Monday 13 June 2022 08:49 PM Religious group that handed over missing 'Baby Holly Marie' is a nomadic cult trends now
The cult that mysteriously handed over baby Holly Clouse after her parents had been brutally murdered is almost certainly a nomadic group that was led by a recluse who claimed to be Jesus reincarnated and was convicted of child abuse, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Cult expert Joseph Szimhart said he would 'give a nine out of 10 guess' that the details revealed last week after the baby's identity was discovered, fits the group known as Christ's Family that wandered the south west United States for years.
The organization was described by the Texas authorities last week after Holly was finally tracked down to Oklahoma and and reunited with her family.
First Assistant Attorney General of Texas, Brent Webster, said the group handed Holly to an Arizona church after her parents had been killed 1,000 miles away in Harris County, Texas.
Webster said the group wore white robes, went barefoot, ate a vegetarian diet, separated men and women and shunned animal products.
That description matches Christ's Family, Szimhart, who met the group several times in the early 1980s, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Christ's Family was led by a convicted drug trafficker called Lightning Amen who in 2003 was convicted of annoying or molesting a child under 18.
The group, which numbered around 2,000 at its peak, believed that marijuana is a God-given herb and smoked it openly and dubbed it 'God's tranquilizer' – while the men wore diapers on their heads like a turban.
Dean Clouse, 21, and Tina Clouse, 17, (pictured together with their one-year-old daughter Holly Marie) were found in dead in a wooded area in Houston, Texas, in January 1981 - until last year their identities were unknown
The Texas Attorney General released a picture of Holly, who was adopted after being handed over by a religious cult, although it did not reveal her identity.
The nomadic cult Christ's Family was led by a convicted drug trafficker called Lightning Amen who in 2003 was convicted of child abuse and claimed to be Jesus
Dean Clouse and Tina Linn met as teenagers. They got married when Tina was 15 and pregnant with Holly, then moved to Texas before their baby was a year-old so Dean could get a better-paying carpenter job
Webster said a group member called 'Sister Susan' contacted the relatives of Holly's murdered parents in either December 1980 or January 1981 after their deaths and offered to return their car – for a $1,000 donation.
The exact involvement of the group in the deaths of Harold Dean Clouse Jr, 21, who was beaten and bound, and Tina Clouse, 17, who was strangled, is unclear.
Authorities have not revealed how long Holly was in their care but it appears that she was at least with them for the journey from Texas to Arizona.
Relatives of the Clouses were told that Dean – as his family knew him – and Tina had joined the cult and given up their earthly possessions and did not want to be contacted.
But in 2021 two bodies that had been discovered in Houston 40 years earlier were identified as them through DNA technology.
Given that Holly's body was not with those of her parents, her family were left hoping that she was alive, prayers that were answered last week when Holly was found to be a 42-year-old mother-of-five living in Cushing, Oklahoma who had been adopted after being handed in.
She was only informed of the identity of her biological family last week and a reunion is planned in the coming days
Christ's Family were one of a number of fanatical groups that appeared in the 1970s, said Szimhart, who himself survived a cult and once ran deprogramming lessons for former members.
The group spent their winters in places like Yuma, Arizona, a county mentioned by the authorities when they announced that Holly had been found.
Christ's Family believed in the separation of the sexes and moved around from coast to coast 'like the wind', according to a 1980 report in the Washington Post about the group.
The report said that they did not wear leather goods, eat meat, eggs, dairy products or even honey as they say they are the product of captive animals.
Nearly all of them took the last name 'Christ.'
Their most well-known feature was their white robes and bare feet, inspired by the idea that it could bring them closer to Jesus.
They had no money, lived off food stamps and charity from the public and carried Army-style blankets over their shoulders as makeshift beds.
Szimhart said that he encountered groups of around a dozen members of Christ's Family in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the late 1970s and early 1980s where he was working as a portrait artist.
He said: 'There were other Jesus type groups but these people were very distinctive, they said that you should smoke marijuana and they wore the white robes.
'Right away you were curious because they were so distinctive. One of the women squatted down to talk to me. She didn't have any underwear on. She was very comfortable with that.
'They were not trying to recruit me and attracted people passively through their look and peaceful demeanor.
'A few young people would get curious and find meaning in their words and they'd sign up and a month later they'd be wearing the costume.'
While police did not report that the group were violent, they had a criminal element, especially their leader.
In 1986 Lightning Amen – real name Charles Franklin McHugh – was convicted of possessing and transporting methamphetamine for sales, and possession of a hypodermic needle and a concealed weapon.
According to an Associated Press article at the time, he faced up to seven years in jail but further charges were pending due to the seizure of drugs, $4,200 in cash and several weapons.
The report noted that in December 1985, 10 cult members were sentenced to jail for growing $900,000 worth of marijuana at the sect's ranch.
Amen had reportedly left his family to find God after a business and two marriages failed.
Court records in Riverside County, California, show that in 2001 Amen, who died in 2010, was accused of three counts of annoying or molesting a child under 18 years of age.
He was found guilty on one of them the following year and ordered to do 160 hours of community service.
He was also ordered to have no contact with three females who were all identified with the surname 'Y'.
Today at the ranch an old yellow school bus with the personalized license plate reading 4 Christ sits on blocks in the front yard
Many of the cult members take on the last name 'Christ', including Gary Christ (left) and John Christ
Amen spent five years in prison in Chino, California, on gun charges, his follower Gary Christ told DailyMail.com 'He took the rap for some motorcycle gang that stored their guns here'
The group, which numbered around 2,000 at its peak, believed that marijuana is a God-given herb and smoked it openly and dubbed it 'God's tranquilizer' – while the men wore diapers on their heads like a turban
Members wore white robes, went barefoot, ate a vegetarian diet, separated men and women and shunned animal products. But now members such as John Christ wear contemporary clothing
Szimhart said: 'The leader micromanaged the whole thing – he was narcissistic in his way of interpreting the Bible, combining back to the Earth movement with the Bible.
'He developed this look, the white robes which seems like something from the movies about Jesus with white headbands they tied around their heads.
'I'm not saying they didn't believe in the Bible but it was a very twisted version of it for the leader wanting power.
Gary Christ, 69, told DailyMail.com that just three people now live in the compound. 'I've been around since the 1970s,' he said
'Amen used the Bible to gain power over people and promote his grandiose vision of who he thought he was. Drug dealing was huge among the hippies and since God blessed marijuana why not?
'Meth was around then and
