Paul Bateson (Born August 24, 1940) is an American convicted murderer and former radiographer. He appeared as a radiologic technologist 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, Bateson was convicted of the murder of film industry journalist Addison Verrill and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison; in 2003 he was released on parole, which ended after five years. Prior to Bateson's trial, police and prosecutors implicated him in a series of unsolved slayings of gay men in Manhattan known as the “bag murders”, killings he had reportedly boasted about while in jail, with prosecutors bringing it up at his sentencing. However, no additional charges were ever 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, Friedkin recalled having visited the jailed Bateson prior to his trial and having a conversation which suggested that either Bateson had committed the additional “bag murders” or merely that he was considering confessing to them for a lighter sentence. However, other than the alleged comments made during the Friedkin interview and the assertions by police and prosecutors immediately prior to and during Bateson’s murder trial that he had admitted to the serial murders while in jail, there is no other record of definitive incriminating evidence that Bateson committed the "bag murders", though he remains the most consistently proposed suspect. Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, Bateson is often described as a serial killer.
Early life and career
Bateson was born on August 24, 1940 and grew up in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, the son of a metallurgist. He would later suggest that his appearance in The Exorcist was revenge on his father for punishing him as a child by making him stay home from Saturday matinées at the local movie theater and listen to opera on the radio instead. He served in the Army in the early 1960s, where he began drinking heavily out of boredom while stationed in Germany, beginning a lifetime struggle with alcoholism. After his discharge, he returned to Lansdale and stopped drinking.
In 1964 he moved to New York City, where he began a relationship with a man (he would later describe himself as "not exclusively gay") who he said was "involved in music". The relationship was marked by heavy drinking, either in the form of cocktails at The Pierre and frequent parties at the couple's home, or weekends in the Fire Island enclave of Cherry Grove — both with food cooked by Bateson. Five years later, Bateson's mother died of a stroke and his younger brother died by suicide.
Bateson trained as a neurological radiological technician and began working in that capacity. After the relationship ended in 1973, he moved to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park. He commuted from there to his job at New York University Medical Center (NYUMC), where he was well-liked and respected by his colleagues.
The Exorcist
In late 1972, film director William Friedkin visited NYUMC while he was preparing to make The Exorcist, the film adaptation of William Peter Blatty's novel of that name. He wanted to view some medical procedures since he was considering showing some in the film. He was also looking for staff who might be willing to be extras in the film, since he would be shooting interiors in New York although the film itself is set in Washington, D.C. Dr. Barton Lane invited the director to watch a cerebral angiography.
At the time, such angiographies were performed by puncturing the patient's carotid artery (in the front of the neck) in order to insert a catheter through which a contrast agent was injected in order to make the patient's blood vessels more visible under X-rays. In the moments between the arterial puncture and the insertion of the catheter, blood freely issued from the tube mouth in rhythm with the patient's heartbeat. Friedkin was sufficiently impressed that he told Lane immediately afterward that not only did he want to depict the procedure in his film, he wanted Lane to be the one performing it on camera, along with the nurse and Bateson, the technician, who, recalled Lane in 2018, was the best he had ever had.