Cult-like California religious group at center of missing persons investigation

Perhaps investigators in San Bernardino have acquired a break in a case of more than two years missing, as they are now investigating a possible murder.

Emilio Ghanem, 40, disappeared in May 2023 during a trip to the Interior Empire. The last time was seen in Starbucks in Ridlands.

At the investigation center of Ghanem’s disappearance and its potential killing, according to the Ridlands Police Administration, there is a religious -based religious group known for his name for the associations run by a woman named Catherine Martin, who is moving on the title of “the Prophet” and her husband, as Qasz’s marriage.

A former member of the organization who did not want to know the identity of KTLA that the group believes that the Prophet is God on Earth.

He said: “When the Spirit of God comes to it, everything changes in it, such as its voice changes, the way the changes speak, and everything must be calm.”

According to what Martin and her husband have full control of the group, which, according to the former member, is always preparing for the end of the time, storing enough food, water, and other supplies that last for years.

Ghanem was a member of the California Group for more than 20 years and immediately before his disappearance, he left the organization and stopped the group -run pest company to return to Nashville where his family was.

The 40 -year -old was working on starting his work in the field of pest control in Nashville, and plans to manage the satellite office in California, and for this reason he returned to the Interior Empire area in May 2023, which was gathering in his way not satisfied.

“He was in California to contact potential customers,” said Karl Baker, Redland’s general information official, told KTLA. “We know that he received a letter to stop and desist from the group or from the pest control company that warns him against contacting its customers.”

The former member who spoke with KTLA was planning to help at the Southern California Foundation in Ghanem and admit that he was the reason that Ghanem was in Ridlands Starbucks the day he disappeared. The couple was gathering to discuss the works.

“In the weeks he was here, he told me that he already closed $ 20,000 in less than 10 days of taking it [former] “The clients again,” the member said.

After that meeting, it was said that Ghanem met a high -level member of the spiritual gatherings he led on his way, believing that the person wanted to help leave the organization as it was, but the person he met in Starbucks on that day believed this was a trick.

“Emilio asked me about it on occasions, what I thought,” the former member explained. I said, “I do not trust him. Do not meet him.

Now, more than two years later, Redlands investigators have identified that the rented truck used by Ghanem during the May 2023 trip and evidence of them related to their achievement.

“These conditions are so much that we are investigating this as a possible killing,” Baker said.

With the assistance of the FBI, the police executed the group’s hemite inspection orders, which are believed to be headquarters and a woman affiliated with the organization and another person was arrested on that day a few buildings from Hemit’s home.

A judicial order was also submitted in the group’s property, as one of the neighbors KTLA told that the police visited the site several times.

“We talked to some members, but they did not cooperate with the investigation,” Baker added.

Redlands investigators also work with the police in Cleremont after a man named Robin Moreno, a 49 -year -old Peris resident and one -time member in the religious group that was lost in 2017, learned the last time at a residence in Cleremont associated with his associations that he leads in the spirit of his way.

KTLA communicates to the associations by Spirit on its way and the group’s pest control company, Max SHIELD, to comment and have not heard.