SEDONA - The first dribble in what could become a flood of lawsuits was filed late last week in the wake of the Oct. 8 sweat lodge deaths in Angel Valley. The extended "Spiritual Warrior" Weekend was led by motivational guru James Arthur Ray.
A wrongful death suit has been filed by the family of 49-year-old Lizbeth Neuman of Prior Lake, Minn. She died in the hospital a week after the event, which also took the lives of 38-year-old Kirby Brown, of New York, and 40-year-old James Shore, of Wisconsin.
Neuman had been admitted to Flagstaff Medical Center as a "Jane Doe," since she had no identification when admitted. She had suffered multiple organ damage and eventually fell into a coma before dying from her injuries.
A second suit was been filed by 59-year-old Sidney Spencer, who runs a cattle ranch near Patagonia, Ariz. She sat near the three deceased in the 20-by-20-foot sweat lodge crowded with more than 60 people. Spencer was hospitalized with kidney and liver failure and respiratory arrest after collapsing.
Spencer's suit claims that Ray and his assistants refused to allow participants to leave even after they had fallen ill.
Wednesday, Dwight D'Evelyn, spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, told the news media that the homicide investigation is ongoing. "Detectives are in the process of completing interviews and in many cases, are still attempting to locate participants from around the country. Additionally, the processing of evidence remains active and includes computer forensic work involving servers and hardware recovered during a search warrant at Mr. Ray's Carlsbad, California office. Autopsy results are another critical aspect of the case and a complete report, including toxicology results, is still pending."
James Ray initially left the Angel Valley retreat site without offering authorities any explanation and immediately returned to his lecture circuit. But, on his Web site Thursday, Ray indicated he will cooperate with authorities and cancel his tour in November and January.
"It's now clear I must dedicate all of my physical and emotional energies to helping bring some sort of closure to this matter. That means helping the authorities and the families get to the bottom of what happened," he stated.
"I'm committed to devoting all of my time, for as long as it takes, to achieve this goal. For that reason, I'm postponing all the events I had planned for the remainder of 2009."
Reader Comments
Posted: Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Article comment by:
Gail Kennedy
I and all my friends are amazed that in light of the horrific events that took place at this "event" that Mr. Ray has been permitted to travel outside this jurisdiction and continue his meetings until he voluntarily postponed them himself.
Should he not at the very least be considered culpable in the deaths and illnesses of those involved?
