SNAKE-HANDLER SUCCUMBS TO BITE

One of the prominent leaders of snake-handling churches in the Southeast died Oct. 3 after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a church service at the Rock House Holiness Church in rural northeastern Alabama. John Wayne “Punkin” Brown Jr., of Parrottsville, Tenn., was preaching with his own 3-foot-long timber rattler in hand when the reptile sank one fang into his finger.

According to a Knoxville News-Sentinel report, eyewitnesses from the congregation said that after being bitten, the 34-year-old evangelist “emerged from behind the pulpit, stepped down onto the church floor and toppled over.” Church officials immediately phoned for a medical team, but Brown died just 10 minutes after being bitten. Some members of Brown’s family have offered that his death may have been the result of a heart attack.

Brown, who began handling snakes in worship services at age 17, had been bitten 22 other times before the fatal bite. Three years ago, his wife, Melinda, died after being also bitten by a timber rattler during a church service at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus’ Name Church in Middlesboro, Ky.

According to the News-Sentinel report, “It is a misdemeanor in Tennessee and Kentucky to endanger others with a deadly animal in a church service.”

Those espousing the snake-handling religion base their belief on the often-disputed concluding verses of the 16th chapter of Mark’s gospel.

—MKG

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