Kids found in rags amid tale of guns, exorcism
ALBUQUERQUE, N. M. — A raid on a New Mexico desert compound turned up 11 children wearing rags and living in filth, and also broke open a bizarre tale of guns, exorcism, and a search for a missing young boy who suffers from seizures and is nowhere to be found.
The boy’s father was among five people arrested after the raid near the border with Colorado, and documents made public in a court filing Monday said the father told the boy’s mother before fleeing Georgia he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child because he believed he was possessed by the devil.
Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said deputies arrested the father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and four other adults on child abuse charges after finding the 11 children inside a filthy makeshift compound in the tiny community of Amalia littered with “odorous trash” and lacking clean water.
Wahhaj’s son, Abdul-ghani, who was 3 when he disappeared in December, was not among the children found, but Hogrefe said authorities have reason to believe the boy was at the compound several weeks ago.
Hogrefe’s deputies are searching for the child, along with the FBI and Georgia authorities in Clayton County, where officials said the boy was living before his father took him around Dec. 1, 2017.
The boy’s mother told authorities the boy suffers from seizures, cannot walk to due to severe medical issues, and requires constant attention.
She told police in December Wahhaj had taken the boy for a trip to a park and never returned.
Clayton County police said in a missing persons bulletin Wahhaj and his son were last seen Dec. 13 in Alabama, traveling with five other children and two adults.
Georgia authorities said Wahhaj was traveling through Chilton County on Dec. 13 with seven children and another adult when their car overturned. Wahhaj told police the group was traveling from Georgia to New Mexico to go camping.
The trooper who wrote the report said he found no camping equipment in or near the vehicle but Wahhaj was in possession of three handguns, two rifles, a bag of ammunition and a bulletproof vest.
It was not immediately known Monday whether Wahhaj and the others charged in the child abuse case in New Mexico — another man and three women believed to be the mother of the 11 children — had retained attorneys. The public defender’s office in Taos County did not immediately return telephone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
The Taos County sheriff identified the women facing charges as Jany Leveille, 38- year- old Hujrah Wahhaj and 35-year-old Subhannah Wahha. They were arrested in the town of Taos and booked into jail.