Ouija
Board Spooks Inmates -
Priest With Holy Water Needed
- By Roxanne Stites
- San Jose Mercury News
- http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/ouija30sf.htm
- 8-31-00
- A circle of inmates set a Ouija board
on the floor and gathered around. They leaned in, and, together,
prayed to the devil. At one point, inmates said, they lightly placed
their fingers on the board and called up the spirit of a woman.
-
- They asked the spirit how she died,
then followed the message indicator around the handcrafted board as it
spelled out: ``I was murdered.'' They asked how, then watched the
indicator move letter to letter, spelling out ``investigate.''
-
- The inmates were spooked. But the game
wasn't over.
-
- According to Santa Clara County Jail
officials, the inmates went from asking a few questions to praying to
Satan to three of them screaming out loud after they thought they were
possessed by demons.
-
- Jail officials said correctional
officers immediately called in a priest who blessed 29 prisoners as he
sprinkled them, and then the group's dormitory, with holy water.
-
- ``We have never, ever had anything
like this occur here,'' said Bryan Peretti, county department of
correction spokesman.
-
- The Ouija board -- with the alphabet
and words Yes, No and Goodbye printed on it -- is said to have been
around, in some variation, for hundreds of years. Some sit down to the
board out of curiosity, others seek spiritualistic or telepathic
messages.
-
- The jail inmates, all documented gang
members, said they spent an entire night earlier this month crafting
the board. They used the underside of a Scrabble game as the base,
fancily penciled in the alphabet, and shaped a piece of cardboard into
a teardrop to use as the ``message indicator,'' which, in theory,
mysteriously moves from letter to letter, spelling out messages, after
a question is asked.
-
- Then, on three separate nights, four
to five inmates gathered at one time in the bathroom: It's the darkest
place in the dorm, with just a flicker shining in from afar. Before
long, inmate Isaias Velasquez, 21, said he and others thought they
felt a presence in the bathroom. They asked the board if anyone was in
there, and the teardrop began spinning uncontrollably, he claimed.
Everyone bolted.
-
- When they went back in, Marcos
Vasquez, 29, said, he looked at the board on the floor, then turned to
face the others. ``I felt cold and bigger,'' he said. ``I was filled
with anger and talked in this deeper voice I never had.''
-
- Inmates thought Vasquez was acting,
but the drama continued. By the third day, three inmates, including
Vasquez, feared they may be possessed. They tore up the board and
threw it away.
-
- But, on the morning of Aug. 5, two
correctional officers -- who never saw the inmates toying with the
Ouija board -- said they heard screams coming from the inmates' dorm,
2-4.
-
- They went inside and confronted a
chaotic scene in which inmates were crying and flailing their arms.
Peretti, the corrections spokesman, said officers soon realized the
inmates ``seriously believed'' they were possessed.
-
- After interviewing all the inmates
involved, jail officials said they don't believe the fear was feigned.
They called the priest away from his other prayer duties and asked
that he bless and counsel the inmates. The clergyman then spent two
days counseling the three inmates most overpowered by fear.
-
- Marilu Edder, who has been director of
Detention Ministry of the Diocese of San Jose for about 15 years, said
this is the first time she has heard of the county's jail inmates
using a Ouija board. But it's not unusual, she said, for some to pray
to the devil.
-
- She said she counseled one woman who
contemplated praying to Satan because someone told her it could get
her out of jail faster. Some of the incarcerated have asked to see a
minister after claiming to have seen dead loved ones.
-
- Others, Edder said, want ministers to
cleanse their cell after seeing or hearing their cellmates pray to
Satan. But, in all her years of working inside jails and juvenile
halls, this is the only Ouija board she has seen.
-
- Most of the inmates involved were
Hispanic, Catholic and probably overcome by guilt, she said. ``They
were doing something they weren't supposed to,'' Edder said, ``and
they were probably fearful of what they might have done.''
-
- Some did have a religious turnabout.
-
- Vasquez said he was raised Christian,
and before this incident, ``sort of'' believed in God. Now, there's no
``sort of'' about it. ``This was a sign to believe.''
-
- Both Vasquez and Velasquez are
awaiting completion of their trials. Vasquez is jailed on charges of
being under the influence of drugs and willful harm, injury or
endangerment to a child, and a parole violation. Velasquez faces
charges of spousal abuse, false imprisonment and parole violation.
-
- According to an internal memo about
the incident, the priest told jail administrators one thing that he
neglected to tell the inmates: That the Catholic Church doesn't
believe a person can become possessed through use of a Ouija board.
-
- Edder declined to say whether she
believed the board could evoke spirits. ``It's not for me to say
whether they are or are not possessed. . . . We need to honor whatever
people think is going on with themselves,'' Edder said. The board, she
added, goes into the same grouping as tarot cards and fortunetellers.
``It's nothing to play with.''
-
- Vasquez now heeds that advice.
-
- The inmate, who has tattoos that run
up his arms and cover his chest and neck, said last week that he was
counseled twice, and still has a hard time sleeping. He still can't
explain what came over him, but said one thing's certain. He's never
touching a Ouija board again.
|
