Prayed Upon: How hiding Qld’s most wanted man exposed secretive cult

A mysterious Qld cult would have continued to fly under the radar if they didn’t take in a notorious love triangle murderer . Now, the killer is back on the streets. WATCHED PRAYED UPON EP. 1

A convicted love triangle murderer who hid out with a secretive North Queensland cult for years after a dramatic prison escape has been released from jail and slipped quietly back into society.

The Jesus People of North Queensland – now known as the Anglican Catholic Mission Community – would have flown under the radar were it not for the killer they took in, Luke Andrew Hunter.

PRAYED UPON: LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

Hunter was sentenced to life in jail for the 1990 murder of his best mate Brian Nagle. Hunter was having an affair with Nagle’s wife and shot him dead in the back of the head during a hunting trip in northern NSW.

Hunter was transferred from NSW to Queensland to be closer to family but staged a daring escape from Borallon Correctional Centre near Ipswich in 1996 when he and another inmate fended off up to 10 guards and used wire-cutters to bust out.

A mug shot of Luke Andrew Hunter, a notorious killer who lived for years inside the Jesus People of North Queensland compound in the state’s far north.

He then went on the run for 15 years, becoming Queensland’s most wanted fugitive and one of the top most wanted in Australia along with the likes of disgraced entrepreneur Christopher Skase who had fled to Spain.

Hunter ended up on the Atherton Tablelands where he was taken in by the Jesus People of North Queensland, now known as the Anglican Catholic Mission Community.

The cult was founded in the 1990s polygamist religious fanatic, Daniel Landy-Ariel.

Still operating today under a new leader, the ACMC subjecting members to extreme rules that dictate what and when they eat, how much they exercise, demand they hand over all their assets.

When Hunter joined the Jesus People, he changed his name to Ashban Kadmiel and lived and worked on the cult’s remote commune at Watsonville outside Herberton for years.

He eventually left the Jesus People and sensationally got a job with Queensland Health as a wardsman and groundskeeper at the Herberton Hospital, using his assumed name.

CCTV footage of Luke Andrew Hunter escaping from Borallon prison. Supplied: Channel 10

But he was dramatically recaptured soon in 2011 while out jogging on the streets of Herberton, after a tip-off to police.

He was sent back to jail to serve out the rest of his murder sentence, copping an additional two-and-a-half years behind bars for the escape.

Hunter was eligible for parole in November last year and is no longer an inmate, according to Queensland Corrective Services.

Despite extensive searches, The Courier-Mail has been unable to establish his whereabouts.

Former friend Steve Perks said he had lost contact with “Ash”, as he calls Hunter, but believed he could still be in North Queensland.

The commune of the Anglican Catholic Mission Community at Watsonville on the Atherton Tablelands. Picture: Brian Cassey

Perks, who ran basketball leagues in North Queensland and helped one woman and some of her children escape the cult, became friends with Hunter while teaching cult members the game after the Jesus People built a basketball court at their Watsonville commune.“ He was a product of the protection that a community like that, and only a community like that, could offer,” he said.

Mr Perks said Hunter had become a “really decent person” after joining the cult and was planning to set up a Christian-based orphanage overseas when he was arrested.

Mr Perks said Hunter left the cult after seeing life on the outside “and realising this was sort of not a bad way to be living”.

Luke Andrew Hunter being led by police after he was recaptured in 2011 in Far North Queensland after 15 years on the run.

“I think a lot of people were quite shocked when he was found up there in that community,” he said.

“He came across as a very nice, hardworking guy and he was.

“People who knew him didn’t know of his past, but the (Jesus People) leadership group certainly did.

“They knew his story, they played God and they forgave him.

“The experience that he had with them wasn’t a bad experience because he was a tough and very clever guy and no one was going to put it over him.

“So he wasn’t in the same boat as the women in the group (who were allegedly subject to coercive control and abuse).”

Mr Perks said the Jesus People could have tipped off police about Hunter after he left the cult.

He said one officer told him that Hunter had killed “a really bad man” in Nagle, who was violent and abusive towards his wife, and “the world was a better place without him”.

“I often say that when they got Ash back inside (after his 2011 arrest), it was almost like

jailing the wrong person,” he said.

“The man he became was such a contrast to the person that would’ve committed that atrocity (murder). He became a completely different person, a decent guy. He wasn’t Luke Hunter any more.”