Photo: San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office
A member of aColorado group with “apocalyptic” beliefshas accepted a plea deal in connection with the deaths of two girls that group members are accused of intentionally abusing until they died, PEOPLE confirms.
The children — 8-year-old Hannah Marshall and 10-year-old Makayla Roberts — were found mummified in a car on Frederick “Alec” Blair’s marijuana farm in 2017.
Hannah and Makayla were forced to live inside the vehicle without food or water and were victims of the religious beliefs of the small group, which included their mom, investigators have alleged,according to theGrand Junction Daily Sentinel.
“It was an apocalyptic kind of thing,” a source with knowledge of the case previously told PEOPLE of the group.
Blair was originally charged with being an accessory to a crime and two counts of child abuse resulting in the deaths of both girls. Their remains were discovered in the backseat of the car on Blair’s farm near Norwood, about 30 miles west of Telluride, on Sept. 8.
Due to extreme decomposition, it is unclear how Hannah and Makayla died — whether from dehydration, heat or starvation.
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Under his plea agreement last week, Blair admitted being an accessory, a class-four felony, and the child abuse charges against him were dropped. Prosecutors say he has agreed to cooperate against the remaining suspects in the case.
Blair is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 27 and faces up to 12 years in prison, a prosecutor’s spokesperson says. He remains in custody in lieu of $125,000 bond.
Speaking with PEOPLE, his attorney, Kristen Hindman, described how Blair “changed profoundly” under the “coercive” influence of the group, transforming from “a very congenial sort of happy person who would really give the shirt off his back to anyone to someone who completely cut off all ties to his family and friends and the community.”
“He burned his possessions. He tried to kill his most beloved possession, which was his dog, at the direction of the [group’s] leaders and it ultimately led to this tragedy where he rendered assistance in covering up the deaths of these children,” Hindman said.
Also charged in connection with the case were Madani Ceus, the group’s alleged leader; Nashika Bramble, the mother of the two girls; Ashford Nathaniel Archer, Ceus’ partner; and Ika Eden, another group member.
Bramble and Ceus are charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of child abuse resulting in death. Archer and Eden each face two counts of child abuse resulting in death, and Archer is also charged with one count of being an accessory to a crime.
San Miguel Sheriff’s Office
‘A Reign of Terror’
Archer and Ceus remain mysterious figures, including how they met, though they reportedly began gaining followers in 2015.
(Prosecutors declined to comment to PEOPLE on the newspaper’s account and local investigators did not return messages seeking comment.)
Nathan Yah.San Miguel Sheriff’s Office
The group believed last year’s solar eclipse in the U.S. would mark the apocalypse, bringing days of darkness, during which time they would be transported to another dimension via a “light body,” San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters alleged in January.
Ceus — having, one defense attorney claimed, “engaged in a reign of terror” and threatened others with “abomination” after a member of the group was exiled — allegedly declared that Makayla was a danger to the group and was a “harlot” in a previous life, Masters said.
“It started with identifying Makayla as being evil,” he testified at a January hearing. “So the first step was she was not allowed to play with the other children.”
Makayla was allegedly made to live in a Toyota Camry on the property so she that wouldn’t purportedly infect the group, Masters said. In late July, she was eventually refused food and water because Ceus considered the food sacred.
As Makayla was kept captive, Masters said, Blair was “shocked” to learn that another girl whom he had never seen had been living in the Camry since they moved onto his property: It was Hannah, Makayla’s little sister and Bramble’s other daughter.
Nashika Bramble and Ika Eden.San Miguel Sheriff’s Office
Leader Described Victims as ‘The Death of Us All’
The group allegedly deprived both girls of food and water, Masters said, and prepared for the solar eclipse on Aug. 21. Members were forbidden to interact with the car or with the children inside, though the vehicle was still unlocked.
“Ms. Ceus said, ‘These girls will be the death of us all,’ ” Masters testified.
Blair told police that in mid-August, Bramble went to check on her daughters and discovered they were dead, after which Ceus allegedly instructed some of the group’s members to “cover the car with a tarp,” according to a sheriff’s deputy’s testimony. The vehicle’s doors were also taped shut.
On Aug. 21, when the foretold apocalypse did not occur along with the eclipse, Ceus allegedly blamed “other family members for not being pure enough,” Masters said.
She is further accused of ordering both Blair’s dog and then Bramble to be denied food and water.
“Ms. Ceus confronted Bramble stating that she had been an evil person in her past life and that she hadn’t done enough to try to get rid of all this evilness that she was carrying around with her,” Masters testified.
Allegedly banished to a vehicle, Bramble soon fled Blair’s farm back to Grand Junction, according to authorities.
“According to Blair, Nashika sees the writing on the wall, if you will, and believes that she’s going to be the next person sent to abomination,” Masters said.
“They were the most sweetest, genuine loving girls, always hugging me, always just giving me affection,” one former member of the group told theDaily Sentinelof Hannah and Makayla. “Those girls did not deserve it.”
source: people.com
