The Lost Children

Jared Allen Tyler

Growing up in Brooklyn, NY, Jared was raised primarily by his mother, Sylvia. His father was MIA in Viet Nam.

Jared pursued an academic career, coming up though the New York City Public School System, attending Bronx Science, and eventually attending CUNY, then Columbia for degrees in Psychology. He went back to CUNY to teach.

Jared married Cynthia Chase, another CUNY professor, and the two had a daughter, Jocelyn.

When she was eight, Jocelyn was abducted. Jared and Cynthia’s marriage foundered as Jared became more and more obsessed with finding his daughter. He would leave the house and vanish for days on end, just driving up and down the East Coast searching for her. For two years, there was no word of Jocelyn’s whereabouts. Both Jared’s and Cynthia’s drinking increased, as did the frequency and volatility of their fights. On at least two occasions, neighbors called the police to the house for domestic disturbance.

By the time Jocelyn was found two years later, the couple had separated and Cynthia had died in a car accident, her blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit.

Deprogramming Case Files

Jocelyn was found when the FBI and ATF stormed the compound of a radical religious sect in rural Pennsylvania. The sect, known as the “Prophets of End of Days” claimed to be preparing for the battle of Armageddon, as foretold in the Book of Revelations. Their leader, known only as “John,” claimed to be the actual author of the Book of Revelations, brought back to Earth to accurately interpret once and for all, what is probably the most controversial and argued over book of the Bible.

The sect’s stockpile included everything from standard sidearms, to grenades to an actual tank hidden under a tarp in the woods behind the compound. The group also had plans for a nuclear weapon, though there is no sign they ever made any progress in constructing such a device.

In an even more bizarre twist to a bizarre story, the compound contained one room, in which five young girls were kept as concubines for “John.” The girls varied in age from 7-12. All five of the girls had been declared missing in the previous two years from areas around the North East.

Three of the girls had defied “John,” and in order to purify their “sinful” natures, he had them chained to a tree outside. All died of malnutrition and exposure, and were buried in the woods about two hundred yards away from the cult compound. One of these girls was Jocelyn.

It was Jocelyn’s fate that drove Jared into his current profession. It started one night at a support group for parents of deceased children. When one of the parents feared her only remaining child might be getting involved with a questionable group, Jared offered to talk to the boy. He went to the house where the group held its meetings. With a baseball bat. He smashed the living room to pieces, but harmed no one. He dragged the boy out of the place by the collar, put him in the car and drove him straight to his mother’s.