A woman who was forced into an Amish settlement aged 18 by her parents has lifted a lid on the horrific sexual abuse she endured in the community – and reveals how she ultimately escaped.
Misty Griffin appeared on a recent episode of the Cults to Consciousness podcast to discuss her traumatic childhood at the hands of her ‘psycho stepdad and a sadistic mother.’
The duo then pushed her to join the Amish community when she was 18 years old where she was subjected to horrific sexual abuse by her bishop.
She claimed that ‘the entire community was in on the plot’ and not enough was done to protect the young victims.
Misty Griffin appeared on a recent episode of the Cults to Consciousness podcast to discuss her traumatic childhood at the hands of her ‘psycho stepdad and a sadistic mother’
The family moved to live on a secluded ranch on a mountain, where they dressed as if they were Amish, as she dished: ‘The isolation was worse than the beatings.’ Pictured (left to right): Misty, her stepfather and her sister
Misty began by talking host Shelise Ann Sola about her turbulent early childhood.
‘My family was from the south. Most of them were not educated at all – they were just full of domestic violence, drugs, crime. That’s how my mom grew up,’ she dished.
Misty shockingly explained how her mother had welcomed three children with her own stepfather by the time was she 19 years old before then marrying him.
‘You can see how my mom progressed into what she was. There’s no excuse for what she did to me and my sister but you can kind of see how that abuse led her into more abuse.’
Her mom was 21 years old when she met a man who would become Misty’s stepfather. He was in his late 40s and decided the family should ‘move away from society’ to live like the Amish.
Misty said that her stepfather claimed that the Amish way of life was how god intended husband and wife to live – with children obeying women and women obeying men – without government interference.
She candidly revealed: ‘I would later find out that he was actually a child molester who was on the run…
‘Growing up, there’s so many things that you don’t know as a kid but then you later find out and it makes a lot more sense.
She grew up believing that as a kid ‘it didn’t really matter if you were being abused.’ Pictured: Misty at aged 16 with one of her favorite cows Tootsie
Her stepfather started making rules including many that kept Misty (pictured as a teen) separated from her sister and banned them from talking to one another
‘He was scared of the police for a good reason so he wanted to be isolated away so he didn’t have to fear being arrested or anything like that and have children to abuse – that’s what he wanted.’
The family moved to live on a secluded ranch on a mountain, where they dressed as if they were Amish, as she dished: ‘The isolation was worse than the beatings.’
‘My mom was sadistic. She loved to torture people. The more you cried the more she laughed. She loved to inflict pain on people,’ Misty said.
She described her stepfather as a ‘psychopath’ who ‘loved to torture animals’ and ‘hated women.’
‘I think because of his own demons he wanted to think that women were evil and they were causing him to sin.
‘He wanted control of us. He was sexually abusing us and physically abusing us and using us as slaves.’
She continued that she grew up believing that as a kid ‘it didn’t really matter if you were being abused. I didn’t think that anybody would care.’
‘My stepdad said “I could chop your heads off and bury you under the tree and nobody would know.” And he was so right.’
Her stepfather started making rules including many that kept Misty separated from her sister and banned them from talking to one another.
‘If you he caught us together, we would be punished. That was part of his plan. I think he thought we couldn’t escape but we were sisters, we’d whisper in the n ight, we would make plans and when I was 18 and a half I finally did try to escape.’
But Misty said that she was caught before she was able to break free after setting out on foot down a six-mile dirt road toward that nearest town.
Misty (pictured as a teen) was pushed her to join the Amish community when she was 18 years old where she was subjected to horrific sexual abuse
She claimed that ‘the entire community was in on the plot’ and not enough was done to protect the young victims
She was instead taken back to the ranch and Misty’s mom and stepfather eventually forced her to go for a ‘trial’ in a real Amish community where she was accepted because they ‘needed new bloodlines.’
Misty moved in with a family that had four children and soon settled into the community – learning how to properly dress and caring for the other kids.
She claimed that her stepdad had initially tried to ‘sabotage’ her trial – because he regretted giving away one of the ‘worker bees’ on the farm – but was able to prove herself with the Amish.
But Misty said that from the outset she ‘felt this sense of doom.’
‘It started when I got in the community and it just got worse and worse and worse and I didn’t know what it was.
‘I don’t know if it was a premonition, I just had this this sense of dread like something bad was going to happen.’
And her experience soon took a dark turn.
‘For young unmarried Amish girls you are not supposed to ever bring any attention on yourself,’ Misty shared.
‘Even if you try not to bring attention on yourself but still get unwanted attention and it’s noticed, you are blamed.
‘If you seem outgoing, if you seem happy, if you’re smiling – anything can be construed as tempting a man.
‘If he’s starts giving you attention then it’s your fault so that’s what happened to me.’
Misty explained that she couldn’t escape the attention from the community because she was different to those who had been Amish from birth.
‘My Amish dad started paying a little bit too much attention to me and ignoring his wife and then his wife got jealous because he didn’t treat her very nice.
‘He would ignore her and talk to me which he shouldn’t have done and as much as I tried to stop this attention… it seemed like the more attention I got. I just couldn’t get away from it.’
She said that her Amish mom started treating her ‘terribly’ as a result by constantly yelling and accusing her of things she had not done.
Misty described it as an ‘impossible’ and ‘suffocating’ situation.
‘My Amish dad wouldn’t stop. I think he was doing it on purpose to make her upset,’ she shared.
The bishop of the church then intervened and invited Misty to go and live with him and his sick wife while working as a maid for the couple who had seven children.
She agreed in a bid to ‘let things die down at home’ but ‘knew there was something off about the bishop.’
‘I had been warned about him and when I was carrying my stuff out of the house my Amish dad actually stopped me in the doorway and said “you cannot move into that house, he’s a bad man, he’s a really bad man.”
‘But because of the Amish rules he was not allowed to tell me why because when you’re forgiven in the Amish Church you’re not allowed to name that person’s sin or you can actually get in trouble.’
She moved in nonetheless, sharing: ‘I’d grown up with abuse so I thought I can take it.
‘It’s really sad but with everything that happened to me [before] I was like “I can take it, touchy feely or whatever, I can take it, I can handle it.”
‘I just heard that he was touchy feely – that’s what I thought the issue was and everybody seemed to know it but it was way worse than that.’
Misty claimed that the issue of abuse in the community was widespread.
‘First I learned about this 14-year-old girl in our community that had been sexually abused by an outsider that lived on the property and she was blamed for it.
She has since gone to college, found a job and had a baby before releasing a book titled Tears of the Silenced
‘She was 14. They said she was too outgoing so she became messed up. Because of that she was blamed and she was constantly watched.
‘This guy was actually a known human trafficker. He was later convicted for human trafficking so this was a bad guy.’
Misty continued: ‘Then the bishop’s wife confided in me that her dad was a deacon in the church and he had molested her and all of her sisters – one sister actually had a child with him.’
She explained that the girls’ mother had repeatedly gone to ministers to report the behavior – and that the deacon was ‘put on a ban’ meaning his only penalty was not being allowed to go to church or community gatherings.
The woman said that she was not able to go to the police because ‘that’s not the Amish way,’ adding: ‘We’re not supposed to contact outside authorities.’
Misty recalled being taken aback by the situation as she explained: ‘I had grown up with a psycho stepdad and a sadistic mother but I hadn’t grown up with the idea that the entire community was in on the plot.’
Speaking of her own experience with the bishop who had offered her refuge, she shared: ‘He started sexually abusing me right from the second day I was there.
‘It started out slow like coming up behind me and touching me, pretending that it was an accident at first to gauge my reaction. I was startled but I was kind of expecting it.
‘He started doing it right in front of the family… It happened multiple times a day but I was quiet.
‘I mean he was the bishop who was I going to tell? The minister? The deacon? And if I did the first reaction was going to be “what are you doing to cause it?”‘
She continued: ‘I just put up with it. It got worse and worse. He was exposing himself and he was laughing. He was doing it for kicks. He just was having a great time.
‘I think he realized that I was never going to say anything because I was afraid and that’s what they count on.’
Misty claimed that one day she went down to the basement and found the bishop with his own 12-year-old daughter who was in a state of undress.
She said that he went ‘beet red’ and ran out the door before his daughter ‘pretended like nothing happened.’
Misty explained that she was finally able to escape following a ‘horrific’ attack after running away to a neighbor who was renting a nearby plot of land for horses.
She candidly shared that the bishop had ‘savagely assaulted’ her, explaining: ‘There’s a lot of things that I can’t remember about it. It was so severe and from there I ran to a neighbor.
‘He actually caught me when I came out the door. He was waiting at the door to see if I would do that.
‘He caught me but I got away from him. I went down to these neighbors and I told her what happened and she was actually a sexual assault survivor herself and not Amish.
‘She actually told me “you have got to go to the police, you have got to report this, this is serious.”‘
Misty explained: ‘She put me in her truck and drove me to the police. The bishop was standing there when we were driving out the lane and he was smiling. There’s this cockiness of “I’m untouchable” – and the scary thing was that he knew it.’
Following the attack, she said that she was left with handprints on her breasts and her dress was torn but claimed the police were ‘very hesitant to do anything.’
‘Nobody bothered to take pictures, to check me out, to do anything.’
Police eventually visited the bishop but took no further action.
Misty said that she became angry and, despite escaping to live with her step-aunt away from the community, was constantly calling the police station in a bid to protect the bishop’s other children still in the house.
In one particular call, made about two weeks after Misty left, she said: ‘I called the detective again and he was like they’re gone. They’ve all left. The entire family is gone.’
The bishop had reportedly ‘hired a van, he loaded the entire family in the van, he took all of the money from the church purse and they went to Canada.’
Misty escaped the Amish aged 22 and admitted that she found it difficult to adjust to the outside world – but soon found her feet.
She began working as a missionary overseas and met her husband, adding: ‘Life just started.’
She then went to college, found a job and had a baby before releasing a book titled Tears of the Silenced all about the Amish community.
Following its success, Misty, who is now working on her nursing masters, ended up in contact with one of the bishop’s daughters who told her that he had been reported to CPS.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is now a registered sex offender.
The mother lost all her parental rights because she knew about the abuse with the oldest daughter getting custody of all her siblings under 18.