Michael Taylor: The English Murderer Who Was Allegedly Possessed By Over 40 Demons
YouTubeA newspaper clipping describing Michael Taylor’s crimes.
On Oct. 6, 1974, an Englishman named Michael Taylor brutally murdered his wife, Christine, in the small town of Ossett, England. The night before, he’d allegedly been the focus of an exorcism led by his local church.
The Taylors weren’t particularly religious, but found a community with the Gawber Christian Fellowship Group. There, Michael found something else too — an attraction to Marie Robinson, a lay preacher.
After Robinson rejected his advances, however, Taylor’s personality seemed to change. He started acting erratically and even screamed at and struck Robinson. Soon, the church group decided that he needed an exorcism.
Thedmcmeister/Wikimedia CommonsMichael Taylor’s exorcism, and the subsequent murder of his wife, took place in the small town of Ossett, England.
After summoning the Taylors to a local church, the group restrained Michael and spent hours trying to cure his alleged demonic possession. They screamed at him, burned his “tainted” wooden cross, and allegedly succeeded at exorcising 40 demons from his body.
Though they believed three demons remained — demons associated with “murder, violence, and insanity” — the church group let Michael and Christine go home the next morning. There, Michael turned on his wife.
In an especially brutal attack, Taylor allegedly tore his wife’s eyes and tongue out with his bare hands, then killed and dismembered the couple’s dog. Police promptly arrested Michael, who told investigators that the exorcism the previous night had failed.
“They were too late,” he said, according to The Sussex Devils: A True Story Of The 1980s Satanic Panic. “I was compelled by a force within me to destroy everything living within the house.”
Screenrant reported that Taylor was acquitted at trial due to reasons of insanity. He spent four years in a psychiatric hospital before he was released.
