Speaker 1: No, lie. This is kind of a dark spine shiller
Speaker 1: of a story from decades ago. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most infamous exorcisms in modern history. It was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for one of Hollywood's most iconic horror movies, The Exorcist.
Speaker 1: But the real story is even more disturbing and to
Speaker 1: this day still shrouded in mystery. I'm Patty Steele. The
Speaker 1: terrifying exorcism of a fourteen year old boy who went
Speaker 1: on to become a NASA engineer. That's next on the backstory.
Speaker 1: We're back with the backstory. We all know the story
Speaker 1: of the Exorcist, the terrifying voice, the rotating neck yack,
Speaker 1: the projectile green pea soup vomit. But here's a thing.
Speaker 1: There's actually a true story that inspired both the novel
Speaker 1: and the movie. Okay, it's the winter of nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: Roland Doe, whose real name Ronald Hunkler, was protected for many,
Speaker 1: many years. As a fourteen year old boy living with
Speaker 1: his family in Cottage City, Maryland, just outside Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Now at the time, he was devastated by the death
Speaker 1: of his much loved aunt, Harriet. She wasn't just an
Speaker 1: aunt to him. She also introduced him to the world
Speaker 1: of spiritualism and the paranormal. She taught Ronald how to
Speaker 1: use a Wigi board to communicate with spirits. Then Aunt
Speaker 1: Harriet dies suddenly. Ronald is broken hearted and decides to
Speaker 1: use the Wuci board to reach out to her. This
Speaker 1: is where it gets really weird. Instead of feeling comforted,
Speaker 1: strange stuff begins to happen, small things at first. There
Speaker 1: are scratching noises sort of echoing through the walls of
Speaker 1: the family's home. The noise is faint at first, but
Speaker 1: as the days go on, it gets louder and more persistent.
Speaker 1: What is it? It sounds like something or someone is
Speaker 1: clawing at the walls from inside them. They call an exterminator,
Speaker 1: but they can't stop it, and they begin to realize
Speaker 1: that something much much stranger is going on now. It
Speaker 1: amps up. Furniture begins moving across the room on its own,
Speaker 1: chairs fall over, and all sorts of household objects fly
Speaker 1: off shelves with no one touching them. Worse yet, Ronald's
Speaker 1: bed shakes violently during the night, as if something is
Speaker 1: trying to throw him out of it. The family's terrified
Speaker 1: has no idea what to do. Ronald becomes more of
Speaker 1: a focus for whatever or whoever is doing something in
Speaker 1: this house. He sits in a room, stays perfectly still,
Speaker 1: and yet dishes suddenly crashed to the floor, and the
Speaker 1: air in the room becomes insanely cold. The family tries
Speaker 1: to ignore it, but it only gets worse, so the
Speaker 1: Hunklers turn to their Lutheran pastor, Reverend Schultz. He hears
Speaker 1: the stories, but like most people skeptical, he decides to
Speaker 1: check out what's going on in person by going to
Speaker 1: the house. He later said he witnessed something that changed
Speaker 1: his life forever. He was sitting with Ronald, he saw
Speaker 1: the boy's chair slide across the floor by itself. Books
Speaker 1: start flying off the shelves, and then the scratching noise
Speaker 1: fills the room. A pastor is shocked and suggests the
Speaker 1: family ask for help from the Catholic church. The Hunklers
Speaker 1: reach out and Pastor Schultz gives his account, so the
Speaker 1: church begins an investigation. They assigned Father Albert Hughes to
Speaker 1: the case, and he agrees to perform an exorcism. It
Speaker 1: becomes an incredibly harrowing experience for him. Father Hughes meets
Speaker 1: with Ronald at Georgetown University Hospital to perform the exorcism,
Speaker 1: but as soon as it begins, Ronald's whole demeanor changes.
Speaker 1: He becomes violent. He screams, curses, thrashes around. Father Hughes
Speaker 1: tries to restrain him, but Ronald breaks free, pulls a
Speaker 1: metal bedspring from the bed, and slashes the priest's arm
Speaker 1: with it. Father Hughes, who's badly wounded, has to abandon
Speaker 1: the exorcism. He later said he had encountered something truly evil,
Speaker 1: beyond human comprehension, So what's next. Ronald's situation gets worse.
Speaker 1: He becomes more erratic and disturbing. He slips into trances
Speaker 1: and speaks in strange voices that sound deep, guttural, and nasty.
Speaker 1: He starts reacting violently whenever a crucifix or holy water
Speaker 1: is brought near him. Finally, deep scratches appear on his
Speaker 1: body that form words across his rib cage is scratched
Speaker 1: the name Lewis. His mother has family in Saint Louis,
Speaker 1: and she decides she'll move Ronald there temporarily, hoping that
Speaker 1: a change of environment will fix things. She and her
Speaker 1: husband question when they should leave and watch as the
Speaker 1: word Saturday suddenly appears scratched into their son's hip. When
Speaker 1: they question how long they should stay, the words three
Speaker 1: and a half weeks appear. They claim no one, including Ronald,
Speaker 1: had scratched those words into him. Does the move help?
Speaker 1: No such luck. At his relatives home in Saint Louis,
Speaker 1: it gets even worse. The relatives, who were devout Catholics,
Speaker 1: reach out to the church again and are connected to
Speaker 1: a Jesuit priest named Father William Bowden. He's asked to
Speaker 1: perform an exorcism on Ronald, and he knows it's a
Speaker 1: dangerous undertaking. They're rarely performed, but after hearing the stories
Speaker 1: and witnessing some spooky phenomena himself, Father Boden agrees to help.
Speaker 1: The series of exorcisms begin in March of nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: They last for several weeks, probably three and a half weeks,
Speaker 1: and are documented in meticulous detail by Father Bowden and
Speaker 1: another priest, Father Ray Bishop, who keeps a diary detailing
Speaker 1: what happens. Those details are enough to send chills down
Speaker 1: your spine. The exorcisms take place at the home of
Speaker 1: Ronald's relatives and also at the Alexian Brother's Hospital in
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. Folks watching include a number of priests and doctors,
Speaker 1: say Ronald's behavior is terrifying. His body convulses and contorts,
Speaker 1: bending in ways that seem kind of impossible. He speaks
Speaker 1: in Latin, a language he's never even study any chance, blasphemous, nasty,
Speaker 1: and mocking words. Suddenly, words start appearing scratched into Ronald's
Speaker 1: skin again. The words hell and evil appear carved across
Speaker 1: his chest and arms, and the witnesses say they saw
Speaker 1: these scratches appear in real time. During the exorcisms. Father
Speaker 1: Boden and the other priests believe there's a demonic presence,
Speaker 1: and they pray and recite ancient rites to drive it away.
Speaker 1: They say Ronald's voice would take a low course, growling tone,
Speaker 1: and then shift into a high pitched childlike voice, taunting
Speaker 1: and ridiculing them. The room would fill with strange smells,
Speaker 1: like sulfur and rotting flesh that seemed to come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. He'd scream when they placed crucifixes and rosaries
Speaker 1: around him, and when they sprinkled him with holy water,
Speaker 1: he'd thrash and convulse like it was burning his skin.
Speaker 1: The exorcisms go on for weeks, each lasting for hours
Speaker 1: at a time, but the priests refused to give up. Then,
Speaker 1: on April eighteenth, nineteen forty nine, during one of the
Speaker 1: final exorcism sessions at the hospital, something odd happened. Ronald
Speaker 1: was screaming and thrashing when suddenly he stops. The room
Speaker 1: is still, and then a different calmvoice says, I am Archangel, Michael.
Speaker 1: He commands the demon to leave. The priests say there
Speaker 1: was a sudden, violent thrashing from Ronald and a loud,
Speaker 1: ear piercing scream, and then it was over. Ronald collapsed,
Speaker 1: exhausted but calm. When he woke up, he was at peace,
Speaker 1: as if he'd just woken up from a nightmare. He
Speaker 1: calmly said he's gone, and that was it. Ronald went home,
Speaker 1: back to school, and for the rest of his life
Speaker 1: never had another episode. More than two decades later, the
Speaker 1: author William Blattie, who had studied the story at Georgetown University,
Speaker 1: decided to adapt it for his nineteen seventy one novel
Speaker 1: The Exorcist. It was a huge success, as was the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three movie The film had a twelve million
Speaker 1: dollar budget, but has taken in over four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty million dollars over the years. But what happened to
Speaker 1: Ronald Hunkler? Some skeptics say he may have had epilepsy
Speaker 1: or a severe mental illness, possibly schizophrenia, but he had
Speaker 1: no history of that, either before or after the alleged possession.
Speaker 1: Or maybe he was acting out around all those powerful
Speaker 1: religious people surrounding him. But there are questions that don't
Speaker 1: seem to have answers, like how did Ronald speak fluent
Speaker 1: Latin when he'd never studied the language? What caused the
Speaker 1: scratches to appear on his skin as others watched? And
Speaker 1: what about the furniture and the other objects moving around
Speaker 1: and levitating on their own? Again, the rest of Ronald's
Speaker 1: life had no connection to that horrifying past. He grew up,
Speaker 1: and he became a prominent engineer for NASA, whose work
Speaker 1: on the Apollo space missions of the nineteen sixties included
Speaker 1: the first moon landing in nineteen sixty nine. He also
Speaker 1: patented technology that helped space shuttles with stand extreme heat.
Speaker 1: After Ronald died in twenty twenty one, a close friend
Speaker 1: said he was always afraid his coworkers at NASA would
Speaker 1: find out about his past. He lived with terrible worry
Speaker 1: about it. He retired from NASA in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: While Ronald Hunkler never publicly admitted to being Roland Doe,
Speaker 1: he did get married and he named his first son, Michael,
Speaker 1: after the archangel the priests claimed had driven out his demon.
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Speaker 1: Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories a production
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Speaker 1: We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free
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Speaker 1: at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with
Speaker 1: Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't know you
Speaker 1: needed to know.