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Autistic Boy Dies During Exorcism
8-Year-Old Wrapped In Sheets During Storefront Prayer Service
August 25, 2003
MILWAUKEE
Bishop David Hemphill holds a Bible
as he talks to a reporter outside his home in Milwaukee about the
death of the boy. (AP)
(CBS/AP) An autistic 8-year-old boy
died while wrapped in sheets during a prayer service held to
exorcise the evil spirits that church members blamed for his
condition.
The minister who performed the
service was arrested in connection with the death, which occurred
Friday night at a church in a run-down strip mall.
The mother had been taking her son
to Faith Temple Church of the Apostolic Faith three times a week for
the last three weeks in hopes of curing his autism, said Bishop
David Hemphill Sr.
It was after more than an hour of
prayer that a parishioner noticed the boy was no longer moving and
called emergency workers, Hemphill said. The boy's grandmother said
force was used, an allegation disputed by church members.
“We were asking God to take this
spirit that was tormenting this little boy to death,” Hemphill said.
“We were praying that hard, but not to kill.”
Hemphill identified the boy as
Torrance Cantrell and the man arrested as Ray Hemphill, his brother
and another minister who led Friday's service. David Hemphill said
he has not talked to his brother or the boy's mother, Patricia
Cooper, since Friday night. Cooper could not be reached for comment.
Police have not released the boy's
name but have said they don't believe he was struck. The results of
an autopsy also have not been disclosed.
Church members had wrapped the boy
in sheets to keep him from scratching himself and others, but he was
allowed to sit “any way that he feels comfortable,” Hemphill said.
The boy's grandmother said the boy
had been restrained.
“They held the boy down, they held
him down until ... he went to a smothery grave,” Mary Luckett told
Milwaukee television station WTMJ.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
reported that David Hemhill's wife, Pamela Hemphill, said that
Torrance's mother held the boy's feet and two other women held the
boy's hands during the prayer session.
David Hemphill started the
independent church in 1997. It meets twice a week and has a
congregation of six families.
Cooper, the boy's mother, started
coming to the church about three months ago after she met a
parishioner at a doctor's office, Hemphill said. Cooper told the
parishioner about her son's autism, and the church member invited
her to a Sunday service. She joined the next week.
A makeshift memorial with four
colored candles and a few stuffed animals sat on a window ledge
outside the boy's home Sunday.
©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All
Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to
this report.
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