Statements made by a soul accepted in court

As in any other country most Brazilians believe in some form of religion. One of them is called "espiritismo" from the French "spiritisme". It started with Allan Kardec in France around 1850 and it is now spread all over Brazil and only in Brazil I think. Kardec followers usually are Catholics which believe in life after death. More than that you can communicate with the dead. One of the most common forms of communication is through a medium which writes in a piece of paper what the spirits tell him(her). Usually you go to a séance, tell the name of the dead and the death date, and then receives a sheet of paper with a message. Some years ago some reporters went to a séance and gave the name of living people and of course the medium wrote some messages showing that is all fake. Now you have to present a death certificate before asking for messages so they are becoming smarter.

Today one of the main Brazilian newspaper published a note saying that two such letters were presented in court. The article is here (only in Portuguese). It all started in 2003 when a man called Ercy aged 71 was shot dead. A woman called Iara, which had an affective relationship with Ercy, hired Ercy's housekeeper with a plan to scare Ercy to death. And that was what happened. Ercy died, the housekeeper was convicted and Iara was tried this week. The oddity is that a medium was asked by Ercy to deliver two letters, one to Iara and another to her husband. The letters say that Iara is innocent of his killing and that all is happening because of evil people like those who killed him. The letters were read in court and at the end she got free by the jury by 5 to 2. Do not ask me why Ercy did not tell in the letters who killed him !!!