Maryland Mom Accused of Killing Kids in Exorcism

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Maryland resident Zakieya L. Avery has been accused of stabbing her two young children to death and injuring two others while attempting to perform an exorcism on them on Friday.

The two children, Norell Harris, 1, and his sister, Zyana Harris, 2, died of multiple stab wounds, while their siblings were hospitalized.

Exorcisms are rituals performed to literally "exorcise" and defeat a demon or an evil spirit believed to be inhabiting a person. Though most of the American public may be familiar with exorcisms as the subject of popular horror films, exorcisms are still performed regularly in many parts of the world, with the Catholic Church as one serious advocate for the ritual.

Police were previously called to the house as recently as Thursday over reports of an unattended child in the car. Though the officers attempted to speak to the residents, nobody came to the door. Authorities apparently notified child services of the event but reports are unclear as to whether or not anyone actually followed up the claim.

Though officials did not give a specific reason as to why they suspected the horrific murders were the result of an exorcism gone wrong, police found the four children after a neighbor reported suspicious activity involving a knife to the police.

Avery was charged Saturday with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. A second woman, believed to be unrelated to the family, was briefly hospitalized after the event. She is also being charged with the murders and is currently being held without bond with Avery.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/19/justice/maryland-exorcism-deaths/index.html

What the actual ****? I have no words for this

 

[R0rschach]

 

[Teelie]

Schizophrenia from the description.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

I suffer from schizophrenia and I thank my lucky stars that my psychosis never led me to hurting someone else.

 

[TheDreamMaster]

This is awful.

 

[KevanG]

Even in the past few years in some parts of Africa there's been news reports of witch burnings and murders due to 'exorcisms' gone wrong. You'd think she would have just tried to bring them to a church first where hopefully someone would have called the cops. Shame she didn't and the kids died from it.

 

[Mike_D202]

Though most of the American public may be familiar with exorcisms as the subject of popular horror films, exorcisms are still performed regularly in many parts of the world, with the Catholic Church as one serious advocate for the ritual.

I like how they emphasized the Catholic Church. Funny, I don't remember stabbings being apart of the exorcism ritual. In fact I'm pretty positive the initial thing they do is try to debunk it ASAP then most of the time they determine it to be a psychological disorder.

 

[KevanG]

I'd like to think of it more of a "come see us before you do anything crazy" thing than an actual advocation of exorcisms actually being needed.

 

[Teelie]

I like how they emphasized the Catholic Church. Funny, I don't remember stabbings being apart of the exorcism ritual. In fact I'm pretty positive the initial thing they do is try to debunk it ASAP then most of the time they determine it to be a psychological disorder.

They did that because it's true, and they didn't say the Catholic Church stabbed people as part of it. I don't know of any exocrisms depicted that include stabbings but they did tie the two together in this story so it's guaranteed someone is going to equate stabbings with the Church's exorcisms.