(0) ira
The True (?) Story Behind Farley Worth's "Orphan Demon": Part 6
The True (?) Story Behind Farley Worth’s Orphan Demon: Part 6
ALLEGRA SANTOS FOR PHENOMENON MAGAZINE
“Jonathan Rodgers” has finally agreed to speak with me under two conditions: the first, that I present his case not as one of actual demonic possession, but one of severe mental illness and trauma. The two, he says, are too often confused by those who would rather believe in the existence of God than the existence of human sickness.
The second condition: that I “never [expletive] call this number again.”
I would have liked to meet with Jonathan in person. While I am confident that my sources are sound and that it was in fact his voice on the other line, a visual would have been a nice bonus. I don’t know what I expected him to sound like, but his actual voice caught me off-guard. Far from the troubled boy he once was, Jonathan is now nearing 40 and sounds, well, pretty regular.
He initially refused to disclose any details about his current life for fear of being discovered, but after some prodding, I learned that he now works in pharmaceuticals and goes by a new name entirely (making this his fifth official name).
He was insistent that we not discuss the present, but on the topic of his past possession he was clear: “I made the whole thing up.”
If you’ve been following this column, this shouldn’t come as a huge shock. I have basically debunked most of the supposed evidence of Jonathan’s possession. But with this confirmation comes more uncertainty.
Rodgers was adopted by the Peters* family in 2004, when he was thirteen years old. At the time, he claimed to have no memories before the age of twelve, when he arrived at the Francis B. Altman Family Center, a now-defunct orphanage in Baltimore County, Maryland. But this, he says, was always a lie.
“I never forgot,” says Rodgers. “Or at least I remember most of it. I’d have been better off if I didn’t.”
So why did he claim not to remember? In his own words, “to [expletive] with people. I was an angry kid and I had been through a lot.”
Rodgers spent most of his youth in foster care, bouncing in and out of a number of increasingly horrific living situations. There was poverty, abuse of every variety, drug addiction. “Every bad thing you can think of,” he says. And to this, he attributes his inspiration for what he refers to as “the character of Ira,” or the demon he once claimed to be possessed by.
“When you’ve been through that much at a young age,” says Rodgers, “you don’t really feel like a kid. You know all this stuff. You’ve done all this stuff. I wasn’t a normal child, just not in the way people think.”
Of course, all of this makes complete sense. It’s not as fun of a story as the events of Orphan Demon, of course, but when has real life ever lived up to the movies?
Still, I had many questions. What of the witness testimonies? What of the literal casualties left in Ira’s wake?
“People see what they want to see,” he said.
Which is well and good, but still doesn’t address what happened to Father Reilly in August of 2008, which is easily the most damning detail of the whole supposed ordeal.
“I didn’t do anything to that man,” said Rodgers.
Unfortunately, he refused to elaborate and threatened to hang up if I pushed any further. Other things he refused to address include the Worthington Farms incident, the death of Sister Georgia, and the East Saint Patrick Hospital disaster of 2007, all of which I have covered in past entries of this blog.
“I have enough people trying to find me,” he said. “Hopefully this interview will give them what they want so they can leave me alone.”
As Rodgers tells it, even though he no longer lives in the same town or even the same state, he still has not escaped the public’s morbid curiosity. “It gets worse around Halloween,” he says. “And it’s gotten a whole lot worse with this movie coming out.”
Did anyone who worked on the movie ever ask his permission? I ask.
“No,” he says. “They didn’t need it. They changed all the names and they never said it was based on a true story.”
I ask him if he’s seen Orphan Demon, and how accurate it is, aside from the parts about the possession. But he has not seen it and does not plan to. He has never been a fan of horror movies.
Though I will keep my promise and stop trying to contact Rodgers himself, I don’t think I have finished my little investigation into this case. My curiosity has only been further stoked by our conversation. Anyone else?