Anneliese Michel
Anna Elisabeth "Anneliese" Michel
When Michel was 16, she experienced a seizure and was diagnosed with psychosis caused by temporal lobe epilepsy. Shortly thereafter, she was diagnosed with depression and was treated by a psychiatric hospital. By the time she was 20, she had become intolerant of various religious objects and began to hear voices. Her condition worsened despite medication, and she became suicidal, also displaying other symptoms, for which she took medication as well. After taking psychiatric medications for five years failed to improve her symptoms, Michel and her family became convinced she was possessed by a demon. As a result, her family appealed to the Catholic Church for an exorcism. While rejected at first, after much hesitation, two priests got permission from the local bishop in 1975. The priests began conducting exorcism sessions and the parents stopped consulting doctors. Anneliese Michel stopped eating food and died due to malnourishment and dehydration after 67 exorcism sessions. Michel's parents and the two Roman Catholic priests were found guilty of negligent homicide and were sentenced to six months in jail, as well as a fine.
The 2005 film The Exorcism of Emily Rose is loosely based on her story.
Early life
Born as Anna Elisabeth Michel on 21 September 1952 in Leiblfing, Bavaria, West Germany, to a Roman Catholic family, Michel was brought up along with three sisters by her parents, Josef and Anna. She was religious and went to Mass twice a week. When she was sixteen, she suffered a severe convulsion and was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. In 1973, Michel graduated and joined the University of Würzburg. Her classmates later described her as "withdrawn and very religious".Psychiatric treatment
In June 1970, Michel suffered a third seizure at the psychiatric hospital where she had been staying. She was prescribed anti-convulsion drugs for the first time, including Dilantin, which did not alleviate the problem. She began describing seeing "devil faces" at various times of the day. That same month, she was prescribed another drug, Aolept, which is similar to chlorpromazine and is used in the treatment of various psychoses including schizophrenia, disturbed behavior and delusions. By 1973, she suffered from depression and began hallucinating while praying, and complained about hearing voices telling her that she was "damned" and would "rot in hell". Michel's treatment in a psychiatric hospital did not improve her health and her depression worsened. Long-term treatment did not help either, and she grew increasingly frustrated with the medical intervention, taking pharmacological drugs for five years. Michel became intolerant of Christian sacred places and objects, such as the crucifix.Michel went to San Damiano with a family friend who regularly organized Christian pilgrimages. Her escort concluded that she was suffering from demonic possession because she was unable to walk past a crucifix and refused to drink the water of a Christian holy spring:
Michel and her family, as well as her community, became convinced and consulted several priests, asking for an exorcism. The priests declined, recommended the continuation of medical treatment, and informed the family that exorcisms required the bishop's permission. In the Catholic Church, official approval for an exorcism is given when the person strictly meets the set criteria, then they are considered to be suffering from possession and under demonic control. Intense dislike for religious objects and supernatural powers are some of the first indications. Michel worsened physically and displayed aggression, self-injury, drank her own urine and ate insects. In November 1973, Michel started her treatment with Tegretol, an anti-seizure drug and mood stabilizer. She was prescribed anti-psychotic drugs during the course of the religious rites and took them frequently until some time before her death. Despite taking these neuroleptic medications, Michel's symptoms worsened and she began to manifest "growling, seeing demons, throwing things."
Exorcism
The priest Ernst Alt, whom they met, on seeing her declared that "she didn't look like an epileptic" and that he did not see her having seizures. Alt believed she was suffering from demonic possession and urged the local bishop to allow an exorcism. In a letter to Alt in 1975, Michel wrote, "I am nothing; everything about me is vanity. What should I do? I have to improve. You pray for me" and also once told him, "I want to suffer for other people...but this is so cruel". In September of the same year, Bishop Josef Stangl granted the priest Arnold Renz permission to exorcise according to the Rituale Romanum of 1614, but ordered total secrecy. Renz performed the first session on 24 September. Michel began talking increasingly about "dying to atone for the wayward youth of the day and the apostate priests of the modern church", and she refused to eat towards the end. At this point, her parents stopped consulting doctors on her request and relied solely on the exorcism rites. 67 exorcism sessions; one or two each week, lasting up to four hours, were performed over about ten months in 1975–1976.Death
On 1 July 1976, Michel died in her home. The autopsy report stated the cause was malnutrition and dehydration due to being in a semi-starvation state for almost a year while the rites of exorcism were performed. She weighed 30 kilograms, suffering broken knees due to continuous genuflections. She was unable to move without assistance, and was reported to have contracted pneumonia.Prosecution
After an investigation, the state prosecutor maintained that Michel's death could have been prevented even one week before she died.In 1976, the state charged Michel's parents and priests Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz with negligent homicide. During the case Michel's body was exhumed and tapes were played to the court of the exorcisms over the eleven months which led to her death. The parents were defended by Erich Schmidt-Leichner; their lawyers were sponsored by the Church. The state recommended that no involved parties be jailed; instead, the recommended sentence for the priests was a fine, while the prosecution concluded that the parents should be exempt from punishment as they had "suffered enough", which is a criterion in German penal law, cf. § 60 StGB.
Trial
The trial started on 30 March 1978 in the district court and drew intense interest. Before the court, doctors testified that Michel was not possessed, stating that this was a psychological effect because of her strict religious upbringing and her epilepsy, but the doctor Richard Roth, who was asked for medical help by Alt, allegedly told her during the exorcism, that "there is no injection against the devil, Anneliese". Schmidt-Leichner said that the exorcism was legal and that the German constitution protected citizens in the unrestricted exercise of their religious beliefs. The defense played tapes recorded at the exorcism sessions, sometimes featuring what was claimed to be "demons arguing", to assert their claim that Michel was possessed. Both priests said the demons identified themselves as Lucifer, Cain, Judas Iscariot, Belial, Legion, and Nero among others; they further said that she was finally freed because of the exorcism just before her death.The bishop said that he was not aware of her alarming health condition when he approved of the exorcism and did not testify. The accused were found guilty of manslaughter resulting from negligence and were sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation. It was a far lighter sentence than anticipated, but it was more than requested by the prosecution, who had asked that the priests only be fined and that the parents be found guilty but not punished. The Church approving such an old fashioned exorcism rite drew public and media attention. According to John M. Duffey, the case was a misidentification of mental illness.
Exhumation and aftermath
After the trial, the parents asked the authorities for permission to exhume the remains of their daughter. The official reason presented by the parents to authorities was that Michel had been buried in undue hurry in a cheap coffin. Almost two years after the burial, on 25 February 1978, her remains were replaced in a new oak coffin lined with tin. The official reports state that the body bore the signs of consistent deterioration. The accused exorcists were discouraged from seeing the remains of Michel. Arnold Renz later stated that he had been prevented from entering the mortuary. Her grave became and remains a pilgrimage site.The number of officially sanctioned exorcisms decreased in Germany due to this case, in spite of Pope Benedict XVI's support for wider use of it compared to Pope John Paul II, who in 1999 made the rules stricter, involving only rare cases.
On 6 June 2013, a fire broke out in the house where Anneliese Michel lived, and, although the local police said it was a case of arson, some locals attributed it to the exorcism case.
In popular culture
- Three films, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Requiem and , are loosely based on Michel's story.
- First Issue, the debut album from John Lydon's post Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd, contains the song "Annalisa," about the case.
- The case and the theories surrounding it were discussed in season 1, episode 4 of the BuzzFeed web series BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural, entitled "The Chilling Exorcism of Anneliese Michel," released on 14 November 2016.
- The case and its history was also covered in Case 11: Anneliese Michel, a March 2016 episode of the Casefile True Crime Podcast.
- The exorcism was also covered in the podcast My Favorite Murder in episode 66, "The Devil's World."
- The band Ice Nine Kills used audio clippings from Anneliese's exorcism in their song "Communion of the Cursed."