Two innocent kids in a car and 50 cult followers in a sweat lodge ceremony.
Alcoholic victims of the month:
Katherine Willis, 15, and Melissa Elh-Mirra, 5, the two foster children in the care of Genevieve Bethea who died after her daughter, Sheila Bethea, 45, lost control of a van and slammed into another vehicle in Queens. Before pleading not guilty to manslaughter and other charges, Bethea admitted to smoking crack cocaine at 2 a.m., doing heroin at 9 a.m. and drinking “one” alcoholic beverage at noon before the crash at about 5 p.m., where she told a witness she lost control after “driving too fast.” Investigators believe she wrapped a crack pipe in tissue and hid it in a “body cavity” after the crash, which she claimed occurred because a replacement tire gave way at 45 mph. One of the surviving children said “she was driving fast,” which cops believe to be more than 70 mph. Foster kids are usually children of addicts and the foster mother’s daughter clearly was (she pled guilty to DUI in 2003), which indicates a high probability that the foster mother, who allowed her foster children to drive with the addicted daughter, is also an addict. Alcoholic victims often succumb to tragedy because of a maelstrom of addiction, in which addicts abound.
The 50 followers of James Arthur Ray who, after enduring five sleep-deprived days of fasting and mind-altering breathing exercises, were led into a sweat lodge ceremony near Sedona, Arizona, where three died and many others became gravely ill. I’d love to get some pictures of Ray’s eyes to check his pupil size. Jim Jones of Jonestown, Guyana fame was addicted to alcohol and amphetamines. The addictionologist in me doubts that Ray’s drugs of choice were any different.