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We have all heard of The Exorcist movie. It now seems that it was based on a real person who seemed possessed and had a number of exorcism performed on him.
It was successful and the boy went on to become a NASA engineer !! Over a 40 year career he was always terrified of being identified as the boy in that movie.
Ronald Edwin Hunkeler died last year, a month before his 86th birthday, after suffering a stroke at home in Marriottsville, Maryland. Photograph: AF archive/Alamy
Maya Yang
Tue 21 Dec 2021 06.06 AEDT
Last modified on Tue 21 Dec 2021 06.08 AEDT
The boy whose case inspired the portrayal of a demon-possessed child in the 1973 horror movie classic The Exorcist has been named.
The US magazine the Skeptical Inquirer named the then 14-year-old boy, previously known as Roland Doe, who underwent exorcisms in Cottage City, Maryland, and St Louis, Missouri, in 1949.
Ronald Edwin Hunkeler died last year, a month before his 86th birthday, after suffering a stroke at home in Marriottsville, Maryland.
In adult life, Hunkeler was a Nasa engineer whose work contributed to the Apollo space missions of the 1960s and who patented a technology that helped space shuttle panels withstand extreme heat.
One of his companions, a 29-year-old woman who asked not to be named, told the New York Post that Hunkeler was always on edge about his Nasa colleagues discovering that he was the inspiration for The Exorcist.
www.theguardian.com
It was successful and the boy went on to become a NASA engineer !! Over a 40 year career he was always terrified of being identified as the boy in that movie.
Boy whose case inspired The Exorcist is named by US magazine
The boy, previously known as Roland Doe, underwent exorcisms in Cottage City, Maryland, and St Louis, Missouri, in 1949Ronald Edwin Hunkeler died last year, a month before his 86th birthday, after suffering a stroke at home in Marriottsville, Maryland. Photograph: AF archive/Alamy
Maya Yang
Tue 21 Dec 2021 06.06 AEDT
Last modified on Tue 21 Dec 2021 06.08 AEDT
The boy whose case inspired the portrayal of a demon-possessed child in the 1973 horror movie classic The Exorcist has been named.
The US magazine the Skeptical Inquirer named the then 14-year-old boy, previously known as Roland Doe, who underwent exorcisms in Cottage City, Maryland, and St Louis, Missouri, in 1949.
Ronald Edwin Hunkeler died last year, a month before his 86th birthday, after suffering a stroke at home in Marriottsville, Maryland.
In adult life, Hunkeler was a Nasa engineer whose work contributed to the Apollo space missions of the 1960s and who patented a technology that helped space shuttle panels withstand extreme heat.
One of his companions, a 29-year-old woman who asked not to be named, told the New York Post that Hunkeler was always on edge about his Nasa colleagues discovering that he was the inspiration for The Exorcist.
Boy whose case inspired The Exorcist is named by US magazine
The boy, previously known as Roland Doe, underwent exorcisms in Cottage City, Maryland, and St Louis, Missouri, in 1949
