As the storm raged, the Captain knew his ship was sinking fast.

He called out, "Anyone here know how to pray?"

One man called out, "Aye, Captain, I know how to pray!"

"Good," said the Captain, "you pray while the rest of us put on our life jackets - we're one short."

An unhinged actor Thursday calmly described hacking his beloved mother to death with a sword because he believed a demon had taken hold of her soul. "I didn't kill her. I killed the demon inside her," Michael Brea said in a chilling hourlong interview with the Daily News in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital. When told his mother, Yannick Brea, 55, had died in the grisly assault early Tuesday, Michael was unrepentant. "So be it. It was the work of God," he said.

--snip--

"I didn't want to kill her right away. I wanted to give her time to get right with God," he said. By this point police had arrived outside the apartment, but Brea said he had no doubt he would be able to finish the job.

"I was slashing my mom and I heard the police knocking on the door yelling, 'Michael, open up, Michael, open up,' but I knew they wouldn't open the door and stop me because the spirits were protecting me," he said.

"I just kept cutting her. No one could stop me. I was doing the work of God," he said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michael-brea-bit-part-ugly-betty-actor-didn-kill-killed-demon-article-1.456954

Two Maryland women, with ties to Philadelphia, were indicted Thursday for the first-degree murders of two small children stabbed during what police say was an exorcism. The women, Zakieya Avery and Monifa Sanford, are accused of killing Avery's 1-year-old and 2-year-old children Jan. 17 in a Germantown townhouse.

The women were indicted Thursday on two counts of attempted first-degree murder for stabbing and wounding Avery's older children, a 5-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy, said Montgomery County, Md. authorities.

Avery and Sanford told investigators that they believed evil spirits jumped between the bodies of the children and that they needed to perform an exorcism to drive the demons out, said Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy.

When being questioned by police, the women told investigators that they tried multiple methods to remove the presence of demons from the children, progressing from attempting to break the neck of the youngest child, to strangulation, to stabbing.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/PHI-COPY-Women-Indicted-in-Exorcism-Stabbings-of-Children-250598271.html

Exorcisms in Indiana Reflect God’s Healing Power

The story of an Indiana family attacked by demons and freed by a Catholic priest through a series of exorcisms has stirred imaginations and curiosity. It also seems to confirm what many Catholics already know — evil is no match against the power that rests in the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

Most media accounts of the story have focused on the power of evil. But according to Father Vincent Lampert, designated exorcist for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, such news is highlighting the wrong thing.

--snip--

During three months of training in Rome in 2006, Father Lampert assisted in more than 40 exorcisms with longtime Italian exorcist Father Carmine De Filippis. He worked alongside Father Gary Thomas, whose experiences became the basis of the book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist and inspired the fictionalized movie.

--snip--

Father Lampert said there are around 50 trained exorcists in the United States. He acknowledged that reports of demonic activity seem to be increasing.

In addition to possessions, which he said are rare, there is demonic oppression and infestation. In such cases, the devil does not take control of a person’s body, but harasses them in a number of ways, such as interfering in their lives or causing depression.

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/exorcisms-in-indiana-reflect-gods-healing-power/

Marcell Washington put his 3-year-old son into a cold shower and demanded to know if the young boy worshiped only God.

When Ameen said "no," Washington forced open the boy's eyes so water could fill them.

"I did this because I wanted to kill the Shatan that I believed was in my son," Washington explained later. "I thought by killing a portion of Ameen, it would kill the Shatan in him."

The boy's frantic struggle convinced his father even more that "Shatan," or the devil, remained in him. The exorcism continued. Washington held his son's face under water for about 10 minutes.

"When I was holding him under the water Ameen was still fighting me really hard," Washington said later. "After about a couple of minutes Ameen stopped fighting so hard and he started to collapse. After ten minutes or so Ameen collapsed in my arms and I took him out of the shower."

The father wrapped his son in a white towel and put him in the bedroom. Foam was coming from the little boy's mouth, so Washington left him on his side for the foam to drain. Washington then went to shave his head. Afterward, he checked Ameen's pulse and found none. "I didn't think he was dead because the pulse of the Shatan is very hard to track," Washington said. "I then left Ameen at the house..."

--snip--

Police said Washington was highly upset and cried on multiple occasions before being interrogated. But Washington expressed no regret and told officers he would have done it all over again, according to statements. “He stated that he did not feel he did anything wrong,” one officer wrote. “He also said that his child was better off dead than living with a devil inside of him.”

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/03/syracuse_murder_exorcism_marcell_washington.html