West Virginia law enforcement said a mother who shot and killed her five kids before burning down their home and killing herself last year was reportedly obsessed with witchcraft.
During a recent press conference, Greenbrier County Sheriff Bruce Sloan said 25-year-old Oreanna Antoinette Myers killed her three kids and two stepchildren at their home near Williamsburg on December 8.
As the Associated Press (AP) reported:
Myers’ husband stayed with relatives instead of at home during the work week due to transportation issues, Sloan said. Text messages between Myers and her husband showed that his absence during the week had been “a tremendous source of contention” between them.
Sloan said he was unaware of whether the woman was under treatment for any diagnosed mental illness at the time of the deaths. But in a note she left, she complained about the lack of treatment for mental illness, according to the sheriff.
Raven Bumgarner, the mother of Myers’ two stepchildren, told reporters this week that Myers was into witchcraft and planned rituals, kept tarot cards, crystals, and dead butterflies in jars.
“She was into witchcraft, she would post things on her Facebook and Instagram,” Bumgarner said, adding, “She was always talking about the phases of the moon and these rituals and tarot cards and different books and witchy things.”
“She was like, ‘Oh this moon is in this phase, this is a ritual for new beginnings, I’m going to go and run naked in the fields,” she continued.
Bumgarner also claimed her ex-husband, Brian, knew about Myer’s alleged obsession with witchcraft and spiritualism.
“She had a glass jar together that she had for Brian with some of her crystals, and she collected dead butterflies, she had them in jars,” she stated.
On what appears to be Myers’ Instagram account, a photo posted November 25 shows a jar with dead moths and a feather inside.
“Made me some insect jars. This a thing or just an Oreanna thing? Lol,” the post read.
When asked if she believes Myers’ interest in rituals had anything to do with the tragedy, Bumgarner said, “Maybe, in the suicide note she kept referring to how her demons won.”
In a letter Myers left behind for her mother, she wrote, “I’m sorry. This is no one’s fault but my own. My demons won over me and there’s no going back. So sorry I wasn’t strong enough.”
Sloan told reporters there was “history that Oreanna was involved in some occult practices, witchcraft and spiritualism, contacting the dead.”
“It’s not normal, is it unheard of? No,” he continued, adding that despite Myers’ interests he did not think the killings were part of a ritual.