A North Carolina woman is dead, and her son wants answers. She went on a Vodou treat in Haiti, and she never returned leaving a lot of questions about her death.
Dana Jackson had dreams of becoming a Mambo priestess, a specialist in Haitian Vodou rituals. For those who don't know, Vodou is an African religion. Some refer to it as Voodoo, but generally, that is considered both derogatory and incorrect. The North Carolina woman planned a trip to Haiti as part of her interest in Vodou rituals.
According to her son, Timothy, she traveled with a group also interested. "Four years ago, my mom started to do a little bit of research on the African traditional spiritual belief systems and Vodou was a part of that," he told USA TODAY. "She had kind of been on this path of just kind of doing research and practicing, or at least, just doing her due diligence as far as research is concerned."
"The people that she went down there with, their name is Sosyete and I believe that that means society in the Turkish language and Nago," Timothy said. "These weren't strangers that she went down there with. These are people that she's built a relationship with."
Woman Dies During Vodou Ritual
Prior to leaving, Tim said he would talk to his mom everyday. However, she had to cut contact due to the ceremony. It was something that made him very anxious. "If you do any research about that part of the ceremony, even just on Google, it'll tell you, that's very sacred and things of that nature," he said. "So she sent me one last message on the 13th, and she said, 'we will talk on the 21st going to church tomorrow.'"
Tim said he tried to contact his mom, but the North Carolina woman never responded after the Vodou ritual. "That whole entire week just kind of low key, (I was) having anxiety because I'm not able to hear from her, and I know that this is a very important part of the ceremony," he said. "On the 21st, I didn't hear anything from her. I did reach out to her at about 5 p.m. on WhatsApp. I didn't get any response."
A couple of days later, he got a call from his grandmother. He learned that his mother was dead.
Around 5 p.m. on July 22, his grandmother broke the news that his mom had died. Now, he has more questions than answers. The Vodou group told him that she fainted and had a heat attack and stroke on the way to the hospital.
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"To be completely honest with you, my initial thought was my mom went down to Haiti, they did this last piece of the ceremony, and something sinister happened," he said. "That was the initial story. They said that my mom didn't bring her medicine. So there was a red flag, because what medicine are you guys talking about? it sounds like they were trying to perpetuate a story."
He wants to bring his mom's body home and learn exactly what happened.
