CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Amber Buck met Johnny Marlowe when they were riding the bus to Bible Baptist Church in Matthews.
Amber was just 13 and thought Johnny was handsome and kind.
Three years later, the two were married.
Amber says she should have seen the warning signs.
“He actually hit me on my wedding day.”
Amber believed Johnny would change and unfortunately he did.
He got worse.
When asked, How evil of a man is Johnny Marlowe?”, Amber responded: “He’s the cream of the crop. He has not murdered anybody that I know of. But he was close.”
Amber says her relationship with Johnny was filled with heartache, isolation and torture.
"One time he was looking for a machete to cut my head off. He started drawing on my body and he told me he was gonna take diamond pieces of flesh of my breast."
In documents obtained by the I-Team Johnny Marlowe makes it clear, he rules the family. Marlowe details a plan for dealing with what he calls the "Major Problems". When the family disobeyed, he writes that he "reprimanded" then "beat" Amber, "then beat all the kids."
In a prison interview with the I-Team, Johnny Marlowe said he’s a good dad.
“Oh yeah. Come on now. Yeah, definitely.”
Johnny insisted his 13 children be home schooled.
They never saw a doctor.
They were never vaccinated, never interacted with kids outside their family.
Amber Marlowe said the children were very isolated.
“They hardly ever went outside. They were very white.”
In 2003, after 5 years of marriage to Amber and a house full of children, Johnny Marlowe says God told him to take a second wife, Sarah.
"The two women living in my house, I call them beloveds”, said Marlowe.
Amber said, “it was hard” to have a second woman in the home.
When Johnny suspected Amber of being unfaithful, he acted out a line from Deuteronomy, ordering her to be "stoned" by two of their children and his second wife, Sarah.
"He took me outside and had my two oldest children and Sarah come outside with him. I was on my knees. The rock lands maybe three inches from my head."
With two wives and 13 children, Marlowe writes in his diary, "I have learned the wickedness of my lovers, how they seek to use me and destroy me for their lusts. God forgive me. My virginity has been tarnished. I am a whore.
Could you replace my virginity?"
Amber says Johnny would have dreams that God was speaking to him.
While living on a remote mountainside near Lenoir, Amber says Johnny wanted to build his own religious compound.
"I would compare him to Jim Jones. He was that bad."
In December of 2006, Johnny's second wife, Sarah, couldn't take any more and ran away to Arkansas.
Johnny was outraged and writes in his diary: "Your leaving was totally wrong! I own you! You are mine! If I want to beat you for my pleasure, fuss at you, grind you down, hit, break, spit on, kill or love - you are mine to do with as I will!
He goes on to say, the day Sarah returns he will "shave her head. The hair will be hung up as a continual reminder to the entire family not to leave God."
Amber says she was terrified to run away. “I had children. I have tried to run and he always told me if I were to leave, I wouldn't have my kids. So I always came back for my kids to try to keep them as safe as I could."
In September, after nearly 12 years of marriage, Amber Marlowe testified against her husband.
Johnny Marlowe represented himself in a child abuse trial that focused on him circumcising his three boys.
During her testimony, Amber told Johnny, “What I’m concerned with is keeping my children safe from you.”
Today, eight of Amber and Johnny's children have been taken away.
They been placed in 8 separate foster homes by the Gaston County Department of Social Services.
Amber Marlowe says she feels a lot of guilt.
“One of my children is having a lot of trouble right now. And I told her, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry and she goes, 'Mom it's not your fault'. And I say, 'yeah, baby it is my fault. If I had left sooner, then you wouldn't have had this. You wouldn't have been going through this right now."
Johnny Marlowe is now serving a 12-year prison sentence.
While he did not admit to hurting his family, he was convicted of assault and kidnapping.
Amber gets to see seven of her children, once a week, when she is not working.
There is a hearing this morning in Gaston County Court that could determine the future of those children.
Amber Marlowe believes she is being blamed for what happened to her family and fears her kids could be taken away permanently.
