Two Germantown, Maryland women have been charged with the stabbing deaths of two children, ages 1 and 2, and the critical injury of two more children, ages 5 and 8. Both women claim that they were attempting to perform an exorcism when the deaths occurred.
Police report that, upon arriving at the scene on Saturday, they found the two youngest children already dead from multiple stab wounds. The other two, also stabbed, are currently being treated.
Zakieya Latrice Avery, 28 and mother to all four children, and?Monifa Denise Sanford, 21, have both been charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder. Sanford is not related to the family but was allegedly living at the residence. The two women are being held without bond.
One of the neighbors told reporters:
They are innocent children.?What could they possibly have done? I’m going to go hug my 3-year-old to death.
An exorcism is traditionally a Catholic rite with the intent to drive out demons from a person who is believed to be possessed. Although the act is supposed to rid the person of what is perceived as malevolent spirits, it occasionally results in the injury or death of the so-called afflicted, who tend to be young boys and girls. Last June a Virginia man,?Eder Guzman-Rodriguez, was convicted of beating his 2-year-old son to death during an exorcism in 2011. In 2010, a 14-year-old English boy was drowned by relatives who were attempting to perform an exorcism. And in 2003, an 8-year-old autistic boy in Milwaukee was killed by church members who insisted that a demon was to blame for his disability.
Even though most anyone would describe Avery and Sanford’s actions as murder or attempted murder, a controversial new bill in Arizona would, if passed, allow the two women to use religious belief as a legal defense, had they killed the children in the Grand Canyon State. Senate Bill 1062, sponsored by the conservative Center for Arizona Policy and introduced by Sen. Steve Yarbrough (R-Chandler), would “[e]xpand the state’s definition of the exercise of religion to include both the practice and observance of religion,” among other proposals. Conceived as a means to give employers and businesses legal grounds to discriminate against gays and lesbians, the bill would also have the unintended side effect of protecting those who claim to have killed or committed other violent acts for religious reasons, exorcism being one.
Edited by DH.
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Joseph Guyer?resides in the reddest state in the Union, a wondrous place where pick-up trucks proudly display swinging novelty testicles, fried sticks of butter are deemed safe for human consumption, and female escorts can lawfully be shot for refusing to sleep with you. He firmly agrees with Bill Clinton that there is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what is right with America. You can read more of his work at?Liberals Unite?and follow him on Twitter?@joerobguy.
