A CULT leader who ran a polygamous sect has been jailed for the murders of one of his wives and a 4-year-old boy who he accused of being gay.

Peter Moses was handed two life sentences by a court for the killing of 28-year-old Antoinetta McKoy and Jadon Higganbothan.

Moses was the self-appointed leader of the “Black Hebrew Israelites,” a cult he ran from his house in the suburbs of Durham, North Carolina.

Five other women lived there with him as his “wives”, sharing the household chores and Moses’ bed.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Moses held the women under his strict control, taking money they earned from jobs while he stayed at home and studied theology. When McKoy tried to leave she was killed.

Four others have pleaded guilty to the killings, including Vania Sisk, who was Higganbothan’s mother.

Prosecutors say Sisk watched while Moses put a gun to her little boy’s head. She is also accused of pulling the trigger in the killing of McKoy.

"To know [my daughter] begged for her life is even more painful,” Yvonne McKoy, the mother of the victim reportedly told the court.

McKoy was shot while a recording of the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew played in the background. The same fate was suffered by 4-year-old Higganbothan, who was the only child in the house not fathered by Moses. Moses reportedly decided the boy was gay after he saw him hit another child on the buttocks.

In YouTube videos shown in court, Moses revealed his warped faith, which included the belief that women were “cursed to serve”.

“You are our possession,” Moses said about women. “Get that through your head."

Originally published as Cult leader killed child 'for being gay'