The Becker family haunting

Ed Becker's account of a haunted family home that led, in his telling, to an exorcism broadcast by NBC in 1971, the basis of his books and a Screen Gems film project.

The story comes from Ed Becker, told in his books True Haunting and True Haunting 2. A podcast summary of the books says Ed and Marsha Becker moved into a new house in December 1970 and soon found something else was there with them. Deadline, reporting on the film version, says the Beckers decided the house was haunted and looked for an exorcism, and describes it as the first ever shown on television, broadcast by NBC in 1971.

In the story as Deadline relays it, millions of viewers watched, the news segment did well, and the exorcism failed and left the family worse off. No record of the NBC broadcast itself is among these sources, so it rests on Becker's account and the coverage of it.

The story has since moved toward film and into podcasts. Deadline reported in January 2019 that Screen Gems was developing True Haunting, and in February 2022 that Gary Fleder would direct it with Erin Moriarty and Jamie Campbell Bower starring. Podcasts including This is good for my therapy (2021) and And That's Why We Drink (2022) have covered the case.