September 10, 2024 • 36 mins
Before there was Pastor Charles Dowell, there was R.G. Stair. Kalyn traces the origins of Straitway Truth Ministry to a group founded and led by the raspy-voiced Last Day Prophet of God. Following these men isn’t a part-time gig. For many followers, it required giving up their belongings, their money, their family. And some are still unpacking what happened to them today.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A man is walking through shallow water in the video,
filmed in twenty seventeen. He's tall and muscular. There's a
bit of excitement in his step. The way the sun
hits the surface, it looks for a moment like he
could actually be walking on water. He's heading towards a stockier,
barrel chested man standing in the creek. They shake hands
(00:20):
and share a laugh. If you listen closely, you can
hear I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh hey, got a brand news. Brother in the faith Israelite,
yet not unfamiliar with Christ.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
But we're gonna go ahead and baptize in the name of.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Jeez on the right way.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A third man stands on the shore, reading scripture.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Go you therefore, and teach you'r all nations, baptizing him
in the name of the Father, and of the Sun.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And of the Holy Spirit, all three waiting to the
middle of the creek. You can just about make out,
all right, brother kad be here, I be a miller.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Now I'm baptize you.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm the name of.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Pastor Dowell. And the man reading scripture tipped Kabir backwards
into the water, fully submerging him in the creek. And
then raising him back up to applause from the witnesses
on the shore. It's all taking place at the edge
of Straightway's Tennessee property. At the time Pastor Dowl baptized Kabir,
it had only been a few months since his wife
Eileen left home with their seven children, but Kabir had
(01:28):
pushed ahead with Straightway Anyway. At that point, he'd been
watching Pastor Dowel's videos for less than a year. YouTube
plays a major role in the story of Straightway. It's
how many people find the group, and it's how Straightway
shares its message with the world. In some ways that
makes YouTube the modern equivalent of shortwave radio. Both help
proselytizers attract believers far and wide. It was through the
(01:53):
radio that Pastor Dowel heard the voice that would set
him on a path to creating a religious community of
his own to borrow.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
South Carolina in the United States of America. Wait branking
you the overcomer radio broadcast.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
This is the voice of R. G. Stair, Ralph Stair.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
The Kingdom of Heaven is it had? Jesus Christ is
coming in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Stair was the leader and founder of the Overcomer Ministry,
a Penzecosta Christian group based in South Carolina. It was
there he built his following from the Overcomer Farm, an idealistic,
self sustaining community where he preached about the end times.
Speaker 7 (02:36):
This is the last generation and little children, it's the
last time a glorious church was out.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Spader Ankle and Stair had a nickname for himself, the.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Voice of the Last Day Prophet of God, sent to
all the nations of the world.
Speaker 8 (02:53):
This is Rgie Stair, last Day Prophet of God, which
is how he began every hour of every broadcast, horns blowing.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
In the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel,
when he shall begin to sound the profits.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This is Michael Burkhout as a kid. His mom was
a follower of Stairs, and Michael lived for about three
years in an Overcomer community.
Speaker 8 (03:23):
Here he is this like larger than life guy. He
was almost this like omnipotent being and in the eyes
of people who followed him, and he's tall, sort of bald,
with this big white beard, and he just would walk
into the room and he was in command and in control,
and it was just very obvious. Everyone sort of was
(03:44):
in all of him there.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
One of the people who was influenced by STARE was
a young Charles Dowell junior. He'd joined the Overcomer and
later started Straightway under its umbrella. Michael was young when
he was part of the Overcomer and it was not
a positive experience for him, you'll hear while he was there,
Michael met Dowell through STARE and witnessed the beginnings of
what would become Straightway Truth Ministries.
Speaker 8 (04:07):
I've watched from Afar as their ministry or as their group,
their organization has changed and evolved into something that's even
worse than what I experienced.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Over the years, Michael has kept tabs on it as
Dowell expanded on the foundation that STARE built.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
I've seen it get bigger and I've seen their views
on social media grow, and I just I feel like
to tell the story of Straightway, you have to start
at the beginning, and that's where I sort of was involved,
was in the beginning, and I think it's really important
to realize the connections that they had with Overcomer and
(04:49):
just sort of the roots of what currently exists, and
I just I want to warn people about it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So in this episode, we're going back and diving into
the movement that gave Dowell his start. This is Spiral
Episode three, Little Prophet, I'm calin Kaylor.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
This is a voice that has heard around the world,
seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, into
all the nations of the world. Ladies and gentlemen. This
is Brother Staire and it's time.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Now for us to Ralph. Stair found his audience by
preaching over shortwave radio, the kind that picks up signals
from far corners of the world. Cumbia, music from South America,
news from Europe, and preachers from across the US and Canada.
Speaker 9 (05:54):
If you've turned nine AM radio in the middle of
the night, you would find him. You had a short
waiver radio, you would hear he was everywhere.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
This is Eric. He asked that we only use his
first name. Eric was also once part of the Overcomer,
and he's worried about his reputation if people find out.
In the eighties, Eric was just a teenager hanging out
with his dad. They'd be driving through the Midwestern woods
listening to preachers on the radio, and one they'd hear
all the time was Brother Stare.
Speaker 9 (06:25):
This was before the Internet and all that, so I
guess instead of surf in the internet, he was surfing
the radio.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Stair was a conservative Pentecostal minister. He preached about repenting
her sins, accepting the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and
divine healing. He was inspired by the Book of Acts,
which describes early Christians living communally, and there was a
strong misogynistic tone to many of his broadcasts.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
She gets fat, see, I said, you don't get like
you said? You no, why you big old fat thing,
big mouth smart.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Alec sach that women were inferior. He expected obedience. He
didn't like women to work outside the home. People we
spoke to told us that Stair hated women and believed
them to be subhuman, and he taught that homosexuality was
a sin an abomination.
Speaker 8 (07:17):
They didn't even talk about like rehabilitation of gay people,
the like conversion therapy and that sort of thing. This
is a flawed human being, unworthy of salvation.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
As Eric got older, he and Star had an on again,
off again relationship. He'd listened if Stera happened to be
on the radio, but he'd also drift away. During one
of the on agon times, Eric and his dad actually
went to a gathering and met some of Stair's followers
who liked them. Listened to Stair's preaching every weekend. It
left an impression, but Eric wasn't ready to go all in.
(07:55):
Life went on, and then he was expecting his first child.
Speaker 9 (07:59):
My wife was pregnant. We started becoming more interested in religion.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
He started thinking about what he wanted his family to
look like, what kind of parent he wanted to be,
and what kinds of values were important to him. What
he had seen at the Overcomer meetup came back to him.
Moral people living a more simple life. The husbands and
wives seemed happier. Eric remembers that even the children seemed
better behaved. So one night, when Stara got to the
(08:27):
part of his sermon where he asked for contributions on.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Nailing address for your correspondence your letter support, you just
address your letter to me, Brother Stare Stai R.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Brother Stare, Eric started sending money to the Overcomer. He
had a decent union job. His family wasn't rich, but
they did all right. They started making regular donations to
the Overcomer ministry, sending checks in the mail. Eric sometimes
sent letters to and over time he became penpals with
brother Stare.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
You don't expect that here's a guy on a worldwide
radio he's writing me back.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Wow. You know.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
One of the things that R. G. Stair encouraged was
to meet people that listen to his broadcast. He would
have these things called gatherings where he would have people
come down to South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
They'd meet at the Overcomer Farm. Stare encouraged people to
move there or to the other satellite communities full time.
He wanted people to live as he said the early
Christians had, pooling everything they owned, selling their property and possessions,
and sharing the money with the community.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
Imagine going from being just an ordinary person to suddenly
being in this exclusive club of people who are in
the know and have the inside track on life. And
I think, I think that that's intoxicating.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Michael Burkhau's mom and brother had also gotten hooked on
Stair via his radio program, and they also wanted to
join an overcomer community.
Speaker 8 (10:12):
I think that they were both at periods in their
life where things just were sort of monotonous and flat.
Maybe my brother was struggling. Maybe my mom it was
a point in her life where she was looking for more,
we were told prepare your spirit, because if brother Staires
(10:35):
senses a spirit that doesn't belong here, you will be
thrown out and you will not be able to return,
and that's essentially damnation right there.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
This is really critical to understand, especially if you didn't
grow up in this kind of religious community. The idea
is that coming with the right spirit this was important
not only in this life, but also to eternal life.
A lot of the Overcomers members had been listening to
Stair's voice for years. He was their connection to God
and to a community.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Hello, this should brush daire as a believer in Christ.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I just want to ask, like, what's the next event
that's going to like lead to this new world order.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I just wanted to say that I heard part.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
Of your German when you were in Ohio, and I
thought you were Excellentia.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
If Stara told you to go to a community and
you didn't go, you were basically going against the word
of God. So when Stari started suggesting that followers from
across the country get together.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
That's when things started to get in real serious. So
as it got yere close to the year two thousand,
he was saying a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
As y two k approached, Stara was gaining followers and momentum.
He prophesied that there was going to be a major
event at the turn of the new millennium. Whatever this
event was, it would kick off a period of tribulation,
after which the world would come to an end. To prepare,
Stara was gathering his followers together.
Speaker 9 (12:37):
It was really pressuring people to move into his Christian
communities that he overseen.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sterara compared what he was doing to Noah and the Ark.
The door was closing around two thousand. If you weren't
on the metaphorical arc, you'd be out of luck. Even
though Eric was skeptical, he was also afraid of the alternative,
afraid enough that he was starting to question where he
wanted to be. On midnight January first, two thousand, followers
(13:03):
were leaving their old lives behind and relocating to the
Overcomer's main community in South Carolina and to outposts in
places like Kentucky and Oklahoma. Stare told Eric that he
should visit one of the newer Overcomer properties in Lafayette, Tennessee,
to see if he and his family could live there.
So he headed south from his home in the Midwest
to a community called Straightway, which was overseen by an
(13:27):
eager young pastor named Charles Dowell Junior. That's after the
break in the nineteen nineties, after he got out of
(13:49):
the military, a twenty nine year old Charles Dowell Junior
was exploring his faith and what he wanted from his
post army life. He'd grown up Baptist and says while
he was still in the military, and he was moved
by the Holy Spirit. Back in the civilian world, Dowell
began to study under a bishop and started to climb
the church hierarchy from layperson to deacon to minister. But
(14:11):
the more he learned and preached, the more questions he had.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
After I left there and got the military, came back home,
I was still even more deeper in studying, and I
continue to keep discovering more lies.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Years later, Kabir would ask Dowell about this moment in
an interview for his YouTube channel, and in his answer,
Doowel sounds a bit like Kabir. Up to that point,
Dowell had been a soldier. His days were filled with discipline, structure,
and testosterone, and then suddenly all that was gone.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
These pastors, they don't really truly care about. I'm gonna
use word soul because everybody's used to that word is
but I did. I did, And so I had this
driving me that on my watch, whoever to me, they're
going to know the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Dowall was questioning what he was reading in the Bible,
and soon he was dabbling with his own ministry.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So I would just.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Preach to myself, Carol and my two children.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It started as a family affair. His wife was there,
his daughter sang a song, his son read scripture.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And I would turn around the lazy boy and that
was pull pit and I put the Bible on it.
I just preached it them.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
At that time, Dowall was especially interested in the Book
of Acts, the same book that influenced Ralph Stare. Dowell
liked this idea of a shared community of faith breaking
bread together, everyone selling their possessions and having a shared purpose.
He started to think about creating a community like this now.
So he shared his idea with the head of the
church he was part of.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And he said to me, he said, it ain't going
to work. And I said, maybe he's not going to
work because nobody has ever tried it. So I started
getting on radios. I started looking around and trying to
find other people who was maybe doing something similar to
this so I could get an ideal on dynamic.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And he did find someone.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
I said, he Advice Studio, and I'm looking out across
our little.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Farm, Ralph Stare.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
And I could feel now as I change from the
actor of God, and I could feel his love say.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Come on see.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Dowell started listening to Stare on the radio, and like
so many others before him, he heard something in Stair's message.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I had a lot of respect for him, preaching straightforward,
the old time, hard hitting hold of his message. I'd
mostly just tune in and listen. Very nice people, beautiful
people on the community, everybody meek, humble, choirespear. They got
along as well.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Dowell became a believer and made a trip to South
Carolina to meet Stair. In fact, Donwell became so close
to the Last Day Prophet that within the Overcomer he
would earn a nickname.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The Little Profit.
Speaker 9 (16:55):
He was a little Stair Ergie Stair. Stair was the
Last Day So by calling Dowell the Little Prophet, I
think he was setting himself up to replace Stare at
some point or go out on his own, which he
eventually did.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
This is Eric again, who first heard Stare during long
car rides with his dad. We called him back to
talk more about what he remembers of Dowell's early involvement
with Stare.
Speaker 10 (17:21):
But I remember passing Dowell calling into the show many times. Okay, Dowell,
he moved pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
By nineteen ninety eight, Dowell had become close enough to
the Last Day Prophet that he Stare and another man
from the Overcomer bought a property outside of Lafayette, Tennessee.
We've seen the records. Stair's name is right there next
to Dowell's.
Speaker 10 (17:44):
Without Stair, there's no doubt no one ever would have
known who he was.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Dowell was tasked with running this new Tennessee community, but
Stair's roll, well, that depends on who you ask. Eventually
it would become the site of Straightway Truth Ministries. It
was a win win ministry, and Lafayette brought money and
resources to the Overcomer, and the Overcomer brought members to Dowell.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
Looking back at it, it's very clear to me Dowell
was all about starting his own thing. He used there
as a stepping school. Dare broadcasted the name Charles Dowell
all over the world. Darre was like, here's Charles Dowell's number,
call him if you're in this area and go a
ton fellowship with him on Sabbath.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
This is basically what Stare told Eric in nineteen ninety
nine that he and his family should visit the property
in Tennessee. There, Eric met Pastor Dowell, and his first
impressions were not so great.
Speaker 9 (18:38):
Big blow hard. All he did is brag about himself
and the military. How bad I asked he was, how tough,
just NonStop talk about himself, he was the best at everything.
After I visited Charles Dowell number one, Charles Dowell at
the end said God's put in his heart that I
(19:01):
needed to move there. And I talked with Stare and
he believes the same thing. That I didn't really care
for the guy or trust him. So I remember writing
to Stare about not really wanting to move there, and
he told me if I didn't move there, basically I'd
be going to hell.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
During our interview, Eric said there was a voice in
the back of his head that said something doesn't seem right.
But regardless, as he remembers it, in the fall of
nineteen ninety nine. He did what he was told and
he moved his family to Tennessee. The property Straightway operates
there is about an hour and a half outside of Nashville.
(19:45):
It's the same property that Kabir wanted to take his
kids too. Instead of Washington d C. I think gently
rolling hillsides, lush green landscapes, dotted with creeks and big skies.
In the beginning, the community there was pretty bare bones
and undeveloped.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We lived in.
Speaker 9 (20:03):
Like a double wide trailer. They put us up there,
and they put in another guy in half of it. Woodstove,
no running water, did have electricity. They didn't even give
you high quality firewood. They would go get this cheap
slab wood that don't even burn through the whole night.
You got to wake up six times through the night
(20:23):
to fill the thing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Being a part of the overcomer wasn't supposed to be
about living comfortably. It was supposed to be about living
off the land and aiming for a life of simplicity.
Work was split up by traditional gender roles. Women were
mainly inside taking care of the children and doing housework.
Men were mainly outside, farming and building.
Speaker 9 (20:43):
We woke up and They put us to work, either
building buildings painting things. I remember they were building a
bath hall or a shower roomed kind of thing. Man,
I must have painted that thing six different times. If
there was no work, they would find work. They had
to have of you doing something.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Followers had no access to proper healthcare because they believed
Yah would heal. Children were homeschooled, and Michael and others
told us that children who were disobedient were met with
severe physical punishment. Sometimes that meant public beatings.
Speaker 8 (21:15):
They talked about homosexuality as an abomination.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
At ten years old, Michael knew he was gay, and
he lived in fear of being found out and becoming
the target of one of these whippings.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
They talked about it as being a symptom of a
decaying society. They talked about a gay person never being
able to go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Everything the community did and every decision they made, Eric
remembers was rooted in a mixture of fear and faith.
He says he was pulled in with the belief that
this is a righteous, godly community, the way God's people
are meant to live. But that's not how it felt
in reality. Eric didn't like Dowell, and from the way
Eric says Dowell treated it seemed like the feeling was
(22:01):
mutual when you.
Speaker 9 (22:03):
Ate breakfast or dinner. He was preaching and yap and
the whole time, and I was one of the ones
he singled out. He was a staff sergeant in military,
so he was used to people when he said jump
how high.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
But Eric wasn't willing to defer to Dowell.
Speaker 9 (22:22):
He would ask me certain questions and if I answered
it different than his opinion, he would sit there and
be rate me in front of everyone. It seemed like
every community had one person that kind of got picked on.
I know there were some upstairs. I was the one
at Dowell's because I would sit there and I was
(22:46):
respectful about it. I'd be like, no, sir, my don't agreement.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Eric felt abused and humiliated. Michael actually remembers this happening
to Eric too.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
When we first started going there. There was one guy
in particular that just I'll never forget them because of
the verbal abuse that he and his wife had to endure,
and then their little boy just sitting there like little
tiny kid, listening to that whole horror unfold.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Eric says it wasn't just psychological. He says he has
also taken advantage of financially. He turned over a substantial
amount of money to Dowel and the Overcomer. Anyone who
wants to live amongst the Saints. Both Dowel and Stair
call their followers Saints is expected to turn over all
their possessions, all their money, everything. Really, it's not a gift,
(23:36):
and it's not really an option. Eric had managed to
save a decent amount of money for a kid in
his mid twenties, but as a member of the community,
he was expected to give it all up. He doesn't
remember exactly how much he gave personally, but says Dowell
actually praised his generosity. We heard about other people who
gave huge sums. Michael says his brother gave twenty thousand
(23:57):
dollars and never got the money back when he left.
Speaker 9 (24:00):
They say they have all money in common.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
These donations were supposedly to help the whole community, but
Eric says.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
That is not true. He may give you money for
so few things, but you've got to ask for it.
It's not like it's a common pool. It's got to
be approved by him. If you ever get any of them.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
To Eric and others we talked to. It seemed clear
that within the Saints there were the haves and the
have nots, and Dowell was clearly a have.
Speaker 9 (24:28):
He's out eating fast food and we're eating slot.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Between the lack of food and all the physical labor,
Eric says he lost an alarming amount of weight. On
top of that, he felt surveilled. Eric worried anytime he
made a phone call someone might be listening.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
You had to be very careful, very careful, am I
how you doing? Of course you're telling him you're doing
all right when you're not necessarily doing all right because
somebody's sitting there listening.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And according to Michael and Eric, if you were on
the property, Dowell made sure Stare and his teachings were inescapable.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
In the day, so the Voice of the Seventh Angel
he international broadcast.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
He blared the overcomer radio broadcast from loud speakers throughout
the grounds there from early morning till late at night.
That's the dedication that he had for Brother Stare was
literally having his voice permeate the entire property all the time.
Speaker 9 (25:29):
All day long, every day. It was constantin doctor Nation.
I felt like I was living in North Korea, but
worse worse, if that's possible.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
It was late nineteen ninety nine and the clock was
ticking down toward the millennium, and Stare was ramping up
his messaging about the apocalyptic event he and others were
predicting in the year two thousand.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
He had this whole big thing he talked about. The
end of the world was come, maybe not immediately, but
get ready for it regardless even if it wasn't coming,
you should start getting ready. Kind of almost like you
would see like Preppers on TV. That's kind of what
that was like. It was like an early version of Preppers,
(26:14):
but with the religious aspect.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Added Eric says that Stare was so confident about his
prophecy that the millennium would kick off years of tribulation
that he made a resolution if the prophecy didn't turn
out to be true, he was going to go off
the air and stop broadcasting. But the year two thousand
came and went, the prediction fell flat.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
I have told you the damn judgment would be a
set time.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The last day. Prophet turned to his followers and placed
the blame on them. It was their fault. His prophecy
didn't pan out.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
I've told you that today had been sett in which
Almighty always would judge the world. And you have been judged,
and you have been weighed in the balance, and far
short you have rejected to knowledge of God. You have
refused to hear the voices of wanting of the prophets
(27:09):
in the ministry that I've said to you to tell
you that I will not be ignored. I am the
Almighty always.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
He said they had refused to hear what they needed
to hear. They weren't faithful enough. So Stara had a
new explanation for why, in fact, he still wasn't wrong.
Speaker 8 (27:27):
After the year two thousand hits, everyone was just like, man,
doesn't it feel different. There is a different spirit that's
taken over the world now, And that's what the prophecy
was about all along. People can tell themselves all sorts
of things to justify.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And that promise Stair made to his followers, the one
where he said he'd go off.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
The air about a week or two after two thousand,
you know, he's still stare with jabbering on radio every
day and he even ad dross people are asking me
why I didn't go off the radio, But he said,
I'm not going off the radio.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Eric's faith was shaken.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
I knew at that point I'd been scammed, fooled, and
lied too.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
At that point, Eric had only been living at Straightway
for less than a year, but he'd been struggling the
whole time. It wasn't just the lack of running water,
or the bad firewood, or even the rigidity of communal living.
It was that culture that Stare and Dowell built.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
I didn't know that you had to have blind obedience
to the leader.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
This is a recording from a radio interview Eric did
around this time.
Speaker 10 (28:36):
I wanted to.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Leave this place one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I did not want to be there.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
That was kind of I didn't care if I woke
up in the morning because.
Speaker 10 (28:44):
I was subjected to that kind of humiliation every day,
every day, right.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
In front of everyone.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Eric couldn't take it anymore. He left his son with
another Straightway member while he was working in the community,
and when he came home, his.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Butt was just welted with switch marks. They switches for spanking.
How dare somebody else touch my kid? You know, this
is one of the things that all added up to
me leaving.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
He went to tell Dowell that he was done.
Speaker 9 (29:14):
The day I finally decided to leave, he kind of
got up in my face. He puffed his chest out.
I thought he was gonna bump into me. It looked
me right in the face. Says, you're going to hell, Son,
You're gonna burn in the fires of hell and be
tortured by the sound of my voice in hell for eternity.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And that's what he said to me.
Speaker 9 (29:40):
He gathered everyone up, may just go on the dining
hall and he called Stare and non Stare pretty much
said almost the exact same thing. And he was laughing
at me the whole time. He was saying it. You know,
you know you're going to hell.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Here Eric was giving everything up all over again. And Stare,
the man he admired so much, who convinced him to
give up his money moved to Tennessee, was just laughing
at him. But even that couldn't dissuade him.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Now it's hard to explain.
Speaker 9 (30:12):
I didn't even recognize that I had been that beat
down and downtrodden. I felt alive again, and like I said, literally,
I've never had this feeling in my life. It's like
a hundred two hundred pounds just fell off me. It
was gone.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I was free.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Eric and his family left Tennessee and moved back to
their midwestern town. A few years later, he and others
filed a lawsuit against Ralph Stare for misuse of donations.
Eric testified in front of a jury and they sided
with him, but the decision was later overturned by this
South Carolina Supreme Court. And then, just two years after
the y two k prophecy fell flat, two years after
(31:07):
Eric left the property, something else happened that shocked and
divided the community.
Speaker 10 (31:12):
Reverend Stera anything you want to say, sir, bless you.
Are you running a cult at that compound?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (31:16):
I bless you, sir?
Speaker 10 (31:17):
Are you brainwashing people?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I bless you, sir.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
In two thousand and two, Stara was arrested on two
felony accounts of criminal sexual conduct. The victims two young
women living on Stair's South Carolina property.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Did you sexually assault those two people?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Two women?
Speaker 6 (31:32):
I bless you, sir.
Speaker 10 (31:33):
Do you have anything else to say besides I bless you?
Speaker 6 (31:35):
May God?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Bad?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
As I said earlier, Stara had a history with women.
He spoke of them as being subhuman and exerted tremendous
control over the women in his communities. He was known
to bring young women up front during his sermons, give
them unwonted hugs, touch them inappropriately in front of the congregation. Wait,
you got a little girl come here. Years of this
(32:01):
behavior finally caught up to him. Ultimately, Stair pled guilty
to two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery. He served
seventy seven days and returned to the overcomer. But that
wasn't the end. Over a decade later, he'd be arrested
again when more women came forward with even more serious charges,
including criminal sexual conduct with a minor. He'd later die
(32:24):
at home while awaiting trial.
Speaker 8 (32:27):
When Stair was accused of sexual misconduct and all that
kind of stuff and was arrested. And that's really when
the break happened.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
While Stare faced his legal reckoning, Dowell continued to oversee
the community in lafay At, Tennessee. Remember, up to this point,
Ster and Dowell have been linked religiously, financially and legally,
but now Dowell started to pull away.
Speaker 8 (32:51):
Doll's an ambitious guy. I imagine that there were the
first seeds of how do we disentangle ourselves from this
and move forward as our own entity. There was a
lot of confusion during that time as to where our
alliances rested, because I think Pastor Dowell like stuck by
(33:13):
him for a little while and did lip service to him,
and then it was full boar like separating yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Michael's family eventually left Stare and Dowell behind, and Michael
is still dealing with the fallout from his time in
the community, which we'll get to in a future episode.
In the years since, Dowell has engaged in some revisionist history,
coming up with an origin story for himself that barely
includes Stare. Dowell didn't speak to us for this podcast,
(33:40):
so we weren't able to ask him about his relationship
with Stare, but we do have his YouTube videos.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I steal to this day. I'm a Paul.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
How then I'm somehow guilty about association when I didn't
even have a dog in the race. I know the
reason why, because you know, I'm more well known.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
In some ways. It's worked. He's completely branded his ministry
and he's even made some legal and financial separations, like
Stair's name is no longer on the title to the
Tennessee property. To be clear, when Dowell did eventually break
away and Straightway became its own thing, it was a
bit different. Religiously, Dowell moved away from Stair's Pentecostal Christianity
(34:20):
and adopted Hebrew Israelism. Dowell kept the survivalist, apocalyptic mentality
of the Overcomer, but he took his own ministry down
a much more militaristic path. But Straightway is clearly modeled
off the Overcomer. It's like Dowell took Stair's playbook and
only changed a few routes. There's so many similarities. One
true leader, isolated religious communities preparing for the end times,
(34:44):
and a pattern of control over women.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Jezebel.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That is the word he used for me, over and
over and over again.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Something that's very telling about both Charles Dowell and Ralph
Stair were the fact that they talked about sex all
the time, like they were obviously like obsessed with sex.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
All the women look the same way, They all have
that blank expression they put on women that are already
broken and traumatized.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's next time on Spiraled. We sent an extensive list
of questions to Charles Dowell and Kabier Baja Biamila to
get their responses. We never heard back. Spiraled is a
production of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and One on
One Studios Podcasts. The show was reported by me Kaylen Kaylor,
(35:40):
with additional reporting by senior producer Buffy Gorilla. Writing service
provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design, 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 Manager at One
on One Studios. At iHeart podcas guests, Shawn Tuton is
(36:01):
our executive producer. Special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser,
and David Houdkin from One on one Studios. For more
shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
A man is walking through shallow water in the video,
filmed in twenty seventeen. He's tall and muscular. There's a
bit of excitement in his step. The way the sun
hits the surface, it looks for a moment like he
could actually be walking on water. He's heading towards a stockier,
barrel chested man standing in the creek. They shake hands
(00:20):
and share a laugh. If you listen closely, you can
hear I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh hey, got a brand news. Brother in the faith Israelite,
yet not unfamiliar with Christ.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
But we're gonna go ahead and baptize in the name of.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Jeez on the right way.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
A third man stands on the shore, reading scripture.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
Go you therefore, and teach you'r all nations, baptizing him
in the name of the Father, and of the Sun.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And of the Holy Spirit, all three waiting to the
middle of the creek. You can just about make out,
all right, brother kad be here, I be a miller.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Now I'm baptize you.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I'm the name of.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Pastor Dowell. And the man reading scripture tipped Kabir backwards
into the water, fully submerging him in the creek. And
then raising him back up to applause from the witnesses
on the shore. It's all taking place at the edge
of Straightway's Tennessee property. At the time Pastor Dowl baptized Kabir,
it had only been a few months since his wife
Eileen left home with their seven children, but Kabir had
(01:28):
pushed ahead with Straightway Anyway. At that point, he'd been
watching Pastor Dowel's videos for less than a year. YouTube
plays a major role in the story of Straightway. It's
how many people find the group, and it's how Straightway
shares its message with the world. In some ways that
makes YouTube the modern equivalent of shortwave radio. Both help
proselytizers attract believers far and wide. It was through the
(01:53):
radio that Pastor Dowel heard the voice that would set
him on a path to creating a religious community of
his own to borrow.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
South Carolina in the United States of America. Wait branking
you the overcomer radio broadcast.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
This is the voice of R. G. Stair, Ralph Stair.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
The Kingdom of Heaven is it had? Jesus Christ is
coming in your lifetime.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Stair was the leader and founder of the Overcomer Ministry,
a Penzecosta Christian group based in South Carolina. It was
there he built his following from the Overcomer Farm, an idealistic,
self sustaining community where he preached about the end times.
Speaker 7 (02:36):
This is the last generation and little children, it's the
last time a glorious church was out.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Spader Ankle and Stair had a nickname for himself, the.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Voice of the Last Day Prophet of God, sent to
all the nations of the world.
Speaker 8 (02:53):
This is Rgie Stair, last Day Prophet of God, which
is how he began every hour of every broadcast, horns blowing.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
In the days of the voice of the Seventh Angel,
when he shall begin to sound the profits.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This is Michael Burkhout as a kid. His mom was
a follower of Stairs, and Michael lived for about three
years in an Overcomer community.
Speaker 8 (03:23):
Here he is this like larger than life guy. He
was almost this like omnipotent being and in the eyes
of people who followed him, and he's tall, sort of bald,
with this big white beard, and he just would walk
into the room and he was in command and in control,
and it was just very obvious. Everyone sort of was
(03:44):
in all of him there.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
One of the people who was influenced by STARE was
a young Charles Dowell junior. He'd joined the Overcomer and
later started Straightway under its umbrella. Michael was young when
he was part of the Overcomer and it was not
a positive experience for him, you'll hear while he was there,
Michael met Dowell through STARE and witnessed the beginnings of
what would become Straightway Truth Ministries.
Speaker 8 (04:07):
I've watched from Afar as their ministry or as their group,
their organization has changed and evolved into something that's even
worse than what I experienced.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Over the years, Michael has kept tabs on it as
Dowell expanded on the foundation that STARE built.
Speaker 8 (04:27):
I've seen it get bigger and I've seen their views
on social media grow, and I just I feel like
to tell the story of Straightway, you have to start
at the beginning, and that's where I sort of was involved,
was in the beginning, and I think it's really important
to realize the connections that they had with Overcomer and
(04:49):
just sort of the roots of what currently exists, and
I just I want to warn people about it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So in this episode, we're going back and diving into
the movement that gave Dowell his start. This is Spiral
Episode three, Little Prophet, I'm calin Kaylor.
Speaker 6 (05:28):
This is a voice that has heard around the world,
seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, into
all the nations of the world. Ladies and gentlemen. This
is Brother Staire and it's time.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Now for us to Ralph. Stair found his audience by
preaching over shortwave radio, the kind that picks up signals
from far corners of the world. Cumbia, music from South America,
news from Europe, and preachers from across the US and Canada.
Speaker 9 (05:54):
If you've turned nine AM radio in the middle of
the night, you would find him. You had a short
waiver radio, you would hear he was everywhere.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
This is Eric. He asked that we only use his
first name. Eric was also once part of the Overcomer,
and he's worried about his reputation if people find out.
In the eighties, Eric was just a teenager hanging out
with his dad. They'd be driving through the Midwestern woods
listening to preachers on the radio, and one they'd hear
all the time was Brother Stare.
Speaker 9 (06:25):
This was before the Internet and all that, so I
guess instead of surf in the internet, he was surfing
the radio.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Stair was a conservative Pentecostal minister. He preached about repenting
her sins, accepting the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and
divine healing. He was inspired by the Book of Acts,
which describes early Christians living communally, and there was a
strong misogynistic tone to many of his broadcasts.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
She gets fat, see, I said, you don't get like
you said? You no, why you big old fat thing,
big mouth smart.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Alec sach that women were inferior. He expected obedience. He
didn't like women to work outside the home. People we
spoke to told us that Stair hated women and believed
them to be subhuman, and he taught that homosexuality was
a sin an abomination.
Speaker 8 (07:17):
They didn't even talk about like rehabilitation of gay people,
the like conversion therapy and that sort of thing. This
is a flawed human being, unworthy of salvation.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
As Eric got older, he and Star had an on again,
off again relationship. He'd listened if Stera happened to be
on the radio, but he'd also drift away. During one
of the on agon times, Eric and his dad actually
went to a gathering and met some of Stair's followers
who liked them. Listened to Stair's preaching every weekend. It
left an impression, but Eric wasn't ready to go all in.
(07:55):
Life went on, and then he was expecting his first child.
Speaker 9 (07:59):
My wife was pregnant. We started becoming more interested in religion.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
He started thinking about what he wanted his family to
look like, what kind of parent he wanted to be,
and what kinds of values were important to him. What
he had seen at the Overcomer meetup came back to him.
Moral people living a more simple life. The husbands and
wives seemed happier. Eric remembers that even the children seemed
better behaved. So one night, when Stara got to the
(08:27):
part of his sermon where he asked for contributions on.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Nailing address for your correspondence your letter support, you just
address your letter to me, Brother Stare Stai R.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Brother Stare, Eric started sending money to the Overcomer. He
had a decent union job. His family wasn't rich, but
they did all right. They started making regular donations to
the Overcomer ministry, sending checks in the mail. Eric sometimes
sent letters to and over time he became penpals with
brother Stare.
Speaker 9 (09:01):
You don't expect that here's a guy on a worldwide
radio he's writing me back.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Wow. You know.
Speaker 9 (09:10):
One of the things that R. G. Stair encouraged was
to meet people that listen to his broadcast. He would
have these things called gatherings where he would have people
come down to South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
They'd meet at the Overcomer Farm. Stare encouraged people to
move there or to the other satellite communities full time.
He wanted people to live as he said the early
Christians had, pooling everything they owned, selling their property and possessions,
and sharing the money with the community.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
Imagine going from being just an ordinary person to suddenly
being in this exclusive club of people who are in
the know and have the inside track on life. And
I think, I think that that's intoxicating.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Michael Burkhau's mom and brother had also gotten hooked on
Stair via his radio program, and they also wanted to
join an overcomer community.
Speaker 8 (10:12):
I think that they were both at periods in their
life where things just were sort of monotonous and flat.
Maybe my brother was struggling. Maybe my mom it was
a point in her life where she was looking for more,
we were told prepare your spirit, because if brother Staires
(10:35):
senses a spirit that doesn't belong here, you will be
thrown out and you will not be able to return,
and that's essentially damnation right there.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
This is really critical to understand, especially if you didn't
grow up in this kind of religious community. The idea
is that coming with the right spirit this was important
not only in this life, but also to eternal life.
A lot of the Overcomers members had been listening to
Stair's voice for years. He was their connection to God
and to a community.
Speaker 7 (11:09):
Hello, this should brush daire as a believer in Christ.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I just want to ask, like, what's the next event
that's going to like lead to this new world order.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I just wanted to say that I heard part.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
Of your German when you were in Ohio, and I
thought you were Excellentia.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
If Stara told you to go to a community and
you didn't go, you were basically going against the word
of God. So when Stari started suggesting that followers from
across the country get together.
Speaker 9 (11:39):
That's when things started to get in real serious. So
as it got yere close to the year two thousand,
he was saying a lot of things.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
As y two k approached, Stara was gaining followers and momentum.
He prophesied that there was going to be a major
event at the turn of the new millennium. Whatever this
event was, it would kick off a period of tribulation,
after which the world would come to an end. To prepare,
Stara was gathering his followers together.
Speaker 9 (12:37):
It was really pressuring people to move into his Christian
communities that he overseen.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Sterara compared what he was doing to Noah and the Ark.
The door was closing around two thousand. If you weren't
on the metaphorical arc, you'd be out of luck. Even
though Eric was skeptical, he was also afraid of the alternative,
afraid enough that he was starting to question where he
wanted to be. On midnight January first, two thousand, followers
(13:03):
were leaving their old lives behind and relocating to the
Overcomer's main community in South Carolina and to outposts in
places like Kentucky and Oklahoma. Stare told Eric that he
should visit one of the newer Overcomer properties in Lafayette, Tennessee,
to see if he and his family could live there.
So he headed south from his home in the Midwest
to a community called Straightway, which was overseen by an
(13:27):
eager young pastor named Charles Dowell Junior. That's after the
break in the nineteen nineties, after he got out of
(13:49):
the military, a twenty nine year old Charles Dowell Junior
was exploring his faith and what he wanted from his
post army life. He'd grown up Baptist and says while
he was still in the military, and he was moved
by the Holy Spirit. Back in the civilian world, Dowell
began to study under a bishop and started to climb
the church hierarchy from layperson to deacon to minister. But
(14:11):
the more he learned and preached, the more questions he had.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
After I left there and got the military, came back home,
I was still even more deeper in studying, and I
continue to keep discovering more lies.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Years later, Kabir would ask Dowell about this moment in
an interview for his YouTube channel, and in his answer,
Doowel sounds a bit like Kabir. Up to that point,
Dowell had been a soldier. His days were filled with discipline, structure,
and testosterone, and then suddenly all that was gone.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
These pastors, they don't really truly care about. I'm gonna
use word soul because everybody's used to that word is
but I did. I did, And so I had this
driving me that on my watch, whoever to me, they're
going to know the truth.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Dowall was questioning what he was reading in the Bible,
and soon he was dabbling with his own ministry.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So I would just.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Preach to myself, Carol and my two children.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
It started as a family affair. His wife was there,
his daughter sang a song, his son read scripture.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
And I would turn around the lazy boy and that
was pull pit and I put the Bible on it.
I just preached it them.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
At that time, Dowall was especially interested in the Book
of Acts, the same book that influenced Ralph Stare. Dowell
liked this idea of a shared community of faith breaking
bread together, everyone selling their possessions and having a shared purpose.
He started to think about creating a community like this now.
So he shared his idea with the head of the
church he was part of.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
And he said to me, he said, it ain't going
to work. And I said, maybe he's not going to
work because nobody has ever tried it. So I started
getting on radios. I started looking around and trying to
find other people who was maybe doing something similar to
this so I could get an ideal on dynamic.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And he did find someone.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
I said, he Advice Studio, and I'm looking out across
our little.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Farm, Ralph Stare.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
And I could feel now as I change from the
actor of God, and I could feel his love say.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Come on see.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Dowell started listening to Stare on the radio, and like
so many others before him, he heard something in Stair's message.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I had a lot of respect for him, preaching straightforward,
the old time, hard hitting hold of his message. I'd
mostly just tune in and listen. Very nice people, beautiful
people on the community, everybody meek, humble, choirespear. They got
along as well.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Dowell became a believer and made a trip to South
Carolina to meet Stair. In fact, Donwell became so close
to the Last Day Prophet that within the Overcomer he
would earn a nickname.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The Little Profit.
Speaker 9 (16:55):
He was a little Stair Ergie Stair. Stair was the
Last Day So by calling Dowell the Little Prophet, I
think he was setting himself up to replace Stare at
some point or go out on his own, which he
eventually did.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
This is Eric again, who first heard Stare during long
car rides with his dad. We called him back to
talk more about what he remembers of Dowell's early involvement
with Stare.
Speaker 10 (17:21):
But I remember passing Dowell calling into the show many times. Okay, Dowell,
he moved pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
By nineteen ninety eight, Dowell had become close enough to
the Last Day Prophet that he Stare and another man
from the Overcomer bought a property outside of Lafayette, Tennessee.
We've seen the records. Stair's name is right there next
to Dowell's.
Speaker 10 (17:44):
Without Stair, there's no doubt no one ever would have
known who he was.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Dowell was tasked with running this new Tennessee community, but
Stair's roll, well, that depends on who you ask. Eventually
it would become the site of Straightway Truth Ministries. It
was a win win ministry, and Lafayette brought money and
resources to the Overcomer, and the Overcomer brought members to Dowell.
Speaker 10 (18:06):
Looking back at it, it's very clear to me Dowell
was all about starting his own thing. He used there
as a stepping school. Dare broadcasted the name Charles Dowell
all over the world. Darre was like, here's Charles Dowell's number,
call him if you're in this area and go a
ton fellowship with him on Sabbath.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
This is basically what Stare told Eric in nineteen ninety
nine that he and his family should visit the property
in Tennessee. There, Eric met Pastor Dowell, and his first
impressions were not so great.
Speaker 9 (18:38):
Big blow hard. All he did is brag about himself
and the military. How bad I asked he was, how tough,
just NonStop talk about himself, he was the best at everything.
After I visited Charles Dowell number one, Charles Dowell at
the end said God's put in his heart that I
(19:01):
needed to move there. And I talked with Stare and
he believes the same thing. That I didn't really care
for the guy or trust him. So I remember writing
to Stare about not really wanting to move there, and
he told me if I didn't move there, basically I'd
be going to hell.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
During our interview, Eric said there was a voice in
the back of his head that said something doesn't seem right.
But regardless, as he remembers it, in the fall of
nineteen ninety nine. He did what he was told and
he moved his family to Tennessee. The property Straightway operates
there is about an hour and a half outside of Nashville.
(19:45):
It's the same property that Kabir wanted to take his
kids too. Instead of Washington d C. I think gently
rolling hillsides, lush green landscapes, dotted with creeks and big skies.
In the beginning, the community there was pretty bare bones
and undeveloped.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We lived in.
Speaker 9 (20:03):
Like a double wide trailer. They put us up there,
and they put in another guy in half of it. Woodstove,
no running water, did have electricity. They didn't even give
you high quality firewood. They would go get this cheap
slab wood that don't even burn through the whole night.
You got to wake up six times through the night
(20:23):
to fill the thing.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Being a part of the overcomer wasn't supposed to be
about living comfortably. It was supposed to be about living
off the land and aiming for a life of simplicity.
Work was split up by traditional gender roles. Women were
mainly inside taking care of the children and doing housework.
Men were mainly outside, farming and building.
Speaker 9 (20:43):
We woke up and They put us to work, either
building buildings painting things. I remember they were building a
bath hall or a shower roomed kind of thing. Man,
I must have painted that thing six different times. If
there was no work, they would find work. They had
to have of you doing something.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Followers had no access to proper healthcare because they believed
Yah would heal. Children were homeschooled, and Michael and others
told us that children who were disobedient were met with
severe physical punishment. Sometimes that meant public beatings.
Speaker 8 (21:15):
They talked about homosexuality as an abomination.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
At ten years old, Michael knew he was gay, and
he lived in fear of being found out and becoming
the target of one of these whippings.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
They talked about it as being a symptom of a
decaying society. They talked about a gay person never being
able to go to heaven.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Everything the community did and every decision they made, Eric
remembers was rooted in a mixture of fear and faith.
He says he was pulled in with the belief that
this is a righteous, godly community, the way God's people
are meant to live. But that's not how it felt
in reality. Eric didn't like Dowell, and from the way
Eric says Dowell treated it seemed like the feeling was
(22:01):
mutual when you.
Speaker 9 (22:03):
Ate breakfast or dinner. He was preaching and yap and
the whole time, and I was one of the ones
he singled out. He was a staff sergeant in military,
so he was used to people when he said jump
how high.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
But Eric wasn't willing to defer to Dowell.
Speaker 9 (22:22):
He would ask me certain questions and if I answered
it different than his opinion, he would sit there and
be rate me in front of everyone. It seemed like
every community had one person that kind of got picked on.
I know there were some upstairs. I was the one
at Dowell's because I would sit there and I was
(22:46):
respectful about it. I'd be like, no, sir, my don't agreement.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Eric felt abused and humiliated. Michael actually remembers this happening
to Eric too.
Speaker 8 (22:56):
When we first started going there. There was one guy
in particular that just I'll never forget them because of
the verbal abuse that he and his wife had to endure,
and then their little boy just sitting there like little
tiny kid, listening to that whole horror unfold.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Eric says it wasn't just psychological. He says he has
also taken advantage of financially. He turned over a substantial
amount of money to Dowel and the Overcomer. Anyone who
wants to live amongst the Saints. Both Dowel and Stair
call their followers Saints is expected to turn over all
their possessions, all their money, everything. Really, it's not a gift,
(23:36):
and it's not really an option. Eric had managed to
save a decent amount of money for a kid in
his mid twenties, but as a member of the community,
he was expected to give it all up. He doesn't
remember exactly how much he gave personally, but says Dowell
actually praised his generosity. We heard about other people who
gave huge sums. Michael says his brother gave twenty thousand
(23:57):
dollars and never got the money back when he left.
Speaker 9 (24:00):
They say they have all money in common.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
These donations were supposedly to help the whole community, but
Eric says.
Speaker 9 (24:07):
That is not true. He may give you money for
so few things, but you've got to ask for it.
It's not like it's a common pool. It's got to
be approved by him. If you ever get any of them.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
To Eric and others we talked to. It seemed clear
that within the Saints there were the haves and the
have nots, and Dowell was clearly a have.
Speaker 9 (24:28):
He's out eating fast food and we're eating slot.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Between the lack of food and all the physical labor,
Eric says he lost an alarming amount of weight. On
top of that, he felt surveilled. Eric worried anytime he
made a phone call someone might be listening.
Speaker 9 (24:43):
You had to be very careful, very careful, am I
how you doing? Of course you're telling him you're doing
all right when you're not necessarily doing all right because
somebody's sitting there listening.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And according to Michael and Eric, if you were on
the property, Dowell made sure Stare and his teachings were inescapable.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
In the day, so the Voice of the Seventh Angel
he international broadcast.
Speaker 8 (25:06):
He blared the overcomer radio broadcast from loud speakers throughout
the grounds there from early morning till late at night.
That's the dedication that he had for Brother Stare was
literally having his voice permeate the entire property all the time.
Speaker 9 (25:29):
All day long, every day. It was constantin doctor Nation.
I felt like I was living in North Korea, but
worse worse, if that's possible.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
It was late nineteen ninety nine and the clock was
ticking down toward the millennium, and Stare was ramping up
his messaging about the apocalyptic event he and others were
predicting in the year two thousand.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
He had this whole big thing he talked about. The
end of the world was come, maybe not immediately, but
get ready for it regardless even if it wasn't coming,
you should start getting ready. Kind of almost like you
would see like Preppers on TV. That's kind of what
that was like. It was like an early version of Preppers,
(26:14):
but with the religious aspect.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Added Eric says that Stare was so confident about his
prophecy that the millennium would kick off years of tribulation
that he made a resolution if the prophecy didn't turn
out to be true, he was going to go off
the air and stop broadcasting. But the year two thousand
came and went, the prediction fell flat.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
I have told you the damn judgment would be a
set time.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The last day. Prophet turned to his followers and placed
the blame on them. It was their fault. His prophecy
didn't pan out.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
I've told you that today had been sett in which
Almighty always would judge the world. And you have been judged,
and you have been weighed in the balance, and far
short you have rejected to knowledge of God. You have
refused to hear the voices of wanting of the prophets
(27:09):
in the ministry that I've said to you to tell
you that I will not be ignored. I am the
Almighty always.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
He said they had refused to hear what they needed
to hear. They weren't faithful enough. So Stara had a
new explanation for why, in fact, he still wasn't wrong.
Speaker 8 (27:27):
After the year two thousand hits, everyone was just like, man,
doesn't it feel different. There is a different spirit that's
taken over the world now, And that's what the prophecy
was about all along. People can tell themselves all sorts
of things to justify.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And that promise Stair made to his followers, the one
where he said he'd go off.
Speaker 9 (27:52):
The air about a week or two after two thousand,
you know, he's still stare with jabbering on radio every
day and he even ad dross people are asking me
why I didn't go off the radio, But he said,
I'm not going off the radio.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Eric's faith was shaken.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
I knew at that point I'd been scammed, fooled, and
lied too.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
At that point, Eric had only been living at Straightway
for less than a year, but he'd been struggling the
whole time. It wasn't just the lack of running water,
or the bad firewood, or even the rigidity of communal living.
It was that culture that Stare and Dowell built.
Speaker 9 (28:29):
I didn't know that you had to have blind obedience
to the leader.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
This is a recording from a radio interview Eric did
around this time.
Speaker 10 (28:36):
I wanted to.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Leave this place one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I did not want to be there.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
That was kind of I didn't care if I woke
up in the morning because.
Speaker 10 (28:44):
I was subjected to that kind of humiliation every day,
every day, right.
Speaker 9 (28:49):
In front of everyone.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Eric couldn't take it anymore. He left his son with
another Straightway member while he was working in the community,
and when he came home, his.
Speaker 9 (28:58):
Butt was just welted with switch marks. They switches for spanking.
How dare somebody else touch my kid? You know, this
is one of the things that all added up to
me leaving.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
He went to tell Dowell that he was done.
Speaker 9 (29:14):
The day I finally decided to leave, he kind of
got up in my face. He puffed his chest out.
I thought he was gonna bump into me. It looked
me right in the face. Says, you're going to hell, Son,
You're gonna burn in the fires of hell and be
tortured by the sound of my voice in hell for eternity.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
And that's what he said to me.
Speaker 9 (29:40):
He gathered everyone up, may just go on the dining
hall and he called Stare and non Stare pretty much
said almost the exact same thing. And he was laughing
at me the whole time. He was saying it. You know,
you know you're going to hell.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Here Eric was giving everything up all over again. And Stare,
the man he admired so much, who convinced him to
give up his money moved to Tennessee, was just laughing
at him. But even that couldn't dissuade him.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Now it's hard to explain.
Speaker 9 (30:12):
I didn't even recognize that I had been that beat
down and downtrodden. I felt alive again, and like I said, literally,
I've never had this feeling in my life. It's like
a hundred two hundred pounds just fell off me. It
was gone.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I was free.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Eric and his family left Tennessee and moved back to
their midwestern town. A few years later, he and others
filed a lawsuit against Ralph Stare for misuse of donations.
Eric testified in front of a jury and they sided
with him, but the decision was later overturned by this
South Carolina Supreme Court. And then, just two years after
the y two k prophecy fell flat, two years after
(31:07):
Eric left the property, something else happened that shocked and
divided the community.
Speaker 10 (31:12):
Reverend Stera anything you want to say, sir, bless you.
Are you running a cult at that compound?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Sir?
Speaker 6 (31:16):
I bless you, sir?
Speaker 10 (31:17):
Are you brainwashing people?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
I bless you, sir.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
In two thousand and two, Stara was arrested on two
felony accounts of criminal sexual conduct. The victims two young
women living on Stair's South Carolina property.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Did you sexually assault those two people?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Two women?
Speaker 6 (31:32):
I bless you, sir.
Speaker 10 (31:33):
Do you have anything else to say besides I bless you?
Speaker 6 (31:35):
May God?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Bad?
Speaker 1 (31:36):
As I said earlier, Stara had a history with women.
He spoke of them as being subhuman and exerted tremendous
control over the women in his communities. He was known
to bring young women up front during his sermons, give
them unwonted hugs, touch them inappropriately in front of the congregation. Wait,
you got a little girl come here. Years of this
(32:01):
behavior finally caught up to him. Ultimately, Stair pled guilty
to two misdemeanor counts of assault and battery. He served
seventy seven days and returned to the overcomer. But that
wasn't the end. Over a decade later, he'd be arrested
again when more women came forward with even more serious charges,
including criminal sexual conduct with a minor. He'd later die
(32:24):
at home while awaiting trial.
Speaker 8 (32:27):
When Stair was accused of sexual misconduct and all that
kind of stuff and was arrested. And that's really when
the break happened.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
While Stare faced his legal reckoning, Dowell continued to oversee
the community in lafay At, Tennessee. Remember, up to this point,
Ster and Dowell have been linked religiously, financially and legally,
but now Dowell started to pull away.
Speaker 8 (32:51):
Doll's an ambitious guy. I imagine that there were the
first seeds of how do we disentangle ourselves from this
and move forward as our own entity. There was a
lot of confusion during that time as to where our
alliances rested, because I think Pastor Dowell like stuck by
(33:13):
him for a little while and did lip service to him,
and then it was full boar like separating yourself.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Michael's family eventually left Stare and Dowell behind, and Michael
is still dealing with the fallout from his time in
the community, which we'll get to in a future episode.
In the years since, Dowell has engaged in some revisionist history,
coming up with an origin story for himself that barely
includes Stare. Dowell didn't speak to us for this podcast,
(33:40):
so we weren't able to ask him about his relationship
with Stare, but we do have his YouTube videos.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I steal to this day. I'm a Paul.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
How then I'm somehow guilty about association when I didn't
even have a dog in the race. I know the
reason why, because you know, I'm more well known.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
In some ways. It's worked. He's completely branded his ministry
and he's even made some legal and financial separations, like
Stair's name is no longer on the title to the
Tennessee property. To be clear, when Dowell did eventually break
away and Straightway became its own thing, it was a
bit different. Religiously, Dowell moved away from Stair's Pentecostal Christianity
(34:20):
and adopted Hebrew Israelism. Dowell kept the survivalist, apocalyptic mentality
of the Overcomer, but he took his own ministry down
a much more militaristic path. But Straightway is clearly modeled
off the Overcomer. It's like Dowell took Stair's playbook and
only changed a few routes. There's so many similarities. One
true leader, isolated religious communities preparing for the end times,
(34:44):
and a pattern of control over women.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Jezebel.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That is the word he used for me, over and
over and over again.
Speaker 8 (34:51):
Something that's very telling about both Charles Dowell and Ralph
Stair were the fact that they talked about sex all
the time, like they were obviously like obsessed with sex.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
All the women look the same way, They all have
that blank expression they put on women that are already
broken and traumatized.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
That's next time on Spiraled. We sent an extensive list
of questions to Charles Dowell and Kabier Baja Biamila to
get their responses. We never heard back. Spiraled is a
production of Sports Illustrated Studios, iHeart Podcasts and One on
One Studios Podcasts. The show was reported by me Kaylen Kaylor,
(35:40):
with additional reporting by senior producer Buffy Gorilla. Writing service
provided by Buffy Gorilla and Jen Kinney, sound design, 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 Manager at One
on One Studios. At iHeart podcas guests, Shawn Tuton is
(36:01):
our executive producer. Special thank you to Michelle Newman, David Glasser,
and David Houdkin from One on one Studios. For more
shows from iHeart Podcasts, go visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
Host
Kalyn Kahler
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.