St. Louis authorities are investigating the possible abduction of four adults and their children, by a mysterious online cult.
Ma’Kayla Wickerson, 25, and her 3-year daughter, Malaiyah, are among the missing (pictured above).
The cult is reportedly led by Rashad Jamal, who is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence in Georgia on charges of child molestation and cruelty to children.
In various videos on social media, Jamal regularly calls himself a god, a prophet or a messiah, according to NBC affiliate KSDK.
Speaking with a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jamal denied knowing or meeting the missing people.
“I am pretty sure I have never met these people,” he told a reporter in a jailhouse interview. “I get on my phone and I give a lecture. I go live, and then I get off the phone. I do not know the people that are in my live[stream]. It’s too many people.”
However, family members believe Jamal knows where their loved ones are located.
“I would like to know that they’re OK so that I can get a good night’s sleep,” said Shelita Gibson, whose daughter Gerielle German, 26, and 3-year-old grandson, Ashton, are among the missing.
Gibson told KSDK: “I would like to know they’re not hungry, they’re not cold, that no one is making her do things that she would have to pay for in the long run.”
Naaman Williams, 29, Mikayla Thompson, 23, and Ma’Kayla and her daughter Malaiyah had all lived together in a rented house in Berkeley, Missouri before they disappeared.
Cartisha Morgan, Wickerson’s mother, told KSDK she believes her daughter was “suffering from postpartum depression.”
Morgan said she hasn’t spoken with Wickerson since August.
“I’m not doing so well, but I’m just holding on by my faith,” Morgan tells People.com. “I just wish that people are made aware of this.”
