Mexico: Mother Jailed for 30 Years for Gouging Son's Eyes Out in Satanic Ritual

Several members of a Mexican family have been jailed for 30 years for gouging out the eyes of a five-year-old relative during a satanic ritual.

Fernando Caleb Alvarado Rios, now aged seven, had his eyes gouged out in May 2012 by his mother, aunt, two uncles and grandparents after he refused to participate in a ritual in which the family called on Satan to protect them from an apocalypse.

The family, from the town of Nezahualcoyotl, believed the ritual would bring them closer to Satan who would save them from a deadly earthquake.

The child was ordered to close his eyes out of respect but when he refused to do so his mother, Maria del Carmen Garcia Rios, used a spoon to gouge his eyes out.

The gruesome scene was discovered when neighbours, heard chanting and the child screaming in pain.

Neighbour, Joaquin Arguello, told the court: "We could hear screaming and we were banging on the door but nobody was answering, then a police patrol came past and one of the women who was with us ran into the road to flag it down, and officers forced their way inside."

Policeman Benet Curiel said he witnessed the scene as the Satanists hunched over the screaming boy in the kitchen where the two women were covered in blood.

Reading from his notes of the encounter he said: 'We called for an ambulance, and we were keeping the group against the wall at gunpoint and away from the boy.

"I asked one of the women what was going on and she told me her name was Carmen Rios Garcia, and that the boy was her son.

"She identified him as Fernando Caleb Alvarado Rios, and said he was five years old, and said that she and her sister Lizbeth had done it."

She admitted that she had told him repeatedly to close his eyes and when he had told her 'No, I do not want to close them' she had ordered the others to help remove his eyes.

Today, more than two years after the incident in May 2012, a court has sentenced the group to 30 years each in jail.

Fernando has since been given glass eyes and is now in care.