CaptainHowdy.com The #1 Exorcist Fansite Since 1999
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I know I have probably asked the question before but I haven't been on this website in awhile. My sister and I got into a debate over how the Burke Dennings case was closed. Did Detective Kinderman decide to just leave Burke Dennings case “unsolved” or did Detective Kinderman close the case out by naming Father Karras as the murderer of Burke Dennings? As many times as I have read the book “The Exorcist” I still cannot remember if Burke Dennings' murder case was ever solved.
Yes, Kinderman decided to leave the case unsolved.
” It was now six weeks since the deaths of the priests. Since the shock. Since the closed investigation by Kinderman. And still there were no answers. Only haunting speculation and frequent awakenings from sleep in tears. The death of Merrin had been caused by coronary artery disease. But as for Karras… “Baffling,” Kinderman had wheezed. Not the girl, he'd decided. She'd been firmly secured by restraining straps and sheet. Obviously, Karras had ripped away the shutters, leaping through the window to deliberate death. But why? Fear? An attempt to escape something horrible? No. Kinderman had quickly ruled it out. Had he wished to escape, he could have gone out the door. Nor was Karras in any case a man who would run.
But then why the fatal leap?
For Kinderman, the answer began to take shape in a statement by Dyer making mention of Karras' emotional conflicts: his guilt about his mother; her death; his problem of faith; and when Kinderman added to these the continuous lack of sleep for several days; the concern and the guilt over Regan's imminent death; the demonic attacks in the form of his mother; and finally, the shock of Merrin's death, he sadly concluded that Karras' mind had snapped, had been- shattered by the burden of guilts he could no longer endure. Moreover, in investigating Dennings' death, the detective had learned from his readings on possession that exorcists frequently became possessed, and through just such causes as might here have been present: strong feelings of guilt and the need to be punished, added to the power of autosuggestion. Karras had been ripe. And the sounds of struggle, the priest's altered voice heard by both Chris and Sharon, these seemed to lend weight to the detective's hypothesis.
But Dyer had refused to accept it. Again and again he returned to the house during Regan's convalescence to talk to Chris. He asked over and over again if Regan was now able to recall what had happened in the bedroom that night. But the answer was always a headshake; or a no; and finally the case was closed. “
But Sofia didn't Kinderman start to suspect Regan especially after he found out that her illness was a mental illness and not a physical one? I remember once him wanting to in the book pound on the McNeil door and ask to see Regan since she was the only member in the McNeil household that he really hadn't seen. I guess with the way Regan looked after being possessed it's a good thing Kinderman didn't see her or he would have closed Burke Dennings' murder with Regan as the culprit. Also another strange aspect to the book I thought was the night of Chris' party when the psychic Mary Jo Perrin suspected something was spiritually wrong with Regan. Mary Jo of course didn't come right out and say anything to Chris but after meeting Regan she was perplexed and brooding and obviously couldn't wait to get out of the McNeil household. I always felt if Mary Jo Perrin thought that Regan might be possessed why didn't she say something to Chris about it?
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