Clairvoyant charged with killing a man and firing 40 shots at deputies dies in custody

A self-proclaimed clairvoyant who was charged with killing a man and firing nearly 40 shots at law enforcement during a standoff in the Central Coast died this weekend while awaiting trial, authorities said Monday.

Nicole Honait Luxor was arrested Nov. 15, 2015. While being held on suspicion of murder, she had “significant medical issues” from a terminal illness, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department. After being hospitalized July 1, Luxor, 62, died Saturday, sheriff’s officials said.

Luxor was arrested after a 34-year-old ranch hand, Benjamin Derrel Terra, was found dead from a gunshot wound at her ranch in rural Paso Robles.

After San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputies arrived at the ranch on Nov. 14, 2015, on a report of assault, Luxor barricaded herself and waged a standoff lasting about nine hours. During the standoff, she fired more than three dozen gunshots at deputies, sheriff’s officials said.

She surrendered after SWAT deputies fired tear gas into her home.

Luxor was charged with one count of murder and 36 counts of attempted murder for the shots directed toward deputies. She pleaded not guilty and was held in lieu of $1-million bail.

Terra’s father, Derel Terra, told the San Luis Obispo Tribune that his son was a commercial fisherman who had been working at Luxor’s ranch.

On her website, Luxor stated that she had studied metaphysics and psychology since the age of 14, and she claimed to have used her “visionary clairvoyant ability” to decipher celestial records from the database of planetary locations at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. She also ran a bed-and-breakfast and trained horses, according to her website.

For more news in California, follow @MattHjourno.

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