'The Exorcist' priest dies at 83

WAUWATOSA, Wis., March 3 (UPI) -- The Rev. Walter H. Halloran, the last surviving member of a team of Catholic priests involved in a famous 1949 exorcism, has died. He was 83.

Hallo ran died Tuesday of undisclosed causes at a Jesuit retirement home in Wauwatosa, Wis., a Milwaukee suburb, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday.

Two other priests were working with a 14-year-old Lutheran boy, who had been admitted to the psychiatric ward of Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis, when Halloran was summoned to assist.

"The little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent," Halloran said. "So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him. Yes, he did break my nose."

Halloran also said he observed streaks and arrows and words like "hell" that would rise on the child's skin during the exorcism.

The incident inspired William Barty's 1971 bestseller, "The Exorcist."

Halloran also gained renown as a paratrooping chaplain during the Vietnam War. At 48, he was then the oldest airborne chaplain at the time. He was awarded two Bronze Stars.

A visitation and mass will take place Friday evening in Wauwatosa, Wis.