"There Were Swarms of Dead Horseflies on the Porch – Swept up One Day Only to Return in Equal Abundance the Next."

Do you believe in this sort of thing?

Capt Austin’s assertions were echoed by Roman Catholic priest Father Michael Maginot, also interviewed by MailOnline.

Father Maginot may be a more natural candidate to believe in supernatural phenomenon than a cop of 37 years' standing who prides himself in being an ‘aggressive and assertive law enforcer.’

But, like Capt Austin, he set out to disprove the story. Instead he would conduct one minor and three major exorcisms on mother-of-three Latoya and told MailOnline that he himself had been the target of demonic attack for his involvement in the case.

Over a six-month period Latoya claims that she and her children were possessed by demons.

She says that the house in which they lived was ravaged by malevolent spirits, that her daughter, then 12, and sons, 9 and 7 respectively were physically attacked – thrown against furniture, dragged from the sofa, punched and tormented till their gums and noses bled and they struggled to breathe.

As a family she says they fell ill – she to three kidney infections, her children to a variety of ailments and disturbances. 

She says the house ‘dripped oil,’ that shadowy figures walked the rooms at night, that footsteps could be heard coming up from the basement only to be followed by a furious pounding on the door leading from it to the main house when, in increasing terror, she and her mother put a lock on it.

There were swarms of dead horseflies on the porch – swept up one day only to return in equal abundance the next. Lights flickered, phones played up, television signals scrambled and reverted to normal on a whim.

She claims the family was terrorized beyond all endurance. And the impact in school-time lost and medical treatment sought saw the Department of Child Protection Services step in and call in first he police, and finally after one particularly harrowing event, Father Maginot.

Sitting before the fire in the main room of St Stephen the Martyr’s rectory in Merrillville, Indiana, Father Maginot admitted he only became involved by chance. He happened to be covering for the usual chaplain of Gary ER on the weekend when a medic called in some distress to report a bizarre occurrence.

He said: ‘We were having our bible study after mass when I got the call saying “You’re a Catholic priest. You do exorcisms. We need you to do one.” They went onto tell me that a little boy had just walked, glided, backwards up a wall and flipped over to land on his feet.

‘They said he was growling, they described all sorts of things. I went of course.’

Father Maginot speaks rapidly and earnestly. He is affable, open and welcoming but he is no fool. He set out, he insisted, to disprove any notion of the occult. To do an exorcism, permission is needed from the Bishop. Fr Maginot admitted he was reluctant to go down that path having approached Bishop Dale J Melczek, Bishop of Gary some years earlier on another matter involving possible supernatural events only to receive short shrift.

He said: ‘I set out to disprove it because to be honest I didn’t want to get the bishop involved. But I had policemen, social workers, doctors and security guards telling me what they had witnessed.

‘I couldn’t just dismiss them all. That was a Friday. So I met with the mother and grandmother on the Sunday.’

In an involvement with the case spanning five months, Fr Maginot never met or examined any of the children.

But he became convinced, he said, that Latoya was indeed possessed and that the house in which she and her children lived had become cursed as a result of a hex placed on her.

Shaking his head, aware perhaps of how unbelievable the story, he admitted; ‘I think there was a curse placed on the mother, that she was the focus, possibly by an ex-boyfriend or his wife, and that combined with some tragedy and perhaps occult practices that had taken place in that house before and that had opened a portal.’

It is the conclusion Capt Austin has drawn against every logical thought that told him that just could not be true.

You should read it all.

Then leave in the comments whether you believe in this sort of thing or not.

Carry on.