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Tammy D. Lewis, 35, and Alan A. Bushey, 57, both of Necedah, each were charged with two felony counts of causing mental harm to a child, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday. Lewis also faces one count of obstructing police.
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Alan Bushey, left, and Tammy Lewis |
The two, who are also known as Sister Mary Bernadett and Bishop John Peter Bushey, along with the dead woman, Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth, were part of a small Bible-based church led by Bushey, Juneau County Sheriff Brent Oleson said.
Investigators are trying to determine if they were defrauding Middlesworth, Oleson said, and additional charges against the two are “a very real possibility.” He said there is evidence Middles-worth provided financial support to the church and to Lewis and her family.
Lewis and Middlesworth were not related, he said, but had been living together with Lewis’ 15-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son about 3 1/2 years.
Oleson declined to call the church a cult but said “I guess in my mind I don’t know of any faith that sanctioned his teachings.”
Bushey had been living in the area about 11 years, Oleson said, did not have outside employment and had built a chapel on the back of his home, which is about a half-mile from where Middlesworth and Lewis lived. He said Bushey’s church had few members; only eight were at a Mass about two months ago.
He said Bushey’s church was not affiliated with the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine, which is less than a mile from Middlesworth’s home. The shrine itself is not a recognized part of the Catholic Church.
Rowina Arbanas, who lives two houses from the Lewis home, said she never got to know the family even though they had lived there for four years.
“I would say hello to them because we’re neighbors and that’s what neighbors do,” she said. “But they would never respond.”
Arbanas said she would see Lewis, her children and the elderly woman walking up and down the street, doing what looked like a religious procession. “They always wore pilgrim-like clothes and the women wore white veils,” she said.
“I always thought something was strange over there, since nobody seems to know them around here,” Arbanas said. “That always seemed fishy.”
Kevin George, who moved directly across from the Lewis house in February, said his neighbors were very quiet and kept to themselves. He said he saw the elderly woman a few times in the yard and occasionally would see the children walking down the street.
Richard Irwin, who has lived next to Bushey’s chapel for the past 10 years, said Bushey was shunned by the neighborhood for making “outlandish statements” and pushing his beliefs and philosophies on others.
“It was always a church, if you want to call it that,” he said of Bushey’s chapel. “He tried to associate himself with the (Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace) shrine, but did not have an association.”
According to the criminal complaint, the sheriff’s office was asked Wednesday to check on Middlesworth’s welfare by her sister, Bernice Metz, because Metz had not heard from her in “some time.”
Lewis initially told a deputy Middlesworth was on vacation, but after the body was discovered admitted she had been dead for about two months, according to the criminal complaint.
Lewis said she had been helping Middlesworth put on an undergarment when she passed out in her arms, then left the elderly woman propped on the toilet after Bushey, whom she referred to as her “superior,” said to leave her there and pray.
Lewis claimed to authorities that “God told her Alvina would come back to life if she prayed hard enough.” Bushey told the deputy “Lewis was obedient and served the Lord just as she should.”
The complaint states incense was used to cut down on the stench in the home, and Lewis said she and her children were using a bucket in a closet as a bathroom.
The 12-year-old boy later told investigators that after Middlesworth died, Bushey told him her appearance “was the result of demons attempting to make it appear that Alvina would not come back to life.”
The boy also reportedly said Bushey told him if Middlesworth’s death was discovered, he and his sister would have to go to public school and get jobs because the woman, whom the boy referred to as his “grandmother,” paid the bills.
The girl made similar statements to investigators, according to the complaint.
Both children are in protective custody, Oleson said, and physically healthy.
In court Friday, bond was set at $50,000 cash each for Lewis and Bushey, and they were ordered to have no contact with the children or each other.
Chris Rickert is a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison. State Journal reporters Sandy Cullen and George Hesselberg, and Juneau County Star-Times reporter Amanda Becker contributed to this article.
