The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin

Everybody idolized Gwen.

She always preached

that we should never feel sorry for ourselves.

We should only feel sorry for God.

And from what I remember about Remnant,

everything was fly by the seat of your pants.

Everything was decided that way.

Fly by the seat of your pants.

God's going to take care of us. We'll be fine.

Because we're the chosen people.

So often, Gwen would say

the righteous are rewarded.

And then to have her own life cut short.

You know, be careful how you throw around terms,

like God's fate and God's will because it's unknowable.

Beware, Remnant Nation.

Stay awake.

Be self-controlled, alert.

Look up, Remnant Nation.

Keep your face and your eyes up on God

forever.

For love your God, no matter how hard the suffering.

The pain, the hurt, you praising for the pain

and the suffering and the hurt.

And you tell him in the middle of it.

Dear God, I want the reward

because I'm under your authority.

Because I know that authority is connected to eternity.

Amen. Amen.

On May 29th, my daughter got married.

She married the young man

who evangelized her into the cult. Jackson Rector.

I was just all about being the hostess

that day because no one was from in town.

All of our family is out of town, you know?

And so everyone is at our house.

We had just adjusted to

the thought of being able to go to her wedding.

And me and my sister-in-laws

and my mother-in-law had gone to town

and we were on our way home when Glen called.

And he proceeds to tell me what has happened.

Search crews are on Percy Priest Lake

and officials say a Cessna C501 crashed

near Fate Sanders Marina

and was heading to Palm Beach International Airport.

It sounded like a plane coming over

and something just exploded out in the middle of the lake.

I mean, there was a huge explosion.

Just before one o'clock,

I got a phone call from someone

who indicated that there had been a plane crash.

And it took me a minute to figure out

why this was relevant.

And-- and then the person said,

"Well, the plane was owned by Gwen Shamblin."

Joe and Gwen and her friends were flying down

to a political rally that was being held in Florida

when the unthinkable happened.

I remember very, very clearly,

I was sitting on my couch

and I got a text with a link to the first news report.

And I just you know, I couldn't believe it.

I was just in shock.

I started trying to pull up information

from the news stations in Nashville

and figure out what happened

and you know, who all was involved.

Just about an hour ago

officials updated us and told us that one person is dead

after this small jet crashed into the lake.

And they also confirmed with us,

the FAA confirmed that seven people were on board

at the time.

By this point, we're numb, were shocked.

We don't know what to think.

Like, certainly they're not going to do this.

They're not going to have this wedding.

Because I certainly would not want

to have my wedding anniversary on a day

where all these supposedly beloved people died.

It would have just always be overshadowed.

So I called David Rector, Jackson Rector's father

and I said, "Is the wedding still on?"

And he said, "Yes."

And Carey looked at me and said,

"I guess we need to get dressed,

"we're going to a wedding."

We got there for pictures.

And we're all looking around and we expected people

to look like they had been crying

or you know or just some sort of chaos.

No one-- It was like no one knew.

And if they did, I was just amazed

at how they could just fake it.

When we saw Delaney and she's in her wedding dress

and like any girl should be on her wedding day,

is very happy and it seemed apparent

that she didn't know anything about it.

Nobody was saying anything about it.

We chose not to say anything about it.

We knew that David and Catherine Rector knew,

but we didn't know if anyone else knew.

Everybody was just this over-the-top happy, fake happy.

It all just went on

as if the plane crash never happened.

Which was, to those of us, you know,

in my family who all knew about it,

that just seemed strange.

When I was walking Carey down the aisle,

she kind of hold on my arm a little bit and she said,

"Did that really happen this morning?"

I said, "Yeah, it really happened."

My family felt like they were being stared at.

Very few people engaged with us or talked to us.

But I feel like that was also

the day that we were heard by some of our family.

The first reaction we get from people is you know, The first reaction we get from people is you know,

you're overreacting.

You're making us out to be more than what it is.

So this was them being front and center

and seeing the full on crazy.

I wonder now if I should have said something

to Delaney and asked her if she knew

and if she had the choice to delay it.

If she had wanted to.

And I don't know that she did.

It was surreal that my daughter

is marrying into a cult.

It was surreal that the leaders died

in a plane accident before it all happened in one day.

And then, for the people who attended the wedding

to act the way they did, like nothing happened,

it was surreal.

It was-- It was not what you expect from humans.

I was ready

to just settle my life in Nashville.

At that point, I really had no choice.

The circumstances would remain and I would--

I-- I just wanted a-- a peace for a while.

And then on Friday, May 28th at 9 a.m.

I said goodbye to my daughter.

I felt you know, I knew that in a week

I would see her again, like always.

And then I went to Chicago.

And the next day I get a call from a friend

of mine and she says, "Is your daughter with you?"

I said, "No, I-- She's with her dad.

"I dropped her off yesterday."

"Oh, do you know if they're going to Florida

"or they're going traveling anywhere?"

I said, "They could be," because he took her

to Florida often to their destined vacation spot.

And she was out of school.

And I said, "Why are you asking me? What's going on?"

And she just said it, straight out. She said,

"A plane crashed and it's registered

"to JL and GL Productions."

Oh, I don't-- I don't know,

I couldn't-- I couldn't even explain to you.

I couldn't-- I think I went into shock.

I don't know what time, where it was,

all I thought about, "Don't let her be on that plane.

"God, you know, don't let her be on that plane."

I don't remember five minutes or 50 minutes went by.

It was a blur.

But I do remember when I got a call from the--

An unknown number, I answered it.

"Hello, Miss Pavlovich, this is Officer Kelly.

"Your daughter is safe."

The remains of four men and three women were found today

in the southern end of Percy Priest Lake.

Rutherford County officials

just confirmed their identities in the last few minutes

and all our leaders at a Brentwood church.

Officials released the names of those who were

on board with permission from the family.

They are William Joe Lara, Gwen Shamblin Lara,

Jennifer Martin, David Martin, Jessica Walters, J

Jonathan Walters and Brandon Hannah.

I just was grieving. I'd say I was grieving for them

because they were, at one time very, very close friends.

David and Jennifer Martin

were my very first friends in Remnant.

Besides Gwen, our children grew up together,

played together.

They were the first ones to really sit down

with me and talk to me about Remnant outside of Gwen.

And share their heart for what they saw Remnant

was going to be and the hope for the future.

And I worked with Jessica Walters at Weigh Down as well.

And we sat right next to each other

for a long time on the phones there.

It was like reliving, you know,

those early days and losing it all in one moment.

I knew all of them personally, except for Joe.

I watched Brandon and Elizabeth's relationship

from the beginning. I was at their wedding.

And I was there when they, you know, had their kids.

And I'm very, you know, grieving the loss of life.