The True Story Behind Farley Worth’s Orphan Demon: Part VI: Interview with the Demon
BY ALLEGRA SANTOS
Caleb Prior, whose name has here been changed for anonymity, has agreed to speak with me today under one condition: that I present his case not as one of authentic demonic possession, but one of severe mental illness and trauma. The two, says Prior, are too often confused by those who would rather believe in the existence of God than the existence of human sickness.
If you have been following my case retrospective at all, you know that this has always been my working theory, though in a way it is almost disappointing to have it confirmed.* The idea of a real possession is sensational. It’s fun. If it wasn’t fun there wouldn’t be so many movies about it. What Prior told me during our short phone conversation was decidedly un-fun, and was mostly downright depressing. But this has not – as Prior may have hoped – diminished my interest in his case. In fact, my interest is now stronger than it’s ever been. After all, if there was no possession, no real Ira, then what are we to make of the many accounts of his misdeeds? His supernatural abilities? And most importantly, if Prior wasn’t possessed… well, didn’t he technically kill at least one person and maim several others? Like should someone alert the authorities?
Anyway, if you haven’t read Part V of this series, I highly recommend going back and at least skimming it, if not reading Parts I-IV first. There is a LOT of background information here, and some of this interview probably won’t make sense without it. But you do you. As always, I’m just here to show you what I’ve found.
Unfortunately I have no way of confirming beyond a doubt that the man I spoke with was in fact who he said he was. However, given that I got his number from Eric Halloran (whose identity was confirmed), I have every reason to believe that this was in fact “Caleb Prior,” the artist formerly known as “Ira.”
It was pretty clear from the get-go that this was not a conversation he wanted to be having. “This is not a conversation I want to be having,” he said.
“So why did you agree to it then?” I asked him.
“Because Halloween is coming up,” he said, “and people have sh!tty taste in movies.”
Unsurprisingly, Caleb is not happy about Orphan Demon. However, as he went on to explain, battling with Farley Worth over the rights to his story would mean putting himself and his past back under the spotlight, where he is loath to be. The case was closed twenty years ago when Caleb was eighteen, and he’d like for it to remain that way. But I’m not the only one who’s been doing some sleuthing in the wake of the film’s release, and it’s making Caleb nervous.
“I have a life of my own now,” he tells me. “It’s not perfect but I’ve worked hard on it, and with people trying to unearth all this sh!t from twenty years ago, it’s like… it’s dragging up a lot for me. I want to put it all to rest.”
My next question: why me? If I’m not the only one bugging Caleb about this, then why am I the only one he’s agreed to talk to?
“You’re the only one who doesn’t think I was possessed by a f***ing demon.”
“So you weren’t possessed?” I ask.
Caleb scoffs. “Of course I wasn’t possessed. I was a sick kid and I had been through stuff that f***ed me up severely. I don’t think I ever expected people to believe me when I told them I was a demon, but like I said – people have sh!tty taste in movies.”
“And when you say stuff severely messed you up, you’re talking about before you lived with the Priors?” I ask.
“Yes. I grew up in foster care.”
“And you told the Priors you didn’t remember anything before the age of twelve?”
Caleb laughs. “Yeah, I guess I did say that. Wishful thinking.”
After a few minutes of idle chit-chat, I realized I was at the point in our interview where every further question I had was liable to end in him hanging up the phone and never speaking to me again. I had to tread lightly. After all, this really was the moment it had all been leading up to.
And so I started with the most inoffensive thing I wanted to ask: Had he seen the movie?
Funnily enough, the answer was no. In fact, Caleb says he is not a fan of horror movies at all. This essentially nullified my next question, which was going to be whether or not the movie had gotten anything right. For a moment, our conversation dissolved into dead air.
Then I asked him – painting with my broadest strokes, “Can you shed any light on any of the stories I’ve written about on my blog? You did say you’d read it, right?”
I waited for the line to go dead, but to my surprise, he said, “Yes. I was diagnosed with epilepsy a year after my last exorcism. I know Reilly and probably my foster parents said that I would go into those catatonic states where my eyes rolled back in my head and my jaw went slack. I’m sure it looked freaky, but those were seizures. They’re called atonic and there’s nothing supernatural about them. I didn’t really know what they were at the time but that first time I had one in front of [name of foster-father redacted], I saw that it scared the sh!t out of him so I just ran with it.”
“Was there a reason you wanted to scare him?” I asked.
“I think so,” he said, “but it’s hard to explain. I was thirteen but I really did feel ancient. I had a bad time growing up and I lived with a lot of bad people and a lot of bad things happened to me. Ira was like – I guess I was inspired by everything I went through in a way. I was scared and I was pissed off, and I wanted other people to feel that too.”
“Caleb,” I said, “you know from my blog that I’m inclined to believe what you’re saying. But there are still a lot of things that don’t add up.”
He was silent.
“Can I ask about what happened to Father Reilly?” I asked.
“Father Reilly should be in jail,” he said.
“Okay, yes, but what about what you allegedly did to him in August of 2008?”
“No comment,” he said.
“Okay. How about the Sister Georgia incident?”
“No comment,” he said again.
“How about what happened at Patrick Memorial in 2007? Or Worthington Farms?”
“Worthington Farms is self-explanatory,” he said. “Their security system was Laughing Gas Lou and his narcoleptic dog. And no comment about Patrick Memorial.”
“Okay, I understand,” I said. I could tell he was starting to get irritated with me. “There’s one more thing I want to ask about, and it involves your last foster family, the Priors.*”
The line was silent.
“What can you tell me about their biological son, Danny*?” I asked.
The line was still silent, and after several seconds I realized he had hung up on me. I tried to call back but, unsurprisingly, received no response. He was gone.
What an incredible opportunity it was to hear his voice, but how unbearably inconclusive. To be honest, I’m not even sure where to go from here. But don’t fret – I’m not done. Like I said, Caleb might have thought this brief interview would be enough for me to leave things alone once and for all, but sadly for him, it has had the opposite effect.
Nevertheless, next week I will be taking a break from Orphan Demon and doing a brief deep dive into an oft-forgotten East Coast serial killer by the name of Ivan Metz, AKA… The Architect. Stay tuned and have a happy and safe Halloween everyone. Your humble gumshoe, Allegra.