As a student transfer to the UF Gainesville campus in 1980, talk of the "Crossroader Cult" was fairly common on campus. There were cautions to students to beware of a religious group preying on vulnerable students. Isolated people with few friends or people doing poorly in school would be approached and asked if they wanted to go to a "party" where they were befriended. These small parties lead to an out of town "retreat" where they were subjected to intense pressure to fully commit to the group or face complete rejection from their newly found friends. In an incident during 1980 or 1981, one student walked out of the retreat compound located a number of miles out of town in an isolated forest area. He had to walk at least a mile on unlit roads alongside swampy lakes area full of gators and mosquitoes to reach a road with any traffic. He hitchhiked back to Gainesville where he reported to the police multiple members were being held at the compound against their will. The police returned to the compound in force where there were several hundred cult members and ~50 new recruits. The church group insisted everyone was present voluntarily. Asked if they wanted to leave, about a half a dozen of the recruits indicated they wanted to leave while the majority opted to stay. No charges were filed but it was reminiscent of the very recent (at the time) of the cult at Jonestown Guyana and raised a lot of alarms about the group. I find it surprising none of this is included in the Wiki article on the organization and their activities in 1970s and 1980s. The police call to the retreat was one of several events that brought the group to the attention of the national Church of Christ organization and eventually led to their ouster from the sect. Two of my roommates during fall of 1980 were approached by the group and attended one of their parties, hence I have "direct, second-hand accounts" of the propositions that were put to people who attended the first, innocuous party meetings. The students who left that night with the police reported the pressure tactics and some of their requests to leave being ignored. However, none of it was considered to rise to the level of involuntary confinement since they were promised they would be able to leave at the end of the weekend, saying no one was available to transport them at the time.
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