A 3-year-old girl was subject to an exorcism in a small church is San Jose, California to “liberate her of her evil spirits.”
Its reported that the girl, Arely Naomi Proctor, was held at her waist and neck while attempts were made to have her vomit the evil spirit from her body during the ceremony.
The girl’s grandfather, and pastor of the church, admitted to playing a part in the attempted exorcism. Pastor Rene Huezo of Iglesia Apostoles y Profetas stated, “if you read the Bible, you’ll see that Jesus casts away demons and made sick people healthy again. It’s not when I want to do it, it’s when God, in his will, wants to heal the person. The preacher is like an instrument of God; what we do is what God says.”
The alleged exorcism lasted hours, which caused severe injuries to the girl’s eyes, face, chest, and neck that were too much for Proctor as she “died of asphyxia due to suffocation” KTVU Fox 2 reported as stated by the medical examiner.
Court documents revealed that the mother of the victim, Claudia Hernandez, explained to police that she believed her daughter was possessed by an evil spirit “because the victim would wake up and scream or cry periodically.”
According to The Mercury News, the girl’s mother has been arrested and charged with assault on a child, including allegedly denying her food and squeezing her neck, which caused her death.
Both the girl’s grandfather and uncle had been the ones holding her down, however neither have been charged with crimes. Huezo shared that his granddaughter’s death has caused a great deal of pain to him but feels that was happened was “the will of God.”
“[I]t’s the stuff of God, and everything is in the will of God no matter how small or big,” Huezo commented.
Allegedly the mother did not attempt to call 911 until over two hours after her daughter’s death. Oscar Ayala, a fellow preacher at the church, stated that the church members have a “clean conscience.”
“We know we haven’t done anything dark, and we know that we have a clean conscience, that we haven’t done any harm, that we haven’t provoked the death of the girl,” Ayala said. “As I say, precautions and actions weren’t taken to deal with that case. That was something natural that happened.”
“Maybe, I don’t know, we didn’t take the most logical approach, and we should’ve taken precautions that should’ve been taken to, like, take her to a hospital to make sure she’s okay,” Ayala continued.
Iglesia Apostoles y Profetas has also previously been at the center of a child kidnapping investigation only one month ago. A 3-month-old boy was kidnapped by two individuals who knew the child’s mother from the church. According to The Mercury News, “church members said they knew nothing about [the kidnapping].”
