ALLEGAN COUNTY, MI – Twelve-year-old John Yarbough promised his sister he would get them out of the House of Judah camp, where vicious beatings came as God’s punishment.
He did, but at a terrible price: His life
His young body eventually gave out after repeated whacks from “Big Mac,” the stick used to bloody and bruise followers of self-styled Prophet William A. Lewis who strayed from his harsh commandments.
The 1983 death, which led to slavery convictions against Lewis and his lieutenants, and a manslaughter conviction against his mother, exposed to a national audience the brutal, secretive camp in rural southwest Allegan County.
Court testimony would describe inhumane attacks: a hot iron to a young boy’s face, burning coals put into a man’s mouth, scores of blistering “licks” administered to bare, bloodied buttocks from a heavy, wooden ax handle while victims’ arms and heads were held in a whipping block.
Often, the public beatings drew cheers from followers, court documents showed.
An unrepentant Lewis, who subscribed to a literal interpretation of the Old Testament and believed he was God’s representative, convinced his followers that they - as a congregation of Black Hebrew Israelite Jews - were the chosen people and true Israelites. Others – black, white – were heathens.
John Yarbough's transgression was that he was caught watching TV instead of doing his chores. For that, he suffered several days of beatings, the investigation showed. He finally collapsed, unable to drink a glass of water from his brother, Daniel.
Dying, he was thrown in the back of a pickup truck and taken to a South Haven hospital.
He died July 4, 1983.
30 Years Later, the Nightmares Linger
Thirty years after John Yarbough’s death, the horrors of House of Judah still haunt many. Former members said the camp – a cult – destroyed lives, in particular, those of children.
Children were forced to work long hours raising crops and animals, suffered beatings, and in some cases, sexual assaults.
They watched their own parents being locked in stocks, beaten with “Big Mac.”
“I’ve seen a lot of brutality in this job, but that was about as brutal as I’ve ever seen,” retired FBI special agent Gene Debbaudt said.
The House of Judah case made national headlines. Lewis, who died in 2004 at the age of 84, wasn’t shy in front of the cameras. He gave several interviews extolling his virtues and that of his teachings before a federal judge ultimately sent him to prison.
In the isolated camp, which was patrolled by armed guards, children like John Yarbough – who had tried to escape before – had nowhere to turn for help. They lived in a trailer that, like every other structure on the Allegan County camp, was painted blue and white.
John Yarbough’s sister, Latoya, once said he'd vowed to get them out of the camp.
She recently declined repeated requests for an interview. She didn’t want to talk about her brother, or the camp. She now lives in Alabama, not far from where Lewis set up a second House of Judah camp after her brother was killed.
In an email, she said: “I have put all that behind me. I had a rough time as a child (dealing) with the mishaps of my childhood.”
Her mother, Ethel Yarbough, was convicted in 1984 of involuntary manslaughter for young John's death. She was sentenced to four to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors say she landed the final blows.
Others from the House of Judah were convicted of lesser charges in state court after the boy's death, but Lewis was acquitted of child-cruelty charges. Similar charges against his son, William L. Lewis, and others, were also dismissed.
Federal authorities then got involved. Lewis and his son and six others were indicted on slavery charges. It was a legal milestone. It was the first time the statute had been used when victims were in the custody of parents when the crime occurred.
But even in the aftermath, the nightmare lingered for many.
Former members of House of Judah said the children who were raised in the camp have struggled. They did not attend school, so they were behind academically, but mostly, they have struggled with horrors of their childhoods, former cult members said.
“There were some that did well, but very few, very few,” said a former cult member who did not want to be identified.
One of the camp's children died in prison, while another, who provided critical testimony about the brutality at the camp, killed himself after killing his wife. His family declined to comment.
“You cannot really forget,” said former member Celia Green, who now lives in Georgia. “Those things, you never forget, you put them behind you. Lesson learned. The Bible says, Don’t put your faith in man. Man will deceive you, using God.”
Rooted in Chicago, Gathered in Allegan
House of Judah got its start in Chicago, where Lewis – a self-proclaimed prophet – held classes, and preached on the radio. As his following grew in the mid-1970s, he moved them to the camp on Allegan County's Baseline Road near 60th Street, about five miles east of South Haven. The 100 or so followers lived in 30 trailers, while Lewis and “prophetess” Muriel King lived in the two houses on the property.
Other buildings included a meeting room and a classroom.
The communal camp “started out beautifully, like most things. You cannot gain people if you show your stripes right away,” Green said.
The late U.S. District Judge Douglas Hillman, who convicted the Lewises and others in a bench trial, summarized the testimony in court documents: Early on, in the mid-1970s, the camp was described as “warm, cooperative and friendly. By 1981, however, life at the camp began to change. Apparently, the Prophet reached the conclusion that the House of Judah members were backsliding, breaking camp and/or biblical rules. As a result, he established whippings as a means of punishment or chastisement.”
In early 1982, followers had to sign documents agreeing to accept punishment for sins against God and Lewis.
“Punishment was specified in the document to include death, banishment, confiscation of material goods, imprisonment, beating, burning, hanging or stoning of both the adult member and that adult member’s children,” Hillman wrote.
Lewis ordered construction of a whipping block “fashioned after the stocks used in colonial days containing holes for the head and hands to confine offenders during the whippings,” Hillman wrote.
The judge determined that Lewis and a handful of close associates created a “climate of fear” with their “cruel and inhuman beatings of adults and children.”
Among them: John Yarbough’s brother, 7 or 8, was purposely burned on the face with a hot iron after a younger brother was accidentally burned while in his care or presence.
John's brother described another vicious beating after man dropped his baby or let him fall on hot coals, according to court testimony.
The man was put in the block, and given “80 licks.” The prophet then told a man to get hot coals, and burn the man every place his baby was burned.
“And the Prophet told him to turn the blocks around so that they could – the congregation could see them burn him,” the boy testified.
“He turned the blocks around and kind of leaned it back. He got to the block with the hot coals. (Robert) McGee put on a glove, grabbed a coal out of there and put it into (the victim’s) mouth. Then they put one in each of his hands, a hot coal, where the baby had been burned on the hands. And they took the hot pan and rubbed it against his forehead and burned him on the forehead because the baby had been burned on the forehead.”
Hillman said evidence showed Lewis and his lieutenants enslaved John Yarbough.
“To that question, there can be only one answer. Yes. At least for the five days between the severe beating that John received on June 29, 1983, because he failed to return to work on time and his death, John was a subjugated individual, in both body and mind. John was not a passive child. He exhibited more strength of will than many of the other children (he attempted to run away at least once) and, had he lived, there might have been some question as to whether the defendants succeeded in subjugating him. However, he did not live.”
After several years of court hearings, and jail and prison sentences, House of Judah followers had their chance to break away from Lewis.
But many stayed with him, and set up another camp, this time in Wetumpka, Ala. where Lewis had his roots.
Among those who followed him to the new compound: John Yarbough’s mother, after her release from a Michigan prison, records showed.