Approximately 30 to 60 members of the Concerned Christians cult mysteriously disappeared from the Denver metro area in October 1998 without a trace. Their leader, 44-year old Monte Kim Miller of Denver, known for making doomsday predictions and claiming to be the voice of God, stated his intention to die in the streets of Jerusalem in December 1999 and rise again in three days.

Israeli television stated that police and Shin Beth agents have beenworking with Colorado police investigator Mark Roggeman, who has tracked the cult since its beginnings in 1996. Roggeman alerted the Israeli government that members of the cult, who posed a threat to themselves and others, could be headed for Israel. Several of the missing cultists began resurfacing in Jerusalem in early December. Border authorities were placed on alert to expect approximately another 70 or so members, who may currently be enroute.

''What I really, really want is to see my mother [Jan Cooper] away from Kim Miller's influence,'' said Nicolette Weaver, 16, as reported by the Associated Press. ''The fact is, that as long as my mother is involvedwith him she is not going to talk to me.'' John Weaver, Nicolette's father, won custody of his daughter when his former wife's association with the cult were revealed in court. Like Nicolette, Weaver found little consolation in Sunday's arrests, according to the AP ''It's nice the group got rounded up, but until the group gets its senses together, they are going to continue...and we just pray that they get some sense in their head that this guy is just a scam artist. Real prophets don't get involved in shootouts. Jesus didn't come with a machine gun."

Whether Jan Cooper and her current husband John Cooper were among those detained on Sunday is unknown, but Roggeman was optimistic about the arrests. He told the AP, ''I've studied cults for 25 years, and this is a good thing. It is something that is out of his [Miller's] control. It shakes them up emotionally. This shows he is not infallible and that God doesn't speak through him.''

James Van Beek, whose brother-in-law James Dyck was among the cult members arrested on Sunday, expressed a less optimistic view. ''I did a little research on this and found that when someone is predicting his death, more often than not, several people in the group end up dying in mass suicides or mass murders.''