MUM Student Stabber's Murder Trial

File under: Deranged Devotees

Maharishi University of Management student Shuvender Sem is about to stand trial for the murder of Levi Butler, who was dispatched with a paring knife in an MUM dining hall. It was Sem's second attack that day. He had earlier lacerated student John Killian's face with a ball point pen. Instead of calling the police after the first attack, the school's dean of men took Sem to his apartment to make arrangements to send him home. Sem left the apartment and went back to the school where he stabbed Butler, who died of his wounds at a Fairfield, Iowa hospital.

The next victim in all this is probably going to be the Maharishi's bank account. We're not lawyers, but we watch a lot of Law and Order, and we see a big fat lawsuit bearing down after Sem's criminal trial.

Sem is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Anti-TM™ organization Trancenet has been saying that TM™ leads to insanity for years now. We bet they're dancing on table tops over this one.

And what about the Maharishi? He could be facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit complete with a public relations horror story. And with TM™ little more than an obscure but prohibitively expensive meditation course that has folks opting for more economical courses at local yoga studios, TM™'s branding efforts would appear to have failed as well.

We imagine this has the Maharishi thinking more and more about those halcyon days of the late 60s when he was young Hollywood's hottest guru. We hear he's hired a Fab Four cover band—complete with groupies and a young Mia Farrow impersonator—to hang around his ashram and recreate that simpler time, back when it was mostly about whispering sweet wisdoms into the ears of comely lads and ladies high on drugs. Ah... the good old days...