All language subtitles for Let. the. Devil. In. S01E04. 1080p. WEB. h264-ETHEL

Something unusual
happened to my daughter

when she was probably
about 8-years old.

Wow. It's hard to talk about.

Okay. Hold on.

So my daughter said that
there had been an apparition.

Christina.

An apparition of a boy
that came in her room.

She said he was
wearing these overalls.

He had kind of an impish smile.

And what occurred was
that this little boy

would be transformed
into this character

that was horribly evil.

He started to laugh.

Go to the window.

I thought
maybe I heard something,

something moving in her room.

It's okay.

And I got up out
of my bed to look.

Now fly.

She was gonna kill herself.

Christina!

I grabbed her and had
to, like, restrain her.

Are you okay?

She said, "The little boy
says I have to kill myself."

I felt so powerless.

In my faith,

in Christ, and in my prayers,

I knew I was dealing
with hell itself.

This was over 30 years ago.

And my daughter
grew up, of course.

Whether a Satan exists
is a matter of belief,

but we are certain
that Satanism exists.

Recently she
called me up and said, "Dad,

I watched this
thing on YouTube...

'Geraldo Rivera.'"

And our own Detective
Hart was on that program.

We came down here.

We found Mrs. Sullivan
laying on the floor.

And there was this
kid, Tom Sullivan.

Tommy Sullivan had written
this contract with the devil.

She sees the face.

And she recognizes him as the
boy that showed up in her room.

The same kind of
smirk and everything.

She said, "That's him."

My daughter would have
not recognized Tom

at the age of 8, because Tom
had been dead for years already.

She didn't know
anything about Tom,

and to this day,
she will tell you...

..."The little boy that
appeared in my room,

that was Tommy Sullivan."

When something
traumatic happens,

something you can't
wrap your head around,

it's natural to reach for the
oldest story in the book...

...good vs. evil...

God vs. the devil.

It gives the horror a shape,
a villain, something to blame.

But that doesn't consider
the real-world demons

that live within us all.

It's a shield against an
even more violent foe.

It's realizing that the monster
was never hiding under the bed.

It was always much
closer than that.

Everybody that I've ever
talked to about Tommy

and about the whole situation
definitely has questions.

The part that stood
out to me the most

was that he killed
himself that way.

Both of his wrists were slit.

And then the way it
was described to me

is that from ear to
ear he was slit, like,

almost, like, basically
through his throat.

Like, it was deep.

I had the exact
same pocketknife.

It's not a big knife.

If you were gonna hold it,

the handle is about
the size of your hand,

and then the blade
would be sticking out

maybe an inch to
an inch and a half.

So he wouldn't have been
able to hold the knife

to cut the next wrist.

And if you slash...
slash your throat,

well, you're not gonna
be able to do either.

So, I mean, not to
make it a math problem,

but the order of operations
just doesn't make any sense.

The devil possessing you,
giving you superhuman strength

was the explanation that put
that to bed to everybody.

I understand there
may have been some Satanic,

uh, indications in
that letter, as well.

That's true. That's correct.

Even as a 13-year-old
trying to process it,

like, the devil doing
it just didn't...

It's not really a
satisfying explanation,

and it just leaves you
really, like, unsettled

and really uneasy.

It's 30-something years ago.

It didn't make any
sense at the time.

And, like, looking back,

I don't know anybody that thinks
that Tommy killed himself.

It's just...

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.

A neighbor down the street
told me Tommy Sullivan

used to cut his grass.

He said he was an
all-American boy.

He said nobody...
and I mean nobody...

can figure out what went wrong.

Satanism made little Tommy
kill his mother so brutally.

Yeah, I don't buy that.

I just don't.

I was there just to learn.

I was just there
to find out why.

Why? What happened here?

I did not talk to Tom Sr.

Trust me, I tried really,
really hard to talk to him.

I tried and tried and tried.

He did not want to talk to me.

So here I was going
to look into, like,

why and what
happened and really,

you know, dig as
deeply as I could.

But it wasn't an easy dig.

I got a lot of, "I
can't talk to you,"

"I don't want to talk to you."

"Why?" "I'm sorry. I just
can't talk to you"...

as if there was this big
secret, which made me even,

you know, more curious.

Like, what's being hidden here?

I remember my mother not
being a fan of Tom Sr.

My folks remember Tom
Sr. was heavy-handed.

I used to occasionally
catch a beating

from my father, obviously.

I mean, it was the 1980s

and I was a pain in the ass,

but Tommy was in trouble a lot,

either grounded or afraid

that his father was gonna
give him a few cracks

when he got home.

I was able to rationalize
it at the time, like,

you know, that's just
what happens, you know?

But looking back, it definitely
was a different level.

Tom Sr., he had a temper.

I guess that was
pretty well known.

Detective Pell related to
me, and one of the people

that he had spoken with
from the neighborhood

described Tom Sr. as having
some type of argument

or something with Tom Jr.

Kind of got loud and stuff.

Kind of an aggressive
type of situation.

Went unreported to
law enforcement,

but nothing was ever done.

There were people
around the neighborhood

that voiced concerns about Tommy
and his father getting into it,

but certainly nobody's
picking up the phone,

calling 911,

um, and didn't.

When I first started
looking at what was going on

with this family,

one of the things that I recall

didn't involve Tommy
or Tommy's room,

but it was Brian
and Brian's room.

Most of us, if you had brothers
and sisters growing up,

remember putting a
sign on your door

that said, "Do not enter," or
whatever or something like that.

"Keep out."

That's until your mother
and father said, "Nah",

we don't do that here,"
and take it down.

The thing that struck
me was that on the door

to Brian's bedroom,

it said, "Stay out
or I will kill you."

And I think it speaks
to a level of violence

that I hate to say
was acceptable.

It certainly wouldn't
have flown in our home.

Um, and I think most parents
would say the same thing.

That... In my opinion,

this was an indicator
of the family situation,

the dynamics.

I always had this feeling
that Tom was mad at his mom

for not protecting
them from the dad.

And I remember having the sense

that his mother didn't step
in to protect him and Brian

as much as he would have
liked that she would have.

Like, she should have been
there to cushion that blow.

I hesitate to judge
a person's home,

and there are factors in
every home that have issues,

and parents have issues.

But I don't think
there was good communication.

In an article that was
written subsequent to this,

the father had been
quoted as saying,

"My wife was overbearing

and she's too strict."

And maybe she was too strict.

Betty Anne
is the one who believed

that parochial
education was good.

I don't think that the dad
had signed up for that,

but he just went along with it.

What little I gathered
from talking to neighbors

is that this boy,

I think he just felt as
if he couldn't breathe...

...as if he
had no say in that family,

because Mom knows better and
Dad knows better than you do.

And if you are miserable,
well, you'll get over it.

And he wasn't getting over it.

He was miserable.
It wasn't a fad.

It wasn't just a
little period of time.

He was miserable.

There's piety that's good,

and there's piety
that is self-serving.

I'm very influenced
by my tradition

for daily Mass and
prayers four times a day.

That's part of who I am.

But it does not absolve me

from the realities
I see around me.

I can't just pray
them up to God.

I believe that she was
praying for her family

and for herself and not seeing.

And we all have blind spots
and we all have things

we don't want to see.

So obviously she was struggling

and saw things perhaps that she
didn't know how to deal with.

I remember when she
came to talk to me

and I told her, "The children
are worried about your son."

I said, "Some of what
he's talking about"...

I think it's something you
might be interested in.

"...is about Satan
and his power."

I said, "I don't
know everything,

but I really encourage
you to talk to your son

with your husband over
the next few days."

And she said to me,
"Where's the rule book?"

And I said, "Rule
book?" She said, "Yes.

How do I raise children? I
don't know how to do it."

I said, "There's no rule book."

I had never been asked
about a rule book.

And I'd been doing the
work for a long time.

No parent ever said,
"Give me the blueprint.

Give me the..."

So that spoke volumes to me.

If you are asking
for a rule book,

you're in a lot of conflict.

That was Thursday.

He had killed his mother
on Saturday night.

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

Truth be told, I
thought it was my fault

because I asked
her to talk to him.

So my first thought
was, "This is on you."

Something horrible
happened in that house.

I had a lot of questions and a
lot of... a lot of confusion.

I just know my gut feeling
that something didn't add up.

It wasn't right.

I felt that the
father was suspicious

and maybe that knew more
than he had told us.

I mean, I wasn't saying for
sure that he did anything.

I don't know that for
a fact, but I felt

that he seriously needed to
be looked at as a suspect.

For a father to draw a
conclusion that quickly,

to go from knowing nothing
to saying, "Get my son,"

it just didn't make sense.

That's what really threw me off.

How do you know that?
You were sleeping.

And now you know
your son murdered

your wife and his mother?

It just didn't seem right to me.

And how did this kid
come back to the scene

and cut his own throat

with all the officers
there and everything?

And he wasn't there when
we started the search.

Something isn't right.

Like, how did he
reappear right there?

The thing about the Tommy
situation is that...

I don't know that
anyone's ever gonna know

what actually happened,

but I just don't see it as
possible that Tommy did it.

It feels to me that what
makes much more sense

is that Tom Sr. is the
one that killed Tommy.

I remember,
like, early in the morning

writing my report.

My report originally expressed

that I felt the father was a
suspect, strongly felt that.

And then if not, he knew a
lot more than he told us.

The chief told me I was wrong,

that it was a homicide-suicide.

I couldn't comprehend how we'd
determined that that quick.

Murder, suicide.

It was almost like the police
couldn't comprehend it either,

but this seemed
like it made sense,

so "let's just do this and
get it done with" type thing.

And it just never felt right.

I think that's
part of the reason

why it's just never
really gone away.

I've certainly heard that
Tom Jr. couldn't have done this,

that it was Tom Sr.

I again look at it from an
investigator's standpoint.

I've never seen any evidence
that would make that connection.

The police didn't
think it was the father.

When something is
incomprehensible,

theories are always around.

They're always around.

When you don't
understand something,

you got to come
up with something

that to you makes sense.

'Cause a 14-year-old boy
brutally killing his mom?

Unh-unh. It's got to
be the husband, right?

That's usually the suspect,

so it must have been the father,
even though it makes no sense.

Tom.

On the night
of the murder,

Thomas Sullivan Sr.
provided a detailed account

of his whereabouts to police.

He stated that, "He had not been
feeling well during the day."

He was awakened by the
sound of a smoke alarm,

and upon getting
up to investigate,

he hears the front
door slam closed.

As he exits the bedroom,

he observes a small fire
on the living room floor

and begins to stomp it out

and uses a couch pillow
to beat at the flames.

He is confused.

He went across the street
to the Eastman home,

banged on the door, and
requested help from Mr. Eastman.

He went
into the house.

He's screaming for his family.

At that time, the younger son

comes out of his bedroom,

and Tom asked him if he saw
his brother and his mother.

And he said, "Yeah, I saw Tommy

and he was covered in blood."

Brian's interaction with Tom
Sr. Is just one more piece

of the puzzle that
made Tommy a kind of

a prime suspect or
person of interest.

The night that this happened,

there was certainly enough
bloodshed in the house.

If Tom Sr. was
responsible for that,

we would have had
blood on his clothes,

blood on his hands,
blood on his face.

And when the call
went into the arrival,

couldn't have been more
than a few minutes.

The idea that he, what...

He would have killed
these two people,

been covered in blood,

and then run into the
house and took a shower.

And certainly,

if Tom Sr. had been responsible
for killing Tommy Jr.,

there would have been
two sets of footprints

going out to the
body, not just one.

And it would have
been the same thing.

There would have
been a lot of blood.

I think people just have
a hard time accepting

that that level of violence
could be perpetrated

by a 14-year-old.

And people like to
jump to a conclusion.

"Tommy couldn't have done that.

It had to be somebody
else," you know.

"It had to be somebody else."

Well, the evidence in this case

didn't support anybody
else but Tommy.

Within a few months,

final autopsy reports
came back to say

that Tommy Sullivan Jr. was not
under the influence of drugs,

and that the same
knife was used to kill

both himself and his mother.

So the case was
officially closed.

Murder-suicide.

But the questions
have always lingered.

I can't explain
everything that happened.

I can explain some of it.
I can accept some of it.

But I don't have any better
an idea of what happened.

There are things that
can't be explained

and died with people that
are no longer with us.

In a basic police report,

there should be the primary
questions... Who, what,

where, when, and why?

But we've never had the why,

and we never got to
ask those questions

or come up with answers.

What cases like this bring up

is, we often don't know

what's going on inside
of somebody's head.

My area of expertise is
kids who kill and parricide,

which is kids who kill parents.

The killing of a parent
is very, very personal.

Killing the people
that gave you life...

That's why it horrifies people.

What we know about Tommy
is, he was a healthy kid.

Good family, good community,
athlete, Catholic school.

He was kind of privileged
in a lot of ways,

but he's willing to trade
all of that to be with Satan.

So what was going on with that
individual or in that home

that things could
have ended so badly?

Could there be,
for example, abuse?

Maybe.

Could he have been angry? Yes.

But if it were simply a matter
of responding to violence

that he had experienced,

I don't think we'd have this
Satanic element involved.

Once you mix in the
Satanic involvement,

you can't say, "Well, it was
only the abuse that drove this."

When you start making
pacts with Satan,

it's a whole
different ball game.

Tommy was involved
in reading, drawings,

learning about Satanism

to the extent of
making what he believed

to be a pact with Satan.

I mean, that's extreme.

Tommy's
drawings bespeak anger,

but there's a lot of adolescent
boys filled with anger.

You could probably
find drawings like that

in the notebooks of a vast
number of adolescent boys

from that era

who never acted out on any of
this stuff and never would.

But he did act.

I drew in my notebooks
the same way he did,

and I have to confess,

I feel a certain affection
and sympathy for Tommy Jr.

He went down one path.

I went down another.

What was it in his life

that went in such
a violent direction

that my life did not go in?

With Tommy,
we have to ask,

why did it take a violent turn?

When I look at those drawings

and I read those
letters to Satan,

and I look at the background...

...the strongest evidence
from a clinical perspective

is that Tommy, at 14,

was severely mentally ill...

You do not have a
life outside of this house!

...and experiencing
likely some type of psychosis.

Why can't
you just be a good boy?

Like I said...

Psychosis means being out
of touch with reality,

having delusions
and bizarre beliefs

with no basis in reality.

Whether it was a
psychotic episode

or childhood schizophrenia...

...without treatment,
it's a ticking time bomb.

In the '80s, mental
health was a taboo subject.

Therapy was something
that the rich did,

or if you had suffered
a traumatic event,

it wasn't something that
was openly discussed.

If something was off,

if you were struggling,

if you were feeling dark
or angry or just lost,

who did you turn to?

Your friends? They'd
make jokes about it.

Adults? They'd tell
you to toughen up.

There were no
resources or guidance

for dealing with those feelings.

So you kept them to yourself...

buried deep down.

But here's the thing.

When you keep stuff
like that bottled up,

it doesn't stay quiet.

It festers.

And when it's left
to rot in the dark,

it poisons everything
it touches.

It's my belief

that psychosis could lead an
individual to do such an extreme

and unthinkable act.

I told you
to go to bed hours ago.

Tommy was so immersed...

I'm going down here, Tommy.

...in Satanism and
destructive themes.

Leave me alone!

If we take, you know, the fact
that his thinking is disordered,

which is part of psychosis...

He has delusions.

I don't
know what to do anymore.

You do not have a
life outside of this house!

In this
case, the delusions

are that he's in a
pact with Satan...

How are we supposed to help him?

He won't talk to me.

...and that Satan
is gonna reward him,

and, in turn, for power,

he's gonna do the
killing of the family.

Tommy killed his mother
with a Boy Scout knife.

Boy Scout knives
are pretty small,

so that suggests to me

a lot of effort to get
those kinds of wounds

with a little knife...

which suggests a lot of anger.

He may have been dissociated,

which means that when somebody
is so overwhelmed with feeling

that they just keep going,

it's almost like
automatic pilot.

The aggression fuels the
release of stress hormones.

The cycle then propels
more aggression,

and people don't stop until
typically, they're exhausted.

The brother said
Tommy was very fidgety.

He's hyped-up. Well, I
mean, I'd expect that.

I'm thinking he's just,
like, on automatic pilot,

and that would fit in
with the dissociation.

Sort of like, you
know, just moving,

just going through motions.

When I heard Tommy
committed suicide...

And it's actually not
uncommon in cases of parricide

that the assailant will
kill himself afterwards.

When I was informed about
how he killed himself,

I'm thinking of the
intensity and the pain,

which would be extreme.

When somebody is
really dissociated,

the stress level is so acute.

He's not gonna be
in good contact

with feelings and thoughts.

He's just not in
good reality contact.

He's just not there.

They say he fought with
his mother, then stabbed her.

I think he
was a very, very sick boy.

Wo He went into a rage,
stabbed his mother to death.

I know that

This boy committed murder.

That's horrible.

But I feel for him.

I feel for this little boy.

He needed help.

He needed help.

And obviously, he didn't get it.

It just makes
me so sad to think

that a 14-year-old
could have been so...

...haunted.

Not realizing he
had any lifelines.

That makes me very sad.

Nobody realized
that he was in crisis.

And as a parent now, for me,

that's far more terrifying than
any alleged demonic possession

or Satanic influence.

Washington Township residents
packed an auditorium tonight

to hear more about Satanism.

Did the Satanic Panic or
some of the other cases

that were floating around at
the time kind of feed into this?

I would say probably yes.

The Satanic
message is clear,

both in the album covers
and in the lyrics.

People in the community

were looking for
something to blame.

I think it's a problem.

You can call it the boogeyman.

You can call it the
devil or you can call...

something to hang a label on,

to blame for what happened.

You can't prevent
mental illness.

You can hope to
treat it, you know,

but you can't prevent it.

But Satanism?

The question in
everyone's mind seems to be,

how widespread is
this Satan business?

It makes you
wonder, you know,

if it can't happen
to your child.

Humanity enjoys
looking for an enemy,

but whole books
have been written

discrediting the Satanic Panic.

Most infamously, Geraldo
Rivera spoke about it.

It's teenagers who are
most likely to fall

under the spell of
this jumble of dark,

violent emotions
called Satanism...

...and has
recently apologized

for having participated
in the Satanic Panic,

blaming Satan or the devil.

Satanism gives people
a false sense of calm

that they have an enemy
that is easy to identify.

Blame it on horror movies,
Ozzy, and Judas Priest.

It's much easier.

But a broken home with
an alleged abused kid,

a lonely child...

That's a story that we should
be looking to learn from.

Whether you believe
in occultism,

whether you believe
that Satan has power,

whether you believe that
Satan can give you the things

that he's promising these kids,

that's immaterial, my friend,

because they believe it.

Is Satanism
inherently dangerous?

Probably not.

But if that becomes one's
solution to problems,

that's... that's
dangerous.

You can't take Tommy
out of the times.

This was part of the culture.

And it wasn't just
the pop culture.

The fact that Tommy was
raised in a Catholic family,

I think, is important

because Satan was
something that existed.

So it was easy to understand

how a mentally ill juvenile
with a lot of anger

believed he was
writing to Satan.

I think
Tom Jr. tried God

and didn't get the
answers he wanted,

and so he turned to
another source of power.

Later that week...

I'm so sorry.

...Tom Sr. and Brian
came to talk to me

about what had happened.

No one should ever have
to go through this.

I was afraid to see the father

because of my feeling

that perhaps I had caused this.

I had asked Betty Anne to
talk to Tom Jr. about Satan.

Did she talk to him and
those were the consequences?

We didn't listen to you.

Tom said to me right away...

I wish I had listened.

..."You told us and
we didn't listen."

And then I knew my
first thought was wrong,

that it was my fault.

That was, for me,
a graced moment

because he was able to free me

from what I thought
perhaps had happened.

He gave me that gift,
and I was so grateful.

I just feared for Brian.

Brian was barely
able to function.

I found out that
he saw his brother

after he killed his mother

with his mother's
blood on his hands.

Tommy?

He did say this to me...

"My brother told me
to go back to bed."

"And the look on his
face, I went back to bed."

I can only imagine his horror.

The demons that must have
haunted him about all of it.

I couldn't even imagine
living Brian's life.

Brian had to live with the
fact that the only details

that are known up until the
last minute of Tommy's life

before he dies are
in Brian's head.

He's the last person.

I mean, I don't know how
you would live with that.

He lost his
mother. He lost his brother.

I can't imagine that he wasn't
terribly damaged by this.

Just look at this case

and it's just layers and
layers and layers of sadness.

The first thing I thought about
when I heard about Brian was...

I'm like, "Does
this ever go away?"

A small new
Jersey community stunned

by a Satanic murder-suicide.

When a person passes on,

the energy of the
individual still remains.

Setting fire
to the family house

in an attempt to kill his
brother and his father

were all linked to Satanism.

Spirits
have to go somewhere.

They just don't disappear.

They wreak havoc in other lives.

What
occurred in Morris County

on that night in 1988...

Washington
Township residents

packed an auditorium tonight
to hear more about Satanism.

...not only affected
Tom and his mother

and his brother and his dad...

I can tell you that each person

whose life was
touched by that event

carries it to this day.

Probably the hardest
thing about this story

is just the effects on everyone.

It's a small town.

I mean, this...
this will live on

in the fabric of
their community,

I would think, forever.

I am haunted.

Haunted in the sense
that it's 35 years

that I haven't been
able to shake it.

You know?

What happened to me
as a 19-year old boy

being put in that situation,

it really stuck with me.

I had a tough time.

I couldn't sleep.

I wanted things to
be good for them.

Yeah, it was tough.

Not many years ago,

I recall a conversation with
Chuckie and how it affected him.

He apparently struggled with
issues in his adult life.

You would have to think that
it would have been difficult.

To be honest with you,
I lost touch with Chuck,

but I remember him being hit.

Like, it resonated
differently with him,

like it resonated with me.

For me, it was 'cause he
was my neighbor next door,

and because we had hung out

and he and Chuckie had
had that relationship

where it definitely
resonated strongly with him.

I just recently learned that
Chuck also committed suicide.

I was surprised and saddened
to hear that he'd passed away.

You don't see those
things often happen

in small communities like this,

and when they do, they're
not easily forgotten.

You wonder how many
of the other friends

are sitting around all these
years later still, you know,

thinking about, "Well, maybe
if I had said something."

Or maybe they just
buried it. Who knows?

Everybody
knew that I was the one

that found the bodies in town.

So people would ask
me and I would just,

"Yeah, yeah, it was
terrible," you know.

Like, how do you talk to
somebody that didn't see it?

You know what I mean?

As far as what I saw...

...you know, I kind of,
like, blocked that out.

I don't know. Just
kind of buried it.

Like, I never got no
counseling or nothing.

Now that I'm a born-again
Christian, it makes more sense.

I truly believe now that
Satan played a part in it.

That wasn't God's work.

Everything evil that happens,
Satan's involved with.

I mean, you can call
him whatever you want.

Um, if you really,
truly believe in God,

then you believe in Satan.

You can't believe in
one without the other

if you read the Bible.

The community
of Jefferson

is still haunted
by this mystery.

Why did Tommy kill his
mother and himself?

Was it the devil whispering
promises of power and violence?

"To the greatest demons
of hell, I, Tom Sullivan,

would like to make a
solemn exchange with you."

Do I believe in the possibility
of supernatural forces?

Sign below.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

There are dark forces out there,

and there are people that
are gonna succumb to...

you know, to the devil.

Sometimes evil wins.

Or was it a mind
pushed to the edge...

Satanism? Really?

...breaking under the weight

of something we can't
fully know or understand?

Leave me alone!

The really
scary part of it for me

is that a 14-year-old kid could
be angry enough to do this.

There's true evil out there.

It doesn't have to be, you
know, supernatural or anything.

I think he was a
very, very sick boy.

And he needed help.

You don't even
talk to me anymore.

This story has captured
the imagination of people

trying to understand or
explain the unexplainable.

'Cause no one can really
explain the nature of rage...

...or what's really going on in
the mind of a 14-year old kid.

What keeps
us all up at night

is that no matter how safe
our world feels around us,

there's always that malevolence
creeping in the shadows.

And you never know when
it's going to strike.

But why the Sullivans?

The truth is, we'll never know,

because the only person that
can give us answers is Tommy.

And he has disappeared

into the silence of
his own tragic end.