LUMPKIN COUNTY, Ga. - Dozens of arrests, two missing person reports, and a murder all took place at one so-called “peaceful” festival.
The Rainbow Gathering may have left town but they also left a big mess as the dark side of the gathering is being revealed.
On Tuesday, a story about a second missing man from the Rainbow Gathering surfaced. Many people commented on social media asking why so many people were going missing from the event.
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The Rainbows told 11Alive there's a very simple answer for that: "We see this year after year. Where grown adults, granted young adults, leave home and find rainbow.”
Whether or not that's what happened with CJ Eliot and William Johnson is unclear. The Lumpkin County Sheriff said both men have been found safe, one in Minnesota and the other in South Carolina but he didn't elaborate.
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This year's Rainbow Gathering held around the July Fourth holiday weekend made a lot of headlines as the Sheriff's Office arrested dozens of people and wrote thousands of tickets.
But it was the murder of 18-year-old Amber Robinson, allegedly beaten to death by Joseph Capstraw, that left a dark cloud on this year's gathering.
"You can count on one hand the amount of times something like this has happened. We don't have a systemic problem,” Rainbow told 11Alive.
A quick internet search showed the sometimes-violent history of the gathering.
In 2015, a man was killed at a regional gathering in North Carolina. A year before one woman was found dead outside the gathering in Utah and another was arrested for allegedly stabbing a man.
The most devout members of the group insist they're about peace and love but history has shown murder and mayhem sometimes follows.
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