Blaine Milam and The Devil in Amora

Some kids grow up in good families, others in dysfunctional families, and they go on to become doctors, engineers, chefs, moms and dads. Some kids grow up, but never really grow up. That was the case for Blaine Milam, at least according to his mother.

Blaine grew up, but stopped maturing around the age of 12. He was removed from school just after the fourth grade, in order to proceed with homeschooling. He picked up a drug habit, using methamphetamine off and on and even tried to take his own life on more than one occasion.

In January 2008, Blaine met his love, Jessica Carson. Although Jessica already had a child, a baby girl named Amora, Blaine didn’t care. He asked her to marry him on Prom night that same year, and Jessica and Amora moved in with him.

Blaine loved little Amora as if she were his own, even saying proudly, “Her first words were daddy.”

December 2, 2008 at 9:05am, Blaine and Jessica were seen on security cameras in a local pawn shop. Baby Amora was not with them as they pawned an old chainsaw and casually browsed the shelves. They were next seen at a gas station, and again, no Amora. At 10:37am, when they returned home, Blaine called 911. “Yes. My name’s Blaine Milam… and uh… my daughter… I just found her dead.”

When police responders arrived, they found EMT’s standing in the doorway of the master bedroom, where Blaine and Jessica were kneeling over 13 month old baby Amora.

First responders observed that the baby wasn’t breathing, and was badly bruised. Her face was covered with abrasions and scrapes, so badly that they all ran together making it look like one large injury. They also observed bite marks all over her body. Autopsy results showed she had 24 bites, all human. She had 18 rib fractures, extensive bleeding under her scalp, multiple fractures on the back of her head, a lacerated liver, a broken arm and leg, and a bleeding blood vessel in her neck – suggesting possible strangulation. The autopsy also revealed that baby Amora had been sexually assaulted – her genitalia and rectum were badly bruised – though not by male penetration, but rather from object insertion.

“You’re looking at a 13 month old baby that has had her head bashed in with a hammer,” said Judge Bob Richardson of Rusk County. “[There were] bite marks all over the baby…that’s gruesome.”

When another officer arrived, Blaine and Jessica were separated for questioning.

Blaine claimed that he and Jessica had left the baby sleeping in order to take a walk up the road to talk to a man about clearing some land for them. Time got away from them, and when they returned home, around one hour later, they found Amora in that condition. He cooperated fully when police asked to search his car and home.

Jessica told a similar story, except she claimed they went to the “property” where they were planning to move their trailer to, and started making plans and marking the land. When they returned, about an hour and a half later, they found Amora in that condition.

The stories did not match up, and Jessica was questioned again, this time by a Texas Ranger. She told a completely different story.

“It was about… It was in Septem… Blaine’s dad died in September, early September. And right after he died, we bought an Ouija Board. And we didn’t know it was bad and it was an omen or anything like that. Like we are very strong believers of God and everything. And we bought an Ouija Board, and then, you know, we… we hear… we heard that it worked but we never actually did believe people when they said it worked. So we wanted to try it out for ourselves. And then, you know, I… I… my dad’s dead too. He died when I was 10. And, you know… so I asked my daddy that I thought… you know, a question that him… he would know that nobody else would know, and I had never told Blaine that. And so when he spelled it out and everything, I was like, you know, this is my daddy.

“And so we did that, you know, this is like a telephone to heaven, we thought it was really cool and everything so we just… we kept talking to our dads, telling them how much we missed them and, you know… and we talked to them for about eight hours straight that night. And we started getting really freaked and we… we got this little music box from one of his friends that’s Chinese, and it has these Chinese people singing, you know, ‘God will protect us… Demons leave this house.’ because they said our apartment was possessed because weird stuff started happening and everything.

“So we left, and we kept that music box there and blessed it, then we blessed the Ouija Board, and then we threw it away. And, you know, kind of like the Exorcist, you know, have you ever seen… you know, when demons come into people or whatever… and the devil had came into Blaine and, you know, I mean, it sounds crazy but I mean, I would not be making this stuff up.”

She went on to claim that the Devil had come into her, and then Amora as well. She decided they needed to have an exorcism to get rid of it. “…Blaine came back outside and I said, ‘What did you run in the house saying “Amora” for?’ And he said, ‘God told me she got that hammer and was hitting herself in the head, and those marks on her head was, I think, from that hammer where she was hitting herself… or that demon was hitting herself on the head.’”

Jessica claimed she wanted to get some money together, talk to their minister, get a priest to do an exorcism, but that Blaine said that God said it was too late. “What do you mean God said it was too late? And he was crying while he was saying this and everything, He was, like, ‘Because if she doesn’t go to heaven now, she will live her life… with Satan having her… her soul, you know.’”

When Blaine was interviewed by the Texas Ranger, he claimed they had found Amora in a hole in the bathroom floor, which was being remodeled, and that she was still alive when he called the police. He later changed his story saying Jessica called the police before they had found Amora, and when they found her, she was already dead. Although he denied any involvement in the death of the baby, he was already a suspect.  

Other factors that didn’t line up was that the man Blaine had claimed they were meeting in regards to clearing land, denied ever meeting with them that day. Additionally, police had the video surveillance showing the couple at the pawn shop and the gas station.

Blaine’s sister also reported receiving a phone call around 9:30am, where Blaine told her that he had “found Amora dead.”

A search of the their home revealed extensive DNA evidence, proving that they had their crime scene. They obtained a search warrant after receiving a tip from Blaine’s family indicating there was more evidence under the home. They searched and found evidence that matched perfectly with the previous evidence.

The medical examiner testified that Amora’s injuries were so extensive, that it was impossible to determine an exact cause of death. They were able to match the bite marks on Amora, and Jessica was excluded from all but 1, and the rest belonged to Blaine.

There was no evidence the couple was on drugs, nor did authorities find any in the home.

Blaine and Jessica were both arrested and charged in the beating death of baby Amora. Jessica received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. At age 20, Blaine Milam was sentenced to death by lethal injection, making him the youngest person to ever be on death row in the state of Texas. Although he has exhausted all of his appeals, a Texas judge issued a stay of execution on January 14, 2019, just one day before his execution was scheduled to be carried out. The reason: Changes in intellectual disability law, and bite mark science.

As of January 2021, a second stay of execution was granted. For now, we wait to see what will become of the man who tried to exorcise a demon from an innocent baby girl.

Children are too often the victims of abuse. For Marcus Fiesel, his foster parents were the ones to fail him.