Wrapping up a bizarre and controversial three-year probe into the disappearance of an Attleboro cult baby, the reclusive sect's reputed leader was slated to go on trial today for allegedly starving the boy to death and secretly burying his body in Maine.
The twisted saga of The Body religious sect began in late 1999 when 10-month-old Samuel Robidoux was reported missing by an ex-cultist and cops dug up the sect's back yard. Finding nothing, Bristol County authorities launched an aggressive investigation into the fundamentalist group that resulted in the jailing of nine members for stonewalling police.
Eventually, cult member David Corneau caved in and led cops to a makeshift grave in Maine's Baxter State Park, where they found Samuel's skeletal remains and those of Corneau's infant son, Jeremiah, who died a questionable death during a home birth.
Based on medical evidence and the group's disturbing journals, prosecutors say the couple deliberately starved the boy to death over a three-week period after the boy's aunt, Michelle Mingo, delivered a deadly religious prophecy that said the boy was to be denied solid food. The journals vividly describe how the starving boy screamed in hunger pain for days until he lost his voice, became emaciated and died.
The first-degree murder trial of Jaques Robidoux was to begin this morning in Fall River with jury selection. The trial in Taunton Superior Court is expected to last three weeks. His wife will be tried separately for second-degree murder while Mingo will face trial on accessory charges.
Robidoux's attorney, Frank O'Boy of Taunton, called his client's case ``grossly over-indicted,'' saying the group did not intend for the boy to die. The sect rejects mainstream society, including doctors, and practices home births and herbal healing. O'Boy acknowledged the group's child-rearing ways may have led to the boy's death.
``There's no question there was some degree of undernourishment of the child, but that doesn't mean starvation,'' O'Boy said. ``Rather than talking murder, we should be talking negligence, or reckless conduct at the most.''
The mysterious and controversial case has sparked heated debate over religious freedom versus the government's obligation to protect children.
The Department of Social Services has taken more than a dozen children away from the group. In 2000, Bristol District Attorney Paul F. Walsh Jr. came under fire from women's and civil rights groups when he locked up Corneau's pregnant wife, Rebecca, to protect her child. The baby girl was born into state custody and is now in a permanent foster home.
Meanwhile, a grand jury is probing the disappearance of the Corneaus' most recent child. Rebecca Corneau is believed to have given birth last fall but the Corneaus say the baby died in a miscarriage. The Corneaus are in jail for refusing to lead prosecutors to the remains. Prosecutors, however, are skeptical of their story and believe the child may be hidden out of state with other cultists.