Though she's only 16, Nicolette Weaver spent nearly a decade with a doomsday group called Concerned Christians. She now fears the worst: The group's leader, Monte Kim Miller, and 50 followers have vanished.
"He is so controlling, they would do anything he said," Weaver said. "He has been prophesying the end of the world for so long. When it doesn't happen, he will have to find some way for their world to end."Followers of the group have sold their belongings and abandoned their homes. Cult watchers are raising the possibility of a mass suicide, though they also believe the group may be headed to Jerusalem because of Miller's belief he would die there in December 1999 and be resurrected three days later.
Denver police officer Mark Roggeman said at least 20 members of the group have contacted relatives since Saturday and promised to keep in touch.
"Some said they were on an overseas mission, or out of the country," Roggeman said. "One woman said she was by the sea."
Miller founded Concerned Christians in the early 1980s, preaching against the evils of cults and New Age movements.
Hal Mansfield is the director of the Fort Collins-based Religious Movement Resource Center, which has been monitoring the Denver-based Concerned Christians for at least two years. He said Miller might have started the movement as a financial scam. But critics said the group has transformed itself into an apocalyptic personality cult.
Miller, 44, claimed that God was using him as a vehicle to speak to his followers. After prophesying that the Apocalypse would begin with an earthquake in Denver last Saturday, the cult leader and his disciples dropped from sight.
Weaver left the group to live with her biological father two years ago when Miller "started going off the deep end." Her mother and stepfather stayed with Miller.
"I love my mom and stepdad very much and I want them back," she said.