Backstory

Benny Evangelist was a known carpenter, faith healer, and most intriguingly a cult leader and author of a self-published religious text, The Oldest History of the World: Discovery by Occult Science. When he was 19 years old, Benny Evangelista immigrated to the United States in 1904 and changed his name to Benny Evangelist. Just two years after arriving in the United States, Evangelist started receiving visions from God and it was these visions that spurred his four-volume book project he called “The Oldest History of the World.” In this book he declared himself a divine prophet, spiritual leader, and mystical healer. With all these beliefs in mind, in the basement of his house, Evangelist constructed an apparatus that included almost a dozen wax figures depicting various “celestial planets,” and a huge “eye” that was electrically lit up from the inside. This apparatus served as an altar for Evangelist healings, which he would charge $10 for. This practice might have earned him a good sum of money but it also gave him a few enemies.

Murder

On the evening of July 3, 1929 Benny Evangelist and his family were brutally murdered in their home in Detroit, Michigan on St. Aubin Street. When the police arrived to the home, Benny was found seated behind his desk, his hands folded neatly in his lap as though in prayer, and his head lying on the floor next to him. Upstairs they found his wife and four kids ages 1, 4, 5, and 7 all brutally murdered. Mrs. Evangelist was found dead in her bed with her youngest child. Her head had been bashed in and the 1 year old’s skull was crushed. The three other children were found massacred in the room across the hall. The police made several arrest in the family’s murder and questioned multiple suspects, but it all lead to dead ends. The case quickly went cold. But what makes this case even more interesting is that murder of the Evangelist family was only the beginning of what would be a string of bizarre cult killings that occurred in Detroit from 1929 to 1932, all that would go unsolved. Several years ago, the Evangelist home on St. Aubin Street was demolished and all that remains now is a grown over empty lot that no one has built anything on since. There as been rumors that the site is haunted and others have claimed to have seen a headless man walking the lot. Others have reported hearing disembodied screams. The Evangelist murders remain unsolved to this day.

Works Cited:

http://coldcaseshardcopy.blogspot.com/2011/07/divine-profetil-author-and-private.html