The movie "The Exorcist" was frightening on its own, but there were some behind the scene events that were even more scary. The movie set caught on fire, Ellen Burstyn received a permanent spinal injury when a harness jerked her too hard and she fell on her coccyx, and there are reports that many cast members had bad luck and family deaths. The most frightful of the stories coming from this movie, is that a real-life murderer was one of the extras. Paul Bateson was convicted for one murder, but may have actually been a serial killer.
Bateson was an X-ray technician at the New York University Medical Center, where the scene of "Regan" underwent a carotid angiography procedure. Director William Friedkin wanted realism, so he used a real neuropsychiatric surgeon and his team for the movie scene. The surgeon's assistant was Paul Bateson.
March 1979, Bateson was arrested for the murder of film critic, Addison Verrill. No motive was given for the murder, but Bateson's story was that he had picked up Verrill at a gay bar and they went to Verrill's apartment. Bateson crushed Verrill's skull with a skillet and stabbed him numerous times.
After his arrest, Bateson started talking about other murders he committed. He admitted that he would pick up gay men and murdered them. He chopped up their bodies, put the body parts in trash bags, and dumped them in the Hudson River. There was never any proof that Bateson was actually the serial killer the police had been looking for, so he was never tried for those murders. The bodies were so mutilated that identification was impossible, but from the clothing and tattoos, it was made positive that they were from the gay community.
When the director William Friedkin found out that a suspected serial killer was filmed in The Exorcist, he visited him in prison and after the interview began to direct the Al Pacino movie "Cruising" about a cop looking for a murderer targeting gay men. It is said that Batesman was an uncredited consultant for the movie.
Paul Batesman served his time for the murder of Verrill and is living in upstate New York.
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