The Demonic Trial: The True Story Behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose part two

Welcome back to PIC True Crime Podcast with your hosts Mike, Bree, and Heather! In this gripping second installment, we dive back into the harrowing story of Annaliese Michel, a young woman whose life was marked by suffering, mystery, and unanswered questions.

Part two takes us deeper into the chilling events of Annaliese's life, where visions of demons and unexplained phenomena were accompanied by violent outbursts, mysterious smells, and failed medical interventions. With the involvement of Father Alt and Father Renz, and the Catholic Church's reluctant approval of exorcism rites, Annaliese’s battle took on an even darker and more supernatural twist.

Was this a case of mental illness misdiagnosed, or something far more sinister? As Annaliese's condition worsened, even science couldn't explain her descent into madness, starvation, and ultimately death at the age of 23. We explore the conflicting theories—whether it was epilepsy, schizophrenia, or a true case of demonic possession.

Join us as we unravel the tragic events that led to Annaliese’s demise, the court case that followed, and the lasting impact her story has had on both the Church and medical practices. This is a story that will leave you questioning where the line between science and the supernatural really lies.

Tune in now, and don't forget to subscribe for more true crime stories that dig deep into the dark corners of history.

Transcript

Annaliese 2 (00:00)
Welcome to part two, everybody. Last week we heard about Annaliese Michel, whose childhood was riddled with illness and a mother who was hell bent to use her daughter to repent for her own sins and restore the family's name.

Sweet devoted, and determined Annaliese, carrying the weight of the family name on her shoulders, began experiencing visions and seizures.

The doctors and psychiatrists weren't helping, and they certainly did not buy into the fact that Annaliese claimed to see demon faces and hearing knocking inside the walls. Her aversions to religious objects were getting worse. She couldn't eat, Shleip, and she had no energy to get out of bed.

On the occasion that she could function, her life was a terrifying whirlwind of demons cackling from the shadows and one doctor's visit to the next.

But now the priest got involved. And one man in particular, Father Alt, finally believed Annaliese's claims that there were demons living inside of her. Alt believed in demons, ghosts, and he claimed to possess supernatural powers of premonition too.

We jump back into the story where we left off. was 1975, and Elise was brought home from college after she had lost an alarming amount of weight and her days were now filled with constant hallucinations.

Father Alt had just requested the circumcessio from the bishop, hoping to help Annaliese.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. And to all of you joining us for the first time, welcome to the PIC True Crime Podcast. I'm your host, Mike.

I'm Bree And I'm Heather.

Is this circumcessio a legit Catholic practice? I have to ask, Father Alt does believe in paranormal phenomena so you can't always be sure where he's getting his information from.

It is actually, and usually mild exorcisms, prayer, sprinkling holy water, and that sort of thing are performed to purify the person's home and general aura.

Alt requested an exorcism under the diagnosis that this was circumsessio but he was denied. So he increased their prayer sessions and this helped to pull her through again for the time being. Then in June of 1975, a few months before her 22nd birthday, she plummeted again.

With her thesis lumen before her, Annaliese withdrew from society almost completely. Her writing became so unorganized that it could barely be read. Missed spellings and half-finished sentences. It was a mess.

she stopped eating almost completely and she wasn't visiting the psychiatrist or the neurologist for checkups anymore.

Even though the paralysis came back as well as the rigidity in her legs that prohibited her from being able to bend her knees. So even on the rare occasion that Annaliese had the strength to walk, she could do little more than hobble stiff legged or short distances.

This time it wasn't reserved just for when she went to bed. It could hit her at any time of the day now. She claimed it being close to Holy Relics, churches, and figurines of the Virgin Mary were suddenly no longer possible.

The thing inside her did not want her going close and it wasn't going to allow her to pray anymore.

There were times when Peter and others witnessed her staring at a picture of the Virgin Mary, her hands contracted in claws, eyes black, and an expression on her face that was like that of a wild animal.

full of hate.

Anna then Joseph went to see Dr. Schliep, telling her of their daughter's worsening state and begging her to do something, anything. Schliep was insistent if Annaliese just took the

Tegretol she'd get better.

She just couldn't seem to wrap her head around the fact that Annaliese was getting worse on these strong drugs, even though her parents told Shleip that they personally administered the medication to her because between bouts of paralysis or weakness, Annaliese wasn't capable of doing it herself anymore.

She was getting her meds, but Shleip for some reason believed her condition, but not that she was taking the pills she had prescribed for Annaliese.

On June 1st, during another prayer session with Father Alt, with Peter present too, Annaliese had a hysterical crying fit and Alt attempted to pray with her.

Alt then silently inside his mind said the exorcismus probativus, the prayer of the exorcism.

Annaliese jumped up from her seat and shielded her face in defense like she was being physically attacked and tore her rosary off her chest. She spoke to Peter in a deep, guttural voice that he did not recognize and told him to get out of the room.

Shortly after this outburst, Anna and Joseph took their daughter to home again.

Upon her arrival, she started eating again, but the house stank with a burning smell of an open sewer.

Every room that Annaliese was in reeked of it.

Joseph and Anna had for the last seven years believed that epilepsy was to blame.

The only time they doubted their belief that the problem was a medical issue was when the younger girls heard the knockings in the walls and that shocking outburst Annaliese had on the bus.

But this was no longer the case as Father Roth would soon discover.

Father Alt's friend, Father Roth, had met Annaliese several times before, but he'd always hovered somewhere in the background.

He was the more sober-minded of the two priests, but he decided to check in more frequently once Annaliese was taken back home. He called them every few days and was planning on visiting the family sometime in near future.

On one such phone call, Joseph and Roth were talking about the stench.

Not once during this conversation did Ross' plans to come and visit even come up, but he said it was on his mind and he was about to broach the subject with Joseph.

Annaliese passed by and said in that beastly deep voice, Roth, that dog, he is also going to come.

Walth heard it and sure enough he packed his bags and headed over to the village that same day

When he got there, Annaliese raged at him, tearing off her rosary, shouting profanities, and she screamed in fear when he reached inside his pocket to take out the crucifix, even though she shouldn't have known what was inside his robe before he took out the cross.

Wherever Annaliese was, so was that smell.

Roth described it as so overwhelming that he could barely breathe and the moment that he would step out of the room where the girl was, the air would clear and the smell was gone. Roth was convinced that demons were possessing Annaliese.

Peter, or as I like to refer to him, Romeo, did come to visit her in Klingenberg and at the sight of him, and least momentarily, still unable to bend her knees,

walked through the discomfort with him for a short while in the garden of the family home. But when she stepped back into the house, she stopped dead in front of the crucifix on the wall.

Peter later testified that she grinded her teeth so hard that he could hear it from a few feet away, and that he thought she was going to gnash her teeth out of her skull any moment.

She reached out her arms to take the cross, but her back arched so far back that she looked like she was going to fall backwards. For no less than an hour, Annaliese stood, rooted on the spot, her arms outstretched, and her back bent backwards.

gnashing her teeth and growling like a bear.

Finally, Peter began to pray. Silently in his head, he called God for help.

The moment he began to pray, Annaliese, with that beastly voice, demanded him to stop and leave the room.

Alt and Roth begged the church to allow an exorcist to come, and finally they received permission from a bishop named Stangl to perform a summarized version of an exorcism on the 3rd of August.

For two hours, Roth and Alt prayed over a moaning and crying Annaliese. She cried that it burned her arms and her back, that the pain was unbearable. She was still moaning in apparent pain when they left.

And after that two-hour prayer session, things in the Mishel household start sounding like a horror movie. Isn't it already?

Not even close. Annaliese

slept for only an hour or two at a time, meaning that the family had to take shifts to watch her because her behavior went completely wild.

She started bucking up and down the stairs on all fours like a goat. She bleated, growled, and grinded her teeth so loud that it sounded like rocks grinding together. She compulsively knelt down, stood up, knelt down again for hours until her knees were swollen and raw.

She ran from one end of the house to the other over and over again until she went rigid as a board and fell down into a state of catatonia that would last for hours,

Unable to move and stiff as a stick, her sisters took these moments to wash her and try to force some food into her mouth. damn, I forgot she had younger siblings in the house too. Those poor kids.

On the good days, Annaliese prayed for days on end.

Hours would pass before she passed out, slept for an hour only to wake up to start praying all over again. Annaliese was completely erratic and out of control, barely eaten and quite literally wasting away.

All the while, the family still managed to get her to take her medications somehow. By the time September came around and the priest came to see her again, Annaliese was exhibiting unnatural strength.

During prayer sessions, it took both Priest and Joseph to hold her down, or she'd physically attack them.

There was no longer a time that she was not seeing demon faces, swarms of flies, or small shadowy little people running around all over the house.

She didn't eat unless she was force-fed, but she willingly ate insects off the floor.

I was going to say you, but that doesn't do it justice. Well, she would also urinate on the floor only to lick the mess up off the floor. Stop, we get it. Things were horrible. How did the family manage to even survive like this for two months?

They were seeing the shadow men too. The way they described it is not like the shadow people stories on the internet. These were more like small elves or fairy-like creatures, only they were made of the shadow and they moved too fast to catch.

The knocking in the walls was also heard by everyone.

But why not seek an institution? Tranquilizers, straight jackets, anything. It sounds like a circus from hell that never stops.

After seven years of every doctor and psychiatrist, where were they gonna go? The only thing left was a full-on exorcism,

And for that, they needed Father Rodewyk the old priest who they had tried to contact two years ago, but he said he was too old to take on any new cases. He walked into the house and Annaliese introduced herself as Judas. Two hours later, after that, Rodewyk was convinced that this was a case of true possession.

Roadwick was only there to approve or deny the exorcism. He couldn't do it himself at over 80 years old. So another priest was brought in for it, Father Arnold Renz.

Wait, there are lot of clergymen now. Remind me who's who again? Alt and Roth were still involved, but Renz was going to be the one to perform the actual exorcism. Right, Alt, Roth, and Renz. Got it. It's a lot like keeping up with all the doctor's names, isn't it? But Renz was cleared and he performed the first exorcism with Joseph, Alt, and Roth present too. It took five hours and Annaliese

thrashed and screamed and fought so violently that all three men were needed to hold her down so that Renz could complete the ritual. Typical stuff. Obscenities, wetting herself, an aversion to holy relics, all of that sort of thing.

During the five hours, Annaliese spoke German, Latin, and Dutch. And we know that she was fluent in German and very well versed in Latin. But the family said she did not speak or understand Dutch.

I need to point out here that Dutch and German are all related to each other, so it's not a stretch to think that she'd at least understand some of it. I thought so too. Renz did ask some questions in Mandarin, which Annaliese did not respond to. She claimed to be Judas, Cain, Hitler, and Father Fleischmann. Fleischmann was a 16th century priest who was defrocked

He's a famous figure in German culture. When he wrapped up the session, Annaliese told him that he shouldn't have stopped. His prayers bothered the demons,

But at least she could eat a full meal that night.

I'm not hearing any names of demons, though.

No Beelzebub. or anything. All of our hosts are people. Just a bunch of evil humans. You're not the only one. This did not deter the priest. Without getting into it too deeply, to them the figures were all evil and therefore the demons used their identities as a cover of sorts. Because revealing their names would give Renz power over them.

Every two days, Renz returned to perform the prayers and every time, Annaliese's violent response got less and less. Her moments of lucidity returned for longer and more frequent. And even though the demons were not as responsive to the prayers anymore, they weren't leaving. Annaliese said that out of fear, they had crawled into a hole inside of her to hide from the priest. And she said that her suffering would come to an end by the end of October.

It wasn't the first time that Annaliese had made such prediction, but this time, since the priests were more involved, everyone believed it to be true for some reason. There was, however, a remarkable improvement, and she even gained a little weight.

Then her prescription of Tergitol was refilled and all hell breaks loose for a few days and everything comes back. The screaming, animal noises, running, all of it.

Hold on, just a minute. We've been going by the assumption that her declines were happening when she was under stress, but do they coincide with her prescriptions? It seems like her pills were changed, made stronger, she gets worse too.

None of the meds would explain the bad time cell. If anything, they should have made her nearly comatose, not more erratic. Tergitol is very potent stuff, and every professional who's looked at this agrees that it should have had the opposite effect. Even if it wasn't treating the epilepsy completely for some reason, the meds should have at least helped. Mmm, I have thoughts, but go on.

Anyway, things quieted down after two or three days and Annaliese was mostly herself for the rest of October of 75, though her appetite wasn't great and she insisted that the demons made her sleep on the floor. If she was forced to get into bed, then they made her sit up straight for hours and she wouldn't sleep at all. But she was well enough to at least try to study from her room, hoping to catch up enough to go back to school when she got better.

So her hope for a future was returning and a new strange symptom began to emerge.

wrote in her diary that the Virgin Mary was visiting through her visions. Remember the first vision she had of the psychedelic field? It was a lot like that, but she was sure that this was just a trick from the devil.

That's until Renz gave her a copy of a book written about a woman named Barbara Weigand who received divine messages from Mary. This was enough to change Annaliese's mind on the matter. Like Barbara, Annaliese had to suffer for the greater good.

And for some reason, the spiritual attacks on her were for some divine greater plan.

that judgment was coming to the world, a judgment worse than the last two world wars, that her suffering was to free the damned souls, that she was going to become a saint for her trials one day, and that her suffering would end in October. Everyone expected the demons to leave by October 31st at the latest, like they seemingly promised.

That day's exorcism, though it lasted for seven hours, by the end when the family and the priests sang hymns, the devils laughed and declared they were not going anywhere after all. It was all a ruse. Despite this declaration from Judas, her symptoms were greatly reduced, however, enough for her to return to school and attend her examinations. You know, I don't understand what the hell the obsession is with them keeping her in school. I mean,

They can take her out for a year and go back. People did it all the time. Maybe she wanted it too. She lived a double life. No one at the college besides Peter knew of Annalisa's troubles. She was still on her meds and even though she was a little skinny and apathetic and distracted, she managed to pass with decent grade. She'd return home on the weekends to get her scheduled exorcisms to keep the demons at bay enough for her to function.

There was only one incident at school when she was with Peter, who was by now her constant companion. When her face contorted and she punched him, he threw holy water on her and the episode abated. For the rest of 75, everything was at least manageable. The hallucinations were still always there, but with regular exorcisms that were becoming less and less dramatic, things were looking up for good five months anyway.

Annaliese even picked up all the weight that she'd lost and outside of the weekends was living in her dorm, doing very well in her classes and praying in the chapel every day. And then April of 76 came.

The rancid smell returned and was apparent to everyone around her. One day when praying at the chapel, Annaliese felt hands on her shoulder, refusing to let her get up from her knees. They found her the next morning, still kneeling on bruised knees. Her classmates noticed that she wasn't eating and losing weight again, so they called the family with their concerns. Her sister, Rose, even traveled to the college to help take care of her when she became bedridden with stiffness and weakness again.

On one weekend at home, Annaliese asked Father Alt if she could study at the rectory where he lived. She said she needed to focus and since things were seemingly picking back up again, she wanted to be inside of a holy place to keep it at bay.

On their way there, she told Alt that she had had a vision that her suffering would come to an end in July. There was an attempt to keep Annaliese in school, but with her sister Rose staying with her to provide care. But Rose injured her foot and the family was forced to bring Annaliese home on May 10th.

Why? Why the insistence on keeping her in school? And now they drag another sister into it too? I mean, this is getting ridiculous.

It's been ridiculous since she was in high school.

You can't deny though whether Annaliese wanted to finish or not. There was definitely a huge amount of pressure from her family to keep her in college.

Now that Annaliese was home, things go south all over again. All of the compulsive behavior returned.

She knelt and stood up hundreds of times, for hours, until her knees bled. She bit, scratched, and punched herself. Annaliese stopped eating completely and she barely slept. During the few hours that she was lucid, she'd sit at her desk working on her thesis. Remarkably, through it all, Annaliese managed to do an amazing amount of work on that thesis.

According to later reports, the results were outstanding. She was sure to get a perfect score for it.

She became stick thin and bore injuries all over her body. And here I'm going to veer off from what the priests and family said about the wounds. They called it stigmata, the wounds of Christ. But a physician who came to see her at the end of May said that they were merely bruises that she'd inflicted on herself. She even chipped her tooth trying to gnaw at the stone wall of her bedroom.

Annaliese 2 (20:19)
I mean, how is this girl not institutionalized? Chewing on a brick wall, starving, talking to demons living inside you? I mean, come on. How had this never been an option? Every doctor, and there were a lot of them, that's ever seen Annaliese has always stated that she was smart, well-spoken, and perfectly sane when they spoke to her. Yes, she was clearly ill, but not crazy.

Every single one of the doctors Every single one

Could she really have fooled every medical professional she ever saw that she was sane when she wasn't? Maybe it was Judas and Hitler that convinced them.

Well, Hitler, Judas, and the other entities weren't talking anymore. Through the exorcisms and prayers that the priest performed, she raged and screamed and thrashed and howled like a wolf, but the demons did not interact directly with the priests. Annaliese told them that they were still there, always under the surface, but they were afraid of the prayers and the holy relics.

They were just hiding and their fear of the priests was proof that the exorcisms were working.

Peter was always there though, with her through until the end. June continued with Annaliese getting thinner and thinner. If her sisters and parents tried to feed her, Annaliese would bite them and spit out the food. It was the demons that were doing it. They weren't allowing her to eat or sleep. She did drink gallons and gallons of juice and milk though, but this aversion to putting

anything into her mouth finally spilled over to medication too. For the first time in seven years, Annaliese was not on any medications for epilepsy.

She and the family were all terrified of letting more doctors see her, precisely because they were afraid of her getting institutionalized.

where they all believed she did not belong. There was no way that a doctor could see her without becoming aware of her erratic behavior anymore, and that would lead to an enforced institutionalization.

But there were at least many lucid times in between these exorcism sessions. Annaliese always maintained that she was suffering for the sins of others and that her torment would end in July.

Annaliese 2 (22:55)
On June 31st, Annaliese came down with a fever of 102 degrees, but it went away by the time Father Renz arrived for their scheduled exorcism late afternoon.

This would be the 67th session he performed, throughout which Annaliese screamed and raged from her bed, where it took both the priest and her father to hold her still.

After midnight, Renz told the demons that it was now July the first and that they'd said that July would be the end, so it was time for them to leave. Annaliese asked Renz, Absolution, please. He performed the Absolution prayer and Annaliese turned over to her side and went to Shleip. The next morning, Annaliese was dead.

She was just 23 years old and she weighed only 68 pounds. During the autopsy, her death was attributed to starvation, exacerbated by physical exertion

I mean, can we just take a minute here? That poor girl had suffered for eight years. I know that it sounds bad, but she had suffered long enough. No matter what the causes was, demons, madness, she deserves to finally be without pain and permanent torment. I'm relieved for her too, and for everyone involved. As insane as some of their decisions were, I think they suffered with her.

Peter and Annaliese's sisters definitely did, but it's not surprising that starvation was the cause. She hadn't eaten for almost two months.

That isn't strictly true. She was chugging juice and milk by the gallon. The amount that she was getting actually equated to a pretty decent amount of sugar, fat and calories. Yes, she was weighing nearly nothing after that long time on a liquid diet. Definitely a dangerously low weight, but her organs were in good condition, not an indication of deadly starvation.

After reaching a certain weight, the body begins to digest the muscles, including the heart.

but no muscle degeneration was present. The pathologists, both of them, had no previous knowledge of her conditions, only that she might have epilepsy. They autopsied the brain and found no indications of deterioration or damage at all. Even sleep deprivation would have shown physical signs on the brain in an autopsy.

Yes, her body was covered in bruises, her teeth were grinding down, but all of her other injuries were relatively minor and not sufficient enough to cause her death. They expressed their confusion.

The only explanation was starvation with contributing factors to the physical stressors of her living condition and her injuries. But even then you'd expect a heart attack or an aneurysm, some physical event to cause the body to finally give in. And given how thin and weak she was, she shouldn't have been able to have the strength to need two fully grown men to hold her down.

Heck, she should have barely been able to get out of bed, never mind take on what sounded to be a full-on brawl with her father and the priests. It's just that starvation on its own shouldn't have been enough to cause her to die without a major cardiac or brain event, not with organs in as good of shape as they were. It takes a lot to kill a person, and quite frankly, the coroners thought that it should take a little more than Annaliese physically showed.

Her eyes were so bruised that they could barely open. Her nose was purple and swollen from compulsive rubbing and hitting herself. Her lips were chewed raw and her body was covered in black and blue marks. Annaliese's pupils were also unusually dilated and there was significant hair loss, probably due to malnutrition. All in all, Annaliese suffered for more than seven years between the ages of 15 to 23.

But with a 23 year old woman now dead, starved, and covered in bruises, the whole thing was blasted across Germany, and the world for that matter. Father Alt and Father Renz, as well as Annaliese's parents, were charged with negligent homicide.

Every doctor, priest, classmate, family member, and anyone who had any contact with Annaliese Michel was brought to the stand to determine what the outcome would be for our four accused.

The argument was that Annaliese had epilepsy and due to her strict religious upbringing and underlying mental health disorders,

exacerbated by the epilepsy. She had convinced herself and everyone around her that she was possessed by the devil.

The bruises she inflicted on herself were taken to be stigmata by those around her, who were equally predisposed to believe her.

They were not outrageous with their suggested punishment though. Yes, this was negligent homicide, but the state wanted only a suspension of the priest's titles and a hefty fine.

They even went so far to say that the parents had suffered enough throughout the years and that no one needed to be jailed.

and this is from the side that wants them to be found guilty. No one in that courtroom, doctors included, believe that any of this was done out of malice.

The defense threw themselves into possession angle.

They played the tapes that Father Renz recorded during the sessions, putting it forth as irrefutable proof that the demons were talking through the mouth of Annaliese. Annaliese was possessed, not crazy, and exorcisms were perfectly legal. And at least Annaliese was finally freed of the demons from the last exorcism. The judge wasn't as lenient as the prosecution proposed he should be.

He found them guilty of negligent homicide and sentenced all four of them to six months in jail with three years of probation and he fined all of them.

Obviously, this whole trial was a circus.

The funeral for Annaliese was a rushed one, and the family later requested for an exhumation so that they could give her a proper funeral and a decent coffin.

This was granted, and just so you know, the body showed normal signs of decomposition for the time that it had been buried. In 2013, the house where the Michels live caught fire and nearly burned down.

Police say was arson, but the locals believe it was because of the exorcism or demons that lingered behind. Because every town needs a haunted house.

Anna Michel stated in a 2006 interview that she did not regret anything they did. She said, quote, I know we did the right thing because I saw the sign of Christ in her hands.

Her sisters, her father, the priest, the boyfriend, everyone close to Annaliese believed her without a doubt.

Even Peter, who was not religious before he met her, became a practicing Catholic after experiencing the things he did with the family. And now that Annaliese is dead and the trial is over with, let's get to the theories. Obviously, schizophrenia is at the top of the list.

A severe mental illness combined with a religious fervor that the house was run by. Well, you can see how it could influence her delusions.

What about the epilepsy then? Just a coincidence?

If you really look at it, Annaliese only had seven confirmed grand mal seizures, the last one being two years before she died.

The rest were more like catatonic states.

What if it wasn't epilepsy at all, or just a temporary case, but a temporary seizure condition caused by one of the gazillion illnesses she'd had during her childhood? Any of those seizures could have caused permanent damage. A seizure taking place in the temporal lobe, even just one, has the ability to cause damage to the structure of the brain. The senses, the mood, cognitive functions can all be affected.

And yes, it can cause or worsen schizophrenia.

Her listlessness and lack of emotion is very common among patients who have seizures of any kind. But let's say it was epilepsy. Anticonvulsants are a hit or miss most of the time. Every individual is different in severity, placement of where the seizures take place. There are so many factors involved that it can take dozens of medication changes to find the one that works.

Annaliese did find some relief with the three different kinds of drugs she was given, but it did not make her completely better. This is consistent with treatment for seizures. It takes a while to get the right cocktail of medications just right. And by the time they were on the third one, they'd given up on doctors.

They feared forced institutionalization and they were all completely taken in by the belief that it was possession. She had seizures, maybe seven or maybe a thousand. There's no way for us to know for sure.

Any one of them coupled with mental illness, stress, and easily influenced people. Anything's possible.

I mean, I guess that tracks things get better, but add a little stress and boom, everything is going downhill again. Even the smell can possibly be explained. yeah. How can you possibly explain the smell? OK, so here's a theory. She grinded her teeth, right? How long before she got a rotten tooth?

That can make your breath smell. And she was so doped up that she probably didn't even feel the pain. Or her weight can explain it too. Wait a minute. How can being skinny make you stink? If you're skinny enough, yes. People suffering from like anorexia get this a lot. When the body runs out of reserves, it starts to digest the organs, including the stomach. The empty belly smell combined with

a partially digested stomach lining smells like death. But so many people were buying into it.

This is where I lose the madness angle too.

Sure, Alt was a little kooky and can believe that he might be more susceptible to believe things that are a little out there. But all of the clergymen that saw Annaliese, how could they all be roped into this hysteria? These people have had enough experience and have seen hundreds, if not thousands of cases where they needed to distinguish between mental illness and true possession.

Before the exorcisms were approved, she was sent to a new psychiatrist to determine whether or not she was sane, and that doctor with no previous experience also felt that she was sane. Doctors and psychiatrists, professionals who specialize in spotting mental illness, almost a dozen mental health professionals have declared her sane.

They can't all have been mistaken. We're not talking about the 1700s here. This was the 70s. I just can't feasibly see all of the professionals missing schizophrenia or any other mental disorder.

or missing epilepsy. Remember, they always assumed that it was epilepsy, but only one test at the very end of Annaliese's life showed any signs of unusual activity in the temple lobe.

They weren't using ancient technology to conduct the scans either. The tests back in the 70s aren't really all that much different than they are today. We just have better imaging. The sensory output that they received is virtually identical to what it was back then.

Only one doctor found a very minor reading from the temporal lobe and from what I understand perfectly healthy people who don't have epilepsy will have an odd reading every now and again.

You need to receive multiple signs of abnormal firings in the brain and with much more ferocity than they got from Annaliese Are you telling me that throughout the years of testing from multiple doctors specialized in finding brain related conditions that none of them found anything?

and the only one that did was technically within normal range, it was only one positive and a minor one at that. That's not nearly enough for a diagnosis. And if she did have epilepsy and by some miracle they'd missed it for all those years, well she was still on strong meds.

I can't believe that they didn't work either.

I know it takes a few tries to get the meds right, but Turgotar should've at least helped a little.

But even with the dose she was on, the sensory hallucinations weren't letting down at all. The compulsive behavior for the brain began to misfire so much that you can't even eat anymore?

Well, the only condition that can do that to you is Alzheimer's and that's because the parts of the brain that are damaged physically can't remember how to eat anymore due to disintegration.

Compulsion is different from being incapable, and Lise was compelled, not unwilling. Wow, I'm surprised at you, Bree. You didn't sound like you were on the possession side of things at the beginning.

It's just a lot. Look, if you want to go with the science and the professionals, then Annaliese was saying, Schizophrenia's out. The science says that she didn't have epilepsy. The year's worth of tests prove that.

Annaliese 2 (37:03)
The autopsy on the brain would've shown damage if it were this extreme, and the medication would've helped more than it did. So that tells me that the seven grand mal seizures she'd had in the past weren't seizures at all, nor was it mental illness. As for everyone believing her, well, not one single person, through nearly eight years of going to school,

Dances, dating, friendships, and her family ever doubted her. Not one of them. She was surrounded by sober-minded, smart people.

I think her mother was pushy and I don't have to like Anna, but I don't think she'd intentionally let her daughter starve to death for a degree. I think Annaliese wanted to finish school too. She didn't want it for the honor. Annaliese needed things to finally be alright.

The thing ahead of this torture to look forward to. The light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. And if mental illness and epilepsy is out, what's left? Demonic possession, that's what's left. There's nothing else.

Annaliese 2 (38:18)
I'm with you on this one, and it kills me. How does a person go from writing a brilliant thesis to bouncing around like a goat and gnawing her teeth off against a wall? That level of insanity just doesn't flip back to coherence and right back to peeing on the floor. I can't see that happening. I think it was real, and I think Annaliese was the perfect candidate for possession too. Why do you think she was the perfect candidate?

Well, she had all these childhood illnesses and a lot of expectation was on her shoulders. Anyone trying to find an answer outside of possession would find a thousand places to point toward that weren't demons. I'm just saying that her history makes her claims easy to dismiss. And she was a devout Christian, more so than most girls her age. And if I were Satan?

I'd attack the believers, the ones who could potentially change the world and turn it against me. Annaliese was certainly a target.

sweet, devoted, and pure Annaliese who loved the Lord and probably would have gone out into the world and changed it for the better.

Like the demons were smart enough to hide it from the world and torture her and her family as secretly as possible? Sure, why not?

There's more misery to gain from no one believing you and then punishing the people who are actually trying to help her the only way that was effective. If you believe in demons at all, then that's in line with what they do. They revel in suffering, misery and destruction of faith and family.

They bought into the noises and shadows too. Remember, you're talking about nearly a decade of this going on. Shopping for priests and doctors for years. Eventually they were bound to find someone who bought into it. The sisters and the parents were surrounded by it all of the time. Are you surprised they got into their heads too? They had to be aware, at least on some level, about what she was seeing and hearing.

Oddly enough, I went into this completely believe in the possession angle and the two of you were on the side of mass hysteria, epilepsy and mental health. Have we all done a 180 here? I think we have. Here's the big thing. If you're going to look at both sides being possible, that demonic possession is real, then the possession angle has more weight to it.

Like Bree said, all of the scientific data, medications, professional opinions, and lack of proof tells us it wasn't psychosis or epilepsy. So unless there's another medical condition to explain her symptoms, then the only thing left is true possession. And if ever it was

a mental condition, then why would no one except the girls in the ward ever see any outward signs of it at all?

Alright, since the two who are supposed to be the voices of reason have jumped ship, I'll have to try to poke holes in this narrative myself. What about the lack of stigmata?

We have no autopsy photos to go by. The parents, sisters, and the priests all said that the marks on her hands, feet, and the bruise on her ribs were half healed by the time she died. The pathologists saw minor bruises, but when they were inflicted, they were probably much worse. If there were pictures, I might have felt differently about it, but I have to go by what the family and the priest reports.

and they stuck to their guns. This was stigmata.

Hmm, That's not enough for me personally. But let's move on. What about the paranormal stuff?

If you take Annalisa's account out of this, then you aren't left with much.

Shadow people and knocks on the wall is all that was witnessed from others. And if they truly believe that she was possessed when she was not, then it's not hard to believe that they were drawn in by the mass hysteria.

I'm not buying her great strength as proof of possession either. With enough adrenaline, mothers can lift a car off their trapped children. And if you look at the reports of some extreme cases in hospitals and institutions, it can take half a dozen people to restrain just one hysterical patient.

She was malnourished and tiny, sure, but give a girl enough adrenaline in the throes of her hysteria? I can believe that she'd exhibit more strength than expected.

That's all explained by mental illness.

Not with her extreme malnutrition.

She wasn't malnourished enough to die, but she was too far gone to move from her bed. Her organs were still perfectly undamaged. I'm sorry, but I can't believe that a girl weighing 68 pounds, starving, and sleep deprived could fight off three fully grown men at once. I don't care how much adrenaline she's got flowing through her.

When you talk about mothers lifting cars off their kids and psychiatric patients, you're referring to healthy individuals with sound bodies who aren't on the brink of death.

Okay, since Annaliese and her priest have convinced you two as well, here's my theory. Annaliese had some kind of seizure condition. I think it's related to her childhood measles, otherwise they'd have found activity during one of the gazillion tests she was put through.

The seizures cleared up eventually, but not before the damage to the brain permanently. But the damage couldn't be found later because the technology at the time didn't allow it. And since the meds weren't working as they should, because it was epilepsy after all, the family got desperate.

Like us, there were only so many options on the table, and since they had crossed off everything they could, that left the only possession on the table. And Elise, when she wasn't in middle of an episode, she was sober, sweet, and smart. I can totally see why everyone believed her.

but they didn't have the mindset about mental health that we do today. And I don't think we're really aware of how much potential Annaliese had for developing a whole host of psychiatric conditions.

She was very ill for most of her childhood and spent months in medical institutions.

This time away from her family was probably traumatic, especially for a child as sheltered from the world like her. The amount of pressure her mother was putting on her to succeed sounds excessive. That girl probably felt like a failure when she got the measles.

Guilt for failing. Guilt for wanting to date Peter. Guilt for imagined sins. Guilt for not being perfect. Constantly sick and then parents who insisted you go to college far away even though she clearly fallen apart at the seams.

They made it seem like Annaliese was the only one of their four children who could possibly stand a chance to go to college. All of the pressure was on her shoulders. It's almost like other girls didn't exist. Annaliese was going to be the one that erased Anna's past. She was going to be the trophy of the family. And come hell or high water, she was going to go to school, no matter how sick she got.

and even alt, with his claims of premonitions and whatnot. He was primed to react this way.

And he and Roth believed her, told her accounts of other possessed individuals, unintentionally feeding her story that fed into her hallucinations. And just when he stepped into the picture, they had been through doctors for three years.

They were tired and desperate for another explanation. A teenager with hallucinations and all that pressure. I'm not surprised that Annaliese believed them to be true. She was just a kid.

I don't think anyone meant any harm. I need to believe that they thought they were helping her. But I think the priest and her parents led her to her death.

Everyone was conditioned to believe possession and together they all shared the delusion.

Has she been autopsy today with better technology? The results would have been different. Weighing 68 pounds is no joke. I don't care how good her organs looked. It's enough to cause death. Definitely.

The rest can be chalked off to mass hysteria and people who truly believed they were doing the only thing they could to save their daughter's Coupled with a religious home that was predisposed towards possession, underlying mental health condition, and a terrible amount of pressure placed on a very sick child.

It just steamrolled into a full blown collective belief that Annaliese needed to be released of her demons. Add some questionable priests and a little subliminal influence being shared between all of them and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.

I'm for demonic possession being the cause. I don't care how much logic you're trying to put in here, Dad. No way you'd let me starve to death and suffer for more than seven years if you didn't believe the demons were to blame.

I want it to be explainable. Everything in my nature wants me to seek plausible explanations. I really do. But the reasons that were given just don't hold enough weight. I'm going to have to go with Bree here. I'm on team possession.

Well,

Obviously I'm not, but the most surprising thing that's happened today is that I'm not the one reaching for a supernatural explanation for a change. I can't believe this, but still, it just kills me that she suffered like this for nearly eight years.

If it wasn't really demons, then Annaliese could have been married, had kids, and become the teacher she wanted to be. All that torture just so she could die a slow and painful death haunted by monsters in her head.

all because she didn't receive the medical help she needed.

If it makes you feel any better, many will view her as

believing that she suffered for the sins of others so they could be saved. And her case changed the way exorcisms are approached completely. The amount of doctors you have to see and the steps needed to be taken for the church to approve an exorcism to come out to see you can take years. The Vatican isn't going to allow a case like Annaliese's to happen ever again.

It's still not gonna help me sleep better tonight. That poor kid suffered tremendously.

Well, when you go to bed, remember, say your prayers, just in case.

I always do.

Thank you for joining me and my PICs, remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and we will see you next time with more True Crime.