Church elder charged with child abuse in exorcism death of autistic boy

By (AFP, August 27, 2003)

Extracted from http://wwrn.org/articles/3523/?&place=united-states&section=other-groups

Prosecutors charged a church elder with physical abuse of a child, following the death of an eight-year-old autistic boy during an exorcism ceremony.

Ray Hemphill, who is in police custody, faces a maximum 10 years in prison and a 25,000 dollar fine if convicted on the felony count, according to the Milwaukee county district attorney's office.

The 45-year-old janitor and pastor allegedly suffocated the developmentally disabled boy during a prayer ceremony to rid him of his "demons" at a church on the northwest side of Milwaukee Friday.

According to investigators, Pat Cooper took her son to the airless church on a rundown strip mall late Friday as she had several times before over the previous three weeks.

The boy lay on the floor and Cooper and several other women present held down his arms and legs while Hemphill crouched on the floor next to Cottrell telling the "demons" to leave him.

At one point, the 157-pound (71-kilo) janitor kneeled on Terrance Cottrell's chest, Cooper told police. As the session went on the janitor laid on top of the boy to subdue him.

Cottrell struggled the entire time, and Hemphill physically laid on top of him for about an hour, according to Hemphill's account.

But it wasn't until a sweaty, exhausted Hemphill got up that the group of four adults realised the boy wasn't breathing.

At that point, Cottrell was blue in the face and had urinated on himself, Cooper told police.

The Medical Examiner's concluded that the pressure placed on the young boy's chest prevented him from breathing and that he was denied oxygen. An autopsy gave his cause of death as "mechanical asphyxia due to external chest compression."

Cottrell was diagnosed as autistic at the age of two, according to his mother, who described her son as "disruptive," and said he was being cared for by a local children's development center.

Ray Hemphill, who was ordained as a minister by his brother in the Apostolic Faith Church but had not received any institutional religious training, had apparently dedicated himself to working on Cottrell, according to Tamara Tolefree, one of the women who helped restrain the young black boy.

Hemphill had decided to devote his entire vacation from his job as a janitor to "getting that spirit out of Junior," she said. "(Friday) was to be our last and final time trying that kind of prayer," Tolefree said.