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The Brunswick Mission Church is the main antagonistic organization of the Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders episode "Lost Souls". The Church is an American-originated cult settled in Tanzania, which was tracked by the FBI once it simulates the mass kidnapping of its followers.
Members and Portrayals[]
- Elijah Ward, portrayed by Steve Kazee.
- Jacob Ross, portrayed by James Thomas Gilbert.
- John, portrayed by Stephen L. Sullivan
- Rebecca Moore, portrayed by Erica Piccininni.
- Nicholas Moore, portrayed by Mason McNulty.
- Numerous unnamed people, portrayed by numerous uncredited actors.
Biography[]
The Brunswick Church was founded by Elijah Ward, the youngest child of a large family with dangerously abusive, religiously paranoid parents. As Ward was never brutalized due to his parents seeing him as a messianic figure, Ward took those delusion and created his cult, starting with "disciples", including Jacob Ross, and then women and children. The Church relocated to Tanzania, where Ward established a compound for the cult to permanently live, believing the Garden of Eden. The members who weren't the disciples weren't any the wiser to the plan, as they believed they were doing missionary work. To hide the cult's activities, Ward paid a local militia to kidnap the remaining cultists and march them to the compound. Ross had pulled away from Ward by that point, and seeing him as threat, Ward beat and stabbed him to death.
Ward assuaged his followers' fears by telling them he planned the mass kidnapping to "test" them and the compound was their home. But as he became more unstable, even they didn't trust him. A son of one of the women, Nicholas Moore, was afraid of not going home, so Ward drowned him in a "baptism" to terrorize him over being "weak". As Ward leads the cult in prayer, the FBI and local authorities arrive. Ward tells his followers to not listen to them, but they reveal he killed Ross, so they all turn on him. After Ward contemplates shooting Agent Jack Garrett, then shooting himself, he surrenders to arrest, and the cult is dissolved.
Trivia[]
- Ward’s orchestration of his followers’ kidnappings is inspired by the Iguala mass kidnapping, where a bus filled with Mexican students disappeared and are presumed to have been killed by organized crime, even local corruption.
