13 Horrifying Real-Life Crimes Committed by "Demons"
Supposedly "demon-possessed" criminals have been around for as long as people have been murdering their wives, sexually assaulting young people, or gunning down strangers in the street. Some criminals seem to use this as a calculated excuse for their actions, while others (usually suffering from mental illness, drug addiction, or both) seem to truly believe they were under demonic control when they performed their evil acts.
One of the most famous cases of a demon committing crimes involves the serial killer David Berkowitz (also known as the Son of Sam), who claimed a demon inhabiting the body of his neighbor's dog compelled him to walk the streets of New York for an entire year, firing indiscriminately at anyone who was hanging out in a parked car after dark.
If you’ve ever been curious about demonic possession, or want to get the inside scoop on some of the most vile acts ever committed by the "possessed," say a couple of Hail Mary’s and continue reading about the most heinous crimes committed by demons.
An Uber Driver Claimed His Driving App Forced Him to Kill
After Uber driver Jason Brian Dalton went on a shooting spree, killing six people in the early hours of February 21, 2016, people wondered what could drive a man to commit such heinous murders. Money? Revenge? It turned out the real reason was something much more insidious. Dalton told detectives that the Uber app on his iPhone had taken over his mind and forced him to commit murder. A detective for the case said:
Dalton [explained] how when he opens up the Uber taxi app a symbol appeared and he recognized that symbol as the Eastern Star symbol. Dalton acknowledged that he recognized the Uber symbol as being that of the Eastern Star and a devil head popped up on his screen and when he pressed the button on the app, that is when all the problems started.
But it's not just that the app-demon forced him to kill - it also helped him get from place to place in a timely manner:
Dalton explained how you can drive over 100 mph and go through stop signs and you can just get places. Dalton said he wishes he would never have spoken what that symbol was when he saw it on his phone. Dalton described the devil figure as a horned cow head or something like that and then it would give you an assignment and it would literally take over your whole body.
The Son of Sam Claimed His Neighbor's Possessed Dog Told Him to Kill People
New York City during the summer of 1976 was a hotbed of anger, frustration, and fear, and David Berkowitz (AKA "the Son of Sam") didn't help the matter by killing six people and wounding seven others in the span of one year. After his arrest, Berkowitz told police that he was under the control of a demon named "Harvey" who inhabited his neighbor's dog and implored him to kill people.
Once, during a three-month break from his murder spree, Berkowitz wrote the New York Post to say, "I am still here like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest."
After being incarcerated (Berkowitz received a sentence of 365 years in prison), he became a born-again Christian, but he still believes that the devil and god are fighting for possession of his soul.
A North Carolina Man Performed Animal Sacrifices Before Turning to Murdering Human Beings
Pazuzu Algarad was arrested in 2014 for killing a person and then burying the body in his backyard in July 2009, as well as helping his girlfriend bury someone she killed later that year. He had taken the name "Pazuzu" in reference to a demon mentioned in The Exorcist, and he had a forked tongue and sharpened teeth.
An anonymous man who lived at the home where the bodies were buried told police that he felt Pazuzu was possessed:
It was very serpentine. And his eyes would kind of get a little, like, glazy. Like almost not there, like the inner part of him would kind of phase away. You could tell when his demons needed something from him, because they took over... About once a month, and it was usually on a full moon, they sacrificed at least one rabbit, and then he would eat the heart of it, and then burn the flesh of the rabbit.
Investigators on the scene later deemed the home (the site of many animal sacrifices) as unsafe for human life.
Despite Undergoing an Exorcism, Michael Taylor Savagely Murdered His Wife and Their Dog
In 1974, Michael Taylor was just a simple butcher living in Ossett, England, who was suddenly overcome by an evil spirit. He had an exorcism performed on October 5th and 6th of 1974, and while it went okay, the priests weren't able to expel all the demons. According to Bill Ellis, an authority on folklore and the occult in contemporary culture,
In an all-night ceremony... [the exorcists believed they had] invoked and cast out at least forty demons, including those of incest, bestiality, blasphemy, and lewdness. At the end, exhausted, they allowed Taylor to go home, although they felt that at least three demons - insanity, murder, and violence - were still left in him.
So you know, the big three.
After he returned home, Taylor immediately murdered his wife by ripping out her eyes and tongue, then tearing off most of the skin from her face, finally strangling their pet poodle. Police found Taylor standing in the street naked and covered in blood shouting, "It is the blood of Satan."
Two Parents Bound Their Children with Duct Tape, Believing They Were Possessed
In 2012, after living in what they believed to be a demon-possessed house and becoming convinced that the world was ending, Deborah and Adolfo Gomez admitted to restraining their children (ages 7 and 5) with duct tape inside an SUV in a Walmart parking lot because they were "demon-possessed."
The couple was arrested in Lawrence, Kansas, where investigators learned that not only was the couple under demonic possession, but Adolfo had not slept for the last nine days. So maybe that had something to do with it.
A Demon-Possessed Teen Stabbed an Elderly Man 10 Times
In March 2016, 17-year-old Tommy Smith attempted to rob Peter Churm, a 66-year-old man, for the keys to his son's Range Rover. When Churm refused to hand the keys over, Smith flew into a rage and stabbed Churn in the face, neck, and ears. The teenage boy stabbed the old man so fiercely that the knife actually broke in two. Churm ended the attack by bashing Smith in the head with a claw hammer. Smith, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, later told a psychiatrist that he was magnetically drawn towards his victim, and that he saw a demon float out of Churm's wounds when he attacked him.