Redlands police have served a search warrant in connection with the disappearance of two former members of a mysterious religious organization and said they seized evidence from that Hemet home used by congregants.
Some neighbors said the people who live at the Pleasant Street home and those seen coming and going at all hours were “very private” and did not appear to be engaging in criminal activity behind the long, wooden fence that runs the length of the large property bordering Acacia Avenue.
At least eight large tents where someone might hold a meeting or picnic could be seen in the backyard. One neighbor on Friday, Aug. 8, said he sometimes sees about a dozen people in that yard and hears them talking when he comes home from work around 2 a.m. He said he has never heard anything that sounded like a church service.
“They have always been kind of strange,” one neighbor said. “You never really see them.”
The neighbors all declined to be identified out of concern for their safety or because they work in law enforcement.
Detectives in Redlands and Claremont are trying to solve the riddle of the disappearances of Emilio Salem Ghanem and Ruben Moreno, who were both once members of the His Life Spirit Led Assemblies.
Ghanem was reported missing shortly after visiting a Starbucks on Redlands Boulevard on May 25, 2023. Ghanem had been a member of the His Way church that is based in Hemet and worked for its pest control business. He left the order before he vanished, police said.
Ghanem then formed his own pest control company and disappeared shortly after the order’s pest control business, Maxguard, sent him a cease-and-desist letter accusing him of stealing clients, police said.
Redlands detectives are also working with Claremont police after learning that Moreno was reported missing in 2019 after leaving the congregation and has not been seen since.
Redlands police spokesman Carl Baker said the investigation is centering on the His Way church. No one in the church has been arrested or charged with any crime related to the missing men.
A man at the Pleasant Street home poked his head above the fence Friday and declined to comment before asking reporters to leave. Attempts to contact other people who social media posts suggest are associated with the church were unsuccessful on Friday. Written messages were left at homes in Perris and in the Orangecrest neighborhood of Riverside.
Another man, whose name is listed on the order’s pest control business licenses on the California Secretary of State’s website, was not at his Colton home, which is being remodeled. A street address for the church in Rialto matches a store that rents post office boxes.
Voicemails left for relatives of Ghanem were not returned. Relatives of Moreno could not be located.
Neighbors in Hemet said they were awakened around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday by sirens. Police surrounded the property and tried to make contact with the occupants as a drone and a helicopter hovered.
“This is the Police Department. We have a warrant to search the house. Come out with your hands up,” officers are heard demanding in a surveillance video played by a neighbor. The neighbor said that it went on for 30 minutes.
Eventually, neighbors said, police rammed the gate with an armored vehicle.
“That was a very expensive gate, and it was bent and broken,” a neighbor said.
Police said they arrested two people in cases unrelated to the missing men.
Redlands police ask anyone with information about the disappearances to call 909-551-4424 or email missingperson_emilio@redlandspolice.org.
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