By Charlene Lowe Kemp

When Hasbro trademarked the Oujia in 1991, the tradition of the board can be traced back to much further than that.

Many believe the Oujia Board to be a portal to the spirit world, while others will argue it is nothing more than a parlour trick.

Whatever you believe, there have been many crimes commited which the ones involved, admitted that they believed it was to do with a seance they conducted at some time with a oujia board where they have stated spirits have took over a person, instructed people to do the unbelievable and hurt, attack and even kill the people they are most close to.

”Demon Within”

Bessie Gilmore claimed to have contacted a demon as a child while playing with a Ouija board. She believed that the entity became attached to her family after her two sisters were paralyzed and killed.

Years later, she married and began living with her mother-in-law, Fay, who was a medium. After an séance, she came home to discover Fay was exhausted and helped her to bed. She later woke up to a feeling of being touched and stated that she had saw an inhuman face leering at her in the darkness. Shocked, She looked to Fay, who was staggering toward her, she told her to get out and shouted, “It knows who you are!”

Rushing through the house to get her children, Bessie discovered the creature now was standing over her son Gary, and was looking at him directly in his eyes. They managed to get out but Gary was plagued with nightmares for years after and Bessie believed that her son could been possessed.

When Gary Gilmore was older he was executed by firing squad in 1977 for the murder of two men. Bessie said that the ones who committed the crimes was not her son, but was the demon that dwelt inside him.

Interestingly, Gary’s last words before execution were, “Let’s do it” which earned him fame when advertising executive Dan Wieden credited his parting words as the inspiration for Nike’s tagline.

”KILL YOUR FATHER!”

One of the most famous murder cases connected to a Ouija board involved Dorothea Irene Turley. In 1933 she was convicted of assault and intent to murder her husband Ernest in the White Mountains of Arizona.

Mattie, Dorothea’s daughter told her mother that she wished to marry a handsome cowboy. The two decided to do a Ouija board which soon began instructing Mattie to kill her father.

Dorothea had told her daughter that “could not be denied”. Days later, while Dorothea and Mattie’s brother was in town, Mattie shot her father twice in the back while he was carrying a milk pail.

Immediately Mattie had regretted what she had done and ran for help, Ernest died in hospital weeks later. Mattie confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a state reformatory and paroled after three years. Dorothea’s conviction was reversed by the state Supreme Court, but the two never reconciled.

The Urgent Message

In 2001 Carol Sue Elvakar did a séance with her daughter and granddaughters and received an urgent message through her Ouija board that her son-in-law Brian Roach was possessed by evil and had to be destroyed.

Carol stabbed Brian in the chest while he was sleeping, shortly after, Leaving him to bleed to death. She got the other family members to the car, drove off, but soon steered the car off the road and began to attack her 15-year-old granddaughter because she’d come to believe she was evil as well.

She then ran from the car, stripped off her clothes, and jumped a highway median before running into the woods. This is where the police would later find her hiding. Although Carol was charged with first-degree murder, she was also judged insane and has been institutionalized. Her daughter was also charged as an accessory for hiding the knife, supplying the getaway vehicle and enabling child abuse.