Four whole decades passed before a woman walked into a police meeting and said she believed her mother had killed her sister, a sister she had never seen.
She added that her mother had also killed another child and that the murders were directly linked to the cult, child abuse and fleeing from authorities.
Had the founder and head of the congregation, located in the mentioned mother.
Cathy was six years old when she disappeared.
Cathy’s disappearance
The woman, Joy Fluker, said her sister’s name was Catherine Davidson, she was still called Cathy and was killed in 1976. Cathy was then six years old and Joy was not yet born.
On September 1, 1976, Robert and Anna Davidson traveled from their Chicago home to Sawyer to enjoy the outdoors on beautiful Lake Michigan. Their five children were with them.
While the couple was cooking dinner, the kids went off to explore the area, just like kids do.
Fifteen minutes later, they started coming back, one by one. Except Cathy.
Anna Davidson/Young in her youth.
Robert and Anna looked around, but Cathy was nowhere to be found. They then went to the police and reported him missing. A thorough search was immediately launched, which was unsuccessful.
Had Cathy been kidnapped and held captive? Was she murdered? Had she moved away from her siblings and had an accident?
There were many theories, but little Cathy was nowhere to be found.
No parental interest
During the search, the police kept an eye on Robert and Anna. They did not appear to be concerned about the girl’s disappearance and did not participate in the search. They were seen, among other things, having fun with friends three days later, laughing and drinking alcohol.
Police suspected the parents had something to do with the child’s disappearance, but they had no proof. Moreover, the other four children strongly maintained that Cathy had disappeared while they were playing.
Little Cathy’s disappearance remained a mystery until 2017, when Robert and Anna’s youngest daughter, Joy, came forward.
Joy was born a few years after Cathy disappeared, and it was her older sister who finally confided in her about what happened that day at the lake decades earlier.
Joy with Anna, his mother.
Joy told police her sister told her she had seen, 44 years earlier, Roberg and Anna beat Cathy, tie her up and roll her up and lock her in a closet.
This allegedly happened the day before the family trip to Sawyer. The other children heard noises coming from the closet during the night, noises reminiscent of scratching, but in the middle of the night they stopped and there was a dead silence.
The next morning, the sisters crept over to the wardrobe and opened it. Cathy lay tied up on the floor and looked dead.
They didn’t dare say a word about the funeral to their parents and went on a family trip, knowing that Cathy had died in the closet.
But the story is more complicated.
Anna’s Congregation
After Cathy disappeared, the family moved to Micanopy, Florida, which is little more than a village of about 500 people.
Anna began preaching there and founded a congregation in 1983, which she named House of Prayer for All People.
Members of Anna’s congregation.
pl. Anna’s teachings were based on selected passages from the Old Testament.
The congregation was not large, it consisted of no more than 24 people, but the members had to follow Anna’s strict instructions.
Among them were strict clothing instructions. Men were only supposed to wear long hats and they were forbidden to shave their beards. Women also had to wear long veils and cover their hair.
There were also rules regarding food, subscribers could only eat food that Anna said was “clean” and members had to change their names.
Anna Davidson became Anna Young and Robert Davidson was Jonah Young. Everyone was forced to call her “Mother Anna”
Anna’s mother
Considered strange until the crimes are revealed
Anna Young particularly appealed to people in difficulty, notably poor single mothers, many of whom gladly accepted her offer of free housing and food. Some even left their children to the “goddess” unable to care for them on their own.
But she, on the other hand, made it almost impossible for members of the congregation to leave the house by demanding a large sum of money that the person “owed” but could rarely, if ever, pay.
The same was said of mothers who wanted their children back, they received sky-high bills that they could rarely pay, and so Anna kept their children.
Joy with a photo of her mother who she says brainwashed her.
The group was widely considered peculiar, but not much more than that. That is, until Robert/Jonah’s death in 1988.
Anna seemed to change gears after her death and we adopted new, much stricter rules.
Followers had to give Anna all of their salaries, and even all of their savings, and parents and children were separated. Anna let the children sleep with her in one room and parents and children were not allowed to have contact.
Torture children
Anna starved the children, humiliated and punished them again and again for their “sins”. They were then whipped 33 times – as many times as Christ is said to have been whipped before the crucifixion.
She forced the single mother to part with her two-year-old child outside a church in Puerto Rico, claiming the devil had taken up residence in the child.
But in 1992 there was a change in Anna’s congregation. She then thought that a 12-year-old girl smelled bad, and to punish her, she filled a bathtub with all kinds of cleaning products, and forced the girl into it.
Congregational House in Florida
Her parents, who were members of the congregation, feared something was wrong and made a point of entering Anna’s room when she wasn’t looking.
They found their daughter tied to a bed with horrific burns. They rushed her to the hospital and her life was saved, but she will live with her injuries for the rest of her life.
The escape
The police were called and a complaint was filed against Anna for assault and ill-treatment. She managed to escape before being arrested, however, taking Joy, who was just a child at the time, with her.
The congregation dissolved.
In 2000, Anna was found and subsequently lived in the town of Alton, Illinois. She was convicted for the mistreatment of the girl and served her sentence in 2002.
Little Emaon
Joy told police that Anna killed Cathy but also killed a two-year-old boy, Emon Harper, in 1988. She starved him and beat him to death.
She had put her body in a closet, in the presence of several members of the collection, and a few days later had put the body in a laundry basket and set it on fire.
There wasn’t enough evidence to charge Anna with Cathy’s murder, but she was charged with Eamon’s murder in December 2017.
After news of the charges hit the media, several members of the congregation told horror stories about life at the House of Prayer for All.
Katoynie
John Neal was one of them.
His mother was a member of the church and told John that Anna also killed his sister, Katonya Jackson.
John Neal
John said that Anna had claimed to have the same power as a god, no one could doubt that she would suffer severe punishment, in addition to going vertically to hell in the afterlife.
Katonya must have suffered convulsions, but Anna refused to give her medicine and she tortured the girl for the convulsions, which Anna claimed were tools of the devil.
Katonya died after another crisis, this time severely affected by abuse. Katonya’s date of death has been reported and is believed to have been caused by her epilepsy.
John himself was repeatedly whipped and left seriously injured for several weeks after taking a piece of chocolate he found in the kitchen.
A number of people testified at trial and most of the stories were the same, stories of mental and physical abuse by Anna. Some admitted to beating their own family members on Anna’s orders.
Sitting indoors for 33 days
Joy was criticized for not coming forward sooner but said she had not found the strength to do so sooner, her mother had held sway over her for several decades.
In February 2021, Anna Young pleaded guilty to the murder of Eamon Haper and the manslaughter of Katonya Jackson and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
But Anna Young was only behind bars for 33 days before suffering a heart attack and dying.
Anna Young, prison movie.
Later it turned out that Anna had been charged with child abuse in 1968, but the case was dropped for unknown reasons.
Two of Joy’s siblings still claim that her story is a lie and that their mother was just a God-fearing and good woman full of a desire to help the less powerful.
Cathy’s disappearance is still, technically, classified as unsolved.
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