MYSTERY CULT’S RITES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40037, 10 December 1929, Page 1

MYSTERY CULT’S RITES.

1 BODY PRESERVED IN ICE

BURIED BENEATH RESIDENCE

The weird rites of a colony of religious dealots is 'being investiffated by the Californian police. This action follows an amazing confession by Mrs. W. P. Rhoades, high priestess of a mysterious cult, that for several ye airs she kept the body other sixteen-year-old daughter packed in iee in the hope that she and other members of the order could bring her back to life. Eventually, the body was buried ■beneath the floor of Mrs. Rhoades’ cottage, where the police found it. It was in a duplex coffin, the other half of which contained the bodies of seven, dogs. According to Mrs. Rhoades, her daughter elded from natural causes; but the police are investigating four other deaths of members of the colony said to have oeeulnrcd in mysterious circumstances.

One of the dead persons, Frances Turner, was to have been placed in an oven in the cult’s mountain colony as a cure for paralysis, Surrounded by hot bricks, she was left all night, and on the next morning- appeared to he dead. When subsequently she disappeared the members were told that she had.been healed and had walked away. The disappearance of Samuel Rizzio, another member, was explained by the statement that lie had become a high priest invisible to the human eye. The police are making the investigation on the complaint of Mr. Clifford Dabney, a wealthy man, who asserted that he paid £BOOO to defray the cost of writing a book, in which all the mysteries of life, death, heaven, and earth would be irevealed, including the location of vast deposits of valuable minerals.

There are 30 ! 0 members of the colony which is incorporated as “the Divine Order of the Royal Order of the Eleventh Branch of the Headstone of the 'Seventh Church of Josiah.”