PARALLEL PERSPECTIVES WEB-ESSAY: SERPENT HANDLERS

— PHOTO-ESSAY —

SERPENT HANDLERS

PROLOGUE

Serpentningishzida

The Midgard Serpent

Serpent Handlers

NOTE: This section is not meant to demean or ridicule its

human subjects in any way.

The Jolo Serpent Handlers

A Karen Kramer Film

Man In Prison For Trying To Kill Wife With Snake
AP, Feb. 25, 2003

CHILDERSBURG, Ala. — A former snakehandling preacher serving a 99-year sentence for trying to kill his wife with a rattlesnake escaped briefly from a work detail.

Prison officials said Glenn Summerford, who has served about 11 years of his sentence, slipped away from the work detail for about 45 minutes Friday before being returned to custody. He then was moved from the work center at Childersburg to the state prison in St. Clair County.

Summerford, 58, was convicted of attempted murder in 1992 after his wife, Darlene, testified that he grabbed her by the hair and forced her to put her hand in a cage of rattlesnakes after hitting it with a pipe to make the snakes mad. She was bitten twice but survived. Summerford at the time handled snakes as pastor of the Church of Jesus With Signs Following near Scottsboro.

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NOTE: This incident was included in a TV program—Investigative Reports, I believe. The highlight of the trial was when wife Darlene was on the stand. When asked if the congregation kept snakes, she replied “Yes, sir.” Then asked if they fed the snakes Darlene replied “Yes, sir.” Then when asked if they bred the snakes Darlene—without a pause—replied, “Oh no, sir…they do that all by themselves.” The court broke into hysterics. Darlene was a hit (her husband was convicted). Unfortunately many people in the congregation blamed her for the “disgrace” of the trial & being held up to ridicule in the voracious & viperous (pun intended) national media coverage. Within a few months Darlene’s home was burnt to the ground in an act of arson. —JEF