MARCH 16, 1949
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
10:45 P.M.
It has been nine weeks of hell for the Hunkeler family.
And now, Father William S. Bowdern, Society of Jesus, reads the prayers of exorcism. Bowdern is fifty-two, a stocky chain smoker with dark hair. He is a World War II veteran known for his keen intellect. The priest kneels by Ronald’s bed at the home of the boy’s St. Louis relatives. Bowdern is dressed in a black cassock and white surplice. A purple stole drapes around his neck. On his head, the priest wears a four-peak black hat known as a biretta. He recites the Litany of Saints, then says a quiet “Our Father.” This is the prelude to the official “rite of exorcism.” At his side is Father Raymond Bishop, a fellow Jesuit, keeping a written record of all that will occur.
Ronald and his parents have been in St. Louis for nine days. They are staying in a two-story brick home with a white front door and colonial-style windows. The boy’s battle with “demons” grows more intense. Traveling west has done nothing to suppress what is attacking him. If anything, things are even more frightening. When Ronald’s mother suggests the boy enroll in a local school, the word NO appears scrawled on his wrists. Two aunts, four uncles, and four cousins bear witness to the scratches, as well as to flying furniture and shaking mattresses. In desperation, a female cousin attending Saint Louis University, a Catholic Jesuit institution, asks a priest for assistance. Father Raymond Bishop consents and goes to see Ronald with a container of holy water.
“The boy was dozing when the bottle of St. Ignatius holy water was thrown from a table two feet from R’s room,” Father Bishop’s official report will read. “A bookcase was moved from alongside the bed and turned completely around facing the entrance to the room. The stool from the table moved from the table to the bed, about two feet. The stool was moved back to the position in a few minutes, and in a few moments it was turned over.”
Catholic priests are cautioned against confusing strange behavior with demonic possession. So on March 10, Father Bishop requests that another priest join him in visiting Ronald. For the next five nights, Father Bishop and Father Bowdern sit with the boy at bedtime. Bowdern is a top Jesuit scholar, a man immersed in the ways of the order since he joined it at age seventeen.
By Wednesday, March 16, Bowdern has made his decision about Ronald Hunkeler: the time has come for an exorcism. He asks for, and receives, permission from the local archdiocese “to read the prayers of exorcism according to the Roman Ritual.” *
That rite begins tonight.
In the Book of Mark, Jesus has a conversation with a “demon” inhabiting the body of a Gentile man. The evil spirit gives his name as “Legion”—implying that the possession involves hundreds of evil spirits. Jesus then orders the demons to leave the afflicted individual—which they do, according to Scripture.
This act, taking place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, is history’s first exorcism. The developing Catholic faith accepts an active evil in the world. In the prayer of Saint Michael, it is said that demons “prowl about the earth seeking the ruin of souls.”
Over the centuries, the Catholic Church will codify the casting out of evil spirits, adding ritual and prayer. The Catholic Catechism reads, “When the Church asks publicly and authoritatively in the name of Jesus Christ that a person or object be protected against the power of the Evil One and withdrawn from his dominion, it is called exorcism.”
Shakespeare will write about possession in King Lear and Twelfth Night. When Martin Luther’s 1517 schism separates Catholics from Protestants, the practice of exorcism becomes limited to the former. Thus, when the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony are confronted by witches in Salem, the death penalty is invoked instead of an exorcism ritual.*
The Vatican has never wavered in its support for demon expulsion, though it is not a common practice. First, a doctor must be consulted to rule out mental or physical illness. Signs such as supernatural strength, scratches on the body, speaking in foreign tongues, and rooms that suddenly turn cold must be observed. Exorcism is rare and kept quiet to avoid inciting public scrutiny. A special Vatican course trains priests in the rite, which can involve multiple daily attempts to cast out a “demon.” Yet this training is not required to perform an exorcism.
So it is that an untrained Father William S. Bowdern begins trying to heal Ronald.
The first round is brutal.
“R was awake and the overhead light in the bedroom was kept burning,” Father Bishop writes in his notes. “R kept his hands outside the bed covers.”
As Father Bowdern begins the lengthy exorcism prayers, Ronald cries out. The priests immediately witness scratches emerging over the length of the boy’s torso and legs.
“The most distinct markings on the body were the picture of the Devil on R’s right leg and the word HELL imprinted on R’s chest in such a way that R could look down upon his chest and read the letters plainly. The image of the Devil and HELL appeared at the repetition of the [Latin prayer] Praecipio demanding the evil spirit to identify himself,” Bishop writes.
The night becomes an odyssey. As the priests look on, Ronald appears to be fighting someone. He must be physically restrained, the clerics throwing their bodies on the boy to stop the thrashing. At other times, he sings in his sleep, songs like “Swanee” and “Old Man River” in a high falsetto.
Father Bowdern asks how many demons are inside Ronald. A single line suddenly scratches the boy’s right leg. A mysterious “X” also appears. The priests are unsure whether this means one evil spirit or ten. Through the course of the evening, twenty-five different scratches appear on Ronald’s body, each causing him to double up and cry in pain. They all disappear within hours.*
When Ronald finally speaks, he begins flailing his arms violently, as if in a fistfight. A third priest enters the room—a physically powerful twenty-seven-year-old seminarian named Walter Halloran. He is here to help restrain Ronald.
The boy finally falls asleep. Father Bowdern sprinkles holy water to wake him up. Halloran pins Ronald’s arms until the boy opens his eyes.
“R was asked what he was doing and what he saw. He said he was fighting a huge red devil who felt slimy and was very powerful. The Devil was trying to get him through the iron gates at the top of a pit that was about two hundred feet deep and very hot. R wanted to fight that devil and felt that he was strong enough to overpower his enemy. R mentioned that there were other smaller devils,” Father Bishop records.
The ordeal continues. Ronald spits at the priests with great accuracy, even with his eyes closed.
At 7:30 a.m., the boy finally begins “a natural sleep.” The exhausted teenager rests well past noon. “Then he ate an ordinary meal and participated in a game of Monopoly.”
The nights become predictable: priests arriving at bedtime, then sitting with Ronald until he falls asleep. Sometimes there are hours of violent episodes. To steel himself for the spiritual battle, Father Bowdern eats and drinks only bread and water—a “Black Fast,” as it is known—a habit he will continue for the entire ordeal.
Saturday, March 19, marks the third night of the exorcism.
The priests arrive at 7 p.m. The exhausted Hunkeler family, who have all been losing sleep throughout the ordeal, retire at eight. Father Bowdern begins the nightly recitation of the exorcism rite, beginning with the Litany of Saints. Ronald begins barking like a dog and bares his teeth.
Bowdern asks for a sign that the demon is present, whereupon Ronald doubles over with stomach pain and begins spraying a long stream of urine. The boy then begins singing “in a clear voice and with real finesse,” in the words of Father Bishop. The song is “Blue Danube.” When Ronald awakens, the priest hums the tune and asks where the boy learned to sing it so well.
Ronald Hunkeler claims to have never heard the song before.
Then the boy begins taunting the priests: “Get away from me, you assholes. Go to hell you dirty sons of bitches. God damn you, sons of bitches. God damn you, you dirty assholes.”
Father Bowdern is growing thin from fasting and the nightly exertions. His skin is reddened and swollen with styes and boils.
Ronald’s mother, Odell Hunkeler, is also unwell. In an attempt to help her rest, the exorcists decide to admit her son to Saint Alexian Brothers Hospital. The beds there have restraints and a ward where the teenager can scream without being heard. “But he feared the surroundings of the hospital: the barred window, the bare room, the straps on the bed, and the knobless door,” Father Bishop records.
“His whole reaction was one of intense fear.”
Yet tonight is a breakthrough.
Ed Hunkeler has joined the exorcism team for the evening. Ronald’s father is forty-nine and works in the Washington Navy Yard back home in Maryland. Uprooting his family for the treatment of Ronald’s bizarre condition places considerable strain on their finances, but he will do anything to see his only son healed. Ed was born Catholic and has not forgotten the rituals of the faith. As Father Bowdern completes the prayers of exorcism for the fifth time, everyone in the room kneels to say the Rosary. Ronald stays in bed but does not fall asleep. After completion of the religious procedure, the clergy leave—but Ed stays behind. He is the more lenient of Ronald’s parents, far less strict than his wife and fond of pampering the boy. Ed reads aloud to his son from a book of prayers, then rests on a divan next to Ronald’s bed.
For the first time in months, Ronald Hunkeler sleeps through the night.
He is discharged from the hospital the next morning.
Two nights later, Ronald shatters Father Halloran’s nose.
“R went into a tantrum. He fought and kicked and spit so that three men could barely hold him,” Father Bishop writes. “The first blows were accurate, quick, and deadly, although R’s eyes were shut. R urinated rather copiously and on coming to himself complained of the burning sensation. There were four or five such urinations during the evening. Several times there was passing of wind through the rectum.”
The hope felt at the hospital is now replaced by a new level of degradation. Ronald talks of life in hell, stating that he has already glimpsed into the future. In eight years, he declares, the priests will be joining him. He stipulates the year 1957. The boy then brags about his penis and takes off his pajama bottoms, gyrating his nude loins at the exorcists.
This is the worst of it, the priests tell one another in the morning.
It is not.
Ronald spends the next night “screaming, barking, singing, urinating, and passing foul air.” He brags about his penis and taunts Father Bowdern about his failing attempts to exorcise the demons. “Cut out the damned Latin,” the teenager barks. “Get away from me, you goddamned bastards.”
But unlike other nights, Ronald does not fall into an exhausted sleep.
“You like to stay with me,” the demon says flirtatiously to the priests, letting them know he isn’t going anywhere.
“Well, I like it, too.”
One night later, Ronald adds a new threat: “Father Bishop, all people that mangle with me will die a terrible death.” *
The decision is made to baptize Ronald into the Catholic faith.
The ceremony will take place first thing in the morning on Friday, April 1. Father Bowdern is exhausted, his physical appearance declining as the exorcism takes its toll. He and the other priests have wrestled with Ronald time after time. The boy has urinated and spit on them. Baptism is an attempt to confirm the presence of God in Ronald’s life, performed with the hope of creating a spiritual opposition to the evil within the boy.
Ronald’s parents and other family members begin the drive to Saint Francis Xavier College Church, where Father Bowdern is the pastor. During the journey, the boy begins having hot and cold flashes. Suddenly, in a strange new voice, he yells, “So you are going to baptize me? Ha, ha!”
Ronald then grabs the steering wheel and attempts to crash the car. “His uncle was forced to pull up to the curb in an effort to subdue the violence,” Father Bishop will record. “R stiffened and fought. It was a major task to remove him from the front seat and force him into the back of the car. Even with careful supervision, R leaped up to seize the wheel from the aunt as she drove.”
Everyone in the vehicle notices that the radio stops working whenever Ronald has a spell. As soon as the teenager returns to normal, the music resumes.
Monday, April 11. Ronald is returned to Saint Alexian Brothers Hospital. The daily routine of exorcism prayers has continued unabated. Yet it is not working. The priests, by now, are used to the “filthy talk and damning threats,” which seem to grow more vulgar each night.
For the first time, Father Bishop mentions the Devil by name in his report. “At midnight, the Fathers planned to give R Holy Communion, but Satan would have no part of it. Even while the institution of the Holy Sacrament was explained to R, his body was badly scratched and branded. The word ‘HELL’ was printed on his chest and thigh.”
Father Bishop continues: “One new phase was the display of the Devil’s power over the senses and external personality of R. In one instance, he said he would have R awaken and the boy would be pleasant and attractive. The promise was true. A few minutes later, the Devil said he (through Ronald) would have R awaken, but this time he would be offensive. True to the promise, R came out of the spell very irritable, and he complained very bitterly to those who held him.”
Another attempt is made to give Ronald the Holy Eucharist.
“I will not let R receive Holy Communion,” a voice tells the priests.
Easter morning passes. It is day thirty-one of the exorcism.
A new statue of Michael the Archangel, a Catholic saint known to be effective in battling demons, has been placed in Ronald’s room. Once again, the evening prayers of exorcism are offered in Latin, with several priests in attendance. Since the exorcism began five weeks ago, a number of Jesuits have been present as eyewitnesses.
“At 10:45 p.m., the most striking of events occurred. R was in a seizure but afterward lay calm. In clear, commanding tones, and with dignity, a voice broke into the prayers. The following is an accurate quotation: ‘Satan! Satan! I am Saint Michael and I command you, Satan, and the other evil spirits to leave the body in the name of Dominus, immediately: NOW! NOW! NOW!’”
As Ronald begins thrashing on the bed in “the most violent contortions of the entire period of exorcism,” the Jesuits once again grow exhausted trying to restrain the boy.
Then Ronald becomes calm. He tells of a bright white light. A man with wavy hair wearing a white robe that fits closely to his body. The man is holding a fiery sword and pointing it down into a pit, where he can see the Devil and his minions.
“As the devils disappeared into the pit, R felt a pulling or tugging in the region of his stomach. He said it was the most relaxed feeling he has had since the whole experience began in January.”
It is over.
“Since Monday at 11:00 p.m., there have been no indications of the presence of the Devil,” Father Bishop writes.
April 29, 1949. Father Bishop files his confidential report. It is more than three months since Ronald first heard the sounds of running water and scratching in his bedroom. The exorcism has been witnessed by multiple people, all of whom are cited in the report.*
Father Bishop sums up the situation this way:
Dear Brother Cornelius:
The enclosed report is a summary of the case which you have known for the past several weeks. The Brothers’ part in this case has been so very important that I thought you should have the case history for your permanent file.
We have been informed by the Chancery Office on two different occasions, March 16 and April 27 that the case is not to be publicized. I fear that the news has already broken in various parts of the city through individuals asking for prayers and perhaps through some who took part in the case. The difficulty of keeping some of the facts secret is practically beyond our control right now, but insofar as we are able, we should not make this case public.
The Hunkeler family returns to Maryland, where Ronald enters Gonzaga High School in the fall. His story is kept relatively quiet, although word does get out and people occasionally come by to pray with Ronald’s parents. In August, when the Washington Post reports on the exorcism, the teenager escapes scrutiny because the Catholic Church has ensured that he remains anonymous.
Soon, the sensational story about demonic possession in the Washington suburbs is mostly forgotten.
But not by everyone.