Louisiana grand jury to hear details in Klan killing
BY RANDY ELLIS
Published: November 16, 2008
Formal charges aren’t expected until early next year in the alleged murder of a Tulsa woman during a Ku Klux Klan initiation in Louisiana.
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Authorities in Louisiana said Friday a grand jury will hear evidence in the slaying case.
Under Louisiana law, a grand jury must investigate cases dealing with capital murder and cases in which the possible punishment is death or life imprisonment.
Raymond "Chuck” Foster, leader of a Bogalusa, La., chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, is jailed on a complaint of second-degree murder in connection with the Nov. 9 death of Cynthia Charlotte Lynch, 43, of Tulsa.
Seven other members of the Klan group are being held on obstruction of justice complaints.
Local sheriff’s officers said evidence indicates Lynch sought to join the group and traveled to Louisiana for an initiation ritual conducted on a remote sandbar north of New Orleans, on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain.
Authorities think Foster became enraged and shot Lynch to death when she asked to leave.
Authorities said Lynch learned about the Klan group through the Internet. Why she sought to join is a mystery to people who knew her.
Relatives have told sheriff’s investigators Lynch had mental disabilities and was easily influenced.
"She was about as harmless as a person can be. For them to kill her was a dastardly thing,” said Tulsa attorney Fred DeMier, who represented Lynch in a 2005 drug case.
"I think she had no idea what she was getting into,” he said. "Cynthia wanted to belong more than anything else. ... I think she was so terribly lonesome.”
DeMier said he got to know Lynch while she was serving out her probation and never knew her to say anything racist.
DeMier said Lynch served a two-year deferred sentence for possession of methamphetamines and her record was recently expunged.
John Bomar, one of Lynch’s ex-boyfriends, said Lynch’s moods and behavior fluctuated, depending on whether she was taking her medications, but he never knew her to be a racist.
A Ku Klux Klan leader accused of killing a Tulsa woman has been active in Klan groups for at least seven years.
Raymond "Chuck” Foster was founding imperial wizard of the Southern White Knights chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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