“He has a delusion that he was possessed by a demon when this happened but the demon was responsible.” – Mental Health Expert – Dr. Donald Grant
An Australian man, Alex McEwan, 23, accused of murdering Korean student Eunji Ban in a Brisbane park told police he “had a demon” in his head that he talked to and said he had been “waiting” his whole life to kill someone.
The killer told officers that he told the victim before he violently attacked her, “It’s your fault you walked this way because you had to run into me.”
As McEwan proceeded to beat her to death with his feet and fists, he screeched, “die bitch, die!”
Moments later, the severely beaten Eunji was found in the park by a passerby because she was making gurgling sounds behind a tree as she took her lasts breaths – drowning in a pool of her own blood.
Shortly after the murder, McEwan confessed to police that he “bashed the shit out of her face” but said, “he didn’t actually do it”.
Investigators asked McEwan whether he had any mental illnesses and he said he had a “devil inside my head, demon”.
“It’s just been troubling me since I was born really, making me think sick thoughts, really feral stuff.”
McEwan said he was a demon at the time of the murder because he could not remember what happened.
When asked why he attacked a girl, Mr McEwan replied: “it was the first person I saw.”
“I didn’t think. It was just, it was like myself was in the back of my head just watching someone else doing it,” he said.
“It was like I went all weird and shit, psychotic. I’ve drawn pictures throughout my whole life like that.”
During the trial, the court heard about a Demon named “Jazzy” who was a central entity in Alex McEwan’s hallucinations. McEwan also had a female demon called “Dren” and also routinely heard the voices of God, Jesus and Satan.
The demon Jazzy was even active during the hearings urging him to leap from his chair and attack the prosecutor, but McEwan refused to obey the orders of the demon. According to Justice Jean Dalton, mental health expert Dr. Donald Grant who quizzed him on the incident said McEwan chose to instead pummel his head with punches: “One, two; one, two; one, two; back and forward between his fists.”
Minutes earlier, he made a throat-slitting gesture in the air that Justice Jean Dalton was sure one of the jurors must have seen.
The next day, the whole trial was moved to the courtroom next door, and McEwan placed in a secure, glass-walled dock “in everybody’s best interests”.
Justice Dalton then invoked Section 645 of the Criminal Code, an “extraordinarily rare” move that created a “trial within a trial” to determine the defendant’s current sanity.
While being interviewed by attorneys, Alex McEwan’s mother, Ms. Ruth McEwan broke down in tears describing a conversation she had with her son one night.
She said her son told her, “I’m not normal, I don’t feel right. I can’t see properly. I can’t see left from right.”
” … that he had a sphere or a ball rolling around and around in his head and he couldn’t make it stop.
“It doesn’t have any flat sides to stop … so it just keeps rattling over and over.”
His father, Geoffrey McEwan also testified that his son had many struggles and was unreliable and had trouble sleeping.
“I did my best to show that I was a caring parent but in hindsight … you question yourself in situations like this,” he said.
“I look back and say what were my failings as a parent?”
“I’ve always been dismissive of behaviours or thinking the best of people.”
“I could say I failed … I have had four years to think about everything that has transpired.”
During the trial, jurors heard the testimony of Dr. Donald Grant who claimed that McEwan had complained of auditory and visual hallucinations, including comments from “derogatory” demons.
“He has a delusion that he was possessed by a demon when this happened but the demon was responsible.”
Dr, Grant said McEwan heard “the demons cutting their own throat” and commanding him to self-harm.
One demon had also urged him to attack prosecutor David Meredith, the trial heard.
Dr Grant also said that McEwan had reported an intrusive demon called Jazzy sometimes being in the same room as him and that the killer had been finding it increasingly difficult to avoid hallucinations.
Dr Grant said McEwan had spoken of three demons and displayed symptoms consistent with treatment-resistant schizophrenia.
Let me close by stating that in addition to having sleep problems, the murderer also reported having been tormented by nightmares, including a recurring bad dream which involved him being “dragged through a portal by demons and the devil into hell”.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
