Janet Moses

Sad story. This woman gets a forced exorcism by family members because she was “acting like a lion”, once they brought a statue that they believed to be possessed into the home. The “exorcism” consisted of pouring liters of water into the woman’s eyes because the family thought there were “jelly fish-like demons” in her eyes. The excessive water pouring lasted for days, causing some water to enter the woman’s lungs and killed her.

And people say that there is no harm with Reality TV and the messages it conveys.

A Wainuiomata woman killed during a botched exorcism had been acting like a lion and speaking in “puzzles” after being possessed by spirits from a stolen statue, the High Court at Wellington has been told.

The Crown has finished presenting its five-week long case against the family of Janet Moses for the 22-year-old woman’s October 2007 death.

Nine people, including five aunts and an uncle, were charged with manslaughter after water poured on to her face to lift a makutu, or curse, got into her lungs.

The video-taped police interview of the slain woman’s aunt and co-accused, Angela Orupe, said her niece had been “fighting with her grandmother, acting like a lion and trying to claw her”.

The makutu targeted her cousin, who took the statue, but affected Moses because she was weaker, Orupe said.

She described the lion as an “ugly statue”, about 60cm high and “very, very old”.

Two family members stole it from outside a Greytown pub after a drinking session.

After bringing the statue home, the family’s children began getting sick and were unsettled, she said.

Following advice from a kaumatua in Porirua, the family drove in a hikoi, or convoy, to return the statue to the place it was stolen from.

Driving home after taking the statue back one of the cars in the hikoi got a puncture and had to pull over – violating the instruction the family had to leave and return to the grandmother’s house together, she said.

That night, family members reported Moses speaking in “puzzles” and having a restless night, Orupe said.

“Things were coming out of her mouth – saying the same things – ‘money’, ‘the funeral’, ‘the hits’. We couldn’t get her to sleep.”

She said Moses had spirits in her eyes that looked “like jellyfish – slimy little things”.

In the ceremony, which lasted several days, the family had poured litres of water into the woman’s eyes to lift the makutu, until she began convulsing.

Someone then put a spoon into her mouth to stop her biting her tongue, Orupe said.

Several of the whanau present attempted CPR.

“You honestly had to be there. To think this sort of thing could happen in this day and age,” she told Detective Mike Philpott.

She questioned Philpott’s assumption there was a “correct process” for exorcism, saying it was whatever her elders said it was.

Lawyers representing the nine accused called no witnesses.

The nine accused, who have all pleaded not guilty, are John Tahana Rawiri, 49, Georgina Aroha Rawiri, 50, Tanginoa Apanui, 42, Hall Jones Wharepapa, 46, Orupe, 36, Gaylene Tangiohororere Kepa, 44, Aroha Gwendoline Wharepapa, 48, Alfred Hughes Kepa, 48, and Glenys Lynette Wright, 52.

The crown will begin its closing address on Tuesday.

Full source: TVNZ