Beware the Night

by Ralph Sarchie

  Donna strenuously resisted my first instruction. Since she and Mike weren’t married to each other—and in the eyes of the Church were still joined in holy matrimony to their previous spouses—I warned her that both of them had to resist romantic temptation. That drew a mocking look from Donna, who pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about. “No messing around,” I said. “Is that clear enough for you?”

  “No sex?” Her tone was taunting. “Not even sometimes?”

  What does she expect me to say? I thought. It’s okay to have sex on Wednesdays, but not on Sundays? Sin is sin, any day of the week. “No, none, and that’s final!”

  * * *

  The night before Donna’s exorcism, a peculiar thing happened at the station house where I work. Since it was a slow night for crime, the other cop on duty and I didn’t have much to do, so I decided to finish transcribing Mike’s tapes. A cop friend of mine, Frank, came in the room and we started talking about the case. It was just after 3:00 A.M. when a phone nearby rang three times. Because this was an inside line, which can only be used by people in the station house, Frank and I were very puzzled. There were only two other people there that night—and I could see that neither of them were using the phone. How could anybody else call this particular number? It simply wasn’t possible. When I picked up the receiver, I got only silence.

  A few minutes later the phone rang again. I picked it up. Again no one spoke. Within a minute or two it was shrilling away. I just sat there, and Frank didn’t budge either. “Ralph, I’m getting spooked,” he finally admitted. And this was a guy who’d previously worked at the morgue, reconstructing the faces of decaying, unidentified corpses! I told him to check if anyone was on the phone now. He looked around and said no. Not wanting to make a lot of drama about it, I silently commanded whatever was on the other end to depart peacefully. The phone stayed silent for the rest of the night. I had the feeling the demon I was dealing with was trying to scare me off from the exorcism.

  If so, it didn’t work. Joe and I got to Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut, where Bishop McKenna was holding the exorcism, early. The other assistants began to arrive around 9:00 A.M. We gathered our equipment: a videocamera, tape recorder, and still cameras. I use these videos as training tools for student investigators and, most important of all, for the legal protection. It’s not impossible—or even unheard of—for a victim of demonic possession to die during an exorcism. In fact, it happened to a young girl named Analise Michele during an exorcism many years ago in Germany. I don’t put any savagery past the demonic. Many exorcists’ lives have been destroyed by false accusations of physical abuse or other wrongdoing.

  Once we were ready, we walked in the church as if we owned it. Inside, two elderly women were praying the rosary. One jumped up and asked me in a stern whisper if I knew where I was. I was in no mood to explain myself—I’d been working all night and was now here to do battle with the demonic. I just said, “Yeah, I know where I am.” Just then Bishop McKenna came out and removed the Most Holy Eucharist, then ushered the two old ladies into the sacristy. I had to laugh when I returned to the church a few weeks later, when the same woman who had scolded me now asked sweetly if we were having an exorcism that day. The bishop must have explained it all.

  Anyway, the church was buzzing with activity when Donna finally arrived, nearly half an hour late. Mike took me aside and told me his car had a full tank of gas when he and Donna left their house, but after he’d driven just twenty miles, he looked at the gauge, which now read empty. When he remarked on this, his girlfriend gave the same horrible laugh she had when he was hit with racking pain in his kitchen.

  “Did anything else happen?” I asked. He said that Donna had been complaining of an agonizing headache. It’s not uncommon for a possessed person to suffer physical torments on the way to an exorcism. We wasted no time getting ready for what we feared would be an extremely violent ritual.

  Being a cop to the core, Mike brought handcuffs to the church and suggested we use them on his girlfriend, but I couldn’t allow it. At least he’d left his gun home, as I’d instructed. No metal restraints are ever used during exorcisms, because they can easily become weapons. And as a policeman myself, I knew how easy it is for someone whose hands are improperly cuffed in front of them to swing his or her arms up and injure bystanders or the arresting officer. Even with her hands cuffed in the correct way—behind her back—Donna would be at risk of injuring herself, which is why the bishop later started using soft fabric restraints like those the New York City police force uses to secure mentally disturbed individuals.

  Unfortunately, at this time we didn’t have those restraints, so Donna was left unbound on her chair as the Roman Ritual began. She flinched from the bishop’s first words as if from a blow, then slumped forward, her hair spilling over her face. Four of us grabbed her so she wouldn’t collapse on the church floor and held her firmly throughout the exorcism. We saw that it was no longer Donna sitting in that chair—the demon had made its presence palpable.

  Her body went into a fit that took the strength of all the assistants to subdue, as first her hands, then her entire body began to quiver uncontrollably, like someone in the throes of a raging fever. The bishop sprinkled holy water on her, and the demon moaned in inhuman anguish. Outside, the bishop’s dog began to bay, almost as if it wanted to help its master, and its long, drawn-out howls echoed through the church. Donna’s face was now masked in murderous fury—and we were the enemy!

  As the prayers continued, her chest heaved, and she started retching. Thinking she might vomit, as possessed people often do during exorcisms, Joe put a bowl in her lap, and she bent over it until all we could see was her wildly tangled hair. When the bishop reached the part of the ceremony where he must make the sign of the cross on the exorcee, Donna let out a low growl and suddenly sprang forward, slapping his hand away. Being a true warrior of God, the bishop moved forward and made the holy sign over her head and chest. That provoked rhythmic panting and groaning that made her sound like a woman in childbirth, except that what we hoped she’d expel was the demon.

  The groans gave way to horrible growls, and she rocked from side to side, baring her teeth like an animal. Although she looked as if she might snap or bite us at any second, we maintained our firm grip on her arms. With amazingly supernatural strength, she fought against our grasp and lunged at the bishop with bestial fury every time he touched her with a cross. The battle had lasted only a few minutes so far, and we were already exhausted. During the next few hours, holy water was sprinkled on Donna over and over, which caused even more frenzied struggling, and dreadful screams filled the church. At one point, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she appeared unconscious. The demon was in torment—the agony of the damned.

  The bishop put a blessed crucifix on her, and her body went limp. But he wasn’t fooled by this apparent retreat. “I know you’re in there, demon!” the exorcist said. Donna lurched wildly, desperately trying to break free of the crucifix.

  “I command you to speak, in the name of Jesus Christ,” the bishop thundered. The demon was silent. The struggle continued for another half hour before the devil was finally defeated.

  In a weak voice, Donna whispered, “It’s gone.” Naturally, the bishop continued the ritual, in case the demon was screwing with us to make the exorcism stop.

  But we could see a dramatic difference in Donna. Her features had softened and that murderous look was gone. The sense of oppressive evil that had filled the church had also lifted. Sun streamed through the stained-glass windows, and I felt relaxed and peaceful again. Donna, on the other hand, was sore as hell from all her struggles and could barely get out of her chair. She was in such pain that Mike had to help her walk. Yet her face was radiant—you could feel her joy and immense relief. She bowed her head as we said prayers of thanksgiving to our Lord for freeing her from the creature that seeks the ruin of souls.

  Before we left the church, I asked the coupl
e to swear they’d never attempt to contact the demon again. They both promised and we left the church together. Outside, I told Mike to call in a few days and let me know how Donna was feeling. A week later he did. “She’s doing great,” he said. “She’s attending mass and praying a lot.” That was the best possible sign, since she’d been unable to worship God during her possession.

  “Any more trouble with the phone?”

  “Not one beep,” he assured me. I knew the case was closed.

  Afterword

  I THANK GOD for calling me to a vocation where I can rejoice in the triumph of ultimate good over ultimate evil. My journey of discovery is far from over: Even after ten years, I continue to learn with each new investigation. There are no experts in this Work, and anyone who tells you differently is full of it. Demonology isn’t something you can study in a classroom: You have to go out on cases and get your hands dirty. Over the years, Joe and I have had many trials and made many errors, but the methods we use have been effective in more than half of our cases. A combination of faith, common sense, experience, and contact with very learned people are what we use to reach our goal of helping people. We don’t do this for money or reputation, or to satisfy our egos. Instead, our only mission is the greater glory of God.

  I found my faith again because of the Work, but it’s not because of the Work that I have faith. Faith doesn’t just happen: It comes to those who seek it and are willing to let it into their lives. Sometimes you reach a higher spiritual level quickly, and sometimes you stagnate until more is revealed to you. For people in religious life, like Bishop McKenna, everything is centered on faith. For people in secular life, who may be married and have jobs, it’s harder to keep your eyes only on God. I can understand that: I definitely don’t have my eyes on God when I’m wrestling some violent perp to the ground, but He’s never far away. Once you accept God into your life, it’s very hard to live without Him. My faith goes through cycles, however. Sometimes God is at the forefront of my mind, and other times I have dry spells where I don’t go to church or pray that much. Even then, however, a part of me is always conscious of Him. I know it’s wrong to ever let prayer take a backseat, but that’s what can happen when there are many aspects of life competing for your attention.

  The key, I feel, is to set time aside for spirituality. When I was a kid, I remember seeing my grandmother sitting in a chair and praying the rosary. She did this every day, at the same time. At Queen of Peace School, they didn’t push the rosary, so I didn’t understand how important this prayer was. It was only after Sister Philomena at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel opened my eyes to its virtues that I began to make this devotion part of my life. One of St. Alphonsus di Liguouri’s teachings is that God appointed Jesus Christ the King of Justice and made Him the judge of the whole world. But at the same time, He gave us the Virgin Mary and made her the Mother of Mercy. That’s why I have such a devotion to her. I’ve inherited my grandmother’s rosary beads and now use them for my own prayers. I’ve also taught my children about the rosary. Recently my daughter Christina and I shared a special moment on Christmas Eve, when I came home from the Four-Six around 4:00 A.M. and found her awake. We prayed the rosary together. It was a beautiful way to begin Christmas.

  Joe and I feel that one of the ways God works is by putting people in your path who influence you to develop a better relationship with Him. That’s certainly been true for me. Father Martin and Bishop McKenna have helped my faith grow. As my spirituality evolved, I came to see things differently. I was raised a Roman Catholic, but became a Traditionalist Catholic in July of 1999, around the time when Father Martin died. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t comfortable with the modernization of Catholic liturgy that resulted from Vatican II. Once I started going to Traditionalist masses, I immediately felt at home with the old way of worship. Traditionalist priests aren’t afraid to talk about the Devil during their sermons and don’t shy away from the Church’s teachings on satanic evil. This fits my own belief that once the enemy is exposed, people will be better able to protect themselves from the demonic. It’s like having a serial rapist running around preying on unsuspecting people: Once the word is out, the public will be watchful and alert to avoid becoming victims.

  Whether you believe in God or not is strictly up to you. I don’t force my faith on anyone. Toward the end of writing this book, I got a new editor, Joe Cleemann. One of his concerns was that skeptics and agnostics who read my story would not be convinced by assertions based on religious belief. I agree with him 100 percent. No matter what I say, these people won’t believe anyway. I’ve encountered enough of these skeptics to know that. But it’s my hope that sharing my experiences will help people of faith—and investigators of the paranormal—to recognize demonic activity, should they have the misfortune to encounter it, or at least to consider the possibility that pure evil could touch their lives. Once you believe in the Devil, you also have to believe in God who sent His son, Jesus Christ, to defeat Satan and secure everlasting life for us.

  I recently saw the powerful impact this knowledge can have. A cop I know, Vinnie, was promoted to sergeant at the same time I was. I happened to run into him at the New York City police force’s Career Advancement Review Board, where we—and other officers up for promotion—were dressed to the nines in our Class A uniforms, waiting to meet with the board. A captain came out and decided to get humorous about the Work. “Hey, Ralph,” he said, “why don’t you exorcise some of these assholes?”

  “Give me a break, Captain,” I said. “I’m trying to get promoted here.” Seeing my serious look, he didn’t push the joke any further.

  After the review, Vinnie came up to me. “There’s something I’ve been wondering,” he said. “What is this exorcism stuff the captain was talking about?” When I gave him a quick rundown, he was amazed. “You’re kidding! Tell me more.” I did, and he was so interested that he’s phoned me several times since to talk about exorcisms—and God. During these talks, he told me that our chance conversation had sparked an intense spiritual hunger in him. Although he was already a Catholic, from that moment on he became more religious. God can enter your life just as suddenly as the demonic can. Once God was foremost in his mind, Vinnie realized that up to that point, his life had been dismal and dead. Rediscovering his faith gave him renewed hope, helping him cope with some personal problems he was having at that time.

  I take no credit for Vinnie’s return to faith, just as Joe and I take no credit for the successes we’ve had in the Work. We know better than to swell up with pride, because these victories have nothing to do with us. All credit belongs to God, who works through people for His greater glory. Our payment—our glory—is serving His will. Two of the most important commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. There are many ways of showing this love. Some people visit the sick and read to them. Some people donate their time to soup kitchens to feed the hungry. Some go into prisons to spread the word about God. My act of Christian charity is to help people who fall under the sway of the Devil. It’s just one charity in a sea of charities offered up to God.

  It troubles me when I see the Web sites of some paranormal investigators. You’ll see boasts like “We’re number one. We’re the famous ghosthunters.” I know how these people work. They’ll go out on a case and it’s circus time. Some of them exploit people’s pain and fear for financial gain, by charging for their services. Others want to be paid in publicity and walk in with news cameras and reporters to further their own fame. Instead of trying to help people who are snared in a living hell, they’re too busy taking infrared photos and exclaiming “Wow, look at this! The temperature dropped!” Then they’ll say “Good-bye and thanks for all the good stuff,” while the frightened family is saying “Please don’t go! We’re being thrown out of bed at night. We’re getting beaten up and terrorized by something we can’t even see.” But the ghosthunters don’t want to hear it. “It’s just spirit and that won’t hurt you,” they’ll say.
Or maybe they’ll brush it off as electromagnetic energy—or tell the people to consult a shrink.

  That’s a travesty of everything Joe and I believe in. We’re not in this for the hoopla. Our only concern is to help people solve their problem, if we possibly can, then leave—leaving the family with the name of Jesus on their lips. We’re not out to sell T-shirts, as some of these people do, or enrich ourselves. Like everyone who goes up against ultimate evil, we’ve paid a price. When I look back on my very first case, I had no idea that I was crossing a dangerous line when I decided to battle the Devil. As to my wife and daughters, they had no say in the matter and were dragged along with me. Being involved in the Work has caused problems in my marriage and my home life, but I will not blame it all on the demonic. Even with all the adversity we’ve had to deal with, Jen has given me her support in many ways that have enabled me to continue the Work.

  As a husband and father, I don’t like my family to experience these things, but the graces from God outweigh the negatives. So I continue in the Work, and look forward to helping more people who are caught up in the very dangerous and terrifying world of the demonic—a world where nightmares become real. People often ask, “Why does God allow this to happen?” That’s one of the toughest questions to answer, since God allows things to happen for His own reasons. I’m a firm believer that evil does not go unchecked. Whenever something bad happens in someone’s life, something good comes out of it. Jesus asks us to follow Him and pick up our cross. Some of us suffer so others can benefit. How can they deny the existence of God when they are victims of the demonic?

  As I close the door on the cases in this book and anticipate new battles I may embark on in God’s name, I think of my favorite quotation from Archbishop Fulton Sheen: “There are 10,000 times 10,000 roads down which we may travel. It makes no difference which, but at the end of those roads, you’re going to see one of two faces, either the beatific face of Jesus or the miserific face of Satan. One or the other, there’s no escape.”