Joy Johnson

A Democratic Party official and her husband are facing charges in connection with alleged satanic rituals involving the kidnap, rape and starvation of another couple in North Carolina.

Joy Johnson, 30, a vice-chairwoman of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice chairwoman of the Young Democrats, made an appearance in court yesterday after she and her spouse, Joseph Craig, were arrested Friday.

Craig, 25, is charged with second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for an incident in January and another in May. Johnson is charged with two counts of aiding and abetting.

Joseph Craig

According to published and broadcast reports, prosecutors said a man and a woman met Craig through a shared interest in Satan worship, although the couple never consented to any physical abuse.

Craig allegedly shackled his victims to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them inside his home. Police say he beat the man with a cane and a cord, and raped the woman.

"This goes well above what they were interested in doing," Mark McCullough, an assistant district attorney, told WTVD-TV.

McCullough was unsuccessful yesterday in having Judge Nancy Gordon increase Johnson's bail to $500,000 from the $270,000 set by a magistrate.

"Part of the allegations are that satanic worship is part of this case," he told the Raleigh News & Observer.

State Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, said he had been told Johnson had resigned her positions with the party.

"I was absolutely shocked and flabbergasted," McKissick told the paper. "You never would have suspected allegations that she would have had any participation in these rituals."

Along with her interest in the Democratic Party, Johnson is one of the driving forces of a New Age website called "Indigo Dawn," a name which, according to the site, was given to Johnson during a meditation vision.

"She decided to explore the New Age community more, and after taking a course in Reiki healing, experiencing past-life regression along with direct guidance from her spirit guides, she confirmed that her destiny was to help bring about the New Age on Earth," Johnson's online biography states. "Joy shared her vision with her husband, Joe; as a result the Indigo Dawn was founded to raise the vibration of energy on Earth."

Among the services Johnson offers online are "intuitive guidance, past-life regression, spirit guide communication and healing and cleansing."