2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose was inspired by the story of Anneliese Michel, a young German girl who was believed to have been possessed by demons. As a teenager in the late 1960s, Michel started having convulsive seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Before long, she was suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. Eventually, Michel began experiencing hallucinations and hearing voices that would tell her she was damned.

In the midst of her alleged possession, Michel would display bizarre behavior, such as ripping off her clothes, barking like a dog, eating spiders, biting the head off of a dead bird, and licking her own urine from the floor. After turning to the Catholic Church, fathers Arnold Renz and Ernst Alt performed 67 rites of exorcism on Michel over the course of about 10 months, with some lasting as long as four hours. More than 40 audio recordings were made during that time, in which Michel could be heard growling in the voices of Satan, Judas, Cain, Nero, Adolf Hitler, and a priest named Valentin Fleischmann:

The Bizarre True Story Behind ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’

By the spring of 1976, Michel was refusing to eat and subsequently dropped down to just 68 pounds. However, at her own request, doctors were never consulted, and she continued to slowly deteriorate. Michel died on July 1 from what her autopsy deemed “malnutrition and dehydration.” She was 23 years old.

Michel’s parents, Anna and Josef, were put on trial for murder alongside the two priests. They were all found guilty of negligent homicide for letting her starve herself and were each sentenced to six months in jail. Following the release of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Michel’s mother told The Daily Telegraph that she didn’t regret her actions. “Anneliese was a kind, loving, sweet and obedient girl. But when she was possessed, it was something unnatural, something that you can’t explain,” she insisted.

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