A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted police, currently suspended without pay, told a court this week that he enlisted his brother – a priest – to perform an exorcism on his ‘possessed’ 11-year-old son.
The boy’s dad and stepmother, both free on bail, are each charged with aggravated assault, forcible confinement, and failure to provide necessities of life. Neither can be named to protect the child’s identity.
The father, 44, is also charged with sexual assault causing bodily harm, and three counts of assault with a weapon (handcuffs, wooden stick, and a barbecue lighter). The stepmother, a 36-year-old federal government employee, is also charged with assault with a weapon (a wooden spoon).
In his testimony, the Mountie said:
I thought the devil’s inside him. I saw his eyes and heard his voice.
The chilling detail was revealed under questioning by lawyer Anne London Weinstein, who is defending the Mountie’s wife.
It’s not clear when the exorcism was performed, but it was sometime before September 2012, and before the Mountie allegedly started torturing and starving his son in their darkened Kanata basement.
The Mountie has admitted to burning his shackled, naked son with a BBQ lighter as a form of punishment for misbehaving and refusing to do homework.
It was the Mountie’s third day on the stand and when asked about the exorcism, he said his son reminded him of the girl in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist.
The boy, now 14, told investigators he thinks the exorcism was performed in his home because he recalls his father and the priest using a crucifix from the kitchen wall.
The Mountie, who has presented himself as a victim, said he had run out of options to control his “out-of-control” son. He also rationed his food to the point that the boy weighed only 50 pounds on the day – February 12, 2013 – that he escaped his chains in search of water while his family was out shopping. Doctors, some of whom cried at the sight of his emaciated, tiny frame, said he almost starved to death.
The priest in question testified in December at the child-torture trial, and defended the disgraced Mountie, but provided inconsistent testimonies under oath.
He told court back then that he had memory problems due to his “professional habit”, and that he had trained his brain to flush away facts after so many years of hearing confession.
The prosecutor, at the time, reminded court that the case had nothing to do with confession and firmly established the boy had never exhibited any out-of-control behaviour in the priest’s presence. The reality, the prosecutor said, was that the abused boy’s father exaggerated his son’s behaviour to justify the boy’s torture.
The trial continues with the Mountie now under cross examination.
Hat tip: Trevor Blake