WEIRD RITUALS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17009, 22 July 1929, Page 9

WEIRD RITUALS

.*»- SLAYING FOLLOWS SEANCE HACKED TO DEATH DETROIT, July 6. Through weird rituals and records of a mystic Silician religious cult, the police searched to-day for clues to the murderer of Benny Evangclista, so called "divine prophet," known as "Paul the Evangelist," and his family of five who were hacked to death amid grotesque images and altars in their home. Although the predominating theory was that the six murders were committed by a fiend or religious fanatic, beliefs written bv the "Healer," in a "book, "The Oldest History of the World" —the Bible of the cult—gavo rise to a theory that Evangclista might have arranged the murders to prove his claims to the power of reincarnation. Known members of the cult and papticnts of the "Healer" were the first to be called for questioning, and from these witnesses the police attempted to learn details of the last seance at the Evangclista home, during which it was believed the murders occurred. The horror was discovered at noon yesterday by Vincent Julias, a real estate man, who called at the Evangclista home about property which the prophet had planned to buy. Obtaining no response from knocks, ho entered the office room where Evangclista conducted his oddly-con-trasted business of healing and selling real estate and buildings. Elias found the herb doctor's headless body, with the arms folded across the chest, propped up in a chair at his desk, which sometimes served as an altar for his worshippers. Noar the chair lay the head, with the eyes fixed on two images above the deck. Decapitation had been performed cleanly, apparently with a sharp heavy knife. Elias then ascended to the second floor, seeking Mrs. Santia Evangclista and her children. The mother and her baby son Mario had been slain in bed. Mrs. Evangclista 's head was nearly severed from the body, apparently by the same instrument which killed her husband, while the baby's head had been crushed by a heavier instrument. Lying in their twin beds across the hall were the bodies of the three girls.