A woman lost her life at the hands of a cult leader after she gave birth during a livestream. The birth, which was shown to the public via the livestream, went awry. By time the cult members got the young mother help, it was too late. Birth is a potentially dangerous experience, and if people aren’t prepared for or able to handle the possible complications, it can be fatal.
From the details that have emerged about the woman’s death, it seems that it was preventable, if only she had been surrounded by people who were thinking rationally about her safety and were not in a cult.
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The birth was livestreamed.
According to The Mirror, the young woman, who only went by the name Linda, went into labor and gave birth in a house in Plasy, Czechia, on September 8. The cult she was apparently part of livestreamed the birth.
Linda and her baby were connected by the umbilical cord as a part of spiritual practice, and that’s what led to Linda’s death.
The hours of connection made the young woman sick.
During the hours that Linda remained attached to her baby, she grew increasingly unwell, and she was eventually rushed to the hospital in critical condition. First, doctors diagnosed her as brain-dead, but she later died. The baby remained hospitalized. The house where Linda gave birth was seemingly headquarters for the cult.
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The cult leader blamed a 'demon' for the death.
The group, called Life in the Heart, blamed a “gray-haired demon” for Linda’s death. The cult’s 46-year-old self-proclaimed leader, known only as Lukas S., was the one who filmed the birth to share on his YouTube channel, and he gave a truly bizarre explanation for the death.
“In an embrace with Linda, ‘the gray hag,’ through her, told me without words, just through experience: ‘When it’s born, I will drown it,’ said ‘the gray hag,’ who is in all women. These are demons that influence us, turn us off, and enter our lives so that we don’t live with love. That’s how it is,” he said.
He claims they tried to save Linda's life.
“I tried to wake her up, looked into her eyes, but she didn’t respond. I slapped her face, she was like dead,” Lukas said. He said that other members of the cult who were present at the birth tried to resuscitate the woman.
“As if she had been underwater for 20 days. Her partner and the baby’s father, Marian, called emergency services, and we followed their instructions. We laid her in the hallway and started chest compressions. We kept massaging her, but she showed no signs of waking up,” he continued.
Police are investigating the death.
“We have initiated criminal proceedings on suspicion of the crime of causing bodily harm through negligence,” the police said in a statement, according to the outlet.
Those who live near the cult house do not know what to make of the cult members. “They’re crazy, they even go barefoot to the stores,” one resident claimed.
Another said, “The house belongs to the father of the child. He’s a local, bought it on a mortgage. He’s a smart guy, an IT professional, but he’s lost his mind.”
“Usually, it’s quiet, we don’t know much about them. But sometimes they throw a party and disturb the area. But mostly, we ignore them. We want nothing to do with them,” another person said.
