Remote Nicaragua village backs pastor in fatal exorcism

EL CORTEZAL, Nicaragua: In El Cortezal, a remote Nicaraguan village, the silence around an exorcism that left a young woman dead is as complete as the loyalty to the pastor who performed it.

The only evidence left of the macabre events that occurred on February 21 are ashes from the pyre built by the religious leader and some of his followers. The news of the death of Vilma Trujillo Garcia, a 25-year-old mother of two children, caught international headlines.

The pastor involved, Juan Rocha, 23, was arrested and taken to the capital Managua. He told police Trujillo had been "possessed by a demon" and he had tried for seven days to help her with prayers. Witness accounts said she was stripped naked, and thrown tied up on a pile of wood that was set alight, in an exorcism ritual.

Rocha reportedly denied that version, saying the woman had herself leaped at the fire, but had been suspended aloft by the malign spirit in her.