How A Suburban Boy’s Demonic Possession Inspired ‘The Exorcist’

The horror began in January 1949 with a dripping sound — a faint trickle of distant water somewhere behind the walls of the Cottage City, Md., house.

Soon, a crucifix on the wall began to shake, as if someone or something had bumped into it. The dripping sound dissipated and a loud, unsettling scratching noise began beneath the floorboards in one of the bedrooms.

The scratching soon became a high-pitch squeak, similar to sneakers catching on a stone floor. The sound jumped to one of the beds and caused a violent shaking.

More disturbances followed, and within a few weeks, one of the house’s occupants — a 13-year-old boy known as “Roland Doe” — would end up apparently possessed, his body nearly torn apart by a spirit, leading to a torturous months-long struggle to cure him.

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