Daughter of 'cruel' cult leader reveals how mother controlled their sex lives

Sarah Green says she grew up in a cult where her mother controlled every aspect of life, including who she could marry, when she could have sex, and how many children she was expected to bear.

Now 53, Sarah says the abuse began when her mother started forcing women into degrading punishments and escalated into a world of fear, sex control, and total obedience.

Life under total control

According to Sarah, things turned truly dark when her mother forced three women to live in a locked shed, banned from normal life, and left surviving on scraps. All three had been cast out by their husbands, and Deborah declared they had been “judged by God.” One was a family friend called Maura, who was renamed Forsaken and made to wear a white sackcloth dress. The others were branded Barren and Despised.

Sarah says that was the moment she realised something was badly wrong. “I felt sickened to my gut. Even though I’d been groomed and my mom told me, ‘I’m God’s oracle, so therefore I hear what God wants for everybody, and this is what they have to go through because they’re sinning’, it didn’t make sense to me,” she tells The Guardian.

She adds: “So when they locked the people in the shed, I’d sneak them food. I just didn’t understand why Maura, who was part of our membership, had kids, all of a sudden was being forced to live like an animal and do the most degrading things.”

Looking back, Sarah says the control was absolute. “We were told what to wear, when to pray, how we’d have sex, what to eat, when to eat it — everything.” She adds: “Just the smallest things, like being able to buy a shitty cup of ramen and eat it on my own, that was freedom.”

Forced marriage and escalating abuse

Her mother, born Lila Carter, reinvented herself as Deborah Green and built Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, or ACMTC, with Sarah’s father Jim. What started as religion, Sarah says, turned into domination, deprivation and abuse. Life inside the group meant constant punishment, strict rules and total obedience.

Deborah allegedly used religion to control her daughter’s sex life, relationships and body. Sarah says her mother told her: “You have to do what God wants. And God has told me he wants you to have multiple children.”

At 14, Sarah says her mother tried to force her into marriage with a man from the church. When he later cornered her and tried to touch her, she fought back with a blade. “I slit him from wrist to elbow, and I said, ‘If you ever touch me again I will kill you.’ I was 14! I knew it was wrong.”

From there, Sarah’s life spiralled even further, with beatings, food deprivation and years of control. “At times we were eating out of trash cans,” she says. She also recalls that her father carried out punishments at Deborah’s command.

The shocking story doesn’t end there. Sarah later learned of even darker allegations inside the commune, including child abuse, neglect and trafficking claims. She says the cult’s rules extended to every part of daily life, including who was allowed to stay or leave.

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