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Woman is killed after KKK meet

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to leave, the sheriff of a New Orleans suburb said Tuesday.

Eight people were arrested after authorities found the woman’s body hidden under some brush several miles from the remote campsite.

Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the site, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said in a news release.

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Strain said the woman, whose identity was not released, was recruited over the Internet to participate in the ritual and then return home to find other members for the white supremacist group.

But Strain said the group’s leader, Raymond “Chuck” Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman Sunday after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Foster was charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond.

Capt. George Bonnett, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department, said that in three years with the department, this was the first time he had seen a case involving the KKK. He said he didn’t know whether Foster had an attorney.

Seven others -- five men and two women -- were charged with obstruction of justice and held on $500,000 bond at the St. Tammany Parish jail.

Authorities said the group’s members call themselves the Dixie Brotherhood.

“The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind,” Strain said, adding, “I can’t imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks.”

Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League said the Dixie Brotherhood appeared to be small and loosely organized.

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“This is not what I would call an established Klan group,” he said. “The Klan has a pretty high association with violence. Some of these guys are just crooks, sociopaths.”

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