Unsolved Deaths in 80s New Age Cult

[Cleopatra7]

Terri Hoffman (now Keanely) pulled herself up by her bootstraps to become a self-made New Age guru in the 1980s and early 90s. The problem is that her followers, children, and various husbands had a nasty had of committing suicide and getting in fatal accidents, and conveniently leaving all of their money and property to her. Of course this made a lot of people very suspicious, but she has never been charged with anything other than a white collar offense. Either Keanely is the unluckiest woman ever or she is the perfect murderer.

http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/december/rise-and-fall-of-a-north-dallas-cult-conscious-development (very long, but very informative article from 1982)

https://books.google.com/books?id=bC4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA154&ots=XAFa6Zf2gk&dq=%22the%20curse%20of%20the%20black%20lords%22&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false

(another very long Texas Monthly article from 1990 with even more victims added to the mix)

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/35m6t6/the_mysterious_deaths_that_surround_terri_hoffman/ (the TL;DR version from amateur reddit sleuths)

Keanely is still alive and kicking and doing some kind of New Age photography:

http://www.heavenandearthphoto.com/aboutartist.html

 

 

[THERetroGamerNY]

Well, isn't she a little angel of terror. O_o

I mean, seriously: She is spooky as hell!

[December]

That's so disturbing! I don't think I've read about this before -- and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't had more attention in the news (though maybe it did back in the day?).

[Cleopatra7]

27 minutes ago, December said:

That's so disturbing! I don't think I've read about this before -- and I'm kind of surprised it hasn't had more attention in the news (though maybe it did back in the day?).

From what I can tell, it was big news in Texas when it first happened, but without conclusive proof tying Keanely to the suicides/accidents. It looks like Keanely is keeping a low profile since serving her white collar crime, but part of my is thinking that she made so much money off the money that was so conveniently willed to her that she doesn't have to do much in the way of work other than do her New Age photography as a hobby.

[Four is Enough]

OOH, quite the angel of death!  Spooky, creepy, and pathological all at the same time! Why hasn't she ever been on Investigation Discovery?

[PopRox]

I have never heard of this woman before, but now I have fallen down the rabbit hole! Anyone want to call the rescue ferrets for me?

[Four is Enough]

1 hour ago, PopRox said:

I have never heard of this woman before, but now I have fallen down the rabbit hole! Anyone want to call the rescue ferrets for me?

Fuggedaboutit. She'll kill the rescue ferrets and inherit their estate. Get out of there, FAST!!

[16strong]

Those photographs are terrible! Apparently clouds are now angels and heavenly beings, and, uh... other unseen beings. Remind me why Fj was ripping Jinger a new one? At least she has a good camera. All the money this crazy woman has filched, and she couldn't be bothered to buy something better than a 1995 discount model at Kmart. Hell, an iphone takes better pics than what she's selling.

[Cleopatra7]

On 5/2/2016 at 7:23 PM, Four is Enough said:

OOH, quite the angel of death!  Spooky, creepy, and pathological all at the same time! Why hasn't she ever been on Investigation Discovery?

She probably hasn't been featured because there's no real "end" to the story. ID stories tend to have pat beginnings, middles, and ends. Even stories about People's Temple/Jonestown or Heaven's Gate have definite endings, even if they are tragic. There's no doubt that Jim Jones ordered the liquidation of Jonestown (although some tin foil hatters on the far left seem to think Jonestown was a CIA mind control program to kill black people, a situation that isn't helped by the fact that many government-related Jonestown documents are still classified or mysteriously disappeared") or that the Heaven's Gaters thought they were discarding "their vessels" to meet up with extraterrestrials on the Hale Bopp comet. In comparison, Keanely has never been charged with murder and there is no "smoking gun" that indicates that she was using undue influence to convince her followers to kill themselves. I wonder if some of the techniques she used to convince her followers that they were involved in "spiritual warfare" are like the ones extreme Pentecostal churches use when they claim to be fighting demons, Satan, etc.

[HighlandCow]

On a less grim note, her 'ART' is some of the worst photography I have ever seen.