Colorado Cult Leader, 50 Followers Disappear

The leader of a doomsday cult who predicted the destruction of Denver last weekend has vanished along with about 50 of his followers, raising fears that they are bent on mass suicide, officials and observers said.

Followers of Monte Kim Miller’s group, Concerned Christians, have sold their belongings and abandoned their homes. Cult watchers believe that the group may be headed to Jerusalem because of Miller’s belief that he would die there in December 1999 and be resurrected three days later.

Miller founded Concerned Christians in the early 1980s, preaching against the evils of cults and New Age movements.

Hal Mansfield, director of the Fort Collins, Colo.-based Religious Movement Resource Center, which has been monitoring the Denver-based Concerned Christians for at least two years, said Miller might have started the movement as a financial scam. But critics said the group has transformed itself into an apocalyptic personality cult.

Miller, 44, claimed that God was using him as a vehicle to speak to his followers. After prophesying that the Apocalypse would begin with an earthquake in Denver last Saturday, the cult leader and about 50 of his disciples dropped from sight.

Denver police officer Mark Roggeman said at least 20 of Miller’s followers have contacted relatives since Saturday and promised to keep in touch.

If Miller’s predictions fail to materialize, tragedy could result, said Bill Honsberger, a Christian missionary who has monitored the group. He said the cult leader is capable of leading followers to mass suicide, much like the 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult who killed themselves near San Diego in 1997.

Nicolette Weaver, a 16-year-old Denver girl who was a Concerned Christians member for nearly 10 years, said she fears the worst. She left to live with her biological father two years ago when, she said, Miller “started going off the deep end.”

Her mother and stepfather stayed with Miller.