The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

248 St. Louis Exorcism
Some experts believe that there was no demonic possession
and that the events could be explained by poltergeist
activity, Tourette’s syndrome, or even mental illness.
The DEMONIAC was a 13-year-old boy, pseudonymously
known as Robbie Doe. He was born in 1935 to a family
in Cottage City, Maryland, a suburban community near
Washington, D.C. He had a troubled childhood. His mother
was Lutheran, and his father was a lapsed Catholic.
In January 1949 the family began to be disturbed by
scratching sounds coming from the ceilings and walls of
their house. Thinking that they had mice, the Does called
an exterminator. This man could find no signs of rodents,
and his efforts failed to end the scratching, which only
became louder. Noises that sounded like someone walking
about in squeaky shoes began to be heard in the hall.
Dishes and furniture moved for no evident reason.
Then Robbie began to be attacked. His bed shook so
hard that he could not sleep. His bedclothes were repeatedly
pulled off the bed, and once, when he tried to hold
on to them, he was pulled off onto the floor after them.
The Does made a connection to the recent death on
January 26, 1949, of Robbie’s Aunt Tillie in St. Louis,
which had devastated the boy. Tillie, a Spiritualist, had
interested Robbie in the paranormal, and they had used
the OUIJA board together. Robbie may have used the
Ouija to try to communicate with his dead aunt.
Convinced that an evil spirit was behind the disturbances,
the Does consulted their Lutheran minister, Luther
Schulze. Schulze prayed with Robbie and his parents
in their home and then with Robbie alone in his home. He
led prayers for Robbie in church. Schulze ordered whatever
was possessing the boy to leave him in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but the affliction
continued.
Robbie’s torments increased. He could not sleep because
of the weird noises and movements of objects day
and night. In February, Schulze offered to let Robbie
spend a night in his house, to which his parents agreed.
That night, Mrs. Schulze went to a guest room, while
Robbie and the Reverend retired to twin four-poster beds
in the master bedroom. Some time in the night, Schulze
heard Robbie’s bed creaking. He grasped the bed and felt
it vibrating rapidly. Robbie himself was wide awake but
was lying absolutely still.
Schulze put Robbie to sleep in an armchair, and before
long, the heavy chair began to move. It scooted backward
several inches and then slammed into a wall. It turned in
slow motion and sent Robbie to the floor. Schulze noticed
that Robbie appeared to be in a trance and made no effort
to move out of the chair.
Schulze persuaded Robbie’s parents to send him to
Georgetown Medical Hospital, where he underwent medical
and psychological evaluation from February 28 to
March 3. Robbie acted wildly and, according to some reports,
the message “Go to St. Louis!” appeared scratched
on his skin in blood-red letters.
Robbie’s parents took him by train to St. Louis, where
they stayed with relatives. There they consulted Jesuits.
Father Raymond J. Bishop came to the house to bless Robbie
but quickly saw that the situation was far worse than
INFESTATION. Bishop consulted Father William Bowdern,
and the two went to Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter and requested
an EXORCISM. The request was granted.
Exorcisms
Robbie’s exorcisms began on March 16 at the home of his
relatives on Roanoke Drive. More and more, Robbie acted
like someone suffering from full demonic possession. He
coughed up phlegm and drooled. Painful, bloody welts and
scratches mysteriously appeared on his body. He cursed,
vomited, spit, urinated, and made physical attacks on the
exorcists, exhibiting unusual strength. He appeared to be
cured and then relapsed into vile and violent behavior.
When the episodes were over, he had no recall of them.
On March 21, Bowdern had Robbie taken to the
Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in a room in the security
ward. The exorcism resumed in tight secrecy over
the course of several weeks. It is not known how many
people participated. Among the witnesses were Father
William Van Roo and Father Charles O’Hara. Also present
at various times were hospital staff and seminarians,
among them Walter Halloran, whose help Bowdern had
requested.
On April 1, Robbie was taken to the St. Francis Xavier
Church (no longer in existence) to be baptized into the
Catholic faith, a move that Bowdern thought would help
the progress. However, Robbie went berserk on the way
to the church, and Bowdern decided not to let him enter,
lest he desecrate the premises. The boy was taken to the
rectory instead. Despite his vomiting of BLOOD and mucous,
and his struggling and shouting of obscenities, the
baptism proceeded, followed eventually by a successful
communion.
After several weeks of repeated progress and relapse,
Robbie’s behavior changed for the better. The turning
point was a dream Robbie had of a fierce, sword-bearing
ANGEL who made snarling DEMONs vanish. In April, the
exorcism was declared a success.
Robbie returned to Maryland with his parents and resumed
a normal life with no further episodes of any paranormal
or supernatural phenomena. His father rededicated
himself to Catholicism, and his mother converted.
Robbie lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Aftermath
Bishop recorded details of the exorcisms in a diary. The
church never intended for the case to be made public,
but it was leaked to the media by Schulze. William Peter
Blatty was a student at Georgetown University in Washington
in August 1949 when he read an Associated Press
account of the case in the Washington Post. Intrigued,
he compiled as much information as he could about it.
Twenty years later, he used it as the basis for his best-sell-