MIAMI, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A UFO "church" has issued a statement disavowing any connection with the apparently intentional starvation deaths of a Miami family.
The bodies of Daniel Boli-Gbagra, 48, Magali Gauthier, 48, and her 23-year-old daughter, Tara Andreze-Louison, were found wasted away in April in what Miami police said appeared to have been a case of slow, deliberate starvation in their duplex, The Miami Herald reported Thursday.
The Raelian Movement, which believes life was created by an advanced race of humans who came from another planet, said in a statement it had occasional contact in New York 10 years ago with Boli-Gbagra and his then-wife but that he had been off their "member list" for seven years.
Police said Raelian books and magazines and a diary expressing Raelian ideas were found with the bodies.
Donna Newman, identified in a news release as the Raelian priestess for Miami, said Raelians have a "zest for life'' and suicide generally violates their beliefs.
Referring to Boli-Gbagra and his former wife during the movement's contact with them in New York, Newman said, "Although they seemed to find the Raelian Movement's philosophy interesting, they also had a lot of mystical beliefs of their own that didn't fit with our philosophy."
"We tried to help them with some of those mystical beliefs, but then Daniel and his [former] wife vanished," Newman said in a statement.
