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Police and rescue crews were searching a large area around Palmdale, California on Sunday looking for missing members of a breakaway religious sect that has been described as “cult-like” by some.
The group that is made up of El Salvadoran immigrants consists, authorities say of thirteen people – including eight children between the ages of three and seventeen. Law enforcement is concerned about the well-being of the group members because of the notes that left behind before disappearing on Saturday.
“The letters essentially state that they [missing persons] are all going to heaven shortly to meet Jesus and their deceased relatives,” the California governor’s office said in a press statement “Numerous letters found say goodbye to their relatives. It is believed, through further investigation, that the missing persons’ intentions are to commit mass suicide.”
The husbands of two of the missing woman first called Palmdale police for assistance on Saturday afternoon, after their spouses failed to return home from a scheduled prayer meeting.
One of the men went through the contents of a purse his wife had left behind and became concerned enough about its contents to call police.
The group is believed to be led by a 32 year old woman Reyna Marisol Chicas.
Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore told press that a number of deputies, the major crimes unit and a helicopter patrol were all out on Sunday searching the area around Antelope Valley, CA because that is where the letters left behind indicated the group was going to head.
They were on the look out for three vehicles – a silver Toyota Tundra pickup, a 1995 Mercury Villager and a 2004 white Nissan- that grup members were believed to be driving.
Chica’s group is said to have broken away from a local church, Palmdale’s Iglesia de Cristo Miel,a while back.