WHERE'S AIMEE?

One hundred years ago today, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished.  Sister Aimee (1890-1944) was a Pentecostal preacher, evangelist, and founder of the Foursquare Church who pioneered the use of radio to broaden her reach (and her donations) through her weekly sermons from Angelus Temple, an early megachurch.  She was the most publicized Protestant evangelist of her time, surpassing even Billy Sunday; her faith healing demonstrations drew tens of thousands.  "McPherson's preaching style, extensive charity work, and ecumenical contributions were major influences on 20th century Charismatic Christianity."  She promulgated the idea that the United States was a nation was a nation guided and sustained by divine intervention.

Her vanishing after a swim at Venice Beach caused a media frenzy, fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner.  Many assumed she had drowned, and, in fact, two people actually drowned trying to locate her body.  Aimee's mother, who preached in her stead that day, told the congregation that "Sister is with Jesus."  Others were not so quick to judge.  Kenneth Ormiston, a radio station engineer, had left his job with Aimee's temple six months before, and there were stories that Ormiston and Aimee were seen driving up the coast, and some people thought that the two had run off together.  On just one day, Aimee was reported seen in sixteen different cities.  Because no body had been found, some believed her to have been kidnapped.  Her mother offered a $25,000 reward for her safe return.  Reports that she had been found in a cabin in Canada on June 5 turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.  A number of fraudulent ransom demands were received.  The whole country wondered, where was Aimee?  What had happened to her?

Then on June 23, Aimee stumbled out of the desert in Sonora, Mexico, collapsing in front of a Mexican couple who had approached her.  She appeared emaciated; her shoes were covered with desert and, her hands were filthy, there were cactus spines in her legs, and her toe was blistered.  She claimed to have been kidnapped, tortured, drugged, and held for ransom  by three people -- "Steve", "Rose", and an unnamed man.  She said her kidnappers also had plans to kidnap Mary Pickford and other prominent people.  When Aimee finally returned to Los Angeles after her ordeal, an estimated 30-50,000 people were on hand to greet her.

But not everyone believed Aimee's story.  A Grand Jury was convened but could not determine whether Aimee's story was true.  A second Grand Jury inquiry, relying on newly developed evidence suggested that Aimee was in fact in a love tryst with Kenneth Ormiston in a cottage at Carmel-by-the-Sea, but this investigation stalled.  Then a co-conspirator came forward and a third Grand Jury was convened.  This led to criminal charges being files against Aimee, Ormiston, and several others, with a trial scheduled for January 1927.  But then the prosecution decided that their star witness was not as credible as they had once thought.  Despite much circumstantial evidence against Aimee and Ormiston, the trial went nowhere.  The damage to Aimee's reputation was done, however; Aimee had spent over $100,000 trying to defend herself.

Re-examining the case in 1990, the presiding judge of the San Francisco Municipal Court found that "there was never any substantial evidence to show that [Aimee's] story was untrue."

Whatever the truth, Aimee's escapade lives on in this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZS5aN6s_2c