TELLURIDE, Colorado (AP) — A woman who considered herself the spiritual leader of a doomsday cult in Colorado has been sentenced to 64 years in prison for her role in the deaths of two children who were banished to a car without food or water because the girls were thought to have been impure.
Madani Ceus was sentenced last Friday on two counts of felony child abuse resulting in death, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.
Investigators say they believe Ceus, of Haiti, declared that the two girls were possessed by unclean spirits during a past life and ordered them kept in the car as the group waited for the apocalypse before the 2017 solar eclipse.
“This cult found their way to our county and committed horrific abuse to these little girls, who died as a result of the inhumanity of Ms Ceus and her associates,” San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters said after the sentencing.
Ceus's husband, Ashford Archer, was convicted of two counts of fatal child abuse and one count of being an accessory to a crime and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.
