Doomsday cult dad, 67, pictured working out on homemade gym in bizarre Facebook posts while ‘caging kids in dungeon’
DOOMSDAY cult dad Gerrit Jan Van Dorsten has been pictured working out on a homemade gym in bizarre Facebook posts while his kids were allegedly caged in a dungeon. Calling himself “John Eagles”, the ex-Moonie shared pics of himself exercising on a homemade wooden and metal contraption, using wheels and weights in the Netherlands. The […]
DOOMSDAY cult dad Gerrit Jan Van Dorsten has been pictured working out on a homemade gym in bizarre Facebook posts while his kids were allegedly caged in a dungeon.
Calling himself “John Eagles”, the ex-Moonie shared pics of himself exercising on a homemade wooden and metal contraption, using wheels and weights in the Netherlands.
The Doomsday dad, 67, allegedly held six of his kids in the basement of a remote farmhouse in north Holland for nine years before he was arrested last week.
In one Facebook post, uploaded in April 2013, he apologises for “not looking so clean. The sandy knees are from work in the garden and I have three dogs that like to jump on me with their dirty feet.”
The photo shows him poised in his “daily Tai Chi body training” pose.
He also boasted of his homemade “moccasins”, saying in 2012, “walking in your own shoes, isn’t that an important thing in life?
“We’ve made our first step in making this pair of moccasins, according to our own design.”
SPIRITUAL BATTLE
De Telegraaf reports that it has seen a video in which he talks about his belief in a spiritual war between good and evil spirits.
The publication says that it appears to have been filmed about four years ago before he retired with the six children to the farm in Ruinerwold, rented by Austrian woodworker Josef Brunner.
Van Dorsten – left bedridden after a stroke – has been taken away from his kids, aged 18 to 25, who were so isolated that they speak in a “fantasy language”.
He was first believed to be a victim of controlling pal Brunner, 58, who is already facing illegal imprisonment charges.
But police said: “He is suspected of complicity in unlawful deprivation of liberty, mistreatment affecting the health of others – and money laundering.”
Chilling etchings were recently found in the home, and have sparked fears the “Moonie” cult had Satanic links.
MOONIES CULT
Van Dorsten was once a member of the Moonies sect but left in 1987 and has not been involved since.
The Unification Church, commonly known as the Moonies, was founded in the 1950s by the South Korean preacher Sun Myung Moons, who believed he was the Messiah.
Dutch cops probing the “Farmageddon” mystery now believe the cult may be linked to “occult practices” after finding sinister scribblings at the remote home in Holland.
A drawing board contained drawings and numbers and has now been taken away for investigation in a bid to solve the riddle, Mail Online reports.
A police source said: “The drawings and numbering on the board have mystified the police. There are so many different numbers on there which simply don’t add up.
“They are not mathematics, but more likely some weird occult materials…They go from top to bottom, side-to-side and run across each other without making sense.
“One possibility is that they are orders for the family members to walk around in circles. But there is also likely some other twisted truth behind them.”
His eldest son, Jan Zon Van Dorsten, raised the alarm last Sunday after he escaped and asked a village barman for help.
On Sunday, his dad Gerrit was arrested and taken away from the remaining five children aged 18-25 who were rescued earlier this week.
Gerrit has now been accused of “depriving people of their liberty, harming the health of others and money laundering”, Dutch police said.
When he bought the rural estate, in 1997, the deed sale mentioned he works as a “psychologist” who wanted to take in former addicts using nature, the Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reported.
But police have said in a statement: “We have reason to believe that the six people involved did not stay at the premises out of free will.
“We are investigating whether following a certain belief in life or faith has led to the living situation in which the people were found.”
It comes after the The Sun revealed Chris Westwerbeek, the barman who met Jan, said he was left disturbed after their conversation.
Chris said: “He looked odd in baggy clothes that appeared years out of date but there was something unearthly about him that worried me.
“We live in a village where everyone knows everyone else and he was a total stranger when he walked in and drank those beers that night.
“It’s incredible to think he lived only a couple of kilometres away with a family no one had ever seen who had been locked out of sight for nine years.”
‘LOCKED OUT OF SIGHT’
After Brunner’s arrest, it emerged the alleged captives were held in makeshift cells in a hidden dungeon.
Janny Knol, chief of the north Netherlands police, described the area where the children were kept as an “enclosed space” within the farm building divided “into small compartments”.
Police probing the “Farmageddon” mystery also revealed an amount of cash – believed to be thousands of Euros – was found when the house was searched in Ruinerwold, 60 miles from Amsterdam.
Sources said evidence was found at the spooky tree-shrouded property suggesting the dad had “common cause” with bearded former cult member Brunner.
The adult children – so isolated that some are unable to talk coherently – are now being cared for at a secret location while being assessed by mental health experts and counsellors.
The alarm was raised when eldest alleged victim Jan Zon van Dorsten, 25, sneaked out and asked a village barman for help last Sunday.
Chris Westwerbeek told The Sun he was disturbed by the dishevelled stranger – who revealed he and his siblings had not left their home for nine years while they waited for the end of the world.
Westwerbeek said: “He looked odd in baggy clothes that appeared years out of date but there was something unearthly about him that worried me.
COPS BAFFLED
“We live in a village where everyone knows everyone else and he was a total stranger when he walked in and drank those beers that night.
“It’s incredible to think he lived only a couple of kilometres away with a family no one had ever seen who had been locked out of sight for nine years.”
Investigators originally believed the siblings and dad may have stayed put in the house after being convinced they were the last people on earth.
But evidence suggests the family had been held in secret windowless rooms behind a stairwell.
Baffled cops say it is still unclear whether the family were held against their will by Brunner – who ran a woodworking business.
