TVNZ1's Sunday has given Breakfast a sneak peek into their investigation into a self-proclaimed author and "spiritual healer" Ed Strachar from Arizona implicated in the death of Levin woman Anna Godfrey, who committed suicide last July.
Sunday reporter Janet McIntyre told Breakfast this morning, "He calls himself a 'soul healer', and he's just claimed this title, I guess, because he believes he has some special power to be able to tune in to people's energy, to sense darkness on them, and then to raise their energy levels and then release that dark energy".
Mr Strachar, who claims to have a large following, claims he uses his powers to cure people of "all kinds of things, like depression, bad backs, bad knees - very good with bad knees - and even things like cancer," McIntyre said.
Ms Godfrey, 55, was one his "accolytes", having paid thousands of dollars to be taught by Mr Strachar to "do what he does" after he taught a friend of hers in New Zealand.
Ms McIntyre described Mr Strachar as "a very, very angry man", adding that the Sunday team were taken aback by his "incredibly confrontational, very defensive and abusive" attitude towards them.
McIntyre says the story is important, especially to Kiwis, because "a person died here, and a person died after she took advice from this man".
"Anna Godfrey was a person, and she was a very vulnerable person in a very low part of her life and he, I believe, brainwashed her to believe that she had demons and darkness on her that she couldn't lift, and in the end, sadly, she committed suicide."
The story will air on TVNZ's Sunday programme on March 3.
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