Eerie Encounters : The daunting case of Michael Taylor

 In early 1974, a 34-year-old man named Michael Taylor was leading a happy life with his wife Christine and his five children in Ossett, West Yorkshire. He was a perfect father and a loving husband with a commendable sense of humour. His neighbours report that they would often hear Michael laughing or cracking jokes while they crossed his house. However, this beautiful family would lose their happiness in the April of the same year.

Michael in The Christian Fellowship

 One day in the April of 1974, when Michael was doing some house repairs whilst standing on a ladder, he accidentally slipped off the ladder and hurt his back badly. Although this injury was not major, it caused chronic pain which changed Michael’s personality. The happy humorous man became extremely depressed and irritable. His behaviour was so bad, that his family could barely stay around him.

 While the Taylors were not religious, most families around them in their locality were. So, some of their neighbours, who were also Michael’s friends, persuaded him to seek God for healing his ailment. They also specifically suggested a Christian group named The Christian Fellowship. It was a religious group that offered support even during the non-Sundays. The group’s leader was a 21-year-old extremely friendly woman named Marie Robinson and his friends told him that she could potentially be the difference maker in his life.

 On the 12^th of September of this same year, Michael joined the group and he was astonished by the way Marie carried himself and the way people treated her. Praying with this group helped reduce his chronic pain and filled him with happiness again. He started spending more time with this group which also meant that he was spending more time with Marie. The duo had a strong bond growing between them. They started spending more time with each other and all Michael told to his family was about Marie. 

Road to Exorcism

 Their closeness caused rumours about an affair they had. These rumours slowly spread from this religious group to almost all ears in the town. Michael’s wife eventually heard these rumours and started suspecting his husband of infidelity.

 One day, while Michael was praying with the group, his wife burst into the hall where they were praying and shouted at him asking him to confess his affair. While she was shouting, Michael had his back towards her. He slowly tilted his head towards Marie and started staring at her. Just a few moments after establishing eye contact with him, Marie shouted in fear. She said that he looked nothing like a human.

 While the whole bunch of people were looking at Marie, Michael started blabbering something in a language none of them knew. He suddenly started running towards Marie like he wanted to kill her. The other members of the group piled up on him to stop him but he never stayed still. After the people around him prayed for almost an hour, Michael finally fell unconscious and woke up as his normal self.

 After this event, Marie told Michael and his family that he was possessed and an exorcism should be performed on him as soon as possible. So, they reached out to the Anglican church which in turn would send two of their best named Raymond and Peter for his exorcism. 

Exorcism and Murder

 This duo performed the exorcism rituals on Michael for an entire day by the end of which he was completely exhausted. At the end of the ritual, they told him that he was possessed by 40 demons and 37 of them were driven out. Since Michael was completely exhausted, they told him that they would complete his exorcism the next day. So, Michael ended up returning home with his wife that day.

 A few hours later, one of Michael’s neighbours heard strange noises outside her house. When she slightly pulled a curtain aside and peeked through a window, she saw a completely naked Michael Taylor covered completely in blood. He was walking around yelling praises of Satan. This woman was petrified at the sight and his behaviour and ended up calling the police.

 When the police arrived, they saw Michael lying near that woman’s doorstep in a foetal position, giggling like a baby. As the officials questioned him, he finally snapped out of this state and looked up at the police officials all confused. The police then got to know about his identity. After calling for backup, the officials entered Michael’s house. The first officer who entered the house ran out of it because of the frightening thing he saw inside. What he saw would become the most disturbing crime scenes in English history.

 A few hours after he returned from the exorcism, Michael slipped back into his trance. He became extremely violent and started attacking his wife. He pinned her to the ground and with his bare hands, gouged out her eyes and pulled out her tongue. The assault did not stop there. He tore off her face with his hands and threw it across the room. As the woman was taking her final painful breaths, he smeared the blood oozing out of her once-normal face on his naked body and enjoyed watching her die.

Aftermath

 Michael was convicted, but he was not declared guilty on the grounds of insanity. He spent four years in psychiatric care after which he was sent back to the general population. So, was Michael a man possessed by demons, or a Demon in man’s form? I leave it to your judgement.