Newspaper Article

Parents blame women's death on church
By Roger Tait And Carole Jacobs
Published by Daily Local News on 02/8/79

Kimberly Hughes, 20, of West Chester, was discovered dead yesterday morning in a Boothwyn house, and her mother accused members of the First Baptist Church of Concordville of persuading the girl not to take medicine to control her severe epilepsy.

Joan Roscoe of 421 W. Neilds st., West Chester, said members of the congregation talked her daughter into being treated by a homeopathic physician in Sellersville who prescribed worm pills and sugar far her condition.

An autopsy performed yesterday by the Delaware County coroner's office was inconclusive, and a final report on Kimberly hughes' death will not be issued until toxicology reports are completed.

Larry J. Rendin, acting coroner of Delaware County. Upper Chichester Township police, and stale police are investigating the death.

Upper Chichester chief Anthony Mastro said Larry and Debbie Hyrne of 1116 Meeting House rd., Boothwyn, found Miss Hughes' body in a bedroom al their home at 6 a.m. yesterday.

She was declared dead on arrival at Sacred Heart Hospital, Chester, at 7:06 a.m., police said. According to
Chief Mastro, she could have died anytime after 11 p.m. Tuesday, when the family went to bed.

With Hyrnes two days
Relatives of the Byrnes said they were both members of the First Baptist Church of Concordville. Miss Hughes had' reportedly been staying with the Hyrnes for only two days before she died, although Roscoe said the church had been keeping her daughter since mid-November, when she left home.

She said her daughter was attending St. John's College, which is an unaccredited four-year school on the First Baptist Church's 25-acre property in Concord Township, the site of the former Delaware County Community College. The professed aim of the college is to prepare its students for missionary work.

According to Roscoe, Kimberly was living at the college briefly before moving in with another church member, Erik Ahlquist of Aston. It was Ahlquist who told her daughter when to take her anti-convulsant drugs and when not to lake them, Roscoe said.

She suspected Kimberly hadn't been taking them for weeks when the girl had two successive major seizures in the Rescues' living room two days before she left her parents.

Roscoe said she saw her daughter occasionally after that. They found it impossible to talk about the church. The fast time was a week or two ago, when Kimberly and another church member came to her house to pick up a piece of furniture.

Didn't look good
"She didn't look good," Roscoe said. "She looked very white, like she did when she had her two seizures."

Roscoe said her daughter was first diagnosed as epileptic when she was 8 months old. Her stepfather, William Roscoe, who had helped raise her since age 3, said the family had spent thousands of dollars on treatment al Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins, and a clinic in Rochester, N.Y., as well as in Chester County.

The Roscoes described Kimberly as a quiet girl, not boisterous, but acutely aware of being different because of her epilepsy, which prevented her from getting a driver's license. Although she was conscientious about taking her medicine once she was old enough to understand why she needed it, she wanted a cure.

"She told me the church would cure her, so she could drive," said her uncle, Arthur Hawthorne of West Chester. The family showed a reporter two boxes and a vial of pills they said were given to Kimberly by a homeopathic physician connected with the church.

The reporter watched Hawthorne swallow one of the pills, to the horror of the Roscoes. "I'd be willing to bet, by God, that's sugar," he said.

Worm medicine
The Roscoes said the doctor, Thomas Marsteller of Sellersville, had diagnosed Kimberly's condition as worms, and gave her worm medicine to take with the other pills. Mrs. Roscoe said she destroyed the other pills.

Marsteller was out of his office this morning and could not be reached for comment.

The Roscoes said church members were told Marsteller and his mother could also cure cancer and diabetes.

The church, led by Dr. Frederick Drummond, was recently torn apart when 100 of its 400 members left to form a splinter congregation, charging Drummond and other top ministers with misappropriation of funds and making homosexual advances to two students at St, John's. According to the Roscoes, Drummond demands a 60 percent contribution from church members.

They said their daughter recently gave the church a $500 cashier's check as an offering. It was one-third of her savings. "She kept saying how poor the people are," Mrs. Roscoe said.

Mrs. Roscoe said two ministers of the church were wearing "very, very expensive suits" when they visited the Roscoes to convert them to the church.

Two former members who live in West Chester say Drummond never preached against taking medicine.

Chief Mastro said Kimberly had a bottle of pills with her at the time of her death.

Delaware County coroners' office employees said they have identified the pills, but would not tell the Local News what they were.

When asked for comment yesterday, a representative of the First Baptist Church, who declined to identify himself, said Drummond was unavailable for comment. Asked for further details, he said, "I appreciate your calling, but we will have no comment. Good day."

Miss Hughes was born in West Chester and lived there most of her life and was a 1977 graduate of East Senior High School.

Surviving besides her mother is her father, Robert Hughes of Exton, a brother, Jeffrey R., of Syracuse, N.Y. and her maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Grebb of West Chester.

Funeral services will be Saturday at 10:30 a.m. from the Smith Funeral Home, West Chester. Interment will be in Oaklands Cemetery, West Chester.