Every once in a while a story will come up claiming a person or people are possessed by demons. This is not taken seriously by some people while others may believe it. I have always felt mental illness is hard to differentiate from possession unless one sees something so unnatural it could not have been accomplished by a normal person. I am talking about people suspended in the air, heads turning 360 degrees or something of that nature. There is a family in Indiana who became scared out of their wits and claim they were possessed. The story was published in the INDYSTAR on January 25, 2014 and some of the things which happened defy explanation. A woman claimed she and her 3 children were possessed. I know what you are thinking, it is very easy for anyone to claim this about themselves or even others and you would be right except this case had evidence and witnesses and also shows how cruel some child protection agencies can be.

One family seemed to be begging anyone who they thought could help them, to help solve a terrible problem they were having in their home with what they believed were evil spirits. When the police were contacted the police captain said this was the strangest story he ever heard. I think if I was a policeman and heard this I would have to agree. The captain said his initial reaction was the family had made up a story so they could make money on it.

The case was investigated by child services as well as it should have been and over 800 pages of strange happenings were documented. The mother signed a release which allows psychological evaluations, the police reports and information about the exorcisms which were performed to be released as long as the children weren’t named, so the public could see what was happening. The mother has been very open about everything which would not have usually been the case in a hoax of some sort. When the family first moved into the home in 2011 it was winter and yet a swarm of big black flies flooded their porch area. The grandmother remembers saying that it wasn’t normal. She said we just kept killing them, but they kept coming back. It is already sounding like something out of a horror movie isn’t it?

The house contained all sorts or noises which would make themselves known after midnight. The mother and grandmother would routinely hear heavy footsteps climbing up the basement stairs and hear the door opening which led from the basement into the kitchen. When they would go there, they would see nothing. They began to lock the door but it didn’t help. The mother woke up one night and went into the living room and she could see the shadow figure of a man pacing. It disappeared, but left wet footprints on the floor. The mother said that in March 2012 they began to really get scared. On March 10th of that year the family was mourning the death of a relative, so they were awake very late. It was about 2 a.m. when they along with the other mourners heard the daughter scream. She was sleeping in her room. The daughter’s mother yelled for help and when the parties got to the room the little girl was unconscious and floating above the bed. Several people saw this and surrounded the girl and began to pray. Eventually the little girl lowered back into the bed. The people who were there never came back to the house. I guess one couldn’t blame them.

The mother began to tell the grandmother that they must get help. They went to their church and told them the stories about what was happening and they visited the home and come to the conclusion there were spirits in the home. The advice from the church was to clean the house with ammonia and use oil to draw crosses on all doors and windows. The church also made another suggestion which the mother carried out and it was to put olive oil on the children’s hands and feet and draw crosses on their foreheads.

The family had clairvoyants come to the house and they told the family there were over 200 demons living there. Sounds crowded. No I don’t give much credit to what they said, but there certainly was a problem in the house. They gave the mother what some would think was sound advice and it was to move. The family just didn’t have enough money to do that. The clairvoyants told the family to burn sage and sulfur. A white sheet was placed on an end table and a white candle with statues of Mary, Joseph and Jesus were place there. The mother and another person then took the burning sage and sulfur and walked with it through the house reading from Psalm 91. Three days later things got worse. The mother and her three children became possessed by demons. The children’s eyes bulged and weird smiles appeared on their faces. Their voices became unnaturally deep. The grandmother was not affected. The mother described the possession as feeling weak, lightheaded and warm along with being out of control. Her 7 year old boy was thrown through the air from the bathroom. Another child had a headboard smack her in the head requiring stiches. The oldest child said sometimes it felt she was being choked and when she laid down she couldn’t move or talk. The 7 year old boy would sit in a closet and talk to an invisible boy who would tell him what it was like to be killed.

The family went to their family physician and told him the story. He said the entire story was bizarre. He went into one of the rooms and confessed he was scared. He was writing up a report stating the family had delusions when the boys started to curse him in very deep voices. He watch as the youngest boy was thrown into the wall without anyone being near him. The boys collapsed and wouldn’t come to and the police arrived. The boys were taken to Methodist Hospital and when they woke the youngest was thrashing around. 5 men were needed to hold him down. The family was examined at the hospital and found to be of sound mind. The 7 year old boy began to growl showing his teeth and his eyes had rolled back in his head and this happened while the mother was still being interviewed. Later that night the two boys were brought into a room to be interviewed. The 7 year old boy began to growl again showing his teeth and telling the interviewer it was time to die and that he was going to kill her. His voice became very deep. The other boy began to head-butt his grandmother in the stomach. It was at this point the 9 year old walked up the wall backwards onto the ceiling then did a flip and landed on his feet. When a doctor was told he asked the boy to do it again, but the boy said he didn’t remember doing it.

Child services informed the mother they were taking the children and the children and family cried. The hospital chaplain called a priest. He was asked to perform an exorcism on the 9 year old boy. He interviewed the family a few days later. After the interview he agreed to visit the home. He saw a flickering bathroom light, but each time he walked toward it, it stopped. Blinds in the kitchen were swinging on their own and when the mother complained of a headache and he placed a cross on her head she would convulse. The priest agreed there were demons torturing them. He had them move in with a relative on a temporary basis. The children were still in child custody when the caseworker and police went back to the home. The police noticed the batteries went dead in one audio recorder which had new batteries. Another recorder recorded a voice saying “Hey” and photos taken by the police with an IPhone showed a silhouette of a man. When a photo was taken of the basement stairs a cloudy white image was in the corner. A green image was also seen on enlargement which looked like a female. One of the officers said when he got into his car the power seat kept going back and forth on its own. The dealer examined the car and said the power motor was broken. Child protection blamed the mother for everything and put the children up for ward ship.

The child protection agency and police went back to the house with even more people and a dog. A different case manager went to the home, because the one in charge of the case refused to enter the house, yet they still had punished the mother. The dog didn’t notice anything and the rest of the crew went into the basement. A sticky liquid was dripping down. There was dirt under the house and the police dug a hole under the stars. They found panties, a pin, a press-on fingernail, socks, a lid, a pan, candy wrappers and a heavy metal object. They then filled the hole back in. About ten minutes later one of the group felt as it their pinky was lifted and broken and went out of the house. When it became dark only the police were left and were walking through the house and found an oily like substance dripping from the blinds, but failed to ascertain where it was coming from or what it was. They cleaned the blinds and locked the door and yet when they went back later, there was the liquid again.

The priest said the liquid was a manifestation of a demonic presence and asked the bishop for permission to perform an exorcism. In 25 years the bishop had never authorized one. He was denied and told to contact other priests who had performed one. He was able to perform what is known as a minor exorcism without church permission and performed it on the mother. It was attended by 2 police officers and the child protection agency representative. The representative said about a month later she began to get hurt. She got third-degree burns, broke three ribs, broke her hand and then broke her ankle.

The bishop changed his mind and gave the priest the right to perform a full exorcism. As the priest performed the exorcism the mother would convulse more as his voice got louder. The mother said it was as if something inside her was trying to hold on and was causing pain. She fell asleep and the priest said this was the way to lessen the effect of the exorcism on her by the demon. Several more exorcisms were conducted. The family moved to a new home and the priest blessed it. The final exorcism took place in mid-2012. The priest condemned the demons in Latin and the mother convulsed again, but not during the prayers. There were no more problems after that.