Today's Topics:
Car Chase, Crash Reveal 20 Naked Pentecostals
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Date: Thu, 26 Aug 93 10:31:16 -0400
From: Eric Haines <erich@eye.com>
Message-Id: <9308261431.AA08581@hemlock>
To: erich@hemlock.eye.com, subgenius@media-lab.media.mit.edu
Subject: Car Chase, Crash Reveal 20 Naked Pentecostals
>From the Ithaca Journal, August 20, 1993:
Car Chase, Crash Reveal 20 Naked Pentecostals
VINTON, La. (AP) - The devil made them do it. That's what some of the 20
naked Pentecostals packed cheek-to-cheek into a car told police after the
vehicle was chased into a tree.
Officers watched in disbelief as the group piled out of the 1990 Pontiac
Grand Am after the wreck and began religious chants.
The passengers, relatives from Floydada, Texas, said they were en route to
a religious retreat somewhere in Florida, Police Chief Dennis Drouillard said.
He said some passengers said they stripped because their clothes were
possessed by the devil.
"Didn't have a stitch of clothes on. I mean, no socks, no underwear, no
nothin'," he said. "They didn't say much. They mainly got out and chanted
religious sayings."
The police stopped the car Thursday after getting a report that the car
contained naked people. The driver got out wearing only a towel, but then
jumped back in, sped off, and crashed into a tree, police said.
The car was totaled, but the injuries all were minor, Drouillard said.
"I guess when you're packed in that tight, there's not much room to move
around," he said. A police officer gave the passengers clothes at the scene.
Drouillard said the group ranged in age from 1 to 65 and included three
pregnant women and five children, who were stuffed into the trunk.
Driver Sammy Rodriguez and his brother, Danny, said they were Pentecostal
preachers, Drouillard said.
Floydada Police Chief James Hale said he had been looking for the
Rodriguez family since Tuesday, when relatives reported them missing. "They
made statements like the devil was after them and Floydada was going to be
destroyed if they stayed here," Hale said. Floydada is a small Texas
Panhandle town about 550 miles from Vinton.
The family left Floydada in five or six cars, abandoning them and
belongings along the way.
Sammy Rodriguez, 29, was held pending an investigation into reckless
endangerment of the children. He was booked on suspicion of reckless driving,
flight from an officer, and other offenses.
The 19 others were released and spent the night in a shelter.
[Floydada, hmmm, ain't that near Bulldada, Texas?]
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End of Subgenius Digest
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