May Otis Blackburn

"[1] She is notable as an ultimately successful defendant in an unusual legal case turning on whether her failure to publish and print a promised book was knowingly fraudulent as contended by the complaining witness, Clifford Dabney.

Any legislative attempt to limit or regulate persons in their claims to the possession of exceptional spiritual power or knowledge would be rejected as a dangerous invasion of the state into the realm of religious freedom and privilege, which, from the beginning of our government, has been guarded by constitutional barriers.

The organization's most notable alleged victims include Blackburn's son-in-law, Samuel Rizzio, missing and thought to have been poisoned for striking Blackburn's daughter, though his body was never found;[5] Willa Rhoads, deceased, a cult "princess" who died under mysterious circumstances, and whose body was kept preserved on ice for fourteen months before being ritually buried with seven sacrificial dogs beneath the floor of her parents' home;[6] and Frances Turner, deceased, a paralyzed woman who was placed in a makeshift oven for two days, resulting in death.

On November 30, 1931, that court ruled that evidence regarding suspected cult deaths or disappearances were introduced by prosecutors that had no bearing on the fraud charges and which prejudiced the jury against Blackburn.

[2] The court concluded: "We have set forth but briefly disclosures of the record before us, and in our investigation we have been unable to see what relevancy the gruesome story of the preservation of the body of Willa Rhoads, in the promise of resurrection, could have borne to the issue of whether or not the defendant applied the moneys which she received from the complaining witness to the purposes for which they were procured.

We feel, as did the District Court of Appeal, that the evidence as to both of the events above adverted to, must have prejudiced the defendant in the minds of the jury to the extent that the testimony offered in her defense could not have received the deliberate consideration that the law accords to all persons charged with crime.