A California pastor already facing murder charges in the death of a four-year-old boy has now been charged with a second killing, the 2023 disappearance and alleged murder of a 40-year-old former congregant who left the group and started a competing business.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson filed the new charges against Darryl Muzik Martin, 58, the pastor of His Way Spirit Led Assemblies, a secretive religious group based in the Inland Empire. Martin now faces murder and conspiracy to commit murder counts in the death of Emilio Ghanem, who was last seen alive at a Starbucks in Redlands on May 25, 2023, the Christian Post reported.

Martin's wife, Shelley Bailey "Kat" Martin, 63, described by prosecutors as the group's "head prophetess", already faced murder charges in Ghanem's death along with weapons charges. She was also previously charged with murder in the 2010 death of Timothy Thomas, a four-year-old boy who died after two weeks of illness while in the Martins' care. All defendants have pleaded not guilty. All remain in custody.

Two deaths, fifteen years apart

The two cases stretch across more than a decade and paint a grim picture of life inside His Way Spirit Led Assemblies, which prosecutors have labeled a "religious high-control group."

Timothy Thomas died on January 10, 2010. He had been sick for two weeks, vomiting, in pain, and appearing listless. The Martins had obtained legal guardianship of Timothy and his three siblings in December 2009, after the boy's parents, Andre Thomas Sr. and Iris Thomas, signed over custody for one year. Police testified that the couple had been experiencing marital problems when they placed their children in the Martins' care.

Colton Police Chief Anthony Vega did not mince words about what happened next. As AP News reported, Vega stated that "Shelley and Darryl Martin took an active role in preventing Timo from receiving medical treatment" and that "Timo's death could have been prevented had he been allowed to receive medical attention for his appendicitis."

The Martins preferred to rely on Jesus for healing and only reluctantly allowed congregants to seek medical care. A sick four-year-old boy paid the price for that policy. No charges were filed at the time because group members gave incomplete statements to police, a detail that raises its own set of questions about the group's internal discipline.

The case of clergy members facing serious criminal charges is not without precedent. A recent Ohio case saw a pastor convicted of involuntary manslaughter after a teenager died in his care.

A former member vanishes

The second death involves Emilio Ghanem, who left the group sometime before May 2023 and launched his own pest control company. That business directly competed with a pest control operation run by the congregation, and prosecutors contend that rivalry became a death sentence.

Ghanem was accused by group leaders of taking customers away from the church's business. He was last seen alive on May 25, 2023, at a Starbucks in Redlands. Then he vanished.

Prosecutors contend the Martins ordered two group members, Rudy Moreno, 44, and Ramon Duran Jr., 44, to kill Ghanem. Moreno was arrested alongside the Martins in December 2025 and charged with murder and weapons offenses. Duran's current legal status remains unclear from available filings.

Ghanem's truck was found with evidence inside in August 2025, the New York Post reported. The group had been under investigation since Ghanem's disappearance was reported in May 2023.

How exactly Ghanem was killed has not been disclosed. Prosecutors have charged the Martins with ordering the murder, yet the Christian Post noted that "it remains unclear who ordered Ghanem's death or how he was killed", a gap that defense attorneys will almost certainly press at trial.

Control, money, and consequences

Witness testimony at a recent court hearing shed light on the group's internal culture. Witnesses said anyone who failed to follow Shelley Martin's orders faced consequences including beatings or banishment from the group.

The financial picture is equally troubling. The New York Post reported that the group extracted over $2 million annually from its members, with all funds from member-operated businesses flowing directly to the pastors. That arrangement turns the Ghanem case into something more than a personal grudge, it suggests an economic motive. A former member starting a rival business wasn't just leaving the fold. He was threatening the revenue stream.

The group operated out of Colton, California, where the church maintained at least three homes where congregants lived. Timothy Thomas had been housed in those properties before his death. The arrangement, members living in church-controlled housing, working in church-controlled businesses, subject to church-controlled discipline, fits a pattern that law enforcement and cult researchers have documented for decades.

Cases of pastors convicted of serious felonies continue to surface across the country, each one a reminder that a clerical title offers no immunity from accountability.

A cold case reopened

The investigation into Timothy Thomas's death had gone cold for more than a decade. It took Redlands police investigating Ghanem's disappearance to prompt Colton police to reopen the 2010 case. That sequence matters. Without the Ghanem investigation, a four-year-old's death might have stayed buried in an old file.

Andre Thomas Sr., 49, Timothy's biological father, has also been arrested and charged with murder in the boy's death. He remains in custody and has pleaded not guilty. Iris Thomas's current status in the case is not clear from court records referenced in available reporting.

The fact that group members gave incomplete statements to police in 2010, effectively shielding the Martins from prosecution for fifteen years, raises hard questions about how insular religious organizations can obstruct justice simply by closing ranks. When disgraced pastors face minimal consequences for serious misconduct, it sends a message that the system struggles to hold religious leaders accountable on the same timeline as everyone else.

What remains unanswered

Several critical questions remain open. No official cause of death has been publicly disclosed for Ghanem. The legal theory behind the Timothy Thomas murder charge, whether prosecutors are alleging active harm or criminal neglect, has not been fully detailed. Ramon Duran Jr., whom prosecutors say was ordered to help kill Ghanem, does not appear to have been arrested or charged based on available filings.

District Attorney Anderson framed the broader case in terms of delayed but arriving justice. As AP News reported, he stated:

"What you have here are two separate very winding roads of cases that are now beginning to lead to justice."

Whether those roads lead to convictions remains to be seen. All defendants have entered not-guilty pleas, and the gaps in the prosecution's public case, particularly around how Ghanem was killed and who gave the final order, will be tested in court.

The pattern of criminal charges against clergy in recent years has made one thing clear: a pulpit is not a shield. But it took fifteen years and a second death to get this case into a courtroom. For a four-year-old boy who died of untreated appendicitis in a house controlled by people who thought prayer was a substitute for a hospital, that is a long time to wait for anyone to call it what prosecutors now say it was, murder.