Exploited living corpse of Audrey Santos is finally at rest

[Ian David]

'Little Audrey' dies after being in a coma since 1987

WORCESTER, Mass. -- "Little Audrey," an inspiration to many, passes away.

Audrey Santo died Saturday in her home in Worcester.
She had been in a coma since 1987, when she nearly drowned in her family's pool.

Since then, thousands have seen her as an inspirational-- and even a spiritual-- figure as they prayed for her recovery.

Doctors say she died of cardio-respiratory failure.

Audrey Santo was 23-years-old.




More:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO49239/



See also:

Investigative Files
Miracles or Deception? The Pathetic Case of Audrey Santo

Joe Nickell

As we near the next millennium, the media have been pointing to "millennial madness" as the source for a wide range of divine claims. Yet the faithful have been seeking miracles and finding them-they believe-in unlikely forms and places for years. These include apparitions of the Virgin Mary (for example in the Bosnian village of Medjugorje, beginning in 1981), bleeding statues and crucifixes (e.g., in Quebec in 1985), and miraculously appearing images, such as the portrait of Mary seen in a splotch on a tree in Los Angeles in 1992 (Nickell 1993; 1997). Now there are reported healings and other "miraculous" phenomena attending a coma-tose teenage girl in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Pilgrims currently stream to the home of Audrey Santo who has been bedridden since 1987, when, at the age of three, a near-drowning left her in an unresponsive condition. Visitors to the home chapel, converted from a garage, report healings after being shown statues that drip oil and communion wafers that bear smears of blood.

Skeptics may not be guilty of excessive doubt when they wonder how and why a tragic figure who cannot heal herself is able to heal others. The Catholic Church is often skeptical of such extra-canonical phenomena as well. It has distanced itself from Medjugorje (where six children supposedly conversed with the Virgin Mary), and the local bishop proclaimed the Medjugorje affair a fraud.

Interestingly, a year after Audrey's accident, her mother, Linda Santo, spent $8,000 to take her to Medjugorje in hopes of a miracle. As even a sympathetic priest admitted: "On a rational level, this was an extremely absurd idea. It was absurd. It should not have been done. It was medically wrong. And I think from all kinds of angles, sane people would say it was even spiritually wrong" (Sherr 1998). Expecting her daughter to be cured, Linda Santo bought her sandals so she could walk. But as it happened, instead of being helped, Audrey suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. She was revived but had to be returned home by air ambulance at a cost of $25,000-a bill her grandmother mortgaged her home to pay. Linda Santo's response to the near-fatal incident was to blame it on the proximity of a Yugoslavian abortion clinic (Harrison 1998; Sherr 1998).

More:
http://www.csicop.org/si/9909/santo.html

[Solly Mack]

1. Uh.....never mind

shudder

[MADem]

2. Good, at long last. I always found that story hideous, putting that poor girl on display like that.

[hlthe2b]

3. Denial is a powerful motivator...

Tragic all the way around... RIP (finally) Audrey Santos.

[Ian David]

4. I suspect that her family will be selling her off in pices as holy relics any day now. n/t