Exorcism is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to have been possessed. One attempt at exorcism in Oklahoma went seriously wrong. In August two years ago, 33-year-old Geneva was found dead in her mother’s home with her body placed in the position of a cross with a large crucifix placed on her chest.

Police arrived to the home after callers asked officers to do a welfare check on one of the women living in the residence. When authorities found Geneva’s body, she was bloody, with a large crucifix on her chest and had suffered severe trauma to her face and head, police said. Her mother was arrested at the scene.

Geneva’s mother, 51-year-old Juanita Gomez, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing her adult daughter by forcing a crucifix and medallion down her throat because she believed the woman was possessed by the devil. The judge followed the sentence recommended by jurors who convicted her in January of first-degree murder.

People reports:

Juanita told investigators she had punched her daughter repeatedly before shoving the crucifix and a religious medallion down her throat.
She told police she attacked her daughter because she believed she was possessed, and that she believed the crucifix and medallion would help “rid Satan” from her body.
After watching her die, she said she tried cleaning her daughter’s body and positioned her in the shape of a cross.

“You would think maybe putting a photograph of her child on the presenter would trigger some emotion, but it didn’t appear to,” said Oklahoma County Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Lavenue after the trial. "I think she thought that maybe just the thought of an exorcism occurring, that would make somebody think perhaps she had a mental illness or was insane or something," Lavenue said.

News 9 reports:

Juanita Gomez told police her daughter was possessed by the devil. She admitted to punching her daughter repeatedly and forcing a crucifix and religious medallion down her throat until blood came out of her daughter’s mouth. She said she watched her daughter die and then placed her body in the shape of a cross.

Gomez has spent time in the Oklahoma County Jail before on gun and drug-related charges and was convicted on a drug trafficking and gun possession charge in 2009 and received a 10-year suspended sentence.

This isn’t the first case of murder in the name of religion, or the first case where mother killed her child and regardless of the reasons that led to the killings, such perpetrators must always be strictly punished.

Photo Credits: Patheos