October 8, 2024 • 31 mins
Reporter Kalyn Kahler talks to producer Buffy Gorrilla about the twists and turns of reporting her Sports Illustrated story, Pray for Kabeer and the challenges of doing more investigating and turning old and new information into a podcast. What happens when your main character refuses to go on the record? And what does Kalyn think is next for Straitway Truth Ministry?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I have watched from Afar as their ministry has changed
and evolved into something that's even worse than what I experienced.
I figured, if I can stop one person from getting
everything taken from them or their lives destroyed, then I
got to do something. I want to warn people about it.
(00:26):
That's really the short version of it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
There, it's Buffy Gorilla. I'm the senior producer on Spiraled.
Kayla and Kayler, our host and reporter, has been working
with this story for so long. She's followed the twists, turns,
the spirals of the story, if you will. She's faced
harassment and verbal abuse from Dowel and Straightway, and she
hasn't back down. She's encountered more no's than yes is
(00:53):
as she's pushed the reporting forward. There was one major
goal in mind when we set out to make this series,
to bring listeners additional insights from her original Sports Illustrated story,
Pray for Cabir. The team had to make some tough
choices on whose story to tell. We spoke to over
fifty people, So even if we spoke to you and
(01:15):
you don't hear yourself in this series, your stories, experiences
and insights helped shape what everyone heard. So thank you
very much. So in this episode, we're going behind the
story and the podcast with Kaylin.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Hi, Kaylin, Hi, Buffy, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'm doing very well.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
How are you good? I did not know that the
number was over fifty people.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
That's crazy counting that Spiral Master spreadsheet keeping track of it.
It's exciting Caylin to get us started. How long have
you been working on this story, Kaylin?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I started in January of twenty twenty, so more than
three years now. When I started then, I had no
idea what it was going to turn into. I just
had been sent a local newspaper article from one of
my sports illustrated editors at the time, Jack Dickey.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Shout out to Jack.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Jack sent me this headline from the Green Bay Press
Gazette and it was about the Christmas program incident, which
we detailed in the series. And I think his email
was like, this is really strange. He knew I lived
in Chicago and was geographically near ish to Green Bay,
and he was like, you should see what's up with this?
And I clicked on the link and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is so strange. And I actually
(02:27):
didn't even remember really who Kaber was at the time
that he played. I think I would have been in
middle school years, and I was a big Bears fan,
even though I lived in Wisconsin, because my whole family's
from Illinois, so I would see the Packers when they
played the Bears, but I was like very much into
the Bears and not the Packers, so I was like
(02:48):
obsessed with the Chicago Bears. I could name the defense
from those years, but I wasn't really familiar with Kabir,
and I was like, Wow, this guy was like pretty
legit and he was like a pretty good and well
known player here, and this is very strange.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And then I just.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Happened to know a few people who had played with
him already from like previous Packers reporting that I'd done.
So I just started by calling them and asking what
is up with this, what is going on? And then
they were concerned and had been briefed on all this,
and some of them knew more than I did, and
so it just went from there.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
You know, you've been working on this story for what
seems to be probably half your life, So how does
it feel to be wrapped up with it all?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It feels good, It's weird because sometimes I don't know,
I think journalists you have to be really like tunnel
vision on a story, especially a story like this, when
you're working on it. And when I was doing the
original story, it just took so long that this is
just a story that you're like totally in it, but you.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Also have to multitask with other things because it's just
going to take a long time to develop.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It is weird to move on from a story like this,
but also a story like this after I've finished the
written story, before we had even started work on the
podcast series, I would get emails like every few months
from people who had been a part of Straightway and
left and wanted.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
To reach out because they'd just come across my story.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Or as we mentioned in the series, Christiana, I got
connected with her after.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
The original written story.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Came out, and that was because her husband now her
ex husband, TJ. He got involved with Straightway after my
original story came out, so she came across my reporting
and then reached out and then we got connected. And
so it's almost like a story that you really can't
leave behind because people keep contacting you.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
No one else has.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Written about Straightway really, so if you have a family
member that joined and you have questions about it, Like
there's really only like a few resources to go to,
and the sports ill strated story that I reported is
one of those you're our expert exactly. It's a strange
thing to be an expert on. Yeah, add it to
my list of titles.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I see a LinkedIn profile update incoming.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, why did you.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Think it was an important story to pursue in like
the slate of stories that you probably had on offer?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, because it was so different than everything else. And
I really liked digging in on things, Like I liked
the investigative side of reporting, and this wasn't like the
first investigative story that I did, but it was definitely
the most intense and like the most details that required
like the most digging and requesting of documents and like
searching deep into the Internet for people and to find things.
(05:31):
And I always like those types of stories. And I
think the religion aspect was really interesting too, because if
you cover the NFL, like a lot of players are
very religious and you can't escape that, and so this
was really interesting to me because it was like not
something that we've seen other players really get into or
(05:52):
had at the time, and so it was different, and
I knew there.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Was going to be a lot of like layers to
peel back.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We were super careful to not use the word cult
in this podcast like ourselves, but other people did, and like,
that's how a lot of people see this religious group,
that's how they've used street Witch with the ministry, And
I think we wanted to just understand what they are,
how they live, and answer those questions because there is
(06:21):
this inherent fascination.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
With things that we don't know about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So I think that's why I really saw the appeal
of this story, and just based off of the reaction
of like people in Green Bay to just the Green
Bay Presca is that story that I read, it really
draws you in. You're like, wow, this is so different.
Like this former player who made a ton of money
and you think should be super happy, had a big family,
(06:46):
You think he should be satisfied with his life, was
beloved in the community, decides to completely change his entire lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
And so I think a lot of people were wondering why.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And were you worried that you were going to get
scooped by Green Bay reporters.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I wasn't because when I was talking to some local
Green Bay reporters about this, and I was kind of careful.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I didn't really want people to.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Know that I was really digging into it, but was
sort of a topic of conversation because it was in
the local news there. So when I would bring it
up with them, it was like, really clear that people
were not going to get into it. They're the people
who actually live in Green Bay and who covered the
team regularly, because they're like, we live in this town.
We'd see Kaber like, you know, at the grocery store
or something.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It's not a big town, so.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
If you were going to get involved, you had to
know like you might run into him. And so I
think a lot of people were just like, I am
not going to touch that. And there were some people
who had covered Kaber as a player, And we interviewed
Bob McGinn who had memories of Kaber like giving him
religious pamphlets or he wanted to talk to me, Bob Bob,
(07:54):
and he wanted to talk to me about his faith
or religion or my faith. And so I think that
it was like another thing that people just were like,
I don't want to get into this because they didn't
want to like face a whole nother round of like
kad Beer trying to convert them into what he believes,
because they'd already faced that when he was the player
in the locker room. So I think that left a
(08:15):
memory in people's minds of like, yeah, we're gonna leave
this for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
To get into.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And so as you moved through the reporting process, how
did it evolve in terms of finding like these new characters?
Because in the Sports Illustrated story, which I've read all
three parts of good, I don't hope so just like once,
I'm skimmed because there's so many characters that you did find.
So how did you uncover them?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, it's just like a step by step thing, like
as be detailed in the podcast series.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Okay, I knew about Kabir.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then I heard from someone else, Oh, he's not
the only NFL player former NFL player in this group,
and I was like what. So then that led me
to Robert and then I start watching more and more
YouTube videos and Dowell references Daniel Muir is an NFL player,
and I'm like, oh, Daniel Muir, there's another one I
(09:07):
talked to people in the town, like parents from the
Christian school, So you know, I was getting that perspective.
I talked to former players and then I'm like, well,
I gotta call Mike Sherman. I got connected to Mike Sherman.
I already knew Father Jim also, which is hilarious because
I had done a story on him.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Because this is actually really cool. This is a tangent
about Father Jim.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But Father Jim was the chaplain to the prison in
Green Bay. There's a big penitentiary. You can see lambeau
Field like from the penitentiary, and so he would do
like a day before the game mass for the players
and then he would like go to the prison, so
he would be with packers and prisoners in like the
(09:48):
same week or day. So he had this very unique role.
So I actually did a story about him and how
he worked with these two very different communities. My conversation
with him was really interesting because I was so impressed
by how much he remembered about Kabir's like spiritual journey
then and like he had been following the headlines obviously
(10:09):
as well, and he was like he could see the
surface back then. So that was really interesting because he
just had all these really specific, detailed memories about that.
And then at one point in the process, my editor
who actually edited the story was Gary Gramling, who was
at Sports Illustrator at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He's now at The Messenger. He's an amazing editor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He was like, Okay, I think we know like everything
we need to know about Kabar and the NFL players,
but now we need to know more about this group,
so we need to find people to talk to us
about Straightway.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And Straightway is.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Big, but it's not that big. So I was like, Okay,
how do I find people? And I knew that they
weren't going to probably want to speak to me, and
so I wanted to start by reaching out to people
who had left the group, just so I could get
a sense of what life there was like, and then
move on to people.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Who are actually part of the group.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Like if you just google Straightway, there's a few different
like blogs that will come up where people have posted
about their experiences at Straightway or at the Overcomer. And
so through that I was able to find a few
people to speak to, and then I just looked them
up and that's how that went out. Or I would
find them on Facebook or something and message them.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Let's talk a little bit about Kader, because I think
people who have listened to this series might be surprised
that we don't hear from him in any of the episodes,
but we have his YouTube videos. Tell us about how
you spoke with him for your Sports Illustrated story.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, so he found out I was reporting this, which
obviously he did.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
You can only be sneaky.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
For so long, and a lot of times when you're
doing a story like this, like you're not going to
not interview Kaber, Like I was always going to interview Kadir,
but I was waiting until the very end because I
wanted to have all my questions in order. I wanted
to have all my questions answered and know exactly what
I needed to go to for him.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
But a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
People get confused why you aren't reaching out to them first,
because they think, if this story is about me, like
I should be the first interview. And that's true if
you're going to give multiple interviews. But I just did
not know how Kabir was going to react to this
at all, So I was like, I don't want to
go to him, and then he does like a five
(12:28):
minute interview and then never talk to me again, and
then I don't get any of my questions answered. So
I was waiting until the very end of the process
to get in touch with him, but he thought I
was like avoiding him, so he messaged me first, probably
in May of twenty twenty, and the story came out
in July of twenty twenty, so I wasn't quite ready
yet to have a conversation with him, and he was
like hey, something along the lines of like I know
(12:50):
you're talking to everybody about me, like are you going
to talk to me? And I'm like, yes, thank you
for reaching out. I absolutely need to talk to you,
but not yet. I promise you I will let you
know when I need to talk to So I actually
was glad that he reached out because I was like, Okay,
that's good. It seems like he wants to talk at
least from that message. And at the time, he was
(13:12):
very active on YouTube. He's like less active now, but
at the time he was like posting videos all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
He had a live show.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So again I was watching all of his YouTube videos
and it was almost at the point where it's like,
what am I even going to ask you like you
said everything on your YouTube, like literally like so many
of the questions I had, and he would just talk
about on his YouTube channel. When I was ready to
talk to him, we did a zoom interview. I knew
it was going to be a long interview, but it
was actually like six hours long, and Kaber never had
(13:43):
to take a bathroom break.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I took a bathroom break. Kaber took no breaks. He
had no water.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I just remember being shocked that, like he didn't need
to have a snack or a glass of water or
the man was like a machine.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
How did Kabier treat you?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
He was not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
He's so nice. He's extremely charismatic. Like a lot of
his YouTube videos he appears to be very mad. He's
lost that but like his early videos he's yelling shouting,
so he can seem to be a little bit mean
and mad in some of his YouTube appearances, but he's
actually like a very charismatic, nice, friendly guy. So in
(14:24):
our interview, he was totally nice. There were no issues
with that whatsoever. And I mean the only reason we
did it on zoom and like not in person.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Was because of COVID.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It was the heat of COVID at that time, and
so we're like, all right, a zoom interview is probably
easier at this rate. I don't even think he no
commented anything. The only thing he like no commented was
when I asked him who exactly was living in his
home how many people? And he wouldn't give me a
straight answer for that. But like mostly everything else he answered,
and he gave some kind of shocking answers about his
(14:55):
views on disciplining children. I think the most shocking thing
he said was that he didn't care about his previous
eight children and that he was going to just start
over because he can just plant new seats and move on.
And he had a very black and white, I don't
care anymore about my old family, like completely moved on.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Type of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I was surprised by that because I'm like, wow, you're
just referring to your children as seats and you can
just plant new ones. So that was really an interesting description.
But he was very candid in his interview, and that
is why it was six hours long. And then kad
here for this podcast. I called him a couple times
and we had a few phone conversations actually that were
(15:35):
like pretty long, but they were not on the record,
and he didn't want to participate in this because I
think the point that he made to me was something
along the lines of.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Like why would I talk for this?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I already talked to you for the first story, Like
nothing's changed. This is still the life that I'm living.
I'm not going to get my old family back. It's
not going to change that, So.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
What reason what I speak to you?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And again, I think it just shows like how friendly
he is the fact that, like our conversations were like
an hour long each of these times that I was
asking him to talk for the podcast and he was
saying no, but he was still talking to me for
like an hour. So sadly he wouldn't participate in this podcast,
but he was very nice about it.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
People that were close to Kabir at the time found
themselves in trouble with the law. Can you tell me
a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Let's get into that. After the break.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Good idea, there was quite a lot of legal follow
(16:51):
in Green Bay based on some of the actions of Kabir.
Can you tell me a little bit about what you
uncovered in that aspect?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The court records were just it felt like it was
never ending, and I would have to go to Green
Bay to print out the transcripts and like hearings and
all of the records. I had made so many trips
up there just to like get more documents, and I
tried to be organized with it, but it was impossible
because there were so many filings, and like part of
(17:22):
that was because Kad Beer and Ryan D. Smith and
Jordan Selmi, who were involved in the Christmas Program incident,
they submitted all of these very long, very convoluted letters
and filings to the judges and to the court using
language that's like very unfamiliar to like the regular person.
(17:43):
And then every court appearance they had would go on
much longer than it was supposed to because they would
stand up and like make all these speeches about how
they don't answer to the State of Wisconsin.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Their notice, sir, I'm not sir, I'm going to have
a have a seed.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Please, And I think one of the things they wrote
in one of the letters was like who is the
state of Wisconsin?
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Who is she? There were just like some.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Very strange questions and sentences in these filings that really
just I think the main purpose of them is just
to like gum up the works.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
For the court.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
System, and so when you read through a lot of
the transcripts and the hearings, you could see how the
judges were just so fatigued by all of these things,
and eventually it culminated with a really sad scene in
March of twenty twenty. I believe this was his last
court appearance. But kad Beer was being unruly and arguing
(18:47):
back and either quoting Bible passages or just trying to
make some kind of argument about why he didn't have
to sign something. And this was in his divorce proceeding.
I believe he didn't want to sign something that I
think would be the least financial information to the court
for the divorce proceedings with his wife, Eileen, and he
was just being so difficult he would not sign it.
(19:09):
So the cops like tried to escort him over to
sign it because it was something he had to do,
and in the process he got aggressive with them and
he ended up getting tased by one of the officers.
They felt they needed to use a taser on him
to handle his aggression.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
In that moment, they tasered me in the back.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I got hit from behind and it looked like I
hit my head, so I got some swollen in my
face and in.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
My neck, and so that was like a really sad
scene and I think it illustrates like his attitude toward
the court system was just to like fight everything and
not cooperate, and then that's how it ended. And afterwards
he made a YouTube video that was like I'm okay, everybody,
like I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
He brought up the aspect of race and how.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That is why he was treated the way he was treated,
and I think it is an interesting and a valid
question that he asked and the point that he brings up,
and I think that's absolutely part of his story, which
we addressed in this as well as of that Wisconsin
is such a white place, especially Green Bay, Wisconsin, and
he's a black man living there. He's different, he's certainly
(20:17):
in the minority there, and so I think part of
his experience is absolutely part of that, and that's part
of the reason why people were wondering what is he
doing and why there was so much concern and like
fear and people just feeling threatened by that.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
After A Prayer for Kabir was published in July of
twenty twenty, did you hear from some of the main
characters in the story.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Did you guys see the article?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Yeah, I heard from Kaber.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
Sports Illustrated wrote an article was written like like you're
freaking listen to a movie. He's developing the character. It
looks like I'm the main character here.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Kaber messaged me back and forth on Facebook. Actually, I'm
going to look it up because I took a screat
John hold On. He said in the end, I'm glad
you did the story. I appreciate your due diligence to
find what you can. I can't say that for many people.
I assume you talked with a lot of people and
this is all you have to show is just allegations
from unnamed sources. I think, yeah, for Straightway Truth, more
(21:16):
people should do the work you and I did to
check out Straightway Truth for their own place of worship.
I'm going to do a YouTube to give you credit
for your effort. So like, on the one hand, he
was like, I'm glad that you talked to so many
people because most reporters don't, and he like respected.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
My work to some degree.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
But then on the other hand, he was like, that
was all you got is like anonymous people to say
things about Straightway and then I responded and I was like,
we actually had two named sources talking about abuse that Straightway,
and then we went back and forth a little bit
more about He was like, well, your next article should
be about Father Jim and Mike Sherman because they're Catholic
in the Catholic Church has many abuses. And I'm like,
(21:54):
that's a fair point, you know, but that's not what
this story was about. So he was really civil and
pretty kind about it. And then Robert Mathis messaged me
and said something to the extent of you did me
a favor without even knowing it, which I guess I
interpreted that to mean like I gave Straightway a platform
and like I promoted Straightway for him, and then he
(22:15):
promptly blocked me on Twitter. So Robert sent me a
screenshot of some Facebook posts that people in Logansport had made.
I don't think they knew before I wrote about Robert
and Daniel and how they bought land in Logansport and
were starting a Straightway community of their own. I don't
know how many people in Logan'sport were really aware of that,
and then if they were, they didn't really know the
(22:36):
extent of what it was. And so after they read
my story, a few people in the town went on
Facebook and wrote some honestly just very racist posts. And
so he sent me these screenshots because he wanted me
to know that they had gone to the police and
reported harassment and threats of harassment.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I'll just read one.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Of the posts you get an idea of what people
were saying. This said, so, wake up, people of Logan'sport.
We actually now have a black militia in our backyard
at this property. It has been informed to me by
some of my contacts. But they are running off any
white people and they've already threatened to shoot anybody and
these people's kids that live near there if they are
caught on their property.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That's one.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And then people in the comments were going back and forth.
There were some threats of violence, and then another one
said City of Logansport getting this cult out of our
community needs to be our next directive. Tell Robert Mathis
and co. They are not welcome here. So there were
several posts like this, and he sent those to me
(23:37):
just so I could see what people in the town
were saying. And they did go to the police, and
they did report harassment again It's similar to Green Bay,
where Logan supporters are predominantly white town, and I think
there was a decent Hispanic population there, but there really
wasn't much of an African American or Black population. And
so these people read my story and their main t
(24:00):
takeaway was that this was a black militia and they
were going to threaten violence against everybody, which we don't
have any evidence of that. So that was really an
unfortunate consequence of reporting a story like this is like
if people don't fully read it, because it was three parts,
if you only read like one part, you wouldn't be
(24:22):
getting the full context of it. And if you only
read half of one part, you certainly aren't. Or if
you only read like a headline that somebody aggregated, there
would be no way you would understand what was really
going on.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And what did you hear from Straightway themselves? Did our
pal Pastor Dowell get in touch?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Oh, I'm sure. Hey. My name's Kaylin Taylor. I'm a
journalist working on a podcast series, so I am recording
this phone call.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I'm working on a series about Straightway Truth.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Ministry and the former NFL players who have joined and
I'm Okay, he never did directly. He made several YouTube
videos that referenced my reporting reference Sports Illustrated. I can't
remember if he ever called me out by name, but
he certainly made several Exports Illustrated videos, one of which
(25:14):
where he was like challenging me to a debate.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
You want to run a story on me in the
ministry or the people that's in the ministry, contact me.
Don't worry about the people. Contact the head honcho, contact
the pastor himself, the one who actually started the ministry,
and let's see how interested you are. And I'll even
grant you this. I'll even give you a live interview.
(25:36):
I'll give you a live interview, as long as it's
recorded live, so that way you can't twist or wop
and distort my words or anything like that. But for
some reason, and would you.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Have debated him?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I would not have debated him, because that's not my
job as a reporter. Like some people go into an
interview wanting that to be how it goes, but I'm
not here to have an opinion. I'm going to ask
you questions about things other people have told me, or
things I've seen or witnessed or heard about I guess
it could be considered a debate if I'm going to
(26:08):
ask you a hard question and I'm going to ask
you to respond to something, but I'm not going to
be like, this is so wrong what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So I didn't actually hear from him directly, but I
did hear from a few, like on Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
There I got a few.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Like mean dms, and then a few like really mean
comments on my Facebook page, mostly like about my appearance,
so that was nice. And then there was one I
think I can't remember the exact phrasing of this, but
it was so funny, like somebody called me a menstruating monster,
as if that was like an insult because they don't
(26:45):
like women.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
I was like, okay, thank you. So that was really odd.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
It might be true.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like, I'll never hear that insult again.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
That was really unique. Yeah. So, I mean, nothing major,
just some mean messages or comments here and there.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Okay, then what do you think will happen next to
a straight way?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I actually am surprised that Kabir is still involved and
that everyone from three years ago is like still appears
to be very happily involved in Straightway because it felt
like Kabir got into it so quickly that he may
get out of it just as quickly.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It kind of seemed like it might be a phase,
and he got into it more than three years ago.
He's already into it when I reported it. The one
thing that I'm curious about is there's so many alpha
male personalities in this group, and some of them have
actually been promoted, like I think Mirror is now Pastor
Daniel and Kabir is now Elder Kabir. They're rising the ranks.
(27:48):
But I am interested to see, like how the leadership
shakes out, because right now, like Kabir is leading the
Green Bay community, Daniel and Robert are leading the Indianapolis one.
I think Daniel is like at the top there, and
then Robert is underneath him, and then Pastor Dowell is
in charge of all of the Straightway communities, but he's
(28:10):
in Tennessee, and so I guess I just wonder if
at any point one of them is going to branch
off and want to be the true leader of their
own thing. So I think that's what I'll be watching for.
Is it just feels like there's a lot of alpha's
and I don't know how they'll coexist forever in this way.
And then also just the fact that since I reported
the written story, like TJ. Clemings joined and TJ. Clemings
(28:33):
is still involved. And I think I'm also surprised by
that because when he left Christiana, she was pregnant with
triplets and they already had two kids. He left behind
two kids in triplets that I believe he's never met still,
so that's wild to me that the poll of family
like never was strong enough for him to leave. I
(28:55):
think there might be more guys like him who join,
like more former NFL players who get involved and then
just broader. I think they'll there will be probably more
NFL players that get interested in Hebrew Israelism, not specifically straightway,
but Hebrew Israelism just in general different groups, because I
think we've seen that become more popular in recent years.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
So what's next for you? And Spiral is a book?
Are we going to see a movie? And who would
play you?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
My gosh, I don't know what's next. This podcast does well,
there may be more. I could see it being a
docuve series. One of the hard parts with even doing
this as a podcast is we have to use people's voices,
so the cover of anonymity doesn't really work. So I
(29:47):
actually was surprised that of how many people, like, we're
willing to participate, like Eileen and be a part of
this and use her voice and Christianna tell her story,
use her voice, use her name, because a lot of
my reporting for the written story was very much like
on background, I'll give you some information, but I don't
want my name in it.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I don't want to be sourced.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
So I was surprised with the podcast how many people
were actually willing to participate. And I feel like I
would think the same about like a docuseries.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Is anyone really going to want to sit down and
be on camera? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I could see it being a docuseries. I could see
it maybe turning into a larger book about football and
religion and changes, extreme lifestyle changes, because I think that
part's really interesting. And then I don't know, there's so
many different facets of the story that we're interesting. And
like the whole YouTube part of it, like YouTube radicalization
(30:38):
and going down a rabbit hole and all of that
was so fascinating, So yeah, I think it could be.
I think it could exist in some kind of video form.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you so much for your time today. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Working with you.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Thanks Buffy, I also have loved working with you as well.
Styld is Action of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and
One on One Studios Podcasts. The show was reported by
me Kayln Kaylor, with additional reporting by senior producer Buffy Gorilla.
Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design,
(31:14):
mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier. Sarah Sneath is our
fact checker. Scott Stone is our executive producer, and Daniel
Waxman is Director of Podcast Development and podcast Production.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Manager at One on One Studios.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
At iHeart Podcasts, Shaun Tuton is our executive producer. Special
thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Hutkin from One on one Studios.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I have watched from Afar as their ministry has changed
and evolved into something that's even worse than what I experienced.
I figured, if I can stop one person from getting
everything taken from them or their lives destroyed, then I
got to do something. I want to warn people about it.
(00:26):
That's really the short version of it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
There, it's Buffy Gorilla. I'm the senior producer on Spiraled.
Kayla and Kayler, our host and reporter, has been working
with this story for so long. She's followed the twists, turns,
the spirals of the story, if you will. She's faced
harassment and verbal abuse from Dowel and Straightway, and she
hasn't back down. She's encountered more no's than yes is
(00:53):
as she's pushed the reporting forward. There was one major
goal in mind when we set out to make this series,
to bring listeners additional insights from her original Sports Illustrated story,
Pray for Cabir. The team had to make some tough
choices on whose story to tell. We spoke to over
fifty people, So even if we spoke to you and
(01:15):
you don't hear yourself in this series, your stories, experiences
and insights helped shape what everyone heard. So thank you
very much. So in this episode, we're going behind the
story and the podcast with Kaylin.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Hi, Kaylin, Hi, Buffy, how are you.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I'm doing very well.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
How are you good? I did not know that the
number was over fifty people.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
That's crazy counting that Spiral Master spreadsheet keeping track of it.
It's exciting Caylin to get us started. How long have
you been working on this story, Kaylin?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I started in January of twenty twenty, so more than
three years now. When I started then, I had no
idea what it was going to turn into. I just
had been sent a local newspaper article from one of
my sports illustrated editors at the time, Jack Dickey.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Shout out to Jack.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Jack sent me this headline from the Green Bay Press
Gazette and it was about the Christmas program incident, which
we detailed in the series. And I think his email
was like, this is really strange. He knew I lived
in Chicago and was geographically near ish to Green Bay,
and he was like, you should see what's up with this?
And I clicked on the link and I was like,
oh my gosh, this is so strange. And I actually
(02:27):
didn't even remember really who Kaber was at the time
that he played. I think I would have been in
middle school years, and I was a big Bears fan,
even though I lived in Wisconsin, because my whole family's
from Illinois, so I would see the Packers when they
played the Bears, but I was like very much into
the Bears and not the Packers, so I was like
(02:48):
obsessed with the Chicago Bears. I could name the defense
from those years, but I wasn't really familiar with Kabir,
and I was like, Wow, this guy was like pretty
legit and he was like a pretty good and well
known player here, and this is very strange.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And then I just.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Happened to know a few people who had played with
him already from like previous Packers reporting that I'd done.
So I just started by calling them and asking what
is up with this, what is going on? And then
they were concerned and had been briefed on all this,
and some of them knew more than I did, and
so it just went from there.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
You know, you've been working on this story for what
seems to be probably half your life, So how does
it feel to be wrapped up with it all?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It feels good, It's weird because sometimes I don't know,
I think journalists you have to be really like tunnel
vision on a story, especially a story like this, when
you're working on it. And when I was doing the
original story, it just took so long that this is
just a story that you're like totally in it, but you.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Also have to multitask with other things because it's just
going to take a long time to develop.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
It is weird to move on from a story like this,
but also a story like this after I've finished the
written story, before we had even started work on the
podcast series, I would get emails like every few months
from people who had been a part of Straightway and
left and wanted.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
To reach out because they'd just come across my story.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Or as we mentioned in the series, Christiana, I got
connected with her after.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
The original written story.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Came out, and that was because her husband now her
ex husband, TJ. He got involved with Straightway after my
original story came out, so she came across my reporting
and then reached out and then we got connected. And
so it's almost like a story that you really can't
leave behind because people keep contacting you.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
No one else has.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Written about Straightway really, so if you have a family
member that joined and you have questions about it, Like
there's really only like a few resources to go to,
and the sports ill strated story that I reported is
one of those you're our expert exactly. It's a strange
thing to be an expert on. Yeah, add it to
my list of titles.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I see a LinkedIn profile update incoming.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yeah, why did you.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Think it was an important story to pursue in like
the slate of stories that you probably had on offer?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, because it was so different than everything else. And
I really liked digging in on things, Like I liked
the investigative side of reporting, and this wasn't like the
first investigative story that I did, but it was definitely
the most intense and like the most details that required
like the most digging and requesting of documents and like
searching deep into the Internet for people and to find things.
(05:31):
And I always like those types of stories. And I
think the religion aspect was really interesting too, because if
you cover the NFL, like a lot of players are
very religious and you can't escape that, and so this
was really interesting to me because it was like not
something that we've seen other players really get into or
(05:52):
had at the time, and so it was different, and
I knew there.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Was going to be a lot of like layers to
peel back.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
We were super careful to not use the word cult
in this podcast like ourselves, but other people did, and like,
that's how a lot of people see this religious group,
that's how they've used street Witch with the ministry, And
I think we wanted to just understand what they are,
how they live, and answer those questions because there is
(06:21):
this inherent fascination.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
With things that we don't know about.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So I think that's why I really saw the appeal
of this story, and just based off of the reaction
of like people in Green Bay to just the Green
Bay Presca is that story that I read, it really
draws you in. You're like, wow, this is so different.
Like this former player who made a ton of money
and you think should be super happy, had a big family,
(06:46):
You think he should be satisfied with his life, was
beloved in the community, decides to completely change his entire lifestyle.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
And so I think a lot of people were wondering why.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
And were you worried that you were going to get
scooped by Green Bay reporters.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I wasn't because when I was talking to some local
Green Bay reporters about this, and I was kind of careful.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I didn't really want people to.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Know that I was really digging into it, but was
sort of a topic of conversation because it was in
the local news there. So when I would bring it
up with them, it was like, really clear that people
were not going to get into it. They're the people
who actually live in Green Bay and who covered the
team regularly, because they're like, we live in this town.
We'd see Kaber like, you know, at the grocery store
or something.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
It's not a big town, so.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
If you were going to get involved, you had to
know like you might run into him. And so I
think a lot of people were just like, I am
not going to touch that. And there were some people
who had covered Kaber as a player, And we interviewed
Bob McGinn who had memories of Kaber like giving him
religious pamphlets or he wanted to talk to me, Bob Bob,
(07:54):
and he wanted to talk to me about his faith
or religion or my faith. And so I think that
it was like another thing that people just were like,
I don't want to get into this because they didn't
want to like face a whole nother round of like
kad Beer trying to convert them into what he believes,
because they'd already faced that when he was the player
in the locker room. So I think that left a
(08:15):
memory in people's minds of like, yeah, we're gonna leave
this for somebody else.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
To get into.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And so as you moved through the reporting process, how
did it evolve in terms of finding like these new characters?
Because in the Sports Illustrated story, which I've read all
three parts of good, I don't hope so just like once,
I'm skimmed because there's so many characters that you did find.
So how did you uncover them?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, it's just like a step by step thing, like
as be detailed in the podcast series.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Okay, I knew about Kabir.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
And then I heard from someone else, Oh, he's not
the only NFL player former NFL player in this group,
and I was like what. So then that led me
to Robert and then I start watching more and more
YouTube videos and Dowell references Daniel Muir is an NFL player,
and I'm like, oh, Daniel Muir, there's another one I
(09:07):
talked to people in the town, like parents from the
Christian school, So you know, I was getting that perspective.
I talked to former players and then I'm like, well,
I gotta call Mike Sherman. I got connected to Mike Sherman.
I already knew Father Jim also, which is hilarious because
I had done a story on him.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Because this is actually really cool. This is a tangent
about Father Jim.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But Father Jim was the chaplain to the prison in
Green Bay. There's a big penitentiary. You can see lambeau
Field like from the penitentiary, and so he would do
like a day before the game mass for the players
and then he would like go to the prison, so
he would be with packers and prisoners in like the
(09:48):
same week or day. So he had this very unique role.
So I actually did a story about him and how
he worked with these two very different communities. My conversation
with him was really interesting because I was so impressed
by how much he remembered about Kabir's like spiritual journey
then and like he had been following the headlines obviously
(10:09):
as well, and he was like he could see the
surface back then. So that was really interesting because he
just had all these really specific, detailed memories about that.
And then at one point in the process, my editor
who actually edited the story was Gary Gramling, who was
at Sports Illustrator at the time.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
He's now at The Messenger. He's an amazing editor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He was like, Okay, I think we know like everything
we need to know about Kabar and the NFL players,
but now we need to know more about this group,
so we need to find people to talk to us
about Straightway.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And Straightway is.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Big, but it's not that big. So I was like, Okay,
how do I find people? And I knew that they
weren't going to probably want to speak to me, and
so I wanted to start by reaching out to people
who had left the group, just so I could get
a sense of what life there was like, and then
move on to people.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Who are actually part of the group.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Like if you just google Straightway, there's a few different
like blogs that will come up where people have posted
about their experiences at Straightway or at the Overcomer. And
so through that I was able to find a few
people to speak to, and then I just looked them
up and that's how that went out. Or I would
find them on Facebook or something and message them.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Let's talk a little bit about Kader, because I think
people who have listened to this series might be surprised
that we don't hear from him in any of the episodes,
but we have his YouTube videos. Tell us about how
you spoke with him for your Sports Illustrated story.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, so he found out I was reporting this, which
obviously he did.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
You can only be sneaky.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
For so long, and a lot of times when you're
doing a story like this, like you're not going to
not interview Kaber, Like I was always going to interview Kadir,
but I was waiting until the very end because I
wanted to have all my questions in order. I wanted
to have all my questions answered and know exactly what
I needed to go to for him.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
But a lot of times.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
People get confused why you aren't reaching out to them first,
because they think, if this story is about me, like
I should be the first interview. And that's true if
you're going to give multiple interviews. But I just did
not know how Kabir was going to react to this
at all, So I was like, I don't want to
go to him, and then he does like a five
(12:28):
minute interview and then never talk to me again, and
then I don't get any of my questions answered. So
I was waiting until the very end of the process
to get in touch with him, but he thought I
was like avoiding him, so he messaged me first, probably
in May of twenty twenty, and the story came out
in July of twenty twenty, so I wasn't quite ready
yet to have a conversation with him, and he was
like hey, something along the lines of like I know
(12:50):
you're talking to everybody about me, like are you going
to talk to me? And I'm like, yes, thank you
for reaching out. I absolutely need to talk to you,
but not yet. I promise you I will let you
know when I need to talk to So I actually
was glad that he reached out because I was like, Okay,
that's good. It seems like he wants to talk at
least from that message. And at the time, he was
(13:12):
very active on YouTube. He's like less active now, but
at the time he was like posting videos all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
He had a live show.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So again I was watching all of his YouTube videos
and it was almost at the point where it's like,
what am I even going to ask you like you
said everything on your YouTube, like literally like so many
of the questions I had, and he would just talk
about on his YouTube channel. When I was ready to
talk to him, we did a zoom interview. I knew
it was going to be a long interview, but it
was actually like six hours long, and Kaber never had
(13:43):
to take a bathroom break.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
I took a bathroom break. Kaber took no breaks. He
had no water.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I just remember being shocked that, like he didn't need
to have a snack or a glass of water or
the man was like a machine.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
How did Kabier treat you?
Speaker 4 (13:59):
He was not.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
He's so nice. He's extremely charismatic. Like a lot of
his YouTube videos he appears to be very mad. He's
lost that but like his early videos he's yelling shouting,
so he can seem to be a little bit mean
and mad in some of his YouTube appearances, but he's
actually like a very charismatic, nice, friendly guy. So in
(14:24):
our interview, he was totally nice. There were no issues
with that whatsoever. And I mean the only reason we
did it on zoom and like not in person.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Was because of COVID.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It was the heat of COVID at that time, and
so we're like, all right, a zoom interview is probably
easier at this rate. I don't even think he no
commented anything. The only thing he like no commented was
when I asked him who exactly was living in his
home how many people? And he wouldn't give me a
straight answer for that. But like mostly everything else he answered,
and he gave some kind of shocking answers about his
(14:55):
views on disciplining children. I think the most shocking thing
he said was that he didn't care about his previous
eight children and that he was going to just start
over because he can just plant new seats and move on.
And he had a very black and white, I don't
care anymore about my old family, like completely moved on.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Type of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
I was surprised by that because I'm like, wow, you're
just referring to your children as seats and you can
just plant new ones. So that was really an interesting description.
But he was very candid in his interview, and that
is why it was six hours long. And then kad
here for this podcast. I called him a couple times
and we had a few phone conversations actually that were
(15:35):
like pretty long, but they were not on the record,
and he didn't want to participate in this because I
think the point that he made to me was something
along the lines of.
Speaker 4 (15:47):
Like why would I talk for this?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I already talked to you for the first story, Like
nothing's changed. This is still the life that I'm living.
I'm not going to get my old family back. It's
not going to change that, So.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
What reason what I speak to you?
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And again, I think it just shows like how friendly
he is the fact that, like our conversations were like
an hour long each of these times that I was
asking him to talk for the podcast and he was
saying no, but he was still talking to me for
like an hour. So sadly he wouldn't participate in this podcast,
but he was very nice about it.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
People that were close to Kabir at the time found
themselves in trouble with the law. Can you tell me
a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Let's get into that. After the break.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Good idea, there was quite a lot of legal follow
(16:51):
in Green Bay based on some of the actions of Kabir.
Can you tell me a little bit about what you
uncovered in that aspect?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The court records were just it felt like it was
never ending, and I would have to go to Green
Bay to print out the transcripts and like hearings and
all of the records. I had made so many trips
up there just to like get more documents, and I
tried to be organized with it, but it was impossible
because there were so many filings, and like part of
(17:22):
that was because Kad Beer and Ryan D. Smith and
Jordan Selmi, who were involved in the Christmas Program incident,
they submitted all of these very long, very convoluted letters
and filings to the judges and to the court using
language that's like very unfamiliar to like the regular person.
(17:43):
And then every court appearance they had would go on
much longer than it was supposed to because they would
stand up and like make all these speeches about how
they don't answer to the State of Wisconsin.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Their notice, sir, I'm not sir, I'm going to have
a have a seed.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Please, And I think one of the things they wrote
in one of the letters was like who is the
state of Wisconsin?
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Who is she? There were just like some.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Very strange questions and sentences in these filings that really
just I think the main purpose of them is just
to like gum up the works.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
For the court.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
System, and so when you read through a lot of
the transcripts and the hearings, you could see how the
judges were just so fatigued by all of these things,
and eventually it culminated with a really sad scene in
March of twenty twenty. I believe this was his last
court appearance. But kad Beer was being unruly and arguing
(18:47):
back and either quoting Bible passages or just trying to
make some kind of argument about why he didn't have
to sign something. And this was in his divorce proceeding.
I believe he didn't want to sign something that I
think would be the least financial information to the court
for the divorce proceedings with his wife, Eileen, and he
was just being so difficult he would not sign it.
(19:09):
So the cops like tried to escort him over to
sign it because it was something he had to do,
and in the process he got aggressive with them and
he ended up getting tased by one of the officers.
They felt they needed to use a taser on him
to handle his aggression.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
In that moment, they tasered me in the back.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
I got hit from behind and it looked like I
hit my head, so I got some swollen in my
face and in.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
My neck, and so that was like a really sad
scene and I think it illustrates like his attitude toward
the court system was just to like fight everything and
not cooperate, and then that's how it ended. And afterwards
he made a YouTube video that was like I'm okay, everybody,
like I'm fine.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
He brought up the aspect of race and how.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That is why he was treated the way he was treated,
and I think it is an interesting and a valid
question that he asked and the point that he brings up,
and I think that's absolutely part of his story, which
we addressed in this as well as of that Wisconsin
is such a white place, especially Green Bay, Wisconsin, and
he's a black man living there. He's different, he's certainly
(20:17):
in the minority there, and so I think part of
his experience is absolutely part of that, and that's part
of the reason why people were wondering what is he
doing and why there was so much concern and like
fear and people just feeling threatened by that.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
After A Prayer for Kabir was published in July of
twenty twenty, did you hear from some of the main
characters in the story.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
Did you guys see the article?
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Yeah, I heard from Kaber.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
Sports Illustrated wrote an article was written like like you're
freaking listen to a movie. He's developing the character. It
looks like I'm the main character here.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Kaber messaged me back and forth on Facebook. Actually, I'm
going to look it up because I took a screat
John hold On. He said in the end, I'm glad
you did the story. I appreciate your due diligence to
find what you can. I can't say that for many people.
I assume you talked with a lot of people and
this is all you have to show is just allegations
from unnamed sources. I think, yeah, for Straightway Truth, more
(21:16):
people should do the work you and I did to
check out Straightway Truth for their own place of worship.
I'm going to do a YouTube to give you credit
for your effort. So like, on the one hand, he
was like, I'm glad that you talked to so many
people because most reporters don't, and he like respected.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
My work to some degree.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
But then on the other hand, he was like, that
was all you got is like anonymous people to say
things about Straightway and then I responded and I was like,
we actually had two named sources talking about abuse that Straightway,
and then we went back and forth a little bit
more about He was like, well, your next article should
be about Father Jim and Mike Sherman because they're Catholic
in the Catholic Church has many abuses. And I'm like,
(21:54):
that's a fair point, you know, but that's not what
this story was about. So he was really civil and
pretty kind about it. And then Robert Mathis messaged me
and said something to the extent of you did me
a favor without even knowing it, which I guess I
interpreted that to mean like I gave Straightway a platform
and like I promoted Straightway for him, and then he
(22:15):
promptly blocked me on Twitter. So Robert sent me a
screenshot of some Facebook posts that people in Logansport had made.
I don't think they knew before I wrote about Robert
and Daniel and how they bought land in Logansport and
were starting a Straightway community of their own. I don't
know how many people in Logan'sport were really aware of that,
and then if they were, they didn't really know the
(22:36):
extent of what it was. And so after they read
my story, a few people in the town went on
Facebook and wrote some honestly just very racist posts. And
so he sent me these screenshots because he wanted me
to know that they had gone to the police and
reported harassment and threats of harassment.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I'll just read one.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Of the posts you get an idea of what people
were saying. This said, so, wake up, people of Logan'sport.
We actually now have a black militia in our backyard
at this property. It has been informed to me by
some of my contacts. But they are running off any
white people and they've already threatened to shoot anybody and
these people's kids that live near there if they are
caught on their property.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
That's one.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
And then people in the comments were going back and forth.
There were some threats of violence, and then another one
said City of Logansport getting this cult out of our
community needs to be our next directive. Tell Robert Mathis
and co. They are not welcome here. So there were
several posts like this, and he sent those to me
(23:37):
just so I could see what people in the town
were saying. And they did go to the police, and
they did report harassment again It's similar to Green Bay,
where Logan supporters are predominantly white town, and I think
there was a decent Hispanic population there, but there really
wasn't much of an African American or Black population. And
so these people read my story and their main t
(24:00):
takeaway was that this was a black militia and they
were going to threaten violence against everybody, which we don't
have any evidence of that. So that was really an
unfortunate consequence of reporting a story like this is like
if people don't fully read it, because it was three parts,
if you only read like one part, you wouldn't be
(24:22):
getting the full context of it. And if you only
read half of one part, you certainly aren't. Or if
you only read like a headline that somebody aggregated, there
would be no way you would understand what was really
going on.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
And what did you hear from Straightway themselves? Did our
pal Pastor Dowell get in touch?
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Oh, I'm sure. Hey. My name's Kaylin Taylor. I'm a
journalist working on a podcast series, so I am recording
this phone call.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I'm working on a series about Straightway Truth.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Ministry and the former NFL players who have joined and
I'm Okay, he never did directly. He made several YouTube
videos that referenced my reporting reference Sports Illustrated. I can't
remember if he ever called me out by name, but
he certainly made several Exports Illustrated videos, one of which
(25:14):
where he was like challenging me to a debate.
Speaker 6 (25:16):
You want to run a story on me in the
ministry or the people that's in the ministry, contact me.
Don't worry about the people. Contact the head honcho, contact
the pastor himself, the one who actually started the ministry,
and let's see how interested you are. And I'll even
grant you this. I'll even give you a live interview.
(25:36):
I'll give you a live interview, as long as it's
recorded live, so that way you can't twist or wop
and distort my words or anything like that. But for
some reason, and would you.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Have debated him?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I would not have debated him, because that's not my
job as a reporter. Like some people go into an
interview wanting that to be how it goes, but I'm
not here to have an opinion. I'm going to ask
you questions about things other people have told me, or
things I've seen or witnessed or heard about I guess
it could be considered a debate if I'm going to
(26:08):
ask you a hard question and I'm going to ask
you to respond to something, but I'm not going to
be like, this is so wrong what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So I didn't actually hear from him directly, but I
did hear from a few, like on Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
There I got a few.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Like mean dms, and then a few like really mean
comments on my Facebook page, mostly like about my appearance,
so that was nice. And then there was one I
think I can't remember the exact phrasing of this, but
it was so funny, like somebody called me a menstruating monster,
as if that was like an insult because they don't
(26:45):
like women.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
I was like, okay, thank you. So that was really odd.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
It might be true.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like, I'll never hear that insult again.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
That was really unique. Yeah. So, I mean, nothing major,
just some mean messages or comments here and there.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Okay, then what do you think will happen next to
a straight way?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I actually am surprised that Kabir is still involved and
that everyone from three years ago is like still appears
to be very happily involved in Straightway because it felt
like Kabir got into it so quickly that he may
get out of it just as quickly.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
It kind of seemed like it might be a phase,
and he got into it more than three years ago.
He's already into it when I reported it. The one
thing that I'm curious about is there's so many alpha
male personalities in this group, and some of them have
actually been promoted, like I think Mirror is now Pastor
Daniel and Kabir is now Elder Kabir. They're rising the ranks.
(27:48):
But I am interested to see, like how the leadership
shakes out, because right now, like Kabir is leading the
Green Bay community, Daniel and Robert are leading the Indianapolis one.
I think Daniel is like at the top there, and
then Robert is underneath him, and then Pastor Dowell is
in charge of all of the Straightway communities, but he's
(28:10):
in Tennessee, and so I guess I just wonder if
at any point one of them is going to branch
off and want to be the true leader of their
own thing. So I think that's what I'll be watching for.
Is it just feels like there's a lot of alpha's
and I don't know how they'll coexist forever in this way.
And then also just the fact that since I reported
the written story, like TJ. Clemings joined and TJ. Clemings
(28:33):
is still involved. And I think I'm also surprised by
that because when he left Christiana, she was pregnant with
triplets and they already had two kids. He left behind
two kids in triplets that I believe he's never met still,
so that's wild to me that the poll of family
like never was strong enough for him to leave. I
(28:55):
think there might be more guys like him who join,
like more former NFL players who get involved and then
just broader. I think they'll there will be probably more
NFL players that get interested in Hebrew Israelism, not specifically straightway,
but Hebrew Israelism just in general different groups, because I
think we've seen that become more popular in recent years.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
So what's next for you? And Spiral is a book?
Are we going to see a movie? And who would
play you?
Speaker 2 (29:26):
My gosh, I don't know what's next. This podcast does well,
there may be more. I could see it being a
docuve series. One of the hard parts with even doing
this as a podcast is we have to use people's voices,
so the cover of anonymity doesn't really work. So I
(29:47):
actually was surprised that of how many people, like, we're
willing to participate, like Eileen and be a part of
this and use her voice and Christianna tell her story,
use her voice, use her name, because a lot of
my reporting for the written story was very much like
on background, I'll give you some information, but I don't
want my name in it.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I don't want to be sourced.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
So I was surprised with the podcast how many people
were actually willing to participate. And I feel like I
would think the same about like a docuseries.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Is anyone really going to want to sit down and
be on camera? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I could see it being a docuseries. I could see
it maybe turning into a larger book about football and
religion and changes, extreme lifestyle changes, because I think that
part's really interesting. And then I don't know, there's so
many different facets of the story that we're interesting. And
like the whole YouTube part of it, like YouTube radicalization
(30:38):
and going down a rabbit hole and all of that
was so fascinating, So yeah, I think it could be.
I think it could exist in some kind of video form.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Thank you so much for your time today. It's been
a pleasure.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
Working with you.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Thanks Buffy, I also have loved working with you as well.
Styld is Action of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and
One on One Studios Podcasts. The show was reported by
me Kayln Kaylor, with additional reporting by senior producer Buffy Gorilla.
Writing service provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design,
(31:14):
mixing and mastering by Charlie Kaier. Sarah Sneath is our
fact checker. Scott Stone is our executive producer, and Daniel
Waxman is Director of Podcast Development and podcast Production.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Manager at One on One Studios.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
At iHeart Podcasts, Shaun Tuton is our executive producer. Special
thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser, and David.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Hutkin from One on one Studios.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Kalyn Kahler
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