A judge ordered eight adults committed to a prison psychiatric facility for 40 years on Thursday for the grisly exorcism slayings of a seven-month-old baby and a 13-year-old girl in a remote mountain community in western Mexico.
The brutality of the Dec. 7 killings -- the baby was hacked to death and dismembered while the teenager killed with stones -- has shocked Mexico. Officials say the killers were the victims' own parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, who had become convinced the girls were demons or possessed by the devil.
They carried out the ritual slayings, accompanied by prayers, the lighting of candles and the sacrifice of farm animals.
A ninth suspect -- an aunt described as the alleged instigator of the slayings -- remains at a psychiatric hospital in the state capital, reportedly in an even worse state of mental illness.
Judge Ana Maria Raya Razo, who ordered the commitment, said that members of the extended family had acknowledged carrying out killings. They said they were convinced they had to save themselves from demons.
"The psychiatric testimony showed that they were suffering from a delusional psychotic state, with paranoia and hallucinations," Razo said from Penjamo, the Guanajuato state township where the killings occurred.
"For example, they said they saw animals, demons in the girls," Razo said, citing testimony from the case.
"They said they had animal's faces, the faces of monkeys, that they had demons inside and had to be killed in order to for them [the adults] to save themselves," she added.
According to Rodolfo Gonzalez, spokesman for the Guanajuato Attorney General's Office, police were tipped off to the killings by an anonymous phone call.
They traveled on foot -- the only way into the remote, three-house hamlet where the family lived -- and found the baby girl mutilated, and the body of 13-year-old Juana Perez Frausto tied to a stake and battered to death.
The baby, Maria Elena Perez Gutierrez, had had her arms and legs cut off, and her belly cut open. The suspects later claimed that they saw animal excrement instead of her intestines.
About 10 children and adults -- members of the same extended family of about 30 -- were found locked into a house, where they had been confined for three days, apparently because they too were suspected of being possessed.
According to police reports, goats, pigs and chickens had been sacrificed at the site.
Ismael Gonzalez, private secretary to the mayor of Penjamo, located 290km west of Mexico City, said the suspects were known as "a normal family."
"This is the first case like this here ... this is not what people in Penjamo do," Gonzalez said.
He said that Amalia Perez Hernandez, who alleged started the hysteria after visiting a faith healer, had become catatonic and had been taken to a psychiatric hospital after she was detained.
The suspects -- Reinaldo Perez Hernandez and Hermelinda Frausto Lopez, the parents of the 13-year-old -- and the parents of the baby, -- helped kill their daughters, but were found not responsible for murder due to insanity.
Women’s accessories sold by some of the world’s most popular online shopping firms contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels, authorities in Seoul said yesterday. Chinese giants including Shein, Temu and AliExpress have skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at low prices. The explosive growth has led to increased scrutiny of their business practices and safety standards, including in the EU and South Korea, where Seoul officials have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by online platforms. In the most recent inspection, 144 products from
The US on Monday confirmed that it would resume sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, as concerns over human rights in the kingdom’s Yemen war give way to US hopes for it to play a role in resolving the conflict in Gaza. More than three years after imposing limits on human rights grounds over Saudi Arabian strikes in Yemen, the US Department of State said that it would return to weapons sales “in regular order, with appropriate congressional notification and consultation.” “Saudi Arabia has remained a close strategic partner of the United States, and we look forward to enhancing that partnership,”
Russia yesterday ordered more evacuations in a region bordering Ukraine as it battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory by Kyiv’s forces. Ukraine last week sent troops into Russia’s border region of Kursk, in the largest cross-border operation by Kyiv since Moscow launched its offensive more than two years ago. The assault, which has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing, marked the most significant attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II. A top Ukrainian official said that the operation was aimed at stretching Moscow troops and destabilizing the nation after months of slow Russian advances
US ELECTIONS: The polling showed the Harris-Walz ticket leading the Trump-Vance ticket by a 50 percent to 46 percent margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin US Vice President and Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris now leads former US president and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump in three crucial battleground states, according to new polls published on Saturday, apparently eroding the advantage Trump has enjoyed there over the past year. The polls of likely voters by The New York Times and Siena College showed Democratic presidential candidate Harris leading her Republican rival Trump by an identical 50 percent to 46 percent margin in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Under the US electoral college voting system, those three populous Midwestern states are considered key to victory for either party. Harris’