Three individuals are now facing charges of killing a 3-year-old girl during an alleged exorcism that took place at a San Jose church where it was believed she was possessed by a demon. Those involved in the event say they engaged in the ancient practice in order to free the young girl, according to the testimony of a police lieutenant provided in court on Monday.
Now, before we go on, I want to stress that I do believe there is a God who rules heaven and earth. I believe the Bible is the Word of God and is 100 percent true. Demons do exist. Just look at the twisted nature of our current culture. Hard to deny a dark spiritual influence is at work, especially when you see the giddy love for abortion and child mutilation that exists in our time. And yes, there are times when demons possess people. What happened in this situation is tragic and it seems there was a lack of outside oversight on this matter. Not all cases of exorcism end this way.
The lead investigator in the case stated while giving testimony that one reason the child could have been possessed by a demon was because she saw something that her family felt could have been sinister on her mom’s cell phone.
Here’s more from The Mercury News:
The hours-long testimony of San Jose Police Department Lt. J.J. Vallejo began a preliminary hearing to determine whether a case against Claudia Hernandez, Rene Trigueros Hernandez and Rene Hernandez Santos — the girl’s mother, grandfather and uncle, respectively — should proceed to trial. The hearing before Judge Hanley Chew in a San Jose courtroom is expected to last several days.
All three are charged with felony child abuse resulting in death related to the Sept. 24, 2021 death of Arely Naomi Proctor at a 25-member Pentecostal church south of downtown led by Trigueros Hernandez.
Arely’s mother was first arrested in early 2022, followed a few months later by Trigueros Hernandez and Hernandez Santos; they were all charged with the same crime and their charges were eventually consolidated.
Arely’s cause of death, according to the coroner’s report was asphyxiation. Authorities investigating the case state the young girl was subjected to a total of 12 hours of physical abuse that included being “strangled multiple times to the point of unconsciousness, she had fingers shoved down her throat to the point she had multiple injuries to her mouth and to her tongue, and she had pressure put on her body, on her torso from the front and back, with so much force applied that she lost consciousness.”
This does not sound like a properly executed exorcism.
Here’s a video breaking down the historical, traditional Roman Rite of Exorcism as performed by the Roman Catholic Church:
Prior to his arrest, Trigueros Hernandez admitted to this news organizationto performing the exorcism. Police alleged that he, Hernandez and Hernandez Santos held the girl down to try to make her vomit, and rotated between positions in which one person held her by the face and neck, one held her around her torso and the third held her around her legs. She had not been given any food and hardly any water in the 24 hours leading up to her death, authorities said.
Vallejo’s testimony to Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise on Monday consisted entirely of his recollection interviewing the defendants as the case’s lead investigator. The session that day revolved around accounts he gathered from Trigueros Hernandez and Hernandez Santos.
Vallejo recounted a recorded conversation between Hernandez and her brother in which she reportedly said “that God had taken (Arely) and everything was going to be ok,” and cautioned about how “it’s going to look like we intended to kill her, but we did not.”
None of this sounds right.
Trigueros Hernandez stated during a police interview that one of the things that led to Arley being demonically possessed — according to their claims — is that she was allowed to use her mother’s cell phone and might have seen something evil. The girl’s grandfather told Vallejo that the girl was struggling through the whole process, which he thought meant there was a “power” that he could not “destroy” the lieutenant said in his testimony.
Well, first off, it’s impossible to “destroy” a demon. They are eternal spiritual creations, just like humans and angelic beings. Only God could wipe them out, and He chooses not to do that, but to punish demons in Hell, while allowing humans who have faith in Christ and angels to remain eternally in heaven. No mere human could ever do anything more than cast out a spirit.
Wise also asked Vallejo about Trigueros Hernandez’s recollection of a years-past exorcism in El Salvador. According to Vallejo, Trigueros Hernandez described being part of a 12-man crew who held a woman down and prayed for six hours to cure her of a “spell cast on her.” Vallejo said the defendant claimed the woman’s stomach inflated throughout the exorcism, and at the end, a 12-to-18-inch lizard was “expelled from the woman’s vagina, and it was caught.”
Returning to the San Jose exorcism, Vallejo said the grandfather and uncle recalled the moment they noticed Arely appeared to be lifeless, pale in appearance, “like someone had passed.” Authorities allege that the defendants made no attempt to call for help for hours after the child became unresponsive.
The exorcism death did not draw public attention until nearly eight months after it occurred, by apparent happenstance: Police investigating an unrelated kidnapping searched the church attended by two suspects who later pleaded no contest in that case. That pointed public scrutiny at the church and the revelation of the exorcism, which was freely acknowledged by Trigueros Hernandez and congregants.
The preliminary hearing date is expected to last through March 25. After that, Judge Chew will issue a ruling on whether or not there’s enough evidence to allow the charges to move toward trial.