The term cult has come to refer to a social group defined by its religious, spiritual, philosophical beliefs. Usually, cult members follow a leader, or a common interest in a particular belief, objection or goal.
The man in the following story did just that when he acted in the same way that his cult leader always taught him to. But eventually, his actions caught up to him.
Calvin McIntosh
On November 11, 2014, a father, Calvin McIntosh, 44, walked into a Sandy Springs hospital and told the staff his daughter wasn’t breathing. The child, Alcenti, was determined to be dead upon arrival. According to medical staff, Alcenti was neglected and abused and an autopsy showed starvation as the cause of death.
Residence
Alcenti weighed only seven pounds when she passed away. The child’s death led Gwinnett County Police to pay a visit to McIntosh’s residence, at an Extended Stay America off of Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. That’s where they found his 23-year-old daughter Najlaa and three children ages 5, 3, and 3. All three children were severely malnourished.
Iasia Sweeting
Officers then found another person in the hotel room, 21-year-old Iasia Sweeting. When police arrived, they found Sweeting wrapped in a blanket, lying on the floor. She was near death and authorities say she weighed only 59 pounds. Sweeting, who had been reported missing after she ran away in 2010, couldn’t move or talk.
Investigation
Police said that she believed she was being punished for unknown reasons. An investigation uncovered that McIntosh fathered two of the children with his daughter Najlaa and another child was with Sweeting. Police say that McIntosh ordered Najlaa to deprive Sweeting and the children of food if they were disobedient.
Hotel Room
Sweeting initially met McIntosh through his son, a friend of hers, who promised that his father would help her publish her poetry. When they met, Sweeting told Women In The World that he locked her in a bathroom, threw her in the trunk of a car, and took her to the hotel room that would become her prison.
Captivity
To survive her years in captivity, Sweeting turned to her Christian faith and her love of poetry, which she began writing when she was only 4-years-old. To get through the horrible days, she wrote poetry in the margins of the cult propaganda she was forced to read.
Poetry
“I had to continue to remind myself through my poetry that I know who I am and I’m completely different from the person [McIntosh] thought I was,” she said. “Writing gives me the chance to freeze-frame everything and sort it out on the paper. I get to slow down the fast pace that is life.”
Starting Over Again
Sweeting bore two children with McIntosh and it was only when he took the 15-month-old to the hospital that authorities rescued her. But the difficult days were still ahead of her when Sweeting literally had to learn how to walk and talk again in order to reenter the life she once knew. “I was expecting the world to be as it was when I was 17,” she said.
Trapped
“That room was almost like a freezer; it froze me in time. The rest of the world was going on and there was nothing I could do about it,” Sweeting added. But in just 18 months after her rescue, Sweeting graduated from the DeKalb School of the Arts, the Georgia high school she attended prior to her abduction.
Sharing Her Story
She was more motivated than ever, partly by her experience of delivering two children without medical assistance. Feeling like she could take on the world, Sweeting continued writing her poetry and speaking out about her story of abduction. But McIntosh and his daughter, Najlaa, had a different fate.
Murder
McIntosh and Najlaa, who was complicit in the crime, were both charged with felony, murder, malice murder, first-degree cruelty to children, and cruelty to a physically disabled adult (based on Sweeting’s condition when she was found). McIntosh also faced charges of rape, incest, and aggravated sodomy.
Pleaded Guilty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that McIntosh pleaded guilty to three counts of cruelty to children, and per his plea agreement, he was sentenced to life in prison, followed by 30 years probation. However, according to the Gwinnett County prosecutor’s office, McIntosh will be eligible for parole in 30 years.
Charges
McIntosh was charged with cruelty against Sweeting but that charge was dropped as part of the plea. This surprise plea came on the second day of jury selection for McIntosh’s trial. It’s unclear if Najlaa will go to trial, as her attorney, Charles Wrinkle said that she was also a victim of McIntosh.
No Remorse
Sweeting said that McIntosh showed no remorse during a police interview. “It was like talking to somebody who is just so out of touch with reality that you can’t even bring them to reality even if you try.” After Sweeting was found in the hotel, authorities also found journals referencing death and ritualistic practices, and literature about the Nuwaubian cult.
Motivations
While the motivations for the kidnapping are unclear, but the McIntoshes have been linked to the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a cult. McIntosh was allegedly devoted to the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, a defunct Georgia-based cult founded by Dwight “Malachi” York.
Arrest
On May 8, 2002, 300 local and federal law enforcement officers in Georgia, raided the Egyptian-themed compound of the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors. York, the cult’s founder, was arrested hours earlier, accused of molesting dozens of his follower’s children. The operation marked the beginning of the end for York.
Dwight “Malachi” York
He was known as a pseudo-religious leader, who eluded justice for decades while amassing a nationwide following for his bizarre blend of religion, mysticism, and claims about alien life, according to PEOPLE. He was finally exposed by former followers, including his estranged son, and was later convicted of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes.
Began In Brooklyn In The ‘70s
At his Brooklyn headquarters, York’s followers dressed in traditional Islamic clothing and adhered to his anti-white teachings. Former follower Niki Lopez, who later testified against York in court, said that children were forced to live separately from their parents and were beaten with wire hangers and broomsticks, and sometimes starved.
Beliefs
York was said to have blended his belief in black supremacism with Egyptian mysticism and UFOs. He was also a believer in polygamy and often had sex with many of his female followers. A select group of his favorites became his wives.
Sentencing
But after being exposed by former followers, York was sentenced to 135 years in federal prison. “York had sexual relationships with multiple generations of the mother and the daughter,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills told PEOPLE. “McIntosh is nothing more than an emulation of York.”
