Vilma Trujillo
before the religious rite that sentenced her to the bonfire to expel the demon inside her, Nicaraguan peasant Vilma Trujillo was tied, she was not allowed to eat or drink water and was beaten for a week. So was testified by witnesses during the trial against a pastor, who, according to authorities, is responsible for the crime.
The pastor told us not to have mercy, because she was the devil, who had to be burnt until there was only his head,
said victim’s cousin Roberto Trujillo before a criminal court in Managua.
The ritual took place from February 15th to February 21st in El Cortezal, a remote village of Mina Rosita, in Nicaragua’s Caribbean area.
Trujillo died on February 28th in a hospital in Managua as a result of second and third degree burns throughout her body after being exposed to a temperature of 400 degrees, as informed by Rosita’s medical examiner Ricardo Larios.
Trujillo’s younger sister, Marlene, said that she saw her tied in a hammock:
I was not allowed to be with her, and Pastor Juan Rocha told me not to pay attention to her, because she had a demon inside.
When Roberto Trujillo and his uncle Catalino Trujillo, Vilma’s father, arrived at the chapel to take her away, the woman was naked and had spent more than five hours on the embers.
She was pushing and she could not walk,
said the man in a barely audible voice.
In rubber boots, the victim’s father told the court that Pastor Rocha did not allow him to see his daughter during the seven days she was locked in the chapel and then, when she was burnt up, he told him that she had burned herself.
The last words that the troubled man heard from his daughter were: “Dad, I’m thirsty, give me water”. he gave her two glasses of water and she said no other word.
12 hours later, in search of medical help, the peasant was taken out of El Cortezal to the nearest village, that is ten hours’ walk, as stated by the father.
The coroner who performed the autopsy explained to the court that Vilma Trujillo was hit with several objects while she was still alive.
The Public Ministry accuses pastor Juan Rocha, his brothers Pedro and Tomasa Rocha, Franklin Jarquin and Esneida Orozco of kidnapping and murder.