SAN JOSE (KCBS RADIO) – The homicide death of a young San Jose girl killed last fall has now been reportedly connected to an alleged exorcism performed at a local pentecostal church, as first reported by The Mercury News.
Arely Naomi Proctor, aged 3, died last September, the paper reported, after a ritual was performed on her at the Iglesia Apostles y Profetas church.
Her family elected to do the ceremony in order to "liberate her of her evil spirits," church officials told the paper.
The official cause of death determined by the Santa Clara County medical examiner's office was asphyxiation.
The new information about Proctor's death came to light after the church came under police scrutiny following the kidnapping of a 3-month-old baby recently, according to the paper.
While the baby was found safely elsewhere, at least one of the suspects arrested in the case was connected to the church.
This led investigators to the death of Proctor. Claudia Hernandez, the girl’s mother, believed her daughter was possessed by evil spirits because she often would "wake up and scream or cry," according to the paper.
Proctor was taken to the church, which operates out of the basement of a house on the 1000 block of South Second Street on Sept. 24 for the ritual.
During the two-hour ceremony, the girl was held down and had her neck squeezed by her family members. The church pastor, Rene Huezo, Proctor's grandfather, participated.
Hernandez has been charged with assault on a child resulting in death, according to the paper.
Huezo maintains that while he is sad about what happened to his grandchild, it’s not due to the exorcism, rather, "it's the stuff of God, and everything is in the will of God no matter how small or big," he told the paper.
"This is an on-going investigation. We will share info when it is available for public dissemination; at this point we are not ready to release details in an effort to protect the integrity of the investigation," said
San Jose Police Department Sgt. Christian Camarillo in an emailed statement to KCBS Radio.
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