Why Were Word of Faith Members with Cracked Ribs Forbidden from Seeing a Doctor?
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
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Summary
Imagine being surrounded by a group of people — their mouths inches from your face — screaming at full volume for hours. That was reportedly the starting point of a practice called blasting inside the Word of Faith Fellowship. Former members told the Associated Press the screaming was meant to cast out demons. But over time, according to dozens of accounts, it allegedly became physical. Members were reportedly punched, choked, held down, and beaten. Injuries including cracked ribs went untreated because the church allegedly prohibited members from seeking outside medical care. The compound maintained a four-room former storage building called the Lower Building where males perceived as serious sinners were reportedly isolated for up to a year. Jamey Anderson, who entered the church at age four, described treatment that other former members called some of the harshest anyone endured. Michael Lowry alleged he was beaten in 2011 over his sexual orientation. Matthew Fenner said he was beaten for approximately two hours in 2013 and has spent more than a decade pursuing charges. Five church members were indicted, a mistrial occurred in 2017, and by 2026 the cases had been transferred to a special prosecutor. Tony Brueski continues a five-part Hidden Killers investigation into the Word of Faith Fellowship with the violence that former members say was dressed up as spiritual warfare.
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#WordOfFaith #JaneWhaley #Blasting #Cult #TrueCrime #Spindale #CultAbuse #HiddenKillers #MatthewFenner #ReligiousAbuse
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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