Paul Bateson

Paul Bateson (born August 24, 1940) is an American former radiographer and convicted murderer. He appeared as a radiological technician in a scene from the 1973 horror film The Exorcist, which was inspired when the film's director, William Friedkin, watched him perform a cerebral angiography the previous year. The scene, with a considerable amount of blood onscreen, was, for many viewers, the film's most disturbing scene; medical professionals have praised it for its realism. In 1979 he was convicted of the murder of film industry journalist Addison Verrill and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison; he was released on parole in 2003 and then released from that after five years. Prior to Bateson's trial, police and prosecutors implicated him in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in Manhattan, killings he had reportedly boasted about while in jail, bringing it up at his sentencing. However, no additional charges ever were brought against him. The experience inspired Friedkin to make the 1980 film Cruising which, while based on a novel written a decade earlier, incorporated in its storyline the city's leather subculture, with which Bateson had identified. In 2012 the director recalled having visited the jailed Bateson prior to his trial, and having a conversation which suggested that either Bateson had committed the additional murders or merely that he was considering confessing to them for a lighter sentence. However, there is no other record of incriminating evidence mentioned by Friedkin in that interview. Despite this, Bateson is often inaccurately described as a serial killer. , it is not known if Bateson is still alive or, if he is, where he is living. Friedkin said in a 2018 interview that he had heard Bateson was living somewhere in upstate New York. A Social Security record shows that a "Paul F. Bateson" with the same birthdate and a Social Security number issued in Pennsylvania, died on September 15, 2012.