Msg#: 6528 *Wicca* 07-09-90 10:16:00 (Read 0 Times) From: SHADOW HAWK To: ALL Subj: PT RICHEY CASE Carried in the Palm Beach Post Times 7/9/90 By Kirk Brown Staff Writer New Port Richey- Mix a group of self-proclaimed witches with several Bible toting neighbors,, stir in some bickering about property lines, and it creates a potion called trouble. Ill will brewing between Linda Cornwell, who leads rituals on a tiny island behind her house, and other homeowners on a rutted dirt road near Moon Lake Park has bubbled over in recent incidents that included gunfire, death threats, and arrests of two juveniles. "All of this is very upsetting to us," said Cornwell, 42, High Priestess of the Lothlorien Coven, whose 12 members call themselves witches and practice Wicca, an ancient religion. "We just want to be left alone." Cornwell's neighbors on Marigold Drive say they also are seeking privacy. "We moved out here for peace and quiet," said Linda Streeter, 37, who lives with her husband and 14-year-old daughter next door to Cornwell in a trailer that they now want to sell. Streeter says that her family's serene life has been shattered by the witches bizarre late-night ceremonies. The problems between the witches and their neighbors started last summer when the Streeter's daughter found numerous ritualistic ornaments that Cornwell had carved by hand and left on the island. "As soon as I saw it, I knew it was weird witches' stuff," said the girl's stepfather, Ronald Streeter, 28. Mistakenly thinking that the island in a pond filled with lily pads was his land, Streeter tossed the ornaments into the water. He and his wife agreed to pay Cornwell $325 in restitution after learning that the island was part of their neighbor's 6-acre parcel. Cornwell said she received only $100.00 dollars and then was bitten in the leg by a dog when she walked over to the trailer to discuss the unpaid money. She sued the couple as a result of the bite, which needed six stitches, and won a $319 judgement in April that has not been paid, Pasco County court records show. During a ceremony about one month ago, several witches noticed that they were being watched by people hiding in the cypress woods. Cornwell's home was pelted with eggs several hours later. Cornwell said she also received two threatening letters the same week. One warned the witches to end their "Satan worshipping or be prepared for worse. Next time we won't stop at eggs." "We are the ultimate enemy," the other note read. "We are out to kill!" Two boys, ages 13 and 14, have been arrested in connection with sending the notes and setting fire to Cornwell's front yard. Out of concern for their safety, Cornwell said the witches gathered for a protection ceremony. During the ceremony, she said a .357-caliber Magnum was fired at each four points representing each direction on a compass as a symbolic gesture to their war god. The witches said that two gun-toting neighbors soon opened fire. "I laid with my face on the ground for 15 minutes while bullets whizzed above my head," said witch Tina Phillips, 19. But neighbors say it was the witches who fired most of the shots. "We heard about 15 shots from the island, and my husband fired his shotgun three times up in the air," said Sherry Gray, who lives down the road from Cornwell. "Then they all came running over here yelling that we were trying to shoot witches." No one was hurt or arrested in connection with the disturbance, according to police reports. But the feud immediately became center ring in a media circus. On June 21, with television cameras from Tampa area stations and a national new program rolling, a band of angry residents read from the Bible and sang Christmas carols as a procession of chanting witches in flowing robes walked across a bridge to Cornwell's island for a candlelight ceremony celebrating the summer solstice. "We wanted to show the witches that we love God and that we don't want them out there doing their strange rituals," Gray said. "It scares me to wake up in the middle of the night and hear them chanting back there, and it scares me that there are a lot of animals disappearing around here," she said. "I am sure that they are either into bestiality or animal sacrifices, because we've heard screams and squeals of chickens and pigs from the island." Gary's allegations are non-sense, say the witches, who argue that the neighbor's do not understand Wicca's emphasis on worshipping nature and its prohibitions against hurting anyone. The witches also insist that they do not believe in Satan. "We believe the Earth is the mother that fives birth to all life," said Phillips, who works as an animal trainer. She has a Wiccan tattoo on her arm, and her 18-month old son wears a religious amulet around his neck. More than a dozen reporters have contacted the witches in the past three weeks, Cornwell said. But the coven's belief in witchcraft raises few eyebrows at the nearby Boondocks Bar. "It ain't like they are the wicked witches of the North; they are just normal people," bartender Tina Ludwith said. "They've got my 100 percent support." New Port Richey Mayor Peter Altman isn't losing sleep worrying about witches. "We have been getting more rain ever since they have been out there dancing around, so maybe some good is coming out of it," joked Altman, whose Gulf Coast city had a short-lived boom in the 1920's as a moviemaking locale and is a retiree-dominated community of 18,000 people. But Lady Ygraine Osborn, a Jenson Beach woman who is director of the state's Witches Anti-Defamation Lobby, said the harassment of witches is a serious issue. "We witches are no strangers to persecution," said Osborn, who estimated there are thousands of witches throughout Florida but many are afraid to practice their beliefs openly. "We have been burned, hanged, ostracized and systematically put down for the last 1,500 years."