Sister: Slain Girl Thought She Had Demon

In the hours before her mother suffocated her in a clear, plastic bag, Charity Miranda believed she was possessed by a demon, one of her sisters told police.

The 17-year-old former Sayville (N.Y.) High School cheerleader writhed, cried and blew air from her mouth as her sisters, Elisabeth, 15, and Serena Martin, 20, and her mother, Vivian Miranda, 39, held her down and prayed, according to a statement from Elisabeth that authorities released yesterday after her mother and her older sister were arraigned on second-degree-murder charges.

"Charity knew that the demon was consuming her and that it had to leave her body," Elisabeth said, adding that Charity asked for prayers to be repeated during the ordeal.

"The demon in Charity was screaming and fighting us, but we managed to hold Charity down. . . . My Mom held her and said `I love you,' and Charity started crying. Charity said, `It hurts; get it out.' Mom told her that she was not going to let it take her, meaning the demon."

First, her mother and Serena used couch pillows to try to kill the demon, Elisabeth said, but that failed to drive out the spirit, so the two women used a plastic blanket bag.

"Mom placed the bag over Charity's head with the blanket in the bag," the high-school sophomore said. "Serena was holding Charity's body down because it was fighting. My mom told me to leave, and I went into her bedroom."

After two hours of exhortation and chanting, after Charity had died, the mother told her two daughters not to cry; then the three held hands and listened to a Frank Sinatra recording, the statement said.

"When I got in the living room I saw Charity lying on the floor face down . . . ," Elisabeth said. "My mom told me not to look at Charity, but I did, and I knew she was dead. . . . Serena was pacing. Mom said don't be sad because that wasn't Charity; don't be attached to the body."

Elisabeth's four-page account was given to detectives after police were called Sunday night by a relative who had stopped at the family's house.

Elisabeth has not been charged with any crime.

In separate appearances yesterday in First District Court in Central Islip, first Serena Martin, then her mother formally were charged with the slaying that authorities said was the culmination of Vivian Miranda's exploration of religion, particularly Santeria, a mixture of an African theology and elements of Catholicism. Experts said that Santeria does not involve injuring people.

Serena Martin, a sophomore at St. Joseph's College in Patchogue, was held in lieu of $750,000 bail. No bail was set for her mother, and First District Court Judge Daniel Loughlin ordered her to undergo a psychiatric examination.

Authorities have said they pieced together the events in the house through oral statements from Vivian Miranda and Martin and through Elisabeth's written statement.