A trial is underway for 22-year-old Jack Callahan, two years ago after he was accused of drowning his father during what he described to investigators as an exorcism.
In June 2021, police in Duxbury, Massachusetts, received a call from Callahan’s mother saying her 19-year-old son was acting erratically and that her ex-husband was missing, according to a press release from the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office.
Police arrived on the scene, and Jack Callahan told them he’d gone in a ride-share to pick up his father, Scott, from a bar in Boston. At the time, the 57-year-old banker was supposed to be receiving treatment for alcohol addiction but had checked himself out, according to The Independent.
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On the ride home, Callahan’s father requested that the driver pull over at Crocker Memorial Park near Island Creek Pond so they could smoke a cigarette. An altercation ensued between the father and son, Jack Callahan said.
At Callahan’s arraignment, prosecutor Shanan Buckingham said the fight moved to the pond, and the younger Callahan began performing an “exorcism” on his father.
Callahan said “he was holding his father in the pond on his back like a baby, that he continually dunked his father’s head in the water about four to eight times, that when the father started to cough and choke, he would lift his head up and then when the father started to fight and strike him, he pushed the head back down into the water,” said Buckingham, according to CBS. “He did so until his father was no longer struggling and floating."
Callahan told investigators he believed he was “baptizing” his father, according to the press release. He claimed his dad was possessed by a demon called “Dirty Dan.”
“The defendant indicated to officers that he made statements to the victim at this time, stating, ‘I left him there to decide, you can come to heaven with me or hell. I think he chose hell,’” she said.
“The mother indicated that the defendant had not exhibited this behavior before and that he had no history of mental illness,” Buckingham said.
Initially, Callahan told investigators that he blacked out after being hit by his father and didn’t remember what had happened, but he eventually directed officers to the pond where his father’s body was found. Callahan’s mother, Wendy, recalled her son came home with his clothes soaking wet, according to The Sun.
Callahan pleaded not guilty but was indicted on one charge of murder in September 2021.
