Religion kills kids: A pastor is sentenced to 99 years in prison after starving a toddler to death as part of an attempt to exorcise a demon.

Aracely Meza, also known as ”Shepherd” and ”Prophet,” was sentenced to 99 years in prison after ordering that a 2-year-old boy fast because she believed he was possessed by a demon.

The boy, Benjamin Aparicio, was starved to death, and died one month before his third birthday.

Meza, the pastor at Jesus is the King Church, in Balch Springs, Texas, ordered that food be withheld from Benjamin for 21 days because she believed he was possessed by the “demon of manipulation.”

Earlier this week a Dallas County jury found the pastor guilty of felony injury to a child causing serious bodily injury. Meza was sentenced to 99 years in prison, the maximum allowed under the law.

Videos played during the trial documented the appalling abuse young Benjamin was forced to endure before finally starving to death.

Dallas News reports:

The 52-year-old woman’s trial offered a glimpse into the control she had over congregants of her church, Iglesia Internacional Jesus es el Rey. Her Balch Springs home, where the boy lived with his parents, served as a commune. Meza separated parents from their children, including Benjamin while he was still being breastfed. Though his mother and father lived in the same home, they weren’t allowed to hold their child. Many turned to the pastor of the evangelical nondenominational church because she claimed to be a prophet.

According to the report, the pastor often performed exorcisms and ordered people to fast. if someone questioned Meza’s methods, the pastor would say:

The devil is speaking through you. You’re the devil.

After the boys death, Meza led a resurrection ceremony that lasted for hours. No surprise, the resurrection ceremony failed.

Bottom line: A two-year-old boy was starved to death in the name of Christ, in the name of religious superstition; and now a pastor, a “prophet” of a god that does not exist, will spend the rest of her life in prison for her most heinous crime.