COVINGTON, La. - An Oklahoma woman recruited to come to a rural Louisiana Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot to death after she asked to leave, authorities said. Eight people were arrested.
The woman, whose identity has not been released, lived near Tulsa, Okla., and was recruited via the Internet to come to Louisiana for a KKK initiation, according to a news release Tuesday from St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain.
Strain said the woman arrived in Slidell, La., last week, and was met by two people connected with the white-supremacist group. She was taken to a remote campsite near Pearl River in southeast Louisiana.
On Sunday, the woman asked to be brought back to town. A fight broke out and she was fatally shot by the group's leader, the sheriff said.
Several people in the group tried to cover up the crime by burning items at the campsite, including all of the woman's belongings, Strain said.
The woman's body was found Monday along the side of a road in the small St. Tammany community of Sun, about 60 miles north of New Orleans, the sheriff said. The campsite was later discovered several miles north on the bank of the Pearl River. Deputies retrieved several items, including weapons, several flags, and six Klan uniforms.
One of the suspects, identified as 44-year-old Raymond "Chuck" Foster, no address available, was booked on a second-degree murder charge and was being held without bond. Five others were booked on obstruction of justice charges and their bonds were initially set at $500,000 each. Charges were pending against two others.
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