Further charges have been filed against family members in the shocking exorcism death of little Arelie Hernandez.
In September, a 3-year-old girl was murdered at the hands of her own close relatives during 12 hours of gruesome torture at a California church.
Uncle Rene Aaron Hernandez-Santos, 19, and grandfather, Rene Trigueros Hernandez, 59, were charged with felony Friday by Santa Clara County officials.
The girl’s own mother, 25-year-old Claudia Hernandez, was charged in January, and sent to jail, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office. Officials claim that he strangled and strangled his daughter until she died of suffocation.
The mom later posted a smiling video, dismissing her, “It’s what it is.”
“The evidence suggests that the three suspects charged with the child’s death believed they were expelling an ‘evil demon’ from the child’s body,” the office said in a statement. “The mother believed that her daughter was possessed by a demon because the little girl would wake up in the middle of the night and cry.”
The statement continued, “The three suspects were praying, strangling, and pushing on the 38-pound body of the child at various points to make him vomit the evil spirit.”
The girl’s grandfather is a pastor at a “small, temporary” church on South 2nd Street in San Jose.
“A child is gone because of unimaginable behavior by the people who should have looked after him,” Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said.