Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

One of the accused covers her face entering a court in Frankfurt. Michael Probst/PA
Murder Trial

Five on trial over exorcism death in Frankfurt

Prosecutors allege that the victim was tied, gagged and severely beaten because the family members believed she was “possessed by demons”.

FIVE MEMBERS OF a South Korean family went on trial in Frankfurt today, accused of killing a woman in a hotel room during a supposed exorcism ritual.

The accused include the 16-year-old son of the 41-year-old victim.

Believing she was “possessed by demons” they tied her to a bed, gagged and severely beat her for two hours, prosecutors said.

A 44-year-old woman — the cousin of the victim — her 21-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter, and another boy aged 15 are also on trial.

Prosecutors say that the woman began talking to herself and lashing out for no apparent reason when the six were in the hotel room in December 2015, leading the accused to attempt the “exorcism”.

Police arrested the suspects on murder charges over the “severe violence” against the woman, whose chest and stomach were beaten while she was gagged first with a towel and then a cloth-covered coat hanger.

“Massive chest compression and trauma to the neck” caused the woman’s death by suffocation, investigators said after finding the victim’s body in the hotel room.

As well as the corpse, police found a second suspected female victim, badly injured and suffering from hypothermia and dehydration, in the garage of a house the group had rented in the town of Sulzbach.

Intercontinental hotel in Frankfurt The Intercontinental Hotel in Frankfurt, where the alleged exorcism took place Google Maps Google Maps

© AFP, 2016

Read:  South Korean family charged with murder over brutal hotel exorcism