Troy Taylor > Quotes

“specialists,”
― Troy Taylor, Suffer the Children: American Horrors, Homicides and Hauntings

“If anyone here is alive,” he called out again, “groan or make some sound and we’ll take you out.” He looked around the auditorium, taking in the burned seats, the blackened walls, the twisted piles of debris on the stage, and the smoldering bodies of the dead. But the devastated Iroquois Theater was silent.”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“Contrary to popular belief, possession doesn’t mean that a demon enters a person’s body and takes over their soul. The person’s free will is never removed, only severely compromised. In possession, a person is so physically, emotionally, mentally,”
― Troy Taylor, The Devil Came to St. Louis: The Uncensored True Story of the 1949 Exorcism

“Even in the era that we think of as the “good old days” children were never truly safe. Monsters walked among us, even then. In this case, though, the monster in question was not an adult that preyed on a child, it was what the”
― Troy Taylor, Suffer the Children: American Horrors, Homicides and Hauntings

“And that was when the massive crowd in the Iroquois Theater auditorium began to panic.”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“Dresses, jackets, trousers, and other articles of clothing were ripped to shreds as people tried to get through to the exits and escape the flames and smoke. When the crowd reached the doors, they found many of them locked. The locking mechanisms had been so confusing to the staff that they had not tried to open them before they fled. Other doors couldn’t be opened. They had been designed to swing inward rather than outward, and the crush of people prevented those in the front from pulling the doors open.”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke,”
― Troy Taylor, The Big Book of Missouri Ghost Stories

“I have long believed that the ghosts of the past still linger here. They are stark reminders of the trauma and terror experienced by the unlucky patrons who had tickets to an afternoon matinee that day – and a chilling remembrance of a tragedy that should never be forgotten.”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“We often fool ourselves into believing that the “good old days” were actually good, but this is far from the truth.”
― Troy Taylor, Suffer the Children: American Horrors, Homicides and Hauntings

“He said the Iroquois was “completed and OK.” Neither of those things were true.”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“The act of exorcism implies a “driving out” of the demon, but it’s really more like placing a demon under oath. In some cases, it may be more than one demon inhabiting a person. The word “exorcism” comes from the Greek ek and the verb horkizo, which means “I cause [someone] to swear” and refers to “putting the spirit or demon to oath.” It’s more easily explained as invoking a higher authority to bind the entity so it can be caused to act contrary to its own will.”
― Troy Taylor, The Devil Came to St. Louis: The Uncensored True Story of the 1949 Exorcism

“assistant chief Paul Lefke. Next, knowing that communications”
― Troy Taylor, Suffer the Children: American Horrors, Homicides and Hauntings

“It was a day at the theater – what could go wrong?”
― Troy Taylor, One Afternoon at the Iroquois

“Pike County, which now has Pittsfield as its seat, was once so large that it included Chicago, which was then a tiny settlement on Lake Michigan.”
― Troy Taylor, Ghosts of the Prairie: History & Hauntings of Central Illinois

“the plan was a scheme to bilk money from the investors in return for selling them Louisiana. Law was given a monopoly on trade, as well. Later, when it turned out that Law’s company was merely a large confidence game, many of the settlers decided to ignore this and stay on. During the first year of Law’s operation, he decided that a town should be founded at a spot that could be reached from both Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. In 1718, this town became La Nouvelle Orleans. Development of the city began that year, but work was slow, thanks to brutal heat and the rising and falling waters of the Mississippi. There was talk of moving the city because of the danger of flooding, so levees were constructed, which spread out as the city and the plantations of the area grew. But rising water was not the only danger that could be found at the mouth of the Mississippi. In many early documents, writers spoke of the monsters that dwelt in the murky waters, and the Indian legends told of gigantic beasts that waited to spring upon unwary travelers. “May God preserve us from the crocodiles!” wrote Father Louis Hennepin. Meanwhile, John Law was having problems holding up his end of the bargain that he made with the French. In order to get his money, he had promised his investors that he would have a colony of six thousand settlers and three thousand slaves by 1727. His problem, however, was a shortage of women. The colony’s governor, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, wrote, “The white men are running in the woods after the Indian girls.” About 1720, one solution to cure the shortage of women arrived when the jails of Paris were emptied of prostitutes. The ladies of the evening were given a choice: serve their term in prison or become a colonist in Louisiana. Those who chose the New World quickly became the wives of the men most starved for female companionship. The prisons also served as a source for male colonists. Many thieves, vagabonds, deserters and smugglers also chose to come to Louisiana to avoid prison time. They made for strange company when mixed with aristocrats, indicted for some wrongdoing or another, who also chose New Orleans over the Bastille. New Orleans also lacked education and medical care. Despairing over the conditions, Governor Bienville coaxed the sisters of Ursuline to come from France and assist the new city. The first Ursulines arrived in 1727 and set to work caring for orphans, operating”
― Troy Taylor, Haunted New Orleans: History & Hauntings of the Crescent City