Mass. cult babies’ bodies still unclaimed by kin

BOSTON – The bodies of two infants who died while in the care of an Attleboro sect remain unclaimed in a Boston morgue more than three years after they were exhumed from a makeshift grave in Maine’s Baxter State Park. The remains of Samuel Robidoux and Jeremiah Corneau were found after investigators were led to the park by Jeremiah’s father, David Corneau, in 2000.

Both boys’ remains are held at the state medical examiner’s office because no one from either family has tried to claim them, Bristol Assistant District Attorney Walter Shea told the Boston Herald.

David Corneau and his wife, Rebecca, were not prosecuted in the case because Jeremiah died during a home birth. Samuel Robidoux’s father, Jacques Robidoux, was sentenced to life after being convicted of starving the boy. His wife, Karen Robidoux, faces a January trial on second degree murder charges. Jacques Robidoux was a leader of the sect called the Body, which rejects modern medicine and government. He testified at his trial that he watched Samuel starve over 51 days in 1999 after his sister, Michelle Mingo, said she had a prophecy from God that Karen Robidoux should withhold solid food from the boy and only give him breast milk.

Jacques Robidoux’s attorney, Francis O’Boy, said Friday he hadn’t spoken to his client recently and didn’t know anything about the unclaimed bodies.