Woman ‘says alien cult made her shoot her boyfriend dead’
Barbara Rogers says her boyfriend Stephen Mineo was so distraught at being spurned by the alien-fixated Sherry Shriner cult that he demanded she shoot him dead
A woman charged with murdering her boyfriend is said to have tried to blame an alien cult for making her shoot him dead.
Barbara Rogers, 42, says members of the Sherry Shriner cult, which expresses a belief in extraterrestrials and an impending apocalypse, turned against her and her late partner Stephen Mineo.
She claims Mineo, 32, was so distraught by the snub that he asked her to shoot him at their home in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, in July 2017.
Before the jury was brought in, the Judge asked Barbara Rogers if she wanted to accept a guilty plea of 3rd degree murder. It carries a sentence of 10-15 years in prison. Rogers denied the plea deal. Trial set to begin in about 10 minutes. @WNEP pic.twitter.com/zrMj2XVAJ6
— Carmella Mataloni (@Carmella_News) March 25, 2019
Rogers said that she spent her final night with Mineo drinking in a local bar, and that afterwards they went into the woods behind their house to shoot with his gun.
She told jurors that Mineo then put the gun to his own head, wrapped her hands around it, and told her to pull the trigger to kill him.
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During a subsequent 911 call obtained by WNEP she screeched: ‘My boyfriend had a gun. He told me to hold it here and press the trigger. Oh my God, he’s dead!’
Rogers is also claiming that she did not realize Mineo’s gun was loaded when she pulled its trigger, but prosecutors insist she shot her boyfriend deliberately.
She turned down the chance to admit to third-degree murder before the trial began, which would have seen her jailed for 10 to 15 years.
The internet-based Sherry Shriner cult posts regular conspiracy videos online claiming that aliens exist and that they are plotting to destroy the world.
Shriner’s website describes her as a ‘daughter, prophet, sere’ and even claims that she conducted a lengthy interview with the devil.