Murdering Holiness: The Trials of Franz Creffield and George Mitchell

Murdering Holiness explores the story of the HolyRoller sect led by Franz Creffield in the early years of thetwentieth century. In the opening chapters, the authors introduce us tothe community of Corvallis, Oregon, where Creffield, a charismatic,self-styled messiah, taught his followers to forsake their families andworldly possessions and to seek salvation through him. As his teachingsbecame more extreme, the local community reacted: Creffield was tarredand feathered and his followers were incarcerated in the state asylum.Creffield himself was later imprisoned for adultery, but shortly afterhis release he revived the sect. This proved too much for some of theadherents’ families, and in May 1906 George Mitchell, the brotherof two women in the sect, pursued Creffield to Seattle and shot himdead.