In 1988, firemen sifting through the ruins of the home of the Amos family,
Devon, found a portrait entitled The Crying Boy. The framed picture of an angelic-looking boy with tears running down his face was not even singed by the flames. Not long afterward, a similar picture was recovered from amongst the ruins of a house in
Bradford, again undamaged. The head of the
Yorkshire Fire Brigade contacted the national press, informing them of this picture which was continuously being discovered in amongst the ruble of burned-out houses. When asked if he thought the picture evil, he refused to comment. Discoveries of the picture are still reported from time to time, still undamaged by the flames. In 1998, the picture was pulled from the ruins of a house in
Dublin,
Ireland.
In 1995, a retired teacher from Devon George Mallory, a famed researcher into the occult, claimed that he had discovered the truth surrounding the painting. He claimed that he had discovered the artist of the painting, a Spanish post-card artist called Franchot Seville, living in Madrid. Seville alleged that the painting was of a young child he had found on the streets of Madrid, with a sorrowful expression in his eyes. A priest had warned him that the child had witnessed his own parents die in an inferno, and since then, wherever he settled, unaccountable blazes started. This led to him being called Diablo (meaning Devil) by the local villagers. Paying no attention to the priest, the artist adopted the child, and became wealthy from his paintings of him. However, when the artists studio mysteriously burned down, the young boy was accused of arson. He burst into tears and ran away, and was not seen since. In 1976 outside Barcelona, a car exploded after hitting a wall. Though the drivers body was charred beyond recognition, police were able to make out his name from his driving license, Don Bonillo, the boy that Seville had adopted.
An urban myth.