Cold Feet at Louisianna KKK Ritual Leads to Murder

Authorities identify Oklahoma woman slain during Ku Klux Klan ritual in St. Tammany Parish

The Tulsa, Okla, woman allegedly slain by a member of the Ku Klux Klan on Sunday when she tried to back out of an initiation rite in St. Tammany Parish has been identified as 43-year-old Cynthia C. Lynch, authorities said Wednesday.

Lynch, who was identified with the help of family members and medical records, died of a gunshot wound, St. Tammany Parish Coroner's Office spokesman Mark Lombard said.

A woman who tried to flee a Ku Klux Klan initiation rite was shot to death by the group's leader in a remote campsite on a sandbar in the swamps of Louisiana, officials told local media.

The woman had found the Sons of Dixie group on the Internet and taken a bus down from her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma so she could be initiated into the secretive white supremacist group and then recruit others in Oklahoma.

She arrived on Friday and underwent several rites, including having her head shaved, St. Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain said at a press conference Tuesday.

She was then taken to the campsite that was accessible only by boat where the rituals continued, consisting mainly of lighting torches "running around in the woods," the New Orleans Times Picayune quoted Strain as saying.

At some point on Sunday evening, the woman decided she wanted to leave and got into an argument with group leader Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44 who pulled out a .40 caliber handgun and shot her.

"We believe he then rolled her over and began a process of removing the bullet from her body" with a knife, Strain told reporters as he stood before the Ku Klux Klan costumes recovered from the campsite.