Triangle man's 2008 run-in with Cumberland religious group left him shaken, frustrated

Ten people have been charged in connection with what authorities have described as an "alternative religious group" that forced children as young as 9 years old to work for little or no money in the fish markets and grills they use to finance their operations.

John McCollum, the leader of the group, Brenda Joyce Hall, Cornelia McDonald, Pamela Puga Luna, Irish Williams, Kassia Rogers, Shirnitka McNatt and Shirley McNatt have been charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, involuntary servitude of a minor, obtaining property by false pretense and conspiracy. Daffene Edge and Earlene Hayat are wanted on the same charges.

The group lives in a collection of mobile homes and buildings off U.S. Highway 301 in Godwin known locally as McCollum Ranch. They operate at least three John C’s Fish Markets and mobile grills in the Fayetteville area and one in Lumberton, authorities said. Several former residents told authorities that children of members have to work full time in the fish markets with little to no compensation, lifting heavy boxes, keeping fish iced, cutting fish and cleaning, as well as performing construction and maintenance on the mobile grills after hours.

Authorities also say a bogus homeschool, Halls of Knowledge Home School, operates on the compound but provides no schooling. Instead, they said, the group uses the school to create fraudulent high school transcripts so young members can get into online degree programs and apply for financial aid, which is then diverted to the group's operations.

Two of the women also are accused of not providing medical care for children who cut themselves on farm equipment at the compound.

In 2008, Ed Weeks, who now lives in Morrisville, was the administrator of an assisted living facility on Dunn Road, a little more than a mile from McCollum Ranch. That summer, he said, a 21-year-old man ran through woods and fields to make it to his property, where he told Weeks he had been locked up in a room at the compound for several weeks and managed to escape through a window.

"At first, he was so upset he was just trying to explain, 'Please help me. Please help me. I came to see my mom, and they locked me up,'" Weeks recalled.

The man was "petrified," so Weeks called 911, and as many as four deputies arrived.

"He was shaking. I've never seen anyone in fear shake that violently," he recalled. "I mean, he could not even hold his arms. Even his voice was quivering, it was so bad."

A man from the compound came looking for the 21-year-old, who appeared to have an intellectual disability, Weeks said, and the two got into a scuffle. McCollum, who described himself as a "mentor" for the young man, then showed up with a woman who said she was the young man's mother, he said.

"The police said we should probably release him to the mother, and I really, really had an issue with that because of how scared the young man was," Weeks said. "He said he has been kidnapped (and) he was locked in a room."

The 21-year-old opted to go to a local hospital and later went back to Pennsylvania to live with his sister, Weeks said, expressing disappointment that nothing more was done by authorities after the incident.

"I think what's frustrating for me, when it comes to sheriff's deputies, they have a hard job to do," he said. "I respect what they do very much, (but) I think they're restricted in so many ways in how they follow through with certain issues."

Lt. Sean Swain, a spokesman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, said he combed through incident reports from 2008 and calls from Weeks between 2007 and 2011 and found no record of this call from the assisted living home.

Cumberland County Sheriff Ennis Wright said the activities at McCollum Ranch have been under investigation for almost a year. Witnesses were uncooperative, so it took time to build a case against the group's leaders, and the sheriff didn't want to raid the compound, fearing a repeat of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that ended in a gun battle in which 76 people died.

"You have to take your time in these things," Wright said. "Everybody wants you to go in, kick the door in, kick the gate in and snatch them out. No, we couldn't have done that. Like I said, there were kids there, folks out there that were sick. You have to just take your time when you do this stuff."

The Cumberland County Department of Social Services has some of the children from the compound in protective custody.

McCollum is being held at Central Prison under a $1.1 million bond. He was moved there from the Cumberland County jail after complaining of his health.

All of the others remain in the Cumberland County jail under the following bonds: Hall, $325,000; McDonald, $250,000; Luna, $527,000; Williams, $325,000; Rogers, $325,000; Shirley McNatt, $350,000; and Shirnitka McNatt, $70,000.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the two members not yet in custody is asked to call the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office at 910-323-1500 or Crime Stoppers at 910-483-8477.