Canadian man Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, was lynched in Peru on Thursday after villagers claimed he fatally shot dead revered Indigenous healer Olivia Arevalo, 81
A Canadian man studying hallucinogenic medicine in the Amazon rainforest has been killed by a Peruvian mob, who blame him for murdering a respected elderly shaman.
Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, traveled to Peru to study natural medicine and to seek enlightenment.
However his journey towards 'deeper meaning' took a dark turn when he allegedly shot Indigenous healer Olivia Arevalo Lomas, 81, dead.
Arevalo, a member of the Shipibo-Konibo tribe in the village of Victoria Gracia in northeast Peru, was killed on Thursday by two fatal shots.
The beloved shaman ran a lucrative healing center that offered ayahuasca - an Indigenous hallucinogenic mixture - to Westerners, according to CBC.
Woodroffe is believed to be one of her patients.
Peruvian authorities describe Woodroffe as her killer.
A graphic video reveals a man believed to be Woodroffe brutally dragged through mud by a rope around his neck as villagers look on
A graphic image on Facebook reveals Arevalo's body after she was fatally shot twice
Woodroffe was lynched by people of the Ucayali region of the Amazon rain forest who blame him for the healer’s death that same day.
Peruvian police said the Canadian man was brutally dragged by the neck through the rain forest.
Villagers claimed Woodroffe shot dead Indigenous healer Olivia Arevalo, 81, (pictured) on Thursday
A cellphone video released by local press displays a man covered in blood believed to be Woodroffe begging for mercy as he was dragged by a rope around his neck between thatch-roofed homes.
He is last seen in the video motionless on the muddy ground.
On Saturday officials dug up Woodroffe’s body from an unmarked grave in the forest 0.6miles away from Arevalo’s home.
'The body had been fully identified (as that of Sebastian Woodroffe) using fingerprints,' General Jorge Lam, the lead police officer in the double murder inquiry, said to The Guardian.
The double murder took place in the Ucayali region of northeast Peru in the Amazon forest
Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of the group of prosecutors in Ucayali, said that no arrests have been made in relation to Woodroffe’s death.
'We will not rest until both murders, of the Indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,' he said in a phone interview to Reuters.
The Amazon rain forest has long attracted foreigners to experiment with ayahuasca – a dark colored and bitter brew made of a mixture of native plants that includes dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which can lead to psychedelic experiences.
Arevalo was a member of the Shipibo-Konibo tribe and ran healing center that offered ayahuasca - an Indigenous hallucinogenic mixture - to Westerners
Woodroffe had reportedly been to South America several times to study natural healing and plant remedies. His friends said he became more distant after trying ayahuasca
Peruvian police confirmed that Woodroffe's dead body was found half a mile away from Arevalo's home
The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, is a centuries old recipe used by Indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia as a cure for a variety of ailments.
It is not known to lead to violence.
However in 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours' drive from where Woodroffe was killed.
Woodroffe had been reportedly living in the Ucayali regional capital of Pucallpa for some time.
His friends told CBC that he first traveled to Peru in 2016 to learn about natural healing and plant remedies. He became more distant after trying ayahuasca.
His friend Yarrow Willard said that he’d return home from South America 'not broken, but troubled'.
He wanted to be an apprentice with the plant healer and aspired to become an addiction counselor using hallucinogenic medicine.
'The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting "high" either. It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with,' he wrote on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website seeking financial help for his studies.
AYAHUASCA: THE HIP BUT DEADLY HALLUCINOGEN Thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca every year. The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it has now become a rite of passage for many backpackers travelling through South America. The bitter, dark-coloured brew, made of a mixture of native plants, is increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences. Yage, a mixture of the Ayahuasca hallucinogenic liana and a psychoactive bush, attracts many people in Colombia There are now a number of ayahuasca ceremonies being conducted in Europe. Ayahuasca is also used by some rehab facilities for its healing properties and to explore their inner mind, fears, hopes and dreams with spiritual guidance. The drug has also become trendy due in part to celebrities – including Lindsay Lohan and Penn Badgley - who have spoken of taking ayahuasca. Musician Father John Misty references ayahuasca in his song ‘I’m writing a Novel’ and it’s also been featured in films, including 2012’s Wanderlust starring Jennifer Aniston. And in an episode of her show Chelsea Does, Chelsea Handler travels to Peru to experiment with the psychedelic – and promptly vomits on camera after drinking the tea. But many experts say ayahuasca – one of the strongest psychedelic drugs in the world – is dangerous. Businessman Matthew Mellon (pictured) died of a heart attack after taking the drug in a Mexican rehab facility British backpacker Henry Miller, 19, suffered a fatal reaction after taking it in Colombia in 2014. New Zealand backpacker Matthew Dawson-Clarke, 24, died during a ayahuasca retreat in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, in 2015. Last week, businessman Matthew Mellon – the ex-husband of Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon – died of a heart attack after allegedly taking the drug in a Mexican rehab facility.
'I am in this for the long haul. This is more than a 'job' to me. I want not only for people to recover ... I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life,' he added.
Ronald Suárez, the highest authority Shipibo-Konibo tribe of 40,000 said Woodroffe's killers 'acted on the spur of the moment and resorted to traditional justice' according to the Guardian.
'But we are a peaceful people who have always lived in harmony with nature,' he added.
'We have little confidence in the police as, so often, crimes against us go unpunished,' he said.
Arevalo's murder has led to mourning throughout the village.
She was praised as a 'walking library of our traditional knowledge, the maximum expression of our culture'.
Her death follows a list of unsolved murders of Indigenous activists who are bombarded with death threats for protecting their land.
LIMA, Peru — A 41-year-old Canadian who traveled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine was killed by a mob in a remote corner of the Amazon rain forest after people blamed him for the slaying of an elderly shaman, authorities said Sunday.
Peru's attorney general's office said Sebastian Woodroffe was dragged by the neck shortly after the killing of Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of northeastern Peru. Officials backed away from initial reports that Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Arevalo's killing.
Arevalo and Woodroffe were both killed Thursday in the indigenous community of Victoria Gracia, officials said. But police did not begin to investigate until a cellphone video appeared in local media showing a man purported to be Woodroffe begging for mercy while being dragged between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.
On Saturday, officials dug up Woodroffe's body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried.
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Every year thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-colored brew made of a mixture of native plants. The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it's also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences.
LIMA (Reuters) — A Canadian man was lynched in the Peruvian Amazon after residents of a remote village accused him of killing an 81-year-old medicine woman a day earlier, a spokesman for the attorney general's office said on Sunday.
Olivia Arevalo, a traditional healer of the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, was shot twice and died on Thursday near her home in the Amazonian region of Ucayali, said Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of a group of prosecutors in Ucayali.
Some villagers had blamed Arevalo's murder on Sebastian Paul Woodroffe, a 41-year-old Canadian citizen who lived in the region and who was believed to have been one of her clients, said Jimenez.
Police found Woodroffe's body buried about 1 km from Arevalo's home on Saturday, after a cellphone video recording of the Friday lynching was shared on social media, said Jimenez.
Olivia Arevalo, an 81-year-old traditional healer of the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, died of gunshot wounds near her home in the Amazonian region of Ucayali on Thursday.
The video shows a man groaning in a puddle near a thatched-roof structure as another man puts a rope around his neck and drags him with others looking on.
Jimenez said prosecutors were exploring several hypotheses related to Arevalo's murder and that it was too early to name suspects in the case. No arrests had been made yet related to Woodroffe's death, he added.
"We will not rest until both murders, of the Indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved," said Jimenez in a phone interview.
Jimenez said the man in the video was Woodroffe and that an autopsy of his body showed he died by strangulation after receiving several blows across his body.
We will not rest until both murders, of the Indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved. Ricardo Palma Jimenez
Arevalo's murder had prompted outrage in Peru following other unsolved murders of Indigenous activists who had repeatedly faced death threats related to efforts to keep illegal loggers and oil palm growers off native lands.
Policing is scant over much of the Peruvian Andes and Amazon and villagers in far-flung provinces often punish suspected criminals according to local customs and without the involvement of state police and prosecutors.
"Canada extends its deepest condolences following the reported assassination of Olivia Arévalo Lomas, an Indigenous elder and human rights defender," Global Affairs Canada, which manages Canadian foreign relations, said in a statement.
"We are also aware that a Canadian was killed in a related incident. Consular services are being provided to the family of the Canadian," it added.
Previously On HuffPost:
LIMA (Reuters) - A Canadian man was lynched in the Peruvian Amazon after residents of a remote village accused him of killing an 81-year-old medicine woman a day earlier, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office said on Sunday.
Olivia Arevalo, a traditional healer of the Shipibo-Conibo tribe, was shot twice and died on Thursday near her home in the Amazonian region of Ucayali, said Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of a group of prosecutors in Ucayali.
Some villagers had blamed Arevalo’s murder on Sebastian Paul Woodroffe, a 41-year-old Canadian citizen who lived in the region and who was believed to have been one of her clients, said Jimenez.
Police found Woodroffe’s body buried about 1 km (0.6 mile)from Arevalo’s home on Saturday, after a cellphone video recording of the Friday lynching was shared on social media, said Jimenez.
The video shows a man groaning in a puddle near a thatched-roof structure as another man puts a rope around his neck and drags him with others looking on.
Jimenez said prosecutors were exploring several hypotheses related to Arevalo’s murder and that it was too early to name suspects in the case. No arrests had been made yet related to Woodroffe’s death, he added.
“We will not rest until both murders, of the indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,” said Jimenez in a phone interview.
Jimenez said the man in the video was Woodroffe and that an autopsy of his body showed he died by strangulation after receiving several blows across his body.
Arevalo’s murder had prompted outrage in Peru following other unsolved murders of indigenous activists who had repeatedly faced death threats related to efforts to keep illegal loggers and oil palm growers off native lands.
Policing is scant over much of the Peruvian Andes and Amazon and villagers in far-flung provinces often punish suspected criminals according to local customs and without the involvement of state police and prosecutors.
“Canada extends its deepest condolences following the reported assassination of Olivia Arévalo Lomas, an Indigenous elder and human rights defender,” Global Affairs Canada, which manages Canadian foreign relations, said in a statement.
“We are also aware that a Canadian was killed in a related incident. Consular services are being provided to the family of the Canadian,” it added.
