Leader of cult-like group charged with murder claimed God spoke through her, former member says
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Shelley Bailey “Kat” Martin taught members of her secretive religious group that she was like the character Neo from “The Matrix” — awoken from this realm by God and transformed into a perfect being, according to testimony from a former member.
The self-proclaimed “prophetess” appeared in San Bernardino County Superior Court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing alongside four other defendants to face murder charges in the death of a 4-year-old boy and a former group member. The other defendants are her husband, Darryl Muzic Martin, 58, current member Rudy Moreno, former member Ramon Ruiz Duran Jr. and former member Andre Thomas, prosecutors say.
The Martins are leaders of His Way Spirit Led Assemblies, a religious group that imposed excessive control over members’ lives and finances and operated for years across the Inland Empire, prosecutors say.
Shelley Martin, 62; Moreno, 43; and Duran, 44, are charged with murdering former member Emilio Ghanem, who disappeared in 2023 shortly after parting ways with the group. The Martins and Andre Thomas are charged with murder in the death of 4-year-old Timothy Thomas while he was in the temporary custody of the Martins in 2010, according to the Colton Police Department. They have all pleaded not guilty.
Attorneys representing the defendants declined to comment to The Times or did not respond to requests for comment.
Former group member Kelli Byrd testified for two hours on Thursday, providing a rare glimpse inside the religious group that had operated in secret for decades.
Byrd told the court that Shelley Martin referred to herself as Prophetess Kathryn, claimed she was a physical embodiment of the Holy Spirit and that God spoke directly through her.
When the group gathered for worship a “gift of prophecy” would occur through Shelley Martin. Her body would start thrashing and her voice would become deep and low as she shared “a word from the throne of God,” Byrd said.
Byrd’s description of the powerful prophetess differed dramatically from the sullen appearance of Shelley Martin in court, where she sat glumly in a forest green jumpsuit, her long blond curls grown out to reveal dark black roots. Her husband and the other defendants in the case watched Byrd’s testimony in silence from their seats.
His Way Spirit Led Assemblies was founded in Nashville in 1998, relocated to California in 2000 and has been located in various homes in the Inland Empire since around 2004, Byrd said.
Former members and law enforcement officials have described the group as cult-like.
“You had no choices in anything,” said Anthony Duran, who told The Times in an interview that he escaped the group in 2020 at age 20. “You can’t go here. You can’t go there. You can only go to work and come home.” Anthony Duran is the nephew of Ramon Ruiz Duran Jr., one of the defendants charged with murder.
The group has a decades-long history in the Inland Empire, where it has been connected to two slayings and the disappearance of a third person.
In 2010, 4-year-old Timothy Thomas died of a ruptured appendix while in the custody of the Martins at one of the group’s homes in Colton, authorities said. Anthony Duran said the Martins didn’t believe in hospitals and said God would cure illness.
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Colton police suspected that neglect played a role in Timothy’s death and sought charges against the Martins in 2010, but the district attorney’s office declined to file any. At the time, group members were uncooperative and gave conflicting testimony, according to Colton Police Sgt. Shawn McFarland.
Since then, former group members have revised their statements, saying that their initial testimony was made under duress from the Martins, he said.
In 2019, member Ruben Moreno was reported missing from the group’s Claremont home. Then, in 2023, longtime member Emilio Ghanem vanished shortly after severing ties with the group, authorities said.
The investigation into Ruben Moreno’s disappearance remains ongoing, and no charges have been filed in that case, according to Claremont Police Capt. Robert Ewing.
Ghanem joined the group in 1998 in Nashville and followed the Martins to California, where he later worked for the group’s pest control business, Fullshield, Byrd testified.
Anthony Duran, the member who said he escaped in 2020, said male members of the group were expected to work long hours at Fullshield for minimal pay. Byrd said in court that the Martins never did any work for Fullshield.
Anthony Duran said he was paid $12 an hour and required to work shifts of up to 17 hours. He said he was paid in checks but was then told he wasn’t allowed to cash them, leaving him without enough money to purchase Gatorade or deodorant. Duran did not testify on Thursday, but shared details of his time with the group in an interview with The Times.
After years of labor, Duran said he was able to persuade the Martins to allow him to finance a work truck in his own name. With a mode of transportation secured, he left under the cover of night in early 2020, eager to live a life free of their control, he said.
Ghanem left His Way Spirit Led Assemblies in April 2023, moved home to Nashville and founded his own pest control company, his sister Jennifer Ghanem told The Times. In May 2023, he vanished in Redlands while visiting the area in an effort to reconnect with former clients.
The truck he had rented during the trip was found burned in the Mojave Desert in 2025, according to the Redlands Police Department.
The group had largely escaped public scrutiny until last year when three police departments — Redlands, Colton and Claremont — realized they each had open cases connected to the organization and doubled down on efforts to solve them, ultimately resulting in five arrests.
The Martins were arrested in December as was longtime member Rudy Moreno, who is the brother of missing person Ruben Moreno, and former member Andre Thomas, who is the father of the boy who died, authorities said. Ramon Ruiz Duran Jr. was arrested in Nashville and extradited to San Bernardino in January, according to the Redlands Police Department.
Anthony Duran said he waited until the Martins were behind bars to say anything about the group because he feared for his own safety.
“I’m so grateful they’re getting what they deserve,” he said, “because they really thought that they could go in and destroy people’s lives, take all their money and take them away from their families and think that they can get away with that.”
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