed to be servants to the Ar ab s and w~lites, which represent Noah's other 2 sons. No one can possible f ulLy understand what its like to be in there unless they have been there. One time Brother Mack_Ford went as far as to say t ha t the government was lying to us ab~tit'~he AIDS situation. He said ie could be contracted by ways such as touching a toothpick holder i~ a public restaurant. Since there are no windows in the dorm, and the dorms are always locked, if the building caught on fire, there would be 110 way to get all the girls out. They have not had a fire drill or t o Ld the girls what to do in the case of a fire in the entire t i.me I was there. The girls ~ut their toilet paper j.n waste baskets after it is used. with approximately 80 girls, and all of tl10.111 hav ing a me n st ru aL cye Le , things smell pret ty badly. 'I'h e y hav c roeche s throughout the girl's rooms. The kitchen and pool arca qo ts exterminated, but not the dorm. There are roaches i:1 tilt..) rooms. I lied and pretended the whole time I was there; anythin<J b) make i.t as easy on myself as possible. I would not say any t hi n.j if I knew the girls there wanted to be there. But most of th0.m don't. They aren't able so say anything while they are there. The phone calls are monitored and the mail is scanned before it goes out. If a letter is not satisfactory then a person has to re-wriLe i~. Brother Mack says that all us kids are going to hell, and God put Brother Mack here to save us. All he does is scare us intu obedience, whether or not it is right or wrong according to the rest of the world. All I'm asking is that someone talk to girl.s i~ the home. If Brother Mack is allowed to pick the girls, it will be girls that he thinks won't say anything derogatory about the home. If the girls were assured of their safety, and that they w0uldn't have to stay there after they talked, they would talk. SOllie of the girls are so miserable it is not right. The girls toat go there need help, not what they give them. I don't know what else to say except please help the girls. I known how it feels to b~ there. I don't want anyone else to have to feel that way. If other girls are taken out, there can be many more things uncovc r-ed . T:1Creare lots more things that happened, but I didn't witness ::i1elll fir.st hand so I do not have the liberty to tell because I didn't sec them first hand. I do know however that they happened for n f ,1C t . Ot her kids can tell many other things. 'I'h i.s is not .i t . There is much more.

___......,
SIGNED this
day

of

..::.......""'-..1..11

W\1Qa....:::....-e....-~=----- __

19 9 6

THE STATE OF TEXAS COUNTY OF ~

VJ+N 2I+N fj--r

s
fI,

~n.=e._.,

was ackncwl.ed , 1996, by

'-

No r.ry PubUc I&at. of T IW My CommlUiOl1 (qI1l'8$

CAREH C. COURTNEY
~iPtlM&A II. 1Q9g