20150531

Serpent handler preacher killed by snakebite


In February 2014, Jamie Coots died after refusing to be treated, Middlesboro, Tennessee, police said.

On "Snake Salvation," the ardent Pentecostal believer said that he believed that a passage in the Bible suggests poisonous snakebites will not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God. 

The practice is illegal in most states, but still goes on, primarily in the rural South.

Coots was a third-generation "serpent handler" and aspired to one day pass the practice and his church, Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, on to his adult son, Little Cody.

In February 2013, Coots was given one year of probation for crossing into Tennessee with venomous snakes. 

He was previously arrested in 2008 for keeping 74 snakes in his home, according to National Geographic. 

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