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Survivor recounts confused, chaotic cult rite that killed 7

Residents gather at a school in the jungle community of El Terron, Panama, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020. A pregnant woman, five of her children and a neighbor where round on up by about 10 lay preachers at the remote hamlet on Jan. 13 and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them "repent their sins", authorities said. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)
Residents gather at a school in the jungle community of El Terron, Panama, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020. A pregnant woman, five of her children and a neighbor where round on up by about 10 lay preachers at the remote hamlet on Jan. 13 and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them "repent their sins", authorities said. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco) Residents gather at a school in the jungle community of El Terron, Panama, Friday, Jan. 17, 2020. A pregnant woman, five of her children and a neighbor where round on up by about 10 lay preachers at the remote hamlet on Jan. 13 and tortured, beaten, burned and hacked with machetes to make them "repent their sins", authorities said. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

By JUAN ZAMORANO / The Associated Press 4 min read

SANTIAGO, Panama (AP) – A survivor of the cult ceremony that killed her daughter and six other people in a remote village in Panama says she was ordered to close her eyes, was beaten and knocked unconscious during the ritual.

The account Monday by Dina Blanco suggests the 14 surviving participants were helpless, bound, unconscious or sightless much of the time.

So the truth about what happened in the bizarre ceremony may only come out at the trials of the nine villagers charged with killing their neighbors in the hamlet of El Terrón last week.

Blanco said from her hospital bed in the nearest city, Santiago, that she had gone to previous prayer meetings at the improvised church in a long wooden shed before. But this time, the tone had changed, and she didn’t go willingly.

The cult, which had operated in the village for about three months, changed after a member had a vision, telling the lay preachers they had been “annointed” to exterminate unbelievers.