Local & International
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (June 22, 1999 1:43 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Police seeking a missing person unearthed 16 skulls and dozens of human bones buried beneath the floor of an Afro-Brazilian spirit temple in western Brazil, police said Tuesday.
Jose Augusto dos Santos, the priest of the temple, was arrested and charged with concealing a cadaver, a policewoman said by telephone from Cuiaba, 1,000 miles northwest of Rio. She declined to give her name on grounds that only the homicide police chief could speak on the record, and he was at the temple.
Police were investigating the disappearance of local druggist Romualdo Pereira Barbosa in 1995, and an anonymous phone call led them to the temple on the outskirts of the city, the policewoman said.
The skulls and bones were concealed under part of the floor, and firefighters were called in Tuesday to tear up the rest of it, she said.
Brazilian media reported that police also found jewels and three packages with what appeared to be human brains. Dos Santos reportedly told police the bones were supplied by a grave robber and were used in religious rituals.
Animist religions originated in Africa and were brought to Brazil by slaves. Over the years, some sects have incorporated elements of other beliefs, including Roman Catholicism and witchcraft.
ATLANTA (June 23, 1999 5:00 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A psychic
famous for foretelling the outcome of World Series baseball championships was
found dead in a reflecting pool near an Atlanta shopping mall, police said
Wednesday.
Judy Marks, 54, also known as Dina Adams and Mme. Bell, was was found Tuesday
floating face down in the 5-foot-deep pool behind a Ritz-Carlton hotel and
near the trendy Phipps shopping plaza.
Tami Schroder, an investigator for the Fulton County Police Department, said
police had ruled the death an accidental drowning. "There was no indication
of foul play, no traumas or body marks," Schroder said.
Atlanta police spokesman John Quigley said that the psychic was wearing a
black dress and headband and that a large quantity of cash was found in her
straw purse on a nearby bench. Her 1999 Mercedes 500-S was parked in the
neighborhood.
Marks had had a prosperous career as a psychic, operating out of her home in
Atlanta, for 35 years.
She was famous for predicting winners of Major League Baseball's World
Series, and her daughter, Katherine Bell, said she took credit for breaking a
long Atlanta Braves losing streak.
"She broke the Braves' curse, which finally brought them to the World
Series," Katherine Bell said.
Marks was known to love water, and friends and family told Reuters she might
have gone wading.
