The curious story of ‘Roland Doe’, the boy who inspired The Exorcist, a famous horror classic is now revealed. Here’s more on the boy who underwent exorcisms in 1949.
Meet the real-life inspiration behind The Exorcist
A US Magazine, Skeptical Inquirer named the boy, whose case inspired the horror classic The Exorcist. The 1973 classic is a portrayal of a child possessed by a demon. The then 14-year-old, in 1949 was known as Roland Doe and he underwent multiple exorcisms in St Louis, Missouri and, Cottage City, Maryland. The magazine identifies the boy as Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. However, Hunkeler died in November, merely one month before his 86th birthday. He died at his house in Marriottsville, Maryland after suffering from a stroke.
Hunkeler lived a successful life as a NASA engineer, contributing to the Apollo space missions back in the 1960s. He also patented technology that is helping space shuttle panels withstand severe heat. He retired after almost four decades of service to science and the nation. One of his companions told the New York Post that he was on edge about his colleagues at NASA finding out that he was the inspiration behind the horror classic. “On Halloween, we always left the house because he figured someone would come to his residence and know where he lived and never let him have peace. He had a terrible life from worry, worry, worry,” she explained.
More about demonic possession
William Peter Blatty, the author of the 1971 novel stated that he first heard about Hunkeler’s demonic possessions from his professor Eugene Gallager. Professor Gallager was a priest at Georgetown in the oldest Jesuit and Catholic University in the US. He told the author about Hunkeler’s supposed possessions and the exorcisms that followed.
Hunkler was born in 1935 and raised in Cottage city by a middle-class family. He reportedly began having paranormal experiences. He also reported hearing scratching and knocking sounds from the walls of his bedroom. “Chairs moved with [Hunkeler] and one threw him out [of it.] His bed shook whenever he was in it,” explained Rev Luther Schulze. Rev Schulze was the family’s minister. He eventually wrote to Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory about the experience. He explained that the floors were scarred from the sliding of heavy furniture”. “A picture of Christ on the wall shook” every time Hunkeler was near it.
What next?
The Hunkler family eventually sought the help of a Jesuit named William Bowdern. He conducted over 20 exorcisms on Hunklere in just three months. There was a “scratching which beat out a rhythm of marching soldiers. The second class relic of St Margaret Mary was thrown on the floor. The safety pin was opened but no human hand had touched the relic. R started up in fright when the relic was thrown down,” explained Bowdern. The young boy was later admitted to St Louis for a serious case of demonic possession. “It seems that whatever force was writing the words was in favor of making the trip to St Louis,” added Bowdern.
On March 21, 1949, the boy moved to St. Louis’s Alexian Brothers Hospital. A month later, Hunkeler “broke into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing, and voicing of Latin phrases”. Later on August 20, 1949, the Washington Post reported that Hunkler “has been freed by a Catholic priest of possession by the devil, Catholic sources reported yesterday”.
