Adam Simjee and Mikayla Paulus (left) were on a camping trip when Kristal Pinkins (R) and another woman attempted to rob them. A Florida m...
Adam Simjee and Mikayla Paulus (left) were on a camping trip when Kristal Pinkins (R) and another woman attempted to rob them.
A Florida man is dead after two women who belong to fringe sect lured the couple off the road asking for help.
The two women then took the couple into the forest where Adam Simjee was shot dead by the women. Simjee wounded one woman in a shootout before he was killed.
The two women, who were in the forest with a 5-year-old child, were followers of the University of Cosmic Intelligence, which critics describe as a conspiracy theory cult.
Yasmine Hider was later charged with murder, robbery and kidnapping, after she lured the couple, including the 22-year-old man from his vehicle after allegedly pretending to be a stranded motorist in an Alabama forest.
The Guardian reported:
On 14 August, Simjee and Paulus, who were students at the University of Central Florida, were on a roadtrip they had planned as a final getaway before the start of the fall semester. The couple were victims of their own kindness, according to police. While driving on a road in the Talladega national forest, a 400,000-acre nature preserve, they stopped to aid a woman who said she was a stranded motorist.
That woman, Yasmine Hider, allegedly drew a gun to rob them and ordered them into the woods. Simjee, who had a concealed pistol, tried to fight back. He and Hider shot each other, according to police. Simjee succumbed to his wounds as his girlfriend frantically gave CPR.
A companion of Hider’s, Krystal Pinkins, was allegedly watching nearby and fled into the forest. Law enforcement trackers later discovered a camp in the nearby woods where people appeared to have been living. Police said that they disarmed Pinkins’s son after the five-year-old approached with a loaded shotgun.
Hider and Pinkins were arrested at the scene and Hider taken for gunshot treatment. Both were charged with murder, kidnapping and robbery. Pinkins was also charged with child endangerment.
It is unclear if and how they have pleaded. Due to a gag order, no one involved in the case, including police, prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses, can speak to the press.
“Rest in peace,” Paulus wrote in a Facebook post announcing her boyfriend’s burial. “I’ll carry you with me every single day.”
Vice News has since reported that Hider and Pinkins were followers of the University of Cosmic Intelligence, which critics describe as a conspiracy theory cult.
The group’s leader – Rashad Jamal White, commonly known as Rashad Jamal – is an Atlanta-area social media influencer, rapper and guru whose teachings mix New Age mysticism, polygamy and Afrocentric and black nationalist ideas. Jamal and his followers believe that they are demigods descended from aliens. Adherents refer to themselves as gods and goddesses.
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