SAN JOSE — A court hearing to determine whether three people will head to trial in the 2021 exorcism death of a 3-year-old girl continued Friday with Santa Clara County’s chief medical examiner testifying about the multitude of injuries the child suffered before she died.
Dr. Michelle Jorden, the longtime head of the South Bay coroner’s office, took the stand in Judge Hanley Chew’s courtroom to detail an array of hemorrhaging, bruising and other injuries throughout Arely Naomi Proctor’s 38-pound body, documented during her autopsy.
The entrance to Iglesia Evangelica Apostoles y Profetas church, which is in a backroom of a multi-family home located on the 1000 block of 2nd Street in San Jose, Calif., is seen on Friday, May 6, 2022. The church was the site of a 2021 exorcism that ended in the death of a 3-year-old girl, which authorities say was at the hands of her mother, grandfather and uncle. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Arely’s official cause of death was asphyxia by way of suffocation through mechanical asphyxia and smothering. Authorities allege it occurred at the hands of three of her relatives who spent hours trying to purge the girl of a “demon” at their small Pentecostal home church in San Jose on Sept. 24, 2021.
Claudia Hernandez, Rene Trigueros Hernandez and Rene Hernandez Santos — the girl’s mother, grandfather and uncle, respectively — have all been charged with felony child abuse resulting in death. Jorden’s testimony Friday was part of a preliminary examination that began March 18. At the hearing’s end, Chew will decide whether there is enough evidence against the three to allow the charges to proceed toward trial.
Jorden recalled the autopsy she performed on Arely after police were called to the church and found the child dead. She testified to finding bruising and markings on the child’s neck, numerous burst blood vessels and brain swelling that were all indicative of asphyxiation.
Arely also had injuries in her mouth indicating that she had severely bit her tongue and had marks on her gumline from being violently shaken. Jorden recounted documenting bruising and abrasions on the child’s face, and bruises all over her torso.
Another injury that the girl suffered — one that wasn’t previously widely known — was a tear in her aorta on the right side of her heart. Jorden stated several times throughout her testimony that Arely’s injuries were consistent “with one being smothered” and “with when someone died of asphyxiation.”
In response to questioning from defense attorney Dana Fite — who is representing the victim’s grandfather — Jorden said there was no realistic scenario in which the child could have died innocuously, and recited the technical definition of homicide in her answer: “This was a child that died at the hands of another.”
“I can’t think of a situation where smothering could be considered accidental,” she added.
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The autopsy conclusion aligned with what San Jose police and Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise have alleged since the defendants were arrested several months apart in the first half of 2022: That Arely was subjected to more than 12 hours of physical abuse that included being “strangled multiple times to the point of unconsciousness,” having “fingers shoved down her throat to the point she had multiple injuries to her mouth and to her tongue, and she had pressure put on her body, on her torso from the front and back.”
Prior to his arrest, Trigueros Hernandez admitted to this news organization to performing the exorcism. Police alleged that he, Hernandez and Hernandez Santos held the girl down to try to make her vomit, and rotated between positions in which one person held her by the face and neck, one held her around her torso and the third held her around her legs. She had not been given any food and hardly any water in the 24 hours leading up to her death, authorities said.
Arely’s death did not draw public attention until nearly eight months after it occurred, by apparent happenstance: Police investigating an unrelated kidnapping searched the church attended by two suspects who later pleaded no contest in that case, which led to the public revelation of the exorcism.
The preliminary examination is expected to conclude Monday.
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