At the age of 16, young Serah ran away from home and stayed hidden for about a year before finally revealing secrets about her family from Ohio. After Serah came forward with allegations of sexual abuse going on in her family, her parents were both arrested as part of the investigation. Robert and Deborah are parents to 18 biological children as well as one adopted child. Two of their sons were also charged and taken into custody in connection with the case.
As Serah spoke about her story, she revealed that her parents would force the children to go to a cult church that was run by her uncle, James Bellar.
In this church, called Dove Outreach church, she heard her uncle preach about procreating with siblings.
“All the kids would have to go, whether they wanted to or not—even if you were sick, you had to go, it didn’t matter,” Sera said: “Anytime he’d say anything, I’d just kind of repeat it in my head, like, how messed up it kind of sounded. He’d always talk about the end of the world and how you’d reproduce with your siblings.”
Reports say that Serah’s parents “ordered” her to “have sex with her brothers to prepare for the doomsday apocalypse.”
It was also reported that James was rewriting entire sections of the Bible to advocate his teachings, along with promoting the idea of incest among family members.
James claimed he was “retranslating” the Bible to produce a more “faithful” version. And when asked by officials about why he was changing the scriptures, he answered: “God. The Holy Spirit. I don’t have to answer to any man. God. You have to answer to God yourself,.”
The man also said about himself: “I’m not one of the twelve (biblical apostles). It’s my calling, I’m an apostle.”
One of his church members, Valerie Trainer, said: “He’s doing translations as God gives them to him, to be more perfected by the Lord—praise the Lord—but that’s a good thing. He’s an apostle, yes. Praise the Lord.”
After Serah’s allegations came to light, James claimed he never preached about siblings having children with each other and called it a “complete lie.”
Currently, parents Robert and Deborah are charged with one count of engaging in corrupt activity and two counts of endangering children. Their son, Josiah, is accused of raping two of his sisters while Jonathan is charged with gross sexual imposition involving one of his siblings.