Convicted Deprogrammer Linked to Abduction

A San Diego religious cult deprogrammer, who served a prison sentence for kidnaping, is being sought by police in connection with an abduction of an Indiana woman and her daughter.

Theodore Patrick Jr., 59, attempted to deprogram the 32-year-old woman who had joined a splinter movement of the close-knit Amish faith.

Elma Miller was taken from her parents’ home Oct. 31 and held for 20 days while Patrick tried to sway her away from the religious splinter group.

In a telephone interview with the Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel, Patrick admitted taking part in the attempted deprogramming.

“I don’t know what they (police) are going to do,” Patrick said.

Miller and her 9-year-old daughter, Annie, had lived in her parents’ home since she left her husband earlier this year. Miller managed to escape from a Mt. Vernon, Ill., farmhouse where she was being held captive on Nov. 19. She told police that she had been spirited from house to house in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Her estranged husband, Ezra Miller, 37, of rural LaGrange County; her brother, Alvin Yoder, 34; and Middlebury restaurateurs Robert Miller, 47, and his wife, Sue Miller, 44, have been charged with conspiracy to commit criminal confinement and conspiracy to commit burglary. They are free after posting bond.

Charges may be filed against people in three states who allegedly hid the woman and her daughter in their homes, often keeping them in locked rooms, according to LaGrange County Prosecutor Susan Glick.

Charges also may be brought against Patrick, who allegedly led daily sessions intended to bring Elma Miller back into the mainstream Amish church.

The deprogrammer wouldn’t comment on the roles those charged played in the abduction, but in general terms defended their actions.

“This man was legally married to her,” Patrick said. “He had a right to take her and talk to her. He had a right to get his family. He knew she was in imminent danger.”

Patrick said Elma Miller was abducted because she had joined a liberal Amish sect whose charismatic leader is considering allowing his followers to have phones and electricity. Rumors have circulated in the mainstream Amish community of supernatural powers by the sect’s leader, Wilbur Eash.

“He (Ezra Miller) would have been less than a man if he didn’t do something to try to help his wife,” Patrick said.

Patrick said the others involved in the case are “good Christian people who were trying to do a Christian favor.”

Patrick’s involvement with deprograming has had him in and out of trouble with the law and courts for more than a decade. In 1980, a San Diego Superior Court judge sentenced him to a year in prison and five years probation for the deprograming kidnaping of a 25-year-old Tucson woman.

In 1985, the judge returned Patrick to jail for three years on probation violation after learning he had been in contact with a Lubbock, Tex., woman who claimed to have paid him $3,900 to deprogram her daughter.

In 1988, Patrick was involved with deprograming a San Diego woman who had been abducted by her husband. The husband was charged with kidnaping and later pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of spousal abuse.

Indiana University sociology Prof. Anson Shupe, an authority on cults and deprogramming, helped point police to Patrick’s involvement in the Indiana case.

Patrick told the Ft. Wayne newspaper that his talks with Elma Miller consisted mainly of discussions about brainwashing and how Eash was controlling her mind.