[Submitter's note: This is from appeals case No. 06-11-00112-CR, the document contains material that suggests Carson was in a controlling relationship, but the analysis in the document does not suggest that she was mentally ill.]

Jesseca Bain Carson was convicted of capital murder, as a party to the murder, of her thirteen-month-old child by her boyfriend while he, over a period of thirty hours of physical torture, attempted to exorcise the demon he claimed resided within the child. Carson was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.

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Over a period of thirty hours, Carson’s live-in boyfriend, Blaine Keith Milam, murdered Carson’s daughter while purportedly exorcising the demon that he believed possessed her.

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Carson believed their apartment was possessed by evil spirits, so they moved in with Milam’s mother. Carson later became convinced that Milam was possessed by an evil spirit based on his expressions, tone of voice, and “something that wasn’t what I knew Blaine to be.” Milam explained that after the demon came into him, he could “talk to God,” and he said Carson was causing this by lying to him. But during all this time when Milam was demon possessed, he was absolutely fine with Amora. According to Carson, Milam loved Amora and was “wonderful with her.”

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Carson asked Milam if there was something they could do and Milam said God would show him how to do an exorcism.

As a result of the “exorcism” conducted by Milam, Amora suffered innumerable injuries that led to her death. Forensic evidence showed the child was beaten so severely that the multitude of fractures to her skull connected with each other like a jigsaw puzzle, and her brain was torn and severely damaged. An arm and leg had spiral fractures indicating they were twisted in two, her torso was either struck by a blunt object or squeezed until the ribs and sternum broke, and her body (neck, chest, abdomen, buttocks, both elbows, both forearms, both feet, right arm, left shoulder, left upper arm, left hand, right thigh, and left knee) was riddled with no less than
twenty-four distinct bite marks. Her head and face were so scraped and bruised that all the discrete injuries combined into “one giant injury.” Her liver was torn, and her vaginal and anal orifices were so torn that the vagina and rectum were actually connected, an injury the forensic examiner had never seen before. The underside of her tongue was lacerated from blunt force trauma. She was also strangled. Because of all the injuries she sustained, it was not possible to determine which one was the final injury, and no specific, singular cause of death was determinable. Forensic testimony reflected that several of the injuries standing alone would have each been fatal. Police were called several hours later; when they arrived, the child was entirely stiff and in rigor

Carson concluded that the child was like “Chucky” or “Pet Sematary” (horror movies) when the “boy dies and comes back to life all evil and stuff” because the child was “biting Blaine to where it was drawing blood on his hands.” After Milam returned to the child, he took a picture of her and gave it to Carson. One of the child’s eyes was stretched and “like warped down.” Carson heard horrible cries from the child as Milam was attempting the exorcism. Once, he left the door open, and Milam told Carson the child ran out. Carson went into the back bedroom, and Milam told her that the child was under the bed. Milam ordered Carson to leave the bedroom. According to Carson, when she saw Amora, the child was not harmed. Milam told Carson that God told him the child got the hammer and was hitting herself on the head. Carson, acknowledging that she saw her child during this time, stated, “I saw her, but the first couple of times, he didn’t -- I didn’t want to see her.” She thought it was not really her child, but the “demon possessing her or whatever.” They placed the child in a car seat and drove to Wal-Mart. Milam got out and went into Wal-Mart and Carson waited until he returned and drove back
home.

Carson and Milam agreed that he was tempted to sell his soul to the devil and thereby gain the child’s release from the demonic possession. Milam finally said that might be required of him, but Carson urged him not to be trapped by the devil that way. Milam agreed and went back into the bedroom with the baby to resume the exorcism. When asked if Milam told her how God had told him to actually do the final exorcism that sent the child to heaven, Carson answered that he did not tell her, but that she did not ask. “I just let him go in there, and heard the demon cry out and scream out . . . . I heard a lot of banging.” At one point, Milam told Carson he used a rope to tie up the child to still the demon. Carson told Milam she would rather the child “go to heaven now than spend a life with Satan having her soul.” The child was left in a hole in the bathroom floor.

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