Drink about something
True crime and some fun banter adventures with music you don't want to miss!
Lindsey finds stories that are amazingly shocking enough that you just may need a drink after or during the tales of past crime trauma!
Drink about something
EPISODE 12: HOME TOWN CULT
What happens when a small town in Florida becomes the focal point of an apocalyptic belief system? Join us as we unravel the story of Mead Ministries, a cult that transformed Lake City into its sanctuary under the leadership of the enigmatic Charles Meade. From Meade's turbulent past to the tragic consequences of his extreme faith-healing practices, we share personal anecdotes and experiences that paint a vivid picture of life under the cult's influence. As we sip our favorite drinks, we explore how Meade's beliefs shaped a generation and left a lasting impact on the community.
Step back into the 1970s and 80s with us, a time when charismatic leaders like Charles Meade wielded dangerous influence over their followers. Listen to chilling stories of medical neglect and the struggles faced by those who dared to question the group's oppressive rules. We offer insights into the strict lifestyle of the End Timer children, from their arranged marriages to their cultural dominance in Lake City. Despite the group's harrowing past, discover how Meade's grandson, James, sought to mend broken ties and bring about positive change within the community.
Our journey is enriched with tales of local music connections and unforgettable personalities, including memories of playing with Saving Abel and their then-singer, Scotty Austin. As we reflect on these experiences, we consider the broader implications of cult-like movements on small communities and the importance of embracing technology and modern medicine. With a hopeful message for the New Year, we invite you to join us in this exploration of faith, history, and personal growth, as we toast to new beginnings and the power of transformation.
Hey, jesse, hey, happy New Year, lindsay. Yes, we are there, yeah 2025.
Speaker 2:Yes, we hope you guys had an amazing Christmas. We did, even though we followed it up with this great little sickness we got going on right now. So bear with our voices. Yes, we got the funk.
Speaker 3:Gotta have that funk, we got the funk. Gotta have that funk, we got the funk.
Speaker 1:Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Today, he's going to sound like his head is under water. So what are you drinking?
Speaker 3:Head's under water and I'm feeling fine.
Speaker 1:I'm drinking, you're crazy and I'm out of mind. It's a bullet. It's a bullet mixed. Is that the old-fashioned? Old-fashioned?
Speaker 2:old-fashioned in a bottle. Yeah, old-fashioned in a box.
Speaker 1:It's an already fashioned, old-fashioned yeah, it's good, old-fashioned. It's like 80 proof or something. It's good and it helps with this cold and, uh, it goes in my little coffee and it's rattly, rattly and I like it. It makes me feel better and I broke a sweat finally. So I'm feeling better so we can record. It took us all day long of me being very pissy. I was very pissy all day, but I'm here, I did it, we figured this thing out and we're here.
Speaker 2:We're recording, we have some technical difficulties. And it is now 10.03 pm. This is the latest we've ever recorded.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're old.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I want to get off into a little bit of this.
Speaker 2:I marathoned in the John Wick.
Speaker 1:You did.
Speaker 2:You did. I didn't finish the fourth one yet. We'll do that one later.
Speaker 1:I fell asleep. I marathoned in some sleep.
Speaker 2:Try to get better. I did. I did those off and on.
Speaker 1:Them grand young has done, got us, uh-huh, the black plague.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to edit out some cough. Yeah, that's all good, all right so.
Speaker 1:What are you drinking?
Speaker 2:I'm having a White Claw.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:I think it's Black Cherry. I'm almost empty.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to go get another one. You do all the Black Cherries and the Black Berries, bam, bam.
Speaker 2:I know I'm going to go get a strawberry Strawberry.
Speaker 1:Strawberry. They're good, they're good. And what are we going to be drinking about?
Speaker 2:Well, as you well know, we have had a little cult in our town since around the 80s that I want to talk about today.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I know a little bit about this, I know a little bit about old Charlie Meade, mm-hmm. Charles Charles, charles Murphy Meade, sorry.
Speaker 2:I had to fix my phone Charlie Murphy Meade. Charlie Murphy. There's nothing cool about this dude. Oh okay, oh, charlie Murphy was awesome.
Speaker 1:It was very shady growing up here. So, oh, charlie Murphy was awesome, it was very shady growing up here. So I mean, I got a little tidbit. Do you want me to rattle off a couple things first, to see if any of my stuff ties into what you're fixing to say, or do you want to just go ahead? Hey, happy friday and 2025.
Speaker 1:yes, our first episode of 2025 we're in here, we're up in here and we're going to talk about a cult here in our town. It hasn't been a lot done on it. No, I haven't seen a lot about it, so me I mean, we're nothing, we're just like city. Mead Ministries. It goes all the way back to my childhood, early childhood. And you want me to talk about some of that?
Speaker 2:Let me do my opening paragraph and then I'll let you go. Okay, how about that? So go, Lindsay, All right. So this week we're going to talk about a very big cult that was in our area for many years. This cult was under the evangelical church name Mead Ministries and nicknamed the End Timers. Named Meade Ministries and nicknamed the End Timers. They were called that because the leader, Charles Meade, had had a revelation from God that our little town of Lake City, Florida, would be the surviving area during the end of days.
Speaker 1:Y'all better be living right. Jesus is coming. I ain't shitting you.
Speaker 2:Oh God, listen, yeah, I actually heard him say some shit like that in his voice. You haven't. That's funny. So even though most lived in what is called the Columbia City area and that is where the church was located as well. Over the years, jesse and I have known a few members of this cult and I've worked with several, but I'm going to go into a little background into Charles Meade. But I'm going to go into a little background into Charles Meade. He was born on December 24th 1916 in Oil Springs, kentucky, which is west of Paintsville, kentucky.
Speaker 2:I know that place very well, now tell me what you know.
Speaker 1:I went to Meade Memorial School. Yeah, I went to Meade Memorial school in in that same area, and they were called guess what? The red devils.
Speaker 3:What.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right, you told me that.
Speaker 1:So I grew up back in a holler, which is just a cut between the woods and the and the and the hills, back in a holler, next to a railroad track, in a refurbished chicken coop, and we'll take a sip on that. Yeah me too. That's something to drink about.
Speaker 2:And we're drinking about something that was my last sip.
Speaker 1:But yeah, refurbished chicken coop down by the railroad tracks and I spent pre-K and kindergarten, first and second grade there Before we moved to Lake City, floridaida. I guess we both had the same calling no, but I remember this school was kind of very, very backwards, old-timey they.
Speaker 2:I wonder if that was his family, because I didn't find anything about the main memorial school.
Speaker 1:I guarantee it was his family.
Speaker 2:I could have googled that I didn't even think of that.
Speaker 1:It was within 20 mile radius. Right there, I mean had to have, I mean yeah, I mean that's where he's from.
Speaker 3:So had to have been.
Speaker 1:So. That was me growing up right there, and I spent a few years there growing up and becoming a little uh, a little boy well, mead was either the ninth or the 12th of 15 children.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, there's documents that say that.
Speaker 1:So he has a bunch.
Speaker 2:The church literature says the 12th, I believe, and then actual facts say the 9th, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's why they were so charismatic, because the red devils were upon him.
Speaker 2:The devils were upon us Now. He reportedly served in the armed forces and fought on the front lines of World War II.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Church literature said that he was injured more than once, but none of this was in his service record. According to actual army records, he was drafted in 1942. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers in Algeria, italy, germany and France. According to his discharge record, he earned eight bronze stars. There is no indication that he was wounded and was honorably discharged on September 20th 1945.
Speaker 1:I mean you don't get those bronze stars unless you're in some shit. Oh really, yeah, you don't just get those. Okay yeah, you have to do tours.
Speaker 2:Those are like uh that doesn't mean that he was injured no, no, because, according to purple heart, church literature. He was injured and the biblical knowledge that he knew is what saved him from those injuries. So that was kind of like that was part of his self or maybe he missed a claimed prophet.
Speaker 1:God shit like protected him from injury while he was doing some stuff. You did like he did tours, though. That's how you get those, I think.
Speaker 2:So after the war Meade found work in the lab of the Owens Illinois Glass Company in Muncie Indiana. He worked there for one year. Glass company in Muncie Indiana. He worked there for one year, then became a clerk at Ball Brothers Glass Manufacturing Company. This company employed Meade until 1961, but from 1948 to 1950, he had become a felon.
Speaker 1:Really. Oh, he had become a felon, really.
Speaker 2:Oh, on April 17th 1948, according to court records, meade flew into a rage and plunged a knife into a man named Lucius Morrow in front of an eyewitness. Wow, he fled the scene but was caught three days later. At first he pled not guilty, but then switched his plea to guilty and was given the max sentence, which was 10 years. But he got off early due to good behavior. Now, at age 44, he was pretty much like professionally unemployed. I don't know how. I don't understand. We're almost there. Could you imagine being unemployed?
Speaker 1:I haven't found my niche yet. I'm going to use the end of the world for that.
Speaker 2:So he would go on to join the Glory Barn and Faith Assembly. This was a Pentecostal group led by another self-professed prophet named Hubart Freeman.
Speaker 1:Let me add that I went to a Pentecostal church when I was like six and watched a man die and shit on himself.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I didn't have that church experience.
Speaker 2:I had some other shit, but that no yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember that they put him on a stretcher and it was just like he had poo-poos.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in the name of Jesus, he, you know he went to heaven for sure.
Speaker 2:We think yeah so oh, uh oh, freeman would take mead under his wing and teach him the ways of faith healing. They would have a falling out, and then they parted ways. Between 1973 and 1984, indiana officials would later document 94 deaths of the members of the faith assembly who had not received medical care because of the faith healing mentality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were just like God's going to heal you. You're fine, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You're dying right in front of us. Pray it away, pray it away.
Speaker 1:We're just going to let it's in God's hands, oh God, so how many?
Speaker 3:94., 94., 94.
Speaker 2:And 42 of these deaths were children. Oh, my goodness, listen. One of those deaths was Freeman was actually indicted for, and this was for a 15-year-old girl who had a treatable kidney disease but before Some penicillin just died. Probably, yeah, or um what's?
Speaker 1:what is it that they use for kidneys um dialysis? Yeah, a little something. A little little treatment here and there yeah, well, dialysis. If you're on dialysis it's a long but but you can overcome it and then then if you get a transplant or whatever, but it could have been a kidney stone. It could have just been something simple. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 2:you know, I was going to say I've had that problem since I was 36.
Speaker 1:Especially in the 80s, like it's came a long ways now. But like, yeah, you get a little bit of penicillin, like let's flush it out, we'll see if we can fix it. You know, being young too, you know.
Speaker 2:But before his trial, of course, Freeman also died of untreated pneumonia.
Speaker 1:So he was the leader of the whole shebang bang sheboygan.
Speaker 2:Well, he was here. Charles Meade, I guess, got a lot of his inspiration. Yeah, it was his idol yeah. And you know I used to really want to be part of the 70s, but the more I listened to true crime cases, whether it be about actual murders or cults, it's fuck 70s man. And the 80s Serial.
Speaker 1:How many times did you hear you were going to go to hell? Oh, I know, in the end of times, especially in our town, it was flowing rampant in the 80s.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Any of these little small towns that are.
Speaker 1:So when does he move to Lake City? Is he still doing this thing? Hold on, when he comes to Lake City. I got some stories, Lindsay.
Speaker 2:I know Now, during the early 70s, Meade began to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to groups of young people in their teens and early 20s. He would recruit students that were disillusioned by Vietnam and Watergate from Northwest University. So these were smart kids, but they were easily swayed.
Speaker 1:Very impressionable because everybody was standing up at each college. It was a big time for being able to sway people Mm-hmm, yeah into anything.
Speaker 2:So they would meet in living rooms, garages and colleges throughout the US. He would move his ministry down to Lake City, florida, from South Dakota and Indiana and Indiana. Now in 1984, he would encourage all of his followers to leave everything behind, including family members who did not believe, and follow him to Lake City to escape the rapture, famine, armageddon, doomsday, end of times, whatever you want to call it. Now, before his move to Florida, there was some followers who had been married and had a baby. The couple was Joni Cutler and her ex-husband Gary Cook. Her now ex-husband Okay moved with. They did not Hold on. This is before they went to Florida. I want to backtrack before it.
Speaker 2:So a former member named Joni Cutler says that her husband introduced her to this world and it was very lonely. Named Joni Cutler says that her husband introduced her to this world and it was very lonely. She gave birth to their baby, to their child Libby, one month early and she only weighed three pounds and 12 ounces. She was not allowed to take Libby to the doctor and Libby died at just four days old from untreated pneumonia. She wasn't allowed to take pictures or have a funeral and Meade ordered her to tell people from untreated pneumonia, she wasn't allowed to take pictures or have a funeral, and Mead ordered her to tell people that she had suffered a miscarriage.
Speaker 1:God gave us the technology.
Speaker 2:Right, that's what I don't understand.
Speaker 1:That's the 2,000-year holdback. Honestly, that's the 2,000-year holdback from Christianity, when you're believing that for so long and you're putting all that into it, we have literally, scientifically been held back for 2,000 years.
Speaker 2:Because some people are like, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be, but I'm sorry, I mean one of us gets sick. I mean we're going to the doctor, we're going to the hospital. We don't go probably as often as we should because it's expensive and insurance sucks, but our baby.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's why they brought up that. First of all, I ain't having a baby at home.
Speaker 2:I don't give a fuck. I want all the drugs I want. Well, I can't have babies naturally anyways.
Speaker 1:You would have died. I would have died If we would have had that religion. You would have just died, yeah, yeah, and I would have died at the age of around six in kentucky because I had a viral pneumonia and I've had to stay in a coop tent. But we used you know, we used the technology there jesse would have. You would have died in childbirth, having, uh, your first child, and I would have died at six yeah, because I didn't really.
Speaker 2:My parents never really took me to the doctor growing up. They weren't against it, they just didn't go very often, um, unless it was an emergency type situation. And I mean I didn't have yearly checkups or anything like that until I was I don't, I don't believe in any of that.
Speaker 1:Use what we have here right you know we're over there taking day quill. Are we supposed to just go to our bed and just die? I mean, I'm so snotty right now.
Speaker 2:We should actually be on our knees praying.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Chanting.
Speaker 1:It would happen, then right. That's not witchcraft, though, right.
Speaker 2:No, not at all. So, like I said, meade had ordered her to tell people that she had suffered a miscarriage. She left the group before they came to Florida and would go on to discover that her ex-husband went on to be one of the commanders. That's what I wrote down. Lol, handmaid's Tale reference. He was one of the top people in the church.
Speaker 1:I don't know what they were called.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I should have.
Speaker 1:We should know. I mean, it happened here. We should know.
Speaker 2:Well, I went to as many. When I was looking up this, a lot of external reference links were no longer there. Yeah, they had disappeared.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of dirt. There's a lot of dirt tucked into this that we can't.
Speaker 2:So she went on to be a state representative for South Dakota in 2005. So they're now down here in Florida. So they're now down here in Florida. Okay, peter Klepnikov wrote about Meade in an article in the New York Times that explained Meade's beliefs. This article says as a beacon of light, in recent years, some 2,000 followers have left their homes in at least 14 states and moved to an underground bomb shelter on Meade's property. Now, that's not accurate.
Speaker 1:Well, I heard that they had things like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sure they did, but I mean, most of them had their own houses Now, maybe for a while, because I did see there is a 2020 special from 1990 that you can find on YouTube where they did like you could tell they were videoing way, way, way, way way from the back where he was having like an outside meetings and sermons and shit, and I remember the rumors on the structure of the building being an upside down arc. Well, I'm getting there.
Speaker 1:Okay. So if that's a true thing, I don't want to get into it, but I heard rumors of that. Keep going.
Speaker 2:So they lived by surviving on the word and eating their daily bread. The means have prospered in local businesses and the church built a stunning $10 million worship center shaped like an overturned Noah's Ark, A design that was meant to attract new members. Now there were a lot of rules for this cult. You couldn't really associate with outside members. You couldn't watch TV. You couldn't go to the gym, Chew gum or own watch TV. You couldn't go to the gym, chew gum or own a TV. You could only listen to gospel music. That was approved by Meade himself. The men all wore fancy three-piece suits everywhere.
Speaker 1:And the women could only wear long skirts or dresses and modest to either no makeup at all. So I want to tie in what my perspective thoughts here. So here's my, here's my growing up in Columbia city area. Now we both moved to Lake city in 89. Lindsay and I.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Lindsay and I, I went to the tail end of the 88, 89 school year and then started first grade in 89, 90.
Speaker 1:And we remember the blizzard that actually came to Lake City, Florida.
Speaker 2:We had snow in our little town 89, that winter Christmas of 89.
Speaker 1:And I remember we moved to Jasper, Florida, and we stayed in a tent for a few weeks and then dad had enough money where we can move on down to Five Points area and we lived in five points area for a few years and then we moved to columbia city after dad had got a settlement through um his back pay for vietnam and everything.
Speaker 2:Now, I did not live in the five points area, but I grew up on lake jeffrey road where my family had had land for over a hundred years and um but my.
Speaker 1:But that was the closest school to where I lived, so we both went to the same school, third grade for me.
Speaker 2:Which was still like a second grade for you. Five, six miles yeah.
Speaker 1:Then we moved to Columbia City and I remember going by that church as it was being built around that time. I remember they were building it out there. Yeah, I remember it being built.
Speaker 2:He had a pretty big I remember they were building it out there. Yeah, I remember it being built. I remember so he may have, because he had a pretty big outside pavilion not pavilion, but like almost like an amphitheater. But it was like when you used to take me to the stomp dances it was seats like that. That's what you could, that's what you could tell Outside church kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember it being built.
Speaker 2:I remember uh brought in the timbers from like yeah I didn't see it until probably the late 90s when I saw it for the first, when I started driving yeah, and you'd seen it stuck out there brand new.
Speaker 1:Because I don't ever remember. We never went out that way for anything that I can remember, I remember seeing this huge church being built and they said that the timbers had came from like South America and it looked like an upside down boat.
Speaker 2:And that was the actual. That was on purpose, yeah.
Speaker 1:It looked like it was an outside, you know, just a huge upside down boat. It was really cool looking and I was like I don't know anything about this, but you know. And then I remember growing up in Columbia City and I kind of stayed in my own little circle but a friend of mine lived on the corner out there near some where some end timers had lived and we all just called them end timers.
Speaker 2:We didn't know. Do you know that in the, when they first came here, they called him ET's? Oh, ET you were either an ET or you are a normie. A normie yes.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that there was a whole village on back over there a little bit further on uh 240 I remember the first time that friends um were like let's go check out end timer bill yeah, yeah, so you go and I was, my jaw was on the ground.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anything existed like columbia city.
Speaker 1:So you, so you got to 240, over to. I mean, I've known the end timers my whole life but or my whole life since Lake City. Yeah Right, Old Wire Road, and then you hang a left and then back in. There was all end timer.
Speaker 2:And my best friend grew up around there, but she was not end timer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and she had grandfathered in that area, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, because her parents had. Yeah, they tried to get it from her Over where I live on the other side of 47 south of Lake City.
Speaker 1:There was some that lived right there and I remember playing with them. You know, and I remember me and my friend Stephen, we had got rollerblades for Christmas together because we wanted them and that's the only thing we asked for in Christmas. So we had got rollerblades. We were rollerblading out there by their house and they came out and they were like riding a bicycle and just standing there and all the girls were having these. They had long jean skirts, you know the denim skirts, the long ones, and the guys were dressed like they were fixing to go to I don't know, a funeral or something.
Speaker 2:Well, that was my next note was that you could be going to Walmart on a random Tuesday and you would see them grocery shopping dressed to the to the tea.
Speaker 1:They were casket sharp. Everyone was casket sharp, and the women too. Oh, I miss Shemeika. So, but I want to keep on saying about uh, as you know, as we grew up as a teen, you know, me and my friends would both. We would be like, hey, dude, I got a car, now let's go to end time reveal and check it out, right, and we would drive by some of the most elaborate houses and elaborate like million dollar houses.
Speaker 1:Back then in in Lake city it's unheard of and I remember going by Charles Meade's house and seeing people with guns walking around out there.
Speaker 2:And that was just wow, he was looked. What you showed me last night, the news article that you found, or the website that you found that had different news articles. So the FBI was investigating him for about five years it was a blockade type, uh high-walled brick fence like you had, you would have had to, um call.
Speaker 1:It was a compound and I remember that and I remember it having like guard shacks and shit in each corner. And I remember seeing the dudes with the ak strapped to their, to their chest, you know they had, you know, with the little strap and they were walking around in the black suits and I remember seeing that and we were like holy shit it's real Well, you know what gets me.
Speaker 2:It's like when did Margaret, when did she write that book about the Handmaid's Tale? I wonder if she got any of her ideas, because this actual ministry had other branches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember hearing that they still had Indiana.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Indiana, South Dakota.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing that, and I also remember hearing about people that had died because they didn't go to the hospital.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it was all over.
Speaker 1:As far as what I think, just kept his chapter going longer. Yeah, and you covered most of it. So as far as what I jotted down, basically, I remember the kids out there rollerblading and they were just like we don't know anything about music, anything. They were honest. They were just like holy crap, we're hanging out with some regular kids.
Speaker 2:You could not say deviled eggs, you had to say angel eggs and you were not allowed to eat well, we didn't talk about food, we were just talking about. I know, I'm just saying this is shit that I know from actual members. Yeah, um, you were not allowed to say uh, you were not allowed to eat devil's food cake at all and you could not have a dirt devil vacuum oh yeah, but I remember I remember talking to him just about common things and we were just like we weren't going at them.
Speaker 1:You know, we weren't, we were letting them be, whoever they were, but there was a gang of probably it was about six kids.
Speaker 2:That was probably all that they knew, and they probably thought you were a fucking weirdo.
Speaker 1:We were definitely weirdos, yeah, so there was three of us um was this in the jinko days with your dreads? Definitely, yes, definitely, jnco days and I had dreadlocks, yeah, and I'm hanging out with a friend of mine, african-american friend of mine, and then my other friend, steven, that lived there. So Kevin and Steven, and for sure, kevin lived right there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know Kevin very well.
Speaker 1:Everybody knows Kevin's house in Lake City, but anyhow, for other reasons. So we're just hanging out over there, you know, on the road, and it wasn't a lot of traffic, so I'm just talking to him, and so we weren't like hacking on them or being anything weird or you know, because we didn't care about diversity and religion or people's colors or anything. We had a cool little click, you know, and I was hanging out with my crew and we were just talking and trying to figure out their lifestyle and they had no lifestyle that was relatable. They didn't know anything about cartoons. They didn't know anything about just cool things. Uh, video games they didn't know anything about video games. They didn't know anything about, you know. Just, they didn't know what the rollerblades were. They knew what a bike bike was. They had a bike and they were just dressed to the T's and we were just like man, y'all are kind of sharp looking man and we have to wear this all the time.
Speaker 1:You know they were all the time they, they, they seemed oppressed that they were very and it just uh.
Speaker 2:I'll get a little more into that.
Speaker 1:It seemed like it was just a very weird vibe, but we didn't, we didn't ride on that, we were just wanting to I don't know just hang out and talk. And then they went back to their house and we did our own thing.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they were probably just happy to have that interaction.
Speaker 1:That's basically my perspective Now, as a as a older teenager, I do remember that they pretty much ran Lake city and they had hundreds of businesses, hundreds.
Speaker 1:I'm getting there too, you're going to tie into that too, and I was just like you have to tie into that because it was a big monopoly of their whole churchhood and supporting all that it had to have been, and you got some dirt on it and I can't wait to hear it, so I'm going to let you fly. But that's just my personal perspective of living next to some end timers and uh just experimenting, riding around and talking to them and I just uh the creepy vibe because we would always go at night time through end time reveal. We always caught it that at night and we look over and there's like two guards walking around this dude's compound. It was literally a compound. We felt like it was militant looking, holy shit a little weird.
Speaker 2:I didn't felt like it was militant looking Holy shit. A little weird. I didn't really like it.
Speaker 1:I got creepy vibes from the whole area, but we used that as a scare tactic, and then we'd go to Walmart and walk around or something until 2 o'clock in the morning. As teenagers, we didn't have much to do in Lake City, it's like the Vicks medicine to help her breathe. But I'm going to let you fire off. That was just my whole perspective on my little page.
Speaker 1:Jesse made notes y'all and, like I said, it started as a child in Meade Memorial School and goes all the way to that and I remember you followed me down there. I did, I was part of it. I knew it was going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because he was 67 when he got here. Wow, yeah, I mean he was born in 1916. Goodness, yeah, yeah. So now one thing is that would set them apart from other churches. So, members who did not give enough tithing, they were shunned and they sat in the back of the church.
Speaker 1:I do remember that everyone was in debt. I remember that.
Speaker 2:Now, if you attended sports games, you were kicked out. Board games and movies were forbidden.
Speaker 1:Young and arranged marriages were you can't even play chutes and ladders, lindsay. I want to play chutes and ladders as a kid. Bring around the roses. They didn't do any of that. Yeah, they, marriages were.
Speaker 2:Play shoots and ladders, lindsey I want to play shoots and ladders as a kid. Bring around the roses.
Speaker 1:They didn't do any of that. Yeah, they were, they didn't so no, that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's kind of a creepy. They probably found the devil in that too, because that was kind of weird, yeah well, there's some history behind those jobs there's so much history behind that.
Speaker 1:We'll do a thing on nursery rhymes. Yeah, that would be fun.
Speaker 2:Like I said, young and arranged marriages were encouraged, starting at the age of 13.
Speaker 1:Arranged marriage. I think I had just stopped playing with dolls at 13. I wonder if they had the holes in the sheets. I always like to go back to the holes in the sheets.
Speaker 2:I think that's more of a. I mean that was on Handmaid's Tale. I mean that's not based on a true story. But Margaret Atwood that was her last name, fuck, I couldn't remember, but she had to get that inspiration from something.
Speaker 1:I think with all these religions like this, they have holes in sheets.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's kind of. Where else do we hear that oh?
Speaker 1:Letterkenny, oh, letterkenny, yeah. With the Mennonites yeah well, I brought up the Salem thing because I know that they were. They had holes in the streets.
Speaker 2:We got a lot of Mennonites around here too.
Speaker 1:We do have some Mennonites.
Speaker 2:We get busloads of them where I work.
Speaker 1:I've partied with some Mennonites before. Oh my God shut up, I'm real. At a Moose Lodge. I swear to God, dude, I partied at a.
Speaker 2:Why were they allowed at a Moose Lodge?
Speaker 1:My friend Donna powwows right her.
Speaker 2:She was a mennonite and she, she married buddy okay, and they were all like part of the powwow community.
Speaker 1:I think there's a farm out in welborn like 15. She had like 15 sisters and they all came down to the moose with us. We partied our asses off. I guess they were doing their what whatever they're calling it their weekend away or whatever well, because they do technology and shit, they're not. They knew about that they're not all.
Speaker 2:That's because I get fascinated with that. And yeah, they knew about that. They're not Amish, it's completely different.
Speaker 1:I get fascinated with that and I was asking them all about that. They have modern technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just wear little bonnets and long dresses, but they all have phones. Because they come into where I work a lot.
Speaker 1:I got drunk with 15 Mennonites at a moose club one time.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. And then you know the means used to come into where I work too every.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'll get into that. Hold on, go ahead, let you fall, okay. So going to the doctor was forbidden if you couldn't pray away. Whatever ailed you, it was god's will and you don't mess with god's will, okay? They had their own school and owned half of our town. Businesses would vary. Would vary from restaurants, dress shops, lumber lawn and irrigation, coffee shops, frozen yogurt spots.
Speaker 3:Now, I do miss. I remember the TCBY, tcby, bring that shit back.
Speaker 2:Somebody else go buy it and bring it back, because I miss that.
Speaker 1:The TCBY we had that.
Speaker 2:We had that for a very long time and it was right.
Speaker 1:As a young adult I did electrical work and I worked with a bunch of them that did construction.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get into my own. So I did all the Isaac construction and everything like that.
Speaker 2:Isaac construction built my daddy's house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on here, if we're going to get whatever hacked about in timers and Isaac construction, but anyhow. Well, I mean I'm going to get there.
Speaker 2:This is no longer a cult. Y'all they have disestablished.
Speaker 1:I did the electrical work with them and hand in hand, we just I would rough in a house one day, trim out a house the next day, stayed busy as shit. Boom in Lake City Boom and in timers. We're doing 99% of the work and I just I was just a little electrical helper but I was busting ass.
Speaker 2:They did. They built my dad's house, yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I didn't, I didn't help build that one, but I was.
Speaker 2:I was in, I was in you might have Cause they built it around the time I was. Oh well, you would remember if you built that house?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, but down the hill I remember doing a couple of houses there. I mean, I traveled around with them. It was, it was, it was a click.
Speaker 2:They did a good job.
Speaker 1:They were thorough, hard workers. And Mr Connor, they did all the electrical work and I was with them, mike and all the guys, the Connor family and I kicked ass till I broke my hand, I broke my arm, I think, yeah, I broke my arm and I did a lot of electrical work and they were just like come back whenever. But I found a better job so I never came back doing electrical work.
Speaker 2:Now, most of the successful members drove Cadillacs Of course we remember that and then they later moved on to Chrysler 300s, I guess because I know that they used to get them from Hopkins.
Speaker 1:They'd buy them in groups.
Speaker 2:Well, they'd get them from Hopkins Motors, and then they fell off with Hopkins Motors. Then Hopkins Motors wasn't even there, they went away, they sold out. And then I mean maybe because they were no longer getting Cadillacs from them, endtimers were no longer getting Cadillacs from them, maybe that's why they went under.
Speaker 1:I don't know, they were there a long time, a couple hundred, I mean, we're talking hundreds of people here.
Speaker 2:Now they're one of them. Buy-your-pay-there places Hundreds of people.
Speaker 1:There was probably, you know, 500 families in Lake City. That was a bunch of them. I do remember they were riding around town all over the place. All done up had to have been in debt. There's no way.
Speaker 2:Well, their businesses were prosperous I mean very prosperous but they had to.
Speaker 1:They had to pay their dues.
Speaker 2:That timber company? Yeah, but it's still it was. It was all recycled yeah. Now I worked with quite a few of the lower class members when I worked at McDonald's as a teenager. Three of the members were managers and one had married into it One of those managers.
Speaker 1:Didn't they own the McDonald's too? No, I mean it was like an entry position, yeah.
Speaker 2:Now there was one who was I don't know if he was a member of the church or not, but they were very strange. But then another lady ended up taking it over, so, but while I still work there and that was I was 17 and that was a long time ago- so we have a lot of personal things we're adding into all of this, and then three.
Speaker 1:And I hope the story ties in really well.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm going to let you fly.
Speaker 2:Now, and then three were just regular employees. Now I remember one of the regular employees. Her daughter was 15 and she was talking about how excited she was that her daughter was about to get married. I was 17. You were 15. Wow, I was 17 and my job was on the floor. Now I still got married very young, but at that time that was so strange to me. She was so excited about it and like they had to fly them to Puerto Rico to get married because it wasn't legal here In.
Speaker 1:North America. Yeah, it wasn't legal here in North.
Speaker 2:America. Yeah, that wasn't legal here. Now I would later go on to work with two past members at my current job. I've been with my job a very long time and on Sunday and Thursday nights around a hundred members, including their children, would fill up our restaurant at 30 minutes till closing. But I have to say they were great tippers. They paid the money. They would double the money in my pocket. See, now, that's actually way better, I would be there way later than.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be, but it's better than the normal Christians that would come in and not pay, oh God.
Speaker 2:Y'all listen. Sundays are the absolute worst and I don't know why. I don't know why people come from worshiping the Lord to a restaurant to just but now, not all of them are, but it's it's more often than not. So Sundays, fucking suck Y'all. If y'all go to church and are listening to this, don't go to a restaurant afterwards and be a shithole to your server.
Speaker 1:And where you work is the hub for everybody that comes in there, and they don't give a shit about the servers.
Speaker 2:No, most of my regulars are not church people and they take very good care of me and they're very nice to me.
Speaker 1:But anyways, when you come home and there's like that twenty dollar, fake twenty dollar bill, oh God stop doing that.
Speaker 2:Stop killing streets to make fake twenties and fake hundreds with a scripture on the back talking about disappointed bitch.
Speaker 1:I remember you coming home so many nights. You come home and you're like listen, look at, look at what I just got from one of these churches and it's a fake $20 bill with, like some scripture.
Speaker 2:And I've gotten fake hundreds too.
Speaker 1:And you're like holy shit, oh, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:No, I know better.
Speaker 1:They just want me to come to Jesus. This has nothing to do with like actually supporting me or my family. I get nothing out of this.
Speaker 2:But guess what? Yesterday I had a man who was reading a book about magic and he left me $80. So he was by himself. He had one breakfast, he had three refills of coffee, left $100, and told me to keep the change. His bill was a little under $20, and I got to keep it $80.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just being real, that was being amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sir. Yeah, he was very sweet, very nice.
Speaker 1:That's really, I mean, that's a blessing in its own. Exactly I get that.
Speaker 2:So my dad owned his own landscaping and land clearing business and would subcontract with their landscaping business on certain jobs and he said that they paid very well. An old friend of mine who I don't associate with anymore, but she worked at one of the cult owned restaurants named Mike's Out to Lunch. Do you remember that? Over there in that little plaza by where I work, yeah, everything was right.
Speaker 1:They owned the whole plaza in that little plaza by where I work. Yeah, everything was right.
Speaker 2:They own the whole plaza, right, that whole plaza. That's where the dress shop was. And TCBY oh, I miss you, tcby, I want some fro-yo right now.
Speaker 1:It feels so good on our throat. There was like a gym and a couple of insurance places and that's about it. That's it. They used to have an outlet mall. There was a Nike outlet mall there. Nothing else, Not anymore.
Speaker 2:And that little bistro, the little Cuban bistro, is over there now too.
Speaker 1:It was good too.
Speaker 2:It's still there now that one is. So she told me that they had a private room for when Meade and his family and others close to him would dine there. They had their own separate room and they had separate dinnerware and a separate menu for those visits, and it was gold plated. Super fancy, super fancy and it was. I mean she would. She was like I would be so nervous because you just it's scary what was the mobile place?
Speaker 1:they had a mobile place too. They had cell phones and everything, didn't they? Yes, mobile mania I think it was mobile mania yeah.
Speaker 2:Or is that the one that's now? I don't remember.
Speaker 1:So how do they have that? But you can't look at that. But they're selling that.
Speaker 2:Well, that was later on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it must have been after Anyhow.
Speaker 2:So now the years in between the rise and fall of Meads Ministries were a lot of deaths. Now I already mentioned some from the other um, kind of the start of it, but that wasn't really his church. That was, you know, his inspiration. There were a lot of deaths because of medical neglect. Women would lose their babies because they were not getting proper prenatal care or had unknown complications. It was said that Mead had a very callous attitude about this and said well, god gave you this child and he'll give you another one. One child was very sick and not getting proper nutrition and actually died of starvation. That's in the 2020. Disgusting, that's in the 2020 documentary that's on YouTube.
Speaker 2:You can find us about 20 minutes long Little segment from 1990. Yeah, so another child died of a horrible nosebleed and all he needed was a simple vitamin K shot to save his life. Really Simple vitamin K shot.
Speaker 1:I had them really bad growing up too, and Silas does have them a lot.
Speaker 2:His are slowing down. Yeah, I had them really bad growing up too, and Silas does have them a lot. His are slowing down. Yeah, I had them too.
Speaker 1:But as a kid, if they don't stop, we're going to take you to the hospital.
Speaker 2:We're going to take you to the hospital.
Speaker 1:You're still bleeding, and I remember one of them I broke my nose, I broke my nose as a kid.
Speaker 2:This had to be really really bad for him to die from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to out right there.
Speaker 2:Mead's first wife, Marie Mead, actually died of untreated breast cancer, and when Charles Mead was 93 years old he got very sick. And guess what? He went to the doctor.
Speaker 1:Oh, he went against his own thing at the very end yeah, and he died at the VA hospital. At the hospital.
Speaker 2:And this was April of 2010.
Speaker 1:That's the biggest fucking debacle ever. Yeah, I mean very pissed off that he let so many people die. I mean honestly, you're talking 30, 40 people Over his home over his home.
Speaker 2:Now, like I said, the documentary, or the 2020 segment that's on YouTube, mentioned quite a few, and that was in 1990. So, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because he was holding back from getting any medical attention. I mean he didn't die until 2010. 30 or 40 is low, but it was his direction so he killed. 30 or 40 is low but it was his direction, so he killed 30 or 40 people pretty much just as a low thing in his religion that he was trying to get everybody to feed into. Probably way more because there were a lot of miscarriages, A lot of people. I heard that a girl died from a broken arm one time because it was protruding out of you know, out of her skin and everything and she bled out. I heard about that. Yeah, I mean that's just speculation, I heard about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's all the rumors about this cult that we have heard. Do you know? Okay, so my ex-husband it was just an absolute. He's the kind of guy that just lies about anything and everything. He had some friends from New York come down. They were the guy was his old childhood friend, had come down from New York and he was telling the friend from New York about this shit. And I mean just lying and lying, and lying and I'm like Listen, they're weird and they've done some crazy shit. This is all lies.
Speaker 2:We were like divorced not too long after that, but he was so pissed off at me for like, look, there's weird shit here. I don't agree with any of it, but we ain't got to lie about it.
Speaker 3:You know there was a lot of fucking rumors.
Speaker 2:I mean, some of it was just outrageous. It was going around town, though there was a lot of speculations and some of it was going around town, though there was a lot of speculations, and some of it was true, some of it was, but what he was saying was not at all.
Speaker 1:But I'm thinking that 30 or 30 to 40 people is a low number. But it was true, if you can, if you can really dig into that well, medical I mean.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just gotta go to the damn doctor you gotta go to the hospital.
Speaker 2:Some people overdo it, but you gotta go. You gotta check it out. If you're having concerns, especially, you need to go to the damn doctor. You got to go to the hospital. Some people overdo it, but you got to go, you got to check it out. If you're having concerns, especially, you need to go to the fucking doctor. If you're pregnant, you need to go to the doctor because you don't know. Especially these young girls that were having babies younger and older are scary because those are higher risk.
Speaker 1:And they're like 15. Yeah, and you know, they put them in a marriage.
Speaker 2:One of my friends had her first baby as an end timer at 15 years old, right, and you know she was one of the lucky ones, could?
Speaker 1:you imagine, at 15, though that being forced upon you.
Speaker 2:Well, she grew up in it, but she got smart and she got out, before it even.
Speaker 1:Is that the one that was really successful later?
Speaker 2:on Really successful. Yes, wow, out before it even. Is that the one that was?
Speaker 1:really successful, really successful, yes, wow, yeah, has like two businesses. She only had like fifth grade.
Speaker 2:She only has, like maybe a fifth grade education because this religion did encourage like they did have their own school, but they encouraged homeschooling. Now I'm not down in homeschooling I am homeschooling my child right now but he did go to mainstream school until now he's 11. And the reason why is because he is very, very, very, very bad ADHD and I already medicated one child and it was not successful.
Speaker 1:We're not trying it.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to do that to another child.
Speaker 1:If we don't have to, we're not, but maybe he'll grow out of it and bullying is out of control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there was nothing being done about it, and I'm not subjecting another child.
Speaker 1:And I'm all about introducing him back into public school later on, when we feel like he's mature enough and he has it together better. We don't keep him turned off from real life whatsoever which is what these folks are doing A lot of real life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, we are goers, goers and doers. Real life yeah, absolutely, we are goers, goers and doers. So now, after he passed away, his grandson, james, took over and abolished all of mead's strict rules and some folks were actually reunited with their families after 30 years and a lot of and a lot of band members were welcomed back.
Speaker 2:But I did read an article from that website that you showed me last night where he had actually was trying to excuse some of the medical neglect and he even stated like that his son had had, or his child had had, a broken wrist for three days and he prayed over and prayed over, prayed of it before he took him to the doctor and was like trying to excuse that and he was like, well, isn't it normal for me to see if it gets better or not? Um, I sat here with my son when he had a broken arm for an hour to make sure that it was actually needed to go.
Speaker 2:It's time when he was still crying after an hour. I'm like okay, we're going to the doctor. I didn't sit there and pray over it for three fucking days.
Speaker 1:It doesn't take long to see that purple ring around it. You're like, oh no, we're going.
Speaker 2:Well, and normally I mean having boys rough shit happens and sometimes how I can tell if they're really hurt. If they haven't stopped crying in about an hour, they're still fussing over it. It's time to go get it looked at. Yeah, because most of the time they're like I'm good and they're ready to go play again. He was not.
Speaker 1:Right. And so at the end of Charles Meade, I really thought that he was going to give everybody the Kool-Aid. I thought it was going to all be over with.
Speaker 2:I think he was too old. You know, I think that he would have been younger, but they did compare him a lot to Jim Jones, who we will cover soon in the future.
Speaker 1:If he would have been younger, he would have talked to him, he would have gathered them all up in that big old boat and it would have happened, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, the church wasn't actually a boat. It was a structure to look like one.
Speaker 1:It looked like an upside down boat. It does. I'm going to call it a boat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll call it a boat. It does look like it has a very Ark appeal to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it looks like the Ark Ark of the Covenant.
Speaker 2:So they rebranded and changed the name to Mountaintop Ministries. Now I was under the impression that his son-in-law, charlie Sparks, had took over, but I guess that was not true. I heard that too. I heard that too. Now they would go on to open three satellite churches in Mexico. But then in 2015, five years after his death, several women came forward with allegations against Charles Meade, claiming he had been assaulting them, starting in sexually assaulting them, starting in the teenage years on into adulthood. Wow, and an investigation proved these. Years on into adulthood. Wow, and an investigation proved these allegations to be true. It also came out by board members that there was a lot of financial misconduct and money that was supposed to be for missions had actually been used to furnish lavish vacations to casinos and strip clubs for the church leadership.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Doesn't that sound a lot like the Handmaid's Tale 2? They were doing some dirt they was going to Jezebel.
Speaker 1:The Jezebel it was a brothel, but yeah, getting it in.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, and that opened up 40 years worth of lies and mass manipulation, causing 1,200 members to leave the church for good. The church closed and then reopened under the name which it is right now today Christian Fellowship Church, which is ran by a small group of former members who are still attempting to right all the past wrongs.
Speaker 2:And then I'm going to read an article that I found that was written in 2005 through the Gainesville Sun and the writer is Todd Lawan or Lewin. In the beginning there was an elderly widow who owned a modest brick house in the most heavenly part of town. One year she decided to put her home place on the market and along came a dapper gentleman and his adoring wife, cash in hand. The gentleman, who was 67, must have been a preacher, it was rumored, for he often could be seen strolling about his new yard in a funeral suit and necktie, even on the muggiest of summer days, and y'all it gets muggy out here. So with a countenance of serenity and beneficence that could only belong to a servant of the Lord. But there was something disquieting about this man, something inexplicable that made his neighbors uneasy whenever he greeted them by politely touching the brim of his fedora. By every measure, the old man and his wife were model citizens. They were early risers. They didn't cuss, drink, smoke, pry or gossip. They drove a gleaming burgundy cadillac with gilded trim and hubcaps. So as months passed, the suspicions faded, dismissed as the small town's old-fashioned discomfort with outsiders. After all, as the neighbors could plainly see, this couple was quite beloved. Cars with tags from South Dakota, illinois, indiana, montana and Texas, arrived at all hours and outset the cleanest cut, most sharply tailored couples imaginable. And there are winsome children too. So sharp, sorry, so cutely awkward in their Sunday clothes and shoes.
Speaker 2:In no time they set about remodeling the dwelling of the preacher whose name was Charles Meade. For weeks the hammering and sawing did not cease. New rooms were added To, the roof were affixed cedar shingles and red rippling waves, until the crown of Meade's home looked like a gingerbread house. At the head of the driveway rose two great stone columns and an iron gate. Along the boundaries of Meade's property, evergreens were planted three rows deep.
Speaker 2:Then all was primped and tidied. A triple-layered privacy fence went up in the two and a quarter acre lot. It was topped off with three strands of razor wire. The year was 1984 and the property in Southwood Acres, the subdivision where Meade's house was located, didn't fetch the dollars it does today. But members of Meade's flock, dribbling in from the Midwest to join him, were willing to pay almost anything for a house in the subdivision. The closer the lot to the old man's residence, the more money they were willing to shell out. The real estate agent named Charles Sparks, one of the first of Meade's followers to move to Lake City, made the rounds in the neighborhood knocking on people's doors and offering to sell their homes for them, regardless of whether they had any intention of moving, I mean.
Speaker 1:I worked with them. Yeah, I really did.
Speaker 2:Finally, a few longtime residents approached these newcomers. What they asked them was so special about their little corner of the universe to merit such offers? The answer they got was this Lake City was the promised land. It was holy ground for the world's true Christians, meaning the lucky few whom Meade had chosen to follow the teachings of his end-time ministry.
Speaker 1:And that was the end like when everything's over with Lake City will be saved and we're gonna be good.
Speaker 2:We are gonna still be standing, y'all.
Speaker 1:Lake City, just Lake City. Florida is left over. Everybody else is. They're gonna to die. They're going to die, lindsay I know.
Speaker 2:I wonder if they still think that, with all these hurricanes that have come through here lately.
Speaker 1:I mean, we made it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we made it, but they used to think that nothing could happen in this town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're golden. This is the spot that we'll make it out right here.
Speaker 2:They had come to establish God's perfect community on earth to prepare for Armageddon, which their leader had warned them was imminent. Those who followed Meade would be saved. Unbelievers would be banished to eternal damnation. Why, though, should anyone believe him? Why, though, should anyone believe him? Mead had told them that he had walked with God along the Milky Way and heard the Lord's very word.
Speaker 2:Lake City stands on the hill country of northern Florida, where the surrounding Columbia County countryside, with its drooping live oaks and meadows ablaze in redwood, is more deep south than tropical. And yes, that is true, folks. Wewood is more deep south than tropical. And yes, that is true, folks, we are definitely more deep south than tropical. Yeah, we got forests everywhere. By reputation, it seemed an unlikely location for the promised land here. Doc Adams, a numbers racketeer, was killed by his mistress, who was also the wife of his rival. Football college coaches had been known to treat their players to the big house. A parlor of sporting ladies. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, picked up a sixth grader near her school and never took her home here in Lake City. Yes, and we'll talk about that in the future.
Speaker 1:We've had some stuff here in town.
Speaker 2:Back in 1984, most homes were one-story affairs, the older ones dating to the Civil War. Oh yeah, we did have the Battle of Olustee. Here too, y'all when like 5,000 people died.
Speaker 1:It was something like that. Right Might have been more, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So they had deep wraparound porches festooned with gingerbread. The men, many of them, wore plaid shirts, bow brimmed caps and heavy soiled boots. Yes, they did. The little money that was made came from exploitation of quick-growing pine peanut farming and by serving drive-thru visitors and truckers whose gas tanks and stomachs needed filling. Inhabitants of the county, who numbered 36,000, seemed content with the lives they'd built to work, go to church, swim in glassy ponds and spend hours waiting for a twitch at the end of a fish line. But since the summer of that year of Orwell, little had been the same for the people of Lake City. Over the next 20 years, their habits, their economy, their community would be transformed by Charles Mead's brand of Christianity and the end-time empire he willed into being. And that is true. The end-timers would bring energy, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit. They got that.
Speaker 1:They were all in the money they have that. They were in the money they know business.
Speaker 2:They were all in the money. They have that. They were in the money. They know business. They know how to make it 100%.
Speaker 1:They know how to make money here in town, yep.
Speaker 2:They would also bring something else. Soon neighbors would come to demonize one another, not to wave at one another. Townies would characterize the newcomers as weird, even dangerous. End timers would dismiss the locals as sinful and intolerant. In dangerous End timers would dismiss the locals as sinful and intolerant. In the end, lake City would find itself more prosperous but badly divided, a place awash in mistrust and suspicion. In the months after Meade settled in Lake City, about 50 end timers from the Midwest joined them. They kept coming. By 1989, the year we arrived, re-arrived because I was born here and then my dad ventured down to.
Speaker 1:Lakeland. For a while I lived in Orange Park, Florida. I was born in Orange Park Florida, then went to Kentucky to Meade's little stomping grounds, and then came back. Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 2:It is crazy that is crazy. So by 1989, Meade's Florida flock numbered 700, according to the local newspaper the Lake City Reporter, which had begun publishing articles on the newcomers ETs, as the locals now call them. By 1989, the end timers own no fewer than 39 businesses in town and had a substantial chunk of the market in roofing, landscaping, lighting, electronics and pool installation. In a small town, yeah.
Speaker 1:In a small town. That's a shitload. That's a shitload 30 businesses, 39.
Speaker 3:39 businesses in a small town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean that was most of them. Had to have been most of them.
Speaker 2:So Sparks Charlie Sparks, who was Meade's son-in-law cornered the real estate market. He sure as fuck did in Southwood. Though some ETs rented apartments in town, half of the 60-odd homes in Southwood Acres were occupied by sect members by 1990. County records show Before long. According to residents, only end-timers wanted into the neighborhood but they wouldn't buy unless Sparks brokered the sale. Oh, I bet that man had so much money yeah it was one big monopoly.
Speaker 1:They had the land, they sold the land.
Speaker 2:And I'm about to get there.
Speaker 1:I mean honestly. I think when I bought this house it still went through some end timers we did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was the end time version of Donald Trump Sharp, intuitive, with an air of prosperous thrift. Before long, he would become one of the most powerful men in the county, a broker, investor and lender whose face would stare down from billboards all over town. And that is absolutely 100% true. Although the people of Lake City didn't realize it, what was happening to their town had happened before and would happen again A religious sect migrating to a small community and reshaping its economy to its way of life. It had happened in Shell City, missouri, with the Church of Israel. In Spindale, north Carolina, with the Word of Israel. In Spindale, North Carolina, with the Word of Faith Fellowship. In Hildale, utah, with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You know the cool thing about that.
Speaker 1:Lindsay is all that's tax-free Isn't that nice? You know, we're going to use this religion and we're going to come way the fuck up.
Speaker 2:We could go on so many more vacations if we didn't have to pay taxes, oh my.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:And then I mean and that would, why not do that? That way we can go spend our money to somebody else, to these poorer countries that need it.
Speaker 1:I don't like the tax-free thing for churches, especially shit like this.
Speaker 2:I know so. In Abilene, texas, with the House of Yahweh. In Bellevue, washington, with the Life Tabernacle Church in Grants Pass, Oregon, with the Foundation of Humanation and lots of money, says Stephen Hassan, the author of two books on controversial sex, what he calls destructive cults. The pattern is for the leaders of these sex to move their followers all at once to areas that are sparsely populated, low income and on hard times.
Speaker 1:Perfect for Lake City yes.
Speaker 2:And that's true, hassan says they buy up real estate or cottage industries on the cheap, making them powerful players in that county overnight. Since the Internal Revenue Service classifies them as non-profits, member donations are tax exempt, he says so it doesn't take them long to accumulate millions and the leader can use his followers' money as he or she wishes In the name of Jesus.
Speaker 2:In the name of Jesus. As a group, the end-timers sure did look successful. Different, though, just the same. The end-time women wore ankle-length dresses and never used makeup. Me caution them to be aware of the lipstick spirit. The men didn't grow facial hair or wore digital wristwatches. Mustaches, according to Meade, were of the homosexual spirit and anything containing a digital chip was evil. And nobody ever saw an end timer with a pet Animals, even pictures of animals harbor demons, Mead told his followers. Wow, that's why I didn't mention that in my notes, because I wanted to read this article.
Speaker 1:That's some righteous gemstone shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as it turned out, there were quite a few objects of evil in the world of Mead. I'm going to repeat this again. So newspaper, tv, chewing gum, earrings, even Dr Seuss books Illness Mead, preached, was the work of the devil, best healed not by doctors but by faith. All holidays, including Christmas and Easter, were banned as pagan rituals. And I mean they are.
Speaker 1:They were yeah, and they changed it into something that's religious.
Speaker 2:Christians adopted the pagan rituals, but let's not forget, they're pagan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were.
Speaker 2:Meade and his followers, locals observed, were creatures of pattern. Often their movements around town could be timed to the minute. On Monday mornings, tellers at Community National State Exchange and First Federal Savings can expect to see Meade in one of his Armani suits, looking much like Lawrence Welk. He does look like Lawrence Welk, yeah Online. To make his weekly deposit, he would stand self-assuredly as though smiling to himself, and when his turn came, he would stride to the counter with multiple bank bags, each stuffed with $3,000 to $11,000 in cash Wow All week Un-fucking-sanctioned money, untaxed he would have it in cash checks, rolled coins and, according to eyewitnesses and bank employees In later years, he switched to briefcases and went straight into the vault.
Speaker 2:To the people of Lake City, meade was the mysterious stranger. They knew little of his past. What Public records show that he was born in Kentucky in 1916, quit school in the seventh grade and served with honor in World War II, earning eight bronze stars. Three years after the war he stabbed a man in Indiana and was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to assault with intent to commit murder. Do it, charles. Do it.
Speaker 2:He says, after he made his ministry, that I've soared into the heavens in the supernatural, he declared during one taped sermon God's picked me up many times and I've been in the heavens. I've looked down on the earth. Me did not respond to two requests for an interview by registered mail. Sparks, whom former members speculate is next in line to lead the ministry, said no end-timer would agree to be interviewed. Turns out he was right. As Meade's dwelling continued to mushroom in size, he withdrew from his neighbors. He no longer stopped to shake their hand and his drapes and blinds were usually drawn. According to residents and former end timers, sentinels appeared behind Meade's triple fence, setting passing cars through binoculars. Sometimes men in khakis stood posts around the neighborhood and they whispered into walkie-talkies packed with 9mm pistols.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you couldn't just drive up there and be part of the church that day?
Speaker 2:Isn't that the main thing that drives me nuts?
Speaker 1:We would drive by and they would be on a guard shack at the church. You couldn't just drive up in there, you could not.
Speaker 2:But isn't that the main thing that drives me nuts on the Handmaid's Tale? Is there always voices coming from the little Rocky Talkies?
Speaker 1:and the dogs and the dogs barking. I mean you know what?
Speaker 2:No dogs barking over there in this neighborhood.
Speaker 1:That's about what you heard Like little ear pieces.
Speaker 2:I'm taking a drink really quick. I'm now on to the strudel.
Speaker 1:No, it's raspberry. So we've came full circle, though, on all this. We've talked about this kind of a couple of different times, like our perspective and then where you got all that information.
Speaker 2:That's really cool and on the 2020 set on YouTube, they put hidden cameras in the church, so you can see a little bit into their church life.
Speaker 1:If you want to check that out, they got in, that's cool.
Speaker 2:So cars that slowed near Meade's driveways were tailed. Roadblocks went up at South, at Southwood's, two entrances. Men with flashlights would wave cars to a stop, shine a beam in the driver's eyes and ask where they were headed and why. The sheriff ordered a halt to these roadblocks but no arrests were made. Lake City's mayor at the time, p Gerald Witt, didn't share other residents growing unease. Really, he tolda reporter in 1990. I don't see much difference between them and christian scientists, but others did. Some reported seeing 200 end timers lining the roadside in front of mead's house holding hands waiting for their leader to return from a journey. Now another member of this church actually corroborates this and that's true.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then one morning in 1989, a stray dog was found in a trash bin headless. Now I've heard I've watched several people that surrounded that area say that there was all kinds of this show happening. So in the weeks following, several other canines turned up in people's yards, stiff as logs, poisoned several residents, including judy ayers and her daughter laurie said. Sandra smith, who had spoken out in the local media against the end timers, said she walked out her front door one morning to see her five kittens beheaded on the walkway.
Speaker 1:And that is on an interview.
Speaker 2:You can also watch.
Speaker 1:They were killing the local people's dogs, wow.
Speaker 2:And cats. Wow, complaints were filed at the sheriff's office, residents said, but no one was arrested. Records of complaints are routinely destroyed after five years. Local officials said Meanwhile, night after night, trucks rumbled through Southwood stopping to unload crates. Judy Ayers, who lived in a stone's throw from the Meade residence, recalls how end timers would renovate their homes through the wee hours, and I've seen that in several different sources too.
Speaker 1:I think it was mainly because everybody else that did the work would show up late after they had been building houses and stuff, because it was like a it was a big monopoly, so they were doing all the construction all day long and then that evening they would still come and do the free work later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we would wake up to this loud pounding, she said. And there they'd be, up on roofs or scaffoldings or ladders hammering and sawing with these blinding white lights shining on them. And it went on for months and months and months. And that is the end of that article, and you can. You can look up that interview with Judy Ayers on YouTube as well, like, if you look up need ministries, there's that 2020 segment and then there's several little clips. There's one of a family who was separated from their children and their children would have nothing to do with them anymore after they went on, and it was so sad to them because they had like 13 grandchildren They'd never met. Wow, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's, that's what you got on that whole article.
Speaker 2:Yep, that was the end of that article and that pretty much sums up the need ministries, cults in our town in our town.
Speaker 1:Isn't that crazy, florida? Yes, I would. Honestly, I would give him 30 deaths just to his religion that he's pushed on everybody.
Speaker 2:I mean, but there's rumors of like hit men and shit in this thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh, that's some dirt. There is a lot of dirt, but it was all really hidden here in town because our town doesn't have anything like that. You know we're not going to have anything like that. But I would give him, I would accredit 30. That would be a good thing. Right, Don't come for me whoever's left, but I'm accrediting 30. That's a low number.
Speaker 2:Now there was a podcast that's done by one of my friends who is an ex-member. That was on Spotify. That has been recently taken off. I don't know if she. I don't know what happened there.
Speaker 1:Maybe they came to her house like they're going to come to ours. They're going to be like hey, y'all are talking shit about us and our history.
Speaker 2:Well, she just basically just told what her life was like because she was one of the people that got married early and went to Puerto Rico to get married and it lasted maybe two years. They were all cheating on each other. I mean married, and it lasted maybe two years.
Speaker 1:They were all cheating on each other. I mean, it was fucking mess, big debacle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other friend of mine that worked at the restaurant. She was having an affair with the owner's son who was married who? And that chick was having an affair with the ac guy, one of the local ac guys. It was the so many scandals, all those scandalous scandalous things.
Speaker 1:I mean, they didn't have a life, they were like we're delving off into something new and then we're around people that are different, you know, from, from our religion and it. We want freedom. And as soon as I got that freedom, a little bit of attention, hey, hey, what's up?
Speaker 2:but yeah, I am terrified of religion pretty much because, just because of what I grew up in, then hearing so much true crime about people that were religious leaders I mean, just like John Wayne Gacy was fucking, oh God you just it's terrifying to me. Believe who you want to believe in, but I think churches should just be abolished.
Speaker 1:I don't think they're out for paying taxes and they're being able to build big empires like they did here in town. I don't think that should happen. That's not American to me. You know, you're using religion and building your own thing and people are dying from it. Religion and building your own thing and people are dying from it, and you've created this huge cult and an empire for millions of dollars. I mean, he didn't have a bad life at all. Charles Meade was really lavish and, like you said, he would show up to places. He grew up very poor. He grew up poor, but he used all that to become I mean he was unemployed at 44.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:He used religion.
Speaker 1:And where he grew up. He used religion as an actual money pit when he grew up in Kentucky, for sure Very poor. So smart, but not right.
Speaker 2:But he ended his days in a lavish lifestyle. Boy, I'll tell you what Armani suits you ever priced one of them. Yeah, he had it all you know, he probably had a new one for every service. I think you did great.
Speaker 1:I think you did a fabulous you know thing.
Speaker 2:I've had several requests for this from local friends.
Speaker 1:It's our town. It's our town, you know. So I'm going to go ahead and give you this.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you and thank you for your input too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was all like speculations and things that I'd personally seen and you know it was really.
Speaker 2:it was really finding a lot of facts on this was hard. That's why I wanted to read that article, because I think it was very well written. Good job, Todd, from the Gainesville Sun back in 2000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad that they put it out there. Yes, it was really good. It was really good. I want to talk about a band, though. What band are you plugging today? So Mr Scotty Austin is on tour pretty soon. We got to play with him. He was the singer at the time for a band called Saving Abel.
Speaker 2:I'm so addicted to all the things you do.
Speaker 3:We're all around me. He's not the original singer.
Speaker 1:No, but he did. We got to play with him and remember the guitar player he had like a strong.
Speaker 2:Do I remember the guitar player? I absolutely remember the guitar player. The big buff guy, the big buff guy with the cowboy hat, and then they were all looking at me because I was wearing a hat too.
Speaker 1:I was in a band called All In back then and we opened up for them. I love the guitar player.
Speaker 2:He's great In.
Speaker 1:Gainesville Really cool cats, Really cool cats. And he grabbed my hat and was wearing it on stage and Scotty's a cool cat man. So through Curtain Call Records.
Speaker 2:Remember his wild eyes. He had wild eyes yeah, he was having a great time.
Speaker 1:Yes, really had a great time playing with them too. Saving Able was really a cool band.
Speaker 2:I still got pictures of that show.
Speaker 1:I definitely want to share one of Scotty's songs. They're going to be on tour here pretty soon. I got some information on that. I'm excited to see him. He keeps moving the Music Wave Festival and then he's playing with Adema, rehab, flaw Trantic and a few other bands. We know pretty much all of them yeah and it's a really cool show, but they're not coming to Florida. Yeah, macon, georgia yeah, they're playing in Macon, do you?
Speaker 3:remember what that was.
Speaker 1:Oh, when we played with Scotty and them in Gainesville.
Speaker 2:Oh, that was two years ago.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm going to share some of that too eventually. Eventually, I've gotten to open up for a few cool bands, you know, and that's just been really fun. That's the biggest feedback, especially if they like our group and they're just like Holy shit, you guys really rock, you know, and we get to hang out with them. Sometimes we'll get on a tour bus or, you know, we just talk to them. You know they're they're just traveling and doing their own thing too. But yeah, like I said, scotty, he's got a few dates here on this Music Wave Festival, so check that out. And through Curtain Call Records, we have a song that we can play and I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Thank you, curtain Call Records yeah.
Speaker 1:Gigi is amazing, so it's on our Spotify. Let's drink about something that she made through all the bands that they support and everything. And Scotty's on there and I want to play one of the songs and I'm going to go ahead and crack it off. So here we go, Scotty Austin, I'm digging my own grave.
Speaker 3:Oh, it is all a hoot Cause it's only gonna get worse. We're going out tonight. I know you'll start a fight. I hope you plan to try. Don't need another DUI. Oh girl, I like that dress. It's a shame you're such a mess. Three shots and we're at our best. We'll see right back. It's going down, we'll be right back. I found myself in a bad situation. Well, we've all been there before when you just can't seem to get enough Of that. You know that toxic bullshit. Well, well, well, who you gonna run and tell? You know that toxic bullshit.
Speaker 1:He follows all of the Saving Able style and flavor. Really good and I finally found the pictures. You did.
Speaker 2:From your birthday. That was a birthday show From on a Tuesday in 2014. Tuesday, december 16th 2014.
Speaker 1:We opened up for them on my birthday, yep. And yeah, at the height of, she'll share the picture on our socials. Yep, I just saved it Old Scotty rocking out and doing his own independent thing now. So that's really good and the song is amazing. I really love the song. He deserves some credit there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really cool. I'm not sure where he's based out of right now, but I know that he's got shit moving, so that's great. And thank you, curtain Call Records, and thank you, scotty, and we had a great time playing with you guys with Saving Abel.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think the original singer came back.
Speaker 3:That was a really fun night.
Speaker 1:I think the original singer may have came back to Saving Abel, so he just was like that's cool, you know? Yeah, we're just going to. I'm going to go do my own thing.
Speaker 2:And that happens sometimes and I forgot to share the Red Collings song calling song, so I will be sharing that also.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they gave us so much love back. I love, yeah she. Uh, she requested me on facebook. Oh, buds, we're buds, we're buds. It's a cool cat bands cool, so, yep, awesome sharing some music. And, uh, you did a great job on the whole mead ministry thing, the end timers it it really helps me out.
Speaker 2:You helped me find some articles. This was a shared effort.
Speaker 1:That was something that's right here in our DNA actually.
Speaker 2:Sorry about all the snot, you guys.
Speaker 1:We are not feeling great, we are so stuffy, so stuffy, but we had a great time. I think you did a great job and we got to share some cool music and we will see you guys next friday. Yes, and we hope you have a an amazing 2025 yes, new year, new you. If it's not new you, whatever, keep it up and we'll keep sipping this here and we will see you guys then bye.
