When you hear the phrase top 10 creepy, your imagination probably jumps straight to shadowy corridors, whispered chants, and the unmistakable feeling that something unseen is watching. Science tells us fear releases a cocktail of endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin, turning terror into a strangely addictive rush. But there’s something about demonic possession that sits on a throne of fascination – perhaps because anyone could be the next unwitting host. Below, we count down the ten most bone‑chilling accounts of alleged possession ever recorded.
Top 10 Creepy Possession Stories Explained
10 Amy Stamatis
Amy Stamatis was a med‑flight nurse at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, living a picture‑perfect life with a supportive husband and kids who adored her. One fateful afternoon, she leapt from the second‑story window of her Searcy home, shattering her spine and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Despite the tragedy, she maintains she never jumped.
The incident began during a routine shift when she attended to a burn patient. After stepping away from the room, she found herself drifting through the hospital corridors, disoriented and unable to walk straight. Physicians tossed around diagnoses—epilepsy, schizophrenia, even the rare metabolic disorder porphyria—yet Pentecostal evangelist Cindy Lawson sensed a darker cause. Lawson intervened, performed a deliverance, and claimed to have expelled the malevolent forces that had seized Amy’s body.
9 Clara Germana Cele
In 1906, sixteen‑year‑old Clara Germana Cele of Umzinto, South Africa, confessed to signing a pact with the devil while attending Marianhill school after the death of her parents. Within weeks, she began tearing her clothes, uttering ancient, unintelligible tongues, and emitting guttural, animalistic noises.
During the subsequent exorcism, holy water caused her skin to blister, and onlookers reported her levitating repeatedly. Witnesses—some 170 in total—described her contorting on the floor, her body twisting like a serpent, even briefly assuming a slithering form. After two days of relentless ritual, the demons were driven out on September 11, 1906, leaving Clara alive but scarred, while the priests involved never encountered those forces again.
8 George Lukins
On May 31, 1778, Mrs. Sarah Barber journeyed to Yatton Village in Somerset to summon Rev. Joseph Easterbrook after hearing about a tailor named George Lukins. Lukins, known for bizarre singing and screaming in multiple, almost inhuman voices, had been confined for five months at St. George’s Hospital, where doctors declared him incurable.
Barber, the community, and Lukins himself believed he was bewitched. He claimed seven demons inhabited his body, each requiring a clergyman to expel them. On Friday the 13th of June 1778, seven priests led by Rev. Easterbrook performed a grueling rite: Lukins sang the Te Deum backwards, grew increasingly violent, and proclaimed himself the devil. Once the demons were cast out, he immediately praised God, recited the Lord’s Prayer, and thanked his rescuers.
7 Gottliebin Dittus
In 1842, twenty‑eight‑year‑old Gottliebin Dittus became the talk of her German neighborhood as strange phenomena plagued her home. She slipped in and out of trance‑like states, but her possession only became unmistakable when Lutheran pastor Johann Christoph Blumhart initiated an exorcism. During the ritual, Gottliebin turned violently aggressive, vomited everything from nails to blood, convulsed, levitated, and vanished into shadows while screaming about hell and its denizens.
When lucid, she pleaded with Jesus to rescue her from tormentors. Finally, in 1843, Pastor Blumhart succeeded in freeing her; she reported an overwhelming peace, loudly declaring, “Jesus is victor!” He later recorded the case as a “ghost fight,” noting her ecstatic cry as his epigraph.
6 Maricica Irina Cornici
In January 2005, twenty‑three‑year‑old Maricica Irina Cornici entered Romania’s Tanacu monastery. Soon after, she displayed erratic, unsettling behavior and was placed in a psychiatric hospital. By April, doctors diagnosed schizophrenia, yet her brother insisted Satan himself had entered her body, prompting monastery priest Fr. Daniel Petre Corogeanu to call for an exorcism.
Maricica begged the nuns to restrain her, pleading to be strapped to a cross. She was anointed with holy oil and confined for three days, then released, only to faint and later die in an ambulance. Her death led to the imprisonment of Fr. Corogeanu and four nuns for murder and unlawful confinement. Autopsies cited dehydration, exhaustion, and lack of oxygen; a 2014 review added an adrenaline overdose in the ambulance as the fatal factor.
5 Analiese Michel
Born into a devout Bavarian Catholic family, Analiese Michel suffered from mental illness that escalated despite medication. At sixteen, she blacked out at school, wandering in a trance. As hallucinations and delusions intensified, she turned to the Church, believing she was possessed.
After multiple rejections, priests Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz finally performed an exorcism in 1975. Michel’s condition spiraled: she stripped naked, performed roughly 400 squats daily, and even barked like a dog for days. After eleven months, she died from malnutrition and dehydration. The priests were convicted of negligent homicide, receiving six‑month sentences; her parents faced charges but were spared, the judge noting they had already suffered enough.
4 Clarita Villanueva
After her spiritist mother’s death, provincial Clarita Villanueva traveled to Manila seeking her father and work. She was later jailed for vagrancy, but the real horror began when two demons bit into her skin. Though medical experts deemed her mentally sound, the public grew convinced of possession.
The case attracted American pastor Lester Sumrall, who flew to Manila. On May 19, 1953, he met Villanueva, who uttered blasphemous statements. Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson personally inspected her bite marks, confirming their reality. Over three days, Sumrall battled fifteen demons, finally delivering her. Freed, Clarita returned to her province, married a farmer, and raised children.
3 Elizabeth Knapp
In the early 1670s, sixteen‑year‑old servant Elizabeth Knapp worked for Reverend Samuel Willard in Groton, Massachusetts. Willard, a fiery preacher, meticulously documented her decline from October 30, 1671 to January 12, 1672, noting fits, hallucinations, contortions, animal noises, deep voices, and alleged meetings with the devil.
On November 28, she endured a forty‑eight‑hour fit, then entered a catatonic state until December 8. She confessed the devil assaulted her and forced a pact. Willard recorded the devil speaking through her, calling him a rogue minister. By January 10, 1672, she admitted total possession; she fell silent on January 15, and Willard left her fate to “more learned, aged, and judicious” individuals. Her ultimate fate remains a mystery.
2 Emma Schmidt
Emma Schmidt, also known as Anna Ecklund, was born March 23, 1882 in Switzerland and raised Catholic in Marathon, Wisconsin. At fourteen, she began engaging in obscene acts and rejecting all things sacred. In 1935, it emerged that her aunt Mina—a reputed witch and lover of her father Jacob—had cursed her through food.
At thirty, Capuchin priest Fr. Theophilus Riesinger performed her first exorcism, followed by two more attempts. Finally, on December 23, 1912, at a Franciscan Sisters’ convent in Earling, the demons—identified as Beelzebub, Judas, Mina, and Jacob—were expelled. Schmidt lived a relatively normal life thereafter, passing away peacefully at fifty‑nine.
1 Ronald Hunkeler
“The Exorcist” drew its chilling inspiration from real events involving thirteen‑year‑old Ronald Hunkeler in the late 1940s. Mourning his spiritist aunt’s death, Ronald began hearing scratching sounds on his walls and felt water dripping mysteriously. When his bed moved on its own, his parents called Jesuit priest Fr. E. Albert Hughes, who attempted an exorcism in February 1949, but it failed.
Scratches appeared on Ronald’s body, his screams grew louder, and he even urinated on his bed, cursing the attending Jesuits. His parents took him to Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis for intensive care. On April 8, after Easter, priests covered him in holy relics, medals, and blessed objects. Gradually, he emerged from the trance, proclaiming, “He’s gone,” referring to Satan.