Did the Infamous ‘Poltergeist Girl’ Really Kill Her Daughter?
Christina Boyer (also known as Tina Resch) was twice a media darling, and neither time to her benefit. As a 14-year-old, Christina made headlines thanks to claims made by her, her parents, and an expert that she was either possessed or had telekinetic powers, causing her to be plagued by all sorts of paranormal activity—hence her nickname, “the Poltergeist Girl.” As an adult, that reputation did her no favors when she was accused of killing her 3-year-old daughter Amber and took a deal to avoid facing death penalty charges, thereby landing her in Georgia’s Pulaski State Prison for life plus 20 years.
Demons and Saviors, a three-part ABC News docuseries premiering Aug. 3 on Hulu, is both a revisitation of this sensationalistic life story and an activist attempt to set her free—since, as it ultimately reveals, many believe she’s innocent of murdering her child, and that the real culprit was her then-boyfriend David Herrin, who was found guilty of a cruelty-to-children charge and sentenced to two decades behind bars. Led by Christina’s own prison-phone-call narration, and featuring interviews with those on both sides of this still-raging legal debate, the series undeniably skews in favor of Christina’s innocence. No matter its own viewpoint, though, its overarching portrait is a muddy one, filled with questions without answers and complicated suspects who all seem to bear some responsibility for what took place.
Before it gets to Amber’s death, Demons and Saviors flashes back to 1984, when teenage Christina began experiencing inexplicable phenomena: alarm clocks, televisions, and other electronic devices that went haywire and/or didn’t turn off even when unplugged; flickering lights; silverware bending and flying about the kitchen; and objects moving around her house in Columbus, Ohio. Her devout adoptive parents, Joan and John Resch, interpreted these occurrences as signs that Christina was possessed. They turned to The Columbus Dispatch, whose reporter and photographer witnessed a phone leap across Christina and ran a front-page story about it accompanied by a picture of that fateful moment. That, in turn, attracted the attention of William G. Roll, a Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based paranormal professional who—according to his “intuitive guide” assistant Kelly Powers—moved into the Resch home and began scientifically studying Christina.