commentary by Patrick H. Moore
A few days ago, we posted an article about two Pennsylvania newlyweds, 19-year-old Miranda Barbour and 22-year-old Elytte Barbour, who, as one of their marriage goals, decided that they would lure someone into their web and murder him just for the fun of watching him die. To that end, they placed an ad in Craigslist offering female companionship in return for money. Their luckless victim was 6-foot-2, 278-pound, Troy LeFerrara.
The petite, long-haired Miranda lured the lonely LeFerrara into her red Honda CRV after they met for the first time at the Susquehanna Valley Mall. Unbeknownst to LaFerrara, when he got into the vehicle, Elytte Barbour was hiding under a blanket in the backseat of the car. He waited for the go-ahead signal from his wife, then rose up and wrapped a cord around LaFerrara’s neck and pulled it tight as Miranda began to plunge a pocket knife into the victim’s body. After stabbing LeFerrara approximately 20 times, they left him for dead in an alleyway.
At the time of the slaying, the couple, who were married in North Carolina, had been living in Pennsylvania for about three weeks. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against both of them for laying in wait and murdering LeFerrara.
Now, however, the Associated Press is reporting a serial killer bombshell unlike anything we have heard in recent years. In a recent interview with the Daily Item in Sunbury, PA, Ms. Barbour admitted to slaying LeFerrara and stated that she wants to plead guilty to that crime. But that’s not all she admitted to. In addition, the diminutive Miranda stated that she has killed at least 22 other people from Alaska to North Carolina in the last six years as part of her involvement in a satanic cult.
Ms. Barbour stated that she doesn’t really care if people believe her but that she wanted to tell her story to The Daily Item because she wanted to come clean and stop living a lie. She also said that she felt no remorse for her victims because she had killed only “bad people”.
She said she was sexually molested at age 4 by a relative and was introduced to murder at 13 by the man who led her to satanism, beliefs that she said she still held when she and her husband murdered LeFerrara.
Miranda’s mother, Elizabeth Dean, confirmed Saturday that her sister’s husband was later arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
“It was bad,” Dean said. “I never let (her) stay anywhere except for my sister’s house, and I was devastated when I found out.”
Nine years later, Miranda joined a satanic cult in Alaska. Her initiation into murder occurred when she went with the leader of the cult to meet a man who owed the leader money.
“It was in an alley and he (the cult leader) shot him,” she said, declining to identify the cult leader.
“Then he said to me that it was my turn to shoot him. I hate guns. I don’t use guns. I couldn’t do it, so he came behind me and he took his hands and put them on top of mine and we pulled the trigger. And then from there I just continued to kill.”
While in the satanic cult, Miranda claims she became pregnant. Because the cult did not want her to have the baby, she says, members tied her to a bed, gave her drugs and she had an “in-house abortion.”
However, her mother Elizabeth stated on Saturday said that when Miranda told her about the abortion, she took her to a doctor who said there were no signs of a discontinued pregnancy.
Miranda explained that she spent the next three years in Alaska, participating in the satanic cult and taking part in several murders.
“I wasn’t always there (mentally),” she said, adding that she had begun to use drugs. “I knew something was bad inside me and the satanic beliefs brought it out. I embraced it.”
Then Miranda became pregnant again.
“And I moved to North Carolina,” she said. “I wanted to start over and forget everything I did.”
Miranda claims that she left Alaska as a high-ranking official in the satanic world, leaving the father of her second pregnancy behind, a man named Forest, who was apparently later murdered.
She said in the interview that she doesn’t want to get out of jail and that she would kill again if she were released.
Ms. Barbour offered little detail on the murders other than that they occurred in Alaska, Texas, North Carolina and California. Although it is impossible, at this point, to determine whether Ms. Barbour’s claims are true in whole or in part, online records for her mother, Elizabeth Dean, reveal that she has lived in both Alaska and North Carolina.
Sunbury police Chief Steve Mazzeo said they are investigating the claims and told the newspaper that investigators have been in contact with the FBI and law enforcement in several other states.
“From information we gathered and from information gathered from her interview we are seriously concerned and have been in contact with the proper authorities,” Mazzeo said.
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A satanic murder cult? At least 22 murders? So who does this Miranda Barbour think she is? Henry Lee Lucas? Ottis Toole? Back in the day, those peripatetic murderers claimed to have not only been part of a satanic cult, but to have killed literally hundreds of people. Over time, their claims were largely discredited and today no one really knows how many murders they committed or if they were actually part of a satanic cult.
Over the past 30 years, the mainstream media — in conjunction with the authorities — have worked hard to undermine any claims on the part of conspiracy theorists that satanic cults, AKA inter-generational incest families, actually exist here in the U.S. or that they are involved in capital crimes and/or child sex crimes.
My personal belief is that there are undoubtedly some Satanic cults operating within our 50 states, and that some of these groups may well be involved in incest, child sacrifice and/or murder. Of course, I cannot prove this and am hesitant to move in that direction because I don’t want to be typecast as a conspiracy theorist with the resulting marginalization and loss of credibility that is the fate of those intrepid and sometimes overly-speculative souls.
On the other hand, I am very curious to know if there is any credence to Miranda Barbour’s recent statements. Suppose the authorities start investigating and discover that, sure enough, this pint-sized fiend actually was involved in a couple of dozen murders. Will they then take the next step and try to connect Barbour and the murders to the satanic cult? I wouldn’t count on it. In fact, the desire on the part of the authorities to suppress any concrete knowledge of satanic cult activity and/or their involvement in capital crimes may be so powerful that an in-depth investigation of Ms. Miranda’s claims may never get off the ground.
It will be very interesting to see what happens but I will not lose any sleep while waiting for the revelations that may never occur.
Click here to view our recent post on the Miranda Barbour ‘Craigslist Thrill-Kill’:
Pennsylvania Newlyweds Thrill-Kill Craigslist Victim: “It Was One of Our Goals”