Thursday, July 25, 2013

Remembering Colleen Conaway: victim of James Arthur Ray's recklessness

It seems like just a year ago today that I was commemorating the death of Colleen Conaway, faithful follower of New-Wage guru, star of The Secret, and convicted killer James Arthur Ray. Of course at the time Colleen was following Ray, he wasn't yet a convicted killer. And he has yet to answer for her death.

Colleen, as many of you may know, was attending a James Ray "wealth" weekend in San Diego in July 2009, and ended up jumping (or falling?) to her death from a third-story balcony in a San Diego shopping mall. As noted in last year's blog post, Colleen reportedly had no history of emotional or mental problems, but apparently had a psychotic episode at the event. The circumstances of her death were tragic and puzzling, but what happened afterward was appalling. If you don't mind my quoting myself:

After Ray found out about [Colleen's death], he and his top minions apparently worked to cover it up, shielding the rest of the attendees from the unfortunate event, and they all partied on that night. If you don't know Colleen's sad story, my pal Yakaru has written a good summary of this tragedy, linking to several Salty Droid posts.
In early August of last year, Salty Droid commemorated Colleen's death with a heartbreaking interview with Colleen's sister Lynn. Here is that link.

And so another year has gone by, and here we are at another sad anniversary. Four years.

And in October, we'll be looking at the fourth anniversary of the deaths of three other people -- Kirby Brown, James Shore (October 8), and Liz Neuman (October 17) -- who also died as a result of Ray's recklessness (although actually he was charged with -- and served an outrageously short prison sentence for -- negligence, rather than recklessness). He is now out of prison, serving out his probation in Arizona, and no doubt preparing to re-enter Scamworld in a big way.

It seems that prison did little to put a damper on his elitism. A couple of months before his release,
his brother was whining about the possibility that Jimmy Ray Jumpsuit might have to stay in a halfway house with riff-raff. No word yet on exactly where JAR landed, but I'm sure there are people digging around for that information.

And in related news,
the summer 2013 meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC) began yesterday, July 24, and lasts through the 28th. There is no word on the TLC site about where this one is going to be; they're usually pretty coy about that. This is relevant because Death Ray was a founding member of that cartel, though rather unceremoniously dropped from the membership roster after the sweat lodge debacle. I wonder if they'll let him back in, now that he's out of the joint.

I do know that good people are pursuing justice for Colleen Conaway's family, trying to get answers and doing everything they can to see that James Ray is held accountable for her death.

And meanwhile, the big sick machine grinds on -- mostly taking people's money, time, energy, hopes, and dreams, but sometimes taking their lives as well.


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    3 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Thanks Connie for remembering - and for keeping us up to date on "Death" Ray. I will be watching to see what he does next - and wondering how we can put a damper on any of his New Age scamming. After all, didn't he test at a grade 8 level in jail? He is not psychologically sophisticated enough to help anyone (but psychologically sophisticated enough to take their money :-(

    Keep after him, Connie - he needs to find a new way to earn a living.

    And thanks for all your work on KT as well. Your writing is always funny, entertaining and informative!

    Cosmic Connie said...

    Thank YOU, Anon, and I will continue to do my best to keep up with JAR and KT.

    Anonymous said...

    This was a great article, but just reading it makes me sick. I will never believe that Colleen jumped to her death. I'd like to know "where was JAR in the few minutes before she allegedly jumped?" I don't think that question has been answered.

    Don't worry---he will get his somehow for her death. Someday, it will happen. The whole thing is just disgusting.