Jun 19, 2009 6:02 am US/Eastern
HORROR: 6-Year-Old Burned In Haitian Voodoo Ritual
District Attorney Stunned By Alleged Crime Carried Out By Mother And Grandmother In Basement Of Queens Home
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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The Queens district attorney told CBS 2 HD on June 18 that this house was the site of a horrific incident in which a mother and grandmother burned a 6-year-old girl in a Haitian voodoo ritual.
CBS
She's only 6 years old and has burns all over her body.
And what's worse -- police say her mother and grandmother are to blame.
Investigators said it happened during a bizarre voodoo ritual at the family's Queens home.
There were gasps in the courtroom Thursday night as prosecutors described how the little girl was allegedly set on fire by her mother. The grandmother claimed she had no part in the voodoo ritual, but they're both in jail.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said the girl was deliberately set on fire by her mother in the basement of their Queens Village home in what he called a Haitian voodoo ritual done to cleanse the body and mind.
"She had accelerant poured on her and that a ring of fire was created," Brown said. "She was then placed inside the ring of fire and as a result suffered the kind of injuries she suffered."
Neighbors were stunned to hear about what happened to the little girl. The man who lives in the apartment above them spoke to CBS 2 HD's Pablo Guzman, but asked we not identify him.
"Obviously if somebody got burned and hurt they should have brought that person to the hospital right away. So why did they have to wait one or two days?" the person said, adding that the entire morbid situation sounded awfully suspicious.
Other neighbors on the quiet block in Queens Village were not completely surprised.
"I live in the basement and I live right next to them because they're in the basement and I'm in the basement, and I didn't hear anything," Katherine Martinez said. "And this happened in February. And just to know the whole time … I don't know what they've been doing."
Prosecutors said the grandmother claimed she didn't witness the ritual, but saw the child's burns afterwards, and poured cold water on her.
They waited an entire day before taking the girl to the hospital.
"The mother was alleged to have told the medical staff that the child was burned as a result of a pot of boiling rice on the stove that accidentally fell upon her," Brown said.
The child was hospitalized for 55 days, and prosecutors said it wasn't until she was placed in foster care that she told her foster family what really happened.
The mother is being held on $50,000 bail; the grandmother on $7,500.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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