Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA · 2012

Lawson v. State: murder conviction affirmed after a child died during a forced exorcism ritual

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2012-05-10

Conviction affirmed.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

parent invoking exorcism and divine-command belief

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The defendant believed her son was possessed by a demon and that God had revealed a plan to exorcise it; she forced him to ingest an oil-and-vinegar mixture while holding his mouth shut, which caused his suffocation. The exorcism ritual was the direct mechanism of death.

Exorcism or deliverance
Prophecy or divine command
Curse or witchcraft threat

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2012-05-10 · appeal — conviction affirmed

Indiana Court of Appeals. The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed Latisha Lawson's murder conviction and rejected the insanity defense; her 3-year-old son died during a forced oil-and-vinegar exorcism ritual.

Documented coercion mechanisms

forced-ingestion exorcism ritual
demon-possession accusation

Cited record

Sources

appellate court appellate opinion Lawson v. State, 966 N.E.2d 1273 (Ind. Ct. App. 2012).: The Indiana Court of Appeals opinion affirms the murder conviction and records the exorcism ritual and demon-possession belief as the mechanism of the child's death.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2440915/lawson-v-state/ Corpus classification: appellate-court; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion. SHA-256 e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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