The 1973 film that made audiences afraid to sleep with the lights off didn’t spring entirely from William Peter Blatty’s imagination. Hollywood changed the child’s identity and moved the story to Georgetown, but the horror at the heart of The Exorcist still traces back to clergy treating one family’s claims seriously enough to conduct weeks of rites.
The case that inspired the story involved a Maryland teenager whose family said his bed shook, furniture moved and scratches appeared on his body in 1949. Known for decades by the alias “Roland Doe,” the 14-year-old was later identified by researchers as Ronald Edwin Hunkeler of Cottage City, Maryland.
The reported activity began that January, shortly after the death of an aunt who had introduced Hunkeler to spiritualism. His family described scratching sounds inside the walls, foul odors and objects moving without explanation. A Lutheran pastor witnessed some of the alleged events, recorded his observations in a letter to Duke University’s Parapsychology Lab and referred the family to the Catholic Church.
The family eventually went to St. Louis. During March and April 1949, Jesuit priests performed the Roman Ritual of exorcism an estimated 20 to 30 times at a relative’s home and Alexian Brothers Hospital. Father William S. Bowdern led the rites, Father Raymond J. Bishop documented them in a diary and Father Walter Halloran assisted.
Witnesses claimed Hunkeler reacted violently to prayers, cursed in a changed voice and developed markings on his skin. The rites reportedly ended around April 18, after which he returned to his ordinary life and said he couldn’t remember the episodes.
Blatty learned about the case while studying at Georgetown, where he read a 1949 Washington Post report about it. He changed the child into a girl, moved the story to Georgetown and used the case as inspiration for his 1971 novel The Exorcist, which became the 1973 film.
Hunkeler’s own life took an unexpected turn afterward. He later worked as an engineer and reportedly contributed to NASA heat-shield projects, avoided discussing the exorcism publicly, and died on May 10, 2020, at age 84.
