An alleged kidnapping has put the Mount of Olives Ministry church in the Patch in the spotlight. Two weekends ago, a woman said that she was confined in a room there, tied up and beaten. Police who arrived at the scene arrested three men; a prosecutor has described body cam footage taken by officers that showed cult-like conditions, including a room full of women wearing white veils. The City of St. Louis condemned the building Monday, February 26.
Since then, however, both the attorneys for the three arrested men and the pastor who sold the church building to Mount of Olives have said that, while a woman at the church was injured in some way, the three arrested men are not at fault and that Mount of Olives is no cult — just a Christian church of African immigrants whose practices may have seemed unusual to police officers who were unfamiliar with another culture's customs.
RFT photographer Zachary Linhares visited the church this morning as the city reinspected the premises. Linhares said that much of what he saw was what one would expect to see at any church, including a sanctuary with pews.
However, the church also had a back hallway with approximately 10 small rooms branching off from it. Each of the rooms contained multiple beds. Church officials said they are "prayer rooms,” and in court, defense attorneys for the three arrested men have acknowledged that roughly three to five people lived at the church at any given time. However, Linhares' photos show that the church was capable of housing many more than that.
Linhares also shot the room where the victim originally claimed she was held captive — a bare-bones room sectioned off with a curtain. Scroll down to see the images he captured this morning.
