A trans woman has told for the first time how she escaped an evil cult led by her father who kidnapped and raped her fellow trans people.
Yaya DeCloud, 42, was born male on December 14, 1981.
She was forced to live in a compound of 30 people known as the “DeCloud family” who rarely ventured into the wider community.
His father Nelson DeCloud, 73, was a former police officer and spiritual leader of the group he used to satisfy his own sexual urges.
He died at the Southeast Correctional Center in Missouri in 2014 while serving a 220-year prison sentence for kidnapping, criminal coercion, rape and forcible sodomy.
Yaya claims her father used the “Bible to manipulate” the community and even did so behind bars until she escaped in December 2000.
Yaya speaks out for the first time about life in the cult where she suffered physical and emotional abuse.
Yaya, a peer support specialist intern from Chicago, Illinois, said, “There were 30 of us living in a commune, we never ventured out into the community.
“We had our own church service and would never leave the property.
“My father controlled everything, we saw him as God’s interpreter, everything he said or did came from God.
“My father would be a very temperamental person, he was very strict.
“I’m sure he loved us, but if we did one thing wrong he would explode.”
Yaya was born in 1981 and lived in the DeCloud community until she escaped with her sister in December 2000.
Yaya said living in the commune was “hard” and “strict,” but it was all she and her family knew.
She said: “My father always wanted ‘The Family’ to appear impeccable and flawless.
“I heard a lot of terrible things my father could have done.
“He was controlling and he used the Bible to manipulate and control us. But here’s the thing, I actually think he believed what he said.
“He was raised Southern Baptist and my grandfather was a pastor in Kansas City.”
Yaya and her siblings attended the community school and learned math and English like any other child.
She said: “We had a schedule, we went to school during the day and my sisters were the teachers.
“We were learning a normal curriculum like math, English and science. »
After Nelson was imprisoned in 1993 for kidnapping, criminal coercion, rape and forcible sodomy.
Yaya says he would continue to control the family from prison by sending letters and calling his mother and grandmother.
Yaya said: “My father created a code sheet for pagers so we could communicate with each other and warn each other of danger.
“Because we didn’t have a cell phone at that time and that was how my father could communicate with my grandmother without anyone being able to find us.
“We stayed in hiding until I escaped in 2000. That’s another big reason we left: we weren’t allowed to have friends. »
In December 2000, Yaya and her two sisters saved $40 of their $5 weekly allowance and left the family property.
Yaya said, “My sister ended up asking a friend of hers in California to find us a hotel in Jefferson City, Missouri.
“Everyone in the compound was sleeping and we wrote letters to our family members telling them we were sorry and had to leave.
“I remember that night very well, the roads were slippery and we kept slipping and falling.
“We had a taxi waiting to take us to a hotel.”
When her father died in 2014, Yaya was able to visit him in prison to say goodbye and tell him how much she still loved him.
She said: “At the end of the day, he was my father and I still loved him.
“All but one of his children were there.
“When we all arrived, we all said goodbye, formed a circle and prayed for him one last time.
“We all went out to eat and then went our separate ways.”
After the death of her father and the breakdown of her marriage, Yaya came out as trans in 2019 and is now living her “real self.”
She said: “I only started living as a woman in 2019, it was something that was always there.
“I realized I was trans when I was 13/14, but it was something I never acted on.
“I’m currently single and living my best life – I couldn’t be happier.”
New York Post
