Stupid is as Stupid Does

December 27, 2008

While researching the article that you are now reading, I found it difficult to determine who possessed the least amount of intelligence - the victim, 43-year-old Cynthia Lynch, or those who allegedly recruited her into their group, claiming to be members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Normally I would never censure or be reproachful toward a homicide victim, but in this case, as you will see, I have to call into question the mental reasoning that led Lynch, who was from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to allow herself to be recruited - over the Internet, no less - into the ranks of a Louisiana hate group. The bad decision ultimately cost Lynch her life. Nonetheless, it is just so difficult to understand why a normal, reasoning adult would want to associate with a group as despicable as the KKK, or even with one of its offshoots.

After communicating with the hate group's representatives via the group's Website, it is believed that Lynch made her way by bus to Louisiana during the latter part of the first week of November 2008. When she arrived in Slidell - presumably sometime on or around Saturday, November 8, 2008 - located off Interstate 10 a few miles southwest of Pearl River, Lynch was met by two members of the group that called itself the Sons of Dixie and, alternatively, the Dixie Brotherhood. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group was also known as the Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. All of the different names that the group went by only served to further confuse the situation, in part by showing that they did not know what to call themselves. Regardless of whether the group was an official KKK branch or not, Lynch was promptly taken to a campground in a remote area where she was to have been initiated into the group and, it is believed, endured nearly 24 hours of initiation rites.

According to the police, the initiation ritual consisted of chanting, shaving Lynch's head, and "running around in the woods" all night with lighted torches. Instead of finishing the ritual because she had reportedly become homesick for Oklahoma, Lynch asked to be taken back to Slidell so that she could catch a bus home prior to becoming an official member, and an argument ensued. The group's leader, Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, from Bogalusa, Louisiana, which was known as a hotbed of KKK activity in the 1960s, allegedly shot and killed Lynch because of the argument. Some group members allegedly dumped her body into a ditch and covered it with brush near the community of Sun, located approximately 55 miles north of New Orleans in St. Tammany parish near the Mississippi state line, not far from where the initiation ritual was to have occurred, and other members helped destroy evidence - in part by burning Lynch's belongings.

Investigators with the St. Tammany Sheriff's Department first became aware that something was terribly amiss when they received a call from a concerned convenience store clerk in Bogalusa who reported that two individuals, one of whom was Foster's son but both of whom he had recognized, had walked into the store and asked if the clerk knew how to remove bloodstains from clothing. With information obtained from the clerk, investigators were able to locate the two individuals and promptly arrested them. The arrest and communication with the individuals led the cops to several other members of the group who were still at the campsite. The investigators informed them via telephone that they were on their way to the campsite as part of an investigation. Surprisingly, the Sons of Dixie members waited for the cops to arrive.

Upon their arrival at the campsite investigators found weapons, an Imperial Wizard robe, Confederate flags, KKK banners, and five typical KKK white robes. There is little doubt that loose lips are what sank their ship as communication with the members helped move the investigation along. As a result, the cops learned that Foster had pushed Lynch down during the argument and subsequently shot her in the head with a .40-caliber handgun. They eventually found Foster attempting to hide in the woods, but in the end he surrendered and went along peacefully, as did seven others.

"The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," Sheriff Jack Strain said at a news conference. "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

Lynch's body was found the following day, on Monday, November 10, 2008. She had been shot in the head, and it appeared that an attempt had been made to remove the bullet - an apparent effort at covering up the crime.

"(Raymond) Foster, we believe, removed a knife from his pocket and rolled over the victim and began a process of trying to remove the bullet from her body…because he was trying to destroy evidence where law enforcement would not be able to piece these things together," Strain said to reporters.

Raymond Foster has been charged with second-degree murder and was being held without bail in the St. Tammany Parish jail. Also arrested were Foster's son, 20-year-old Shane Foster; Danielle Jones, 23; Frank Stafford, 21; Alicia M. Watkins, 23; Andrew Yates, 20; Timothy Michael Watkins, 30; and Random Hines, 27, all on charges of obstruction of justice. Each of the seven others was held on $500,000 bail.

On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, sheriff's department investigators searched a rental house in Bogalusa where Raymond Foster had resided for the past five years. They found a number of documents, additional Klan paraphernalia, and seized a computer for the files it contained. Membership applications were obtained, as was a membership hierarchy chart. The documents, according to Captain George Bonnett of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Department, provided the cops with "an indication of the organizational structure and the organizational guidelines" of the group. After Lynch's initiation, which the cops did not know whether had been completed or not, Lynch was supposed to return to Oklahoma where she was to have attempted to recruit others into the racist faction's Louisiana branch.

According to Mark Pitcavage, a director of the Anti-Defamation League, the Dixie Brotherhood, or by whatever name the group chose to call themselves, consisted of a small, loosely organized group of individuals.

"This is not what I would call an established Klan group," Pitcavage said. "The Klan has a pretty high association with violence. Some of these guys are just crooks, sociopaths."

"Really, it's a pathetic collection of losers and thugs," Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said. "Even across the radical right, most people look down their nose at the Klan these days."

Under Constitutional protections, each of those charged in this tragic case must have their day in court and be presumed innocent unless or until found guilty of the charges facing them.

Photo Credits: Police File Photos

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Comments

[SD Mittelsteadt]

Sigh. I'm not much of a proponent for the twisted interpretation of Darwin's law that we are familiar with today, but sometimes certain people come along who make you think twice. On the other hand, you have to feel,at least a little bit, for the people who get caught up in the irrational web of groups like the KKK. You wish could be there to show them another way.