Very disturbing story of abuse and murder. Over the last few years I started reading a lot about demonic possession, because I sought to understand what was happening to so many people in our country. The wretched distorted faces, the explosive anger, the rage and hatred and violence, I wanted to understand what could be going on. It was one of many routes of inquiry I took.

Now, I was raised Roman Catholic, and of course, some of the most famous cases of exorcism come out of the Catholic tradition. There is a very strict protocol followed before an exorcism takes place, and it involves multiple examinations by doctors, and a psychiatric exam to see if there is an underlying problem causing the strange behavior. Additionally, there have to be two signs that signal true possession: 1) speaking in a language the person could not possibly know 2) having knowledge of other people's personal lives, again, that the individual could not know. (In the movie The Exorcist, a Hollywood mockup, the possessed child knows the priest's grief and guilt over his mother's death. The case was based on a true exorcism that took place in St. Louis of a young boy and in fact the boy DID know personal details about the two priests performing the excorcism.)

Poor child. I agree with Lillith Helstrom that most likely the child was abused during her short life by the mother. Yeuch, awful affair.

Before his death in 1999, Fr. Malachi Martin, known as one of the most active exorcists said in an interview that the number of cases of true possession were exploding. Oddly, he said that certain locations were "dens" -- Zurich, Switzerland and Louisville, KY. Weird.