How did Anneliese Michel die?

Answer 1

Anneliese Michel likely died of lack of basic medical care during an "exorcism" by two parish priests. Originally diagnosed with gran mal seizures she was treated with epilepsy medication. The medication had little effect and Anneliese claimed to be possessed by demons, 6 to be exact. After her death a courtroom drama ensued in which Annaliese's parents and parish priest were charged with negligent manslaughter and sentenced them to six months in prison, suspended with three years' probation.

According to court findings, she experienced her first epileptic attack in 1969, and by 1973 was suffering from depression and considering suicide. Soon she was seeing the faces of demons on the people and things around her, and voices told her she was damned. Under the influence of her demons, Michel ripped the clothes off her body, compulsively performed up to 400 squats a day, crawled under a table and barked like a dog for two days, ate Spiders and coal, bit the head off a dead bird and licked her own urine from the floor. By 1975 Michel was asking for an exorcism. The Revs. Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz performed the rite 67 times over the first half of 1976. Some of the sessions took up to four hours. Forty-two sessions were recorded on tape.

Anyway, it wasn't the exorcism that killed Anneliese Michel. At some point she began talking increasingly about dying to atone for the wayward youth of the day and the apostate priests of the modern church, and refused to eat. Though she had received treatment for epilepsy, by this time, at her own request, doctors were no longer being consulted. She, her parents and the exorcists decided to rely completely on exorcism. By the time Michel died of starvation, she weighed only 68 pounds.