A reported exorcism in Germany that resulted in the death of a South Korean woman has led to the arrests of five people, including her 15-year-old son, and to police finding a second woman who was alive but suffering from hypothermia and severe dehydration.
The suspects remained in custody on murder charges after the body of the 41-year-old woman was discovered on Saturday restrained to a bed in a hotel room where she was allegedly beaten on the chest during the two-hour exorcism and then eventually suffocated, broadcaster
Deutsche Welle reported on Wednesday.
The others arrested, all also South Korean, were a 44-year-old woman, her adult son and daughter, and another 15-year-old boy.
The dead woman's body was covered with bruises and she had been gagged with a towel that had been stuck in her mouth with a coat hanger.
Her death was caused by "suffocation due to massive chest compression and trauma to the neck," authorities told
Agence France Presse.
The suspects reportedly gave authorities information that led them to the second woman in a house in Sulzbach, Hesse, that was rented by the suspects, reported
The Local.
"This isn't something that happens often at all," a spokesman for the Frankfurt prosecutor's office told The Local, in what has to be one of the all-time understatements ever given to the press. "It's an extremely unusual case."
It wasn't clear who found the body at the Frankfurt InterContinental hotel, said the
BBC News. The family had come to Frankfurt six weeks ago.
The dead woman's religion was unknown and officials with the Catholic diocese of Limburg said exorcisms within their church only take place under very strict rules and supervision. They also require the bishop's permission.
Exorcism is the act of driving out, or warding off demons and evil spirits from persons, places or things which are believed to be possessed or infested by them, or are liable to become victims or instruments of evil, according to the website
New Advent.com.
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