Death by Exorcism

What happens when an exorcism goes too far? In this episode of Horror Story, we explore real cases from Romania, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, and beyond—where belief in possession led to fatal rituals. These are not tales from horror films, but real events where faith, fear, and fanaticism collided.
Warning: This episode contains disturbing content related to violence and death during exorcisms. Listener discretion is strongly advised.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following episode includes descriptions of violence against women and
children through real life cases of exorcisms. Listener discretion is
strongly advised. In nineteen ninety nine, the Catholic Church made
a major update. You see, they have rules about exorcisms
and they hadn't been changed since sixteen fourteen. The point

(00:23):
of it was to address an important issue, what is
the difference between demonic possession and psychological or physical illness.
If someone is displaying signs like what we see in
the movies, like twisting, yelling out curse words, hurting others
or themselves, would a preset automatically assume that they were
being possessed by the devil maybe some other demonic entity

(00:47):
by default, And if they displayed multiple personalities, was that
considered grounds to perform an exorcism? That's what changed now.
You must a lot causes, So they're going to work
with teams of doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists to roll out everything.
After all, you might have a case such as epilepsy

(01:09):
or schizophrenia and not something supernatural. If nothing else worked,
they would begin what they call deliverance prayers, and if
those don't work, then a major exorcism was next, and
that would be sort of a last resort. But not
everyone follows these rules, things that go from simple things

(01:32):
like what a priest must wear, tools to use, and such,
to the actual process and things to say. But in
two thousand and five, a Romanian priest and four nuns
were standing before a judge, receiving sentencing fourteen years in
jail for the priest and the nuns receiving between five
to eight years each. The reason the death of Arena Carnucci,

(01:58):
a twenty three year old none that had died during
an exorcism. That's only one of the cases I will
tell you about today where exorcisms, the practice of getting
devils out of a person, have turned deadly. My name
is Edwin and here's a horror story. Most of what

(02:25):
we know about the case of Arena Carnicci was documented
by the former editor of the Bucharest, Romanian Bureau of
the BBC, one who followed the story closely and wrote
a nonfiction novel about it, ended up being called Deadly Confession.
This was written in two thousand and six and then
a second edition published in twenty twelve. The story was

(02:46):
so bizarre and tragic that it was later made into
a film called Beyond the Hills is based on these
two books, but despite the success of these stories, the
actual case was nothing to be happy about, and it
starts off in a state orphanage. Two friends, Irena and Kitsa,

(03:09):
had spent their childhood there an orphanage subjected to abuse.
Once they turned eighteen, Irena decided to go to Germany,
but before she leaves, she goes to visit her friend
that had also been her teenage sweetheart. The thing is
Kitsa as now living a religious life and worships God.
In this convent, Irena can't stand the fact that she's

(03:31):
lost Kitsa, and eventually she suffers a violent fit. Turns
out Kitsa had confessed their sexual experiences in the orphanage
to Father Daniel, which is, of course, in the Catholic Church,
a sin. Because of this fit, they desperately try to
get her some help and are finally able to get
her to the hospital. Irena was sedated and diagnosed with schizophrenia,

(03:57):
moved from place to place, but neglected by the staff. Eventually,
still in two thousand and five, even though Irena is
not doing well, she is discharged from the hospital because
they say that she's going to get better at the convent.
They take her there and she's given a booklet kind
of thing, a list of a bunch of sins, and

(04:17):
she's supposed to check mark the sins that she's committed.
You see the head of the convent here, Father Daniel,
is a super traditionalist priest from the Romanian Catholic Church.
He performs healing sessions for pilgrims and believes that evil
is all around them. But a few days go by
and Arena is having trouble because, if you remember, she's

(04:38):
trying to get to Germany, but the place where she's
trying to go to, once she gets there, working with
a wealthy family, it turns out someone else had taken
that job. Irena then has another fit and begins to
kick everything and everyone around her. But at this time
there are pilgrims at the ceremonies that Father Daniel is running,
so in order for no one to notice, they take

(05:00):
Erina up to her cell and tie her to the
bed Erna obviously isn't happy about this and begins hurling
insults and yelling. Eventually they tie her to another stretcher
that they made on the spot, one in the shape
of a cross to bring her into the church, and
that's where the exorcism begins. For two days, the priest

(05:23):
and the nuns are fasting and praying for the demons
to go away, the ones they believe are possessing her.
She's chained to this cross. A towel is stuffed in
her mouth so she stops screaming. All while she's mumbling
curses and kicking. Eventually, Irena calms down and Father Daniel
thinks that the job is done, but then Irena faints.

(05:47):
They call an ambulance who finds her unconscious and gives
her shots of adrenaline, but once they get her to
the hospital, they found out that she's actually dead. What
happens after is a series of blames. Was it the
member of the church that killed her, or was it

(06:08):
the ambulance medic. Was she alive when she got to
the actual ambulance, or did she die along the way. Eventually,
the manager that was in the emergency units gives out
a report, one that says that Arena was dead for
a few hours, even though the nuns that called in
the emergencies say that Arena was still speaking that's when

(06:28):
they called the ambulance. Still, the court spoke and made
the ruling. The victim, Irina Cornici, twenty three years old,
was killed during the ritual at the convent in the
northeast of Romania. An article by the BBC mentioned Daniel
Petru Koragino, thirty one years old, Father Daniel, the priest

(06:51):
at the Holy Trinity Convent in Tanuuk Village, as a
main guilty person. Manslaughter was a charge, fourteen years in
jail was a sentence. Father Daniel was banned from priesthood.
The four nuns were excommunicated, one of which Nicoletta Arcolinu
got eight years in prison for while the rest Adina

(07:14):
Sipraga Elena Hotel Simona Burdana got five years each. Sadly,
though Irena would still not rest, the appeal from the
accused led to Arena's body being exhumed for a second autopsy.
The results were that she had died from suffocation and dehydration,

(07:34):
Consistent to what another novice nun had said, Irena had
not been given water during the ritual. This case would
later become known as a Tenaku exorcism, something you may
have heard of before. Many things bothered me about this case.

(07:55):
There was a history already from a psychiatric hospital that
Arena Carniccci had symptoms of skin zophrenia. This was noted
by doctor Georgia Sevostrovicci, who said that Arena thought that
the devil was talking to her and was telling her
that she was a sinful person. This would make sense
considering she was given a list a checkmark with sins

(08:16):
that she had committed, things like falling in love with
another woman. When more details came out, they came up
with the truth. Irena had been gagged with a towel,
left in a room at the convent for three days
without food or water, bound to a cross. This was

(08:38):
something that the priest said was necessary because she was
violent and refused to drink holy water. Of course, as humans,
we hold our own biases with this like for me,
for example, it was once observing a ritual in the
hills of Peru, a food offering to the Bacha Mama
Mother Earth, when due to the heat of the middle

(09:00):
of the day, a woman we had been talking to
began to faint. Instead of taking her to the shade,
offering her water or getting medical help. The group leader
lit up the cigar like thing they had and started
blowing smoke on her face while chanting. Thankfully, she reacted
and was sat down to rest, but I was still
pretty shaken up. My point is that if we're going

(09:23):
to believe in the power of rituals and exorcisms, something
that requires us to trust experts with our lives, there
needs to be more than just quote medical clearance, especially
if it's monitored by themselves all Catholics, as established by
the Catholic Church. Of course, the nuns and the priests

(09:43):
believe that they were helping her, which if we look
at it with an open mind, could be possible. But
as a person living in a human body no food, water,
no air, well, we know what happens and these types

(10:03):
of cases are not uncommon. More recently, in twenty twenty two,
Claudia Hernandez Santos was arrested with assault on a child
in San Jose, California. The victim was her three year
old daughter. She told the police that her daughter was
possessed because she would be sleeping and then wake up
out of nowhere, screaming and crying. She was taken to

(10:25):
church where they performed in exorcism along with her father.
I will spare the details here, but the little girl
was held down and was left unable to breathe. The
entire thing took about two hours. The child's grandfather and
pastor of the small Pentecostal church, as well as a
child's uncle, Renee Nande Santos, were arrested. There was another

(10:50):
case that I could not immediately find the time or
location about it, but in the Journal of Forensic and
Legal Medicine by Science Direct, I found another case of
a nine year old child taken by her mother to
an exorcist. This was to expel a demon from her body.
On the second day, after being given only water to drink,
she lost consciousness and then she was taken from medical attention,

(11:14):
but she was pronounced dead. It turns out they had
been giving her medicinal syrups by force and some of
it had gotten into her lungs, causing aspiration pneumonia. And
then in twenty twenty three, a man died of an
exorcism performed on him by his family, according to a
Taiwanese article. And like this, there are many more accounts

(11:36):
of deaths by exorcism, but there was one case you
may have heard of. It was from a woman in
Karawa that sparked an entire movement to protect women in
the Latin American country. High in the mist covered mountains

(12:04):
of northern Nicaragua, deep within the rural committee of El Cortessal,
a chilling event unfolded in twenty seventeen, an event that
would horrify a nation and draw international headlines. It began,
as many stories in isolated villages do, with whispers. Vilma
Trujillo was a twenty five year old woman, young, quiet,

(12:28):
and deeply religious. She lived in a small wooden home
with her family, including her husband and two children. Life
in El Cortresal was simple and steeped in tradition. It
was a place where neighbors were lied on each other,
and faith was not just part of life, but it
was life. But in late February of that year, something changed.

(12:52):
Wilma began acting strangely. According to those who knew her,
she wandered off into the forest alone and returned saying things,
things that frightened her family. She spoke of visions of evil,
of something trying to take control of her. People said
that she was no longer herself. In many places, someone

(13:13):
in Wilma's states might have been taken to a hospital,
diagnosed and treated. But Cortesale is a place far removed
from cities and doctors, and so her family turned to
the only authority they trusted, the church pastor Juangregorio Rocha.
Romero was a spiritual leader of a small and magelical congregation.

(13:38):
It was not a man of formal theological training, but
he was deeply respected. When Wilma's relatives brought her to him,
he didn't hesitate. He said it was clear Wilma was
possessed by the devil. What followed can only be described
as a nightmare. Cloaked in the language of faith, the

(14:00):
pastor ordered an exorcism. For several days, Villema was held
inside the church, tied up, denied food, water, subjected to
repeated prayers and spiritual cleansing. According to some accounts, she
was physically abused during this time, her body showing signs
of restraint and injuries, but it wasn't enough. On the

(14:22):
fourth day, Pastor Rocha told his followers that the only
way to rid Vilma of the demons was by fire.
He claimed the spirit within her had resisted all prayer
and that the only thing that would help would be flames.
So they took Vilma, frightened, exhausted, and still alive, to

(14:44):
a ravine near the church. There they built a fire
and then, in front of several witnesses, they threw her
into the flames. When asked later why he did it,
Pastor Rocha insists that it was not him, but the
voice of God that spoke through him. He said the

(15:05):
fire would not harm her, that it would only burn
the demon, But it burned her. Vilma was pulled from
the fire, still breathing. Her body was covered and burns.
Over eighty percent of her skin had been seared. She
was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, and for
days doctors tried to save her, but the damage was

(15:28):
too severe. Vilma died on February twenty eighth, twenty seventeen.
Her death sparked national outrage in Karawa. Protests erupted and
human rights groups demanded justice. How, they asked, could something
like this happen in the twenty first century? How could

(15:50):
a woman be burned alive under the belief that she
was possessed? Pastor Drocha and four of his followers were
arrested and later convince for Villema's murder. The trial revealed
horrifying details how the group believed so deeply in their
spiritual mission that they ignored her screams, her pain, and

(16:12):
her humanity. For many, Villema's death exposed the dark undercurrent
in parts of Nicaragua, the dangerous intersection of religious fanaticism,
poverty and isolation, and communities without access to proper health care,
mental health support, or education. Superstition can become deadly. But

(16:36):
at the heart of it all was a woman, a mother,
a daughter, someone whose life had ended not because of evil,
but because of those around her believed in it too much.
Vilmatruhillo became a symbol, a cautionary tale of what can
happen when blind faith replaces compassion. Though her voice was silenced,

(16:58):
her story continues to echo across Nicaraiwa, a tragic reminder
that belief, when twisted, can become a weapon. Joanna Lee
born kilm Oak Lee was a South Korean woman in
her late thirties, carrying with her a life marked by trauma.

(17:19):
Daughter of divorced parents, she had battle depression, attempted suicide
more than once, and lived with vitoligo, a condition that
made her skin change color in patches, something that reportedly
contributed to her emotional struggles. In nineteen ninety nine, she
met a man named Luke Lee, a self declared pastor
with a criminal past. He had served prison time in

(17:42):
South Korea for fraud and dodging military service, and yet
somehow he entered New Zealand on a student visa and
began building a following. He founded a small religious group
he called Lord of All in Auckland Part It's been
a costal part cult like and deeply secretive. Joanna identified

(18:07):
with Luke Lee's message, his charisma, his conviction, and his
promises of healing seemed like answers she had long been
searching for, and by October two thousand, she left her
life in South Korea and traveled to New Zealand on
a three month visitor permit. She moved in with a
pastor and became immersed in his church and the community.

(18:30):
By early December, pastor ly announced to his congregation that
Joanna was possessed by demons, at least twenty of them,
he claimed, and to free her she needed deliverance, and
what followed would be called in exorcism by those inside
of the church. Others would later call it torture. On

(18:52):
the night of December eighth, the ritual began in the
church hall. It continued the following day in Pastor Ly's
rented home in Mount Roscoe. Witnesses described a six hour ordeal.
Joanna screamed, cried, thrashed, and Pastor Lee sat on her chest.
He balanced on her body, he struck. Her bones were
broken and bruises spread. Finally, she was strangled and she

(19:17):
stopped breathing, and yet no one called for help. Instead,
Pastor Lee told this congregation that she would rise again,
that she would resurrect, and so they waited. They recorded
her lifeless body on video. They tried to clean her
corpse with alcohol to suppress a stench of decay, but

(19:40):
after nearly a week, someone on the outside grew suspicious
and alerted the authorities. When police arrived on December fifteenth,
they found Joanna Lee's body decomposing in the home. Pastor
Luke Lee was arrested in charge with manslaughter. At trial,

(20:01):
Lee represented himself, but he barely participated. When he did speak,
it was to say something strange like Joanna will rise
from the dead. His court room performance must have been
bizarre to witness. In two thousand one, he was convicted
and sentenced to six years in prison, but a story

(20:23):
wouldn't end there. By two thousand five, while appealing the conviction,
he was deported back to South Korea, and then in
two thousand and six the New Zealand Court of Appeal
overturned the ruling. They argued that Joanna may have consented
to the exorcism, and that this possibility hadn't been adequately
addressed in court. Every trial was ordered, but by then

(20:47):
Pastorly and most of the witnesses were gone. Authorities issued
a warrant for his arrest should he ever return to
New Zealand, but he never did. To day, the house
on Mount Roswell stands quiet. Most people have forgotten the
name Joanna Lee, but her story lives on in whispers.

(21:09):
A desperate woman, a dangerous pasture, and a fatal ritual
in the name of salvation. Del Gooda, a town nestled
about forty kilometers from Colombo in Sri Lanka, is a
place where ancient beliefs intertwined with daily life. Among its

(21:31):
residents was a woman who was known for her ability
to expel demons, a self styled exorcist whose methods were
as feared as they were sought after her local mother
grew convinced that her nine year old daughter was possessed
by a demon, and in her desperation, she turned to
this exorcist, hoping to free her child from the unseen

(21:52):
forces she believed were at play. The ritual was brutal.
Oil was poured onto the young girl's forehead, a traditional
preparation for the ceremony, and then the exorcists began to
beat her with a cane, striking repeatedly in an attempt
to drive out the supposed demon. The child's cries echoed

(22:14):
through the neighborhood, prompting concerned neighbors to intervene, but despite
their efforts, they couldn't stop the ritual's deadly progression. The
girl lost consciousness and was rushed at the hospital, where
she was later pronounced dead. The authority swiftly arrested both
the mother and the exorcist, and they appeared in court

(22:36):
facing charges that underscored the tragic consequences of deeply held superstitions.
Police issued warnings about the dangers of such rituals, noting
that this is the first time an exorcism had resulted
in injury or death in the area. This incident forced
Algoda to confront the perils of unchecked beliefs and the

(22:56):
practices they engender. It served as a grim room reminder
of the need of awareness and education to prevent such
tragedies in the future, and again cases like these continue.
In October of two thousand and seven, in Wellington, New Zealand,
twenty two year old Janet Moses tragically drowned during a

(23:17):
family conducted exorcism. It was a ritual intended to lift
a Morrowi curse or a makutu. It was believed that
it was afflicted due to a relative's theft of a
sacred artifact Taunga. Approximately forty family members gathered, using large
quantities of water in an attempt to cleanse her. The

(23:39):
ceremony turned fatal as Janets was held under water, leading
to her death. Authorities treated the incident as a homicide,
highlighting the dangers of such intense spiritual practices. My intention
for this story I was telling you about now initially
was to just share with you how cult like following

(24:02):
can turn deadly, but very quickly, I was thrown into
religious and cultural ideas that are near impossible to argue with.
They're just too massive, they have a large following. Who
is to say that there isn't power of belief to
cast out devils? Though? But then again, what if there
are just mental and psychological issues that must be dealt

(24:22):
with using the tools we have available. It's up to
us to make our own decisions as to what we
choose to believe. But the more I read up on this,
the more I realize what a slippery slope our mind
can be when we start believing something that gets reinforced
by others. Losing control of our minds is a real horror.

(24:46):
How can we firmly believe that we are doing something
good when quite literally, we might be making a fatal mistake.
This episode of Horror Story was written and produced by

(25:06):
me Edwin Kowarubyas. I've been receiving cases and places to
research through email and DM so we have a lot
of work to do over here, which I'm thankful for.
I'm also looking for new cases I can talk about
in my new podcast called Paranormal Club. You can find
Paranormal Club by searching for it right now on your app.
Links to everything, including how to get in touch and

(25:29):
how to support the show, are in the description of
this episode. If you are following this podcast, I will
tell you another story next week. Thank you very much
for listening, but scary everyone so soon.