Yeah, and when I need legal help I contact my lawyer -- a graduate of Mack's Law School and Truck Stop (formerly Mack's College of Computer Programming).
Posted on 12/10/2005 6:48:18 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Hilary Karnda, a holistic healer and herbalist, told her friend Nov. 2 she was going to a send-off at Wildcat Mountain State Park and she needed a ride. She didn't tell her friend she was going away to die.
Pagan symbols found with her were the only clues investigators had to who she was when hunters found her body in the woods off Highway 131, in the park but not along a trail, on Thanksgiving Day.
Karnda, 64, died of exposure to the Wisconsin November cold, Vernon County Sheriff Gene Cary said Friday.
"There was no indication of fatal illness, and nothing to indicate she had any heart disease or cancer," said Cary.
She just started listening to her tape recorder, prepared a place beneath an oak tree, and let nature take her.
It took more than three weeks for investigators to piece together evidence linking the death to a pagan ceremony, then to Karnda's connection with pagan or pagan-related groups in an effort to identify the body, said Cary.
Karnda, who had lived in southern and southwestern Wisconsin, including Madison, most of her life, had been living in an apartment in Richland Center and before that in rural Muscoda. Authorities had not yet been able to contact her relatives Friday.
Karnda described herself in the Wisconsin Healer Pages, a directory of holistic healers, as an herbalist and natural healer with "12 years experience in the medical field" and a "Master Herbalist degree from the Wisconsin School of Natural Healing."
At first, investigators thought the unidentified woman was drawn to the scenic state park to die because of a nearby American Indian burial site and because of items left at the death scene. Foul play was not suspected, county deputies said in November.
The circumstances remained mysterious Friday, though the sheriff issued a statement saying investigators, after being told by Ho-Chunk authorities that the ritual was not Native American, contacted "an expert on cults." That person, who "did not want to be named," confirmed the connection with a pagan belief system.
"Paganism," which has various definitions rooted in a love for and kinship with nature, has adherents throughout Wisconsin. Cary would not say how Vernon County chose its expert.
"We plugged her in with what we had, and the first thing (the expert) asked was, 'Was the body at the base of an oak tree?' And it was. And she said, 'This is what you have: It is pagan, and you may want to try A, B or C," said Cary.
Found with Karnda were, among other clues, a five- pointed star and a leather pouch or medicine bag adorned with unspecified symbols and a necklace.
Either a cassette or compact disc player - Cary didn't know which - was also found, with the batteries run down.
"Once we charged that up, several things pagan were mentioned on that, too," said Cary.
There were "no identifying documents, no driver's license, no Social Security card, no letters or addresses, no medication bottles, none of that stuff. As far as a name, she didn't exist," said the sheriff.
"There is every indication she was alone when she died," said Cary, with the reservation that she did not tell her friends she was going to be alone. It appears she purposely misled the person who drove her to Wildcat Mountain State Park, saying she needed to meet some friends who were "going to perform a ceremony sending her off," said Cary.
"When this driver dropped her off, she had no reason to believe it wasn't going to be safe, and that she wasn't meeting her friends just over the hill," said Cary.
Lori Rutherford, the manager of the Richland Center apartment building where Karnda lived - 28 units, mostly one bedrooms and efficiencies - said she was "just shocked" at news of the death. She described Karnda as "a very lovely woman," friendly and "not sad."
In a profile she wrote for the Wisconsin Healer Pages, Karnda described herself as focused on helping her "clients become self-sufficient with their own health care, learning about their bodies, various holistic approaches and techniques, and how to sense their needs. My client's empowerment is my goal."
"I don't discuss disease, but rather health," she wrote.
Saturday Pagan Ping. ;)
Too bad for the "friend" that she tricked into dropping her off.
"Pagan", thats rather vague. Its like identifying someone as "Christian" in that it speaks to a broad potential set of beliefs but not the specific religion. The pentagram and herb pouch would have suggested to me that she was a Wiccan, possibly a reconstructed Druid, right away.
Yeah, and when I need legal help I contact my lawyer -- a graduate of Mack's Law School and Truck Stop (formerly Mack's College of Computer Programming).
I remember reading a story awhile ago about a guy that went into the Alaskan wilderness to commune with nature. He seemed singleminded in his determination to just wander into the wild without maps, unmindful of any danger through some romanticized ideal of the wilderness.
He died from starvation a few months later. His last journal entries were begging from help. This is part of the deception from the enemy, that nature and death are peaceful and good.
There is nothing romantic about dying from exposure. Death is an enemy.
So, she used too much "herb" and froze to death?
... and Holistic Small Engine Repair.
Found with Karnda were, among other clues, a five- pointed star and a leather pouch or medicine bag adorned with unspecified symbols and a necklace.
Located near the body were blueprints for a wren house to be made from her empty skull.
She described Karnda as "a very lovely woman,"
I think they misspelled "looney."
In a profile she wrote for the Wisconsin Healer Pages, Karnda described herself as focused on helping her "clients become self-sufficient with their own health care, learning about their bodies, various holistic approaches and techniques, and how to sense their needs. My client's empowerment is my goal."
That's how she described herself. Neighbors and acquaintances described her as "dippy," "a nutcase," and "crazier than an outhouse rat." One responded to the question by rotating his index finger repeatedly around his ear.
The Original HERBalist.
I hope she didn't forget her goat leggings...
I guess the St. Johns wort fix for depression didn't work on him eh ?
If that's what this was,
I admire her. When my Dad
was critically ill,
he really suffered
in the hospital before
he passed away. And
I saw quite a few
seniors in similar shape.
I do not want to
trivialize death
by this comparison but
I have noticed that
when cats become ill
they find secluded places
and expire in "peace."
Blastit him = her.
and with pagans thats often more true than you would expect.
I like the Montana approach.
Strip down to a loin cloth.
Get a buck knife
Find a Grizzly bear and piss him off.
Put yourself back in the food chain.
And in some immeasurably small but real way the aggregate IQ of the universe felt a rise.
bump
Her suicide is not much of a recommendation for her approach to life.
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