Exorcism That Turns Into Murder: How 25-year-old Was Killed ?

At dawn, Vilma Trujillo was led out of the Celestial Vision church - a dark wooden cabin where she had been held captive for almost a week - and tied to a guava tree.

The 25-year-old had been taken there after starting to hallucinate and talk to herself. It was for her own good, she was told. Prayers were the antidote to the demons that possessed her.

“She was saying strange things,” remembers her aunt, Angela García.

“She told her sister she would not give birth to a baby but to a serpent.

“She was crying, falling to her knees, talking about the devil. 

“I had never seen her like that before.”

The family knew she needed help, but they also knew it would take the best part of a day to reach a doctor from the scattering of poor homesteads in the rainforest of north-eastern Nicaragua, that is known as El Cortezal.

Instead, they sent for the young pastor from the evangelical church that Vilma had recently joined.

Twenty-three-year-old Juan Rocha said he could help.

He and his followers led her for an hour along muddy paths to the Celestial Vision church, at a lonely spot on a hillside.

She was held there for days, deprived of food and water, as members of the church recited prayers. 

When her family attempted to visit, they were told she was “not yet cured” and turned away.

Though Vilma had gone willingly, at a certain point she rebelled, grabbing a machete and swinging it through the air in a failed attempt to break free.

On the sixth night, one of the congregation professed to have had a divine revelation: God had sent a message that the demons could be expelled through flames.

Juan Rocha began to direct the proceedings, helped by about a dozen believers.

Some began to build a pyre, others went off to fetch more wood. It was at this point that Vilma was moved outside and tied to the guava tree beside the fire pit.

To this day, it is unclear if she was pushed into the fire, or if it grew and engulfed her, but soon the flames were clawing at her skin.

“I’m going to die, I’m going to die!” she cried out, according to her 15-year-old sister, who was inside the church praying when she heard the screams.

Paralysed with shock, the teenager listened to her elders exclaim that Vilma would soon be resurrected, free from torment.

Hours passed before one member of the group broke ranks and told the sister to run for help.

You won’t find El Cortezal on Google Maps, or even most local maps.

In the depths of the countryside - where in places virgin forest is still being burned to create arable land - there are no roads, no electricity, no phone lines, no police, no doctors, not even a shop.

It took me eight hours to get there from the nearest town, Rosita - two hours by 4x4 truck, four hours on foot and four hours on a mule. The mobile phone signal is almost non-existent, confined to isolated patches of higher ground.

So the only place for Vilma’s sister to get help was at her aunt’s homestead. She ran along the overgrown paths, arriving out of breath and barely able to speak. She said simply: “They have burnt her.”

A rescue party headed by Vilma’s father, Catalino López Trujillo, arrived at the scene at midday, as the last flames were still flickering. López Trujillo found his daughter lying naked on the ground, with burns covering 80% of her body. Barely conscious, she asked him for water.

He and his nephew carried her back to Angela’s house. There Vilma was still able to reassure her tearful five-year-old son. “Los pastorcitos me bautizaron,” she told him. The little pastors baptised me.

López Trujillo gathered various siblings, cousins and uncles to create a makeshift stretcher from a hammock and two poles.

Before dawn the next day, they set off, carrying her for 12 hours overland, wading through rivers and struggling not to slip on the steep muddy paths through the rainforest.

When they finally reached Rosita, the doctors realised her injuries were too serious to be treated locally.

She was taken to an airport about 30km (20 miles) away and flown to the capital, Managua, but it was too late.

Vilma Trujillo died on 28 February from pulmonary oedema, her lungs filling with blood, and multiple organ failure.

Timeline

February 2017

15 - Vilma Trujillo is taken to the Celestial Vision church

21 - Fire is lit at 05:00, her father finds her at midday

22 - Vilma is carried from El Cortezal to Rosita

23 - She is flown to Managua

28 - Vilma dies in hospital

(BBC)