Over time, Alamo began to exert more control over members of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry. He turned his church it into a multimillion-dollar business, built on the backs of devoted followers.
"They spent all of their time either praying or working in some capacity for the ministry," Lynn says. "They were completely physically, if not psychologically, as well, exhausted. So there was no time for independent thinking."
Emboldened by his success, Alamo wasn't afraid to share his radical views with the world. During a 2008 interview with CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Alamo ranted against the Catholic Church and argued that the Bible implies that puberty is the age of consent.
"I don't know when girls reach puberty. Most of them around 10, 11, 12, 13, 14," he said during the interview. "God inseminated Mary at the age of around 10 to 12. Should we get him for having sex?"
Jeanne, Amy, Nikki and Desiree say that when they lived in Alamo's Arkansas compound, he controlled every facet of his followers' lives, and threatened violence and eternal damnation if they dared to disobey him. "He was the one who laid down the rules," Desiree says.
Nikki says Alamo decided everything, from who could get a driver's license to whom a member could marry.
Jeanne, Amy, Desiree and Nikki say that when Alamo set his sights on a young girl in his congregation, her parents couldn't say no. In fact, some believed becoming one of his spiritual wives was an honor.
"My mom had told me the only person I was going to marry was Tony Alamo," Amy says.
Once Alamo "married" a girl, Jeanne says he used her to fulfill his sexual desires. "Tony Alamo had up to 13 wives. About, I would say, half were minors, and he had had sex with every single one of us," she says. "He preferred the younger ones."
Four days after Alamo exchanged vows with Jeanne, his eighth "wife," she says he made her have sex with him. "I did believe that God was telling him that I was supposed to have sex with him, that I was supposed to be his wife, that anything he asked of me, I was supposed to do," she says.
When Desiree was an 8-year-old little girl who loved playing with dolls, she believed Alamo was a prophet. But, she says, she still felt that what was happening was wrong.
"I just remember Tony bringing me into his room at one point. He laid me on the bed, said the marriage vows, said 'I do,' got a wedding ring, and after that, what actually made it final was, instead of a marriage license, you had sex," Desiree says. "I didn't know about sex. I didn't know about any of that. What kept going through my mind was: 'How can this be right? Isn't this wrong?'"
Despite what she'd been taught all her life, Nikki says she also felt that Alamo's manipulation and teachings were wrong. "I thought, 'If this is heaven and this is what's going to get me to heaven, I'm going to have to go to hell,'" she says.
Nikki says that in 1999, after she realized she would become Alamo's next spiritual wife, she took action. Although Alamo had taught her to fear the outside world, she found the courage inside herself to run.
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One afternoon, Nikki says she fled the compound. She eluded Alamo's security guards by running through thick brush for hours. "He sent every person out to look up and down the highways," Nikki says. "They went through every store, every fast food place."
After running for miles through the woods, Nikki was exhausted and terrified. Finally, she spotted a house across a field and hurried to the front door. Vince and Karen Coker, strangers who lived in the house, took a leap of faith and invited her to stay the night.
The Cokers offered Nikki a change of clothes, a warm bath and a bed to sleep in. "I remember laying in the bed. I felt a little bit safe," Nikki says. "I thought, 'Maybe, maybe they will really help me.'"
Oprah Show producers reached out to Alamo for a statement, but he never responded.
But Alamo's church, which is still in business, sent a message. This is part of it, verbatim.
"Tony Alamo has no secret world or child brides. He is the least secret person in the world. His church and he are open daily to the public, and he is very outspoken, as an open book. Oprah and the government media and the Roman Catholics are in conspiracy against him and his whole church."
From The Oprah Winfrey Show ? 2010US child brides part 2Originally from: http://www.nursinglink.monster.com/news/articles/14357-us-child-brides-part-2
View this post on my blog: http://travelnursesuccess.com/us-child-brides-part-2
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