SAN JOSE — A judge has confirmed child abuse charges in reference to the infamous exorcism death of a 3-year-old girl at a small San Jose church in 2021, paving the best way for the victim's mother and two other close relatives to face trial to be held responsible, as court documents show.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Hanley Chew issued a ruling on May 13 requiring Claudia Hernandez, Rene Trigueros Hernandez and Rene Hernandez Santos to reply to criminal charges filed against them two years ago – the procedural deadline for establishing sufficient evidence at trial.
The defendants are the mother, grandfather and uncle of Arely Naomi Proctor, who died on September 24, 2021, at a 25-member Pentecostal church south of downtown San Jose led by Trigueros Hernandez.
Charges were filed against them on Monday because they were accused of kid abuse leading to death. Her next court hearing is scheduled for August 14. All three are currently being held within the Santa Clara County Jail.
Chew's decision was based on a week-long preliminary investigation that ended on March 25, during which only prosecution witnesses testified before the judge.
San Jose cops testified about interviews with the defendants after Arely died — but before they were arrested several months apart the next 12 months — in addition to a recorded conversation between Claudia Hernandez and her brother wherein she allegedly said “that God had taken (Arely) and everything was going to be OK,” and warned that “it's going to look like we intended to kill her, but we didn't.”
Michelle Jorden, the county's chief health worker who conducted Arely's autopsy, also testified and described intimately the multitude of injuries the kid suffered before his death. These included bruises all around the child's body and marks on his neck, quite a few ruptured blood vessels and brain swelling, all of which were suggestive of asphyxia and suffocation.
Defense attorneys questioned whether Arely's death was a murder and disputed cops' skepticism in regards to the defendant's Pentecostal beliefs. They argued that by doing in order that they weren’t considering criminal justice scenarios. They also tried to prove that there was no intent to kill when Hernandez, Trigueros Hernandez and Hernandez Santos took part within the exorcism, a ritual the grandfather allegedly experienced in his native El Salvador.
Before his arrest, Trigueros Hernandez admitted to this news organization that he carried out the exorcism.
Through their questioning of investigators, defense attorneys also suggested that Arely's death was the results of a real try to rid her of a “demon” identified by Claudia Hernandez a day earlier. She reportedly told a police officer that she heard the kid screaming and crying and “saying 'no, no, no' in her sleep while holding out her arms.”
Arely's death didn’t attract widespread attention until nearly eight months after it occurred, when police investigating an unrelated kidnapping raided the church where two suspects had been staying, who later pleaded “no contest” within the case.
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