By H. Alan Scott
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On September 8, 2017, the decomposed and mummified bodies of two young girls were discovered in a wooded area of Norwood, Colorado. Authorities soon learned the girls, 10-year-old Hannah Roberts and 8-year-old Makayla Marshall, sisters, were part of a doomsday cult led by Madani Ceus, who declared the girls evil and banished them to be locked without food or water in a 1999 Toyota sedan. The girls' mother, 38-year-old Nashika Bramble, was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for their murder.
"In my 37 years as sheriff, I have never seen anything as cruel and heartless as this," San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters, who discovered the girls' bodies, told Denver's Fox 31 News.
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The religious group believed a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017 would lead to an apocalypse that would take them to an unknown spiritual realm. Led by Ceus, the group took up residence on the property of Alec Blair, who testified during Bramble's trial that he and others were under the mental control of Ceus.
"Her power over you, Alec—did you feel you could say no to Madani?" Harvey Palefsky, Bramble's defense attorney, asked Blair during the trial, originally reported by the Telluride Daily Planet.
"In theory, I could, but I did not feel that I could," Blair replied.
"Every decision you made on that property was made because you were fearful for your life?" Polefsky asked.
"Yes," Blair responded.
Bramble's defense unsuccessfully attempted to prove that Bramble and others were under the control of Ceus, but prosecutors demonstrated that Bramble had free will and allowed "her daughters to be secluded in a gray Toyota, and to ultimately let those daughters die," Deputy District Attorney Robert Whiting said during the prosecution's opening statement.
The two girls were renamed Pink 1 and Pink 2 by Ceus, a reference to their favorite color. Eventually, Ceus tired of the girls and labeled them a "two-headed dragon," Blair testified. Ceus ordered members of the group to keep the girls in a Toyota Sedan on the property and to not bring them food or water.
Blair testified that it was was Bramble who informed him of the girls death.
"She came up to me and said, 'The Pinks are dead,'" Blair testified.
"Are those the words she used?" Chief Deputy District Attorney Seth Ryan asked.
"It was over two years ago. But that's how I remember it," Blair said.
He went on to say Bramble's demeanor was "bland." She wasn't crying and seemed to express no emotion over the death of her daughters.
Blair and Ceus' husband, Ashford Archer, sealed the car with duct tape and covered it with a tarp. It's not clear when the girls died, but Blair told police he believed it was in June of 2017, Denver's ABC 7 News reported.
Experts testified during the trial that the girls died from dehydration, starvation and heat.
Bramble later left the group in September 2017 and escaped to Grand Junction, Colorado. She eventually turned herself in at the Grand Junction Police Station after the bodies of her daughters were discovered by authorities.
Ceus faces two charges of first-degree murder and will stand trial early next year. Other members of the group have also been charged in connection to the girls' death. Blair pled guilty as an accessory to the murder and received a reduced sentence for helping the prosecution. He has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Neither of the girls' fathers was part of the religious group or charged in the case.
An earlier version of this story identified the woman in the photo as Madina Ceus. The image caption has been corrected to identify Nashika Bramble.
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