Susan Alamo entombed in Tulsa

The Associated Press/August 11, 1998

Van Buren, Arkansas -- Susan Alamo's remains were placed in a crypt in Tulsa, putting to rest a years-long fight over the body.

Mrs. Alamo, the wife of evangelist Tony Alamo, died of cancer in 1982. She was entombed Monday.

In February 1991, Alamo ordered his followers to bring along his wife's body when they evacuated the Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation compound in Crawford County. The compound was about to be raided by federal marshals in the wake of a civil lawsuit against Alamo.

Alamo was ultimately arrested on tax-related charges and was convicted in 1994. He is completing a six-year federal sentence, now in a halfway house in Texarkana. His scheduled Dec. 8 release would have been in jeopardy had the body not been returned.

Alamo was ordered in 1995 to return the body. The Chancery Court judge stipulated that if Alamo did not produce the body, he would be sent to the local jail upon his release from federal custody.

Alamo agreed last month to deliver the corpse. His followers from the Alamo Foundation brought the body in a sealed casket to a Van Buren funeral home on July 23. Last week, state medical examiners in Little Rock, where the corpse was subsequently transported, affirmed the body was indeed that of Mrs. Alamo, clearing the way for the burial.

The court order to deliver the body came when Christihaon Coie of Los Angeles, Mrs. Alamo's daughter, went to court because she wanted to bury her mother near relatives in Van Buren. However, she said she would not contest a previous order releasing the body to Alamo for suitable burial following its identification.

A Nashville dentist who had made a bridge for Susan Alamo identified his work, and Circuit-Chancery Judge Floyd Rogers accepted the identification.

Mrs. Alamo's body was returned to Van Buren on Thursday.