THE SELF-PROCLAIMED “GOD” WHO DEMANDED HUMAN EARS: THE CHILLING SECRETS OF THE YAHWEH CULT

In the early 1980s, a charismatic leader arose in Miami. He drew the weak, the poor, and the powerless to his side. He promised them a better life, but they had to follow his commands to the letter. His temples soon sprouted across the country as thousands were drawn to his gospel, and those who questioned his doctrine started turning up dead. Local police and the FBI had to stop the madness.

In Miami, the discovery of a mutilated body sent investigators on the trail of a deadly cult. Agents found a wall of silence around the cult’s members, as potential witnesses, terrified of reprisals, refused to talk. Jim Kallstrom, the former head of the FBI’s New York office, stated: “I’m Jim Kallstrom, former head of the FBI’s New York office. It would take a massive operation involving 120 agents in seven cities to bring down a deranged fanatic who believed he was God.”

On Friday, November 13th, 1981, in Miami, Florida, on the outskirts of the city, a construction foreman was checking his work site on a dirt road. He came upon something wrapped in blankets. It was a body. He called the police, and detectives from Miami-Dade responded. The foreman said he hadn’t seen the body when he passed by earlier that morning, suggesting the body must have been laid there recently.

The detectives inspected the remains of an African-American male who had been decapitated. Detectives found only a set of keys on the victim; there was no wallet or identification. Just four feet away, detectives found the victim’s head wrapped in sheets. His fingerprints were taken in the hopes that they might help identify the man.

Decapitations are rare and usually performed to hide a victim’s identity. However, according to Detective John King, that wasn’t the motive here: “There was no attempt to hide or prevent identification because they left the head actually on the scene. Usually, if you had tried to prevent an identification from being made, you would take other body parts such as the hands or the head. Also, it seems like it was more ritualistic than anything else, how he was killed.”

The victim’s face was badly damaged, making visual identification difficult. Unless the man’s fingerprints were on record, investigators would have no way of identifying him. The medical examiner determined that the victim had been severely beaten before his decapitation; his nose was bloodied, his teeth were broken, and his eyes were swollen shut. His wrists showed ligature marks, and sneaker tread marks on his body suggested he’d been kicked. On the back of his neck, evidence was found of repeated blows from a dull blade, perhaps a machete.

Comparing the victim’s fingerprints was difficult in 1981 because the database wasn’t computerized. Eventually, an investigator identified the victim as Aston Greene, age 25. He had been arrested a month earlier for a misdemeanor driving charge. Detectives went to his last known address, his mother’s house.

After informing Mrs. Greene of her son’s death, she told detectives: “My son had recently turned to religion. He seemed very serious about it.” She had last seen him two weeks earlier and had prepared a vegetarian meal for him. He explained he was a Hebrew Israelite, a Yahweh. Detective King recalled: “That’s when we first heard the word Yahweh. I had no idea what the Yahweh was all about. I never heard the name before, nothing about them.”

From a phone number provided by his mother, detectives determined Greene’s new address. Due to the violent nature of the murder, they called for backup. Finding no one home, they entered using the key from Greene’s pocket. Detective King noted: “We entered the house thinking that hopefully we wouldn’t find any other bodies, but we went in to check it out. We found a number of items of a religious nature: textbooks, workbooks, a lot of literature. It turned out that it was from the Hebrew Israelite religion.” They also found a clean machete tucked to the side of a sofa.

Investigators traced a phone number found by the door to a house two miles away. There, they spoke with a group of Hebrew Israelites, including Greene’s housemate, Carlton Carey. They had grown disillusioned with the temple’s leader. Detective King said: “We spoke to them briefly. Now we’ve got a little bit of background information on the temple and what it was all about, and we asked them to respond to the homicide office so that we could take statements and in-depth interviews with them.”

Several suggested the killers were zealous members of the Yahweh temple. Detective King observed: “Well, all the people that we spoke to perceived a great deal of danger because of the threats that had been made to them, both on the phone and by word of mouth from other members. They were concerned for their safety, and the death of Aston Greene certainly confirmed this.”

The next day, Carlton Carey and his wife, Mildred Banks, went to the police station. Carey said he and Greene had embraced the temple until its leader, Hulan Mitchell, started calling himself the true Messiah. Mitchell believed blacks were descended from the lost Hebrew tribe of Judah. Followers took the last name “Israel,” and Mitchell eventually changed his name to Yahweh Ben Yahweh. Detective King remarked: “In fact, during the interview we had with him, he referred to Hulan as not the Messiah but a crook and a swindler.”

Carey and his wife declined a police escort home, fearing they would be seen with the authorities. They took a winding route home, but they never suspected someone was waiting inside. Shortly after, Carlton Carey was shot to death, and Mildred Banks was shot and had her throat slashed. She barely survived.

At the scene, police found a bloodied machete. Detective John King believed: “The fact that a machete was actually used in an attempt on Mildred’s life certainly gives more credence to the belief that the Hebrew Israelites were involved in it.” They learned many members owned machetes, but the killers had cut the phone line and left no physical traces.

Mildred Banks survived surgery. When she was conscious, she told investigators: “I am certain that the attackers were Yahweh-sent because we had spoken to the police that day. I never saw their faces.” Police posted guards at her hospital room 24/7. Detective King noted: “After the homicide of Carlton Carey, we were not able to locate any of the former members that had split from the temple. They had fled in different directions. They became scared and they just left.”

Detective King and his partner visited the Miami temple but faced a wall of silence. He said: “Every time we spoke to someone, it was ‘Praise Yahweh’ or ‘See the public information office’.” Hulan Mitchell claimed to know nothing. Surveillance was difficult because guards watched the temple at all times. They discovered the organization owned real estate and vehicles totaling nearly 50 million dollars, with 12,000 members in Florida alone.

The FBI began investigating under Supervisory Special Agent Herbert Cousins, who believed the group demonstrated elements of domestic terrorism. He stated: “The basic terrorism investigations are conducted on a group of individuals who engage in criminal activities to further their social or political goals.” Mitchell taught that his followers’ duty was to destroy “white oppressors.” Members manufactured products like tonics and t-shirts to raise revenue, which Mitchell controlled.

Assistant US Attorney Richard Scruggs noted the group’s dual reputation: “The Yahwehs in the early 80s had been amassing power and property. People saw them as a somewhat scary group that were preaching hatred, but at the same time, they outwardly appeared to be quiet and well-behaved.” However, in May 1986, after being driven out of a neighborhood in Delray, Florida, the block was firebombed.

An informant eventually came forward to the FBI, confirming Mitchell’s henchmen were responsible for the bombing and the slaying of Aston Greene. The informant confessed: “The dead man had been considered a threat since he openly questioned Hulan Mitchell’s authority.” Greene was abducted, beaten, and beheaded on Mitchell’s orders.

In September 1986, 61-year-old Raymond Kelly was found stabbed to death in his vehicle, with both ears severed. Metro-Dade Homicide Lieutenant Rex Remley said: “We had experienced a number of cases in which victims had been murdered and there was a near-missing. In several of those cases, it appeared that it may be the same perpetrator.” A .38 revolver was missing from Kelly’s car.

Later, at an apartment complex known as the “dirt road apartments,” violence erupted. Police arrested a suspect carrying a .38 caliber revolver. Lieutenant Remley interviewed him: “I was just trying to get his basic information. He told me that he was Neariah Israel, and when I asked him about his age, he told me that he was over 400 years old.” The suspect was actually Robert Rozier, a former NFL player with a criminal history.

Rozier was connected to the murder of Raymond Kelly after a serial number on the gun was correctly identified. Facing the death penalty, Rozier eventually decided to cooperate with the FBI. He told investigators: “I know of at least 20 murders across the country that had been ordered by Hulan Mitchell.” He explained that Mitchell ordered him to kill as many “white devils” as possible and return with an ear as proof.

Special Agent Herbert Cousins confirmed the motive for the apartment murders: “Brown and Broussard were executed because they resisted being evicted from their homes and they spoke out on TV against the Yahwehs.” As the investigation closed in, Mitchell tried to polish his public image, even receiving a “Yahweh Ben Yahweh Day” proclamation from the mayor of Miami.

In October 1990, the FBI filed sealed arrest warrants. Operation Jericho was launched. Since Mitchell was in New Orleans, the arrest team moved in there. Agent Cousins said: “The main issue for law enforcement was safety.” On November 6, 1990, Mitchell was ordered out of his hotel room with his hands up. Simultaneously, teams in six other cities captured his henchmen.

Hulan Mitchell was charged with extortion, conspiracy, and murder. Prosecutor Scruggs revealed: “We found out that there was actually a hit team of five individuals who were stalking us, trying to find out where we were so that they could kill us upon the orders of Yahweh Ben Yahweh.” Even during the trial, jurors were dismissed because they were too terrified to deliberate.

In May 1992, Hulan Mitchell and six followers were found guilty of conspiracy. Mitchell received 18 years in prison. Detective King reflected: “He found a successful philosophy that people would flock to, and I think the more power he obtained, the more influence he obtained over his followers, that he ultimately lost control of himself.” Hulan Mitchell’s murderous actions were finally halted.