SAN JOSE — The fate of an extraordinary homicide case in which three people are charged with killing a 3-year-old girl during an exorcism at a small San Jose church three years ago is now in the hands of a judge who will decide whether the trio will go to trial.
A preliminary examination concluded Monday for Claudia Hernandez, Rene Trigueros Hernandez and Rene Hernandez Santos, who are all charged with felony child abuse resulting in death related to the Sept. 24, 2021 death of Arely Naomi Proctor at a 25-member Pentecostal church south of downtown led by Trigueros Hernandez.
Judge Hanley Chew will issue a ruling April 9 on whether evidence presented by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office over the previous week, and scrutinized by the defendants’ attorneys, is sufficient to allow the charges to proceed to trial.
Monday’s testimony was largely a continuation of questioning directed at Michelle Jorden, the county’s chief medical examiner who performed Arely’s autopsy. She detailed the multitude of injuries the child suffered before she died, which included bruising all over her body and markings on the child’s neck, numerous burst blood vessels and brain swelling that were all indicative of asphyxiation and being smothered.
Prior to his arrest, Trigueros Hernandez admitted to this news organization to performing the exorcism. Authorities alleged that over 12 hours he, Hernandez and Hernandez Santos held the girl down to try to make her vomit, and violently handled her while rotating 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.
Earlier in the preliminary examination, San Jose police detectives testified about interviews with the defendants after Arely died — but before they were arrested several months apart the following year — as well as a recorded conversation between Hernandez and her brother in which she reportedly said “that God had taken (Arely) and everything was going to be ok,” and cautioned about how “it’s going to look like we intended to kill her, but we did not.”
Defense attorneys probed Jorden’s conclusion of the death being a homicide, as well as what they characterized as police detectives’ skepticism of the defendants’ Pentecostal faith, which they argued would not have been present had they practiced a more conventional religion.
Related Articles
Controversial policy on inviting parents to kids’ abuse interviews vanishes from Santa Clara County website
San Jose high school teacher arrested after 2000s rape allegation
Teacher arrested; San Jose police say he annoyed or molested a student
Judge denies sentencing recall for Bay Area serial rapist
Police officer fatally shoots knife-wielding man in Sunnyvale
Jorden was pressed several times on whether Arely’s death could have been an accident rather than an intentional killing, but the medical examiner was steadfast in her conclusion, saying at one point in her testimony, “I can’t think of a situation where smothering could be considered accidental.”
The defense sought to establish that there was no intent to kill when the Hernandez, Trigueros Hernandez and Hernandez Santos took part in the exorcism, a ritual with which the grandfather claimed past experience in his native El Salvador.
Through their questioning of detectives, the also suggested that Arely’s death was the result of a genuine attempt to purge her of a “demon” that the child’s mother identified a day earlier; the child’s grandfather reportedly told police that Arely struggled throughout the ritual, and that she was possessed by a power he could not destroy.
Defense attorneys did not present any witnesses during the preliminary examination, which is common in these kinds of hearings; a judge serves as the sole fact finder and decider of whether criminal charges are sufficient to head toward a jury trial.
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.