Juanita Gomez’s Crucifix Murder
Left: Public Domain; Right: Oklahoma County JailJuanita Gomez (right) stabbed her 33-year-old daughter Geneva (left) to death.
Geneva Gomez was 33 years old when her mother, Juanita Martinez Gomez, stabbed her to death in August 2016 in an especially gruesome murder.
Juanita claimed she needed to perform a real-life exorcism on Juanita. And in doing so, she used a crucifix to stab her daughter until her face was no longer recognizable, then shoved it down her throat.
On Aug. 27, 2016, Geneva’s boyfriend, Francisco Merlos, arrived at her mother’s house in Oklahoma City. There, Geneva was lying beaten and bloodied on the floor with her arms spread out in the shape of the cross. On top of her chest was a large wooden crucifix. He later told police that Juanita was standing in the room rambling about the devil.
YouTubeJuanita Gomez was sentenced to life in prison.
Juanita was placed under arrest and charged with first-degree murder. In court, she claimed that she had killed Geneva because she was possessed by the devil and she needed to perform an exorcism. She also said that her daughter had been rambling in tongues and spoke in a demonic voice not her own. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
A psychological evaluation concluded that Juanita Gomez “was grossly feigning memory problems to appear incompetent,” and the judge rejected the insanity plea.
Meanwhile, the medical examiner who analyzed Geneva’s body uncovered a litany of gruesome injuries to the head and face and established the cause of death as being blunt force trauma.
When questioned about bruises on her own hands, Juanita Gomez told police that these resulted from fighting Geneva to “rid Satan from her daughter’s body.” With witness testimony from Merlos and Juanita Gomez’s own confession, a jury convicted the 51-year-old mother and sentenced her to life without parole.
Real Exorcisms: Clara Germana Cele
flowcomm/FlickrNatal, South Africa, where the exorcism allegedly took place in 1906.
Orphaned as an infant at the Marianhill mission school in Umzinto, South Africa, Clara Germana Cele was 16 years old when her behavior turned violent. Her case is one of the first real-life exorcisms documented in South Africa.
On August 20, 1906, nuns at the orphanage school claimed that Cele was ripping at her clothes and growling, demanding to speak with Father Erasmus Horner.
The priest purported that she confessed to having made a pact with Satan himself, while the nuns claimed her skin would burn when they poured holy water on it. Religious iconography was said to make her convulse. She suddenly seemed to have the strength of an adult and could purportedly speak various foreign languages that she had never learned.
When Father Horner and Reverend Mansueti reported to their superiors that she had levitated, they received permission to conduct an exorcism. According to accounts of the exorcism published in the 1930s, the ritual lasted two full days.
mwwile/FlickrWhile the young girl was purportedly saved from her alleged demons, she died of heart failure at 22.
Erasmus and Mansueti began their ritual cleansing at dawn on Sept. 11, 1906, and went late into the night. Father Erasmus and his nuns allegedly claimed she had once transformed into a serpent and bitten one of the women trying to help her. Later, they said Cele had attempted to strangle one of the priests during this time and knocked a Bible out of his hands.
They administered their religious rites again the following morning, at which point the demon vacated the girl’s body and forced her to levitate one last time. According to accounts, 170 people were present to witness Clara Germana Cele’s possession and real-life exorcism.
In the end, she died of heart failure six years later at the age of 22.
