On Twitter I like to share things based on the day of the week. For instance, Mondays can be many things, including: #MovieMonday #MysteryMonday, and #MonsterMonday just to name a few possibilities.
Today I was going through my email and read an article in The Lineup digest that hit my inbox on April 20 that fits all three: “Paul Bateson: The Real-Life Killer Who Appeared in The Exorcist.”
A convicted murderer and suspected serial killer lurks in the frames of the horror classic.
Here’s more:
There are plenty of scary things going on in The Exorcist. Over the years, numerous stories have circulated that the production was “cursed,” plagued by strange accidents and occurrences. The set caught fire; Ellen Burstyn suffered a back injury during a stunt; multiple cast members’ loved ones died; things got bad enough that a priest was asked to perform an actual exorcism on the production.
Some of these stories are true, others may be a bit on the fanciful side. And yet, perhaps the most terrifying thing about The Exorcist is that a real-life killer, convicted of one slaying but who may have claimed six additional lives, appears as an extra in the movie.
He was apparently an X-ray tech at the New York University Medical Center where Linda Blair’s character underwent a surgery. The director decided to use an actual neuropsychiatric surgeon for the scene and Bateson was the real-life tech.
Right place at the right time for that claim to fame.
But sadly he went for infamy rather than 15 minutes.
In shades similar to Jeffrey Dahmer –sans the cannibalism–he was arrested in 1979 for murdering film critic Addison Verrill after picking him up in a gay bar and having sex with him.
Bateson confessed to even more murders –what became known as the Bag Murders. They had really happened. Someone –Bateson if he can be believed– killed people, chopped them up, put their pieces in trash bags and dumped them in the Hudson.
From 1977-1978 the LGBT community did really suffer losses from such a crime.
The trouble was, other than his testimony, there was no way to link the bodies to Bateson. He only served 20 years for killing Verrill. In 2004 he was released and The Lineup reported it’s now thought he lives someplace in upstate New York.
The Lineup ended their article by saying, “So the next time you cue up The Exorcist, just remember: the film may be fictional, but it contains one scene in which the darkness is all-too-real. ”
True. But even scarier to me is he’s out there somewhere right now…
P.S.
Apparently Bateson consulted –uncredited– on the movie, Cruising. (Which The Exorcist‘s director, William Friedkin, also directed.) It’s about a New York City cop who goes undercover to catch a serial killer targeting gay men.
#Creepy.
If you didn’t already know all this too, did it also give you goosebumps?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, as well as obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of healing, to learn how she channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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