Just What We Don't Need

Here's a disturbing story.

Albuquerque police say that a the city's latest homicide may have taken place during a Wiccan spring celebration.

Police say that 30-year-old Angela Sanford, who claims to be a practicing witch, stabbed and killed Joel Leyva Monday afternoon in the open space area near the Tramway bike trail at Tramway and Copper.

According to police, Sanford, who had met Leyva a week ago at a local casino, invited him to the foothills for the Wicca celebration of spring, known as Beltane.

The two drank beer and police say Sanford claims she squatted along the trail to urinate.

The woman told police that Leyva then approached her from behind and tied her hands with a rope belt Sanford had been wearing. She said she was able to get the rope belt off and stabbed Leyva with a Wicca dagger.

“At some point, she was able to convince the man to disrobe and, while on top of him, stabbed him multiple times,” said APD Chief Ray Schultz.

Schultz says that Sanford is charged with murder and is being held in lieu of a $500,000 bond.

He says investigators are still investigating Sanford's claims regarding Wicca.

My hope is that this turns out to be the equivalent of the woman who claims she was abducted by a scary black man and then turns out to have been lying all along. Of course, its not till the end of the story that we find out that police are still investigating the claims regarding Wicca.

And, "at some point, she was able to convince the man to disrobe"????????? And then she stabbed him? Not like any Wiccan Ostara celebration I've ever heard of.

More here.

And, as Morgaine points out in comments, there's the odd conflation of Ostara and Beltane -- not a mistake most Wiccans would make.