It was July 1929 and the city of Detroit was waking up to the shocking news that an entire family had been gruesomely and violently murdered. But was it the work of...a demon?

Benny Evangelist had been found slumped forward on his roll top desk, his hands neatly folded in his lap, but his head - well, that lay face-up a few feet away on the floor. Benny’s pregnant wife Santina was upstairs in bed, also decapitated. One arm had been almost severed off; the other held the beaten remains of their 18 month-old son Mario. And in the room next to her lay their three small children, all dead, all mutilated beyond belief.

Benny Evangelist was a self-professed prophet and sorcerer who sold magic to the highest bidder. So who cut off his head and tore his family - literally - apart? Was it a random murder - or some kind of ritualistic slaying? Or had Benny Evangelist conjured up the wrong spirit and paid the ultimate price?

I’m John Genua, host of America’s Strangest History. Settle back for a story so shocking that people are still talking about it almost 100 years later.

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