Detroit occult murders: the fate of Benny Evangelista and his family (10 photos)

Occultism is a direction in which the results of activities cannot be touched, seen or tasted. But you can end up with quite real, tangible problems if you delve very deeply into it.





The murder of healer Benny Evangelista and his family shocked the city of Detroit in 1929. The unsolved occult murder case in Detroit has become the most mysterious and strange in the history of American crime. Who killed the Evangelista family?

Benny Evangelista



Detroit at the beginning of the 20th century

Benjamino Evangelista and his older brother Antonio immigrated to the United States. The brothers arrived from Naples in 1904. Like many other immigrants, Benjamino Americanized his name to Benny Evangelista. They were ready for a better future.

Benny and his brother moved to Philadelphia and lived together for a while. There, Benny became interested in the occult and claimed to receive visions from God. Antonio, being a devout Catholic, was troubled by his brother's visions and the two quarreled.

Benny's brother sent him to work in York. There Benny became friends with another guy from Naples named Aurelius Angelino. The two began to study the occult, exploring the world of dark magic and mysticism. However, this turned out to be deadly. One day Angelino attacked his family and killed his twin sons with an ax.

In 1919, he was sent to the Fairview State Hospital for the Insane.

It is unknown whether something happened that turned the father into a killer. Whatever the reason, Benny was very frightened by what happened. Seeking to get away from his friend and his crimes and find something new, he moved to Detroit.

Life in Detroit



Benny Evangelista

In Detroit, Benny worked as a carpenter and became a successful realtor and homeowner. Having become successful, he settled down and got married. However, at this time he again became interested in the occult. Benny became a self-proclaimed mystical healer and spiritual leader, earning some money on the side to support the household.

He soon became known for selling herbs, love spells, and potions. Benny also performed dances, chants and even performed animal sacrifices for clients. He charged $10 for his services, which was approximately the amount earned in two days at a local factory.



Benny's Basement Dolls

To say that Benny Evangelista was an eccentric is an understatement. The basement of his house on the corner of Saint-Aubin Avenue was turned into a ritual room with a kind of altar. He charged visitors five cents to enter the basement to see images of the gods of the religion he created.

The images of Benny looked convincing, although in reality they were homemade figures made of paper and wax, suspended from the ceiling by wires. He called these figures celestial planets and even created a giant eye that could glow.

Many area residents and Italian immigrants came to Benny for medicine and potions. Some clients, as expected in this line of work, were disappointed by the lack of effect and felt as if they had been deceived or cheated, and that Benny had simply stolen their money.

Dangerous scam



Everything fell into place when on July 3, 1929, Vincent Elias, Evangelista's client, came to Benny to conclude a real estate deal. Elias walked to the basement entrance, noticing that the house was quiet, even though there must have been four small children inside. Elias assumed that Benny was working there and did not hear him knock on the door. Benny was indeed in the basement. But in such a way that Elias rushed after the police like the wind.

The police found Benny Evangelista sitting at his desk, with his hands folded as if in prayer, but without his head. The head lay on the floor near his feet, surrounded by three photographs of a child in a coffin. It was later revealed that he was one of Evangelista's children who had died several years earlier. Why these photographs ended up next to Benny's severed head has never been determined.

The police went upstairs and began looking for the rest of the family. All household members were killed. Benny's wife was found in bed with one and a half year old baby Mario. The mother's head was almost completely severed, and Mario's skull was fractured.



Death is here

Three other children, Angelina (7 years old), Margaret (5 years old) and Jeanne (4 years old), were found in their cribs. Like their brother, the girls' skulls were damaged.

There were no signs of a struggle or robbery. The only clues at the crime scene were bloody footprints leading from Benny and one bloody fingerprint on the doorknob.

Theories



Benny during a session

Many Italian immigrants in the community refused to talk to the police or admit to knowing the Evangelista family. For information about the family, the police contacted Benny's doctor and lawyer.

The doctor painted a damaging picture, describing Benny as an insane religious fanatic. Seeking other explanations, Benny's attorney told officials that the client had been through several lawsuits related to his real estate business. According to the lawyer, these cases were so light that they clearly could not be the reason for the brutal destruction of the family. Police ended up coming up with three theories about what might have happened. The first theory was that the family was killed by an Italian crime ring known as the Black Hand. Notes were discovered threatening Benny, but this theory was quickly dismissed.



At that time, the Black Hand became a thing of the past, becoming an organized crime group. And such occult activities were not their style. Benny was believed to have received extortion notes from someone posing as a gang member, but there was no real connection to organized crime.

According to the second version, the killer was a man who did business with Benny. Police identified the main suspect, who denied any involvement. However, when pressed, he confirmed that he had gone to Evangelista's house the night before the murders.

According to his testimony, nothing strange or bad happened, and he left the house, going out for drinks with a friend. This man came to the attention of the police because just three months earlier he had killed his brother-in-law with a knife. He was believed to have acted in self-defense in this case. Due to the lack of confessions and evidence, the man was excluded as a suspect.



Family funeral

According to the third version, the people were killed by Benny's friend from York, Aurelius Angelino. The murder of his two sons with an ax was very similar to the scene in Evangelista's house. Six years earlier, in 1923, Angelino ran away and was never seen again.

It was speculated that perhaps Angelino had gone to Detroit to seek revenge. A strange feature of the previous case led the police to this theory: bloody fingerprints found in Angelino's house after the murders turned out to belong to Benny.

Did Benny set up his friend, and the unjustly convicted Angelino came to take revenge?

Occult mystery



Almost 100 years have passed since the occult murders of Evangelista, and the case is still not solved. Earning the title of one of the oldest and most gruesome cold cases in the city's history.

Who killed this eccentric businessman, witch doctor and religious fanatic? Why did the rest of his family die? In addition to the official versions, there is another theory. What if Benny Evangelista and his friend Angelino stumbled upon something during their occult explorations? We learned something that no one is allowed to know. And they paid for it with the lives of their relatives and their own.