On the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist, Jacksonville author Troy Taylor teaches fans of the 1973 horror classic about the real events in St. Louis that inspired the film and William Peter Blatty’s novel. We offer opportunities.
Taylor will host a free event, “The Devil Came to St. Louis: The True Story of a 1949 Exorcism,” at the Wildey Theater, 252 N. Main St., Edwardsville, on Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. Doors open at 5pm and seating is first come, first served.
The event is based on Taylor’s book of the same name and will feature information from more than 20 years of research by Taylor, who splits his time between Jacksonville and Alton. His presentation will provide details, anecdotes, and unpublished information about the 1949 exorcism in St. Louis.
This program is co-sponsored by the Edwardsville Public Library, which hosted a similar event several years ago. The event drew an overflow crowd to the library, so the library decided to partner with Wildy to provide a larger venue.
“The library started talking about me coming back last year and we held our first event at the library, but we didn’t have enough space,” Taylor said. “The Wildy is a beautiful theater and I love going there.
“I think this event will have quite a turnout. It’s something that people are very interested in in this area. Even though it started in Maryland outside of Washington, D.C., this story is very much a part of our ’s home turf. The people there don’t have the same connection that we do.”
Taylor describes the story of the 1949 St. Louis exorcism as “a complex story about which we would know nothing were it not for a few mishaps.”
“When William Peter Blatty used this work as inspiration for ‘The Exorcist,’ he had very little information to confirm,” Taylor said. “He also excerpted a story from Iowa in 1928, but the story is not famous and most people know nothing about it.
“The St. Louis story is a well-known story, but no one will ever know exactly what happened because the water was intentionally murky,” he said. ”
Taylor pointed out that the story of the St. Louis exorcism came from a time when it wasn’t common to uproot a family and travel across the country.
“As soon as you see it, you say something was going on, otherwise they wouldn’t have done it,” Taylor said. “These are real places, real people, and I’ve been researching this story for about 25 years, so this isn’t just an urban legend. It was always mixed in with everything else I do. .
“I traveled around the country going through records and interviewing people. I talked to all the living witnesses (of the exorcism) before they died, and now they’re all gone. Among them: The central figure in the case also includes a young boy believed to have been possessed. He passed away in May 2020, and up until that point, I had not protected his identity as promised while speaking with him. I kept going. At that point I was able to put everything I knew out there and that’s what I did.”
Taylor added that the “The Devil Comes to St. Louis” presentation will reveal all the secrets behind the story of the 1949 exorcism.
“I can talk about everything because nothing is hidden now,” Taylor said. “I present the information that I have, and people can decide for themselves what they want to believe. It’s very fun and entertaining and well done.
“We published an uncensored version of this book in 2022, and we are always finding new things. New information emerges from time to time, so we add it to the presentation. Even if someone saw it six months ago. , there might be something new this time.”
The presentation of “The Devil Came to St. Louis” is just a small part of Taylor’s deep exploration of ghost stories and the paranormal. His company, American Hauntings, is based in Jacksonville and includes newsletters, ghost books, ghost hunts, and the American Hauntings podcast.
“This is my 30th year in the business, but I started writing and doing Ghost Tours in 1993,” Taylor said. “I ran a few bookstores, but other than that that’s all I’ve done.
“It’s something I’ve always been interested in. One side of my family worked in the police department, so I got to hear ghost stories and crime stories that I was probably too young to hear. I was able to do it, but it left an impression on me. “
Taylor grew up outside Decatur, and his great-grandfather was a police officer. It didn’t take long for him to realize that his fate was tied to the mysterious stories he had heard.
“I’d heard these ghost stories and no one had written them down, so I thought I’d write them,” Taylor said. “I wanted to be a writer anyway, so I thought it was a great place to start. “My first book was published 30 years ago in Decatur, along with my first ghost tour.
“It goes back to the days of offset printing, where you literally typed it up and cut out the pictures and glued them together to make a book. A local printer made it for us and it sold thousands of copies. What is it? It was something new and kind of got me off the ground, and that’s how I ended up doing what I do now.”
Since then, American Hauntings has hosted ghost tours in Decatur, Alton, Chicago, Springfield and Carlinville, as well as ghost hunts and haunted weekends across the country.
“We’ve been touring in Jacksonville for years, and we’ve given it to everyone who wants it, so in a way we’ve used it up,” Taylor said. “Olton has been there since 1999. This is a big tour for us and I do most of my events there.”
Upcoming events on the American Hauntings website include the “Dead of Winter” Ghost Tour in Alton on February 10th and the Haunted America Conference in Alton from June 20-23 will appear. In July, Taylor will travel to Wales for the Dragons. Phantoms & Creatures” Expedition.
“I know a woman who runs a company that organizes international tours, and she finds people who are in the same business as me to lead tours,” Taylor said. Ta. Her books are also available on the American Hauntings website. “She asked me if I wanted to go to Wales and I said ‘of course’. We’re also getting a group of people interested so we’ll see how it goes.”