Trial fate of San Jose exorcism case will hold another month

The mother, grandfather, and uncle of a 3-year-old girl were charged with felonies in the child's ritual death at a small church in 2021.

SAN JOSE — A judge’s decision has been put off for a month on whether criminal charges in a 3-year-old girl’s death during an exorcism will proceed to trial and task a jury with deciding the criminal liability of the child’s mother, grandfather and uncle.

Judge Hanley Chew was originally scheduled to issue his ruling Tuesday, but that was changed to May 13 to allow for all attorneys in the case to submit briefs arguing whether Chew has seen sufficient evidence to uphold the charges against Claudia Hernandez, Rene Trigueros Hernandez and Rene Hernandez Santos following a week-long preliminary examination that concluded March 25.

All three are 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.

Only prosecution witnesses testified at the week-long hearing. In a brief submitted last week, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office summed up the testimony and recounted the crux of the case against the three defendants.

“During this assault, Arely Doe fought for her life as three trusted adults forcibly grabbed her by her neck, torso, back, and legs, smothered her by repeatedly attempting to pry open her mouth to make her vomit, and held her with so much force that she had internal bleeding and injuries,” Deputy District Attorney Rebekah Wise wrote. “The evidence shows that while this assault was ongoing, Arely struggled to escape from her abusers. She clamped her mouth in resistance to the adults who were trying to pry it open.”

Wise added, “The evidence presented at preliminary hearing … is more than sufficient for this court to hold each of the three charged.”

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 Claudia 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.”

The last two days of testimony revolved around 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.

Defense attorneys probed Jorden’s conclusion that ruled the death a homicide. They also asked about what they characterized as police detectives’ skepticism of the defendants’ Pentecostal faith; they argued officers might have been less zealous in their questioning if the defendants had practiced a more conventional religion.

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 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, they 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.

In a statement to a police officer the evening Arely died, Claudia Hernandez reportedly gave her reasoning for Arely being possessed: the child screaming and crying and “saying ‘no, no, no’ in her sleep while moving her arms out.”

Prior to his arrest, Trigueros Hernandez admitted to this news organization to performing the exorcism. 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.