Kids, Mom Lived With 90-Year-Old's Corpse for Weeks in Wisconsin
Friday, May 09, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354849,00.html
MADISON, Wis. — Two children and their mother lived for about two months
with the decaying body
of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home's only bathroom, on the
advice of a religious
"superior" who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities
said
Friday.
The children — a 15-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy — cried
hysterically
Wednesday after a
deputy who came to their Necedah home looking for Magdeline Alvina
Middlesworth ordered them out
because of the stench from her body.
The children were in foster care Friday. Their mother, Tammy Lewis, and
self-described "bishop"
Alan Bushey remained in custody on felony counts of being a party to
causing
mental harm to a
child.
"It's a sad case, and we'll continue to investigate it and try to
ascertain
just what occurred up
there," Juneau County Sheriff Brent Oleson said. He said he had no further
information on
Bushey's religious affiliation.
According to the criminal complaint, Middlesworth's sister called
sheriff's
officials Wednesday
and asked them to go to the home about 80 miles north of Madison to check
on
the woman, who had
not been heard from for some time.
When Deputy Leigh Neville-Neil arrived at the house, she encountered
Lewis,
also known as Sister
Mary Bernadett, the complaint said. Lewis, 35, initially refused to allow
the deputy to check on
Middlesworth, telling her that Middlesworth was on vacation and saying she
had to check with her
"superior" first.
But she eventually let the deputy in. The house smelled of incense and
burned wood, and had
religious materials everywhere and hymns playing on the stereo, according
to
the complaint.
When the deputy opened the last closed door, she smelled "decaying matter"
and noticed something
piled on what appeared to be a toilet. Lewis told her it was
Middlesworth's
body, the complaint
said.
Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had died about two months earlier,
but that God told her
Middlesworth would come to life if she prayed hard enough.
She said she couldn't say anything more until she spoke with her
"superior"
— Bushey, 57, also
known as Bishop John Peter Bushey.
When Bushey arrived, Lewis told the deputy that Middlesworth had appeared
to
pass out as Lewis
helped her into her underwear.
She said she propped Middlesworth on the toilet and left the room to call
Bushey, who told her to
leave the woman alone and pray for her, the complaint said. He said he had
received signs that
God would raise her from the dead with a miracle.
Lewis went on to say she thought Middlesworth was still breathing when she
put her on the toilet
and called Bushey, instead of an ambulance. She later told a detective she
put the woman on the
toilet on March 4.
An autopsy has been performed, but results won't be available for some
time,
Oleson said.
"At this time we don't know what the cause of death was," he said. "Quite
frankly, it might have
been natural causes."
He described the one-story home in the town of Necedah as in decent
repair,
although the
residents had been using "makeshift" toilet facilities because of the
situation in the one
bathroom.
The boy at the house told a detective he had considered running away
because
he was uncomfortable
with the situation. He said Bushey told him that demons were trying to
make
it look as if
Middlesworth wouldn't come back to life, and that if she were to be
discovered he and the girl
would have to go to public school and get jobs because Middlesworth paid
the
bills.
The boy referred to Middlesworth as "grandmother," the complaint said.
Oleson said Middlesworth was unrelated to Bushey.
"She believed in the same faith as self-proclaimed Bishop Bushey, and that
was the connection
there," he said.
Oleson said that Middlesworth and Lewis lived at the residence with the
children since fall of
2004, and that Bushey lived elsewhere.
Bushey and Lewis are scheduled to make an initial court appearance May 19.
Aside from the felony
counts, Lewis also was charged with obstructing an officer, a misdemeanor.
The sheriff said cash bond was set Friday at $50,000 each, but Lewis was
allowed to post 10
percent for her release.
THE MORE YOU CAN GET CAUCASOIDS TO READ, THE SOONER THEY FIND OUT THAT
THEY
ARE JUST CONSPICUOUSLY EXPLOITED CAUCASOIDS WHICH ARE WHITE NIGGERS.
What Is a "White Nigger" ?
By Andrew D. Todd
http://hnn.us/articles/1220.html
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