Gozitan used demon Pazuzu from The Exorcist for €3,000 ‘curse’

A Gozitan man has been cleared of fraud after he failed to summon the 30,000-year-old demon Pazuzu, a demon king in Assyrian mythology and also the supernatural antagonist that takes control of the little Regan McNeil in the film The Exorcist.

Mario Cardona, 36, of Victoria, Gozo was paid €3,000 by Carol Milroy to place a curse upon an unnamed woman who had allegedly been conducting an illicit affair with Milroy’s then husband, Iain, in October 2014.

Iain Milroy had found this out when his wife had left her Facebook page open and a message from the accused had come in.

Pazuzu is the main supernatural antagonist in the film The Exorcist

Inspector Bernard Charles Spiteri told Magistrate Joseph Mifsud that the accused had been paid approximately €3,000 by Milroy for this “service”. She had approached the accused and asked whether he knew “a simple curse that I can cast on the woman that Iain had an affair with? She is now back home in France … Sorry to ask but hate this woman so much.”

The couple have since divorced, the court was told.

Cardona allegedly told the woman that he would be using a spiritualistic ritual to invoke the Pazuzu demon, a king of demons, who would cause the extra-marital relationship to come to an end and her husband to return.

Cardona had failed to return the money to Carol Milroy when the curse failed.

Magistrate Mifsud, presiding the court of magistrates in Gozo, pointed out that there was no law dealing with fraudulent mediums, unlike England and Wales, which up to 2008 had the 1951 Fraudulent Mediums Act. The act was aimed at prohibiting persons claiming to be “psychics, mediums or other spiritualists” from making money from deception. That law had been repealed in 2008 by an EU directive legislating against unfair sales and marketing practices.

Ian Milroy lacked the right of audience in the proceedings and could, at best, be a witness, the court held. It also noted, however, that Mr. Milroy had not been present when money had changed hands with the accused and had not known what the accused had agreed with his ex-wife.

The court dismissed the case, pointing out that it was clear that it had been the woman who had approached the medium and not vice-versa. “From the documents exhibited by the prosecution, by no stretch of the imagination can one reach the conclusion that the accused had deceived Carol Milroy,” the court held, as it was she who had approached the accused.

An alternative, lesser, charge of taking advantage of a person’s gullibility was time-barred.  

The court held that it had not seen sufficient evidence to place Cardona under a bill of indictment and ordered his release.