All language subtitles for Let.the.Devil.In.S01E03.Evil.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

So, this rosary ring was found,

I believe, in Tom's room.

It's not meant to be worn
around the neck.

It's an actual ring.

You wear it with the cross up

while you're saying the rosary.

But he takes it...

and is wearing it
with the cross down.

Do you understand?
It's an inversion of the rosary.

The fact that Tom wears it
with the cross going down...

That's not a rosary ring.

That's a mocking

of the Blessed Mother
and the Lord Jesus.

This is a mockery
of all that is sacred.

This is spitting
in the face of God.

14-year-old boy said
to be obsessed by Satan

stabbed his mother to death
over the weekend

and then committed suicide.

Over the past month,
Tom had developed

an unhealthy interest in Satan.

I remember
walking into his bedroom,

and on the bed is where
I saw some of the books.

And opening the books,

he had some
pretty strange writings

of following Satan
and giving his life to Satan.

He was the neighborhood
paperboy, a model student,

and now, by his own admission,
a satanic murderer.

I believe that Tom Jr.
had a relationship with Satan.

Once a person is possessed,
they have no control.

In that basement...

...Tom was possessed

by demonic forces

to kill his mother.

The killing of a mother
by her son

is beyond comprehension.

It is not natural.
It is not normal.

It is anti-everything
that's holy and good.

Evil conjures
a thousand images in our minds

of twisted people,
unspeakable acts,

and dark ideas.

It's the darkness
we see in others

and the darkness we fear
lurks within ourselves.

But what happens when that evil

stops becoming a concept
and takes shape?

When Tommy Jr. killed his mother

and turned a blade on himself,

it pointed to something
that defied logic.

Something truly evil.

Thomas Sullivan
was 14 years old.

And as Dave Roddy reports,

his father is trying
to find a way to forgive him.

I loved him dearly.

But he also took my wife,
who I loved.

If you're saying
to yourself something like this

could never happen
in your community, think again.

Morris County police are
broadening their investigation

of a bizarre murder-suicide
to determine

if it was linked
to a local satanic cult.

According to police,
Tom stabbed his mother

more than a dozen times
with a small penknife.

The body of Betty Ann Sullivan
was found in the basement.

And the next day,
the body of Tom Sullivan Jr.

was found in the snow.

He had slashed
his wrist and throat.

This was a brutal murder.

This was a suicide that was,
you know, very, very violent.

The crime-scene
photos and autopsy photos

showed that he cut his wrist
and then took the knife,

put it from one ear
to the other ear,

and pulled it across his throat.

Right across.

Um, I mean, graphic.

To see the picture
of his head being back

and to see this gaping hole...

You know, to kill himself
in the manner that he did...

...it promotes
a lot of questions.

For the average person,
it's like, well,

if he was under
some influence of drugs,

I mean, that can make people
do all kinds of things.

But from the reports
and, you know,

speaking with the detectives
at the time,

there was no drugs, no alcohol.

Um, you know, just, um...

how did that happen?

Tom Sullivan Jr.
is described by neighbors

as the all-American kid,

an eighth-grader
who loved baseball...

How does a kid
going to the school there

and having
all those advantages...

You know, why did
this 13-, 14-year-old,

eighth-grade
Catholic school kid do this?

He told some kids
that he had a vision,

that Satan came to him.

Satan had his face on it.

And Satan told him
to kill his family

and then go out
and preach Satanism.

My understanding was

that Tommy had written a paper

on Satanism in class.

I believe the school
paper started around October,

when it had to be done around
the Thanksgiving holidays.

Something within his research
triggered his attachment to it,

and then he just
stayed involved in it.

But it went downhill
very quick with him.

In just a couple of
weeks, Tommy's behavior changed.

It's just mind-blowing.
It really is.

It's really hard to, you know,
wrap your head around it.

It really is.

Family did say he was
getting involved in Satanism,

and that's what people
were worried about,

is him being possessed.

Sister Philomena told us

that they had been having some
concerns about Tommy's behavior.

I was like,
"Well, let's go up to the school

and find out
what they can tell us."

The police were in my
office the following morning,

on Monday morning.

They said, "We want to go

and get all his books
out of his desk."

My first statement--
I felt I had to say it--

was, "I have never dealt
with anything like this before."

And I believe it was
Paul Hart who said...

"Neither have we."

It was very tense,
to put it mildly.

There was a lot of concern
about what had gone on

and how did this happen.

The English teacher
had them doing journals.

She was just trying
to get the students

to put their thoughts down.

The journal was personal,

and I would never have looked
at a child's journal,

but the police could.

They started each day by writing
kind of a private journal.

The initial sketches
were of cartoon characters.

Mickey Mouse and all the things
you would imagine

that a teenager, you know,
might be drawing.

And then it progressively
got darker.

You know, it went from
Mickey Mouse to pictures of,

like, a horned person
resembling maybe the devil.

There were some pentagrams.

And as it got
kind of darker and darker,

nothing came to light because
it wasn't anything they shared.

The sketchbook
started taking on

a more ominous, angry
feeling about it.

Tommy was not happy.
He was not a happy kid.

Right away,
you could see he was influenced,

obsessed by the satanic world.

The evidence
of what he was thinking of

on a daily basis
was in that book.

Along with
Tommy's sketchbook,

the Jefferson PD uncovered
several journal entries,

such as this one.

"Today is really cool.

I really do hate God and love.

The devil is my idol.

I will rise and conquer the good
of mankind for eternity.

And when the apocalypse
comes around,

I will descend to hell
to fulfill Lucifer's will.

Well, I really
do have to go now.

So, bye."

I mean, this is his journal.

This isn't for
public consumption.

This is what he was
really feeling.

Yeah.

I've studied
that kind of imagery.

I think it reflects Tommy's

deep understanding
of Satan or the occult.

And I see telltale signs there

of somebody who's in the know.

As a historian,
I study Satanism.

I'm an occultist.
I'm a seeker. I'm on the path.

And I document
what I find on the path,

both in terms
of history and practice.

To me, understanding the occult,

participating
in occult movements,

requires skin in the game.

It requires a lot of
hands-on research and practice.

So here we see he's holding
the reverse crucifix

in his left hand.

And the left-hand path

is said to be the path
of the satanic,

where the individual seeker
is attempting

to develop
certain superhuman powers--

levitation or bilocation
or super strength.

So the belief that the
left-hand forces hold that power

that maybe he was unable to find

in the other,
more conventional doorways

that were open to him,

he's calling on Satan
to seek power.

This is fascinating to me

because what we're seeing
in this image most obviously

is a horned figure
with someone's severed head.

This time, Tommy creates
a language, a kind of script.

The words at the top
of the image seem to me

to be "evil world"
written backwards.

One piece of satanic lore
that runs through the ages

is that demons,

as the term
is conventionally used,

they like things backwards.

They like things upside down.

He clearly brought details

a little more sophisticated
than you might find

in books from
the local public library.

In this drawing,
you're clearly seeing somebody

who is more fully grokking

to the brutalization
of what he's depicting.

That drawing,
during the investigation,

well, it's one of those
pieces of information

that's stuck up here.

The victim
has an expression of despair.

With the hand cut off,

damage to the body,
to the head and the face.

There's a...

a reveling in cruelty
in the image.

You would look at it
and you could say...

that was a depiction, drawing

of ultimately what happened
to his mother.

Tommy wasn't alone
in his interest

or in how he expressed himself.

I myself
have stacks of notebooks

with similar drawings I made
when I was his age.

And the thing is,
I turned out fine.

In fact, those inspirations
served me very well

throughout my career
and continue to do so.

But sometimes
the signs can't be ignored.

As a parent now,

I understand that fear
of not knowing

what's going through
my kid's head.

How can I?
And how could anyone know

what was going through
Tommy's mind

and that he would
cross that line

from fantasy
into something physical?

That day when
I talked to Tom in my office...

Tom,
can you tell me...

...the steel look in his eyes.

I've never had anyone
look at me like that, ever.

He said, "It's too late."

And I felt...

it was too late.

The whole room got cold.

I was feeling...
just so chilled.

So...

It's too late.

I cannot describe it in words.

I can only say...

that, for me...

that scared me the most.

Satan is real.

Satan is the opposite...

and the antagonist of God.

It is very hard for me...

to really...

understand...

evil.

But I know it exists.

And I know it takes people away.

And I know
that people choose evil.

I walked back to my office.

My vice principal said,

"Did you want to speak
to Mrs. Sullivan?"

And I said, "Oh, yes."

Betty Ann,
it's good to see you.

Mrs. Sullivan was a faithful
volunteer in the school.

At lunchtime,
she would go into a classroom

and be there for the kids
as they were eating

and then take them out
on the playground.

It was a heroic job,
and she did it faithfully.

She was a stay-at-home mom.

She did not have any other job.

So she made her children
a priority.

I wanted
to check in with you...

I said the children
had come to me.

They were concerned.
The teachers are concerned.

We're all concerned
about what he's talking about,

which includes Satan.

She says, "I know all about it.

He took every single book
out of the library,

and he read every single one
cover to cover."

And she said,
"I was so glad he was reading.

I didn't care what he read."

And I said, "But there are
other things to read."

I said, "Please.

I encourage you and your husband
to talk to him."

That was Thursday.

Friday, we had a snow day.

A 14-year old boy
said to be obsessed by Satan

stabbed his mother to death
over the weekend

and then committed suicide.

He had killed his mother
on Saturday night.

And somewhere before they found
him, he had killed himself.

So now we had a homicide
and a suicide in our school.

Truth be told...
I thought it was my fault.

Because I asked her
to talk to him.

It's a horrible thing
to think that in two weeks

a young man could change

and become this monster,
you know...

and this interest in Satan.

No, there's not enough time
for that to happen.

It's obvious to me,

based on what I've experienced
in my own life

and in ministry
working with folks,

that we're dealing
with something here

that is deeply dark, paranormal,

nefarious, and dangerous...

and real.

Is it possible
that Tommy was in touch

with some kind of unseen entity,

some sort
of metaphysical presence,

what a person
might call possession?

Of course it's possible.
Of course it's possible.

I do feel certain that there are
some cases of possession

that elude all explanation.

I will never take
the supernatural

or the extraphysical
off the table.

Possession and exorcism
are widely referenced topics

that most everyone has heard of,

due chiefly to entertainment.

Take a look at the number
of movies that involve Satanism.

In "The Exorcist,"
it is the tremendous power

of the devil himself
controlling a little girl's body

against the will of a priest.

I love films
about possession and evil.

Movies like "Rosemary's Baby"...

This is no dream!
This is really happening!

The power of Christ
compels you!

- ..."The Exorcist"...
- It's all for you!

...and a personal favorite
of mine, "The Omen,"

sparked a cultural wildfire.

But they weren't just about
the supernatural horror.

They were stories
about regular, everyday people

thrust into something
they couldn't explain.

And that's terrifying.
It hits you on a primal level.

"The Exorcist" was based
on the true case of Roland Doe,

a boy in the 1940s
who allegedly became possessed

after using a Ouija board.

His story spread,
sparking a debate.

Was it possession
or something else?

By fictionalizing Doe's story
into "The Exorcist,"

filmmakers took that fear
and amplified it,

shaping a generation
into thinking

that anything strange
could be a sign of the devil.

Oh, God, son of God.
Unconquered might!

How many exorcisms
have you performed yourself?

I've been doing it
for about five years now

and about 20 a year,
so it's about 100.

There's been an uptick
of supposed possession cases

over the past 20 years or so
here in the United States,

so much so that the Vatican

has just about quintupled

the number of church-sanctioned
exorcists here in the U.S.

It is deeply controversial,
and yet word

from a conference in Italy
is that more priests

are to be trained in exorcism.

I have the feeling in my hands.

I didn't move them myself.

They were moved for me.

Rest in peace...

I have performed what we refer
to in the church as exorcism.

I've seen a woman
where there was spirit

that were literally
fighting her from her body...

...like fists coming out of her,
so to speak,

punching me
while I was praying for her.

I've spoken to people that
have been controlled by evil.

Their eyes change.
Their voices change.

You feel a presence.

You sense beyond
the shadow of a doubt

you are not with the
regular person that you know.

Tom Sullivan's found.

Wrist cut.

And then neck cut
all the way to the bone.

And the head just hanging on
by the neck bone.

Now, what, did the person cut
his neck and then do his--

These? His hands? No.

Or do the hands first
and then do-- No.

It's not possible.

There was something
otherworldly about it...

as if he was controlled
or possessed by a spirit.

Usually an individual
gets possessed

by something that he or she
has not gone looking for.

But Tommy willfully
sought this experience.

So I wouldn't specifically
describe it as possession.

Something
takes possession of you.

It's not an invited guest.

If Tommy got in touch
with something,

it was an invited guest.

When Tom
wrote a pact with Satan,

it was like a legal contract,
if you will.

The whole story
is in the pact that he wrote.

Alright. So...

"To the greatest demons of hell.

I, Tom Sullivan,
would like to make

a solemn exchange with you."

If you give me the most extreme
of all magical powers...

...I will use them wisely

to tempt as many people
as possible

and to do evil and follow you."

This is so disconcerting.
To actually see it written.

When you play with evil
at this level...

...and you call upon
the deceiver directly

and the hounds of hell...

...they will respond.

They will respond.

Tommy, what are you
doing down here?

You should be in bed.

"I will kill
many Christian followers

who are serious
in their religious beliefs."

Hm.

It just, uh...

It's so deliberate.

I don't know
what's gotten into you.

I really don't.

It was spiritual forces...

You won't even
talk to me anymore.

...that can manifest...

I'm really worried
about you.

...in the physical realm.

How am I supposed to help you
if you won't talk to me?

And when you
make a pact with a deity...

...there has to be a sacrifice.

Die, Mother! Die!

Mother, die!
Die! Die!

"Throughout my new life...

I promise to perform
any satanic rituals.

I will do these to prove my
loyalty to the demons of hell."

He's giving himself, bargaining.

I mean, it's determined,
even-keeled, well thought-out.

Wow.

"Exactly 20 years
from this day...

...I promise
to commit suicide.

At this time,
I will go directly to hell

and to work with you
as a demon.

I believe that evil
will once again rise

and conquer the love of God."

"If this pact is to
your approval, sign below."

He was not conscious
of what he was doing

when he slit his throat.

He could be there himself,

but the entities that were there
worked through him.

In fact,
I wouldn't say it was a suicide.

I'd say it was a double murder.

Tom killed his mother.

But Tom was killed

by the entity that killed
his mother through Tom.

Committing that
you're gonna murder your family.

That's the part that gets people
all freaked out.

And that's where
he writes on the side,

"I've already killed my family."

I mean,
it gives me chills right now,

even just reading it again.

Whew. Wow.

I haven't seen this
in quite some time.

Interesting.

Hm.

You have to surmise he was
definitely taken over by,

you know, an outside force,
you know, the devil.

I remember, you know,
being at the funeral.

You could barely even
get in the church.

Everybody showed up.

I mean,
the whole school was there.

Like, the whole town was there.

People that didn't even
really know him, you know,

like, just in tears.

It was a combination
of people just being terrified

and trying to understand stuff,

and everybody
was so affected by it.

I remember
when it was coming time

for him to be buried.

It's still on the increase,
so keep an eye in the open...

We actually got briefed.

They wanted to let us know
that these satanic cults,

if they believed that Tommy
was actually possessed,

they would come
to try to dig the grave up,

to take the long bones
of the body

as something sacred.

I'm Gordon Coulter.

Today it's my privilege
to host this program

on a little-known area
in law enforcement.

It's the area of satanic cults.

There are many different
satanic symbols.

And, you know, you're told when

you go to the police academy
you're going to deal with

- all kinds of stuff.
- ...the anarchy...

But certainly not satanic,
demonic possessions.

That was not in the training.

Slayings that go unexplained.

Symbols next to victims.

Well, there's reports
all the time of occult activity.

We've had reports of the youth

becoming more and more
aware of this

and more and more involved.

Perhaps the most
dangerous kind of devil worship

comes in the form
of underground cults.

Most of them are very secretive,

usually organizing clandestine
rituals in the dark of night.

Here in Northern New Jersey,

there have been cultic groups
that have been active.

There was recruiting.

I believe that Tom
was connected to a group

that had been involved
with grooming him.

...as we welcome
our dark prince.

And he was used as a tip
of the sword that night by evil.

Hail Satan.
Hail Satan.

This is part of a continuum...

and that Tom was
only one of the players.

There's a lot more.

We're looking at a small snippet
of what was taking place.

Police take away boxes

full of bones
and satanic paraphernalia.

We were standing
across the street,

and they brought a mannequin
with blood.

Officials now think
mutilated dog carcasses

found along a Millville Road
may have been the work

of devil worshipers.

Connecting cults
and the supernatural

in New Jersey
isn't really a stretch.

The line between what's real
and otherworldly

has always felt
a little blurry here.

...the outline
of something moving along

in the woods, kept
right along the side of it.

Take the Jersey Devil,
for example.

They found tracks.
I found tracks.

It's one of my favorite
campfire stories.

This deformed, winged
child demon

with cloven hooves and a tail,

born one stormy night
in Colonial America...

The footprint was where
that green car is now.

...and today said
to haunt the Pine Barrens.

And then there's
Weird New Jersey,

a magazine
which dives into the strange

and paranormal happenings
around here,

feeding the public's fascination
with the bizarre.

Mutilated animals
showing up

by the dozens
in North Bergen.

A grisly discovery in Newark.

Police found only
the victim's lower torso.

When you add in
the media frenzy of the time...

They use a cauldron.
They use human bones.

...pouncing on stories of
satanic rituals, mind control,

and dark pacts with the devil...

Well, there are
a great number of people

who believe
in that sort of thing.

...well, every crime,
every unexplainable tragedy

seemed to be part of a much
bigger, darker conspiracy.

The perfect storm of local
folklore and real-life horror.

The general feeling
at the time

was that there were
underground satanic cults

that were looking for
isolated places in the woods.

We heard there was
this cult in the woods

just a couple miles out of town.

Animal sacrifices, pentagrams
carved in trees and stuff.

The latest incident,
the bodies of six dead animals

arranged on a pentagram.

It's an area
infested with phenomenon.

It's like a crescent,
from this part of Jersey

all the way to Manhattan.

It's a hotbed, if you will,
for occultic activity.

Different stories
and different types

of abuse and tragedies

and desecrations
of sacred places...

The broken statue
of the Virgin Mary

and a note that read,

"It's Satan's power
which gives us strength."

...and cults.

Then he walked over to me

and dripped the blood onto me

and made the sign
of a pentagram.

During the Gilded Age,

which was around
the turn of the century,

this area was a playground
for people from New York.

It's putting aside
all worldly things

in a purely spiritual act
of worship.

Groups would meet,

and they would be debaucherous,
so to speak.

They would also always involve
some sort of a sacrifice.

Fidelio.

If you know the film
"Eyes Wide Shut"

by Stanley Kubrick,

that might give you
a little context.

There was a massive estate

back at the turn
of the 20th century

built by an industrialist
named Richard Cross.

A bunch of freaky stuff
apparently went down there.

Cross was an occultist
who had varied interests,

would have these crazy parties
with the elite of New York.

And apparently that's where

these satanic rituals
were happening.

And then by the time
we were kids,

it was just a stone shell
of a once-huge mansion.

During high school,

one of those boring nights
we have nothing to do...

we got our courage
and we're like,

"Let's go walk through
the ruins of Cross Castle,"

in the middle of the night.

It's a really cool place
to visit during the day.

At night... it's terrifying.

Because, first of all, does this
satanic cult in the woods exist?

Is that real?

If it does, how does that happen
under our noses, right?

A pentagram where
mutilated ducks were found.

It's very scary to think

that it's right outside
your backyard.

It seems like
there's a little bit more meat

on the paranormal bone
in Jefferson

than other places
that I've heard of.

I don't think
it was unheard of

that reports
of kind of strange gatherings

or gatherings in the woods.

It was a rural, suburban area.

There's thousands
and thousands of acres

that most people don't access.

So it provides
an area of privacy.

A lot of places where people
could get off on their own

if they were doing rituals.

I know of at least one,
personally, that I documented.

A kind of occult type of scene.

Candles and...

Laying on the ground,

there was half a coconut.

And I saw that these
look like bandanas

that had been around
somebody's head and on

and taken off and tossed.

And there were some, uh...

hair remains,
like pieces of animals.

We say, oh, this is
kind of weird, you know?

Bits and pieces around.

It was a little spooky because
it seemed to be so fresh.

Somehow an animal

apparently played
into this belief.

I had a really strange
experience.

I don't-- It's weird
even talking about it.

So, Clinton Road
is just outside of town.

No streetlights.

Just inky, terrifying blackness

with woods forever
on both sides.

People were scared
to go into the area.

It was deemed to be the
most haunted road in America...

by people in North Jersey.

And there were a lot of rumors

and a lot of ghost stories
associated with Clinton Road.

But I'm not really
a believer of that, right?

Me and two buddies of mine...

This is like a year and a half
later, you know, after Tom.

And we're walking down
this path into the woods.

And...

crossing in front of us was...

...a cloaked figure,

like, wearing a mask.

Like, what the quintessential
Satan worshiper would look like.

And we stopped
dead in our tracks.

No one was breathing.

I look at him.
I'm like, "Dude, did you s--

Like, am I the only one?"
And they're like,

"We gotta get the fuck
out of here," right?

And we just sprinted
back to the car.

And we're like, "Was that real?"

So we-- you had to have this--

an honest moment with ourselves

that, like, all
that we'd been hearing

that we'd been dismissing
to religious zealots is true.

Then it's like...
who's involved in it?

Is it our teachers
or the guy at the deli?

Is it our mailman?
Like, who is it?

Everybody could be a suspect.

So that was
a very sobering moment.

Well, those ceremonies
sometimes involve the sharing

of animal blood to gain power,
they say.

But cult members
believe their strength

really comes from secrecy.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt,

there was stuff going on.

And I believe
that Tom was involved

with cultic activities
in the wooded areas

months, months
before the murder.

Tom was never the puppet master.

He was always a puppet.

One of the bigger fears
was that there was

an underground satanistic cult
within the community,

and they were afraid
that their children

were gonna get involved in it.

To this day,
it hasn't been proven.

If there was,
it certainly wasn't as serious

as what Tommy Sullivan
was involved in

because nobody else killed
their mother in that manner

or violent way that he did.

There was nothing that showed
that he was involved

in any type of rituals
other than what he was

learning about
through his own reading.

There were enough skeptics

that it certainly kept
the conversation going.

There are things
that can't be explained.

I would tell them,
"I feel the same way."

We had a 14-year-old boy write,
and this is what he did.

And that's not to say
that the devil made him do it.

It's just that
whatever he bought into

in that belief system
somehow validated these...

feelings of anger and hostility.

So what we wanted to know was,
how did this come about

and what was going on
with this family.

1988, I was 19 years old.

I was neighbors
of the Sullivan family.

And the Sullivans
were like family to me.

I may have bought
the satanic thing

for a very short period of time
because that was the narrative,

but there's no way.

I think that
the police didn't do

very much investigation at all,
and I just don't know

that he would have killed
his own mother.

Especially as brutally
as that was.

Because I believe
Tommy Jr. is innocent

of what he's being
accused of...

and what he's been accused of
since 1988.

And it has bothered me
for years and years and years

that, you know, he was
depicted as a murderer.

There's just no way.