Virginia Biblical Demonology Research Society

MR AND MRS VOLLMER ran a small piggery outside Antwerp, near Dimboola in western Victoria. They were part of a charismatic breakaway Lutheran sect with some connection to the Salvation Army. Ralph Vollmer, 54, returned to his farm on 26 January 1993 to find his wife Joan, 49, barefoot in a nearby wheat field, "doing some sort of a war dance and making strange noises." She had been diagnosed schizophrenic in 1991 and Meryle Blake said afterwards that her friend finally cracked under the strain of her husband's religious mania and parsimony. "The only place he ever took Joan was to church", she said.

Vollmer telephoned his church associate John Reichenbach, who drove over and diagnosed demonic possession. For the next three days, the two men, along with Reichenbach's wife Leanne, read the Bible over the afflicted woman, sang choruses and commanded the demons to depart. The exorcism team were joined by two more members of the church group, including David Klingner. They pinned Joan Vollmer to a mattress, oriented east-west so that she could derive no strength from "evil spirits of the north".

The afflicted woman went through "dramatic mood changes" and her stomach swelled up. Her husband said she was possessed by "eight or ten" demons, including "the spirit of abuse", "the spirit of filth" and Jezebel, who would try her hand at enticement. "At other times she was Legion", said Vollmer, "the demon from the Bible with the strength of 2,000, and she would be so powerful we could hardly hold her. Then she was a pig and a dog and would make sounds and pull faces, and then a shearer who spoke in a rough voice."

Finally, there were evil spirits called "Princess Joan" and "Princess Baby Joan", who, Reichenbach told Vollmer, had attached themselves to Joan's womb when she was three and had been fighting to control her ever since.

On Friday, 29 January, the amateur exorcists called in a reputed expert, a tall, 22-year-old assistant greenkeeper at Melbourne's Ringwood Municipal Golf Club called Matthew Nuske. It was his first exorcism, but he immediately took charge, ordering that all Joan Vollmer's possessions; even her garden plants; should be destroyed. For two hours, he shouted at her demons to depart. All did, except Princess Joan and Princess Baby Joan, who were clutching each other in her stomach and wouldn't move. The group all set about the poor woman, holding her down, pressing on her stomach and holding her mouth and eyes open. She hissed, cried and foamed at the mouth, actions interpreted as proof that the devils were being routed. Then, on 30 January, she gave a final groan and died.

Nuske told Vollmer "not to worry because God would bring her back to life shortly". He then departed, while the others remained praying over the weekend; in sweltering 40 degree summer heat; for the corpse to revive. "It didn't happen", said Vollmer. On Monday they finally reported the death.

In November 1994, Vollmer and Nuske were found guilty of unlawful imprisonment, while Reichenbach and Klingner were convicted of manslaughter. Wellington (NZ) Eve. Post, 4+5 Feb, 23 April, 17 Sept; Wellington Dominion, 4 Feb, 14+16 Sept; Canberra Times, 4 Feb; Brisbane Courier Mail, 4+7 Feb, 4 Nov; Who, 22 Feb; Melbourne Age, 16 Sept; Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Sept 1993; Southern Cross, 26 Oct; Canberra Times, 3 Dec 1994.

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KYONG-A HA, a 25-year-old Korean woman from Emeryville, California, suffered insomnia for years. Medication proved ineffective, so her family turned to Jean Park, the minister of a 15-member sect called the Jesus-Amen Ministries, who said that Ha was possessed by demons. An attempted exorcism on 8 March 1995 by Park, her mother, Hwa Ja Ra, and three other woman lasted six hours until the victim was dead. She was struck 20 to 50 times on the chest, breaking at least 10 ribs. Eight members of the group stayed with the body for five days after Park told them that the woman's spirit had gone to "great heaven" and that they should wait for it to come back. San Jose (CA) Mercury News, 17 Mar 1995.

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KYUNG JAE CHUNG, a 53-year-old South Korean woman, died on 4 July 1996 in Century City, California, from internal injuries after a six-hour exorcism by her husband, Jae Whoa Chung, 49, with the help of Jin Choi, 46, and Sung Foo Choi, 41, (no relation), all Methodist missionaries. The woman endured two three-hour sessions, participating willingly at first. She was found to have 16 broken ribs and collapsed lungs. Jae Whoa Chung and Sung Foo Choi were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. LA Times, 6+15 July; [AFP] 8 July, 7 Aug; Chicago Tribune, 28 Aug 1996; [AP] 17 April 1997.

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Laura Schubert Pearson was an impressionable 17-year-old when friends in her church youth group thought demons possessed her.

Repeatedly, over two days, the youth pastor, his wife and others held the girl down on the floor of the Pleasant Glade Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, even as Pearson screamed, fought and begged to be released.

They cast it as wrestling with the devil. But she said it was “like being pummeled by this very large group. These were our friends, people we hung out with.”

The 1996 episode left her physically and emotionally scarred, and “this stuff is still hard to talk about,” Pearson told the Star-Telegram after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed her lawsuit against the church June 27. The majority said the courts can’t get involved in a religious debate over church doctrine.

Pearson, now 29 and living near Atlanta with her new husband and her children, said: “You can’t use your religious beliefs to get away with harming a child.”

After the exorcism, she dropped out of high school her senior year, began to cut herself as many as 100 times over several years, and refused to leave the house. Pearson slit her wrists with a box cutter.

Her father, a former missionary and minister, became an agnostic.

But Pearson and her parents, Tom and Judy Schubert, say they are willing to go to the U.S. Supreme Court in their fight against a church they once loved.

As the parents see it, Pleasant Glade members abused their daughter in the same way a husband or a boyfriend abuses a wife or a girlfriend — and all under the guise of serving the Lord.
[...]

The Rev. Lloyd McCutchen, who later merged the Pleasant Glade church with another congregation to create the Assembly of God Church in Colleyville, did not return calls seeking comment. But in 2002, he said that the congregation was a “Bible-believing Pentecostal church. For this we make no apologies.”

David Pruessner, the church’s attorney, has repeatedly described Pearson as an out-of-control, attention-seeking teenager who he once said “breathes in attention the same way we breathe in air.”

In court testimony, church members did not deny holding her down. “None of them had a personal vendetta,” Pruessner said. “She was in a church service and screaming and in a lot of pain, so they were stepping forward to help her.”

Pearson already suffered from psychological problems caused by traumatic events she witnessed while her parents were missionaries in Africa, including “beatings and burnings,” Pruessner claimed in court documents.

- Source: Family resolves to take its fight over exorcism to U.S. Supreme Court, Max B. Baker, Star-Telegram, USA, July 27, 2008 — Summarized by Religion News Blog

Houston Chronicle, USA
Feb. 4, 2008

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Student minister charged in attempted 'exorcism'

Updated: Sep 17, 2007 05:23 PM EDT