BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!
Or, as in some of these cases, don’t...
“MOTHER GOD” DIES
The mummified remains of cult leader Amy Carlson, 45, known as “Mother God” by members of her Love Has Won spiritual group, were found at a house in the remote Colorado town of Moffat after the property was searched by deputies. The body was found in a sleeping bag, partly mummified. It had glitter around the eyes and was festooned with fairly lights. “The mummified remains appeared to be set up in some type of shrine” said police. Foul play is not suspected, but they believe that Carlson had been dead for some time, possibly up to a month.
Police were alerted to the bizarre shrine after group member Miguel Lamboy walked into a police station and told them that members of the group were keeping Carlson’s body in his house. Lamboy said that he had come home on 27 April to find five fellow Love Has Won members waiting for him, saying they needed a place to stay. He left, but when he returned the next day, he saw the corpse and tried to leave with his son, but his visitors would not let him take the child with him, so he went to the police.
Carlson was last seen alive by a friend of her mother, Linda Haythorne, on 10 April in California. In early May, Love Has Won posted a statement and a video to the group’s Facebook page announcing that Carlson
She maintained she had lived as Jesus and Marilyn Monroe
had “ascended”, but the page has subsequently been deleted. In Moffat, police found a Nissan SUV with the back-passenger seat laid down as if a corpse had been placed on it and Lamboy says he believes the vehicle was used to drive Carlson’s body from California to Colorado.
Followers of the group looked to Carlson as their spiritual leader. She maintained that she was divine and had lived 534 lives, including as Jesus Christ and Marilyn Monroe. She believed she could heal people of cancer and was seen by her group as a “paradigm” for bringing peace on Earth. Families of members, though, accused her of brainwashing people and stealing from them. Both police and former members have described the group as a cult. Haythorne, while accepting her daughter’s responsibility for leading Love Has Won, said she believes her daughter was brainwashed by others long before she became a cult leader herself: “She was a victim in the beginning, and then it just developed over time”. Carlson’s sister, Chelsea
Renninger, said: “Even though she wasn’t innocent in all this, she didn’t deserve to die the way she did.” Four men and three women ranging in age from 30 to 52 years old have been charged with abusing a corpse and child abuse. Washington Post, 5 May; D.Telegraph, 6 May 2021.
DISMEMBERED DAD
Police in Soka, a town in Japan’s Saitama prefecture, were called out to check on the welfare of an elderly resident who hadn’t been seen in the last few years. An officer was sent to the man’s condominium, which he shared with his 55-year-old son, and during a search of the residence found a dead body in the attic which had been chopped into pieces.
The son, Akira Ishidoya, told police that his father had died at home some years ago, but he had not reported the death for fear of being accused of the man’s murder. Instead, he left the corpse in the condominium while continuing to live there. In May 2019, the building’s owner was considering putting it up for auction, which necessitated in-house inspections; to keep his father’s death a secret, Ishidoya decided to hide the body in the attic. “But the body wouldn’t fit, so I had to cut it into pieces,” he explained.
Examination of the body revealed no signs of trauma or injury aside from the cuts made
in chopping it up. Although their investigation is still ongoing, police currently believe Ishidoya’s father most likely died of illness or other non-violent causes, so the son has not been charged with murder. He was, however, arrested for the abandonment and dismembering of a corpse. soranews24.com, 5 Nov 2020.
KEEPING MUM
A 48-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested early this year after the body of her dead mother was found in a freezer in her apartment. The corpse, discovered by a cleaner, had been bent in order to fit inside the apppliance. Yumi Yoshino, who had been forced to leave the apartment due to unpaid rent, told police that 10 years ago she had found her mother dead and had concealed the body because she “didn’t want to move out” of the home they shared. The frozen cadaver bore no visible wounds and authorities were unable to determine the time and cause of death. BBC News, 30 Jan 2021.
DUMPSTER OF THE DEAD
A Canadian man was placed under house arrest after leaving his roommate’s body next to a dumpster. Shane Brownlee, 52, of Kamloops. British Columbia, had been hiding the body of his 65-year-old roommate David Boltwood inside the apartment for several weeks, before leaving the corpse rolled up in a carpet next to the dumpster unit, where it was found on 29 November 2019. Police initially suspected homicide, but an autopsy later determined that Boltwood had died of natural causes.
Brownlee had invited Boltwood, who was homeless and had health problems, to stay with him in his apartment in October 2019. Brownlee told the court how he had returned home one day to find Boltwood had died, explaining that he had panicked and wrapped Boltwood in a rug, which he later placed in a large cardboard box. He kept the body in his home and in a storage locker before eventually disposing of it outside, with the help of a teenager who was unaware what he was moving. In mitigation, Brownlee acknowledged that he had made a series of bad decisions, but argued that his judgment had been clouded by extreme anxiety and other ongoing health issues, compounded by a pending eviction, an addiction to alcohol and marijuana, fear of being blamed for Boltwood’s death, and anxiety about going back to jail.
Brownlee had previously done time for property crimes. He was given a two-year conditional sentence order and six months’ probation for interfering with a dead body. He will spend the next six months under 24/7 house arrest, must attend treatment programmes, refrain from drug and alcohol use, complete 50 hours of community service, and write a letter of apology to Boltwood’s family. thestar.com, 26 Mar 2021.
DEAD MAN SITTING
A funeral was subject to criticism from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service who said they were “disappointed with the reckless behaviour engaged in by a funeral home.” A hearse bearing the bodies of Che Lewis and his father headed a procession that drove around the capital, Port of Spain, with Che Lewis seated in an armchair on top of the hearse along with a sound system playing music. A family member praised the funeral home, saying “the embalmers did a fantastic job, because he stayed in the upright position throughout, despite the tropical heat, and looked so alive. Sadly, because of his unusual presentation, the church authorities wouldn’t allow Che within, so he had to sit in his chair outside while his funeral took place within.”
The T&T Police Service spokesman stressed that “carrying persons, deceased or otherwise, in a dangerous manner is an offence against Regulation 38, Rule 17 of the Motor Vehicle Road Traffic Act.” Trinidad Express, 25 Nov 2020.