London, USA - Police don't anticipate filing charges in the case of a woman who died after being bitten by a rattlesnake she was handling in church.
Police identified the woman yesterday as Linda F. Long, 48, of London. She was bitten in the face at a church service in Laurel County on Sunday evening and died a little before 11 p.m. at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, where she was flown for treatment.
"She was a real good Christian person," said Opal Wagers, who sometimes attends services at the church where Long was bitten.
Handling snakes in a religious service is a misdemeanor in Kentucky. But Sgt. Brad Mitchell of the Laurel County Sheriff's Office said it could be difficult to prosecute such a charge because it involves a matter of religious freedom.
Police plan to interview people who were at the service, but if the situation is as it appears -- that Long was a willing participant and the death was an accident -- it's unlikely any charges will be filed, Mitchell said.
Mitchell also noted that the potential charge is only a misdemeanor and that Long has paid "the ultimate price."
"We don't want to bring them any more grief than we have to," Mitchell said of Long's family and fellow churchgoers.
Authorities have declined to prosecute snake-handling believers in other recent cases in Kentucky.
Perhaps the last time believers were charged was in 1988 in Knox County. A judge dismissed the charges against four church members at the request of the county attorney, who said the law against handling snakes in religious services probably wouldn't withstand a constitutional challenge.
The county attorney in Bell County filed a complaint against a snake-handling preacher in 1995 after a woman was bitten at a Middlesboro church and died, but a judge refused to issue a summons for the preacher.
"Although the general public finds snake-handling to be a strange and repugnant religious practice, there is no question in my mind that the people who participate in these services believe with all their hearts that God commands them to do so despite the occasional tragic consequences of their actions," Judge James L. Bowling wrote at the time.
There was little detail available yesterday about Long or the service at which she was bitten. The Fayette County Coroner's Office said a funeral home in Rose Hill, Va., was in charge of Long's burial; a woman who answered at that funeral home declined to comment.
Religious snake-handlers often are reluctant to talk about the practice or deaths of believers, in part because of a concern they will be mocked or misunderstood.
Snake-handlers believe the practice shows faith and God's power. The text for the belief is Mark 16:17-18: "And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
The number of Pentecostal or Holiness churches where members practice what they call "serpent-handling" is small and concentrated in Appalachian areas of Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama. Believers often travel to services in other states.
Long was bitten at the East London Holiness Church. Police have information that says she was handling a yellow timber rattler that struck her on the right cheek, Mitchell said.
Others from the church took Long to Marymount Medical Center in London; she was flown from there to UK.
The sheriff's office in Lee County, Va., said Long apparently was related by marriage to a snake-handling preacher there who died in April 2004 after being bitten by a snake during an Easter service.
The Rev. Dwayne Long, 45, of Rose Hill, which is just across the state line from Kentucky, was holding a rattlesnake when it bit him on a finger. He refused treatment, as snake-handlers often do, and died the next day, authorities said then.
Before Linda Long's death, the last death in Kentucky from a snakebite during a religious service was in December 1997. Daril R. Collins, 23, of Barbourville died after being bitten during a service in Bell County.