The boy whose real-life story inspired classic horror movie 'The Exorcist'
- By Web Desk -
- Dec 22, 2021
A US-based news agency revealed the name of the demon-possessed boy who inspired the 1973 horror movie The Exorcist.
The report mentioned that the 14-year-old boy, who was previously known as Roland Doe, underwent exorcisms in the Cottage City town in Maryland along with St. Louis city of Missouri state back in 1949.
Ronald Edwin Hunkeler died due to a stroke at home located just a month before his 86th birthday.
Hunkeler played a significant role for NASA in the Apollo space missions of the 1960s. The engineer had patented a technology that would help space shuttle panels to be extreme heat resistant.
William Peter Blatty, the author of the book and the film The Exorcist, recalled that he came to know about the supernatural incidents surrounding the deceased when he was studying at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
Read More: ‘Exorcist’ author William Peter Blatty dead at 89
Hunkeler, who was born in 1935, started to experience paranormal activities at the young age of 14. He claimed of hearing scratching sounds and knocking behind his bedroom walls.
Hunkeler’s family minister Reverend Luther Schulze raised the matter with Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory in March 1949. He mentioned how his bed used to shake whenever the teenager was on it.
Schulze also mentioned that the chairs, on which Hunkeler used to sit, used to throw him off them.
The reverend recalled how the floors of the house got scarred due to the shaking of the heavy furniture whenever Hunkeler was near them.
The family took the help of William Bowdern who was a Jesuit who did over 20 exorcism rituals within the space of three months.
Bowdern, in his diary, mentioned that Hunkeler used to enter in a trance-like state. Hunkeler was then taken to St Louis for treatment of demonic possession.
Hunkeler was hospitalized in Alexian Brothers Hospital. After nearly a month, he used to have a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing, and voicing Latin phrases during the course of his treatment cured.
According to a news article, he made a full recovery on August 20 of 1949.