Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Movie Extra Is Actually a Serial Killer - The Paul Bateson Story

Episode Date: March 21, 2026

Paul Bateson was a radiological technician in New York City who gained notoriety for his brief appearance in the 1973 film The Exorcist and his subsequent conviction for the 1977 murder of film critic Addison Verrill. During his trial, Bateson allegedly bragged about killing several other men.

Did you know that one of the actors in the movie The Exorcist actually went on to be a real-life serial killer? Now, the actor is this guy. His name's Paul. And Paul's about 31 when all this starts, and he's living in New York City. And one day, in 1972, something pretty big happens in his life. See, he works at a hospital as a radiology technician. And a filmmaker shows up to the place because the filmmaker is doing research for a movie he's making, a movie that will eventually be called The Exorcist. So this filmmaker watches Paul and the rest of the medical team work,

and he likes what he sees, and he decides that he wants to cast them as extras in the movie. And so Paul and the team he works with eventually end up filming a scene for the Exorcist movie, and he ends up in the final cut. And here you can see him, he's up there in the corner, and here you can see him he's way back there. And yeah, he's not in the movie for very long. long, but he's in it. So the next year in 1973, the movie comes out and it's a huge hit. It becomes one of the most iconic horror movies of all time. And Paul's scene is actually considered one of the

most disturbing. So it looks like things are going pretty well for him. I mean, he's got a good steady job. He was part of a hit movie. However, deep down, Paul has a problem. He's gay in the 70s. So finding romance hasn't exactly been easy for him. He recently got out of a nine-year relationship and he's been dating, but ultimately he's lonely. Not to mention, he also has an alcohol problem. Like this man likes to drink a lot. Mostly vodka. Sometimes he'll drink more than a quarter of it a day. And over time, his drinking problem continues to get worse. Some days he'll do shots of vodka before he even gets dressed. And so eventually, the drink starts affecting his work at the hospital, because Paul ultimately gets fired from his job.

So now he doesn't know what he's going to do. And he starts taking odd jobs to pay the bills, like he takes jobs cleaning apartments and installing light fixtures, and at one point he works as a cashier at an adult movie theater. And on top of that, he's still really lonely. So at night, he'll often go out to the clubs, mostly gay leather bars, and there he'll meet random guys, and he'll smash with him. And I'm sure that's a good time and all, but what he really wants is a serious connection with someone, like he wants to be in a relationship again.

And this cycle of constant drinking and hooking up, it goes on for years, until it's 1977. And one night he's out at the gay leather bar, I guess, and he meets this guy, Addison. And Addison, he's a nice dude. He works as a journalist and a film critic for variety, magazine, but most importantly, Addison thinks Paul is foin, and Paul thinks he's foin right back,

and so they start chatting and they hit it off. And pretty quickly, they both discover that they have something in common. They like partying. So they decide to party a bit. They do a bunch of drinking and they share a bunch of drugs. So now Paul is all high and inebriated and maybe it's the drugs talking, but he starts to feel like maybe this Addison guy is relationship material. I mean, it all seems perfect. And soon it's 3 a.m. And Paul and Addison are still having a great time and flirting and whatnot. And so they decide to move to another club.

Another gay leather bar called, and I'm not making this up, the Mineshaft. Anyway, at the Mineshaft, they keep drinking and doing lots of drugs. And around 5 a.m., I guess Addison is like, you want to come back to my place? And Paul's like, all right. and they take a taxi back to Addison's apartment. And there, they drink more and they do more drugs, and they ultimately smash. And Paul, he's having a great time.

He thinks Addison is awesome, and Addison seems to be into him as well. So maybe, after all this, Addison will want something more. But then, at some point during all this, Paul starts to get the feeling that maybe Addison is not looking for something long term. that maybe he's just looking for a quick hookup. And this starts to piss Paul off. He can tell that Addison is just going to be another disappointment in the dating world. And this rejection is too much for him right now.

And after all the drinking and the drugs he's been doing, something inside Paul just snaps. And he goes into Addison's kitchen and he grabs a heavy frying pan and suddenly, pow, he hits Addison on the head. And this knocks him out. Then he goes back into the kitchen and he grabs a knife and boom, he stabs him. And this, unfortunately, kills him. After that, for some reason, Paul decides to rob him. He takes Addison's credit card and some cash he had and his passport.

He even takes some of his clothes. Then he leaves the apartment. Now, eventually, people notice that Addison has been missing. And so they contact the police. And now police are involved. And some officers show up to his apartment and there they find him. So police investigate Addison's murder. But they assume that this was all just a robbery gone wrong.

And so at this point, Paul has completely gotten away with it. He's not a suspect. Police don't know that he was connected to Addison at all. Because remember, they had just met earlier that night. But then this guy enters the story, Arthur. And Arthur is a friend of Addison. and he's also a journalist and he's also gay. And so he writes an article for the village voice called

There's Nothing Gay About Murder. And in that article, he criticizes New York police for basically not caring when gay men get murdered and not doing a thorough enough job investigating and that there's no possible way that Addison's murder was a robbery gone wrong. Once that article gets published, Paul just happens to come across it and he reads it.

And I guess he's, starts feeling guilty and shortly after he gets all drunk, because he's always drunk, and he gets Arthur's phone number, and he calls him up, and he basically says, you were right in your article. And he also says, and by the way, I'm the one who killed Addison. And then he tells Arthur all about his night with Addison and that he hit him with the frying pan and that then he stabbed him. And he starts mentioning details that no one in the public could have known, including that he stole Addison's credit card afterwards. So Arthur knows he's telling the truth.

But Paul doesn't tell Arthur his name. So Arthur doesn't know exactly who called him and confessed. Regardless, Arthur goes and he reports all of this to the police. And so police stationed themselves inside Arthur's apartment because they're hoping that the alleged killer, Paul, calls back at some point. Well, eventually the phone rings. and it's not Paul. It's actually a different guy calling. Apparently, this random guy had also read Arthur's article and was like, I know who the killer is, because he happens to know Paul. And earlier that same day,

Paul had gotten drunk and called him and just like randomly confessed for some reason. And so police go and they find Paul and bam, they arrest him. And I don't have a mugshot, but here's a picture of him on the set of the exorcist. And so ultimately, Paul goes to trial and he's found guilty and he gets sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. But then, while he's locked up, he allegedly, informally, brags to people around him that he was also responsible for murdering other gay men during that period in New York City, and that police were never able to tie the murders back to him. So So, Paul may have been an actual serial killer and murdered a bunch of people and was never convicted for those murders.