In 1976, a 23-year-old German woman named Anneliese Michel died after undergoing 67 Catholic exorcisms over 10 months.

Her death would spark one of Europe’s most controversial legal battles — pitting faith against medicine, and belief against responsibility.

Was Anneliese a victim of possession? Or of a system that failed to recognize mental illness as something sacred, not demonic?

In this haunting episode, John Williamson takes you beyond the horror-film legend to uncover the human story — one of devotion, suffering, and the thin line between faith and fear.

• Court Records, Klingenberg am Main (1978) – West German trial transcripts of Fr. Ernst Alt, Fr. Arnold Renz, and the Michel family.

• Der Spiegel Archives (1976–1978) – German reporting on the death, trial, and public reaction.

• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – Coverage of the legal and theological controversy following the verdict.

• Bishop Josef Stangl’s Official Approval (1975) – Diocese of Würzburg documentation authorizing the exorcisms under the Rituale Romanum.

• The Guardian, “Faith and Madness: The Story of Anneliese Michel” (2003).

• BBC Radio 4 – Beyond Belief (2013) – Episode exploring demonic possession and the Michel case.

• Anna Katharina Michel, Anneliese: A Family’s Story (1999) – Family perspective and diary excerpts.

• Felix Kersten, Der Teufel und Anneliese Michel (2006) – German investigative account combining psychological and theological interpretation.

• Dr. Felicitas Goodman, anthropologist, How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World (1988).

• DSM-II / DSM-III Diagnostic Shifts – Understanding how epilepsy and psychosis were classified in the 1970s.

• Catholic Canon Law on Exorcism (1962–1999) – Comparison of pre- and post-Vatican II guidelines.

• The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) – Hollywood’s adaptation of the case, and how the real story differs.

• Faith vs. Medicine – When spiritual belief collides with scientific understanding.

• Obedience and Guilt – How devotion to authority shaped Anneliese’s final days.

• Suffering and Meaning – Why humanity continues to see the sacred in pain.

• Media Mythology – How Anneliese’s death became one of modern history’s most enduring exorcism legends.

Written & Hosted by: John Williamson

Produced by: John Williamson Productions LLC

Research & Script Development: Harper (Research Assistant)

Music: Original score inspired by Jóhann Jóhannsson and Ben Frost.

Special Thanks: To theologians, psychiatrists, and survivors who continue to examine the boundaries of faith and the mind.

In the spring of 1990, families across Britain began reporting visits from strangers claiming to be social workers. They spoke with authority, carried clipboards, even asked to photograph or examine children — and then vanished.

Police launched Operation Childcare, a nationwide manhunt involving more than twenty forces, but no arrests were ever made.

Were these criminals, insiders, or the product of a moral panic born from fear and mistrust?

Join John Williamson by the fireside as we unravel one of the strangest unsolved mysteries of late-20th-century Britain — a story where rumor met authority, and where fear itself became the evidence.

• The Guardian (1990 – 1991) – National coverage of “bogus social workers” investigations.

• The Independent (2 July 1995) – Retrospective article, “Huge sums wasted on bogus social worker hunt.”

• The Scotsman, Yorkshire Post, and Sheffield Star (1990) – Regional reporting of early incidents and community reactions.

• South Yorkshire Police – Operation Childcare Summaries (1990 – 1991) – Referenced in The Independent and later BBC coverage.

• BBC Archives / BBC News Magazine Features – “Bogus social workers and the panic of 1990.”

• Unresolved Podcast, episode “Phantom Social Workers,” forensic summary of police statements and media timeline.

• All That’s Interesting – “Inside The Strange Phantom Social Worker Panic That Swept Britain In The 1990s” (2023).

• Michele Gargiulo Blog – “Phantom Social Workers and the UK Mystery” (2020), with references to Operation Childcare documents.

• The Cleveland Inquiry (1988) – UK Parliamentary report into the Cleveland, England, child-abuse scandal that precipitated nationwide mistrust of social services.

• Children Act 1991 (UK) – Legislative reforms to child-protection policy and identity verification for social workers following late-1980s abuse cases.

• Sociological Texts on Moral Panic – Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972; rev. ed. 1980), foundational framework referenced by UK academics analyzing the case.

• Trust vs. Authority — How fear of the state and desire for safety collided.

• Information and Rumor — Life before the internet and the limits of 1990s investigation.

• The Afterlife of Fear — Why some mysteries persist precisely because they were never solved.

Written & Hosted by: John Williamson

Produced by: John Williamson Productions LLC

Research & Script Development: Harper (Research Assistant)

Phantom Social Worker: Ashley Tarbet

Music: Original score inspired by Ben Frost, Max Richter, and Ólafur Arnalds.

From The Void: The Ammons Family Exorcism

In 2011, in a small house in Gary, Indiana, something terrifying took hold of a family. The Ammons household became the site of strange noises, violent possessions, and chilling encounters that drew in police, social workers, and eventually the Catholic Church.

This case would come to be known as the “House of 200 Demons”—a story so unsettling that seasoned professionals walked away shaken. From levitating children to inexplicable footprints, from midnight terrors to an exorcism documented in official records, the Ammons case has been called one of the most compelling modern American hauntings.

In this episode of From The Void, we sit by the fire and dive deep into the chilling events of the Ammons Family Exorcism. Was it genuine demonic possession? Mass hysteria? Or something stranger still?

Resources & Further Reading

Want to dig deeper into the Ammons case? Here are some of the primary sources and reports referenced in this episode:

•Indianapolis Star Investigation by Marisa Kwiatkowski (January 2014): “The Exorcisms of Latoya Ammons” – the definitive longform piece that first broke the story nationally.

•Indiana Department of Child Services reports (2012–2013) documenting unusual events and observations by caseworkers.

•Father Michael Maginot’s testimony and diocesan records from the Catholic Diocese of Gary.

•Police Captain Charles Austin’s statements about his own experiences at the Ammons house.

•Zach Bagans’ documentary Demon House (2018) – a sensationalized but notable pop-culture treatment of the case.

•Coverage in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Daily Mail (2014) reporting on the story’s reach.

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