has a new article up about Stephen Allwine's despicable behind the scenes maneuvers to hire hit men to kill his wife. It details Allwine's time at Ambassador, meeting Amy, becoming a United Church of God Elder. It is probably one of the better researched articles to be published on the murder ofAmy Allwine.
MARA HVISTENDAHL SECURITY 04.25.19
ON A BRISK day in March 2016, Stephen Allwine walked into a Wendy's in Minneapolis. The smell of old fryer grease hung in the air as he searched for a man wearing dark jeans and a blue jacket. Allwine, who worked as an IT support technician, was lean and nerdy, with wire-rim glasses. He was carrying $6,000 in cash, money he'd collected by pawning silver bars and coins to avoid suspicious deductions from his bank account. He found the man he was looking for sitting in a booth.
THEY HAD CONNECTED on LocalBitcoins, a sort of Craigslist for people who want to buy cryptocurrency near where they live. Allwine opened the app Bitcoin Wallet on his phone and handed over the cash, and the man scanned a QR code displayed on the phone to transfer the bitcoin. The transaction went seamlessly. Then Allwine returned to his car to discover that he had locked his keys inside.
It was his birthday. He was 43. And he was supposed to join a woman named Michelle Woodard for lunch.
Allwine had met Woodard online a few months earlier. The relationship had progressed quickly, and for a while they exchanged dozens of messages a day. Their passion had since faded, but they still slept together from time to time. While he waited for the locksmith to arrive, he texted her that he'd stopped to buy bitcoin and was running late. Once the door was jimmied open, he met up with Woodard at a burger joint called the Blue Door Pub, determined to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.
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Yura promised that customers' money was held by an escrow service and paid out only after a job was completed. But Allwine worried that when he deposited money it would simply end up in someone's bitcoin wallet. He wanted Yura's claims to be true, though, so against his better instincts he transferred the bitcoin. “They say that Besa means trust, so please do not break that,” he wrote Yura. “For reasons that are too personal and would give away my identity, I need this bitch dead.”
“This bitch” was Amy Allwine, his wife.
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The day after Stephen bought the bitcoin, he uploaded a photo of Amy to Allwine.net. The picture had been taken on a family vacation to Hawaii, and it showed Amy wearing a teal shirt, with a broad smile on her tan and freckled face. About 25 minutes after he posted the image, Stephen logged in to his dogdaygod email account and sent Yura the link. “She is about 5'6", she looks about 200lbs,” he wrote. The best time to kill her, he continued, would be on an upcoming trip to Moline, Illinois. If the hit man could make her death look like an accident—by, say, ramming her Toyota Sienna minivan on the driver's side—he would throw in a few more bitcoin.
Click on the link in the title of the article above to read the rest of this chilling story!
This is less surprising than it may at first seem.
ReplyDeleteForty-five years after the failure of HWA's prophesied dates, and long after many other core WCG doctrines have been disproved, one can only function as an ACOG elder if one has some degree of split personality, or let's call it a couple of radically different faces for different circumstances. Only the rarest few current Armstrongites are the same person in church on Saturday as they are when alone on Sunday or at work on Monday.
Combining this with the ACOG doctrine that if you are a horrible person in this life you simply aren't called and will have your chance later, it becomes easy for the afflicted/conflicted to develop an evil or sociopathic face that is never shown to anyone else. Fortunately, only a very few will act out such evil as Allwine did, but his basic personality defect may be far more common than many realize.
A very chilling read. Whilst Allwine is an extreme example, there is a real problem within United Church of God on sexual immorality and the tolerance amongst the Ministry on it. Then the Ministry force the members to tolerate it.
ReplyDeleteThen the sexually immoral, who have no shame and have openly bragged about it for years, gain more and more power within UCG and do more and more jobs.
It's a complete disaster waiting to happen.
For what will God do? Do you think He doesn't know or care?
ReplyDeleteThe Judge in this case said it best
“Mr. Allwine,” the judge said when he had finished, “my perceptions aren't going to alter the sentence in this case. But my perception is that you're an incredible actor. That you can turn tears on and off. That you are a hypocrite and that you are cold.” He sentenced him to life without parole.
The guy sounds like a total idiot. I can't imagine that he was really that good with computers, and it sounds like he was becoming a hoarder. At least in jail he will be prevented from hoarding. I guess Amy was an innocent church girl without much experience, otherwise why would she have married such a dork?
ReplyDelete12:36, I knew Amy when I was employed in Big Sandy and she was a student. She was very sweet. I can imagine her being taken in by an unscrupulous person. Her death was a great loss.
ReplyDeleteJust one more case proving that Armstrongism is the One True Religion, that this is where the One True God is doing a powerful work, and that these are the only people on Earth in whom the Holy Spirit is dwelling, transforming and renewing their minds from "The Ways of This World" to a "Higher Spiritual Plane." A Shining Light set on a hill confounding the mighty while showing the way to an otherwise spiritually darkened world...
ReplyDelete...or not...
Yep, these are the guys with "The Sure Word of Prophecy," all right!
I can't believe how many churchmembers say that churchmembers are better than everybody else, meanwhile, they act the same as everybody else, and when you point it out to them, they think "Hey we're not any worse than anyone else," somehow proves they're better than everybody else because reasons.
If you're gonna say you're special, then you have to live up to that and be special, period. If you're not, then you're just lying, maybe to yourself first of all, but lying nonetheless.
Here are some more DAVE PACK VIDEOS DAVE SAYING PEOPLE ARE KOOKS FOR THINKING ARMSTRONG WILL BE RESURRECTED TO DAVE SAYING THAT HE WILL BE.
ReplyDeletePlease help expose this fraud Thank you/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVn7YafOhTQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2n0_FrHM2I
I wonder if anyone gets this confused with Amy Winehouse.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, know what should be keeping church members awake half the night? Their belief that every word spoken by the members of their ministry is directly inspired by God. Unless they believe that Stephen has been framed.
BB
Anonymous 4:07 said: "...many churchmembers say that churchmembers are better than everybody else, meanwhile, they act the same as everybody else, and when you point it out to them, they think 'Hey we're not any worse than anyone else'"
ReplyDeleteExcellent point! It's this self-righteous, hypocritical attitude that I detest and why on the whole I'm tending to stay at home of late to worship God since most of these people have had it drummed into them that they're "special" and "true" Christians and know "the Truth" etc. so they poo poo or look down on other Xians as pagans or Satanic et cetera and I'm over it! When you look behind the shiny curtain that they're no better than other Xians--maybe in some cases worse since they can be so stubborn in their delusions about Herbert "dubya" Armstrong and his teachings and blind to the real hurt and pain so many individuals and families have experienced by the never ending lies, hypocrisy and division--it's just plain sad.
No BB not winehouse.
ReplyDeleteBut I did get confused when I started reading this thread from "bottom to top". Thinking something terrible had happened with the flurry's.
Nck
I can only guess the attitudes of the different posters here nck, but I suspect that if something had indeed happened to the Flurrys, there might be a party going on somewhere. Personally, I'd prefer to see them repent of their Armstrongism, and be forgiven and blessed, but that's probably not going to happen.
ReplyDeleteBB
BB
ReplyDeleteIt was the similarity in names that got me confused. Kinda like a discussion on Big Beak and me commenting: "No, BB is not like that at all, he does like rock music."
Nck
A very well written article and such a sad set of circumstances. I feel for Amy and her family.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me I don't understand why Stephen didn't simply choose to divorce her. He obviously was having doubts about his marriage--maybe even his religion? He definitely was suffering from cognitive dissonance and from his last testimony before the judge I believe he still is (eg "Breathlessly, he tried to refute the technical testimony about backup files and bitcoin wallets. Then he shifted to his spiritual gifts. In jail, where he had been held during the trial, he was ministering to drug addicts and child molesters. He had converted at least three nonbelievers, he said."--Yeah right! They're probably just as "converted" as he was "committed" to his religion! He needs someone to "convert" him!).
Not only that, but when Stephen was in contact with Yura (of Besa Mafia) and especially when Yura was suggesting he pay more to have a more lethal assassin finish the contract he should've realized it was a scam. But, obviously Stephen wanted to believe this fantasy that he could hire a hitman on the dark web and get away with murder.
Also, I don't understand how the police--even Amy herself?!--couldn't have detected that the threats she was receiving from her "stalker" had to have been from someone close to her to have known her movements so intimately. Red flags should've been waving that it'd have to have originated from someone close to her like her partner. Maybe it's coz I watch so much crime cases on TV or the net that would've made me more alert about the source of the death threats. But, it's a pity that this wasn't realized till it was too late!
I hope Amy is at peace. I hope her family and friends will find comfort in happy memories of Amy. I hope her adopted son is being looked after by loving family and friends. I hope Stephen wakes up to all the hurt and pain he's done and repents, makes amends as best he can and turns his life around for the better. Anyway just my thoughts...