'Chief Apostle' Of Infamous Religious Cult Was Killed In 2004, Body Parts Scattered Across New Britain, Court Records Reveal

The Hartford Courant/August 1, 2018

By David Owens

The self-proclaimed “chief apostle” of an infamous religious cult that attracted hundreds of followers in central Connecticut during the 1980s and ’90s was killed in a power struggle in 2004 and his body parts scattered across New Britain, court records released Wednesday reveal.

Paul Sweetman once told state lawmakers considering legalizing same-sex civil unions that they risked the wrath of “Julius Christ,” a reference to the sect’s leader, Julius Schacknow, who was known as Brother Julius, described at the time as a Connecticut cult leader who parlayed his claims to divinity into a multimillion-dollar real estate empire that crumbled in the late 1980s.

Details of what authorities believe happened to Sweetman are in an arrest affidavit for Rudy Hannon, 72, who was charged by New Britain police Tuesday with murder in Sweetman’s death. On Wednesday, New Britain police also charged a Burlington man, Sorek Minery, with killing Sweetman. Minery, 42, is being held in lieu of $2 million bail after his arraignment Wednesday in Superior Court in Bristol. Both men face charges of murder and felony murder.

According to the warrant, both men worked together in killing Sweetman, but each has pointed the finger at the other in statements to New Britain detectives. The co-defendants are being kept separate in court facilities and in jail.

Sweetman had been reported missing by his wife Joanne Sweetman, on July 24, 2004. She reported having last seen her husband on July 21, 2004.

According to the warrant and people familiar with the investigation, Paul Sweetman was killed at the behest of his wife in what was a struggle for control of the cult after Schacknow’s death in 1996. Joanne Sweetman, who was previously married to Schacknow, died in April 2011.

The warrant for Hannon’s arrest was signed a year ago, but he fought extradition to Connecticut.

Minery, of Burlington, told New Britain police that in the months leading up to Sweetman’s murder, he and Hannon were members of Brother Julius’ cult. Minery said Hannon worked for months to convince him that Sweetman “needed to be killed because he was hurting his wife, Joanne Sweetman and that God would have wanted them to kill Sweetman,” the warrant reads.

During those conversations, Minery told police, he and Hannon decided the “murder should not involve a gun or knife because it was too messy,” according to the warrant.

Minery said he respected Joanne Sweetman and “looked up to her as a high religious figure” and that “because of this, he began believing Rudy Hannon and believed Paul Sweetman needed to die.”

Minery told police he arrived at his business, Blue Ridge Construction in Plainville and discovered Hannon standing over Sweetman’s body. Minery said Hannon, who had a key to the shop, asked for his help in disposing of the body.

They stripped Sweetman down to his underwear then loaded him into a freezer. Three to four days later, Minery told police, he returned to his shop to dismember the body.

“Minery stated that he used an electric saw and dismembered the body while it was still in the freezer,” the warrant reads. “Minery stated he remembers cutting off the head easily and cutting off both legs.”

He then put the body parts in garbage bags and placed them back in the freezer, he told police. He said he buried the head and legs in a shallow grave on land near the New Britain reservoir, and buried the torso and arms beneath the shed of his New Britain home, then poured concrete over them.

In the years after the killing, Minery said Hannon would call him and blackmail him by threatening to tell police what happened unless Minery wired him money.

Minery eventually moved his business, now called Blue Ridge Woodworks, to the old Collins Axe Factory in the Collinsville section of Canton.

Hannon tells a different tale. Initially, he told police he delivered Sweetman to Minery’s shop and that Minery killed him. He claimed he thought Minery was only going to beat Sweetman, but admitted he helped put the body in the freezer.

Hannon, in an interview with New Britain police at the Nevada prison where he was serving a violation of probation sentence, eventually admitted that he watched Minery severely beat Sweetman until Sweetman vomited a large amount of blood, then fell back flat on the floor and folded his arms across his chest.

He said he then helped Minery load the body into the freezer. He said he believed Sweetman was still alive. Minery then placed a heavy bag or box of tools on top of the freezer to prevent Sweetman from climbing out, Hannon told police.

At Hannon’s arraignment Wednesday in Superior Court in New Britain, Avon lawyer J. Patten Brown III was assigned to represent him as a special public defender. Brown asked for medical attention because Hannon has recently had heart bypass and cancer surgery. His case was continued to Aug. 27.

At Minery’s arraignment Wednesday in Superior Court in Bristol, his bail was reduced to $2 million from $5 million and his case was continued to Aug. 7 in New Britain.

Hannon told his story of Sweetman’s murder to the FBI in 2006, and identified Minery as the killer, according to the warrant. Hannon made the disclosure under a proffer agreement, meaning Hannon was cooperating with the FBI at the time. Hannon also told the FBI where Minery disposed of Sweetman’s body parts.

The warrant does not indicate why the FBI did not share that information with New Britain police.

New Britain detectives had been working since Aug. 27, 2004, to identify a severed leg found at the Shuttle Meadow Golf Course. The leg, found weeks after Sweetman’s killing, was likely dug out of the ground by a coyote. In April 2016, New Britain police learned of the Sweetman missing persons case in Southington.

Police obtained DNA from Sweetman’s son Kenneth Sweetman. The state forensic lab determined the leg found 12 years prior was that of Paul Sweetman.

New Britain detectives obtained the Sweetman case files from the FBI and went to work.

They searched the ground beneath the shed at Minery’s former home in New Britain and found a headless torso and arms. The medical examiner noted the extremities had been removed with clean cuts. The state lab determined the torso and arms were Sweetman’s remains.

Found with the body was jewelry, including two gold rings. One was engraved with the name “Joanne.”

Joanne Sweetman had once been Schacknow's legal wife and had three children by him. He also had two children by a first wife, Elsie Beville of Norfolk, Va., who divorced him on grounds of religious incompatibility in 1950, and two by his second wife, Mary Smith of St. Louis, Mo., who accused him of infidelity in a 1960 divorce proceeding.

Joanne Sweetman had been known among “Juliusites” as “the holy spirit.”

Paul Sweetman, who was 70 when he was killed, had several run-ins with the law during his stewardship of the cult’s businesses. In 2000, he was sentenced to three years in federal prison on conspiracy and fraud charges and was ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution after fraudulently obtaining a $3.2 million loan from a Hamden bank. Sweetman also improperly dipped into pension and profit-sharing plans for the cult’s businesses to back loans, according to the government.

Schacknow called himself the “sinful messiah,'' saying he had to sin to know what it was like.

He operated in central Connecticut for more than a quarter-century, ever since he moved from New Jersey and proclaimed at an outdoor revival in Trumbull in 1970 that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.

Several hundred idealistic young people, hungry for spiritual direction, flocked to the guidance of the long-haired, bearded preacher who wore a white robe and had mesmerizing green eyes.

He set up a base in Meriden and commanded national attention as a cult leader until, in 1976, he stopped making public appearances and turned to commercial enterprise.

Driven by what they saw as a holy mission to advance what he called “The Work,'' Schacknow's followers, numbering perhaps 300 people at the cult’s peak, oversaw the building of an expanding, multimillion-dollar real estate and construction business.

They achieved financial success under the direction of the Sweetmans.

Schacknow himself stayed aloof from direct involvement in the businesses but exhorted his followers at Sunday services lasting as long as six hours to give their utmost. People who quit complained that they put in long workdays, were paid below-minimum wages and sometimes were denied sales commissions.

Among the businesses, which are all defunct, was J-Anne North/Century 21, a real estate company based in Southington that operated five Century 21 franchises in central Connecticut and did $100 million in sales a year in the mid-1980s, the national franchise office reported at the time.

Their contracting business, County Wide Construction Co. and its affiliate, County Wide Home Improvement and Maintenance Co., did major work for towns, private developers and homeowners.

The businesses all collapsed with the real estate downtown at the end of the 1980s, leaving behind a financial shambles and desertion by scores of followers.

Born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn in 1924, Schacknow converted to Christianity after he served in the Navy in World War II. He recounts his conversion in an autobiography written in 1947 for admission to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, a fundamentalist school.

Courant staff writer William Leukhardt contributed to this story.