Seven dead bodies, a naked woman, wooden cudgels, Bibles, a sacrificed goat, and various knives and machetes.
These were just some of what was uncovered by investigators Wednesday after they raided a ramshackle church at a ranch in a remote jungle region 250 kilometres from Panama City.
Ten amateur preachers, dubbing themselves followers of the New Light of God, had allegedly kidnapped seven locals from their homes near the country’s Caribbean coast, beaten them, tortured them, and dumped their bodies in a mass grave. The killings formed part of a grim exorcism ritual in which the locals were asked to “repent their sins” or else be killed by sect members who felt they had been given a “message from God.”
In total officials found the bodies of six people from one family — a pregnant mother and five of her kids — as well as the daughter of another local family.
The killings occurred in a semi-autonomous region run by the Ngabé Buglé, the country’s biggest Indigenous group. Both the victims and their killers are said to have been part of the same community; the grandfather of the dead kids is among the suspects.
“They were performing a ritual inside the structure. In that ritual, there were people being held against their will, being mistreated,” he added, according to the BBC. “All of these rites were aimed at killing them if they didn’t repent their sins.”
The preacher group, the BBC reports, had been in the area for some three months but matters deteriorated the previous Saturday when one cultist, convinced God was telling them to do so, kick-started the kidnappings of locals. In total 10 preachers are said to have rounded up families, and when the “ceremony” was over, the seven bodies were discovered in a freshly dug grave about two kilometres from the church.
The BBC reports that the grave was found when three locals escaped to a hospital and sounded the alarm. The dead mother was 32, her five kids aged 1 to 11. The dead female neighbour was 17. On Wednesday, authorities freed 15 other people who had been held by the sect. Ten sect members were arrested on suspicion of responsibility for the killings, prosecutors said.
Those rescued had suffered bodily injuries, according to Alexis Munoz, a senior police official. The AP reported that because the area in question was so remote, victims could only be brought to hospital by helicopter.
According to the AP, local leader Ricardo Miranda of the Ngabé Buglé called the sect “Satanic.”
“We demand the immediate eradication of this Satanic sect, which violates all the practices of spirituality and co-existence in the Holy Scriptures,” he said.
