The problem with 99% of paranormal stories and urban legends you read about is that they can all be debunked or are called out for being a hoax. So, it is so exciting to finally get a story, which to this day, has everyone wondering ‘What the hell happened?.’
This is the story of Don Decker aka Rain Boy. It all began in February of 1983. Don, 21 years old from Pennsylvania, was serving a short 4 – 12 month prison sentence for receiving stolen goods, he was granted a furlong to attend the funeral of his Grandfather James Kishaugh. However, what no one knew was that Don has been abused by his grandfather as a child and lived with this burden his entire life.
Don hoped he could move on, “No other part of the family knew anything about what happened, and it was like good fighting evil. The evil was gone and I was hoping, you know, that everything would change.”
After the funeral, Don decided to spend the night with his friends, Bob and Jeannie Keiffer. That is when the unexplained began to happen. While at the Keiffer’s home he started to feel a bit uneasy and he started to get a deep chill. Suddenly, all around him, water began to drip from the living room walls while the Keiffers noticed Don fall into a strange, trance-like state. The Keiffers notified the landlord, Ron Van Why. When Ron and his wife arrived, he was just as puzzled by the problem as the Keiffers.
“We’d decided maybe it was the plumbing, but there were no pipes in the front end of the house to leak. There was basically nothing there that the water could have come from.”
After watching it for a while, I discovered that it wasn’t only coming from the ceiling down. It could come from the wall over or from the floor up. There was no basic direction that it was coming from. It could come from anywhere.”
They then decided it was time to phone the police. Patrolman Richard Wolbert arrived at the scene and couldn’t explain what what happening.
Officer Wolbert recalled the moment he met Don. ‘Trust me, trust me, just walk into the house,’ Don said. I walked in the door and he came right in behind me. And I couldn’t get two steps inside the door and I was absolutely pelted.
Not only was it raining inside, the water drops also defied physics.
“We were standing just inside the front door and met this droplet of water traveling horizontally. It passed between us and just traveled out into the next room.”
Another Officer John Baujan arrived at the scene and was terrified that he was witnessing things, that in reality, he shouldn’t be witnessing. The police decided to make some reports about the incident and the Keiffers and Don decided to grab some food at the diner that is across the street from them. Ron and his wife decided to stay at the house, but as the other three left for the diner, the rain immediately stopped.
That is when things got even more weird.
The owner of the restaurant, Pam Scrofano, noticed something strange about Don as he sat down to eat with the Keiffers; she thought he was possessed.
“You looked at Donny and he was like in a trance. He would look at you, but not knowing you were there. I said to Jeannie, ‘He’s got to be possessed.’ We’re sitting there. Couple of seconds later, there’s water all over the pizzeria, too. I’ve never seen anything like that happen. I went in the cash register, I had a crucifix there, I took it out, put it on him. And the minute I put it on him and it touched his skin, he got burned. There’s no way that anybody could have played a joke like that. This was real. Donny was doing it himself. He was doing it without realizing he was doing it.”
Don now realised that everything that had happened in the house, and now in the restaurant, was because of him. But WHY was this happening? No one knew.
Back at the Keiffer’s house the landlords wife confronted Don and blamed him for everything that was going on. At that moment, everything in the house started rattling, pots and pans in the kitchen were banging together, like an earthquake, except there was no earthquake.
Don suddenly levitated off the ground. He was just floating. Everyone was terrified and no one could explain a thing. Don recalls that frightening moment. ”
I was just like floating. Then it was like a push. It wasn’t like somebody taking their hand and pushing me. It was like feeling it all over your body at once. I’m a big guy, you know, I’ve always been assertive, and that made me felt like a newborn. You know, I’m scared right now just talking about it, really.”
A few hours later the two officers arrived back at the house with their Chief. Officer Baujan explains what happened.
“When the chief got to the house, he was pelted with water just as Rich and I were. I got the impression that he was put on the spot, maybe a little bit embarrassed, like we expected something out of him that he could answer. There was no way to explain what happened. I think he was put in a position where he might have felt a little uncomfortable.”
The Chief just told the officers it was nothing more than a leaky pipe and no report was ever created about the incident. The Chief told them to not talk about it ever again, Officer Baujan was told to forget about what he had saw, but this was impossible.
The next day, three officers ignored the orders of the police chief. They went to the Keiffer home to continue their investigation. One of the officers was Bill Davies:
“We’re standing there and I gave Mr. Decker this gold cross to hold. Next thing he says, ‘It’s burning my hands.’ And there’s no explanation for it. When you picked it up, when you grabbed it, it’s not hot-hot, but it’s hot and I held onto it.”
Don also once again levitated off the floor. Lt. John Rundle said he witnessed it:
“All of a sudden, he lifted up off the ground and he flew across the room with the force as though a bus had hit him. There were three claw marks on the side of his neck, which drew blood. I have no answer for it whatsoever. And, I just draw a blank, even today.”
Officer Bill Davies was also at a loss:
“I’ve been a cop 40 years and I’ve never seen anything like this, never. There’s always an explanation when something happens. If you gotta investigate, you come up with something. This is why it happened. For this case, there is no explanation.”
Finally, on the third night, Ron Van Why asked a preacher to come to the house and try an exorcism. Every Protestant minister and Catholic priest in Stroudsburg had turned Ron down. Ron explained what he saw:
“As she started to pray, Donny went into a convulsion. He started to shake. He pulled himself up into like a ball and the longer she prayed, he started to relax, then. By the time she got done praying, the water was gone. And that was the last that we saw any water at the house at all.”
The mysterious rain was gone and Don Decker appeared to return to his old self. But the change was only temporary. After his furlough, Don returned to jail. Within a few days, the mysterious rain returned, this time, in the jail.
“They put me in a maximum security cell. I was in there with another inmate. And I was thinking I should make it rain in here. And all of a sudden, water started coming out of the concrete floor, and at that point, I thought, ‘I can do stuff.’”
According to Don, he now realized he could control the rain, at will. A sceptical guard challenged him to make it rain in Warden Dave Keenhold’s office. Warden Keenhold recalled:
“I was sitting at the desk, writing a report. I was all by myself in the administration area. Nobody else was around. It was approximately 8:00 in the evening. At the time, I didn’t feel anything, but my shirt was drooping down.”
An officer entered and told Warden Keenhold to look at his shirt:
“And right about the center of my sternum, about four inches long, two inches wide, I was just saturated with water. I was startled. I was scared. The officer was frightened at that particular time, and I just didn’t have an explanation why it happened.”
The Warden called in the Rev. William Blackburn:
“All of a sudden, I received this frantic call from a sergeant in the jail. And he said, ‘Can you come over? We need you. We need your help.’ So he brought this very meek and mild-mannered young man into the room. And he was asking for my help.”
Don told the Reverend that he could make it rain and that crosses placed on his body burned. According to the Reverend Blackburn, he told Don to admit that he was just making things up, then:
“All of a sudden his demeanor changed and this smell came into the room. Nurses and doctors, medical people, say when you walk into a room where someone is dying with a cancer or something, usually there’s a smell. You can tell when you walk in the room. I smelled a smell like that multiplied five times at least. Evil, foreboding. He raised his hand and rubbed his fingers together. And all of a sudden, it started to rain. It was like the devil’s rain. It was a mist. I was in the presence of evil. I opened up the Bible and started to read to him. But the pages never got wet. So help me, it was a frightening thing.
I think I was praying more for me than him. I prayed, and it was only a brief period, and the rain stopped.”
Rev. Blackburn said he noticed a sudden change in Don as well:
“He subsided and you could feel a peace. He said thank you. He got tears in his eyes. We hugged and prayed together. He was possessed. There was no doubt in my mind. There’s no way a human could do what he did in that room. There’s no way that he did anything, but what he did was spiritual, and it wasn’t of God. Guaranteed, it was not of God.”
Don Decker said that he feels like the bizarre occurrences won’t happen again:
“Well it’s over. It hasn’t happened again. Basically, I’m just hoping that it never will, and I just, you know, go day by day. And as for my grandfather, I think what had happened was his doing. Because he abused me when I was young, he got a chance to abuse me again.”
Chip Decker, no relation to Don, and Peter Jordan are the main paranormal researchers on this case. Chip was impressed with the eye-witness accounts:
“I think what makes this case very unique is that all of the witnesses are so credible. We’re dealing with very good, well-seasoned police officers that were obviously rather frightened and shaken by this, but also had the powers of observation.”
Peter Jordan:
“The Donald Decker case is by far the singularly most fascinating and important case I have ever personally been involved in. That does not mean I believe that it necessarily is proof positive to me of demonic infestation. But it is the case, in my own personal experience up to this point, that comes the closest to that hypothesis.”
In all, nine eyewitnesses, plus Don himself, were willing to go on record saying they saw, heard, and felt phenomena apparently not of this world. And they continue to believe Don was possessed by the devil. They have found no other explanation for the bizarre events.
This is my horror 