An alcoholic father drowned in an attempted “exorcism” after his son decided to confront the “demon” he saw in his father’s eyes, a Massachusetts court heard.
Jack Callahan, 22, has been tried for the murder of his father Scott, 57, who was found by police floating in a pond outside Duxbury in June 2021.
The 19-year-old told police his banker father was possessed by a demon called ‘Dirty Dan’ who he thought could be destroyed through baptism.
Callahan was driving her father home from a Boston bar when her mother, Wendy, called to tell her that she would not allow her ex-husband in her house, and the young man asked the taxi driver to stop by the pond.
He grabbed his father and repeatedly submerged his head under water, telling police officers: “I left him there to decide: you can come to heaven with me or you can come to hell.” I think he chose hell.
Jack Callahan, 22, is pictured to the left of his father Scott alongside his mother Wendy and two brothers Will and Charlie in 2016. The parents divorced when Jack allegedly murdered his father in June 2021.
Jack Callahan, 22, has gone on trial for the murder of his father Scott during an ‘exorcism’
Police found Scott Callahan (pictured with an unnamed woman) dead in a pond outside Duxbury, Massachusetts, in July 2021.
Jack Callahan told police he had been driving his father home from a bar when they stopped by Island Creek Pond, where his father began attacking him.
Scott Callahan’s obituary reported that he was a senior vice president at Texas Capital Bank and had an “extensive career in finance.”
He had been receiving treatment for alcoholism at a Hopkinton facility before checking himself out and heading to the Boston bar.
The teen called an Uber to bring him back to the $1.5 million home in Duxbury and said his father began attacking him when he asked the driver to stop around midnight.
“He indicated that the victim had been punching him in the face,” Plymouth Deputy District Attorney Shanan Buckingham said at Callahan’s 2021 arraignment.
‘He went on to state that in this incident at the pond, he believed he was baptizing his father.
‘He described holding his father in the pond face up as if he were a baby, continually dunking the father’s head in the water four to eight times, and raising his head when the father began to cough and choke. above.
And then, when the father began to fight and hit him, he would push his head into the water.
“He did it until his father could no longer fight or float.”
Jack Callahan, 21, cried as he entered his first not guilty plea at Plymouth District Court in 2021.
According to Buckingham, Callahan held his father in the pond face up as if he were a baby and continually dipped his head into the water four to eight times.
Authorities said Callahan went to a bar in Boston on Sunday night to pick up his father, Scott Callahan, 57, who was not supposed to be drinking.
Scott Callahan’s obituary reported that he was a senior vice president at Texas Capital Bank and had an “extensive career in finance.”
The family lived in this $1.5 million, five-bedroom home outside of Duxbury.
Wendy Callahan with her sons Jack, Will and Charlie one year before Scott’s death
Wendy Callahan with her sons Jack and Will at a birthday dinner in 2019
Scott Callahan had been receiving treatment for alcoholism at a facility in Hopkinton before checking out and heading to a Boston bar on his last night.
Jack Callahan told police they stopped by the pond after Wendy Callahan told him she didn’t want her ex-husband in the house.
Officers attempted to perform CPR on the Colorado State University graduate before he was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth, where he was pronounced dead.
The teen’s mother finally saw him arrive home in soaked clothes around 2 a.m. when she called police to tell them she was having a mental health episode and that her ex-husband was missing.
“The mother indicated that the defendant had not exhibited this behavior before and had no history of mental illness,” Buckingham said.
Police called an ambulance after finding Callahan “excited and distressed,” hyperventilating and fainting.
He told them that his father hit him and that he didn’t know where he was: ‘He’s missing. I do not know what happened. I fainted.’
He eventually directed police to Crooker Memorial Park, where officers found Scott in Island Creek Pond.
Officers attempted to perform CPR on the Colorado State University graduate before he was taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth, where he was pronounced dead.
The teenager was arrested the next day and cried in court as he pleaded not guilty at the first hearing of 2021.
Callahan’s attorney, Kevin Reddington, asked the judge to send the teen to Bridgewater State Hospital for a mental health evaluation, warning that he was a danger to himself.
“He’s a very nice young man,” Reddington said, “he comes from a wonderful family.”
Plymouth Superior Court Judge William Sullivan is hearing the case, which is expected to take ten days.
The public gallery was packed when the trial began on Friday.
‘My client was worried about his father, knowing he would be drinking and knowing he shouldn’t be.
“I was going to try to get him back to where he should be.”
His mother told the court that he had been living with a brother in Colorado and had to leave his job in the logging industry after injuring his back before returning to Duxbury to live with his mother.
Callahan has pleaded not guilty to murder and the trial is expected to last 10 days.