As the remains of a young boy found dead on a New Mexico desert compound finally return home, 11Alive is digging deeper into the possible motive in the boy's death and why investigators believe a man would kill his own son.
It was last December that authorities said Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj's father, Siraj Wahhaj, took him from the the boy's mother in Clayton County to New Mexico.
Abdul, then just 3 years old, suffered from terrible seizures, and without his medication, his mother said he would die. She also said her husband, Siraj, felt the seizures were a sign of the devil, and that's why, she believes, he kidnapped their son and took him to a filthy compound clear across the United States.
PHOTOS | Inside the New Mexico compound
PHOTOS: Inside the New Mexico compound
That's where authorities allege Siraj performed a exorcism on the 4-year-old, ultimately resulting in his death.
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The horrors of that compound have since been torn to the ground, but the memories of what happened there may never go away.
Two of the teenaged boys rescued from the New Mexico compound described in detail to FBI agents, recalling what they reportedly witnessed as Siraj performed an Islamic exorcism on his own son.
MORE | New Mexico suspects granted bond, as dark details about rituals involving missing 4-year-old emerge
"Abdul would choke and then have white form or slime come out from his mouth and this pass out," the agents would testify in court.
Authorities said Siraj told the others that Abdul would come back to life as Jesus.
11Alive's Ryan Kruger wanted to know what would lead a father to allegedly do such things to his own son, so he asked world-renowned psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman.
"The father might have felt some guilt, maybe he felt he was responsible genetically or maybe he wasn't pious enough," she theorized.
But Lieberman said Siraj's beliefs may have also played a role; he has been described as an extremist, intent on training children to commit school shootings.
"Extremists believe that American medicine is actually meant to hurt Muslims, that some of them are made of pigs, and he may have believed that it was the medicine that caused the little boy to be sick in the first place," she said.
Siraj Wahhaj is still behind bars, though a judge did let three other adults out on bail.
Photos: New Mexico suspects appear for bond hearing
MORE COVERAGE OF THE NEW MEXICO ARRESTS
- What happened to missing 4-year-old before dad's arrest at raided New Mexico compound?
- Several missed opportunities in search for missing boy, dad captured in New Mexico
- Mom of missing boy 'struggling to come to terms' with possibility her son is deceased
- Suspect in New Mexico case took so much firearms training in Atlanta, the FBI was flagged
- 5 things to know about the New Mexico compound case
