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The Disturbing True Story of ‘The Exorcist’ Actor Who Became a Convicted Murderer

Paul Bateson appeared in one of The Exorcist’s most unsettling scenes. Years later, he was convicted of murdering a journalist.

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William Friedkin’s The Exorcist hides a secret far more horrifying than any of the fictional behavior its characters show onscreen. For many viewers, the most disturbing scene in the movie was the one in which Regan (Linda Blair) has a bloody procedure known as a cerebral angiography performed on her. You may also recall the technician from this sequence being the only person who annoyingly pronounces Regan’s name “REE-gun”:

Interestingly, the actor who played that part wasn’t an actor at all, but a legitimate radiology technician named........

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