Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

Jury selection completed in sect baby starvation case

The Associated Press, USA
Jan. 21, 2004
www.projo.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Wednesday January 21, 2004

TAUNTON, Mass. (AP) – Prosecutors and defense attorneys were expected to make opening statements Thursday in the trial of a former sect member charged with second-degree murder in the starvation death of her infant son.

Jury selection was completed Wednesday for the trial of Karen Robidoux, who is charged in the 1999 death of her son, Samuel.

The Body

In early press reports, The Body was referred to generically as the “Attleboro cult” or “Attleboro sect.”

The group’s doctrines and practices have been heavily influenced by the teachings of Carol Balizet’s Home in Zion Ministries

The Body is a cult, both sociologicall and theologically. Theologically it a cult of Christianity

Research resources on The Body

The boy was three days shy of his first birthday when he died.

Prosecutors say the boy’s parents, members of a tiny religious sect called “The Body,” withheld solid food from the boy for nearly two months. They say the couple’s actions were prompted by a message another sect member said she received from God.

Karen Robidoux’s attorney, Joseph Krowski, plans to argue that she was brainwashed by the cult and intimidated by its leaders, including her husband.

The boy’s father, Jacques Robidoux, is serving a life sentence after being convicted of first-degree murder in June 2002.