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Don Decker Poltergeist

Don Decker Poltergeist 1

The year was 1983. In the laid back borough of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, twenty one year-old Don Decker had just been sent to serve his sentence of a full year in prison for receiving stolen property. He had been quietly serving his time when Don received  news of his grandfather’s death in February of that year. Given a weekend furlough, Don went back home to attend his grandfather’s funeral. When Don approached the casket, a tsunami of emotions ran through his head. Unbeknownst to many, his grandfather had abused him as a child. Years of repressed anger washed over his blank stare as he stood in front of his grandfather. Don left the funeral home soon after. It wasn’t until that night that Don’s story takes a surprise turn into the unexplained. The night of the funeral would be the beginning of a peculiar poltergeist case, The Stoudsburg Rain Man.

That Night

Don Decker’s mother didn’t want anything to do with her son. She barred him from stepping foot in her home, thus forcing Don to take refuge under  the roof of some friends of the family. Bob and Jeannie Keiffer knew Don since he was a little boy and had no qualms about taking in a convicted man into their home. Don had always been a good kid, he’d just gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd.
That night at the Keiffer’s, an unsettling feeling chilled its way up Don’s spine while sitting in the living room watching television. In Don’s head a firestorm of emotions brewed in what seemed like a sudden panic attack. Within moments water began dripping from the room’s ceiling, creeping out Don and the Keiffers alike. Strangely, Bob knew that there were no water pipes that run up or down, side to side on that side of their home. He decided to call in his landlord so that he could take a look.
Ron H. Van Why arrived shortly after Bob’s phone call. Ron knew the layout of his house and was dumbfounded when he too witnessed the water coming from the ceiling. Then the family noticed something else. Water seemed to be coming out from the walls and floor. Don remembers feeling an extreme coldness around him that night. Soon after he would fall into a trance like state, quietly staring straight into nothingness.
Ron decided to call the police. He figured they could assist them or solve the mystery of the phantom water.

Police Become Witness

When Patrolman John Baujan and Richard Wolbert arrived at the house, they walked into the living room to observe water dripping from the walls, ceiling, and floor. As they begin to inspect the room, the patrolmen see water drops begin to travel horizontally,


Office John Braujan (Right)

meaning from wall to wall. They froze in a state of sheer wonder and fear. Just then, to add to their chill, they both observe water droplets hover in mid-air and travel out of the room. Within minutes of being at the premise, the patrolmen were soaked through and through from head to toe.

Meanwhile Don’s trance-like look hadn’t abated. In fact, he looked to be in too bad of shape that officer Richard Wolbert suggested they leave the premise and go wait at the local pizzeria until they figured out what was happening inside the house. Ron decided to stay with the officers and his house to help them figure out the strange situation before them. As soon as Don and the Keiffers left the house, the mysterious rain stopped entirely. Walls, floors, and ceiling began drying up while the coldness inside the house vaporized.
Ron began to think that one of the three were responsible for the water.

Raining Pizzeria

Pam Scrofano owned the pizza shop and had witnessed the strange rain when she visited the Keiffers earlier that day. She was convinced that Donny had become possessed by something evil. At that moment, Don snapped out of his trance and could remember everything that had transpired since he was at the house watching television. Don knew that he somehow was to blame for the mysterious rainfall. Things only started as soon as he left the funeral home earlier that day.


All three of them soon left the pizzeria and to no one’s surprise, the rain stopped inside the pizzeria as soon as Don left. They were certain Don was the culprit, they decided to go back home.

As soon as the arrived at the house, Don walked in and the waterworks began. This time, pots and pans in the kitchen began vibrating and rattling off the countertops whenever Don approached. Tired of what was going on, Ron’s wife accused Donny of perpetrating a hoax. With fingers pointing at him, Don begins to feel cornered and pressured. Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when in front of many, Don appears to levitate inches from the ground and is thrown violently across the room.

Wet Police Chief

It had been well over 24 hours at this point when the patrolmen returned, this time with the chief of police in tow. As soon as the police chief walked into the house, he was bombarded with water drops, some traveling horizontally like before. Immediately his uniform became saturated with water from the mysterious mist cloud that now hovered inside the room. The police chief was unnerved by what he was seeing and decided to order his men out. He told them that this was a plumbing issue and to not file a standard police report. The three of them quickly left afterwards, leaving the rest to figure out the phenomenon.

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Afterwards, things settled down the best they could. The very next day the officers had returned. Ignoring the straight orders of the police chief, they had also brought along some other partners of the precinct. Bill Davies was one of them:


Soon after officer Bill Davies’ observation, Lt. John Rundle witnessed yet another levitation by Donny.




Attempted Exorcism

Ron remained adamant about helping Donny out. He had observed more and more strange phenomena inside his house and was fully convinced that Donny had no part in it, at least not willingly. Ron began calling Catholic priests around town, hoping to get an exorcism for Donny. The Catholic Church does not do them on a whim, there exists strict and meticulous criteria a case must meet before granting the exorcism. Ron and the rest had no time, they contacted a local Evangelical preacher who agreed to do the exorcism.


As they prayed, Donny began to convulse violently. He writhed and gritted his teeth while laying on the floor. The preacher continued with the ritual. Hours later things seemed to have stopped. The rain vanished and the coldness left. Don began to instantly feel better, as if whatever had taken ahold of him had released him from its demonic grip.

The next few days, things appeared to fall back into normalcy.

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Jailhouse Rain

Don’s furlough came to an end and was admitted back into prison. While in his cell, Don thought about his ordeal during the last few days and wondered if he was able to manifest water on the whim. He concentrated lightly and to his surprise, water began seeping from all over his prison cell.

The guards quickly accused Don of throwing water from the sink and threatened disciplinary action. When Don told them that he had the ability to summon water, they scoffed at his face. One of the prison guards then dared Don to make it rain inside the prison Warden’s office. Don accepted the challenge and began to concentrate on the request.


Over at the Warden’s office, Lt. David Keenhold was the temporary Warden and had been filling out reports all day. He was unaware of the situation with Don and his unique ability. A few guards knocked on his door to check to see if Don really had the power to manifest water and much to their horror, they walked in to see a lieutenant with a completely drenched shirt. Lt. Keenhold hadn’t noticed his soaking wet shirt until they men burst into this office. They all sat mystified and unnerved.

Lt. Keenhold then called for reverend William Blackburn, a local clergy whom he had befriended. Upon arrival Rev. Blackburn listed to what had happened to Don just a few days ago and confronted Don and accused him of making it all up. Don’s demeanor instantly changed as he closed his eyes in concentration.

The room was instantly engulfed in a miasma of a strong, foul odor. Many management and administration personnel were witnesses to the events. With all the commotion happening, Don raised his hand and began rubbing his fingers together to produce a thick mist that quickly covered the room. Everyone and everything was completely drenched.

The reverend then proceeded with a ritual in which Don and him prayed for hours. Soon, things began to lift inside the cell, causing Don to breakdown in tears.

It was all over. When Rev. William Blackburn was finished, Don had a newfound sense of peace within him. It would be the last time he would be able to manifest rain.


The Don Decker case is for some reason one of the lesser known poltergeist cases. Maybe it could be that people confused Don’s poltergeist with some superpower to produce rain on a whim. More of a science fiction story than a paranormal story.

I’ve always considered Don Decker’s account one of the more poignant poltergeist cases out there. Not only do we have a great number of witnesses, but many of them were trained observers. Officers of the law.

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What I find fascinating is the correlation between Don’s initial emotional outburst and the succession of the paranormal phenomenon. Meaning to say that when Don was finally confronted with his tormentor, a man who had been abusing him since childhood, his emotions got the best of him.

Don wasn’t allowed to express his feelings. He did not release the pent up anger he’d been harboring since childhood. The anger and feeling of misunderstanding that pushed him to a life of crime. Don was angry! And the person responsible for his anger was gone.

I’ve studied several cases of poltergeist phenomena and have noticed the trend in pre-adolescent and  post-traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D) and the sudden outburst of kinetic energy, or psychokinetic energy. A.K.A the poltergeist phenomena. Most, but not all, cases involve sexual abuse.

What else makes this case an important one is that one must remember that Don had never gone through this again. Only when he faced his aggressor, when the years of repressed anger came to a head, only then did the strangeness begin.

The sudden appearance of water, or the ability to directly influence it was been tied to poltergeist phenomena for years. One such famous case is the Jackie Hernandez case of San Pedro California. A case in where a viscous matter began to seep out from walls and ceilings of a small duplex. The liquid was later analyzed to be human blood plasma. Another Californian case was that of Doris Bither, or They Entity.

Unknown to most, the Doris Bither case also included instances of water permeating through walls, making them appear to “sweat”.

Of course it’s not known why this happens and why it is so rare.

To many, Don Decker’s story is just that, a story. To those who were there his story is one of the most incredible things they have ever witnessed. As far as poltergeist cases, Don Decker’s case give a bit of credence to the possibility of the existence of psychokinetic energy.

Sources: Usolved / Pocono Record

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