Two women stabbed and killed two children during an “exorcism” last winter in Maryland. One woman, Monifa Sanford, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in court recently, according to the Associated Press.
Sanford and Zakieya Avery, the mother of the children, believed they were “demon assassins,” according to WUSA9. The article reports the two “danced to fight demons” and spoke in tongues before killing the children. Two other children survived. The women reportedly were convinced a demonic spirit had invaded the children’s souls and turned their eyes black.
“It began with an attempt to break the neck of the youngest child; it proceeded into strangulation and ultimately graduated into stabbing,” State Attorney John McCarthy reportedly said during trial.
Reports say the women told investigators they believed evil spirits jumped successively between the bodies of the children, ages 1 and 2, and that an exorcism was needed to drive the demons out, according to the AP.
“It obviously has details that are salacious and we just ask folks to give an opportunity for all of us to get a handle on just what happened here,” Sanford’s lawyer, Edward Leyden, told the AP. “So that when the time comes to present this to a judge and a jury, all of the facts are here.”
Though Sanford pleaded guilty, the AP says she will be committed to a psychiatric ward rather then serve jail time.
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