Confused cult leader held for mental evaluation after group found
September 21, 2010
PALMDALE, California: A religious sect's leader has been admitted to hospital for mental evaluation after she and members of her group went missing and left behind evidence they were awaiting the Rapture or some catastrophic event.
Reyna Marisol Chicas was placed under a 72-hour mandatory hold after it was determined she was unable to care for herself or others.
Ms Chicas was said to have given investigators a false name and rambling answers during questioning. She had told police she had no children, even though her two children were with her.
A frantic search began after police issued an alert: members of a cult on the edge of the Mojave Desert had disappeared, leaving behind handwritten notes that raised fears they had planned a mass suicide.
The search ended on Sunday afternoon when the women from a small breakaway religious sect were found praying with their children at a local park.
The police had been searching the region for the five women and eight children since Saturday afternoon, after the husbands of two of the missing women brought letters their wives had left behind, in purses filled with mobile phones, identification and legal papers, to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.
The letters mentioned ''taking refuge'', ''going to heaven'' and wanting their families to join them.
One husband told the police his wife and others were part of a cult-like group who had been ''brainwashed'' by Chicas.
