Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses-Alamda Cngrgtn history

Rutherford, born in 1869, he never was a real judge, but took the title because, as an attorney, he substituted at least once for an absent judge.

In 1879, he began the Watch Tower—what would later be known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the teaching organ of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

When 1914 had come and gone with no Jesus in sight, Russell modified his teachings and claimed Jesus had, in fact, returned to Earth, but that his return was invisible.

Russell died in 1916 and was succeeded by “Judge” Joseph R. Rutherford.

Rutherford said that in 1925 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets would return to Earth, and for them he prepared a mansion named Beth Sarim in San Diego, California.

Some stuck with his successor, Joseph Rutherford; they adopted the name Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931.

He moved into this mansion (where he died in 1942). The Watchtower Society quietly sold Beth Sarim years later to cover up an embarrassing moment in their history, namely another failed prophecy.

In 1971 the Witnesses purchased the Vine St Theater in Willoughby and renovated it into a 1,600-seat auditorium.

For some years the sect’s magazines had been predicting that Armageddon would occur in 1975.

She encountered the exact type of resistance that the Watchtower called for in its 1989 memo.

In 1991, the publication included an article on surviving child abuse, which triggered a stunning response: Thousands of abuse survivors contacted the Watchtower.

Franz was succeeded as president of the Watchtower in 1993 by Milton Henschel, who has continued the aggressive evangelization tactics of his predecessors.

In 1995 there were over 20 Jehovah's Witness congregations in the Cleveland area.

As part of the case, Lopez's attorney sought to compel Watchtower leaders to turn over a list of abusers they have compiled since 1997.

The trouble started in 2002, when she was 14.

A 50-year-old woman named Terry Monheim began molesting Fessler in 2003, when she was just 13.

Reeder’s final breaking point came in 2004, when other elders worked to have his 20-year-old daughter "disfellowshipped" — excommunicated, essentially — for running afoul of their rules.

When Haugh and his wife, Jennifer, told the elders who oversaw their congregation about this October 2005 incident, they were greeted with muted concern.

A 39-year-old Philadelphia native who once traveled to Nicaragua on missionary assignments for the Witnesses, Seels-Davila gave birth in November 2010 at Hahnemann University Hospital.

Monheim was arrested in 2012, but investigators didn't get much in the way of cooperation from Witness leaders.

She reached out to York County authorities again eight years later, and found better luck: Caldwell and McVey were arrested in 2013, and both pleaded guilty to corruption of a minor.