Media coverage of the New Mexico child abuse compound

At this website, there are several stories from CNN on the Amalia, New Mexico compound where five adults have been charged with child abuse, and one child has been found dead. There are a number of videos, one of which features the local sheriff walking out in disgust at the CNN interviewer.

Doug Ross at The Daily Caller reported last night that all five adults have been released from jail on a $20,000 signature bond each as they await their trial on child abuse charges.

Although one of the adults owned a ten-acre property nearby, the group chose another ten-acre property to live on, and that land is owned by a US Army veteran, Jason Badger. Badger and his wife believe law enforcement was negligent in not going on the property much sooner while the boy was still alive. One of the men had a warrant for his arrest from Georgia on charges of kidnapping the boy, who was his son. Why couldn’t the New Mexico sheriff have gone in on the basis of that outstanding warrant in Georgia? Badger told the media that he had earlier informed Georgia law enforcement that the missing boy was at the compound. This Reuters article indicates that neighbors had tried to help.

CBS and CNN both report that the boy died during a religious ritual.

Morgan Lee reports today in the Herald-WHIG,

…Agent Travis Taylor described interviews with two children from the compound, ages 13 and 15, after they were taken into protective custody by the state.

The 15-year-old described attempts to cast demonic spirits from Abdul-ghani’s body through a ritual that involved reading passages from the Quran while Siraj Ibn Wahhaj held a hand on the boy’s forehead, and that Abdul-ghani apparently died after one of the sessions, Taylor said.

He said the children were told that Abdul-ghani would be resurrected as Jesus and “would instruct others on the property about what corrupt institutions to get rid of,” in reference to financial and government institutions that might include schools.