Texas Court Halts Execution for Man Who Murdered 13 Month-Old in Horrific 'Exorcism' Ritual — Here's Why

A Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted the execution scheduled Tuesday of a man who was convicted in 2010 of murdering a 13 month-old child in an exorcism ritual.

Blaine Milam was sentenced to death for the gruesome murder of Amora Carson, his girlfriend’s 13 month-old child, in 2008 in East Texas. He later said that he believed the infant was possessed by demons and that he needed to commit an exorcism ritual to save her.

The court issued the stay of execution on the basis that bite-mark evidence had been discredited since the original conviction, and that new laws about the treatment of mentally impaired felons applied in the case. . .

Milam and his girlfriend Jessica Carson contacted the police in December of 2008 and told them that they had come home to find the baby dead. When police arrived to their home, they found the deceased child brutally beaten with a hammer and with numerous bite-mark injuries. . .

When police confronted Carson about discrepancies between her story and Milam’s, she confessed that they had believed the baby was possessed, and that she died while they performed an exorcism. Carson claimed that the baby had hit herself with the hammer while under possession.