Newspaper Article 1993 – Women flee in fear of self-styled Messiah

Women flee in fear of self-styled Messiah

Two women have fled their homes in Eskdale amid fears the behaviour of a new arrival and self-proclaimed Jesus Christ might escalate into a small-scale Jonestown or Waco.

However, the man was today understood to be no longer at the property formerly used as a Department of Social Welfare Children’s home and more recently by the troubled Napier Cadet Academy.

One of the women told the Daily Telegraph the man, who never appeared in the open during the daytime, once yelled loud death threats at night. The threats were thought at the time; to have been directed at a dog but it was later said they had been directed at an associate of the man.

The woman said she started to fear a sacrifice might take place and encouraged by the other woman eventually fled.

The Daily Telegraph understands residents and family living in a central Napier street also had fears while the man was living there until a few weeks ago.

Today, the woman who spoke to the Daily Telegraph was concerned about returning to collect her belongings from Eskdale but police believed the man was no longer in residence.

He was not at the property when police arrived after a report that a fight was in progress on Tuesday night and it was believed he hadn’t returned.

Senior Sergeant Neville Haggart, of Napier police, said a man who suffered a “jaw injury” in the fracas refused to lay a complaint and had since also left, while Bay View district policeman Constable Craig Skeet said he was investigating a complaint of wilful damage.

The property involved is about 12ha of land and accommodation, comprising the former Department of Social Welfare children’s home Beck-House and staff residences. It is owned by the Napier Cadet Academy Trust which, stricken by funding difficulties, closed the doors on a military-style programme of rehabilitation for disadvantaged and problem youths last year.

The trust has since had a caretaker on the site and other people living in some of the units had ensured the property was kept in reasonable shape. The other woman who fled the site was reported yesterday as describing hearing and seeing “whooping, charting and dancing” around the flat occupied by “Jesus Christ”. and his family. People had also been involved in christening children in the Esk River.

The woman said she was aware of similar “goings on” and had kept to herself, preferring not to get involved.

“But strange things started to happen,” she said.

She became frightened when she could see other people being drawn towards the group or its persuasions.

The man calling himself Jesus Christ had lived with his wife and child in Faraday Street. Residents of the area became concerned and the family left to live at Eskdale.

The couple have travelled overseas as “missionaries” according to one person who knows them and returned to New Zealand late last year “with all this voodoo stuff”.

They had lived for a while in the Turangi area before making their way to Hawke’s Bay.

Academy trust senior officers were today unable to be contacted, being out of the country but one trustee said he was trying to establish who was living on the property and who wasn’t.