New Light
SNAKE BITE IS FATAL. RELIGIOUS ADHERENT DIES FROM BITE
AFTER REFUSING MEDICAL AID
The death of 48-year-old Robert Cordle, who refused medical aid after being bitten by a rattlesnake during church services, brought 1,500 curious persons today to a funeral home to see his body.
While the throngs passed the bier of the Doran resident, the Richlands council passed an ordinance outlawing the use of snakes in religious services and sent officers to the New Light church to destroy the reptiles there.
Commonwealth’s Attorney John B. Gillespie, who estimated the visitors at the funeral home totaled 1,500, said after an investigation that no arrests would be made. He explained that the state of Virginia has no law, similar to that in Kentucky, forbidding the use of snakes in church services.
J. W. Grizzel of Bradshaw, itinerant pastor who preached at the services Thursday night when Cordle was bitten, was questioned by Gillespie.
The Commonwealth’s attorney quoted Grizzel as saying:
“I was dancing with the snake held above my head. Brother Cordle approached me and took the snake from my hands. I told him not to touch it unless he was ready.”
After a moment, the rattler struck Cordle in the arm, Gillespie said Grizzle told him. Cordle threw the snake into the lap of George Hicks, 15, and then was taken to the home of a friend and later to his own home.
—The Ashland Daily Independent
CHILD, SNAKEBITTEN AT RITES, MAY GET
MEDICAL CARE
Kinsmen of snake-bitten Leitha Ann Rowan permitted her examination by a physician today, but barred actual treatment and claimed she was recovering rapidly in justification of their sect’s belief that faith counteracts venom.
The six-year-old child was brought to Sheriff W. I. Daughtrey’s office today by relatives, after having been missing for three days while her mother, Mrs. Albert Rowan, sought to avoid treatment for the girl.
Dr. H. W. Clements did not support relatives’ claims that Leitha Ann was almost fully recovered but said she had made some progress in overcoming the effects of a Copperhead Moccasin’s bite sustained eight days ago in religious rites at her farm home near here.
He said her condition remained serious and directed that she be brought to his office for another examination Monday.
Meanwhile the child’s father, a mild-mannered tenant farmer, and preacher-farmer W. T. Lipahm, tall leader of the snake-handling folk, remained in jail on charges of assault with intent to murder. Sheriff Daughtrey said they would be allowed freedom under $3,000 bonds when the child is pronounced out of danger.
—Atlanta Journal
MAN SUFFERS SNAKE BITE DURING
RELIGIOUS RITES
A man listed by chief of police Ralph Tuggle as Raymond Hayes of Harlan county was in a serious condition today from the bite of a copperhead snake suffered yesterday during religious exercises in a vacant storeroom.
Hayes and three other persons, including a woman, were under bond Chief Tuggle said, pending a hearing Friday on charges of violating a Kentucky statute prohibiting the use of snakes in religious ceremonies.
Tuggle said the four first appeared on the courthouse square and started to hold services from the bandstand but that he dispersed them. The chief said they then secured a vacant storeroom which was quickly crowded and before police could break up the gathering Hayes had been bitten by the copperhead.
—Barbourville, Ky., Advocate
MAN DIES OF SNAKE BITE. SECOND MEMBER OF RELIGIOUS
SECT TO DIE IN FOUR DAYS; BITTEN DURING SERVICES
County Attorney Dennis Wooton listed Jim Cochran, 39, unemployed mechanic, today as the second member of an eastern Kentucky snake-handling religious sect to die within four days as the result of bites suffered during church services.
Bitten on the right hand Sunday morning Cochran, married and father of several children, died 18 hours later at his home at nearby Duane.
Mrs. Clark Napier, 40, mother of seven children, died Thursday night at Hyden, coal-mining community in adjacent Leslie county, and County-Judge Pro-Tem Boone Begley said she had been bitten at services.
Wooton said Jimmy Stidham, Lawsie Smith and Albert Collins were fined $50. each after Cochran’s death on charges of violating the 1940 anti-snake-handling law. Unable to pay, they were jailed, he said.
Elige Bowling, a Holiness church preacher, is under bond pending grand jury action on a murder charge in the death of Mrs. Napier. Wooton said Perry county officials would be guided on further prosecution in the Cochran case by disposition of the Leslie county case.
—Corbin, Ky., Times
Finding themselves in the throes of the law, members of the snake-handling sect at times turned to drinking poison in testing their faith. There was no legislation to prevent it, the leaders craftily observed. However, in some southern mountain states such a measure has been advocated.
At times, nevertheless, even in cases of death from snakebite during religious service, county officials refused to prosecute, saying the matter was up to the state itself to dispose of.