The Last Days (August 14-20, 2023)
Issue No. 18
Welcome, albeit a little late, to the eighteenth edition of The Last Days newsletter.
The Last Days delivers a weekly collection of curated JW-related news articles from around the world, and other entertaining information, straight into your inbox. You choose what you want to read, believe, download, listen to, watch, or subscribe to.
You can find the last edition of TLD covering August 7-13, 2023, here if you missed it. If you prefer to read The Last Days on our webpage click here.
This edition of The Last Days, covering the week of August 14-20, 2023, contains our leading Feature of the Week Austria: Car bombings target Jehovah’s Witnesses?; JW News from Australia and Germany; a new section JW True Crime Stories; our regular JW Celebrity News with this week’s celebrity in focus, Geri Horner (Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls); a YouTube video from ExJW Panda Tower discussing a leaked propaganda video published by Jehovah’s Witnesses, and more!
Enjoy the Last Days! . . .
“The events unfolding around us, are making clearer than ever, that we’re living in the final part of the Last Days, undoubtedly the final part of the final part of the Last Days, shortly before the Last Day of the Last Days.” - Stephen Lett, member of the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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Austria: Car bombings target Jehovah’s Witnesses?
[TRANSLATION OF ABOVE ARTICLE]
Explosives detonated: state security determined
In the city of Leibnitz, state security is investigating after someone attached explosive devices to two vehicles on Friday evening: Their owners took part in a prayer session of the Jehovah's Witnesses faith community in the immediate vicinity.
Between 6:45 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., the unknown perpetrator is believed to have attached explosive devices to two cars parked in a parking lot on Leibnitz Südbahnstraße. These subsequently detonated, triggering an explosive device on a parked car - when the owner went to her car, she noticed parts lying around on her car. A second explosive device detonated when the second vehicle owner had already driven his car a few kilometers. Both vehicles were damaged, but no one was injured.
Explosives planted during prayer session
At the same time, according to a police broadcast, a prayer session of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious community was taking place in the immediate vicinity, in which both vehicle owners attended.
A detonation was also heard by the prayer meeting participants: “We heard it; it was near the Kingdom Hall, we didn't really think about it," says Oskar Hölbing. Desiree Scheuer described: "It was a brief shock, you heard a loud bang."
“It was definitely a matter of luck that the second vehicle owner in particular was not injured. Explosive devices were attached to the underbody panel. But fortunately both detonations ended in such a way that no one was injured," said police spokesman Markus Lamb. A connection with the prayer hour of Jehovah's Witnesses is not ruled out by the police: "Investigations are going in all directions," said Lamb.
Investigative team set up
In Leibnitz, criminalists from the Styrian State Criminal Police Office (LKA), explosives experts (SKO) from the police and the Defusing Service (ESD) immediately began the investigation. Crime scene work and securing of evidence was also carried out during the night.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism (LVT) has already set up its own investigative team. Potentially endangered facilities are also sensitized and monitored more closely by the police.
2,800 members in Styria
According to their own statements, the Jehovah's Witnesses have a good 22,000 active members in Austria, the largest grouping of which is in Upper Austria. Almost 2,800 members are registered in Styria. The religious community could now be confronted with a violent action directed against it for the second time this year in German-speaking countries: It was only at the beginning of March that eight people died in a shooting spree in a house of prayer in Hamburg, including the perpetrator who had committed suicide.
The incident is made even more explosive by the fact that the summer congress of Jehovah's Witnesses has been taking place in Vienna's Happel Stadium since Friday and up to and including Sunday. According to the police, around 9,000 believers gather there. The security precautions have been strengthened accordingly, it said on Saturday afternoon when asked by the APA. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Combating Terrorism is also involved.
Leibniz Mayor "Shaken"
The mayor of Leibnitz, Michael Schumacher (SPÖ), was shocked in an interview with the APA: "It surprises everyone and one is shocked. The region is known for feeling good, and now we've been shaken by a hundred year flood, as a society and as a region, and then something like that is added on. It leaves you speechless and stunned.” The Jehovah's Witnesses in Leibnitz are a completely inconspicuous religious community and have never attracted negative attention. Schumacher was not brought closer to any conflict in connection with the Jehovah's Witnesses in his municipality.
CREDITS: red, steiermark.ORF.at
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Australia - published on August 16, 2023
Germany - published on August 18, 2023
The murder of Michelle Yvette Busha
Michelle Yvette Busha was born on November 2, 1961, in Bay City, Texas.
Michelle, along with her sister, Marla, were homeschooled by their Jehovah’s Witness parents.
Michelle was last seen by her family in December 1979 when, at the age of eighteen, she left home headed for Louisiana. For the next few months Michelle would regularly telephone home. In early May the telephone calls stopped.
On May 9, 1980, the Busha family filed a missing person report.
Three weeks later, on May 30, Michelle’s body was found by a farmer among corn plants. The authorities were notified. An autopsy put the cause of death as ligature strangulation. Michelle’s hair had also been shaved.
Decomposition prevented any visual or photographic identification. A thumbprint was obtained from the body but no identification was made. Michelle became another “Jane Doe”.
Jane Doe was buried in August 1980 in the Riverside Cemetery, Blue Earth.
Jane Doe’s murder became a cold case.
Confession to child sexual abuse and murder
In June 1988, Robert Leroy Nelson, a former Minnesota state Trooper, confessed to the murder of Jane Doe (Michelle) but was unable to provide any identifying information about her. Nelson had already confessed and pleaded guilty to an unrelated incident of child sexual abuse.
Prior to his conviction for the murder of Jane Doe, Nelson had confessed to Pastor Ronald Bernier to having killed a girl. Bernier subsequently reported to the authorities details of the ecclesiastical confession made to him by Nelson.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office Supplementary Report, dated December 1, 1988, contained the following case file summary entry:
Today, Mr. Bernier, Mr. Nelson’s pastor, came to our office … [and] … advised me that he had just talked to Robert Nelson and Robert had told him he had killed a girl in Minnesota.
On August 25, 1989, a news release was published about Nelson’s conviction and sentencing.
Identification
In July 2014, Jane Doe’s body was exhumed and her remains were scanned. She was placed on the database of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
On March 13, 2015, the body of Jane Doe was formally identified as Michelle Yvette Busha. Her family were notified.
LINK: News Cut - Crime and Justice | Thanks to a stranger, Jane Doe is identified
LINK: USA Today | Father of missing teen, found dead in Minnesota, finally finds closure
Aftermath
Robert Leroy Nelson, who confessed to Michelle’s murder and the sexual assault of a child, is still incarcerated within the John B. Connally Unit, Karnes County, Texas.
Document downloads
The murder of Michelle Yvette Busha - File Volume 1 (252mb) - pdf
The murder of Michelle Yvette Busha - File Volume 2 (220mb) - pdf
Let’s face it, there are a lot of actors, singers, musicians, artists, sports stars, and celebrities that are former or even current Jehovah’s Witnesses, or that were raised as children within the religion.
In focus: Geri Horner (Halliwell) aka Ginger Spice
When I was in the Spice Girls I presented myself in a very bolshie, triumphant way. I've softened with age. I think of myself as being on the bridge between youth and wisdom.
I was brought up a Jehovah's Witness. My mother went through a phase of missing out birthdays and Christmas, and that's quite uncomfortable when you're eight years old. You feel very excluded. Thankfully, my mum realised it wasn't for her.
[1]
[1] The Guardian, archive interview by Elizabeth Day
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In this YouTube video ExJW Panda Tower discusses a leaked propaganda video published by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Protect Yourself from Propaganda
The cunning propagandist loves such shortcuts—especially those that short-circuit rational thought. Propaganda encourages this by agitating the emotions, by exploiting insecurities, by capitalizing on the ambiguity of language, and by bending rules of logic. - Awake! magazine, June 22, 2000
Name-calling as a means of spreading propaganda
The Jehovah’s Witnesses Awake! magazine, as referred to above, has the following to say on the dangers of name-calling:
Some people insult those who disagree with them by questioning character or motives instead of focusing on the facts. Name-calling slaps a negative, easy-to-remember label onto a person, a group, or an idea. The name-caller hopes that the label will stick. If people reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative label instead of weighing the evidence for themselves, the name-caller’s strategy has worked. - Awake! magazine, June 22, 2000
The Jehovah’s Witnesses continue to remove evidence of the significant role that Brother Anthony Morris III played as a member of the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses between September 1, 2005 until his removal on February 22, 2023.