ATTLEBORO -- "A ten-month baby mysteriously died in southeastern Massachusetts. But when police tried to investigate, they were met with a wall of silence. The baby’s parents belong to a small, secretive religious sect. The only clue, a bizarre handwritten journal that an ex-sect member turned over to police, led prosecutors to allege that the parents, acting on what they believe to be a message from God, deliberately starved their child to death. But who is really responsible? In an exclusive network interview, the ex-sect member who broke the case open tells all ..
So goes the introduction to a Dateline NBC segment slated for today at 9 p.m., by correspondent Keith Morrison, which will feature an Attleboro, Mass. eccentric Christian group that made weekly headlines throughout last year. The group’s leader,his wife and sister are charged in the death of two children.
A sect member for 10 years, Dennis Mingo returned as an outsider more than a year ago to see the group praying in his former yard, guarding his children, where he discovered what had been known as a handwritten journal -- the center piece of evidence police say explains the tragic death of two young children.
Police allege sect leader Jacques Robidoux and his wife Karen watched their nearly 1-year-old son Samuel starve to death -- because Jacques sister, and Dennis’ wife, Michelle Robidoux Mingo, had a vision.
According to the journal, Michelle Mingo prophesied that it was God’s will to withhold food from Samuel and the Robidouxs went along with it. They watched the baby starve over a period of two months, become nearly comatose, and finally die just days before his first birthday. Jacques Robidoux allegedly told other sect members to ignore the child’s suffering.
They had remained silent for months as authorities investigated the disappearance of Samuel and Jeremiah Corneau, the son of sect members David and Rebecca Corneau.
During the investigation after a promise of immunity for himself and his wife, Corneau broke his silence and led police to a remote spot in Baxter State Park in Maine, where the two children had been buried. Investigators believe the Corneau baby died shortly after his birth.
Rebecca Corneau gave birth last month to a daughter who remains in state custody pending a court decision on where she should be placed.
Rebecca Corneau had been in state custody before the birth after a judge decided her unborn child needed protection.
Dennis Mingo said that it wasn’t difficult to fathom the motivations of the Robidouxs and his former wife. "These people thought they were doing God’s will," Mingo said.