Four adults and two toddlers who mysteriously vanished from St. Louis are believed to have joined a bizarre new cult run by a TikToker and convicted sex offender—and police say the group likely has a compound somewhere where other followers from across the country may have flocked to as well.
“They have to turn up somewhere. This cannot be the only case of missing people in this country tied to this cult,” Berkeley Police Maj. Steve Runge told reporters on Tuesday.
Police said they became aware of the cult after the disappearances of 25-year-old Mikayla Thompson, 36-year-old Ma’Kayla Wickerson, and Wickerson’s 3-year-old daughter, Malaiyah Wickerson. They went missing around the same time as three others in the area: 30-year-old Naaman Williams; 27-year-old Gerrielle German; and her 2-year-old, Ashton Williams, authorities said.
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While investigating, police discovered that all six people had moved into a rental house together, where neighbors reported strange goings-on. “Neighbors reported seeing these people outside daily worshipping the sun,” Runge told KTVI. “When it was raining, they would come outside naked and run around the yard. They were digging up things in the yard.”
“They were just strange,” neighbor Christopher Green told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
After the group had apparently caught wind of police frequently watching the house, they suddenly moved out, leaving food in the microwave and clothes still in the washing machine, police said.
“We went in there thinking we were going into a crime scene. But there was no evidence of any struggle,” Runge said.
Investigators soon learned all the adults were devout followers on social media of Rashad Jamal, a convicted sex offender who has deemed himself a prophet and declared that he and his followers are gods. Jamal, who has also preached anti-government conspiracy theories and urged followers to become sovereign citizens, was convicted of child molestation in Georgia in August 2023 and is now serving an 18-year sentence.
He has apparently continued to influence followers from behind bars, in videos posted to YouTube through his so-called University of Cosmic Intelligence, which bills itself as “enlightening and illuminating the minds of the carbonated beings a.k.a your so-called black & latino people of earth.”
Several of his followers have reportedly been linked to violent crimes—including Krystal Diane Pinkins and Yasmine Hider, according to Fox News Digital. Both were convicted last week for the shocking murder of 22-year-old University of Central Florida student Adam Simjee in the Talladega National Forest in August 2022.
Family members of the missing cult followers have pleaded for information on their whereabouts and said they were effectively cut off shortly after their loved ones began following Jamal.
“Mental illness is real. Manipulation is real,” Cartisha Morgan, the mother of Wickerson, told KTVI. “There are a lot of things going on out here, and we just need to be aware of it.”
