Part Two: The Throat-Slitting Evangelical Minister of Jamaica

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part Two – The Throat-Slitting Evangelical Minister of Jamaica
Released on May 29, 2025 by Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the gripping second part of "The Throat-Slitting Evangelical Minister of Jamaica," the podcast delves deeper into the dark and twisted narrative of Kevin Smith, a charismatic yet malevolent evangelical minister. Host Kevin Smith, alongside guest Molly Lambert, unpacks the harrowing journey of a man whose quest for power and financial gain led to unimaginable bloodshed in Jamaica.

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Background on Kevin Smith

[00:04] Host:
"We're back with the story of a guy that I swear is going to end in unimaginable bloodshed..."

Kevin Smith, originally from Canada, founded Kos Deliverance International around 2002. His movement quickly gained traction, attracting followers with promises of spiritual salvation and prosperity. Smith's ability to evade legal repercussions stemmed from his established connections and his adeptness at presenting himself as a benevolent leader.

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Establishing Presence in Jamaica

[02:15] Host:
"...he established a permanent base of operations in downtown Montego Bay."

Fleeing Canada to escape probation for sexual assault, Smith sought refuge in Jamaica, where he reconnected with Charlton, a childhood friend and local pastor. This alliance provided Smith with essential connections, allowing him to integrate seamlessly into the Jamaican evangelical landscape. His rapid expansion was facilitated by affiliating with Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries (Pikram), amplifying his influence and financial intake.

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Prosperity Gospel and Financial Grifts

[03:31] Host:
"...prosperity gospel preaching became a major part of Kevin's sermons."

Smith employed the prosperity gospel, a theology that equates financial donations with divine favor. By encouraging tithes and seed offerings, he amassed significant wealth under the guise of spiritual duty. [09:39] Host:
"...the sheer amount of money he brought in seems to have kept everybody quiet."

The church's income soared, with weekly earnings estimated around one million dollars. This influx funded real estate acquisitions, luxury lifestyles, and further expansion of his religious empire. Smith's tactics included offering free services and discounted benefits to attract young men, allegedly forming a manipulative and abusive network within his church.

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Abuse and Exploitation within the Church

[27:44] Host:
"...Smith showed an early flair for the extreme."

Allegations surfaced of Smith exploiting his followers, particularly young men like Jeevon, who described his time in the church as akin to slavery. Members were coerced into laborious tasks without compensation, and Smith leveraged fear-based tactics to maintain control. Prophecies and threats were commonplace, ensuring that dissent was met with severe repercussions.

Notable Quote:
[37:17] Host: "He's doing the every cult move – child labor, cutting off family members, stealing money... the holy trifecta of cult leadership."

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Decline and Radicalization (COVID-19 Influence)

[44:30] Host:
"He starts using both his church's social media and his actual pulpit to howl to the masses that the COVID vaccines have microchips in them..."

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point for Smith. Influenced by conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine rhetoric, he intensified his apocalyptic preaching. Leveraging platforms like Glenn Beck's Blaze, Smith propagated notions that vaccines were tools of the devil, further polarizing his already unstable congregation.

Notable Quote:
[51:09] Host:
"Smith's behavior in person became noticeably stranger over time... he's committing to the great drift."

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The October 16th Event and Violence

[54:46] Host:
"Sermons leading up to October 16th sounded apocalyptic and violent."

On October 16th, 2021, Smith orchestrated a catastrophic event at his newly constructed church, the Ark. The day began with intense sermons and culminated in violent acts where congregants were ordered to perform brutal sacrifices. This event resulted in multiple deaths both inside and outside the Ark, transforming the once prophetic leader into a figure of terror and chaos.

Notable Quote:
[54:46] Congregant:
"...the flood is coming. Go now. Run."

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Smith’s Death in Car Crash

[63:37] Host:
"Less than two weeks after this goes down, Smith is in custody and incarcerated."

After the violent outbreak, Smith was apprehended by authorities. However, en route to Kingston, his vehicle crashed under suspicious circumstances, resulting in his death alongside a police officer. The crash fueled speculations of foul play, distrust, and conspiracy theories among his followers, some of whom believed the state was orchestrating events to silence him.

Notable Quote:
[39:21] Host:
"...properly, it's clearly something shady has gone down here."

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Conclusion and Reflections

The story of Kevin Smith serves as a chilling reminder of how charismatic leaders can exploit faith, fear, and financial desperation to amass power. Through sophisticated manipulation and adherence to harmful ideologies like the prosperity gospel, Smith's rise and fall encapsulate the dangers inherent in unregulated religious movements. The podcast underscores the importance of vigilance and critical thinking in the face of manipulative authority figures.

Final Thoughts:
As Molly Lambert aptly summarizes, "We're all complicit," highlighting societal responsibilities in preventing such tragedies. The episode leaves listeners reflecting on the seductive nature of charismatic leaders and the dire consequences of unchecked power.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• [09:39] Host:
  "...the sheer amount of money he brought in seems to have kept everybody quiet."

• [37:17] Host:
  "He's doing the every cult move – child labor, cutting off family members, stealing money... the holy trifecta of cult leadership."

• [51:09] Host:
  "Smith's behavior in person became noticeably stranger over time... he's committing to the great drift."

• [54:46] Congregant:
  "...the flood is coming. Go now. Run."

---

This episode paints a vivid and disturbing picture of Kevin Smith's operations, blending religious fervor with outright criminality, ultimately culminating in a violent climax that underscores the episode's dark theme.

Transcript

[Kevin Smith]

Call Zone Media.

[Host]

Oh, we're back. Welcome back to the story of a guy that I swear is going to end in unimaginable bloodshed, but at this point he is a sex pest who has fled Canada for Jamaica in order to start a new evangelical church. Yeah, many such cases. We are back with our guest for this week, Molly Lambert. Molly, welcome to the show. Back to the show.

[Molly Lambert]

Hello.

[Host]

Yeah, how are we feeling as we come back into part two?

[Molly Lambert]

I'm ready to see what's going to happen.

[Host]

Okay, you want to drop any plugs at the start here for your new podcasts?

[Molly Lambert]

Sure, yeah. I will have a podcast out later this year called Jenna World, Jenna Jameson, Vivid Video in the Valley about the history of the porn industry in Los Angeles. And yeah, check it out when it comes out.

[Host]

Excellent. Well, that gets us back in to part two and closes out our cold opening. This is an I Heart podcast.

[Narrator]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Michael Brown]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Narrator]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Michael Brown]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Narrator]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host]

So we're back. As I noted last episode, the bad Kevin Smith had founded Kos Deliverance International around the year two, and when he fled to Jamaica, violating the terms of his probation, he brought it with him. Now, that Canadian magazine the Walrus reported that he'd been going back and forth from Jamaica for a while at this point. So he had some sort of an established presence there at different evangelical churches. And once he was on the run, he established a permanent base of operations in downtown Montego Bay. He reconnected with a childhood friend there from Jamaica College named Charlton, who had remained in the country when Smith went off to Canada and had become a pastor himself in the area. Charlton served as a useful early source of connections while Kevin built up his flock, but he also had a sizable head start by the time he moved there full times, thanks to his years of international work. Charlton later claimed that Smith told him early on he'd started ministering to Portia Simpson Miller, the prime minister, and he would also sometimes add vaguely that he talked to with other government officials. So he's from a very early state claiming to be ministering personally to, like, high level politicians in Jamaica and have a lot of connections in the local government. And there's some evidence this is true, including the fact that he really does not get investigated for any of his criminal history to the degree that you might expect of somebody who starts. Who kind of comes into Jamaica out of Canada and immediately starts up a large and influential church. His flock grew rapidly, and in 2012, he began affiliating his church with a larger Pentecostal organization in Jamaica called Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries, or Pikram. I think Pikram would be the acronym there.

[Kevin Smith]

I like that.

[Host]

Yeah, there you go. It sounds like a Pokemon. It was not like a Pokemon, unless I've really lost the plot on that game over the last few years. One regular talking point in Kevin's sermons while he's in Jamaica is that he hadn't left Canada because he had committed sex crimes and had to flee because he didn't want to do probation. He had rejected Canada and his comfortable first world life there to return home to Jamaica because he was so loyal to the Jamaican people. Right.

[Kevin Smith]

I like that.

[Host]

He's like.

[Kevin Smith]

He's like, it's not you, it's me. Canada. Bye, Canada.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

He's reframing it. You guys didn't get forced out of Los Angeles. You chose to go to Portland.

[Host]

Right, right, right. And he's choosing to go to Jamaica because he's so loyal to the Jamaican people, which is just also a really fucked up way of pretending you didn't sexually assault a guy. Like, there's no non fucked up way to do that.

[Kevin Smith]

Exactly.

[Host]

But I guess this is particularly fucked up. I'm gonna play a clip from a revival that he did six or seven years ago where he talks about why he left Canada for Jamaica. Both. So you can again get an idea of, like the personal charisma, like, hear the reaction of the crowd when he talks about this stuff, because they're buying it. And also so you can hear, like, how he is framing why he wound up in Jamaica. Now, in this specific part of the sermon, he's discussing a conversation he had during a brief trip back to Canada with one of his Pentecostal mentors in Canada. So this is like a Canadian guy asking, like, why are you going? Why'd you leave? Why'd you go to Jamaica? Right. That's the context of this part of the speech.

[Congregant]

Talk to me now. He said, what takes you over is that genuine or Holy Ghost anointing? He said, the other people think they have to help God and go get powers. And that's why the church always splits and divide. But for seven years, God has given you seed and your seed remain. All I see happening to your ministry is God adding more and more. He said, let me teach you. Wait a second. Let me teach you. He said, don't you know jam? He said, don't you understand?

[Molly Lambert]

Understand?

[Congregant]

You see, look at you. You're coming here and you're buying all this candy to take back to Jamaica. Do you know what you're doing? I said, no, tell me. He said, you are watering the seed. I said, what do you mean? He said, because you love your people, I notice you're uncomfortable being away for more than three days because that is the people that God gave.

[Kevin Smith]

The, like, music and, like, breathing combo.

[Host]

Very authentic. It's beautiful. And man, but you gotta hear, like, the reaction he gets. People are. That is. You can't fake a crowd like that. People are down.

[Kevin Smith]

They're into it.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, I'm just gonna. I'll play Kevin's advocate for a minute here. He's just doing some preaching. You know, he's talking in a preacher style. Yeah, it's. It's stylized.

[Host]

Yeah, it's the. You can really, like. Yeah, you can hear. It's fast. It's fascinating to me how international that, like, American Pentecostal preacher voice is. I used to be, you know, down in the depths of hell, but then I got risen up by God. Like, it's a very, like, he's, like.

[Kevin Smith]

Doing a lot of mouth breathing. And as a podcast producer, that's my worst nightmare.

[Host]

Yeah, well, I mean, Sophie, that's why you're never gonna make it as an evangelical minister. You know, I say this all the time. I'm a bishop.

[Kevin Smith]

I'm a fucking bishop, God damn it.

[Host]

That's my part of why I keep recommending the movie, Marjo. And I know I talk about it all the time because it's great is because he really explains why that voice works and how you can kind of see it evolving. He was one of the key figures in making that be a thing. And it's just fascinating to watch in real time. But it's interesting how universal that is, at least among English speaking parts of the world. Even when it's kind of a different dialect of English, the same basic case cadence of voice works really well.

[Molly Lambert]

Wow, Marjo looks fascinating.

[Host]

Oh, it fucking rules. No, that movie rips like a son of a bitch. Like.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, you gotta watch it.

[Host]

Yeah, you'll love it. Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Sorry, I just didn't really. I don't know anything About Pentecostal preachers or child, you know, Preacher.

[Host]

Yeah. What's interesting about Marjo is he kind of. He started out before the religious rite was a thing, and then he kind of breaks good. Like, he decides that the Pentecostal movement and its alliance with the religious right is kind of evil and a grift, and he decides to, like, leave and film undercover during, like, his last year preaching within it. So it's just a fascinating picture of the start of the movement that has really taken over American politics. Right at its kind of, like, gestation period, you know?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. But don't you think it goes back even further all the way.

[Host]

Well, that's just elements. Sure. Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

We love a charismatic grifter.

[Host]

Oh, yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Like the national character.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

All right, go on, Go on. You're telling me.

[Host]

Certainly that part of it has existed for a long time. Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Amy Semple.

[Host]

Yeah. Of course. The unstated truth here is that Kevin left Canada when he was on probation for sexual assault, and he is a registered sex offender. At the time he's giving the speech, there are allegations that his government connections helped him smooth this over. It's unclear whether Pathways knew when they accepted him into the broader umbrella organization. He was eventually disowned by the group after all the kill. But initially, the sheer amount of money he brought in seems to have kept everybody quiet. The Reverend Adonair Jones of the Church of God in Jamaica would later accuse Pathways of exactly this. Of basically ignoring the obvious evidence that this guy was dangerous because there was money in him. And I'm gonna quote from an article.

[Molly Lambert]

Okay. And not to play Kevin's advocate again, but that's my role on the show, I think.

[Host]

No, no, no. Sure.

[Molly Lambert]

But it also sounds like I haven't heard about the throat slittings yet. So imagine, you know, I'm coming from a place of.

[Host]

Yeah. Not knowing where he lands.

[Molly Lambert]

It sounds like perhaps this child was brought into this preacher thing without sort of his consent. You know, he was told all this stuff about himself. About being special.

[Host]

Yeah. About being a prophet.

[Molly Lambert]

And maybe there are some issues with his sexuality being repressed, coming out of a culture, both a Christian culture and, you know, growing up in Jamaica, where there's just a culture of homophobia. Maybe he's just a troubled. A troubled dude, you know, and it's almost. Almost not his fault he got forced into this line of work because, you know, I don't know, he was. He was chosen sort of without his. His choice.

[Host]

Yeah. There's always a degree with all of These guys, where you wonder, like, where does the complicity start? Right. Because there is. There is often a case where, like, someone is, like, a victim in this period of time. Right.

[Molly Lambert]

Well, it sounds like he's a victim of his own circumstances. Like, don't. You know, it's. Obviously, it's not okay that he sexually assaulted somebody, but it does sound like he could have had a different life if he had been raised under different circumstances. It sounds like he was really groomed into this position of being a religious leader and also in a religion where there's a lot of homophobia and sounds like he might be queer.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

So I'm feeling bad for Kevin at this point. I feel like his life sucks and he's trapped in it.

[Host]

Yeah, I feel both.

[Molly Lambert]

Let's see. Let's see if I change my mind.

[Kevin Smith]

I mean, he is a registered sex offender.

[Host]

He's a registered sex offender at this point.

[Molly Lambert]

No, but I mean, he. I'm saying, like, coming out of a super. Like, he may have. Things may have happened to him as well, is what I'm saying.

[Host]

And he alleges things happened to him. He was sexually assaulted as a kid. He was abused as a kid. So, like, there is a.

[Molly Lambert]

Not that it excuses it, but there's a cycle in place, obviously. For sure.

[Host]

He's certainly part of a cycle, and he's part of a cycle of child abuse wherein young charismatic kids are adopted into this movement.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. The charismatic child preacher thing also just seems like that's very exploitative.

[Host]

Yes.

[Molly Lambert]

Would fuck you up no matter what. There's no way to be well adjusted from that.

[Host]

Which is a big part of what the documentary Marjo goes into is him being like, I know I'm robbing people, and I know that what I am doing is bad and perpetuating this. And also because of how I was raised, it's literally all I know how to do. Like, it's my only marketable skill.

[Molly Lambert]

But also, isn't it sort of like it's a little bit consensual robbing? Right.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Like, if somebody wants to give you money for some nonsense, you're not stealing it from them. You're not forcing it out of them. There's other things you could give people money for, seem worse. Sorry, I'm really playing Kevin's advocate.

[Host]

No. Well, here's what gets me fucked up about that is I can see that logic and make that argument, but I can also see that logic leading you into gradually becoming a cult leader. Like, it starts with the little steps.

[Molly Lambert]

Do you Take Patreon for your podcast.

[Host]

I don't, but I don't have a problem with it. Right.

[Molly Lambert]

But if somebody wanted to pay you for like your charismatic ramblings on a microphone, sure. Don't see that as exploitative. You're like, they just want to give me money because they appreciate me.

[Host]

I don't see it as inherently, but I do see it as potentially right in that. Cause I've watched this happen. Right. There are some cults where it starts out as like, okay, this is just a person who is a content provider online. And then the level of adoration and fame and the weird parasocial relationships, they take it in really abusive directions. But we've all seen plenty of cases of white men in media who wound up with very aggressive aligned fan bases and went increasingly insane. It's not detached completely from this. We're talking about this kind of psychological. This wheel in the case of evangelical Christianity. But also it's not detached from celebrity culture. Right. It's not really great for people, especially when they're really young. I think if this starts to happen to you when you're older, you can have more of a defense against it. If you've got a family, if you've got friends, if you've got a good number of people who know you and have known you.

[Molly Lambert]

I think being famous makes everybody crazy. I don't know that it matters when it happens. I think being a child, it's a form of abuse. And it is like making a child do any kind of job, you know?

[Host]

Sure, that's what I'm saying.

[Molly Lambert]

Any kind of work is like, no, kids shouldn't be working.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

But it's kind of in the Michael Jackson family of things where it's like, oh, are we supposed to deny this child's incredible abilities that, you know, the world should be deprived of the greatest performer of all time?

[Host]

Do you stop them from playing?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah. I was thinking about this the other day. Cause there are kids with podcasts now. And I was like, yeah, that's just a bad idea.

[Host]

But also.

[Molly Lambert]

But I was also just like, oh, that's sad for them. They're making content. They should be like in a yard. Yeah. Like playing.

[Host]

Yeah. It's messy. And I don't know what the actual solution is here.

[Molly Lambert]

What I'm saying is we're all complicit.

[Host]

Yeah. Let's agree on banning children from being advertised to. Could we at least start there?

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, we can start there.

[Host]

Maybe that'll start fixing some of the problems for sure. And I don't know, maybe have a government agency dedicated entirely to watching the parents of child actors.

[Molly Lambert]

Okay, but if you got like a million dollar contract to advertise galaxy gas to 11 year olds.

[Host]

Mm, sure, Absolutely. Get em hooked. Get em hooked. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think kids need to be doing way more drugs. Look, I mean, look at what they're getting up to. Have you seen this Minecraft movie shit? Like, it seems like if the kids were getting a high, they'd be a lot healthier. No, don't do drugs kids. Or do.

[Molly Lambert]

Don't do Minecraft.

[Host]

Don't. Listen to me.

[Molly Lambert]

Back to the story.

[Kevin Smith]

Back to the other Kevin Smith.

[Host]

Back to the other Kevin Smith. So, yeah, the Reverend Adonir Jones of the Church of God in Jamaica would later accuse Pathways of basically ignoring the other Kevin Smith's criminal history and problematic history in order to make money. The Jamaica Gleaner writes. Jones said that congregations have been too accommodating of virtually anyone bearing a Bible who could deliver sound bites using charisma and flair to flourish. As did Smith. And initially, Kos fits in with the rest of the Pentecostal churches in the country. Its website claimed our divine mandate is to transform the people by the power of Jesus Christ and stated that the mission of his church was to win souls to the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and deliver the lives of people from the snares of darkness. Pretty standard stuff. However, while most pastors within Pathways affiliated churches went by the title pastor, which is normal, Smith showed an early flair for the extreme. His website listed him as the president and founder of Kos Deliverance International, as well as chief special advisor of the King's Oral Oracles. And he ordered his followers to refer to him in person as Excellency, His Excellency, or your Grace. And I think we can see where problems are starting here now. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's unclear to me, number one, who the King's oracles were. I have not come across that, an explanation of that title. So I don't know what that is exactly supposed to mean. It's also unclear to me when the prosperity gospel preachings got into Kevin's sermons. Right. Is this something that he's really talking about before he lands in Jamaica, but during his first five or so years on the island, he becomes increasingly enmeshed in prosperity gospel preaching, which is a major part of kind of the charismatic Christian evangelical movement. The prosperity Gospel started out in the United States. And the way this works, basically you're preaching that God works like a high yield savings account or a really good 401k, right? If you put money into God. And by God, I mean the church that you go to and its pastor by tithing regularly, giving the church a percentage of your income, and then handing out additional seed offerings on a weekly basis. And seed offerings, kind of the key is that it hurts, right? Every week you're supposed to give more money than you can afford to the church, right? And the promise is that if you do this, if you give all you can to the point where it like damages your financial stability, God will reward you with miraculous financial gifts. So again, it really is like a 401k that works on a much faster time period. If you give God more money than you can afford now, God will give you back many times that amount of money at some point in the near future. That's the literal premise upon which prosperity Gospel is predicated. Now, it's probably worth taking another aside here to discuss prosperity Gospel in more detail, since it is one of the root problems with American evangelical Christianity as a whole. The gist of it is that in the late 1800s in the US there are two different strands of revivalist Christian thought that come together and they cross pollinate. On one hand, you've got the holiness movement who believes prayer works the same way the force does in Star wars, right? It allows people with sufficient faith to like, heal the sick and do magic because all illness and discomfort come from sin, right? So if the Holy Spirit is in you, you can wipe sin away from people and it makes them able to either heal or even perform superhuman acts. Now, the holiness movement kind of opens the door to a really theatric churchgoing experience, which is a key aspect of revival culture. You're not just telling people they're healed. You have people play acting as healer and the sick, right? And this provides kind of an emotional and social outlet. People can come in barely able to move and then start jumping around and dancing and they'll get this like huge surge of applause and this kind of like it's a performance, right? So there's this two way relationship between the performers and the people reacting to it that has this kind of catharsis in it. And there's a degree of forced cognitive dissonance here. As Associate professor of Religion Jonathan baer writes for ninemarks.org, the key was to believe, pray and hold on to it. Believe that it is yours and act out the healing, even if lying symptoms persist, right? So even if you know you're not cured. Those symptoms because you've been cured are a lie, right? If you feel like you still have cancer, you have to just ignore that because that's the devil trying to trick you into believing that you're still sick. So there's a lot of, like, you know, there's a lot of victim blamey stuff around illness in American culture, period. But this is one of the places in which it manifests, right, is in this kind of movement. Now, this is still the holiness movement, kind of an underlying pillar of charismatic evangelism today. And it's why all of these churches are such fertile hunting grounds for guys like the other Kevin Smith. Now, the other movement that collides with the holiness movement in the late 1800s to create prosperity gospel is the new thought movement. And the New Thought movement isn't an explicitly Christian movement. It's kind of a precursor to the self help movement. It's related to Scientology. Dianetics is involved in this. And it's also the root of stuff like the secret. Right? And the basis of the New Thought movement is that you can radically alter your mind, body, and situation through purging negative thoughts and reinforcing positive ones. Right? And kind of the main semi secular figure we get out of the New Thought movement is Norman Vincent Peale, whose book the Power of positive thinking in the 50s and 60s is a big influence on young Donald Trump. And all this stuff kind of collides together and gives us the prosperity gospel, which is based on a merger of the two and starts to spread overseas in like the 80s and 90s, right. To a lot of countries that have exploding evangelical movements in the post colonial era. And Jamaica, which has a lot of impoverished people who are desperate for hope that feels actionable, is a particularly fertile breeding ground for prosperity gospel to start taking over. Right? And so it really does. And that's kind of what. What provides, what tills the soil for the church that Kevin is going to start here in the early 2000s, he begins hosting almost daily prayer sessions. I think they're three or four times a week, and those come with expected daily donations. So you're supp to give a tithe of your income, and then you're supposed to pay every day, give a seed donation, and then he has one on one courses. Right. He's still operating as a psychotherapist, so, like, you can pay him for therapy too. Basically. The idea is all of your money goes to Kevin in the church, right? Like, every dime that you get goes here. And if you're spending money on Anything else. Even spending money on, like, food or rent, you're kind of not sure. Putting your faith in God. And that's a sin, isn't it? It's a very abusive way to look at the relationship between, like, a pastor and his church. Speaking of abusive relationships.

[Kevin Smith]

Oh, no.

[Host]

Advertising. Yeah.

[Kevin Smith]

Oh, no.

[Host]

The shoe fits.

[Narrator]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Scofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Host]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Narrator]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Michael Brown]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Narrator]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Michael Brown]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Narrator]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Michael Brown]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Host]

Evil.

[Narrator]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Michael Brown]

If the cops and everything would have done the job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Narrator]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Michael Brown]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Narrator]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Host]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Narrator]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Host]

And we're back. So Kevin starts offering free and discounted services to the odd male member of the flock that he wants to get closer to. And there's allegations that he basically starts kind of whenever a young man will come into the church. He'll start by offering that guy's family, like, benefits, free services, or breaks on the money they're already spending on the church in order to get that young man closer to him, to make him his assistant, to have him work for the church. And there are some allegations that he basically starts operating a male harem through these kind of tactics, Right? Pulling in young men this way. This is not something we have a lot of detail about, in part because in Jamaica, admitting that you were abused in this way, like, there's a lot of consequences to it. Not that there's not in the United States, but it's hard to get people talking directly about this kind of relationship. Right. It's not clear how much of this is, like, just psychological and how much of this is actual physical, sexual violence. But there are direct allegations that he used These kind of relationships to engage in what was at least adjacent to human trafficking. The Gleaner, a Jamaican investigative news site with very good reporting on Smith and maybe the worst coded website I've ever used, which is not their fault. I know what budgets are like right now. It's just rough. They interviewed a former member of the church named jeevon. At age 17, Jeevon was taken, that's his word, from his parents by Smith and used as an errand boy for the church. Now it's unclear to me, does Kevin force this guy's parents to give their kid up or does he bribe them in some way? Or is it a situation where they just feel like, like, well, this guy's the prophet and we can't say no to him. Jeevon claims that at the start he sees Kevin as like a foster father and he feels chosen, like he's maybe the prophet's adopted son. Right. But this quickly gets disabused because Kevin takes advantage of this position of trust to have Jeevon handle intensive, time consuming tasks like counting the money given at offerings every week and do them for free. And this is not an easy or a small task because a lot of money is coming in. In per jeevan, there were four different types of offerings. You have the $100 offering that starts the service, the thousand dollar seed offering, and then the regular offering and then another offering where you make covenant with the word. So by the mid aughts, some people are donating four times a day with services three times a week, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. There's also again these kind of one on one sessions where he's making money sometimes up to like $350 for what's called a deliverance session, where he has like a one on one, one spiritual encounter with the person. And since Jeevan's doing a lot of the counting of money here, he's able to give the Gleaner an educated estimate for how much the church is pulling in. And he claims that a single night could bring in a quarter of a million US dollars or more, which means Kevin's church is pulling down three quarters of a million a week just from services. But he also offers up a bunch of side sessions, as noted earlier, which brings their estimated weekly income up to around a million. And just what we know objectively about the assets, the number of properties the church held. This is a pret, incredible estimate for what they're kind of making, bringing in.

[Kevin Smith]

At their height, so much fucking money.

[Host]

Yeah, they're making a Ton of money.

[Kevin Smith]

So crazy.

[Host]

But they're also almost always. He's expanding so rapidly, he's buying so many new properties that the amount of money it costs to keep the church operational is pretty close to the income they're bringing in on a weekly basis. So there's always this level of, like, stress of like, we really need to continue to squeeze our members for as much as we possibly can. Otherwise this house of cards is going to fall, fall apart. Now the Jamaica Gleaner goes into more detail about the different grifts that Smith built into the foundation of his church. Members of Pathways Christian Cathedral, as the church was sometimes called, were charged a fee of $500 for adults and 100 for children for the monthly miracle Covenant Seed for the church's ministerial upliftment. They also paid tithes offering covenant seed or other special contributions as requested by Smith. Membership cards also came at a cost, with adults and children paying $500 and $100, respectively, while widows were charged 200 do. The more one gives, the more God gets happy, one church member told the Sunday Gleaner, in defense of the numerous payments they would make. The leader would help a lot of people in need, but nobody's talking about that. And that is an aspect of this, too, is like, people are seeing there are actual community services that are being operated now, not to the extent of costing a million dollars a week, but there's also enough that people can be like, well, the money's clearly going to a good cause. Right? Right. Members were expected to volunteer time to help, you know, staff these different sort of community organizations, and also to show up at regular festivals for which they'd be expected to pay, like $200 or $500 for a ticket. And while there is aid for parishioners, this is also often a grift. For example, Smith offered loans to members of the church at a 15% interest rate, which is not exactly charity. Right. We can say that about that, that.

[Kevin Smith]

What does he want with all this money, though? Like, I don't understand. It's so much money. What is he doing with it?

[Host]

Well, he's. He's got. He's building his empire, right? He's operating, as we'll talk about it, like, he's operating businesses in the community now. He's trying to start, like, other churches, and he's like. He's like, building, getting into real estate. You know, there's. There's always places to spend this kind.

[Kevin Smith]

Of money because now he's got so much money that he can't Keep. He's putting it into real estate like they do.

[Host]

And the other thing is that, like, there's bribes that have to be paid to local politicians. Like he talks about it as if he's like ministering to these guys. But there's always bribes to be paid. Right. So you know that that's not a zero percent of the story here too. Jeevon describes his own role within the church in unsparing terms. We were like slaves. I was not allowed to go around my parents or any relatives or friends outside of the church. And he works for both the church and for Smith's psychotherapist business, which is how a lot of these one on one sessions were market. He had to get permission if he wanted to do anything besides work, even to go get a haircut. He describes it. Yeah. As essentially like he's in prison. Kos Ministries does open a food bank with some of the money that Kevin makes. And they establish a program to help poor students pay their school fees. They pool donations to help fund medical care for small children and elderly parishioners. And this is done in part because it's like a really good recruitment tool. Right. Like, this helps bring more people in. And he's also able to. He's able to take in donations for himself and also taken donations to fund these different organizations. So it's not cutting as much into his bottom line. The primary appeal of the church is always Kevin's personal charisma. Per reporting in the Walrus, one former attendee, Shareese, happened to pass by the church one day and heard Smith's voice. That voice sounds powerful, she remembers thinking. She went inside. Sharese immediately felt that Smith wasn't a typical pastor. He insisted on being referred to as His Excellency. He spoke eagerly about the gospel of prosperity. Shareese and former members say Smith regularly brought up the fact that he was a Canadian citizen, a point of privilege he leveraged to suggest that he could help get others visas to work or study in Canada. For a fee Smith charged for consultations or prayers, attendance at workshops and other events. One event in 2013, a wealth transformation summit entitled Money Come to Me now, promised explosive prophecies to help participants break the cycle of poverty forever.

[Kevin Smith]

Wow.

[Host]

You see, like the.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah, there's just no end to the grifting. Like, he's doing every playbook. Every single playbook.

[Molly Lambert]

Okay, it's getting depressing now, I understand.

[Host]

Yeah, it's getting depressing. And there's so much of this that is like predicated on. Well, he got out to Canada. So he must have some connections he can get me out. Like the. Just how much poverty provides the opportunity here? Cause there's like no easy way out of poverty. And people are desperate to believe there's hope, you know?

[Molly Lambert]

So, yeah, it's a bummer.

[Host]

Yeah, it's bleak as hell. Now the good news is that Shareese has the presence of mind to evaluate the promises Smith is making based on their impact on her real life. So she's able to say, I've been given money to this guy and I am not getting it back in any way. Right. And you're not supposed to think this way. Remember, at the root of all this is that you have to ignore your lying symptoms. If they tell you that handing over money to the church hasn't made anything better. Right. You're not supposed to feel like that's. You're not supposed to think that way. And Jeevan eventually comes to the same conclusion as Shareese, but because he's not a normal congregant, but someone raised in the church whose whole family buys into Kevin's bs, the task of leaving is a lot harder for him. He attempts to flee for the first time in November of 2015. And this would prove to be the first of ultimately six attempts to flee Kevin's father Smith's church over the years, per the Gleaner. Each time I ran away, the church members blamed me for being disobedient, he stated, adding that the last time he ran off, Smith placed a death prophecy on his head, saying that his head would return on a platter. Once you try to leave, they instill fear within you. Jeevon said many people refused to leave Pathways International out of fear for their lives. And in fact, they believed he was a prophet. And Kevin kind of cultivates this reputation for prophecy in the same way any other grifter of this kind does. He makes these constant big predictions about like, there's gonna war and natural disaster are coming. Right. But he doesn't say where. And like, if you say there's gonna be a war that breaks out soon or a natural disaster, you'll always be right, you know? Yeah. I predict in the next six months, a major natural disaster will strike the United States. I'll guarantee you that prophecy's correct. Cause you can say that at any point in time. And it will be true in the United States or most other countries. Right. Like the. That's just the way the world is, you know. The most compelling prophecies that he would lay out, though related to Individual members of the church. Jeevan recalled one that stuck in his mind when Kevin told a female congregant about a vision he'd had of her future. He prophesied, saying that he saw her son in a pool of blood with the name baby killer. And about a week later, the same incident happened and was on the pages of the Western Mirror. And I don't know this specific case, but it's one of those things, especially if you get to know your flock, if you have members of your church who have family members in gangs, it's not such a big prediction to be like, one of you is going to lose a loved one soon. Right? Because that's just how it happens when people are involved in gangs. So it may just have been a situation like that. But this causes the fact that he seems to have this ability and that people believe it. It makes people afraid of Smith. You don't want him to prophesy negatively about you and your family because you believe that this can have an impact on you. And it's also hard to leave if you're someone like Jeevan who started to question, you know, the actual power of this guy. Because everyone you know and love is still in the church, right? And so you can be cut off from your whole support network by leaving. It's a fairly normal cult thing. And this is why Jeevan keeps coming back time and time again. He's. He's gonna leave, like, five times before it finally sticks. And things only change when he falls in love with a member of the congregation and tries to start a relationship with them. This enrages Smith because, again, Jevon hadn't asked for permission. And Smith, along with a number of other very young men, kind of wants to keep this kid chaste and close to him. Jivan claims the prophet told him, if you think I'm going to marry you and her, you make a big mistake. Right? As in perform the marriage. Right. Like, I have the ability to determine who in this church can get married, and I'm not going to prove. And you get the feeling it's kind of out of, like, a sense of jealousy on his part, that he really doesn't want this kid escaping his orbit in any way. But that is what. What gets Jeevon out. Right?

[Kevin Smith]

So crazy.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah.

[Host]

I mean, it's a pretty. Pretty normal deal. G. Von ultimately leaves and stays gone, which may have saved his life, given what comes next. But in the immediate term, it causes him tremendous pain because Smith does command family members to cut off Their loved ones. And this is not just a thing. Jeevon has reported. The Jamaica Gleamer reports a young woman said she was kicked out of the church after two years as a member because of fornication. They don't speak to me. I have two uncles, an aunt in law and three cousins still there.

[Kevin Smith]

And yeah, it's doing, he's doing the Scientology.

[Host]

He's doing the every cult. Right.

[Molly Lambert]

You know, he's doing the Scientology.

[Host]

He's doing a Scientology.

[Molly Lambert]

He's doing the.

[Host]

Alright, he's doing the Elrond. You know, he's doing the Elrond. He's not throwing people off of boats, making them search for gold. But he's got a lot of that playbook to him, right?

[Kevin Smith]

I mean he's doing the, the child labor, the.

[Host]

Definitely that.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah, the, the cutting off family members, the stealing everybody's hard earned money. Yeah, he's got the holy trifecta of.

[Host]

Yep, yep, yep running. Yeah, it's, it's. He's. He's Elronding. He's Hubbarding hard.

[Kevin Smith]

It's bad.

[Host]

Now one thing Hubbard would never have done, that Smith does, that I don't fully Understand is in 2017, he returns to Canada and he hands himself over to the Toronto police.

[Kevin Smith]

Why?

[Host]

It's unclear. But reading between the lines, I think he works out an arrangement with Canadian authorities using his Jamaican government contacts as an intermediary. Right. Because he doesn't go to prison. And he basically gets set up in a situation where, where he pleads guilty on probation violations, but he's allowed to return to Jamaica and then travel internationally more easily. He's not like dealing with the fact that he's wanted in Canada anymore over the next 18 months, as long as he like finishes his probation.

[Kevin Smith]

Canada? Why? Why Canada?

[Host]

Well, he does have to make the $500 donation to a rape crisis center.

[Kevin Smith]

Oh, okay, all good then.

[Host]

And they also require that he engage in sexual behavioral counseling, but only if he stays in Canada for longer than a month. So as long as he like leaves Canada, never stays more than like a week at a time. He doesn't have to do any counseling.

[Kevin Smith]

None of this math adds up. Seriously, that's fucking despicably embarrassing. Canada. What are you doing?

[Host]

We're missing a part of. But again, it's definite that like some of the money he brings in is bribing local politicians. And my suspicion is that those local politicians have connections in Canada and there's a less direct kind of bribe going there.

[Kevin Smith]

Sure, but it's still fucking despicable.

[Host]

You know, there's ways to influence politicians in countries where that is looked at more that are still effectively a bribe where maybe you're getting invited to speak at an event at like a resort in Jamaica or something like that or like a permit that you need because you've got some sort of business over there. It gets a little bit easier. I don't know exactly what's happening, but clearly something sketchy happens here. Right. This kind of sweetheart deal, it just seems unlikely that it would be handed out otherwise. And yeah, but we don't exactly know why Canada agrees to let this guy off with just the slappest on the wrist of slaps on the wrist for a multi year long probation violation after a sex crime.

[Kevin Smith]

I mean again, he's Hubbarding. He's Hubbarding. He's blackmailing and paying off the government.

[Host]

Yeah. Although Hubbard would never have turned himself into the authorities.

[Kevin Smith]

Absolutely not. He would fucking go.

[Host]

Not our lrh. Yeah. He would have set to C. Yeah.

[Kevin Smith]

So the understanding here is that he's doing this so that he can travel easily.

[Host]

Yes, I think it's so that basically he gets like, you know, there's holds and stuff on his documents.

[Kevin Smith]

Sure.

[Host]

And now he's allowed to travel easily as long as he periodically contacts his probation officer back in Canada.

[Kevin Smith]

Bad job Canada.

[Host]

Yeah, not great work Canada.

[Molly Lambert]

Bad job Canada.

[Host]

Bad job Canada. Not the only time. Time we've said that on this podcast and not the last time. But you know who's not Canada?

[Kevin Smith]

We don't know that.

[Host]

Yeah, we don't know that.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, we don't know.

[Host]

These sponsors may or may not be Canadian. There's no way to say.

[Narrator]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Host]

I just knew him as a long.

[Narrator]

Silent voices from his past came forward.

[Michael Brown]

And he was just staring at me.

[Narrator]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Michael Brown]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Narrator]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Michael Brown]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Narrator]

I was becoming the brain bridge between a killer and the son he'd never.

[Michael Brown]

Known if the cops and everything would have done their job properly. My dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Narrator]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Michael Brown]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Narrator]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Host]

Jeremy. I want to tell you something.

[Narrator]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Host]

And we're back. So In April of 2018, Smith holds an elaborate public party for his 36th birthday, which I think also kind of doubles as a celebration of the fact that he's about to be done with his probation terms. Police escorted hundreds of his followers as they marched through the streets of Montego Bay, and he follows them in a silver stretch limousine. He goes on a spending spree, buying a large rural compound with stables and livestock, several luxury homes on the coast, sports cars, and several businesses on the land. He begins constructing a new church called the Ark, which is meant to be self sufficient and able to survive in the event of an apocalypse. Right? So he's, he's built, he's bought his compound, he's building a church called the Ark. And they're like growing food to try to get ready for the end of days. And so, you know, things seem to be going well for the other Kevin Smith until 2020. Now, if anyone listening is old enough to remember, back then, a virus called COVID 19 started spreading through the global population. Governments around the world entered panic lockdowns with very little understanding of what might actually happened or how long any of this was going to last. It is, is a, you know, we all remember right now, given the severity of the disease, it made total sense that you would lock down. But as you might recall, about a third of the population lost their minds over this. Right. Like, people do not react well to this. And the other Kevin Smith is one of them. He seems to have fallen down a conspiracy rabbit hole himself. First by listening to and watching American Covid denialists online. So again, we really, we've got our part to play in this. He starts spending way too much time on YouTube while things are closed up, and that's not good for anybody. And based on the reading I've done, he really starts to go over the edge once the vaccine becomes a reality and governments around the world start talking about a mass rollout. Since he's got this big platform, he starts using both his church's social media and his actual pulpit to howl to the masses that the COVID vaccines have microchips in them and per the walrus, ingredients linked to the devil, which I love as a description of like vaccines.

[Molly Lambert]

Ingredients linked to the devil.

[Host]

Yeah, they're Linked to the devil. Like what? Like sulfur. What is linked to the devil?

[Molly Lambert]

You put it under a microscope and you see little devil hats.

[Host]

Yeah. Little Satan faces.

[Molly Lambert]

Little Satans. Like little pitchforks.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, I like that. I also just like the idea of, like, the devil is an international crime syndicate. And, like, you're like, yeah, we. Satan's fingerprints are all over this vaccine. We can see bits of them in here.

[Molly Lambert]

Well, yeah, Got shooters everywhere.

[Host]

Yeah, that is. That is something the Devil's famous for, famously. Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

The Devil has shooters.

[Host]

Yeah, absolutely. Now, he describes wearing masks and getting vaccinated as taking on the mark of the beast. And I think we've all heard a lot of rhetoric like this since COVID broke out. Right. Like, I can remember when certain. And this is not this. This goes back before COVID by the way. Right. The idea of describing certain things that are just sort of like marks of modernity as taking on the mark of the beast. I remember back in the 90s when there were certain conspiratorial Christian pastors warning people that, like, barcodes on products which were new at the time were the mark of the beast. Like, barcodes are going to allow the government to track everything that you do. You know, this is the devil code coming to, like, take this country down. Now, I will say a barcode makes more eschatological sense than a vaccine as a mark of the beast, because the Book of Revelations does describe followers of the Antichrist as having a mark. And that quote, no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, of course.

[Host]

Yeah. No one's really stopped from buying and selling goods based on vaccination status. Right. That doesn't actually happen. But that's immaterial to guys like Smith. Right. The fact that. Well, but this doesn't, like, Fuck man and Anti Vax people are running the United States now. Like, maybe this is not the mark of the beast in any way. That doesn't really, like, factor into these people's thinking as it is the fact that the Beast, all of this, like, apocalypse narrative is very funny to me, just given the actual, like, text of the Book of Revelation. Right. Because the beast is not at all described as, as, you know, anything like what you hear in the kind of popular fiction that's often inspired by the Book of Revelations. The beast in the actual Book of Revelations has ten horns and six heads with ten crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. It's Like a leopard, but its feet are like a bear's and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. I don't know what that has to do with the COVID 19 vaccine. You can twist that, I'm sure, into making it, but it just sounds like it sounds cool. Some guy was tripping and described a rad mock. You know, I've seen something like that on enough acid and I'm sure it was someone on ergot poisoning who wrote the Book of Revelations. You know, many such cases. Smith also described the vaccine as a plan for population control, which also doesn't really make sense with the Mark of the beast thing, because the marked are followers of the beast and if the mark kills them off, it's kind of the Antichrist shooting himself in the foot, right? Like the Antichrist, like, why would you want to kill these people, right? You to want as your foot soldiers.

[Kevin Smith]

None of his math adds up.

[Host]

Over and over, none of this math ever adds up.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Host]

Yeah. Now the walrus has done a deep dive into where a lot of Smith's, like where he is online, what stuff he's sharing, and where his beliefs kind of come from. And a lot of it traces back to Glenn Beck, particularly his website, the Blaze, which is just the least surprising thing in the world. But it's so frustrating that that motherfucker continues to have the kind of penetration that he has. One of the stories that Smith shared that seems to have really radicalized him was the arrest of Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski, who was fined in December of 2020 for failing to wear a mask while having an unpermitted anti mask protest. Now, I wouldn't even call this a slap on the wrist, right? He gets fined for breaking COVID lockdowns and having a protest at the early stages of the pandemic. Barely a slap on the wrist. And a. And in fact, just getting charged with this is a huge boon to this guy's career because suddenly he's a victim of religious oppression, right? This guy goes from a nobody to one of the most famous pastors in the world. And other religious leaders like Kevin Smith start screaming that he's a victim of state repression. Pawlowski kind of decides to let this shit ride. And so he holds another rally in February of 2021, during which he carries a tiki torch despite it being daylight for reasons that have absolutely nothing with signaling his support to the fascists who use said torches to beat people in Charlottesville back in 2017. Right. Clearly nothing suspicious about the fact that this guy does a tiki torch rally during daylight in February of 2021. Nothing to do with that.

[Kevin Smith]

Fucking weirdos.

[Host]

Proving that he was the one trickiest of one trick ponies. Artur has continued this grift up to the present day and has been locked in basically constant litigation as a result. You know, every time things will calm down down, he'll try to commit some other public crime in order to get charges against him so that he can fundraise off of that. He has never been locked away or you know, disappeared by the state, which you might see as evidence that he's not in any way being persecuted. Right. Nonetheless, this con works perfectly on guys like Smith. It either works on them or they see it as useful to share themselves. Right. And when Smith first hears about Pawlowski's first charges, which result in nothing but a fight, fine. He posts on Facebook. This is abomination. Persecution of the church in Canada. The world is watching and mouths are closed. We must know it's coming to Jamaica now. It absolutely was not. Jamaica is not gearing up for a crackdown on these people. And in fact, thanks in large part to Kevin Smith and other anti other the other Kevin Smith and other anti vax religious leaders, less than half of Jamaicans have been vaccinated against COVID 19 at any point, a significantly lower rate than most of their nations neighbors. By summer of 2021 though, Smith is totally pilled and COVID 19 became the sole focus of most of his sermons. From an article in the Jamaica. In one of the entries declaring his mission, Smith, who appeared to be obsessed with titles, declared himself His Excellency Dr. Kevin O. Smith, Crown Bishop and end time nabi of him, Conqueror lion of the tribe of Judah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christos, the one and true living God. Yahweh 999. Which is the opposite of 666. Yeah, and also hard to fit on a business card.

[Kevin Smith]

Molly, you should totally take that title.

[Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need more. King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

[Kevin Smith]

Conqueror lion of the tribe of Judah. Podcaster, writer.

[Host]

I think Yahweh999, that's basically a fucking. You could get that as like a. A license plate.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, sounds good.

[Host]

YHVH999 sounds good. He makes posts like forced vaccination in law is rape. A man forcing something into another man is buggery. A man forcing himself into a woman is rape. No prime minister can change common law and common sense. We don't need to go into all of the different things that are wrong about that. That's the kind of rhetoric that he's putting out at this period of time.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah, his math doesn't add up.

[Host]

No, none of it adds up. In a post responding to a recent statement by Prime Minister Andrew Holness in which he stated that unvaccinated Jamaicans should not expect the government to prioritize them for bed spaces, Smith prophesied, we will be pushed out of the hospital and supermarket and the airports and the businesses. Again, this doesn't happen. He began preaching that the police and the military would soon corral Jamaican citizens into camps and force them to take fatal vaccines. Anyone who yielded to the state and took the vaccine would be killed by God. Not necessarily literally, but a kind of spiritual death. Meanwhile, Smith promised, if you give up your life for Christ Jesus, you will save it. So he starts to insist that by October 22nd of 2021, the Jamaican government will use fictitious legislation to make the COVID vaccine mandatory. The end game will be to try and deceive us or force us into quarantine concentration camp camps. Prepare to stand your ground.

[Kevin Smith]

And I'm just like, how are we gonna get to the throat cutting?

[Host]

I mean, you could see it starting to happen here.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, I think I heard force march to concentration camp. And I was like, whoa, whomp.

[Host]

Here we go. Here we go. Right. Like, the government is coming force on the specific date we need to be ready. Right. That's going to set up a confrontation.

[Molly Lambert]

The Jim Jones situation to come.

[Host]

Yes, exactly.

[Molly Lambert]

Okay.

[Host]

He predicts a series of natural disasters around the globe that will coincide with this, which is all pretty standard end time stu stuff, but it's married to a marked invisible degradation in Smith's mental health state. Quote. Smith's behavior in person became noticeably stranger over time. He became more adamant that his congregants donate as much money as possible, telling them that if those who had money resisted giving, the member would crash and die and that Smith would send his wrath out to the member's family. So he's like, if you don't give me everything now so that I can get ready for this, I will make sure God kills your relatives in a car crash. Ten days before his predicted date for Jamaica, making the vaccine mandatory, Smith told his followers that anyone who gets vaxxed now would be excommunicated from the church. He posted a video to Facebook two days later, insisting, my job is the apocalypse and that an unveiling is coming soon. His followers were shortly thereafter ordered to Prepare their photo IDs and church membership cards and gather at the Ark on October 16th. Never a good idea. Never a good idea.

[Molly Lambert]

I'm really starting to wish this was about the Mallrats. Kevin Smith.

[Host]

The Mallrats, yes. Oh, if only it was the Mallrats. Kevin Smith.

[Molly Lambert]

It's like. And it culminates in, like, he made Jersey Girl and it was bad for everyone's careers.

[Host]

Yeah. I just go on like a 15 minute rant about Jersey Girls and Tusk. Alas.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, they're like the view askew. Prophecy is coming.

[Host]

No, very different. And for an idea of how Smith's sermons lead leading up to October 16th, this day of prophecy sounded. I'm gonna have Sophie play another clip.

[Congregant]

I have been sent to this nation to declare from America, Canada, Europe and the world here for the hours come when your dead bodies will be burned in your houses, when your streets will be spewing with blood. God Yeshua said, I come from the key of death, for death, I am the resurrection. I am the right person. It is a sight.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Okay, sir.

[Host]

Yeah. So he's, you know, really amping people up. You're not getting people into a logical state of mind when you're doing that.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah, he's. He's committed to the, to the, to the great drift.

[Molly Lambert]

To the bit.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yeah. And it's unclear to me how much of this is. He has really started to spiral and his mental health has declined as a result of getting caught in this conspiratorial media loop.

[Molly Lambert]

You know, also, like, look who was doing well mentally.

[Host]

No one's doing great.

[Molly Lambert]

2020 to 2022. Who was like, functioning amazing. Yeah. Who's doing good now?

[Host]

Right. So early on the 16th, members of Smith's church start showing up outside the ark wearing all white. There's a sermon and service that follows that he's not conducting. He's got like, lieutenants who are conducting the sermon and service, which goes on until around 1am the next morning. Right. So they're doing like a marathon session. Smith's lieutenants manage the festivities up to this point. And he seems to have spent these hours, like, where people are gathering and like this is going on in a frenzy of social media, posting mostly to Facebook, where he ordered everyone to show up at the office ark without their cell phones, wearing white, saying, the ark is loading now. The flood is coming. Go now. Run. He tells everybody that the ark is going to leave on the 18th. And in case there's any doubt about what that means, he posts that in order to be saved, everyone at the ark has to participate in what he called a, quote, Roman Catholic sacrifice that will have no survivors. The cops don't get called as a result of this. Nobody's like, well, this guy's telling everyone to come and there's going to be a sacrifice at this ark that no one lives through. Probably not worth caring about, right? Must just be some, like, religious bluster. Dozens and dozens of his congregants take this seriously, enough that they spend more than a day in prayer. Smith doesn't show up until the 17th, and his first command is for everyone to throw out the canned goods that they'd brought, expecting to need food to survive the apocalypse. Then, confusingly, he ordered them to empty soda bottles and fill the soda bottles up with water. Water. One member who showed up that day at the ark was Michael Brown, who had been hospitalized for severe kidney issues and had forcibly discharged himself from the hospital after Smith had ordered everyone to show up at the church. We'll discuss Michael later, but this is a guy with a life threatening kidney problem who, like, leaves his hospital bed where he needs to be to stay alive in order to be at this thing because he considers it more important. Outside the church, Smith made congregants bow down on their knees before entering, giving them judgment and writing their names in the Lambs Book of Life, a biblical register of those chosen for salvation. The Walrus reports. As congregants entered the church, Smith wrote the names of each person in a book. When Tanica Gardner walked through the doors, Smith turned to her. Is your blood clean? He asked. Do you believe that I am the resurrection and the life? Gardner replied, yes. Smith then said that her blood had to be cleansed in order for her to be resurrected. I will have to cut your throat, he told her. She allegedly again replied. Replied, yes.

[Kevin Smith]

Oh, no, again.

[Host]

I don't know. Does she believe this is literal? Are they. Does he talk?

[Kevin Smith]

Does he kind of explaining that this is actually like. Or is it just metaphorical? Do they really think, I don't know.

[Host]

So, so much of his rhetoric is like talking in terms that are apocalyptic and violent, but what you mean isn't literal. Up to this point, maybe people are like, well, you can't possibly mean he's going to literally cut people's throats, right? That me nuts, you know, so spoiler. That is exactly what he means. So at this point, members are ordered to lay on the ground and throw away any cleaning or sanitation supplies like antibacterial soap or wipes that they had on them. While this was going on, someone throws a wine bottle onto the floor. And Smith orders a follower to use one of the shards to slit the throat of a congregant who happened to be seated near where the bottle had landed. He told another male follower that in order to be worthy of heaven, he would have to let one one of Smith's lieutenants cut his throat with a knife. This guy got so far as to lay down in front of a dude who had like a knife when he realized, like, oh my God, this guy's gonna actually cut my throat. And he fucking runs. He like bounces. He's like, oh shit, you meant this? This isn't just some sort of a fucking thing we're doing? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And Smith's follower with the knife, a guy named Plumber, chases both of these guys who, like, both of these guys flee the ark at this point when they're like, oh fuck, we're actually gonna get our. No, no, no. He chases both of them out and he stabs them both in the back, wounding both of these men. Meanwhile, back inside the ark, Smith finds Michael Brown, the man with kidney failure who had left the hospital on his orders. And the pastor told him, you have to die, but you will rise again because I am the resurrection and the light. Now, this guy is still wheelchair bound and is still taking IV medications. And Smith pulls the tubes out of this man, causing him to bleed to death. While this is happening, he turns his attention next to Taneca Gardner, who had already agreed to have her throat cut earlier. Per the Walrus, Smith then handed a knife to a 17 year old follower named Billy, who he instructed to cut Gardner's throat. But Billy hesitated later saying that he remembered that one of the Ten commandments states, thou shalt not kill. Smith's right hand man, Andre Ruddock, stepped forward and at Smith's urging, allegedly cut Gardner's throat. She died shortly thereafter.

[Kevin Smith]

Jesus Christ.

[Host]

So at this point, two people are dead inside the church and two more have been stabbed outside. Some parishioners have gotten the fuck out. Right. Other people flee when it becomes clear he's actually going to be killing us all and they call the cops. Right. Although I should also note one of the people here is a police officer, one of the parishioners, and I don't think it's him who calls the cops because he might have been down. It's unclear precisely who ordered what, but when the cops show up, members of Smith's church open fire. Some of them have guns and the police start shooting back and we get a little bit of a waco situation on our hands here. Plummer charges the cops with his still bloody knife and is shot and killed by the police who themselves have to call for backup from the military because they're just not prepared to deal with this whole situation. Situation. The church crowd is fully split at this point. A lot of people have fled in sheer terror, but a number of them charge the police. Billy, who'd cut Tanaka's throat, also gets shot in the chest trying to rush the cops, but he ultimately survives. Smith is eventually arrested along with one of his higher ranking lieutenants and the police begin searching his properties to try and figure out like what the fuck happened here, right? From the perspective of the cops, think of how wild this is, you know, about this church. It's a normal like evangelical church. And then one day you show up and there's people with their throat slit and like stabbed out in front and you show up and people start shooting at you and charging you with machetes and you're like, oh my God, what the fuck is happening here? It's just like completely disorienting to everybody. So less than two weeks after this goes down, you know, Smith is in custody and incarcerated. And while he's being driven to Kingston with police escorts, the officers driving him take a detour that lengthens the drive and then his vehicle crashes into two oncoming vehicles. Smith dies at the scene along with a 26 year old officer in the car with him and two other officers are badly injured. There is a lot of immediate speculation like, oh, okay, so he was murdered, this is a setup because of what he knew or whatever. Like something shady has gone down here. A post mortem revealed that Smith had basically taken off, like grabbed the driver's shoulder and pulled him. Caused the accident. Yeah, that's the official story. I don't know, there's some weird stuff here. Although if the state orchestrated this, they also got a cop killed with him. But you know, I don't know, I don't know what happened. I don't necessarily need to believe that anything sketchy happened. But this guy, like probably a lot of people who don't want him testifying also because of some of the shit that he's done. So it's not like inherently weird to be like, well maybe something went on here actually, I don't know. But yeah, that's the story of the other Kevin Smith.

[Kevin Smith]

Fuck me.

[Host]

Wow. Yeah, that escalated quickly, huh? That really got out of here.

[Kevin Smith]

I had to grab Truman at the end, because he got horny, I was like, this is bad. I need a dog.

[Host]

Yeah. This is like, fucked up. And then like, right to throat cutting.

[Kevin Smith]

Very quickly making the guy in the wheelchair bleed out, and then trying to get a 17 year old to slit a woman's throat.

[Host]

Bad. Yeah. And you really feel for, like, Jivon, who has to be thinking this whole.

[Kevin Smith]

Time, like, what happened to all the money? Is my question.

[Host]

Yeah, I. I mean, you know, that's an interesting question. Obviously, a lot of it gets bribed out. They do find he has a property listed for, like 330 grand after he dies. The. There's a number of other properties, like several million dollars in real estate that get auctioned off, but it looks like based on the cost of maintaining everything was not all that far from what was coming in. So there may be a degree that like, maybe as he had gotten crazier and more focused on anti Covid shit. Right. It's possible that, like, maybe there was a decline in the number of members and the amount of money that they had and he was losing the ability to, like, fuck fund what he was doing. Right.

[Molly Lambert]

And so maybe there's time for the big. The big grift, I guess.

[Host]

Yeah. Yeah. Time for a swan song, perhaps.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah.

[Kevin Smith]

Wow.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Kevin Smith]

Well, yeah, that ruined my day. Thanks.

[Host]

Yep.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, thanks. Great. Have a wonderful weekend, I guess.

[Host]

Have a great time, everybody. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, like, a lot of all of this is so downstream for. From, like, what happened to everyone during COVID Yeah. Or a lot of people during COVID Like the. The. The fact that, like, the lockdowns really supercharged the spread of a lot of propaganda that really damaged a lot of people's like, like. Cause you see, like, this guy is a significantly different logical actor in a lot of ways after that happens, you know? I don't know. It's bleak.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah.

[Host]

Yep.

[Kevin Smith]

All right, Molly, what's the name of your book? One more time for our listeners?

[Molly Lambert]

Double AX in pop.

[Kevin Smith]

Amazing.

[Molly Lambert]

Check it out and get it commercialtype.com and some bookstores.

[Kevin Smith]

Sweet.

[Host]

Excellent.

[Kevin Smith]

Listen to Away Days Podcast, wherever you get your podcast, hosted by Jake Hanrahan and Touch Grass. After listening to this one.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Yeah, I'm gonna go touch so much grass.

[Kevin Smith]

Or, you know, pet a dog if they want you to.

[Host]

Yeah. Pet a dog if they want you to. Cut some grass if you think the grass wants you to.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah.

[Host]

And check out. Check out Molly's new podcast, you know.

[Kevin Smith]

Yeah. When is it? When is the podcast coming?

[Molly Lambert]

Coming out this fall.

[Host]

Hell, yeah.

[Molly Lambert]

Stay tuned.

[Kevin Smith]

Super exciting. All right, guys.

[Host]

All right, everybody. Bye. Bye.

[Kevin Smith]

Behind the Basterds is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is Now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Narrator]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Scott in Bone Valley season one.

[Michael Brown]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Narrator]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Michael Brown]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Narrator]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host]

This is an iHeart podcast.