Member of Nichols’ Hand Up Ministries Cult

Implicated in Sunday School Teacher Homicide

 

February 7, 2010 A former Hand Up Ministries cult member named James Allen O’Berry, age 53, has been accused of the brutal slaying of an Spencer, OK Sunday school teacher. O’Berry, a convicted sex offender who resided at the south Oklahoma City compound maintained by the cult before being dumped into the streets by them, was arrested Saturday night after witness tips led police to storm the murder suspect's home.

 

Video surveillance footage shows victim Nelly Pelts, age 26, at a Del City Walmart with O’Berry at 12:20 AM Saturday. She was dead within the hour after being stabbed multiple times and run over by a car in an area across the street from Christ Gospel Church in Midwest City where she was a Sunday school teacher.

 

A witness driving by the scene reported seeing a man and a woman struggling. The female witness stopped her car to assist causing O’Berry to lunge towards her car before climbing into his own vehicle and driving over Pelts. Pelts was announced dead at the scene and authorities launched a manhunt for her killer. After discovering the Walmart video and having it aired on local television news reports, citizens stepped forward and identified O’Berry leading authorities to the cult compound where O’Berry was captured.    

 

O’Berry has told police he suffers from post traumatic stress disorder from an unspecified event he claims to have occurred in an Alabama prison. However, O’Berry’s propensity towards violence and sexual assault were what landed him in prison long before the now PTSD excuse. Further, O’Berry claims to have been in a black out state during the crime, but bloody clothes believed belonging to him were later discovered in a garbage dumpster at I-35 and SW 44th. Typically, someone suffering a PTSD-related blackout would not attempt to hide evidence from a crime, while still in that state.

O’Berry, originally from Alabama, is one of several  sex offenders imported by David Nichols, the Hand Up Ministries founder and director, who brings them into the state to help finance his cult. The cult leader has arrangements with a number of prisons around the country to give them material on Hand Up and  promise them a home and a job once they are released from incarceration.  Nichols sends members – all convicted rapists and child molesters - out to work among an unsuspecting public and retains their paychecks, while giving members housing and an allowance. The cult also operates various work crews that sends violent rapists and child sex predators into private homes for remodeling without the home owners being aware of their past histories. After living with the cult for a number of months, the out-of-stater was dumped out onto the streets of OKC. He eventually rented a mobile home in another trailer park just north of the compound. Had he not been brought into the state by Hand Up Ministries, it's clear he would've not been in the position to murder Pelts.

In recent months O'Berry was caught on tape by the Video Vigilante in the back seat of his car with a prostitute.

 

Hand Up Ministries residents are sent to attend churches all over the OKC area in order to eventually seek donations for the cult from church goers. It’s not known at this time if O’Berry had been attending Christ Gospel. Hand Up's rapists are put near women and their pedophiles are put close to children.  Over the last decade several members of the group, which is comprised of around 125 convicted sex felons, have been arrested in numerous new cases, including ones for rape and murder.

 

Long time readers of HateTrackers/Gossip Boy may remember that we’ve been exposing this sick cult since 2008 after discovering the pedophile group had purchased a daycare center in the Metro – a daycare they still own despite warnings to local authorities like Sheriff John Whetsel, District Attorney David Prater, and Mayor Mick Cornett, who all seem to have concluded that there’s nothing wrong with child molesters having access to kids. Prater at one time prosecuted Nichols for violations of the sex offender registry act and then allowed him to cop a plea for a 30-day deferred sentence, despite public outcries that he was housing scores of dangerous sex predators just feet away from children. Nichols' plans are to load the compound up with hundreds of the country's most violent sex predators and letting them loose on Oklahoma City to make money for him regardless of the dangers to the public.

 

Nichols’ cult has unleashed more than its share of dangerous felons onto the public, including the notorious Riverwalk Rapist Gary Sellman, who is now in the custody of the Oklahoma Dept. of Corrections, and Hand Up’s former chaplain and assistant director Ira Lane, who after a multi-state crime spree was apprehended in Florida where he is now serving time for murder.

 

The Hand Up Ministries compound is located within the 2100 block of SE 59th St in Oklahoma City and is comprised of nearly fifty mobile homes purchased from FEMA after Hurricane Katrina. Besides a privacy fence, there is no onsite security and residents are free to come and go without monitoring. Trailers on the east side of the compound are only twenty feet from neighboring mobile homes in another park that house children.

 

We originally posted the names of all Hand Up’s residents on December 5, 2008, and that list shows O’Berry as being a resident even back then.

Following the Trail: Read recent coverage connecting the Hand Up cult to Character First, the Kerns, and local law enforcement. Discover the connections they don’t want you to know about HERE, which reveals some of the reasons why this dangerous group is being protected by elected officials.

 

OUR PREVIOUS DIRECT COVERAGE OF THE HAND UP CULT FOLLOWS BELOW...

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 13, 2009:

Readers may remember back in December 2008, Gossip Boy was the first media outlet in the state to report that Hand Up Ministries, a sex offender group of over 100 pedophiles and rapists had purchased day care centers in Oklahoma City. Well, now we can report one of the subjects of the story Ira Lane, HUM’s former chaplain and assistant director, who went on a multi-state crime spree, was finally captured in Florida. Sadly, he was only apprehended after killing a person he’d kidnapped and robbed.  On August 28, 2009, authorities in Cleveland County denied Lane's motion to squash their pursuit of revoking a drug sentence he'd been found guilty of in 2003. He begged mercy since he'd be facing so much time in a Florida prison and didn't need their detainer hanging over his head.

While being sought in Oklahoma and other states, Lane had gone off the radar. As it turned out, he was locked up in Orange County Florida after being captured following a violent crime spree. He'll be spending the next three decades serving sentences that include second degree murder at the Apalachee Correctional Institution. Chaplain Lane turns 50 on Monday.

As detailed in our earlier coverage below this update, Hand Up Ministries was formerly assisted by Stephen Kern and the Olivet Baptist Church. Kern is the husband of notorious gay hater Sally Kern. He taught Character First lessons at the HUM compound, when it was located on N. Broadway Ave and brought the convicted sex criminals to his church on several occasions. He and his wife Sally show little tolerance for gays, but openly embrace child abusing beasts such as one of HUM's residents , who so brutally raped a two-year-old girl that he left her crippled for life.

David Nichols, the director and founder of Hand Up Ministries, was given a slap on the wrist by Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater after he was brought up on violations of the sex offender registry for double-housing sex felons. On March 5, 2009, Nichols was given a 30 day deferred sentence.  

 

Also, mentioned in our coverage was Gary Sellman, a/k/a the Riverwalk Rapist, who was according to sex offender records residing at Hand Up, when he brutally attacked a woman.  He too has been captured and was sentenced on April 23, 2009, in Oklahoma County District Court to a number of 43 year sentences all running concurrently. He has been sent to begin his rape sentence at the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena, OK. The warden there is David Parker, whose wife Bobbie Parker is currently charged with assisting killer Randolph Dial from escaping the Granite prison in 1994.  

GARY SELLMAN

Hand Up Ministries, d/b/a HUM Enterprises, continues to own the daycare center we first exposed. Nichols had told Fox 25 News Anchor Andrew Speno back in December '08 that the group would be divesting itself of ownership, but that never happened and county records still show them as being the owner.

The group now houses over 130 convicted rapists and child molesters in South Oklahoma City. Most are not from the area, but were brought in from all over the country and state to live at the cult compound and dwell among us.

Still to be answered is why would authorities allow such a group to manage day care facilities in our city?

This aerial photograph from Mapquest shows the Hand Up Compound at 2130 SE 59^th in OKC.

There are over 40 trailers housing child molestors and rapists from around the country.

It is a non-secured compound. The sex felons are free to come and go as they wish.

Most frightening is their trailer compound is just feet away from children to the east.

Just feet away from monsters who have proven they will rape and even kill - again.

TONY ALAMO FOUND GUILTY OF CHILD-SEX CHARGES

 

July 24, 2009

By James Miko

 

Notorious Arkansas cult leader Tony Alamo (a/k/a Bernie Hoffman), age 75, whose arrest Gossip Boy reported on last fall due to his connection with David Nichols, cult leader of Oklahoma City’s Hand Up Ministries, and Nichols' connection to Stephen Kern, was found guilty of numerous child sex charges Friday morning during a Texarkana federal court trial. After deliberating over eight hours, the jury returned the guilty verdict on all counts approximately one hour ago.

 

The charges Alamo was convicted of include transporting five underage girls across state lines for sex in violation of the Mann Act. 

One, a nine year old, was considered to be married to Alamo.

 

Alamo will be sentenced in the coming weeks and faces over one hundred years in a federal penitentiary. Each of the ten offenses carries a minimum ten year sentence. 

THE NOW WHITE HAIRED ALAMO WON’T BE ALLOWED TO HAVE HIS 9-YR-OLD WIFE VISIT

IN THE PENNO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO CHRIST

ALAMO IN SEPT '08 BOOKING PHOTO

In December 2008 we reported that Nichols and his Hand Up Ministries had purchased a day care center in the Metro. Later news coverage by Fox 25 confirmed our scoop. Hand Up is comprised of over 100 violent sex offenders, mostly child molesters, who reside in a trailer park/compound in South Oklahoma City.  In March, Nichols was found guilty of violating the Sex Offender Registry Act and given a deferred sentence. He continues to operate his cult in Oklahoma City and import some of the most dangerous rapists and pedophiles in the country, who he then sends out into family neighborhoods as different types of work crews.  Gary Sellman, dubbed The Riverwalk Rapist, is a member of Nichols' cult and remains a fugitive after the violent rape of a woman along the downtown riverwalk.    

 

Hand Up Ministries had been receiving support by Olivet Baptist Church’s Steve Kern, husband of Rep. Sally Kern. Kern’s church had provided support to the child sex offender cult, while he provided ministerial support. Sally Kern and David Nichols are both from Arkansas. After media exposure began linking the Kerns to the child sex offender cult, Olivet Baptist Church deleted all mention of their ministry work with Hand Up Ministries from their website.

 

Pastor Steven Kern continues to concentrate much of his time aiding unwed teenage mothers, as he did previously in Idaho. Republican state legislators linked closely to the Kerns have continued to use their influence to allow Hand Up Ministries to remain exempt from certain aspects of the sex offender statutes and bring into Oklahoma City the most sick child rapists in the country.

 

For previous coverage check below.

Child Sex Offender Group Owns OKC Daycare
– Linked To Kern’s Church

December 22, 2008

By James Miko

In a startling discovery, Gossip Boy has learned a child sex offender group in OKC with ties to Steve and Sally Kern’s Olivet Baptist Church (as earlier revealed in the story below this one), has secretly purchased a daycare center in the OKC Metro and is tied to four other such facilities.  A paper trail the ministry built was carefully dissected and revealed frightening details about close links between child predators and their prey.

 

Further, the Kerns and the offender group are part of an organization whose founder is accused by an international watchdog of the rape and murder of orphans.

 

Hand Up Ministries, founded and directed by David C. Nichols, has a compound/mobile home park located at 2130 SE 59^th St in Oklahoma City, that houses over 100 convicted sex offenders most of whom have sexually molested children. A check of the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registry for zip code 73129 shows 195 convicted sex criminals with 108 of them located at the ministry address. Nichols has imported the majority of these high risk felons from other cities and states and placed them in close proximity to children in the Metro. Hand Up Ministries is not a recognized or accredited treatment center, but a place where Nichols sends them out to work and collects their money in exchange for food and housing, while gaining donations from sponsor churches like Olivet Baptist Church. 

 

The Hand Up Ministries site is a collection of FEMA trailers purchased at auction and were formerly used by
Hurricane Katrina’s displaced victims. It adjourns another mobile home park with a large population of children.

 

Nichols is not an ordained minister or a professional counselor. His adult work history has been as a tire plant employee with the defunct Bridgestone. Some have alleged, that prior to coming to Oklahoma, Nichols was involved in the Tony Alamo Ministries. In September, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Alamo’s compound in Arkansas as part of a child pornography investigation. Two weeks ago he was indicted in an Arkansas courtroom for several counts of transporting minors across state lines for sex. Former followers of the cult claimed in October that Alamo has a nine-year-old wife.

 

Prior to his arrest by federal agents in Arizona, Tony Alamo discussed the accusations on a CNN news report. In the video he deflects claims against him and uses gay slurs like "faggot". He remains jailed at this time awaiting trial.

 

 

A records check on Nichols has revealed his former residency outside of Alma, Arkansas where Alamo established his original compound. That compound has since closed and moved to the southern part of the state. Nichols now belongs to the Cornerstone Church in Midwest City. The pastor of that church, Ron McKey, moved to Oklahoma City directly from Alma, Arkansas where he lived for eleven years. Reports claim McKee houses a small armory in his home and has established a youth center. Until Nichols’ arrest for violations of the sex offender act, Cornerstone Church was considered Hand Up Ministries’ main financial supporter taking over that role from Crossings Community Church, whose most prominent member is Sally Kern supporter U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin.

 

For the record, Sally Kern is originally from Jonesboro, Arkansas, but there are no apparent links tying her into the Tony Alamo bunch.    

 

The business entity of the ex-offender ministry is called HUM Enterprises LLC (HUM as in Hand Up Ministries), whose registered agent with the Oklahoma Secretary of State’s office is David C. Nichols. According to the Oklahoma County Tax Assessor’s office that business is the owner of the Little Ones Learning Center – a daycare facility at 7221 Lyrewood Lane. Details on that ownership are available here. 

 

The post office box for the daycare company and the ministry are identical – P.O. Box 2896 OKC OK 73101 – as well.  Here and here.

Oklahoma County Court Clerk records show Nichols and HUM Enterprises are being sued by Bayview Loan Servicing LLC, who are seeking to foreclose on the child care site. Filed under case number CJ-2008-9306 records show Nichols was served a summons at his home on December 2, 2008. Also, he is in criminal court for a violation of the sex offender registry act and appeared in a preliminary hearing over that on December 18, 2008. 

 

An informant within Hand Up Ministries has identified the white mini-van on the right side
of the daycare center as one from the ministry that is used for transporting the sex offenders.  

 

Ted Ketterling is the listed president of Ranchwood Ministries, who is the documented owner of the Hand Up Ministries location on SE 59^th St. Ketterling serves on the Hand Up board and is the owner of four other daycare centers across Oklahoma City. Ranchwood purchased the site, but the assessor’s office now lists ownership as being Hand Up Ministries with a mailing address to Ketterling’s home. Details on that are here.  

 

Ketterling owns daycares in the Metro at 3109 South Bryant, 7916 South Western, 1213 North Rockwell, and 12501 Northeast 23rd St. Ketterling’s wife, Sharon, has established a group called Kids Ministries Inc. She owns a farm in Seminole County where Hand Up Ministries houses a smaller group of sex offenders. 

Ira Lane, the cult's former chaplain and assistant director is currently being sought by authorities in four states for drug charges and an assault on a handicapped woman. Lane and Steve Kern worked together in providing aide to the sex offenders.

One resident, Gary Sellman, has earned the nickname the Riverwalk Rapist after violently attacking a woman in OKC.

 

In 2006 SB 1755 was passed which made it illegal for sex offenders to be housed near things like schools and daycares. 

 

That bill reads:

 

SB1755, Legislative session: 2006. Authors: Riley (senate) and Perry (house)

A. It is unlawful for any person registered pursuant to the Sex Offenders Registration Act to reside, either temporarily or permanently, within a two-thousand-foot radius of any public or private school site, educational institution, a playground or park that is zoned by city, county, state, federal or tribal government, or licensed child care center as defined by the Department of Human Services. Establishment of a day care center or park in the vicinity of the residence of a registered sex offender will not require the relocation of the sex offender or the sale of the property. On the effective date of this act, the distance indicated in this section shall be measured from the nearest property line of the residence of the person to the nearest property line of the public or private school site, educational institution, playground, park, or licensed child care facility; provided, any nonprofit organization established and housing sex offenders prior to the effective date of this provision shall be allowed to continue its operation.

 

The last line “provided, any nonprofit organization established and housing sex offenders prior to the effective date of this provision shall be allowed to continue its operation” was not in the original bill. It was added by Rep. Gus Blackwell (R-Glenpool) and only Hand Up Ministries fit the description and was therefore excluded from the restrictions. In effect, Blackwell’s efforts for the ministry meant that the child sex offenders could reside near daycare centers.

 

Gossip Boy has previously reported that Blackwell, along with Sally Kern and Mike Reynolds, will be leading an effort in the coming year to ban adoption and foster care by gays and lesbians.

 

Olivet Baptist Church has played frequent embracer for the child sex predators and rapists of Hand Up Ministries. Additionally, Pastor Kern taught Character First training to the residents at their housing complex. In January the Character First training center in downtown Oklahoma City is playing host to Reclaim Oklahoma’s ‘Clouds Over America’ conference where Rep. Sally Kern will be giving a presentation on the ‘Homosexual Agenda’.

 

Argyl Dick, the Oklahoma County Jail Chaplain, works for Character First center as a consultant and served on the Hand Up Ministries board of directors for three years, as did Richard Klemm. While serving on the board, Klemm was convicted of molesting his daughter in a Canadian County court procedure.

 

Character First is a division of evangelist Bill Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles. Gothard’s religious obedience training is repackaged in a secular version and sold to Oklahoma schools and prisons for training purposes.

 

Crimes Against Orphans has charged, “Bill Gothard, founder and president of IBLP, and his subordinate, George Mattix…are all involved in the abuse, rape, and murder of innocent Russian orphans and other children.”  

 

A Wiki article on Character First states, “Critics argue that the movement is a thinly veiled attempt to reduce the separation of church and state and an attempt to legally require conformity and obedience in society. Additionally, critics eye the foundation and funding of the program by various evangelical leaders including those in the Dominionist movement. Finally, the character traits emphasized by the program are criticized for over-emphasizing orderliness and obedience which critics find especially troubling when mixed with a political agenda with "template" legislation.”