What Did Word of Faith’s ‘Prayer’ Abuse Members’ Bodies?
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It started with screaming. According to the Associated Press, the Word of Faith Fellowship practiced something called blasting — groups of members surrounding a person and shrieking inches from their face for hours to allegedly drive out demons. Secret recordings captured the sound. Former members said it eventually was not enough. According to Rick Cooper, a Navy veteran who spent over two decades in the church, the practice escalated from vocal aggression to physical violence. Members were allegedly punched, choked, slammed to the ground, and restrained. Injuries went untreated because the church reportedly forbade outside medical attention. A four-room former storage building called the Lower Building was allegedly where the worst treatment occurred — males sent there for up to a year, cut off from their families, subjected to prolonged beatings and blasting sessions. Michael Lowry alleged he was beaten in 2011 to remove gay demons. He testified before a grand jury, then briefly returned to the church and recanted, then left again and reaffirmed his original statement. Matthew Fenner alleged he was beaten for approximately two hours in 2013. His case resulted in indictments of five church members, a mistrial in 2017, and over eight years of delays. By 2026, the case had been handed to a special prosecutor. Tony Brueski continues a five-part investigation with the practice the Word of Faith Fellowship called prayer — and the violence former members say it was hiding.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Colts, Hidden Killers Investigates. |
| 0:03.9 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 0:07.3 | Close your eyes for a moment and imagine a sound, not music, not conversation, not even an argument. |
| 0:15.5 | Imagine a room full of adults. |
| 0:18.1 | Five, ten, sometimes more standing in a tight circle around a single person, |
| 0:24.3 | their mouths, inches from that person's face. |
| 0:30.3 | And screaming at them, not words, not prayers that you would recognize, a wall of sound, |
| 0:36.4 | shrieking, wailing, guttural, primal noise in a volume that rattles your chest. |
| 0:43.3 | And it doesn't stop. Not after a minute, not after 10. |
| 0:46.5 | According to former members of the Word of Faith Fellowship who spoke with the Associated Press, |
| 0:51.3 | these sessions reportedly lasted for hours. |
| 0:57.9 | Sounds like a lovely way to spend your Sunday morning, right? They called it blasting. They said it was the sound of God driving out |
| 1:05.5 | demons and not just a bunch of lunatic screaming guttily for hours on end. |
| 1:12.5 | Yes, it's the sound of God what I'm not using my self-control, in my opinion. |
| 1:21.2 | According to the people who endured it, it was the sound of something far, far worse. |
| 1:26.6 | This is part two of our five-part, |
| 1:28.8 | hitting killers investigation into the Word of Faith Fellowship, |
| 1:32.5 | a secretive church in Spindale, North Carolina, |
| 1:36.4 | and its leader, Jane Whaley. |
| 1:40.0 | In part one, we walked through how the church allegedly recruited and trapped its members, |
| 1:45.5 | the warm, welcoming, the slow, tightening, the 145 rules, the dependency, the fear. |
| 1:52.6 | This episode is about what reportedly happened once you're inside the doors and when they closed. |
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