Daughter, 27, confronts her father for handing her over to cult leader 'who raped her for years after saying it was God's word' when she was just 13

Daily Mail, UK/November 26, 2014

By Lydia Warren

A woman who was just 13 when her parents handed her over to a cult leader who allegedly sexually abused her for a decade has confronted her father in an emotional interview.

Lindsay Tornambe, now 27, was selected by Victor Barnard, the leader of the River Road Fellowship in Minnesota, to be one of his 10 'Maidens' and allegedly went on to endure years of sexual abuse at his hands.

Barnard, 53, is being sought by authorities for 59 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct but has eluded authorities for months. Police believe former members of his cult may be harboring him.

On Monday, Lindsay appeared on Dr Phil and came face-to-face with her father, Carmen, for the first time in more than a year and demanded to know why he had not protected her from Barnard.

She was sent to live with Barnard after he held a special ceremony where he 'spiritually married' the 10 girls by putting veils on their heads, rings on their fingers and by placing salt in their mouths.

'My parents witnessed the salt ceremony,' she told Dr Phil. 'It was clear to me at that moment that my parents weren't going to stop it.'

At the ceremony, Barnard told her parents that he 'may or may not' have sex with her, she said, and shortly after she moved in with him, he began abusing her, she said.

'He said that Jesus Christ had Mary Magdalene and other women... and that it would be spiritual and natural for him to take care of me in that way,' she said.

But her father, Carmen, insisted on Dr Phil that he did not know about the sexual abuse.

'How could you not know?' she asked, fighting back tears. 'You saw me with a veil over my head with a ring he had given me. He said he may or may not have sex with me. How would you not know?'

She went on: 'You didn't do your job as a father. You abandoned me. You left me there for years. You saw me humiliated and kicked out of meetings in front of the whole church. I don't understand why you keep saying you didn't know what happened.'

Her father insisted that the cult leader had indicated that if he ever had sex with Lindsay it would be 'later on in... life' and that 'my biggest mistake was to trust the wrong man'.

'I felt like I was manipulated into his power,' he said. 'My perspective was that she was serving the church, I didn't know all those other things were happening.'

But he added: 'There's not a day that goes by that I don't count the cost of realizing that I take my full accountability and responsibility for what had taken place. I did not give a blessing or an OK.'

He added that he himself thought about leaving the group many times over the 10 or 11 years he stayed there but he had 'no back up'.

Lindsay told Dr Phil she believes some of her relatives are still involved with Barnard, who is still hiding from authorities. A nationwide warrant was issued for his arrest on April 11.

Barnard fled from Minnesota in 2009 after he was confronted about sleeping with married women. 

In 2012, after enduring years of abuse, Lindsay alerted authorities to the girls' plight. Another former cult-member, Jess Schweiss, also told authorities her story and the counts of abuse against him stem from their claims. He could face more if other alleged victims come forward.

The women say they were just 12 and 13 when, with their parents permission, they went to live with Barnard as part of a group known as the Maidens.

The Maidens, aged between 12 and 24, were first-born daughters handed over to Bernard and forced to have sex with him anywhere between once and five times a month over a decade.

He said that Jesus and King Solomon had many women followers, so 'God's word' meant that it was normal for him to have sex with them.

'I still had a conscience, I knew it was wrong,' Schweiss, who marked every sexual encounter with Barnard with an 'x' on a calendar, told Fox in an interview earlier this year. 

Her father told authorities that he 'felt pressured to not say anything' about the sexual activity, according to the criminal complaint.

Schweiss has now cut her parents out of her life.

'I don't look at them as my parents anymore,' she said. 'They weren't the parents I wanted or needed. My parents, the people I grew up with as a child, don't exist anymore.'

Lindsay said in the Fox interview that she did not even know what sex was before she went to live with Barnard and that he came angry with her when she said she didn't understand.

He had sex with her anyway and urged her not to tell anyone, she said. She added that her parents rarely came to visit, even though they lived just five miles away. 

She left his cabin when she was 15 but after her parents berated her with their disappointment and Bernard spoke to her about damnation, she reluctantly returned.

'I was really scared, and I didn't know what receiving damnation from God would be like,' she said. 'I ended up just staying.'

But a few years later, she left permanently and went to live with her parents, who had moved to Pennsylvania. They still placed Bernard's photographs around their home.

When she told her parents about the abuse, her mother 'did not want to hear it', the criminal complaint notes.

Tornambe eventually became a nanny, but when she heard cousins happily talking about their lives at a New Year's party in 2012, she realized Bernard had robbed her of hers and she called police.

Likewise, Schweiss split from the group and moved to Wisconsin in September 2009, but she said she attempted suicide in 2011. When her brother confronted her, she told him about the abuse.

'I feel bad in one sense that I am taking Victor's life away from him by putting him behind bars, but then again, he took my life away from me, which I should have had,' she said. 'So, I feel that - for lack of better words - I think I'm even.'

Pine County Chief Sheriff's Deputy Steven Blackwell said that the 59 counts only relate to the claims by the two women and that authorities are hopeful more will come forward.

When asked if he believed there were more, he said: 'I don't know how we couldn't think that.'

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