March 6, 2026

Best of 2025: Ed and Lorraine Warren: The True Story Behind Annabelle, Amityville and The Conjuring

Best of 2025: Ed and Lorraine Warren: The True Story Behind Annabelle, Amityville and The Conjuring
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This Friday on Weekly Spooky, we’re bringing back one of the biggest and most exhaustive episodes of Terrifying & True we’ve ever produced.

In this special episode we take a long, hard look at the couple who became the most famous names in American paranormal investigation. From Amityville and Annabelle to the cases that helped inspire The Conjuring, this episode explores how the Warrens built their legend — and why that legend remains so controversial.

We follow their rise from local investigators to national figures in the world of hauntings, possessions, and demonology, then dig into the doubts, criticism, and conflicting accounts that have followed them for decades. It’s a deep dive into belief, fear, fame, folklore, and the uneasy space where the paranormal collides with performance.

Because this is a Best of 2025 re-air, it’s the perfect chance to catch an episode that listeners may have missed the first time around — especially if you’re fascinated by haunted history, real-life paranormal cases, or the truth behind some of horror’s most famous stories.

Inside this episode
:• The rise of Ed and Lorraine Warren
• The real stories connected to Amityville, Annabelle, and The Conjuring
• Their occult museum and public image
• The skeptics, critics, and controversies surrounding their work
• Why their legacy still shapes paranormal culture today

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

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📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!


🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT

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A door creaks, a cassette wheel ticks in the glass.

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A rag doll's blank face stares back positively. Do not open.

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The sign warns they said demons lived here, they said

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they had proof, and tonight we're conjuring up the truth

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about Ed and Lorraine Warren.

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What you were about to pet you is purve to

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be wheel based on witness accounts, testimonies, and puply record,

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this is terrifying and true.

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Rhode Island, nineteen seventy three. A farmhouse stands in the

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coal kitchen stove worm with the touch of a visiting

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claravoyant name given Bathsheba. Across decades, similar scenes would repeat,

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a demonologist with a crucifix, a medium in trance, and

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families pleading for help. Their names Ed and Lorraine Warren

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became synonymous with America's most famous hauntings, Amityville, Annabelle Enfield, Southington.

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But behind televised seances and crowded lecture halls lies another record.

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Skeptical investigations, contested evidence, and bitter disputes were the Warren's

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righteous sentinels against the inhuman or master storytellers in an

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age eager for devils. Tonight, we retrace the devil's road

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from basement museums and ghost boy photographs to courtrooms, interviews

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and sworn statements to weigh belief against proof. If their

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legend is true, we'll find the marks it left, and

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if it isn't, we may discover why so many wanted

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it to be. We're telling that story tonight. Late one

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autumn evening in nineteen seventy three, a pair of strangers

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knocked on the door of a weathered farmhouse in Rhode Island.

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The couple, a soft spoken woman clutching a rosary and

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a rugged man carrying a briefcase of holy water and tapers,

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introduced themselves as Lorraine and Ed Warren, Catholic paranormal investigators.

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They had heard about the paren family's desperate plight, a

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presence in the house that lurked in cold rooms, and

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whispered in the dark that night. As the story goes,

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Lorraine closed her eyes and pressed her hand to an

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old iron stove in the kitchen. After a long silence,

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she announced, I sense a malignant entity in this house.

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Her name is Bathsheba. The Warrens believed an evil spirit

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had latched on to the family. Over the following weeks,

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they would sweep through the paren's drafty, New England home

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with crucifixes, relics, and cassette decks, determined to document the

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haunting and drive out the darkness. For decades, scenes like

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this played out across America. Ed and Lorraine Warren presented

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themselves as the nation's premier ghost hunters demonologists on a

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mission from God. They became famous for confronting what they

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described as real demons and malevolent spirits tormenting ordinary families.

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By their own account, the Warrens investigated well over ten

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thousand hauntings over five decades. They were devout Roman Catholics

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who saw their work as a calling to prove that

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the devil exists and to help people who had nowhere

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else to turn in the public eye. They were a

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unique husband and wife team of self taught paranormal investigators.

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Ed a World War II veteran and self described demonologist,

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and Lorraine, a gentle claravoyant and trance medium. Together they

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founded the New England Society for Psychic Research or NESPER

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in nineteen fifty two, which they claimed was the oldest

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ghost hunting group in New England. In their lectures and books,

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they often noted that Ed was the only non ordained

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demonologist recognized by the Catholic Church, while Lorraine was a

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gifted psychic armed with crucifixes, holy water, and empathy. The

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Warrens cast themselves as the first and often last line

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of defense against the supernatural. Throughout the nineteen seventies and eighties,

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an era fascinated by exorcisms and haunted houses, Ed and

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Lorraine became household names. They appeared on talk shows, in

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newspaper features, and later served as inspiration for a blockbuster

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Hollywood franchise. In the conjuring to the public who devoured

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their stories, the Warrens were heroes, sweet demon showing soulmates

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who chased evil across America. In these accounts, they emerged

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as devout warriors combating Satan himself in suburban living rooms,

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their love and faith unshaken by the terrors they encountered. Quote.

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For over five decades, Ed and Lorraine Warren have been

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known as the world's most renowned paranormal investigators. One early

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biography declared, continuing, Lorraine is a gifted claravoyant, while Ed

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is the only non ordained demonologist recognized by the Catholic Church. Together,

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they have investigated thousands of hauntings. But that is only

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part of the story. As we journey down the Warren's trail,

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from the infamous Amityville horror House to the mysterious rag

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doll named Annabel, from quiet New England hamlets to sensational

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televised exorcisms, we will see two portraits emerge. First, we

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explore Ed and Lorraine's own narrative, their origins, their methods,

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and the cases that built their legend. In this portion,

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their claims and exploits are presented largely as they told them,

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in a serious but open minded tone. Then, about a

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quarter way through our path will shift will step into

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the shoes of investigators and skeptics who began to question

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the Warren's legacy. What really happened in those houses, How

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much of the Warren's story stands up to scrutiny, and

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how much was a product of media hype, creative embellishment,

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or even outright deception. What you are about to hear

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is a comprehensive three hundred and sixty degree expose of

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Ed and Lorraine Warren. It's a story of faith and fear,

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of the things that go bump in the night, and

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of the fine line between belief and disbelief. By the end,

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we'll confront the uncomfortable contradictions behind the warm, heroic image

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of the Warrens. We'll hear from families who once sought

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their help but later felt misled, from journalists and skeptical

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investigators who dug into the evidence and found it wanting,

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and even from legal records that hint at troubling secrets

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behind closed doors. It's a journey that will take us

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from the dim light of seance rooms to the harsh

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glare of courtroom testimonies and media investigations. So settle in

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and be not afraid. Our exploration of the Warren's world

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begins where theirs so often did, with a house, a family,

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and an inexplicable knock in the dark. Ed and Lorraine

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Warren's reputation as paranormal investigators did not spring up overnight.

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It was the result of years of passionate, albeit unorthodox work.

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Edward Warren Miney was born in nineteen twenty six and

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raised in a haunted house, at least according to him,

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in Bridgeport, Connecticut. As ed told it. The home he

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grew up in had a ghostly presence, doors would inexplicably bang,

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strange lights appeared, and he claimed to have seen an

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apparition in his bedroom closet as a boy. This early

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brush with the unknown kindled Ed's lifelong fascination with the paranormal.

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After serving in World War II, Ed married Lorraine Rita Moran,

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a schoolgirl sweetheart from Bridgeport, in nineteen forty five. Lorraine,

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born in nineteen twenty seven, had her own mystical origin story.

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From a young age, she purportedly could see auras and

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discern spirits around people. Though initially frightened by these abilities,

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Lorraine came to accept her gift of Clara Void as

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God given. Together Ed and Lorraine would forge a unique partnership,

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blending religion, art, and ghost hunting in equal measure. In

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the early years of their marriage, Ed attended art school

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and painted landscapes, but his real passion lay in painting

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haunted houses. According to accounts the Warrens later shared, Ed

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developed a clever technique in order to get inside reputedly

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haunted homes. Whenever he caught wind of a local ghost

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story or a house known for strange occurrences. He and

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Lorraine would drive to the site and Ed would sketch

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or paint the house. He was talented enough that often

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the homeowners would notice the young man outside drawing their

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beloved If spooky residents, Ed would then offer the finished

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sketch to the owners. It was a friendly gesture that

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frequently opened the door literally to a conversation. Once invited in,

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Ed and Lorraine would politely inquire about any strange happenings

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and ask the family to share their story. In Lorraine's words,

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the goal was simple, to help the family understand what

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was happening and to document proof of the supernatural. By

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nineteen fifty two, the couple formalized their hobby into the

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previously mentioned New England Society for Psychic Research. Working from

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the modest home they purchased in Monroe, Connecticut, the Warrens

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began to accumulate case files and equipment. Ed read everything

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he could about demonology, the study of demons and evil spirits,

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and styled himself a demonologist despite having no formal theological training.

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Lorraine honed her clairvoyant skills and later learned to enter

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light trances during investigations attempting to communicate with any spirits present. Crucially,

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the Warrens also networked with clergymen and doctors who were

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open to paranormal possibilities. They liked to say their team

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included medical doctors, researchers, police officers, nurses, college students, and

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members of the clergy. If a case seemed truly dangerous

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or demonic, Ed and Lorraine would urge the family to

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seek a Catholic priest to perform a house blessing or exorcism.

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A devout Catholic, Ed positioned himself as a bridge between

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frightened lay people and the official church authorities who were

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capable of sanctioning exorcisms. In fact, the Warrens claim that

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Ed was one of the only few lay demonologists to

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be recognized by Catholic Church officials, though the church has

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never officially confirmed recognizing any lay demonologists. The Warren's methodology

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typically went like this. They would arrive at a client's

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home armed with their taper, coorders, cameras, still and video,

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and religious items. Lorraine might walk through each room eyes

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half closed, reading the psychic atmosphere. Ed would interview the

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family members at length, taking notes on every knock, cold spot,

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or nightmare they had experienced. He was also known for

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delivering lengthy Catholic prayers or provocative challenges to whatever entity

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might be lurking. In the name of Jesus Christ, I

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command you to reveal your identity, he might declare, into

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the darkness of an empty basement. If knocks or crashes

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answered back, Ed took it as progress. Over time, Ed

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amassed a library of ghostly audio recordings and blurry photographs,

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which he believed were hard evidence of the supernatural. Lorraine's

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sensitive impressions, combined with Ed's collected data, would be analyzed

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to form a diagnosis. Was the house truly haunted by

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a human spirit or ghost, or was something more ominous

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at work, a demonic infestation. Perhaps for the Warrens, demonic

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phenomena had a very specific profile. Ed often lectured about

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a progression infestation. A presence makes itself known with mild activity,

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followed by oppression, escalating attacks on an occupant such as shoves,

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terrible visions, or psychological torment, potentially leading to possession, wherein

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a demonic entity takes control of a person. In Ed

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and Lorraine's worldview, shaped by traditional Catholic demonology. These dark

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forces could be driven out only by invoking God and

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the Church. They saw themselves as spiritual warriors, aiding the

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Church's fight against the adversary, the devil. Over the years,

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they cultivated contacts with a handful of priests willing to

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participate in exorcisms or house blessings at their request. Quote

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it wasn't just ed and I, Lorraine reminded one reporter,

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the cream of the Catholic Church was involved in our cases,

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and there was tremendous documentation that cooperation with clergy lent

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an air of legitimacy to the Warren's most extreme cases

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and often helped in obtaining official Church sanctioned exorcisms when needed.

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One hallmark of the Warren's cases was their growing collection

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of haunted artifacts. If a particular item seemed to be

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focused on evil, a cursed doll, a ouiji board, a

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sinister mirror ed, and Lorraine would often remove it from

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the house, believing this would deprive the spirit of a conduit.

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By the nineteen seventies, the basement of their Monroe home

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was being filled wall to wall with occult oddities and

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supposedly possessed possessions. In time, it became the Warren's private museum,

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a locked room of horrors where they store everything from

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Satanic ritual paraphernalia to the infamous Annabel Doll more on

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her a little later. Ed would say these items were

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still dangerous, but safer under glass thanks to the prayers

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and blessings placed on them. The museum eventually opened for tours,

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allowing curious visitors for a modest fee to see the

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eerie collection, but only under the watchful eye of the

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Warrens or their trusted associates. Lorraine in particular stressed that

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these objects were not curios for amusement. Quote, don't even

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touch them. We have a priest blessed the room regularly,

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but if you disrespect what's in there, it could be

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very bad, she'd warn tour goers. As their fame grew,

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the Warrens began lecturing at colleges and appearing in the

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media to share tales of their most harrowing encounters. Ed

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was the more blunt and forceful speaker, while Lorraine's gentle

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sincerity tempered the tone. It was an effective balance. Together,

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they would admonish audiences that, yes, the devil is real.

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But so is God, and faith is your strongest weapon.

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They displayed spooky photographs of floating blobs or glowing eyes,

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played scratchy audio recordings of ghostly voices captured on tape,

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and held up crucifixes they claimed had successfully fended off demons.

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All of this it was done with a serious, matter

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of fact demeanor. By the late nineteen seventies, Ed and

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Lorraine had carved out a very specific niche. They weren't

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mere ghostbusters for hire. They were Catholic demonologist and medium,

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a duo who could tackle the cases too frightening for others.

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They would often emphasize that they charged nothing for their services, quote,

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we'll take donations for gas, but we never once charged

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a family in need. Ed once said their income instead

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would come soon from books and lectures, the telling of

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the tales, rather than the investigations themselves. To understand how

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the Warrens convinced so many people of their credibility, one

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must remember the era. The late nineteen sixties and nineteen

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seventies saw an explosion of public interest in the paranormal.

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The Exorcist was a box office smash in nineteen seventy three,

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making demonic possession part of water cooler conversation. Best Selling

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books like The Amityville Horror nineteen seventy seven and Sybil

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nineteen seventy three about alleged demonic abuse blurred the lines

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between fact and horror fiction. Amid the occult tinge zeitgeist.

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The Warren's real life cases offered a tantalizing promise this

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nightmare actually happened, ed and Lorraine's timing was perfect. They became,

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as one writer later put it, the found of modern

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paranormal investigation in America. They offered simple moral clarity in

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a murky realm. Every story they told had the same moral.

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Evil is real, but with faith and the Warren's help,

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ordinary people could fight back. Lorraine often said their mission

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was quote to help people not be afraid anymore. Ironically,

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their cases would end up scaring millions, but that was

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never the Warren's stated intention. They saw themselves as educators

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as much as investigators, teaching the public how to recognize

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a demon's subtle signs, or why one should never ever

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invite trouble by dabbling with seances or Ouiji boards. If

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you listened to Ed and Lorraine in those days, you'd

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likely come away convinced that ghostly and demonic forces lurked everywhere,

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but also reassured that this kindly couple from Connecticut had

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the know how to handle them. Before long, Ed and

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Lorraine Warren had amassed a roster of famous hauntings that

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would cement their legend. They went from obscure hobbyists to

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bonafide paranormal experts in the public eye, partly through the

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dramatic cases we're about to delve into. In these cases,

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the ones that inspired blockbuster films and countless debates, we

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see the Warrens as they saw themselves, intrepid investigators confronting darkness,

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armed with little more than a crucifix, a tape recorder,

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and an unshakable faith. So let's step into the dimly

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lit hallways of some of the Warren's most famous cases,

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where reality and the supernatural supposedly intersect. For now, we

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will recount these stories largely as the Warrens and their

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supporters have described them, without any judgment or commentary. Later,

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we'll revisit them with a more critical eye. So keep

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your flashlight handy. No case did more to catapult Ed

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and Lorraine Warren into the public spotlight than the Amityville Horror.

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To this day, mention of Amityville conjures images of the

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iconic Dutch colonial house with its quarter moon eye windows

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glowing in the night and rumors of demonic eyes glowing

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from within. The Warrens were among the first investigators to

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explore this notorious haunting, and it became a cornerstone of

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their fame. In December of nineteen seventy five, George and

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Kathy Lutz fled their dream home at one twelve Ocean

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Avenue in Amityville, New York after just twenty eight days,

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claiming they'd been terrorized by violent supernatural forces. The previous year,

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a gruesome tragedy had occurred in that very house. A

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young man, Ronald d'afayo Junior, had murdered his entire family.

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The Lutzes moved in not long after, fully aware of

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the crime but unfazed until strange things began to happen.

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According to their account later published in Jay Anson's nineteen

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seventy seven book The Amityville Horror, the family experienced foul odors,

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swarms of flies in the winter, unexplained cold spots, and

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a malicious, unseen presence. Kathy Lutz claimed she levitated off

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her bed one night. George Lutz woke at three point

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fifteen am, the approximate time of the Dafao murders, every morning,

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in a panic. The most vivid detail, however, was the

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apparition of a demonic pig with glowing red eyes that

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their young daughter, Missy, named Jody. After a final night

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of banging drums, cloven hoof prints in the snow, and

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walls oozing green slime, so the story goes, the Lutz

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family could endure no more. They left all of their

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worldly possessions and ran enter Ed and Lorraine Warren in

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early nineteen seventy six. Not long after the Lutzes fled,

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the Warrens were called in by a local TV news

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team and paranormal researchers to investigate the now empty Amityville house. Ed, Lorraine,

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and a crew of a few others spent a long

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night inside one twelve Ocean Appa Revenue on March sixth,

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nineteen seventy six, Lorraine conducted a seance in the dimly

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lit living room. At one point, the clairvoyant became overwhelmed

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by what she sensed. She later said the demonic presence

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in Amityville was the worst she had ever encountered. In

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a later interview, Lorraine recalled the oppressive evil that seemed

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to permeate the house and how she clutched her rosary

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praying for protection. Ed meanwhile moved from room to room

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00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:47.599
with the crucifix and a recorder. In the upstairs sewing room,

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which had been the bedroom of two murdered De Fayo boys,

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Ed provoked the spirit. He claimed that an invisible force

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threw him to the floor in that room, momentarily knocking

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him unconscious. The Warrens also set up a time lapse

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camera on the second floor. When the film was developed,

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it revealed a now famous photograph a young boy with

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glowing white eyes peeking out of a doorway on the

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landing what became known as the Amityville Ghost Boy. There

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were no children in the house that night. The Warrens

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00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:36.519
team insists this was a spirit, though skeptics suspect it

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was an investigator kneeling and the glowing eyes were an

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artifact of the infrared camera. The Amityville investigation turned Ed

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and Lorraine Warren into authorities on the paranormal. Virtually overnight

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the story of the LUTs haunting became a media sensation.

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It inspired a best selling book, and, by nineteen seventy nine,

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a monster hit of a horror film. The Warrens were

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often given credit in these accounts as the psychic detectives

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who validated the Lutzes family claims. Indeed, Lorraine Warren flatly

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denied the growing accusations that the Amityville case was a hoax.

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When a pair of paranormal debunkers, Stephen and Roxanne Kaplan,

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publicly characterized Amityville as an invented story, Lorraine spoke to

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the press to rebut them. She told a reporter from

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the Express Times, quote, the Amityville horror was not a hoax.

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The Warrens maintained that something demonic was in that house,

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something powerful enough to influence d'a fayo to commit murder

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and to frighten the Lutzes away. The publicity from Amityville

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00:31:10.079 --> 00:31:14.519
opened new doors for the Warrens. Soon they were lecturing

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00:31:14.599 --> 00:31:21.079
about the case, showing that eerie ghostboy photo to packed auditoriums.

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Ed often said that the Amityville house was quote as

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00:31:26.960 --> 00:31:32.000
close to hell as I ever want to get. It's

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worth noting that the Amityville case has a complex life

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of its own. We'll revisit the other side of the

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Amityville story later, including evidence that much of it was fabricated,

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But at this point in the Warren's timeline, Amityville was

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a triumphant validation for them. It put their name on

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the map. What matters here is that in the late

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nineteen seventies, a great many people believed the Amityville horror

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was a true and terrifying encounter with dark forces, and

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the Warrens were seen as the experts who could confirm it.

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Amityville taught Ed and Lorraine an important lesson in media relations.

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Their skill at self promotion was as critical as their

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skill at exorcism. They made sure the world heard about

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what they had found in that house in Amityville, and

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the world, hungry for a real life ghost story, eagerly listened.

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If you visit the Warrens Occult Museum, at least when

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00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:50.839
it was open to the public, the very first item

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00:32:50.920 --> 00:32:56.559
you'd likely see was a large, raggedy ann doll secured

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00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:01.200
inside a wooden display case, and lettered sign on the

354
00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:09.920
glass warns positively, do not open this doll. Is Annabelle,

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00:33:10.519 --> 00:33:16.319
perhaps the most infamous artifact the Warrens ever possessed, and

356
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:30.440
the subject of various films and nightmares. The real Annabelle

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00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:35.960
case began in the early nineteen seventies in Hartford, Connecticut.

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A young nurse named Donna received a raggedy an doll

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as a gift from her mother. Donna lived in a

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small apartment with a roommate and would often come home

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00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:54.279
from her hospital shift to find the rag doll had

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00:33:54.359 --> 00:33:59.559
moved from where she left it. Sometimes its arms and

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00:33:59.680 --> 00:34:05.039
lays would be positioned differently. Assuming it was just their

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00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:10.800
imagination or perhaps an intruder with a key, the women

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grew uneasy. Things escalated when they began finding notes on

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parchment paper, which they did not keep in the house,

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with childish scrawls of help us. At night, the doll

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seemed to shift positions on its own. One day, a

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friend of theirs, who had never believed in the supernatural,

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made the mistake of taunting Annabelle. According to the story

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Ed and Lorraine later told, this young man was suddenly

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attacked by an unseen force. He felt searing pain and

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looked down to find bloody claw marks across his che asked. Terrified,

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Donna and her roommate contacted an episcopal priest, who in

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turn reached out to the Warrens for help. Ed and

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00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:19.840
Lorraine arrived to investigate Annabel in nineteen seventy one, and

377
00:35:19.960 --> 00:35:25.719
Lorraine immediately sensed not a playful ghost, but something in

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human attached to the doll. The Warrens concluded that a

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demonic spirit was manipulating the doll, pretending to be the

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ghost of a little girl named Annabel to earn the

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nurse's sympathy. The roommates had earlier contacted a medium who

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told them the spirit was named Annabel Higgins, hence the name.

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The Warrens believed this was the demons lie in their theology,

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demons impersonated harmless spirits as a deception. To relieve the household.

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00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:09.719
The Warrens arranged for a priest to perform an exorcism

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00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:14.239
blessing of the apartment. They took the doll with them,

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declaring it too dangerous to leave with the women. As

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00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:22.719
soon as the Warrens had Annabel in their car, Ed

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00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:29.079
claimed the doll behaved, the car's brakes failed and steering faltered,

390
00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:34.840
until he doused the doll in Holy Water. Once home,

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00:36:35.519 --> 00:36:41.559
Ed would periodically report that Annabel inexplicably levitated or moved

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about the house. Eventually they locked her in the now

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00:36:46.119 --> 00:36:53.320
famous glass case, sealed with ritual prayers. The Warrens treated

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00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:59.239
the Annabel case very seriously, often sharing a cautionary tale

395
00:36:59.559 --> 00:37:03.800
about it. One version, they told a visitor to the

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00:37:03.920 --> 00:37:08.599
museum once banged on Annabel's case and joked, if you're

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00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:13.079
so powerful, do something to me. Ed ushered the man

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00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:18.519
out sternly and said he had taken a dangerous risk

399
00:37:20.079 --> 00:37:24.360
on the drive home. The story goes that flippant young

400
00:37:24.440 --> 00:37:31.360
man died in a motorcycle accident, his girlfriend surviving to

401
00:37:31.480 --> 00:37:36.280
confirm he had been joking about the doll moments before

402
00:37:36.320 --> 00:37:42.960
losing control of the bike. Annabel, so it seemed, had

403
00:37:43.039 --> 00:37:49.559
claimed another victim. Whether or not this accident truly happened

404
00:37:49.800 --> 00:37:55.480
as described, it became part of Annabel's lore, recounted in

405
00:37:55.639 --> 00:38:00.000
many interviews by the Warrens to underscore that the supernatural

406
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:05.800
is not a game. Quote. That doll is what I'd

407
00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:10.320
call a focal point, a beacon for a demonic spirit.

408
00:38:11.360 --> 00:38:14.840
It's not the doll itself, it's what it's attached to

409
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:21.320
Ed warned. Lorraine, for her part, simply said, Annabel quote

410
00:38:21.880 --> 00:38:27.559
put a terrible fear in me. Within the Warren's personal

411
00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:35.280
belief system, Annabel represented a perfect storm, an inhuman demonic force,

412
00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:41.039
attracted by the naive compassion of two young women who

413
00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:45.400
had unwittingly given it permission to reside in the doll

414
00:38:45.960 --> 00:38:51.840
by simply acknowledging it, and then confronted and contained by

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00:38:51.880 --> 00:38:57.039
the Warren's intervention. It was a tidy narrative, with the

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00:38:57.079 --> 00:39:01.599
Warrens as both scholars figuring out the spirit was a demon,

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00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:07.440
and saviors for removing the cursed object. Over the years,

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00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:12.880
Annabel's fame grew through the Warren's lectures and later the

419
00:39:12.920 --> 00:39:19.599
Conjuring films, But long before Hollywood came calling, Annabel sat

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00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:24.519
silently in that museum, a mute testimony to Ed and

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00:39:24.599 --> 00:39:30.159
Lorraine's claim that evil can inhabit even the most innocent

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00:39:30.280 --> 00:39:36.199
looking of objects. The case that eventually inspired the two

423
00:39:36.239 --> 00:39:41.119
thousand and thirteen film The Conjuring began in January of

424
00:39:41.239 --> 00:39:46.119
nineteen seventy one, when Roger and Carolyn Perron and their

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00:39:46.199 --> 00:39:51.480
five daughters moved into an old farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island.

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The Parn's new home, a sprawling, fourteen room colonial built

427
00:39:57.599 --> 00:40:03.320
in seventeen thirty six, a storied past, including rumors of

428
00:40:03.719 --> 00:40:09.800
tragic deaths and perhaps a curse on the land. It

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00:40:09.960 --> 00:40:16.679
wasn't long before the family started noticing odd occurrences, bruises

430
00:40:16.760 --> 00:40:22.039
on Carolyn's body that appeared each morning with no explanation,

431
00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:28.679
the smell of rotting flesh wafting through the house at dawn,

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00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:34.280
and the sound of something scraping against kettle iron in

433
00:40:34.360 --> 00:40:38.880
the kitchen at night. One of the girls spoke of

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an unseen boy she'd met in her room. Most unsettling

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00:40:44.559 --> 00:40:50.880
of all, Carolyn began researching the house and became fixated

436
00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:56.760
on a local legend about a woman named Bathsheba Sherman,

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00:40:57.519 --> 00:41:00.960
who had lived on the property in the eighteen hundreds.

438
00:41:01.800 --> 00:41:06.400
Bathsheba was rumored, without historical proof, to have been a

439
00:41:06.480 --> 00:41:12.039
witch who sacrificed an infant to the devil and who

440
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:18.599
cursed the land before dying. Though the details were murky,

441
00:41:19.400 --> 00:41:25.719
Carolyn grew convinced that Bathsheba's spirit might be tormenting them,

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00:41:26.199 --> 00:41:32.199
especially targeting her as the mother of the household. The

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00:41:32.239 --> 00:41:38.119
Parons endured nearly two years of escalating scares. Finally, in

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00:41:38.239 --> 00:41:43.360
nineteen seventy three, a team of student paranormal investigators from

445
00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:47.920
Rhode Island College got wind of the haunting and reached

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00:41:47.920 --> 00:41:59.840
out to the Warrens. Ed and Lorraine agreed to visit

447
00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:07.000
them paran farmhouse. Andrea Parn, the eldest daughter, vividly recalls

448
00:42:07.079 --> 00:42:12.199
the knight the Warrens knocked on their door just around

449
00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:19.679
Halloween of nineteen seventy three. Carol and Parn welcomed the polite,

450
00:42:20.280 --> 00:42:24.920
neatly dressed Ed and Lorraine inside from the autumn chill,

451
00:42:25.719 --> 00:42:31.239
and poured them coffee, assuming they were simply curious researchers.

452
00:42:32.440 --> 00:42:37.239
That's when Lorraine, paused by the kitchen stove, closed her

453
00:42:37.280 --> 00:42:41.679
eyes as if overcome by a feeling, and made her

454
00:42:41.719 --> 00:42:48.159
pronouncement quote, there is a malignant entity here. Her name

455
00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:55.280
is Bathsheba. Everyone's jaws dropped. The Parens had not yet

456
00:42:55.320 --> 00:43:01.480
mentioned their Bathsheba theory to Lorraine. To the family, it

457
00:43:01.599 --> 00:43:08.280
seemed like stunning proof that Lorraine's psychic intuition was genuine.

458
00:43:08.679 --> 00:43:13.960
After that chilling introduction, the Warrens began a series of

459
00:43:14.079 --> 00:43:18.639
visits to the Harrisville farmhouse. Over the next year or so,

460
00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:25.119
they conducted interviews and vigils in the house, and Lorraine's

461
00:43:25.119 --> 00:43:32.119
clairvoyant impressions grew more disturbing. She felt that multiple spirits

462
00:43:32.280 --> 00:43:38.719
roamed the house, but one in particular, a vengeful female presence,

463
00:43:39.440 --> 00:43:44.119
wanted to possess Carolyn. Ed came to believe that the

464
00:43:44.159 --> 00:43:48.920
Paron house was under demonic siege, with Carolyn as the

465
00:43:48.960 --> 00:43:54.000
main target. Under the Warren's guidance, the family started a

466
00:43:54.119 --> 00:44:01.280
nightly routine of prayer, but the phenomena only intensified windows

467
00:44:01.320 --> 00:44:06.679
would shatter, foul smells would overwhelm whole rooms, and one

468
00:44:06.719 --> 00:44:11.880
of the Paron girls was reportedly touched and scratched by

469
00:44:11.920 --> 00:44:19.519
invisible hands. The Warrens concluded that an exorcism was needed, However,

470
00:44:20.079 --> 00:44:27.199
since the Parons were not Catholic, obtaining church approval was tricky. Instead,

471
00:44:28.039 --> 00:44:32.119
Ed and Lorraine decided to perform a seance to provoke

472
00:44:32.199 --> 00:44:38.559
the entity and gain more information, a decision that would

473
00:44:38.599 --> 00:44:45.760
prove controversial. One night in nineteen seventy four, the Warrens

474
00:44:45.880 --> 00:44:49.719
and a small group gathered in the Paron's dimly lit

475
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:55.880
dining room for the seance. Carolyn, desperate for relief, agreed

476
00:44:55.920 --> 00:45:00.960
to participate. According to the accounts that followed, as soon

477
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:07.960
as Lorrain began the ritual, Caroline's demeanor changed dramatically. She

478
00:45:08.159 --> 00:45:12.840
spoke in an unearthly voice and was suddenly flung backwards

479
00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:18.719
from the table by an unseen force, her chair toppling over.

480
00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:25.519
Chaos erupted. Roger Parn shouted in alarm, thinking his wife

481
00:45:26.119 --> 00:45:31.119
was dying. Roger later said that Caroline's body was bent

482
00:45:31.599 --> 00:45:38.519
into a frightening, unnatural shape on the floor unconscious. That

483
00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:42.239
was enough for him. He expelled the Warrens from the

484
00:45:42.320 --> 00:45:47.519
house that night out of fear for Caroline's safety. The

485
00:45:47.599 --> 00:45:53.840
Warrens departed deeply shaken, leaving Caroline to recover under her

486
00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:59.440
family's care. Lorrain had said that they did return briefly

487
00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:05.480
once more to check on Carolyn, who thankfully survived, but

488
00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:09.800
it was clear the Paron patriarch had lost faith in

489
00:46:09.880 --> 00:46:15.679
the intervention. The Piron haunting did not magically end that night.

490
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:21.519
The family reportedly coexisted with the spirits for several years

491
00:46:22.199 --> 00:46:25.599
until they could afford to move out in nineteen eighty.

492
00:46:26.679 --> 00:46:33.519
No formal exorcism ever took place yet in the Warren's case, files,

493
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:38.440
the Paron haunting was still a spiritual victory of sorts.

494
00:46:39.519 --> 00:46:44.480
Lorraine believed that by confronting the entity directly in the seance,

495
00:46:45.159 --> 00:46:51.559
they prevented Carolyn from slipping fully into possession. The Warrens

496
00:46:51.639 --> 00:46:57.920
documented the case extensively, convinced it exemplified a demonic infestation

497
00:46:58.760 --> 00:47:03.920
tied to a historic curse. For her part, Lorraine Warren

498
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:08.159
called the Paron Farmhouse one of the most compelling and

499
00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:15.280
disturbing hauntings they ever investigated. The case gained renewed attention

500
00:47:15.599 --> 00:47:21.199
decades later when the Paron's story was dramatized in The Conjuring.

501
00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:26.519
The movie took liberties, notably portraying the Warrens as saving

502
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:32.639
Carolyn with a successful exorcism. But Andrea Peron, who has

503
00:47:32.679 --> 00:47:36.599
written her own accounts, attests that much of the strange

504
00:47:36.639 --> 00:47:42.679
phenomena on screen did occur in real life, minus the

505
00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:49.719
neat Hollywood ending. Andrea emphasizes that despite the frightening seance incident,

506
00:47:50.280 --> 00:47:54.760
her family was grateful that Ed and Lorraine validated their

507
00:47:54.800 --> 00:48:01.400
experiences and did sincerely try to help to Ed and Lorraine.

508
00:48:01.719 --> 00:48:06.039
The Paron case underscored a key point they often made.

509
00:48:07.079 --> 00:48:12.840
Not all hauntings are wayward human spirits, some are outright demonic,

510
00:48:13.599 --> 00:48:19.039
aiming to possess and destroy. It also taught them that

511
00:48:19.079 --> 00:48:24.719
their involvement wasn't always welcomed by everyone, a humbling lesson

512
00:48:25.320 --> 00:48:29.800
when Roger kicked them out. Still, they counted it as

513
00:48:29.840 --> 00:48:35.920
one of their milestone investigations. The Harrisville farmhouse, steeped in

514
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:41.079
ghostly legend, had given the Warrens a chance to exercise

515
00:48:41.199 --> 00:48:49.280
their full repertoire psychic sensing, historical research, priestly blessings, and

516
00:48:49.400 --> 00:48:56.119
finally direct confrontation. If the stories are to be believed.

517
00:48:56.599 --> 00:49:03.119
It nearly ended in tragedy, but the family survived. The

518
00:49:03.199 --> 00:49:07.760
Warrens walked away convinced that evil had been faced down

519
00:49:08.039 --> 00:49:13.079
that night. The parn family haunting became part of Warren lore,

520
00:49:13.960 --> 00:49:18.119
another proof point that evil is real and that the

521
00:49:18.159 --> 00:49:23.519
Warrens had stood on the front lines against it. In

522
00:49:23.639 --> 00:49:28.719
August of nineteen seventy seven, happenings in a humble council

523
00:49:28.760 --> 00:49:34.679
house in Enfield, North London made headlines in Britain and

524
00:49:34.760 --> 00:49:39.679
eventually attracted the attention of the Warrens across the Atlantic.

525
00:49:46.559 --> 00:49:51.639
The case revolved around Peggy Hodgson, and her four children,

526
00:49:52.360 --> 00:49:58.159
especially her eleven year old daughter Janet. The Enfield poltergeist,

527
00:49:58.400 --> 00:50:04.159
as it came to be known, began with classic poltergeist symptoms.

528
00:50:05.039 --> 00:50:09.480
Furniture moved on its own, knocking sounds in the walls,

529
00:50:10.119 --> 00:50:16.840
and objects thrown by unseen hands. Janet was often at

530
00:50:16.840 --> 00:50:21.559
the center of the activity. Eye witnesses reported seeing her

531
00:50:21.679 --> 00:50:26.880
levitate in mid air and speak in a creepy, guttural voice,

532
00:50:27.519 --> 00:50:32.039
claiming to be the ghost of a former occupant. For

533
00:50:32.159 --> 00:50:37.519
over a year, two British paranormal researchers, Maurice Gross and

534
00:50:37.639 --> 00:50:44.079
Guy lyon Playfair, documented the strange occurrences, while skeptics suggested

535
00:50:44.679 --> 00:50:49.920
the clever children were behind the hoax. The British press

536
00:50:50.039 --> 00:50:53.960
had a field day, dubbing it the House of Strange

537
00:50:54.079 --> 00:51:00.119
Happenings Ed and Lorraine got involved briefly in nineteen seventy,

538
00:51:00.880 --> 00:51:05.199
near the tail end of the Enfield saga. The Warrens

539
00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:08.719
happened to be in England on other business when they

540
00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:12.239
heard about the case, and they decided to drop by

541
00:51:12.400 --> 00:51:17.199
the Hodgson home to see for themselves what was going on.

542
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:22.119
As the Warrens later described it, they found the chaos

543
00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:28.119
in Enfield to be genuine. Ed often recounted that as

544
00:51:28.159 --> 00:51:32.000
soon as he entered the modest brick house on Green Street,

545
00:51:32.639 --> 00:51:36.679
a curtain flew up in the air and across the room,

546
00:51:37.039 --> 00:51:43.480
as if grabbed by invisible hands, a classic poltergeist stunt.

547
00:51:44.400 --> 00:51:51.039
The Warrens spoke with the Hodgson family and offered their assistance. However,

548
00:51:51.519 --> 00:51:55.360
since the case was already being handled by the British

549
00:51:55.400 --> 00:52:01.880
Society for Psychical Research, the Warren's role was limited. They

550
00:52:01.920 --> 00:52:09.440
were more like high profile visitors than lead investigators. Despite

551
00:52:09.519 --> 00:52:13.639
their brief stay, the Warrens were convinced Enfield was a

552
00:52:13.719 --> 00:52:19.360
case of true demonic possession rather than mere child pranks.

553
00:52:20.360 --> 00:52:25.760
Lorraine Tuning In psychically agreed with Ed that something inhuman

554
00:52:26.360 --> 00:52:33.280
lurked behind the poltergeist phenomena. Perhaps they speculated the entity

555
00:52:33.360 --> 00:52:39.480
had targeted Janet in hopes of eventually possessing her. Ed

556
00:52:39.719 --> 00:52:45.320
was impressed with the amount of documentation, knockings recorded on tape,

557
00:52:45.360 --> 00:52:49.840
furniture movements witnessed by police, et cetera, and said it

558
00:52:50.039 --> 00:52:55.440
quote couldn't all be faked. In media interviews years later,

559
00:52:56.079 --> 00:53:00.880
Lorraine Warren asserted that she quote knew the moment we

560
00:53:00.960 --> 00:53:06.840
crossed the threshold that the activity was real. However, it

561
00:53:06.920 --> 00:53:11.000
must be noted that the Warren's direct involvement in Enfield

562
00:53:11.599 --> 00:53:16.639
was extremely limited. They did not conduct a full investigation

563
00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:22.440
of their own. They essentially dropped in. In fact, Guy

564
00:53:22.639 --> 00:53:26.920
lyon Playfair, one of the primary researchers on the scene

565
00:53:27.679 --> 00:53:33.039
recalled Ed Warren telling him there's money to be made here,

566
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:38.280
which Playfair took as a sign of Ed's true motives.

567
00:53:39.079 --> 00:53:44.800
We'll revisit that claim a little later. Regardless, publicly, the

568
00:53:44.840 --> 00:53:49.440
Warrens maintained they were simply there to help validate and

569
00:53:49.639 --> 00:53:55.440
support the family. The Enfield poltergeist case, as told by

570
00:53:55.480 --> 00:54:01.519
the Warrens, boils down to this Poltergeist phenomena are real,

571
00:54:02.440 --> 00:54:08.199
and sometimes they mask a demonic presence. The Warrens in

572
00:54:08.199 --> 00:54:13.239
interviews would back up the Hodgson family's claims and chastise

573
00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:19.360
skeptics who laughed it off as simply children's tricks. When

574
00:54:19.400 --> 00:54:24.679
the film The Conjuring Two dramatized Enfield in two thy sixteen,

575
00:54:25.400 --> 00:54:29.280
it took great liberties by portraying Ed and Lorraine as

576
00:54:29.639 --> 00:54:34.719
central to resolving the case, even saving Janet from possession

577
00:54:35.199 --> 00:54:39.599
in a climactic scene. In truth, the Warrens made a

578
00:54:39.639 --> 00:54:44.000
short visit and were involved to a far lesser degree

579
00:54:44.559 --> 00:54:48.960
than portrayed in the movie. They apparently were even turned

580
00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:53.800
away at one point as the British investigators hadn't invited them.

581
00:54:54.480 --> 00:54:57.880
But in the narrative the Warrens shared with their followers,

582
00:54:58.519 --> 00:55:04.400
Enfield was another data proving demonic forces at play internationally.

583
00:55:05.480 --> 00:55:09.400
After meeting the Hodgsons, Lorraine commented that the events in

584
00:55:09.599 --> 00:55:16.679
Enfield showed demonic activity doesn't care about borders, England or America.

585
00:55:17.400 --> 00:55:24.039
Evil is everywhere. She felt their experiences in Connecticut gave

586
00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:28.599
them insight into what was happening in Enfield, and she

587
00:55:28.679 --> 00:55:34.960
attempted to counsel the family on prayer and faith. Ultimately,

588
00:55:35.199 --> 00:55:40.519
the Enfield case resolved or petered out in nineteen seventy

589
00:55:40.599 --> 00:55:46.159
nine without the Warren's direct intervention, but Ed and Lorraine's

590
00:55:46.199 --> 00:55:50.360
brief stint allowed them to attach their names to one

591
00:55:50.400 --> 00:55:56.199
of the twentieth centuries most famous poltergeist cases, bolstering their

592
00:55:56.239 --> 00:56:03.039
global reputation. It demonstrated the reach of their curiosity. They

593
00:56:03.079 --> 00:56:07.719
weren't confined to New England. They would go wherever the

594
00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:12.960
demons were. Enfield as portrayed by the Warrens was a

595
00:56:13.039 --> 00:56:18.320
validation that even when skeptics cried hoax, the Warrens could

596
00:56:18.400 --> 00:56:25.239
discern a darker truth underneath. As Ed would later summarize, quote,

597
00:56:25.840 --> 00:56:28.519
a lot of people thought those girls were making it

598
00:56:28.559 --> 00:56:32.039
all up. We met them, we saw what we saw,

599
00:56:32.440 --> 00:56:35.559
and let me tell you, something was in that house,

600
00:56:36.400 --> 00:56:44.159
something evil. In nineteen eighty six, Carmen and al Snedeker

601
00:56:44.840 --> 00:56:49.800
thought they had found an incredible bargain, a spacious rental

602
00:56:49.840 --> 00:56:54.440
house in Southington, Connecticut, where they could live with their

603
00:56:54.559 --> 00:56:59.960
daughter and three sons while their eldest boy underwent camp

604
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:07.199
treatment nearby. The rent was cheap, and only later did

605
00:57:07.239 --> 00:57:20.119
the Snetekers discover why. While moving in, they stumbled upon

606
00:57:20.599 --> 00:57:26.719
strange mortuary tools in the basement, toe tags, coffin hardware,

607
00:57:27.440 --> 00:57:32.360
a gurney. The house, it turned out, had once been

608
00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:39.360
the Halahan funeral home. According to Carmen, the landlord had

609
00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:46.039
not disclosed this unsettling fact, though the landlord insisted the

610
00:57:46.119 --> 00:57:52.840
family was told up front. Regardless, the Snetekers decided to stay.

611
00:57:53.880 --> 00:57:58.400
They draped the basement morgue area in sheets and turned

612
00:57:58.440 --> 00:58:03.079
it into a bedroom for their eldest son, Philip. It

613
00:58:03.239 --> 00:58:16.760
was a decision they'd soon regret. Not long after, the

614
00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:25.920
Snedeker family began experiencing intense and bizarre phenomena. Philip, thirteen

615
00:58:26.039 --> 00:58:32.760
years old, who was battling Hodgkin's lymphoma, started seeing terrifying apparitions.

616
00:58:33.599 --> 00:58:40.480
He described figures with hollow eyes and pinstriped suits. At first,

617
00:58:40.519 --> 00:58:44.119
his parents wondered if the visions were side effects of

618
00:58:44.199 --> 00:58:51.880
his medical treatments, but Philip's personality shifted dramatically. The sweet

619
00:58:51.960 --> 00:58:56.519
boy took to wearing leather and writing about demons in

620
00:58:56.559 --> 00:59:02.639
a journal. He became moody and aggressed. Carmen reported hearing

621
00:59:02.760 --> 00:59:09.960
strange clanking noises from the basement, like chains dragging reminiscent

622
00:59:10.039 --> 00:59:15.400
of mortuary equipment. There were foul smells they couldn't trace,

623
00:59:16.239 --> 00:59:21.840
dishes rattled in empty rooms. Most shockingly, both Carmen and

624
00:59:22.039 --> 00:59:28.280
al claimed they were sometimes physically assaulted by unseen entities,

625
00:59:29.079 --> 00:59:34.760
even describing instances of sexual molestation by the invisible Force.

626
00:59:35.880 --> 00:59:40.719
This detail of demonic sexual assault was notably similar to

627
00:59:40.800 --> 00:59:45.880
what another family, the Smurls in Pennsylvania, had reported only

628
00:59:45.920 --> 00:59:49.800
a few years earlier. In a case the Warrens also

629
00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:55.639
handled to the Warrens such disturbing assaults or a telltale

630
00:59:55.760 --> 01:00:01.480
sign of a demon at work. By nineteen eighty eight,

631
01:00:01.920 --> 01:00:06.679
at their wits end and financially unable to relocate, the

632
01:00:06.760 --> 01:00:11.719
Snetteckers reached out for help enter Ed and Lorraine Warren.

633
01:00:12.599 --> 01:00:16.079
They arrived at the Southington house in nineteen eighty six

634
01:00:16.679 --> 01:00:23.079
and quickly pronounced it infested with demons. This case would

635
01:00:23.119 --> 01:00:30.519
become one of their most famous and later most controversial investigations,

636
01:00:30.599 --> 01:00:36.199
sometimes referred to as a haunting in Connecticut. When Ed

637
01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:39.840
and Lorraine first walked through the house, Lorraine said she

638
01:00:39.880 --> 01:00:44.639
could sense a deep evil in the basement, likely due

639
01:00:45.159 --> 01:00:50.920
to the former funeral homes practices. Ed theorized that perhaps

640
01:00:50.960 --> 01:00:57.719
an undertaker had engaged in necromancy or ungodly rituals with corpses,

641
01:00:58.360 --> 01:01:03.719
inviting a demonic present that now plagued the living. The

642
01:01:03.760 --> 01:01:07.320
Warrens moved into the house for several weeks to observe

643
01:01:07.639 --> 01:01:12.639
and help. They brought along two trainees, their nephew John

644
01:01:13.079 --> 01:01:17.239
and an English researcher, as they later noted, as well

645
01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:22.000
as a professional horror novelist named Ray Garton, whom they'd

646
01:01:22.039 --> 01:01:27.760
commissioned to eventually write a book about the case. Living

647
01:01:27.840 --> 01:01:31.920
with the Snedeckers, the Warrens witnessed first hand many of

648
01:01:31.960 --> 01:01:37.519
the disturbances. If their account is to be believed. They

649
01:01:37.599 --> 01:01:41.840
claimed to hear the same metallic clanking of the old

650
01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:46.480
coffin lift late at night, though an investigation by a

651
01:01:46.519 --> 01:01:51.679
neighbor would later attribute such sounds to passing trucks scraping

652
01:01:51.719 --> 01:01:58.280
the road. Lorraine reported seeing dark, shadowy forms gliding through

653
01:01:58.320 --> 01:02:03.360
the halls, confronted the entities with prayer and also a

654
01:02:03.400 --> 01:02:08.480
bit of provocation. According to Carmen Snedeker, when Ed recited

655
01:02:08.559 --> 01:02:14.199
passages from the Roman ritual of exorcism, the whole house shook.

656
01:02:15.159 --> 01:02:18.599
Things had gotten so bad that Carmen and al Snedeker

657
01:02:18.760 --> 01:02:23.400
publicly stated they had been raped by demons in the house,

658
01:02:24.360 --> 01:02:29.280
a sensational claim they repeated on television talk shows as

659
01:02:29.320 --> 01:02:34.159
the Warrens stood by their side validating it. All of

660
01:02:34.199 --> 01:02:39.199
this was building toward a climactic resolution. The Warrens eventually

661
01:02:39.239 --> 01:02:43.400
brought in a Catholic priest to perform a full exorcism

662
01:02:43.559 --> 01:02:49.159
ritual on the house. This detail is sometimes disputed, but

663
01:02:49.239 --> 01:02:56.480
the Warrens maintained and exorcism was indeed done. After said exorcism,

664
01:02:57.000 --> 01:03:03.320
they declared the house cleared of evil. Carmen corroborated that

665
01:03:03.400 --> 01:03:09.320
after intense prayer, the oppressive atmosphere lifted and the attacks ceased,

666
01:03:10.159 --> 01:03:13.360
at least long enough for the family to move out

667
01:03:13.920 --> 01:03:18.920
in nineteen eighty eight. The Snedeker case could have ended there,

668
01:03:19.559 --> 01:03:22.760
but Ed and Lorraine had made arrangements from the start

669
01:03:23.320 --> 01:03:27.960
to document the story for the public true to form.

670
01:03:28.320 --> 01:03:32.079
They saw in this dramatic haunting the makings of a

671
01:03:32.119 --> 01:03:37.559
book and perhaps a movie. They had brokeered a deal

672
01:03:37.719 --> 01:03:41.599
for a share of profits with the Snetekers. Carmen even

673
01:03:41.679 --> 01:03:45.360
confided to a neighbor early on that the family would

674
01:03:45.400 --> 01:03:50.480
receive one third of the prophets from the book. Gary

675
01:03:50.519 --> 01:03:54.639
Garton's nineteen ninety two book In a Dark Place, The

676
01:03:54.679 --> 01:03:59.719
Story of a True Haunting, presented a terrifying narrative of

677
01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:04.559
the s Snenedteker's ordeal, co authored with Ed and Lorraine.

678
01:04:04.639 --> 01:04:08.719
Around the same time, in a coordinated media push, the

679
01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:13.679
Snedtekers and Warrens appeared on shows like Sally Jesse, Raphael,

680
01:04:14.159 --> 01:04:18.599
and A Current Affair, dramatically sharing their story to a

681
01:04:18.679 --> 01:04:23.840
wide audience. The haunting was big news in Connecticut newspapers

682
01:04:23.880 --> 01:04:29.360
as well, with lurid headlines about a demonic presence in

683
01:04:29.400 --> 01:04:34.199
a family home. For those who only heard the Warren

684
01:04:34.360 --> 01:04:39.159
side in nineteen ninety two, the Snedeker case was absolute

685
01:04:39.239 --> 01:04:43.840
proof of the supernatural. The Warrens pointed to it as

686
01:04:43.880 --> 01:04:48.920
a rare example where they had everything, multiple eye witnesses,

687
01:04:49.440 --> 01:04:54.079
physical attacks, even an actual exorcism with a happy ending.

688
01:04:54.920 --> 01:05:00.280
It contributed greatly to the Warren's mystique. In fact, it

689
01:05:00.360 --> 01:05:05.960
spawned a Discovery Channel TV docudrama in two thousand two

690
01:05:06.239 --> 01:05:10.440
and a feature film in two thousand nine, The Haunting

691
01:05:10.519 --> 01:05:16.880
in Connecticut, all billed as based on true events. The

692
01:05:16.920 --> 01:05:21.440
Warren's version of the story held that diabolical forces had

693
01:05:21.480 --> 01:05:26.480
converged on an innocent family, but through the Warren's intervention

694
01:05:27.039 --> 01:05:33.639
and the power of God, those forces were exposed and defeated.

695
01:05:33.960 --> 01:05:37.679
Like in all of these famous cases, the Snedeker story

696
01:05:37.920 --> 01:05:42.079
had another side, and this one is perhaps more damning

697
01:05:42.280 --> 01:05:47.800
than most. Will explore the intense skepticism and even admissions

698
01:05:47.840 --> 01:05:52.000
of fabrication that later emerged about a haunting in Connecticut.

699
01:05:52.880 --> 01:05:57.239
Ray Gartin himself would eventually raise serious doubts about the

700
01:05:57.280 --> 01:06:02.119
book he authored under the Warren's guidance, But staying with

701
01:06:02.199 --> 01:06:06.320
the Warren's perspective for now, the Snedeker case in the

702
01:06:06.400 --> 01:06:12.199
late eighties and early nineties was an absolute triumph for them.

703
01:06:12.599 --> 01:06:17.960
It demonstrated their pattern of operation. Identify a family in

704
01:06:18.199 --> 01:06:23.079
supernatural trouble, move in to gather evidence, call in the

705
01:06:23.199 --> 01:06:28.599
church for the final blow, then publicize the heck out

706
01:06:28.639 --> 01:06:33.159
of the story. Ed and Lorraine's presence during the height

707
01:06:33.239 --> 01:06:38.239
of the Snedeker's nightmare lent credibility to the family's claims

708
01:06:38.280 --> 01:06:41.880
in the eyes of many, and for those keeping score,

709
01:06:42.440 --> 01:06:46.760
it was yet another demonic entity vanquished. As Ed liked

710
01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:51.880
to say, this one was a doozy. The Warrens warned

711
01:06:52.239 --> 01:06:57.199
that the combination of adolescent energy, sickly Philip, the former

712
01:06:57.320 --> 01:07:02.880
funeral home setting, and possible dear and necromancy had created

713
01:07:02.920 --> 01:07:08.320
a perfect storm that quote opened a door to something

714
01:07:08.559 --> 01:07:14.239
truly evil thanks to their efforts, so the story went,

715
01:07:15.079 --> 01:07:19.400
that door was slammed shut, But of course, in a

716
01:07:19.480 --> 01:07:31.440
haunted house, when one door closes, another opens. While the

717
01:07:31.519 --> 01:07:38.239
prior five cases Amityville, Annabelle, the Paron Haunting, Enfield and

718
01:07:38.320 --> 01:07:42.239
the Stenecker House are arguably the most famous in the

719
01:07:42.280 --> 01:07:47.239
Warren's case files, especially after their dramatizations in The Conjuring

720
01:07:47.400 --> 01:07:51.639
Universe of films. They were far from the only sensational

721
01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:56.039
stories Ed and Lorraine told in order to give you

722
01:07:56.159 --> 01:07:59.559
the deep dive promised. It's worth noting a few other

723
01:07:59.639 --> 01:08:05.280
insectvidence that often came up in the Warrens interviews and lectures.

724
01:08:06.440 --> 01:08:11.719
The smurl Haunting Pennsylvania nineteen eighty five to nineteen eighty seven,

725
01:08:12.880 --> 01:08:17.000
Jack and Janet Smurle and their daughters endured a demonic

726
01:08:17.119 --> 01:08:22.600
siege in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. Not unlike the Snedekers, the

727
01:08:22.640 --> 01:08:27.000
Warrens became involved and claimed four spirits and a demon

728
01:08:27.439 --> 01:08:32.039
were present, one of which sexually assaulted Jack and Janet,

729
01:08:32.520 --> 01:08:36.760
according to their report. The Smurle case also resulted in

730
01:08:36.800 --> 01:08:41.600
a book, The Haunted, and a TV movie. It bore

731
01:08:41.760 --> 01:08:46.479
striking similarities to the Snedeker's claim, which occurred shortly after,

732
01:08:47.079 --> 01:08:51.840
reinforcing the Warren's narrative that demons were active all over.

733
01:08:52.640 --> 01:08:56.359
It was also featured in the final Conjuring movie, The

734
01:08:56.439 --> 01:09:01.319
Last Rites in two thousand and twenty five. The Devil

735
01:09:01.840 --> 01:09:07.600
in Connecticut, Brookfield, Connecticut, nineteen eighty one. This was the

736
01:09:07.640 --> 01:09:13.119
famous demon murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson. The Warrens

737
01:09:13.159 --> 01:09:17.960
were called when eleven year old David Glatzel allegedly became possessed,

738
01:09:18.520 --> 01:09:22.880
and during the exorcisms, Ed claimed a demon left David

739
01:09:22.920 --> 01:09:27.600
and entered Arne. Months later, Arn Johnson killed a man

740
01:09:28.119 --> 01:09:31.520
and tried to argue in court that the devil made

741
01:09:31.600 --> 01:09:35.359
me do it. Ed saw this as a landmark chance

742
01:09:35.439 --> 01:09:40.680
to prove the supernatural in court. He viewed it as

743
01:09:40.760 --> 01:09:43.840
his big chance to put his work on trial, to

744
01:09:43.960 --> 01:09:46.800
prove what he does is reel in front of a

745
01:09:46.880 --> 01:09:51.760
court of law. Recalled a reporter who interviewed Ed. The

746
01:09:51.880 --> 01:09:55.399
judge didn't allow the demon defense, and Arn went to

747
01:09:55.479 --> 01:10:00.800
prison for manslaughter. But the Warrens, along with author Gerald Briddle,

748
01:10:01.399 --> 01:10:04.760
wrote a book about the case, The Devil in Connecticut,

749
01:10:05.479 --> 01:10:10.880
upholding that the possession was real. This incident intersected with

750
01:10:10.960 --> 01:10:14.920
the height of nineteen eighty satanic panic, and Ed and

751
01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.640
Lorraine were right there on national TV supporting the idea

752
01:10:20.159 --> 01:10:26.880
that demons could cause murder Satan's harvest. In the nineteen eighties,

753
01:10:27.760 --> 01:10:31.760
Ed and Lorraine also investigated a chilling case of an

754
01:10:31.800 --> 01:10:36.880
alleged satanic possession of a farmer named Maurice or Frenchy

755
01:10:37.600 --> 01:10:43.439
in Massachusetts, documented in the book Satan's Harvest. During the exorcism,

756
01:10:43.520 --> 01:10:48.159
Maurice supposedly bled from his eyes and a cross manifested

757
01:10:48.359 --> 01:10:54.000
on his skin, phenomena the Warrens presented as real. This

758
01:10:54.159 --> 01:10:59.039
case tied into fears of satanic cults, another zeitgeist element

759
01:10:59.199 --> 01:11:02.399
of the late nineteen teen eighties. It showed the Warren's

760
01:11:02.479 --> 01:11:06.520
willingness to engage not just with ghosts, but with the

761
01:11:06.520 --> 01:11:13.479
then prevalent anxieties about secret satanic activity, again reinforcing the

762
01:11:13.479 --> 01:11:20.640
theme that demonic evil is lurking everywhere, even rural farms.

763
01:11:22.319 --> 01:11:27.880
Union Cemetery's White Lady. On a lighter note, Ed loved

764
01:11:27.880 --> 01:11:31.640
to show a grainy video he took at Connecticut's Union

765
01:11:31.760 --> 01:11:37.039
Cemetery purportedly capturing the ghost of a white lady floating.

766
01:11:37.840 --> 01:11:41.520
He claimed it was among the clearest ghost footage ever captured.

767
01:11:42.399 --> 01:11:46.479
Skeptics shrugged, but fans ate it up as proof that

768
01:11:46.520 --> 01:11:52.560
the Warren's actually documented spirits on film. By the end

769
01:11:52.600 --> 01:11:56.199
of the nineteen nineties, Ed and Lorraine Warren had cemented

770
01:11:56.239 --> 01:12:01.079
a public image as the ghost hunter's par excellence. They

771
01:12:01.119 --> 01:12:06.680
wrote and co wrote numerous books, always labeled true stories,

772
01:12:07.319 --> 01:12:11.479
and they lectured widely. They had a devoted following of

773
01:12:11.640 --> 01:12:17.319
fellow paranormal enthusiasts and a network of younger proteges, like

774
01:12:17.399 --> 01:12:22.439
their nephew, John zappis now a well known demonologist himself,

775
01:12:23.039 --> 01:12:29.039
sometimes called the godfather of paranormal In two thousand one,

776
01:12:29.159 --> 01:12:33.199
at age seventy four, Ed Warren suffered a stroke that

777
01:12:33.319 --> 01:12:38.520
effectively ended his active investigations. He passed away in two

778
01:12:38.560 --> 01:12:44.760
thousand and six. Lorraine, however, remained accessible and involved well

779
01:12:44.840 --> 01:12:48.880
into her eighties, serving as a consultant on the conjuring

780
01:12:48.960 --> 01:12:53.880
films and giving interviews until shortly before her death in

781
01:12:53.960 --> 01:12:59.239
two thousand nineteen. To many, the Warrens died as heroes

782
01:12:59.439 --> 01:13:03.720
who had sped a lifetime keeping darkness at bay. Their

783
01:13:03.840 --> 01:13:08.039
cases had inspired countless other ghost hunters, and their names

784
01:13:08.119 --> 01:13:14.359
became nearly synonymous with paranormal investigation. But even as early

785
01:13:14.399 --> 01:13:18.880
as the nineteen eighties, and increasingly after Ed's death, a

786
01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:24.319
chorus of critics began to speak out, challenging virtually every

787
01:13:24.439 --> 01:13:30.600
aspect of the Warren's story families they'd helped, Fellow investigators,

788
01:13:30.640 --> 01:13:34.079
and even one of their own co authors would paint

789
01:13:34.199 --> 01:13:39.000
a very different picture of what went on in those hauntings.

790
01:13:39.800 --> 01:13:44.960
Some accused the Warrens of exaggeration and opportunism, others flat

791
01:13:45.039 --> 01:13:50.479
out called them frauds. Moreover, whispers of a scandal in

792
01:13:50.520 --> 01:13:54.760
the Warren's personal life, something that stood in stark contrast

793
01:13:55.079 --> 01:14:00.880
to their wholesome, pious image, began to surface. It's time

794
01:14:01.000 --> 01:14:05.159
now to shift our viewpoint. We've seen the Warrens as

795
01:14:05.199 --> 01:14:12.439
they saw themselves, righteous demonologists triumphing over evil. But now

796
01:14:13.199 --> 01:14:18.319
let's examine the cracks in that narrative, the counter evidence

797
01:14:18.439 --> 01:14:23.680
and controversies that suggest Ed and Lorraine's legacy is not

798
01:14:23.760 --> 01:14:35.600
so unassailable. After all, the Warrens relished their role as

799
01:14:35.640 --> 01:14:40.960
ghost hunters, but not everyone was convinced. As their fame grew,

800
01:14:41.680 --> 01:14:47.840
so did scrutiny. Journalists, investigators from the skeptical community, and

801
01:14:47.960 --> 01:14:53.239
even some allies turned critics started digging into the Warren's claims.

802
01:14:54.239 --> 01:14:59.520
What they found was often unsettling, and not in a

803
01:14:59.560 --> 01:15:03.520
super na natural way. Now we are going to turn

804
01:15:03.600 --> 01:15:08.039
a critical eye on Ed and Lorraine Warren, leaving behind

805
01:15:08.159 --> 01:15:12.760
the fun and spooky narrative of it all, now looking

806
01:15:12.800 --> 01:15:16.520
at the reality of their stories that have been challenged

807
01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:23.239
and sometimes even dismantled by evidence or lack thereof. Far

808
01:15:23.359 --> 01:15:26.920
from the United front of the Conjuring Movies, we will

809
01:15:26.960 --> 01:15:31.680
hear from family members who felt exploited, authors who say

810
01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:35.880
they were told to make up horror stories, and researchers

811
01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:41.159
who accuse the Warrens of shameless self promotion. We will

812
01:15:41.199 --> 01:15:46.039
also address the striking contrast between the Warren's public persona

813
01:15:46.640 --> 01:15:52.800
and private behavior, including allegations of an improper long term

814
01:15:52.840 --> 01:15:57.800
relationship in the Warren household that was kept secret for

815
01:15:57.880 --> 01:16:03.800
decades to be clear ed and Lorraine always had their defenders,

816
01:16:04.279 --> 01:16:07.680
and we will give those defenders their due voice as well.

817
01:16:08.479 --> 01:16:12.800
The Warrens insisted until the very end that every case

818
01:16:12.880 --> 01:16:18.800
they presented was genuine, that they never fabricated evidence, and

819
01:16:18.960 --> 01:16:24.359
that they truly helped thousands of people. But the mounting

820
01:16:24.479 --> 01:16:30.000
criticisms cannot be ignored. They compel us to ask tough questions.

821
01:16:30.600 --> 01:16:37.399
Were the Warrens documenting demons or inadvertently or deliberately crafting

822
01:16:37.720 --> 01:16:44.359
modern folklore? Did they seek the truth or headlines. Let's

823
01:16:44.359 --> 01:16:48.439
investigate these matters one by one, starting with what the

824
01:16:48.520 --> 01:16:52.800
skeptics discovered when they decided to go hunting for the

825
01:16:52.880 --> 01:16:57.880
ghost hunters. In the mid nineteen nineties, two members of

826
01:16:57.920 --> 01:17:02.760
the New England Skeptic Society, Perry DeAngelis and Stephen Novella,

827
01:17:03.359 --> 01:17:08.119
decided to conduct an in depth investigation of the Warren's

828
01:17:08.199 --> 01:17:14.239
supposed evidence. DeAngelis and Novella, both skeptics, and the latter

829
01:17:14.319 --> 01:17:18.000
a neurologist at Yale, had the advantage of being in

830
01:17:18.079 --> 01:17:23.520
the Warren's home state of Connecticut. They approached Ed and Lorraine,

831
01:17:23.880 --> 01:17:29.039
who granted them some access, perhaps assuming the skeptics would

832
01:17:29.119 --> 01:17:34.720
end up as believers. That did not happen. After examining

833
01:17:34.760 --> 01:17:40.159
the Warren's famous photographs, audio recordings, and other trinkets in

834
01:17:40.199 --> 01:17:45.760
the Occult Museum, the two skeptics published their assessment. The

835
01:17:45.840 --> 01:17:53.239
Warren's evidence ranged from misinterpretation to outright flimflam. They found

836
01:17:53.319 --> 01:17:58.640
no clear documentation that couldn't be explained by normal means.

837
01:17:59.680 --> 01:18:04.680
Their lunt conclusion was that the Warren's claims were at

838
01:18:04.760 --> 01:18:09.119
best as tellers of meaningless ghost stories and at worst

839
01:18:09.920 --> 01:18:16.079
dangerous frauds. In fact, DeAngelis and Novella famously described the

840
01:18:16.119 --> 01:18:21.199
Warren's body of evidence as and I quote nothing but

841
01:18:21.319 --> 01:18:27.159
a big pile of blarney. In other words, charming Irish

842
01:18:27.199 --> 01:18:35.319
storytelling entertaining, may be sincere, but not factual. Ed and Lorraine,

843
01:18:35.359 --> 01:18:40.279
they noted, were masterful self promoters, but offered zero proof

844
01:18:40.359 --> 01:18:46.760
of the paranormal that could withstand independent scrutiny. Around the

845
01:18:46.800 --> 01:18:51.760
same time, Joe Nickel, one of America's most prominent paranormal

846
01:18:51.800 --> 01:18:56.159
skeptics and an investigator with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry,

847
01:18:56.960 --> 01:19:02.039
was digging into specific Warren cases. In nineteen ninety two.

848
01:19:02.600 --> 01:19:06.439
Nichol had actually met the Warrens during the publicity tour

849
01:19:06.600 --> 01:19:10.439
for the Snedeker Haunting on the Sally Jesse Raphael show.

850
01:19:10.680 --> 01:19:15.680
No Less, He was struck by Ed Warren's intensity and

851
01:19:15.800 --> 01:19:22.039
by something unsettling off camera. Ed was quote cursing like

852
01:19:22.079 --> 01:19:28.159
a sailor and even making veiled threatening asides to investigator

853
01:19:28.239 --> 01:19:33.560
Nichol about not interfering. This hinted at a less than

854
01:19:33.760 --> 01:19:38.960
saintly side to the Warrens when dealing with critics. Nichol

855
01:19:39.079 --> 01:19:43.600
proceeded to investigate the Snedeker case on the ground in Southington.

856
01:19:44.199 --> 01:19:49.920
Interviewing neighbors, police, and other local sources. What he found

857
01:19:49.960 --> 01:19:57.000
diverged sharply from the Warren's narrative. First, Nicholl discovered evidence

858
01:19:57.439 --> 01:20:00.399
that the Snedekers knew the house had had been a

859
01:20:00.399 --> 01:20:04.600
funeral home from the start. Contrary to their claim of

860
01:20:04.640 --> 01:20:10.159
being shocked by that discovery, neighbors and the rental's previous

861
01:20:10.199 --> 01:20:15.720
owners insisted the family was aware, suggesting the we didn't

862
01:20:15.760 --> 01:20:19.800
know it was a mortuary angle was played up for drama.

863
01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:24.840
What was more damning, Nicol learned the Snetekers had fallen

864
01:20:24.920 --> 01:20:29.359
behind on rent and were served in eviction notice during

865
01:20:29.399 --> 01:20:34.479
the time they started going public with the haunting. In fact,

866
01:20:34.840 --> 01:20:40.720
their own landlady, frustrated and suspecting a ploy, told reporters quote,

867
01:20:41.279 --> 01:20:44.920
after more than two years as tenants, suddenly we are

868
01:20:44.960 --> 01:20:48.840
told about these alleged ghosts, and then read in the

869
01:20:48.840 --> 01:20:52.640
paper that the Warrens will be conducting a seminar and

870
01:20:52.760 --> 01:20:56.880
charging the public for it. If the ghosts really are there,

871
01:20:57.399 --> 01:21:01.319
then why did the Snedekers stay over two and why

872
01:21:01.359 --> 01:21:05.159
are they staying now? Are they looking for publicity or

873
01:21:05.279 --> 01:21:12.279
profit or what? Her skepticism was understandable, it did look

874
01:21:12.319 --> 01:21:17.159
suspicious that only when facing eviction and with a lucrative

875
01:21:17.199 --> 01:21:21.560
book deal in the works did the Snetteker's demonic horror

876
01:21:22.039 --> 01:21:27.359
reach its peak and become a media circus. Nichol also

877
01:21:27.520 --> 01:21:31.880
tracked down an upstairs neighbor who lived above the Snetekers

878
01:21:32.399 --> 01:21:37.680
throughout the supposed haunting. This neighbor had some choice words.

879
01:21:38.399 --> 01:21:43.680
She called the Warrens con artists, flatly stating quote, I

880
01:21:43.760 --> 01:21:48.079
haven't experienced anything. I definitely know that no one has

881
01:21:48.119 --> 01:21:53.039
been raped up here. She was convinced the Warrens had quote,

882
01:21:53.520 --> 01:21:59.560
caused a lot of problems, and they are not ghost problems. Essentially,

883
01:22:00.119 --> 01:22:04.520
the people who observed the Snedeker saga unfold felt it

884
01:22:04.640 --> 01:22:08.399
was a money grab and a hoax, and they resented

885
01:22:08.439 --> 01:22:14.000
the negative attention it brought to their quiet town. The

886
01:22:14.039 --> 01:22:20.600
skeptical investigation uncovered a possibly scandalous explanation for some of

887
01:22:20.680 --> 01:22:26.840
the Snedeker's claims, too. Recall the invisible sexual assault on

888
01:22:26.920 --> 01:22:32.279
a young cousin that Carmen Snedeker's niece had reported. According

889
01:22:32.319 --> 01:22:36.000
to Nichol, the eldest son, Philip, was caught in the

890
01:22:36.039 --> 01:22:41.880
act of molesting his female cousins, a fact quietly documented

891
01:22:41.880 --> 01:22:46.079
in the book In a Dark Place itself, the boy

892
01:22:46.159 --> 01:22:50.000
admitted to fondling the girls at night. He was removed

893
01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:54.840
from the home for psychiatric help and diagnosed with schizophrenia.

894
01:22:55.720 --> 01:23:00.760
So the demonic fondling wasn't demonic at all. It was

895
01:23:00.800 --> 01:23:04.880
a tragic case of abuse by a disturbed teen in

896
01:23:04.960 --> 01:23:10.560
the family that casts the sensational demon rape narrative in

897
01:23:10.640 --> 01:23:16.159
a much more disturbing light, suggesting that something very human

898
01:23:16.960 --> 01:23:21.319
was behind it, and the ghost story served to obscure

899
01:23:22.000 --> 01:23:33.279
an ugly reality. Perhaps the most significant revelation from the

900
01:23:33.319 --> 01:23:37.520
Snedecker case was what happened after the book and TV

901
01:23:37.720 --> 01:23:42.560
deals were signed. Many who knew the inside story came

902
01:23:42.680 --> 01:23:48.199
forward to cry foul. Ray Garton, the horror author hired

903
01:23:48.239 --> 01:23:51.359
to write In A Dark Place, became one of the

904
01:23:51.399 --> 01:23:56.279
most vocal critics. Garton initially tried to play along with

905
01:23:56.399 --> 01:24:01.520
the Warren's program, but he was privately very frustrated. He

906
01:24:01.640 --> 01:24:06.960
later said the Snedecker family members were inconsistent in their stories,

907
01:24:07.720 --> 01:24:12.680
likely due to personal problems. Quote the family involved, which

908
01:24:12.760 --> 01:24:17.600
was going through some serious problems like alcoholism and drug addiction,

909
01:24:18.199 --> 01:24:22.760
could not keep their story straight, and I became very frustrated.

910
01:24:23.399 --> 01:24:26.279
It's hard writing a non fiction book when all the

911
01:24:26.319 --> 01:24:32.199
people involved are telling you different stories, Garton admitted. When

912
01:24:32.199 --> 01:24:37.279
he went to Ed in confusion, Ed reportedly told him quote,

913
01:24:37.399 --> 01:24:40.640
they're crazy. All the people who come to us are crazy.

914
01:24:41.439 --> 01:24:43.720
Just use what you can and make the rest up.

915
01:24:44.319 --> 01:24:50.479
Make it scary. This jaw dropping allegation from Garten basically

916
01:24:50.520 --> 01:24:55.479
accuses Ed Warren of encouraging him to fabricate elements in

917
01:24:55.640 --> 01:25:01.800
order to create a better horror story. Since distanced himself

918
01:25:01.840 --> 01:25:05.600
from the book, even expressing relief when it went out

919
01:25:05.600 --> 01:25:12.239
of print. Involving Lorraine, Garton didn't mince words. Quote if

920
01:25:12.279 --> 01:25:14.880
she told me the sun would come up tomorrow morning,

921
01:25:15.319 --> 01:25:20.359
I'd get a second opinion. That quip, reprinted in Skeptic

922
01:25:20.439 --> 01:25:26.920
Benjamin Radford's writings, encapsulates how little credibility he now gives

923
01:25:27.000 --> 01:25:32.399
the Warrens. Joe Nichol's Skeptical Inquirer report on the case

924
01:25:33.000 --> 01:25:37.760
came to a scathing conclusion. He quoted the Snedeker's own

925
01:25:37.880 --> 01:25:44.119
landlady's husband, who, upon seeing the media frenzy, declared, quote,

926
01:25:44.800 --> 01:25:50.479
it's a fraud. It's a joke, it's a hoax. It's Halloween.

927
01:25:51.319 --> 01:25:57.359
It's a scheme to make money. Nichol agreed. Nichol agreed,

928
01:25:57.880 --> 01:26:01.359
pointing out how the book release was timed for Halloween

929
01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:06.720
and heavily promoted on television. He noted that some of

930
01:26:06.720 --> 01:26:10.560
the Warren's own co authors have admitted ed told them

931
01:26:10.600 --> 01:26:15.199
to make up scary incidents to spice up the accounts.

932
01:26:16.199 --> 01:26:21.840
In Nichol's estimation, even if something initially strange happened in Southington,

933
01:26:22.640 --> 01:26:25.520
by the time the Warrens were through, it had been

934
01:26:25.560 --> 01:26:31.239
transformed into a commercial hoax. If the case did not

935
01:26:31.399 --> 01:26:35.319
originate as a hoax, people could scarcely be blamed for

936
01:26:35.399 --> 01:26:40.560
thinking it has been transformed into one, Nichol wrote dryly.

937
01:26:42.079 --> 01:26:48.279
Subsequent developments only bolstered that conclusion. Nichols not the only

938
01:26:48.399 --> 01:26:54.600
skeptic to scrutinize famous Warren cases. Fellow investigator Benjamin Radford

939
01:26:55.239 --> 01:26:59.640
examined the Amityville file and noted that it too had

940
01:26:59.680 --> 01:27:07.640
been refuted by eye witnesses, investigations, and forensic evidence. The

941
01:27:07.680 --> 01:27:12.680
Warrens always swore Amityville was real, but the weight of evidence,

942
01:27:13.279 --> 01:27:18.520
which we will outline soon, suggests it was a concocted story.

943
01:27:19.520 --> 01:27:24.560
James Randy, the famed magician and skeptic, frequently lumped Ed

944
01:27:24.680 --> 01:27:29.439
and Lorraine Warren in with what he called quote Charlatan's

945
01:27:29.880 --> 01:27:34.680
who prey on the gullible. Though Randy did not devote

946
01:27:34.720 --> 01:27:39.039
a column specifically to the Warrens, he often cited the

947
01:27:39.079 --> 01:27:46.159
Amityville saga as an example of a paranormal claim definitively disproven,

948
01:27:46.399 --> 01:27:50.359
yet believers clung to it, thanks in part to the

949
01:27:50.399 --> 01:27:57.560
Warren's efforts. In private conversations, Randy reportedly had little patience

950
01:27:57.600 --> 01:28:02.399
for Ed Warren's tales of demon and ghosts, considering them

951
01:28:02.600 --> 01:28:08.800
unproven at best and laughable at worst, even within their

952
01:28:08.840 --> 01:28:15.600
own paranormal circles. Not everyone admired the Warrens. Guy lyon Playfair,

953
01:28:16.000 --> 01:28:20.920
the spr researcher we referenced at Enfield, had a negative

954
01:28:21.039 --> 01:28:25.600
view of Ed Warren's involvement. Playfair felt Ed was a

955
01:28:25.840 --> 01:28:31.439
quote a complete fill in whatever word you want, implying

956
01:28:31.560 --> 01:28:36.640
he saw Ed as a charlatan or phantasist. And remember

957
01:28:36.840 --> 01:28:41.600
Playfield reported that Ed told him quite bluntly during Enfield

958
01:28:42.119 --> 01:28:45.560
quote you could make a lot of money off this case.

959
01:28:46.760 --> 01:28:51.520
To Playfair, that was proof that prophet not truth. Was

960
01:28:51.800 --> 01:28:57.159
Ed's driving motive. In that instance, the Warrens, he said,

961
01:28:57.640 --> 01:29:02.640
showed up uninvited and were quickly shown the door, hardly

962
01:29:02.720 --> 01:29:08.600
the gallant heroes portrayed in films. The New England skeptical

963
01:29:08.680 --> 01:29:14.439
society's ultimate verdict, echoed by others like Nickel and Radford,

964
01:29:14.880 --> 01:29:19.920
is that Ed and Lorraine never actually proved anything supernatural.

965
01:29:20.880 --> 01:29:24.600
They might have been sincere at times, but they were

966
01:29:24.640 --> 01:29:30.880
mistaken seeing demons in every corner, but never providing concrete,

967
01:29:31.399 --> 01:29:37.359
testable evidence, or they were exaggerating and fabricating stories to

968
01:29:37.439 --> 01:29:43.039
build their mystique and bank account. Either way, skeptics assert

969
01:29:43.640 --> 01:29:48.439
the Warrens did not have the goods. As Benjamin Radford

970
01:29:48.479 --> 01:29:52.960
put it, the Warren's real talent was in storytelling and

971
01:29:53.039 --> 01:29:59.880
self promotion, not demon expulsion. So on one side we

972
01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:04.760
we have the Warren's elaborate stories of ghosts and demons.

973
01:30:05.680 --> 01:30:09.960
On the other, we have skeptics tearing holes in those

974
01:30:10.000 --> 01:30:14.960
stories and sometimes catching the Warrens in what appear to

975
01:30:15.000 --> 01:30:21.000
be lies. But nothing drives the skeptical point home more

976
01:30:21.079 --> 01:30:26.720
than hearing from the insiders, the families and collaborators themselves,

977
01:30:27.399 --> 01:30:33.479
who eventually spoke out. It's one thing for outside skeptics

978
01:30:33.520 --> 01:30:37.479
to cast doubt on the Warrens. Believers could brush that

979
01:30:37.600 --> 01:30:42.800
off as cynics who simply weren't there. It's far more

980
01:30:42.880 --> 01:30:47.560
damaging when the people who were directly involved in Warren

981
01:30:47.640 --> 01:30:53.760
cases come forward to contest the official story. And indeed,

982
01:30:54.279 --> 01:30:59.840
over the years, several key individuals, from haunted family members

983
01:31:00.399 --> 01:31:05.960
to the Warren's own writers have delivered testimonies that seriously

984
01:31:06.119 --> 01:31:18.079
undercut the Warren's legacy. We've already heard from author Ray

985
01:31:18.159 --> 01:31:23.439
Garton about the Snedeker case, but this is not the

986
01:31:23.479 --> 01:31:28.760
only voice. Let's consider the aftermath of the Warren's Devil

987
01:31:28.840 --> 01:31:34.159
in Connecticut case, the Arn Johnson trial, and the purported

988
01:31:34.199 --> 01:31:39.840
possession of young David Glatzel in nineteen eighty. In two

989
01:31:39.880 --> 01:31:44.560
thousand and six, the book The Devil in Connecticut was

990
01:31:44.600 --> 01:31:48.880
set to be reprinted, riding the wave of renewed interest

991
01:31:49.039 --> 01:31:53.920
in Warren's stories. This did not sit well with one

992
01:31:54.039 --> 01:32:00.239
of the Glatzell family members, Carl Glatzel, Junior, David's older brother.

993
01:32:01.159 --> 01:32:05.239
In two thousand and seven, Carl Glatzel sued Lorraine Warren

994
01:32:05.560 --> 01:32:11.119
and author Gerald Briddle, alleging that the book grossly misrepresented

995
01:32:11.159 --> 01:32:16.880
the truth and violated his family's privacy. Carl, who was

996
01:32:17.000 --> 01:32:22.399
sixteen at the time of the events, stated emphatically that

997
01:32:22.439 --> 01:32:27.239
the claims of demonic possession were a hoax engineered by

998
01:32:27.279 --> 01:32:31.920
the Warrens along with a local priest. He said the

999
01:32:31.960 --> 01:32:37.279
Warrens quote concocted a phony story about demons in an

1000
01:32:37.319 --> 01:32:42.600
attempt to get rich and famous at our expense. Those

1001
01:32:42.680 --> 01:32:46.720
are strong words, get rich and famous at our expense.

1002
01:32:48.039 --> 01:32:53.159
Carl was angry that after twenty plus years, the Warrens

1003
01:32:53.199 --> 01:32:56.880
were dredging up what he called lies that had caused

1004
01:32:56.920 --> 01:33:03.239
his family nothing but ridicule and pain. Carl recounted that

1005
01:33:03.479 --> 01:33:07.399
as a teenager, he'd never believed his brother David was

1006
01:33:07.600 --> 01:33:13.560
truly possessed. Instead, he says, David was mentally ill and

1007
01:33:13.720 --> 01:33:20.079
later recovered with proper treatment. The Warrens, he claims, manipulated

1008
01:33:20.079 --> 01:33:24.039
the family's story and even made him out to be

1009
01:33:24.079 --> 01:33:27.560
a villain in the book simply because he didn't go

1010
01:33:27.640 --> 01:33:32.920
along with the demon narrative. Indeed, in The Devil in Connecticut,

1011
01:33:33.319 --> 01:33:37.920
Carl is portrayed as an antagonist who didn't believe and

1012
01:33:38.039 --> 01:33:44.920
supposedly even dabbled in occultism, something he denies. Carl said

1013
01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:50.000
many incidents in the book were complete lies. The effect

1014
01:33:50.039 --> 01:33:55.640
on him was devastating. He felt ostracized, had to leave town,

1015
01:33:56.319 --> 01:34:02.640
lost friends and business opportunities because people associated him with

1016
01:34:02.960 --> 01:34:08.720
quote that demon's story. In the lawsuit press release, he

1017
01:34:08.880 --> 01:34:15.359
flatly asserted his brother was never possessed, just ill quote

1018
01:34:15.760 --> 01:34:20.760
the entire family was manipulated and exploited by the Warrens.

1019
01:34:21.359 --> 01:34:26.760
Carl said, how did Lorraine Warren respond to this serious

1020
01:34:26.800 --> 01:34:32.880
accusation by doubling down? Lorraine, then about eighty years old,

1021
01:34:33.359 --> 01:34:37.359
defended the case as real. She pointed out that the

1022
01:34:37.439 --> 01:34:43.920
Catholic Church had been involved. Quote six priests who participated

1023
01:34:43.960 --> 01:34:50.159
in exorcisms agreed David was possessed, Lorraine said, and she

1024
01:34:50.279 --> 01:34:58.279
claimed quote tremendous documentation existed from the church's investigation. Basically,

1025
01:34:58.359 --> 01:35:02.199
her stance was he didn't make this up. The highest

1026
01:35:02.199 --> 01:35:07.880
religious authorities saw it too. Lorraine also questioned Carl's motives.

1027
01:35:08.439 --> 01:35:13.399
Quote after twenty something years, why is this coming up now?

1028
01:35:13.960 --> 01:35:19.560
What's behind it? She mused, insinuating that Carl just wanted

1029
01:35:19.640 --> 01:35:26.319
money or attention. Author Gerald Briddle also defended his work.

1030
01:35:26.880 --> 01:35:31.039
He said he spent over one hundred hours interviewing the

1031
01:35:31.079 --> 01:35:36.439
Glatzells and had tapes to prove they endorsed the story.

1032
01:35:37.399 --> 01:35:41.319
In fact, Brittle claimed the family even signed off on

1033
01:35:41.439 --> 01:35:46.600
the manuscript as accurate back in nineteen eighty three. So

1034
01:35:46.760 --> 01:35:51.399
Brittle's line was Carl's the only one complaining and he

1035
01:35:51.520 --> 01:35:54.880
has an agenda. Everyone else in the family was on

1036
01:35:54.960 --> 01:35:59.159
board when we published. It became a he said, she said.

1037
01:36:00.479 --> 01:36:06.479
Carl's lawsuit was eventually dismissed, largely on technical grounds the

1038
01:36:06.520 --> 01:36:10.960
Statute of Limitations, since he was suing after the reprint

1039
01:36:11.000 --> 01:36:15.560
and not the original publication. Brittle did agree to pull

1040
01:36:15.600 --> 01:36:20.279
the book from print to avoid further legal hassle, which

1041
01:36:20.399 --> 01:36:26.319
might say something in itself. However, Carl Glatzel's case is

1042
01:36:26.439 --> 01:36:31.359
illuminating regardless of the legal outcome. It demonstrates that at

1043
01:36:31.439 --> 01:36:35.720
least some of the real people behind the Warren's true

1044
01:36:35.840 --> 01:36:43.319
stories felt harmed and misrepresented. Carl essentially accused the Warrens

1045
01:36:43.359 --> 01:36:49.479
of exploiting his family's trauma for profit. It also highlights

1046
01:36:49.760 --> 01:36:54.920
how the Warren's narrative often relied on the cooperation or

1047
01:36:55.199 --> 01:37:00.399
silence of the families. As long as everyone went along,

1048
01:37:01.159 --> 01:37:06.359
the story stood, But once someone like Carl objected. It

1049
01:37:06.479 --> 01:37:12.119
exposed that the unanimous front was not so solid after all.

1050
01:37:13.520 --> 01:37:20.000
Another insider critic is Jack Smurle, patriarch of the Smurle Haunting.

1051
01:37:20.880 --> 01:37:26.039
While Jack and Janet Smirle themselves mostly stood by their claims,

1052
01:37:26.840 --> 01:37:30.079
they co authored The Haunted with the Warrens after all

1053
01:37:30.960 --> 01:37:36.199
other relatives had doubts. Janet's mother was vocal that she

1054
01:37:36.520 --> 01:37:41.760
never experienced anything supernatural in the home, and a local

1055
01:37:41.840 --> 01:37:46.800
priest who investigated the Smurle case for the diocese, Father

1056
01:37:46.880 --> 01:37:51.399
Alfredo Callerco, said he found no evidence of a haunting

1057
01:37:51.960 --> 01:37:57.079
and suggested the family's issues might be medical or psychological.

1058
01:37:57.960 --> 01:38:01.439
Janet Smirle had a history of temper paro lobe epilepsy,

1059
01:38:02.119 --> 01:38:08.319
which can cause hallucinations. Though the Warrens and Smirls pressed

1060
01:38:08.359 --> 01:38:13.279
on with a demon explanation, the church itself did not

1061
01:38:13.760 --> 01:38:19.640
officially affirm it. The Warrens sometimes clashed with church investigators.

1062
01:38:20.479 --> 01:38:24.560
If a priest or bishop didn't support their claims, ed

1063
01:38:24.600 --> 01:38:31.239
would insinuate the clergyman was inexperienced or in denial. This

1064
01:38:31.359 --> 01:38:36.079
sometimes put them at odds even with the church they championed.

1065
01:38:37.680 --> 01:38:42.600
Perhaps the most startling insider perspective comes not from a

1066
01:38:42.640 --> 01:38:48.479
haunted family, but from within the Warren's own household. This

1067
01:38:48.720 --> 01:38:52.359
is the case of Judith Penny, which remained hidden for

1068
01:38:52.439 --> 01:38:59.640
decades until surfacing in twenty fourteen via legal declarations tied

1069
01:38:59.720 --> 01:39:05.159
to the Conjuring Film Franchises litigation. According to Penny in

1070
01:39:05.199 --> 01:39:10.800
a sworn testimony, Ed Warren initiated a sexual relationship with

1071
01:39:10.880 --> 01:39:16.039
her when she was just fifteen years old around nineteen

1072
01:39:16.239 --> 01:39:20.800
sixty three. Penny says Ed was in his mid thirties,

1073
01:39:20.840 --> 01:39:24.840
then working as a city bus driver, and he met

1074
01:39:24.840 --> 01:39:30.000
her as a teen riding the bus. By nineteen sixty three,

1075
01:39:30.319 --> 01:39:34.640
Penny alleges she had moved into the Warren's home, with

1076
01:39:34.800 --> 01:39:40.000
Lorraine being aware of the situation. Effectively, she became Ed's

1077
01:39:40.039 --> 01:39:44.479
live and lover. While Lorraine, around thirty six years old

1078
01:39:44.520 --> 01:39:49.439
at the time, was fully aware and accepting of this

1079
01:39:49.640 --> 01:39:57.840
highly unconventional arrangement, Penny's account gets even more unsettling from there.

1080
01:40:05.079 --> 01:40:09.640
In nineteen sixty three, a neighbor found out about the situation,

1081
01:40:10.319 --> 01:40:16.079
and Judith was arrested for underage relations. A court apparently

1082
01:40:16.640 --> 01:40:21.000
ordered her to a delinquent youth program for a while, Ed,

1083
01:40:21.159 --> 01:40:24.319
she says, would pick her up from high school and

1084
01:40:24.439 --> 01:40:29.800
drive her to these mandated meetings. To avoid scandal, Ed

1085
01:40:29.880 --> 01:40:34.800
and Lorraine allegedly told people Judith was a niece or

1086
01:40:34.960 --> 01:40:40.399
a poor girl they were helping out. This charade eventually

1087
01:40:40.520 --> 01:40:45.720
continued for years. Penny claimed that in nineteen seventy eight,

1088
01:40:46.199 --> 01:40:51.760
she even became pregnant with Ed's child, but Lorraine persuaded

1089
01:40:51.800 --> 01:40:55.319
her to get an abortion to prevent the affair from

1090
01:40:55.439 --> 01:41:02.079
coming to light and jeopardizing their ghost hunting business. If true,

1091
01:41:02.199 --> 01:41:07.560
that suggests Lorraine was complicit in maintaining a facade of

1092
01:41:07.600 --> 01:41:14.399
the happy, pious couple while tolerating Ed's sexual relationship with

1093
01:41:14.479 --> 01:41:20.720
a minor turned mistress. Moreover, Penny stated Ed could be

1094
01:41:21.079 --> 01:41:27.600
physically abusive toward Lorraine, alleging quote, sometimes Ed would have

1095
01:41:27.680 --> 01:41:30.439
to slap her across the face to shut her up.

1096
01:41:31.199 --> 01:41:33.760
Some nights I thought they were going to kill each other.

1097
01:41:35.079 --> 01:41:39.079
This paints an ugly picture of their home life, far

1098
01:41:39.239 --> 01:41:43.760
removed from the loving partnership depicted in books and films.

1099
01:41:44.800 --> 01:41:49.359
Penny says she stayed with Ed until the early two thousands,

1100
01:41:49.399 --> 01:41:54.000
over four decades effectively as part of the Warren household.

1101
01:41:54.560 --> 01:41:59.640
Until Ed's death in two thousand and six, she expressed

1102
01:41:59.680 --> 01:42:05.119
deep regret and confusion as to quote, while Lorraine let

1103
01:42:05.159 --> 01:42:08.119
me stay there, I screwed up my life like this,

1104
01:42:09.159 --> 01:42:16.199
indicating she felt exploited and emotionally damaged. These allegations only

1105
01:42:16.239 --> 01:42:21.239
became public because of a lawsuit different from Glatzell's involving

1106
01:42:21.319 --> 01:42:26.279
film producers and authors fighting over the Conjuring franchise's prophets,

1107
01:42:27.000 --> 01:42:31.960
where Penny's story was used to question the Warren's public image.

1108
01:42:32.640 --> 01:42:36.800
Warner Brothers lawyers called it hearsay being weaponized by a

1109
01:42:37.039 --> 01:42:42.560
disgruntled author with a vendetta, referring to Gerald Briddle, who

1110
01:42:42.640 --> 01:42:47.199
was suing them at the time. Lorraine's attorney, Gary Barkin,

1111
01:42:47.680 --> 01:42:52.920
denied Judith was Ed's lover, insisting quote the Warrens opened

1112
01:42:52.960 --> 01:42:56.479
their home to miss Penny when she was eighteen and

1113
01:42:56.600 --> 01:43:00.560
had nowhere to go. She lived and watched the house

1114
01:43:00.600 --> 01:43:05.319
while Ed and Lorraine or on the road. In other words,

1115
01:43:05.640 --> 01:43:10.000
the official line was we were just helping a troubled team.

1116
01:43:10.239 --> 01:43:15.680
Nothing inappropriate happened. She was like a housekeeper. The attorney

1117
01:43:15.760 --> 01:43:19.680
also claimed the family had no knowledge of any affair.

1118
01:43:20.680 --> 01:43:26.600
Of course, that denial is somewhat inconsistent with Penny's detailed account.

1119
01:43:27.439 --> 01:43:32.000
For instance, she says she was fifteen when it all started,

1120
01:43:32.680 --> 01:43:38.439
not eighteen. To date, Penny's allegations haven't been adjudicated in

1121
01:43:38.560 --> 01:43:44.239
court or thoroughly investigated by media beyond the initial Hollywood

1122
01:43:44.239 --> 01:43:49.159
reporter story that broke it. Lorraine was in her nineties

1123
01:43:49.199 --> 01:43:53.119
and in declining health by that point, and she passed

1124
01:43:53.159 --> 01:44:00.800
away shortly after without ever publicly addressing the specifics. For some,

1125
01:44:01.079 --> 01:44:04.840
the Penny story is a sordid footnote, irrelevant to the

1126
01:44:04.880 --> 01:44:11.600
Warren's paranormal claims, but for others it's profoundly significant. It

1127
01:44:11.720 --> 01:44:15.760
suggests Ed and Lorraine were not who they appeared to

1128
01:44:15.840 --> 01:44:20.279
be morally, and that they were capable of maintaining a

1129
01:44:20.359 --> 01:44:25.199
long term deception like the illusion of a monogamous marriage,

1130
01:44:25.760 --> 01:44:30.520
in order to protect their image. If they could fool

1131
01:44:30.560 --> 01:44:35.119
the world about something as fundamental as their living arrangements,

1132
01:44:35.560 --> 01:44:41.159
critics argue, what else could they be hiding or misrepresenting?

1133
01:44:42.119 --> 01:44:48.359
In summary, the voices from inside the Warren, Mythos Ray Garton,

1134
01:44:48.840 --> 01:44:55.600
Carl Glatzel, Judith Penny, and others provide a stark counter narrative.

1135
01:44:56.520 --> 01:45:01.920
They speak of invented incidents, pressured or vulnerable people, and

1136
01:45:02.079 --> 01:45:08.279
priorities of money and fame over truth. They suggest that

1137
01:45:08.359 --> 01:45:13.119
when the Warrens declared something a demonic haunting, it might

1138
01:45:13.159 --> 01:45:18.960
actually have been a family's personal struggles or outright fabrications

1139
01:45:19.520 --> 01:45:26.720
molded into a saleable story. Importantly, these whistleblowers highlight a pattern.

1140
01:45:27.560 --> 01:45:30.479
The Warrens often worked with people who were in some

1141
01:45:30.640 --> 01:45:37.399
kind of distress or crisis, illness, financial trouble, or personal trauma.

1142
01:45:38.600 --> 01:45:44.399
It was precisely those people's stories that became sensational hauntings.

1143
01:45:45.600 --> 01:45:52.359
Skeptics suggest the Warrens possibly exploited these crises, intentionally or not,

1144
01:45:53.199 --> 01:45:57.960
by fitting them into a demonic framework and then monetizing

1145
01:45:58.439 --> 01:46:03.880
that framework. We should note, however, that not every family

1146
01:46:04.039 --> 01:46:08.399
turned on the Warrens. The Paron family, for instance, while

1147
01:46:08.479 --> 01:46:14.119
acknowledging the Hollywood movie was exaggerated, has not accused the

1148
01:46:14.199 --> 01:46:20.239
Warrens of any wrongdoing. In fact, Andrea Paron remains on

1149
01:46:20.479 --> 01:46:25.199
friendly terms with Lorraine's team and still asserts her haunting

1150
01:46:25.840 --> 01:46:30.000
was genuine, though she doesn't blame the Warrens for being

1151
01:46:30.079 --> 01:46:35.199
kicked out by her father. The Smirls remained believers, and

1152
01:46:35.319 --> 01:46:40.600
there are surely many cases the Warrens claimed thousands we'll

1153
01:46:40.680 --> 01:46:46.319
never hear about, presumably where folks quietly moved on, either

1154
01:46:46.479 --> 01:46:51.000
helped by the Warren's Council, or at least feeling validated.

1155
01:46:52.079 --> 01:46:56.920
None the less, the pattern of significant cases unraveling under

1156
01:46:56.960 --> 01:47:02.640
scrutiny is hard to ignore. Now it's time to dissect

1157
01:47:02.720 --> 01:47:09.319
those inconsistencies and debunct elements case by case to see

1158
01:47:09.399 --> 01:47:15.319
how the legend of the Warrens fares against documented reality.

1159
01:47:16.680 --> 01:47:23.239
Let's revisit those five big cases, Amityville, Annabelle, the Pair

1160
01:47:23.359 --> 01:47:29.279
On Farmhouse, Enfield, and the Snedeker House, but now under

1161
01:47:29.359 --> 01:47:35.600
the cold light of facts and contradictions. The goal here

1162
01:47:35.840 --> 01:47:39.479
is not to mock belief in the paranormal, but to

1163
01:47:39.560 --> 01:47:44.359
see whether the specific claims made by the Warrens hold

1164
01:47:44.439 --> 01:47:57.479
up as well as where they fall apart. First, Amityville.

1165
01:47:58.239 --> 01:48:04.479
Perhaps no haunting has been more thoroughly debunked than Amityville,

1166
01:48:04.520 --> 01:48:10.119
ironically the one that started the war in Celebrity journalist

1167
01:48:10.239 --> 01:48:15.479
Rick Moran and others found numerous holes in the Lutz's story.

1168
01:48:16.239 --> 01:48:20.000
For instance, the Lutz family said they called the police

1169
01:48:20.119 --> 01:48:25.960
multiple times during the haunting, but records show no calls.

1170
01:48:27.079 --> 01:48:30.880
They claimed cloven hoof prints were found in the snow,

1171
01:48:31.680 --> 01:48:37.600
but weather records show no snow on those dates. Neighbors

1172
01:48:37.640 --> 01:48:43.960
saw nothing unusual. And then there's the bombshell. William Webber,

1173
01:48:44.640 --> 01:48:50.520
attorney for the Dafao murderer, admitted publicly in nineteen seventy

1174
01:48:50.640 --> 01:48:55.600
nine that he and the Lutzes invented the horror story

1175
01:48:56.039 --> 01:49:01.880
quote over many bottles of wine. Weber had hoped a

1176
01:49:02.000 --> 01:49:06.039
demon angle might help his client, or at least make

1177
01:49:06.159 --> 01:49:11.239
money from a book deal. Jay Andsen's book was indeed

1178
01:49:11.680 --> 01:49:17.760
a lucrative project, so essentially one of the original architects

1179
01:49:17.800 --> 01:49:24.279
of Amityville confessed it was a hoax for profit. Stephen

1180
01:49:24.359 --> 01:49:29.560
and Roxanne Kaplan's nineteen seventy nine investigation came to the

1181
01:49:29.600 --> 01:49:34.640
same conclusion. They called the whole thing a hoax and

1182
01:49:34.760 --> 01:49:42.279
wrote The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, detailing the inconsistencies. But what

1183
01:49:42.399 --> 01:49:46.720
about the Warrens. They stuck to their guns that Amityville

1184
01:49:46.800 --> 01:49:51.359
was real and dangerous, even as evidence of a hoax

1185
01:49:51.760 --> 01:49:56.600
piled up. Skeptics argue the Warrens had every reason to

1186
01:49:56.760 --> 01:50:01.840
cling to Amityville's verocity. It was, after all, their claim

1187
01:50:01.920 --> 01:50:07.880
to fame. If Amityville was fake, their credibility would suffer.

1188
01:50:09.159 --> 01:50:13.960
They've been criticized in the past for ignoring evidence. Benjamin

1189
01:50:14.039 --> 01:50:18.720
Radford points out that eye witness testimony and forensic evidence

1190
01:50:18.880 --> 01:50:24.880
flatly contradict key elements of the Warren's version. This raises

1191
01:50:24.920 --> 01:50:30.479
a question. Did Ed and Lorraine truly experience something in

1192
01:50:30.560 --> 01:50:35.600
that house or were they simply eager to validate the

1193
01:50:35.720 --> 01:50:40.199
Lutz's story. We know the Warrens weren't present during the

1194
01:50:40.239 --> 01:50:45.840
actual LUTs haunting, they went in afterward. If the Lutzes

1195
01:50:45.960 --> 01:50:51.319
fabricated things, the Warrens could only experience an empty house

1196
01:50:52.119 --> 01:50:57.680
except for whatever atmosphere they brought with them, It's conceivable

1197
01:50:57.760 --> 01:51:03.680
the Warrens spooked themselves or outright fibbed about experiences like

1198
01:51:04.239 --> 01:51:10.119
Ed being thrown by a spirit. Regardless, today, Amityville is

1199
01:51:10.199 --> 01:51:17.000
widely regarded as fictional, Yet the Warren's promotional materials never

1200
01:51:17.239 --> 01:51:23.119
conceded that this willingness to endorse a probable hoax calls

1201
01:51:23.159 --> 01:51:30.640
into question their discernment or honesty. With Annabel. We enter

1202
01:51:31.079 --> 01:51:37.720
Murcier territory because the case relies entirely on the Warren's word.

1203
01:51:38.720 --> 01:51:42.960
We have the testimonies of Donna and Angie the nurses

1204
01:51:43.560 --> 01:51:48.680
as relayed by the Warrens, but not much independent verification.

1205
01:51:49.720 --> 01:51:54.439
The events moving doll, parchment notes scratches on a young

1206
01:51:54.520 --> 01:52:00.640
man are frankly things that could be pranks or misremembered incidents.

1207
01:52:01.560 --> 01:52:06.000
No one outside the immediate circle saw the doll move.

1208
01:52:07.199 --> 01:52:11.239
The Warrens jumped to the conclusion of demon based on

1209
01:52:11.359 --> 01:52:16.319
their own demonology framework. Another investigator might have thought it

1210
01:52:16.439 --> 01:52:21.159
was a spirit or nothing at all. The question of

1211
01:52:21.239 --> 01:52:26.840
authenticity here rests on trust. Do we trust the Warren's

1212
01:52:26.880 --> 01:52:31.760
account They did keep the doll locked up, but skeptics

1213
01:52:31.800 --> 01:52:38.439
would say that's just theater. Notably, some skeptics, like Joe Nickel,

1214
01:52:38.680 --> 01:52:42.800
point out that raggedy and dolls don't walk. If it

1215
01:52:42.880 --> 01:52:47.000
was found in different positions, could it be someone in

1216
01:52:47.039 --> 01:52:53.359
the household moving it for fun or simply memory playing tricks.

1217
01:52:54.520 --> 01:52:59.039
Without evidence, Annabel is a great spooky story, but not

1218
01:52:59.359 --> 01:53:04.720
proof of the paranormal. Even the supposed fatal motorcycle accident

1219
01:53:04.760 --> 01:53:08.560
of the young man who taunted the doll is hard

1220
01:53:08.680 --> 01:53:13.760
to confirm. Names were never given. It has the feel

1221
01:53:13.840 --> 01:53:18.439
of an urban legend, amplified by the Warrens, who certainly

1222
01:53:18.520 --> 01:53:23.279
had motive to discourage people from mocking their prized exhibit.

1223
01:53:24.479 --> 01:53:30.319
In summary, Annabel's case hasn't been debunked per se, but

1224
01:53:30.760 --> 01:53:37.199
it's on tenuous ground, reliant solely on anecdotes, and given

1225
01:53:37.239 --> 01:53:41.960
the other credibility issues swirling around the Warrens, one has

1226
01:53:42.039 --> 01:53:47.640
to consider the possibility that Annabel's legend grew with retellings.

1227
01:53:48.600 --> 01:53:53.760
The doll, after all, makes for a perfect iconic centerpiece

1228
01:53:54.279 --> 01:54:00.279
in the occult museum, whether truly cursed or not. When

1229
01:54:00.279 --> 01:54:03.520
it comes to the Paron family and the so called

1230
01:54:03.760 --> 01:54:10.000
Conjuring House, thanks to Andrea Paran's extensive memoirs House of Darkness,

1231
01:54:10.039 --> 01:54:13.920
House of Light, as well as interviews, we have a

1232
01:54:14.000 --> 01:54:20.640
pretty full picture of this case. The Parans absolutely experienced something,

1233
01:54:21.319 --> 01:54:26.560
but the interpretation varies. Andrea's view is that there were

1234
01:54:26.680 --> 01:54:32.039
multiple spirits, not all evil, and the family eventually came

1235
01:54:32.159 --> 01:54:36.880
to some kind of truce with them. She doesn't actually

1236
01:54:37.000 --> 01:54:42.039
blame Bathsheba's ghost for everything bad. That was more the

1237
01:54:42.119 --> 01:54:47.880
Warren's theory. Importantly, the Parons never had the house cleansed

1238
01:54:48.039 --> 01:54:53.119
while they lived there. They endured until moving out. The

1239
01:54:53.159 --> 01:54:58.960
Warren's involvement was brief, but indeed dramatic with that seance

1240
01:54:59.119 --> 01:55:03.800
gone wrong. From a critical perspective, what happened in the

1241
01:55:03.880 --> 01:55:07.760
seance could have been induced by the power of suggestion

1242
01:55:08.600 --> 01:55:15.039
or even stress. Carolyn Parron was already under strain. The

1243
01:55:15.119 --> 01:55:19.439
Warrens repeatedly told her she was in danger of possession.

1244
01:55:20.600 --> 01:55:25.199
Under that psychological weight, it is plausible she entered a

1245
01:55:25.279 --> 01:55:30.199
sort of trance or had a fainting spell during the seance,

1246
01:55:31.159 --> 01:55:35.840
which everyone then interpreted as a sort of demonic attack.

1247
01:55:36.840 --> 01:55:43.520
Psychologists call this mass suggestibility in high tension events. The

1248
01:55:43.560 --> 01:55:47.399
fact that Roger threw the Warrens out indicates he felt

1249
01:55:47.479 --> 01:55:54.439
their intention was harmful, not helpful. Indeed, one could argue

1250
01:55:55.079 --> 01:55:59.920
that the Warrens made things worse for the Parons, not better,

1251
01:56:00.720 --> 01:56:05.760
by stirring up panic. The Paron case lacks physical evidence.

1252
01:56:06.359 --> 01:56:12.319
It is a collection of subjective experiences. Opposing viewpoints even

1253
01:56:12.359 --> 01:56:17.640
among the family exist. One of the younger Paron daughters

1254
01:56:18.199 --> 01:56:22.279
later said she never saw anything and slept through all

1255
01:56:22.399 --> 01:56:27.920
the commotion. The Warrens claim that Bathsheba was the culprit

1256
01:56:27.960 --> 01:56:33.880
witch spirit also doesn't hold historical water. Bathsheba Sherman was

1257
01:56:33.920 --> 01:56:37.800
a real person, but there's zero evidence that she was

1258
01:56:37.840 --> 01:56:42.640
a satanist or murderer. The legend was a local myth

1259
01:56:43.039 --> 01:56:48.560
at best, So one inconsistency is that the Warrens confidently

1260
01:56:48.640 --> 01:56:53.479
identified an entity by name that might have been nothing

1261
01:56:53.560 --> 01:56:59.479
more than folklore. But what did later owners of the

1262
01:56:59.560 --> 01:57:04.439
claim and most haunted house in America experience when they

1263
01:57:04.520 --> 01:57:13.960
moved in? Later owners of the house have said they

1264
01:57:14.079 --> 01:57:22.880
experienced nothing unusual, which suggests that maybe the Paron's own dynamics.

1265
01:57:23.560 --> 01:57:28.479
Five kids in a drafty old house, financial troubles, marital

1266
01:57:28.560 --> 01:57:34.319
strain from the haunting stress created an atmosphere for perceived

1267
01:57:34.479 --> 01:57:40.039
paranormal activity. To skeptics, the Paron haunting could be a

1268
01:57:40.159 --> 01:57:47.239
case of misinterpretation of natural noises combined with vivid imaginations

1269
01:57:47.800 --> 01:57:52.600
influenced by local ghost stories. It's telling that the Warren's

1270
01:57:52.880 --> 01:57:58.680
supposedly authoritative involvement didn't resolve a thing. It ended with

1271
01:57:58.760 --> 01:58:04.439
them leaving in defeat. That undermines the notion that they

1272
01:58:04.520 --> 01:58:09.560
had some special powers to combat demons. In this case,

1273
01:58:10.239 --> 01:58:15.640
they retreated and the family lived on haunted for years.

1274
01:58:16.680 --> 01:58:21.239
That reality is far messier than the neat and tidy

1275
01:58:21.640 --> 01:58:26.800
feature film version. Now we move our attention to Enfield.

1276
01:58:27.479 --> 01:58:32.319
This one has been dissected by the spr investigators in detail.

1277
01:58:33.159 --> 01:58:38.359
The consensus among many, though not all, investigators, is that

1278
01:58:38.399 --> 01:58:42.399
the Hodgson girls faked some of the phenomena in order

1279
01:58:42.479 --> 01:58:47.600
to get attention. They were caught on occasion bending spoons

1280
01:58:47.720 --> 01:58:54.159
or tipping chairs. However, Maurice Gross and Guy Playfair believed

1281
01:58:54.239 --> 01:58:58.800
that while the girls may have exaggerated at times, there

1282
01:58:59.000 --> 01:59:04.119
was a core of genuine poltergeist activity like furniture moving

1283
01:59:04.520 --> 01:59:10.680
without explanation, which they witnessed. But where do the Warrens fit?

1284
01:59:11.319 --> 01:59:17.159
As noted, they had minimal access. Guy Playfair was unequivocal

1285
01:59:17.960 --> 01:59:22.560
that the Warrens showed up and immediately sensationalized the case,

1286
01:59:23.159 --> 01:59:29.640
offering to make it profitable. He didn't take them seriously. Indeed,

1287
01:59:30.079 --> 01:59:35.239
no official report from the Enfield case includes anything the

1288
01:59:35.319 --> 01:59:42.880
Warrens contributed, except Lorraine's later public statements agreeing it was demonic.

1289
01:59:44.079 --> 01:59:48.399
The Warrens didn't publish a report or book on Enfield,

1290
01:59:49.039 --> 01:59:53.680
so any claimed that they investigated is tenuous. At best,

1291
01:59:54.560 --> 01:59:59.960
they simply dropped by. Yet the Conjuring Two film give

1292
02:00:00.239 --> 02:00:06.680
the impression they were deeply involved an invention for dramatic purposes.

1293
02:00:07.560 --> 02:00:12.119
This highlights a broader pattern. The Warren's actual role in

1294
02:00:12.239 --> 02:00:19.479
cases is sometimes exaggerated in later retellings, whether by themselves

1295
02:00:19.760 --> 02:00:25.079
or others. In Enfield, the critique is they tried to

1296
02:00:25.159 --> 02:00:30.720
inject themselves into someone else's investigation, perhaps to attach their

1297
02:00:30.800 --> 02:00:35.079
name to a high profile case, and were rebuffed for it.

1298
02:00:36.079 --> 02:00:40.800
That doesn't reflect well. It suggests a bit of clout chasing,

1299
02:00:41.560 --> 02:00:46.600
and the fact that Ed allegedly fabricated a sensational interview

1300
02:00:46.680 --> 02:00:51.720
transcript with Janet, which Playfair said the girl did not recall,

1301
02:00:51.840 --> 02:00:56.359
giving hints that Ed might not have been above making

1302
02:00:56.439 --> 02:01:00.880
things up in order to boost a story. Now we

1303
02:01:01.079 --> 02:01:06.239
finally land back at the Snedeker House the Southington Haunting.

1304
02:01:07.319 --> 02:01:11.079
We've already covered much of the debunking here thanks to

1305
02:01:11.199 --> 02:01:16.800
Nichol and Garten. This case, when deconstructed, looks very bad

1306
02:01:16.960 --> 02:01:22.199
for the Warren's credibility. The timeline of events haunting claims

1307
02:01:22.239 --> 02:01:25.720
crescendo exactly when a book deal is inked and an

1308
02:01:25.760 --> 02:01:31.800
eviction looms, is indeed suspicious. The repetition of claims from

1309
02:01:31.800 --> 02:01:35.680
the Smirl case, like demon rape, for instance, makes it

1310
02:01:35.800 --> 02:01:40.920
seem like the Warrens were recycling a narrative template. The

1311
02:01:41.000 --> 02:01:46.039
direct witness testimony from the neighbors and clergy basically indicates

1312
02:01:46.159 --> 02:01:51.439
nothing supernatural happened in that house that couldn't be explained

1313
02:01:52.439 --> 02:01:56.600
ad Garton's revelation of being told to embellish and the

1314
02:01:56.680 --> 02:02:02.720
Sun's misdeeds explaining phenomena, and it's pretty much a case closed.

1315
02:02:04.000 --> 02:02:08.039
The Snedeker Haunting, as sold to the public, was largely

1316
02:02:08.239 --> 02:02:12.680
a work of fiction. Nickel even uncovered that after the

1317
02:02:12.720 --> 02:02:17.680
Warren's left, Carmen Snedeker's landlord had a priest blessed the

1318
02:02:17.720 --> 02:02:22.079
house and then rented it out to new tenants who

1319
02:02:22.119 --> 02:02:28.039
reported zero problems. If a place is truly infested with demons,

1320
02:02:28.680 --> 02:02:33.520
one wouldn't expect the next family to live peacefully. The

1321
02:02:33.600 --> 02:02:39.479
silence of subsequent tenants is telling. It implies the demons

1322
02:02:40.079 --> 02:02:44.920
left when the story did, or, more bluntly, the demons

1323
02:02:45.039 --> 02:02:50.079
were likely a concoction and not a reality anchored to

1324
02:02:50.159 --> 02:02:57.520
that location. This systematic breakdown reveals one consistent theme. The

1325
02:02:57.600 --> 02:03:01.239
more evidence we seek for a Warren case, the more

1326
02:03:01.279 --> 02:03:06.920
it dissolves into normalcy or deception. Their biggest cases either

1327
02:03:07.039 --> 02:03:12.399
have been discredited like Amityville, or have zero verifiable evidence

1328
02:03:12.760 --> 02:03:18.479
like Annabelle, or involved them only peripherally, such as an Enfield,

1329
02:03:19.199 --> 02:03:24.079
or or co created with people who later cried foul,

1330
02:03:24.119 --> 02:03:28.399
like Snedeker with the Devil in Connecticut. None of this

1331
02:03:28.720 --> 02:03:33.119
is to say Ed and Lorraine never sincerely helped anyone,

1332
02:03:33.800 --> 02:03:38.239
or that all their cases were fraudulent. Many families who

1333
02:03:38.359 --> 02:03:42.680
called them may have been comforted by their belief and prayers,

1334
02:03:43.439 --> 02:03:47.760
But from an investigative standpoint, the Warren's legacy is built

1335
02:03:47.840 --> 02:03:54.199
on accounts that are not reproducible or independently verified. In

1336
02:03:54.279 --> 02:03:59.439
fields like science or law, such anecdotes aren't considered to

1337
02:03:59.479 --> 02:04:06.239
be relied. As one Reddit commentator quipped, they sold themselves

1338
02:04:06.319 --> 02:04:11.439
as experts, and they were great at selling. But when

1339
02:04:11.479 --> 02:04:16.279
you look for the substance behind the showmanship, it is

1340
02:04:16.479 --> 02:04:21.760
truly lacking. Why did the Warrens become so famous and

1341
02:04:22.039 --> 02:04:28.479
influential despite the shaky foundations of their stories. The answer

1342
02:04:28.640 --> 02:04:33.319
lies partly in the cultural context of the times and

1343
02:04:33.439 --> 02:04:37.960
the savvy way Ed and Lorraine engaged with the media.

1344
02:04:39.199 --> 02:04:43.840
The Warrens heyday coincided with the late nineteen seventies through

1345
02:04:43.920 --> 02:04:48.560
the nineteen eighties, a period when America and Britain were

1346
02:04:48.600 --> 02:04:54.119
going through the so called Satanic Panic, there was widespread

1347
02:04:54.199 --> 02:04:59.920
fear of Satanic cults, demonic possession, and occult influences on youth,

1348
02:05:00.880 --> 02:05:07.319
such as the hysteria around dungeons and dragons, heavy metal music, daycare,

1349
02:05:07.520 --> 02:05:12.560
sex abuse cases with supposed satanic rituals, and many more

1350
02:05:13.159 --> 02:05:23.920
such claims. While the Warrens were not directly involved in

1351
02:05:24.079 --> 02:05:29.359
most of those specific moral panics, their work certainly fed

1352
02:05:29.439 --> 02:05:35.239
into the general demon fearing atmosphere. They would lecture church

1353
02:05:35.319 --> 02:05:40.960
groups warning that evil is real, the devil is real,

1354
02:05:41.840 --> 02:05:50.359
which resonated with evangelical and Catholic audiences worried about societal decline.

1355
02:05:50.399 --> 02:05:56.000
They often stressed that seemingly innocuous practices like Ouiji boards

1356
02:05:56.199 --> 02:06:02.640
or witchcraft could open doors to literal demons, a classic

1357
02:06:03.000 --> 02:06:10.039
panic narrative. Essentially, the Warrens provided real life validation to

1358
02:06:10.159 --> 02:06:15.760
people's worst fears. Yes, demons are out there stealing souls

1359
02:06:16.159 --> 02:06:21.439
in suburban Connecticut. This played right into the anxieties of

1360
02:06:21.520 --> 02:06:27.199
the era. They became go to demonologists just as the

1361
02:06:27.239 --> 02:06:34.159
cultural appetite for them had peaked. Media sensationalism further amplified

1362
02:06:34.199 --> 02:06:41.000
their profile. Ed and Lorraine cultivated media relationships shamelessly. They

1363
02:06:41.079 --> 02:06:46.199
appeared on daytime talk shows that thrived on shocking stories.

1364
02:06:47.000 --> 02:06:52.000
For example, they turned the Snedecker case into compelling television

1365
02:06:52.520 --> 02:06:56.000
by bringing the family on the Sally Jesse Raphael Show,

1366
02:06:56.720 --> 02:07:04.159
dramatically recounting demon attacks to a horrified audience. Tabloid newspapers

1367
02:07:04.239 --> 02:07:08.840
lapped it up with headlines like demonic presence said to

1368
02:07:08.920 --> 02:07:14.199
plague family. One local paper's headline about the Snedeckers was

1369
02:07:14.319 --> 02:07:20.840
cheekily telling quote, couple seize ghost skeptics see through it.

1370
02:07:22.000 --> 02:07:27.359
That about captures the dichotomy of public reaction. But the

1371
02:07:27.479 --> 02:07:31.960
fact is the ghost part made the front page and

1372
02:07:32.039 --> 02:07:37.960
the skeptic rebuttal was a subheading. The Warrens understood that

1373
02:07:38.000 --> 02:07:42.039
the media loves a good story more than it loves

1374
02:07:42.119 --> 02:07:46.960
a thorough fact check. Audiences rarely saw the follow up

1375
02:07:47.319 --> 02:07:53.279
where neighbors or investigators debunked the case. They remembered the

1376
02:07:53.319 --> 02:07:58.279
thrilling tale of a family under siege by hellish forces.

1377
02:07:59.279 --> 02:08:03.439
As disrupt Ter's magazine noted, the Warrens were adept at

1378
02:08:03.560 --> 02:08:11.600
leveraging various platforms to share their experiences. TV, radio magazines

1379
02:08:11.960 --> 02:08:18.640
all were regular outlets, and Ed's assertive personality complemented Lorraine's

1380
02:08:19.039 --> 02:08:25.239
serene demeanor in engaging audiences. In other words, they made

1381
02:08:25.319 --> 02:08:30.319
for great TV. Ed the blunt X cop type talking

1382
02:08:30.359 --> 02:08:36.399
about demonology and Lorraine the suite grandmotherly psychic. It was

1383
02:08:36.439 --> 02:08:43.359
an irresistible combo of spooky and wholesome. They were characterized

1384
02:08:43.399 --> 02:08:49.760
in press releases as kindly pious ghost hunters helping desperate people,

1385
02:08:50.319 --> 02:08:55.039
which created a narrative of altruism all around them. But

1386
02:08:55.279 --> 02:08:59.199
as skeptic Kenny Biddle has pointed out, many of those

1387
02:08:59.640 --> 02:09:06.079
media appearances were light on evidence and heavy on anecdote.

1388
02:09:06.159 --> 02:09:11.279
The Warrens rarely, if ever, shared raw data for outside analysis.

1389
02:09:12.079 --> 02:09:15.640
It was all, here's a spooky photo we took, or

1390
02:09:16.279 --> 02:09:22.439
listen to this creepy audio, Ambiguous items that believers could

1391
02:09:22.439 --> 02:09:30.239
get excited about but skeptics could reasonably explain or doubt. Financially,

1392
02:09:30.880 --> 02:09:34.760
Ed and Lorraine built a cottage industry from their demonology.

1393
02:09:35.760 --> 02:09:38.800
Let's talk a little about the money trail, as it

1394
02:09:38.880 --> 02:09:44.359
often explains motives. The Warrens always claimed they did not

1395
02:09:45.159 --> 02:09:50.239
charge for investigations, which may be true. At least there's

1396
02:09:50.319 --> 02:09:54.319
no evidence they had a fee like some psychic mediums

1397
02:09:54.359 --> 02:10:00.000
often do. But they certainly monetized their cases in other words.

1398
02:10:01.159 --> 02:10:07.880
Most notably was books, starting with The Demonologist in nineteen eighty,

1399
02:10:08.319 --> 02:10:14.439
which recounted their early career. Nearly every famous case became

1400
02:10:14.600 --> 02:10:19.479
a paperback. These books sold well to horror fans and

1401
02:10:19.640 --> 02:10:24.239
believers alike. They typically had the Warren's name on the

1402
02:10:24.279 --> 02:10:30.159
cover for credibility, alongside an actual authors who had done

1403
02:10:30.199 --> 02:10:35.439
the writing. Royalties and advances from these would flow partly

1404
02:10:35.840 --> 02:10:39.840
to the Warrens. When Brittle sued Warner Brothers in two

1405
02:10:39.960 --> 02:10:45.439
thousand seventeen, it came out that The Demonologist alone had

1406
02:10:45.479 --> 02:10:50.840
sold over one hundred thousand copies in its first run,

1407
02:10:51.640 --> 02:10:56.960
and interest researched after the Conjuring movies, so they made

1408
02:10:57.000 --> 02:11:02.159
a tidy sum from book deals. Another source of income

1409
02:11:02.880 --> 02:11:07.239
was the lecture circuit. Throughout the eighties and nineties, the

1410
02:11:07.279 --> 02:11:13.920
Warren spoke at hundreds of venues, universities, church gatherings, even

1411
02:11:14.199 --> 02:11:19.560
high school assemblies on Halloween. Often these were paid gigs.

1412
02:11:20.159 --> 02:11:23.560
A college might pay a few thousand dollars for a

1413
02:11:23.600 --> 02:11:29.920
single appearance. They also sometimes charged admission for special talks

1414
02:11:30.079 --> 02:11:36.680
or demonology classes. Ed ran his own College of Demonology

1415
02:11:37.000 --> 02:11:41.279
out of his house at one point basically evening classes

1416
02:11:41.319 --> 02:11:47.840
for local curiosity seekers. Lecture income wasn't astronomical, but it

1417
02:11:48.039 --> 02:11:52.279
was steady, and combined with book sales, gave them a living.

1418
02:11:53.359 --> 02:11:56.760
Ed had retired from the police force or from being

1419
02:11:56.800 --> 02:12:01.239
a bus driver. Accounts vary, and this was their full

1420
02:12:01.319 --> 02:12:07.920
time vocation. Another source, especially later on, were media rights.

1421
02:12:08.920 --> 02:12:12.800
The Warrens were quite business savvy in optioning their stories

1422
02:12:12.840 --> 02:12:18.239
for film and TV. The Amityville case yielded multiple movies,

1423
02:12:18.399 --> 02:12:22.720
though indirectly, as Jay Anson and the Lutzes had the

1424
02:12:22.720 --> 02:12:27.600
main rights. The Warrens were directly involved as consultants on

1425
02:12:27.680 --> 02:12:31.359
The Haunted, the nineteen ninety one TV movie about the

1426
02:12:31.399 --> 02:12:35.479
Smurl case the Haunting in Connecticut. They weren't in it,

1427
02:12:35.560 --> 02:12:39.840
but they likely got some royalty from the underlying books adaptation.

1428
02:12:41.199 --> 02:12:45.279
The big payday obviously came with The Conjuring from twenty

1429
02:12:45.479 --> 02:12:50.640
thirteen and its sequels and spin offs. Lorraine Warren was

1430
02:12:50.680 --> 02:12:54.640
a consultant on The Conjuring, even making a cameo in

1431
02:12:54.680 --> 02:12:59.479
the promotional videos, and according to reports, the Warrens or

1432
02:12:59.760 --> 02:13:03.039
low Rain and Ed's estate had made a deal with

1433
02:13:03.159 --> 02:13:07.239
New Line Cinema Warner Brothers for rights to their case files.

1434
02:13:08.199 --> 02:13:13.640
This is particularly interesting. Brittle claimed he had exclusive rights

1435
02:13:14.119 --> 02:13:19.359
via his nineteen seventies contract, but apparently the Warrens or

1436
02:13:20.000 --> 02:13:23.880
perhaps their son in law who managed the estate, sold

1437
02:13:24.000 --> 02:13:29.640
overlapping rights to the studio that turned into the lawsuit

1438
02:13:29.680 --> 02:13:35.319
where Warner Brothers argued these stories are historical facts in

1439
02:13:35.359 --> 02:13:40.520
the public domain in order to avoid paying Brittle. Ultimately,

1440
02:13:40.600 --> 02:13:45.279
Warner Brothers settled regardless. By the end of her life,

1441
02:13:45.560 --> 02:13:51.439
Lorraine likely saw substantial money, perhaps not nine hundred million

1442
02:13:51.520 --> 02:13:55.920
dollars as Brittle sued for, but certainly in the hundreds

1443
02:13:55.920 --> 02:14:00.600
of thousands, if not few million, for the sale of rights.

1444
02:14:01.880 --> 02:14:06.039
The occult Museum's current operators, the Warren's daughter and son

1445
02:14:06.119 --> 02:14:11.119
in law, have also capitalized on the conjuring craze, doing

1446
02:14:11.199 --> 02:14:15.840
Annabelle tours at horror conventions, etc. Which appear to be

1447
02:14:16.000 --> 02:14:21.399
profitable enterprises. People pay fifty dollars or more just for

1448
02:14:21.479 --> 02:14:26.600
a photo op with the supposed cursed doll While Ed

1449
02:14:26.800 --> 02:14:30.399
was alive, they would open the museum in Monroe for

1450
02:14:30.640 --> 02:14:34.840
small groups that maybe five or ten dollars a head.

1451
02:14:35.279 --> 02:14:39.039
Reports say three dollars back in the early days a

1452
02:14:39.079 --> 02:14:44.279
token fee. Really it wasn't a cash cow. However, in

1453
02:14:44.399 --> 02:14:49.199
recent years, with zoning closing the home museum, the artifacts

1454
02:14:49.199 --> 02:14:53.840
are taken on the road to conventions like Scarefest, where

1455
02:14:53.880 --> 02:15:00.119
fans pay for the quote Warren occult museum exhibits. Some

1456
02:15:00.279 --> 02:15:03.920
have reported thirty five dollars for entry at an event.

1457
02:15:05.159 --> 02:15:09.199
The Warren Legacy is now a brand helded by their

1458
02:15:09.239 --> 02:15:13.800
son in law, Tony Spara, who runs Nesper. They sell

1459
02:15:13.880 --> 02:15:19.760
merchandise online annabel T shirts, etc. And hold annual Warren

1460
02:15:19.840 --> 02:15:25.920
Ology conferences that can cost attendees hundreds of dollars for admission.

1461
02:15:27.039 --> 02:15:30.520
While this is after Ed and Lorraine, it's all built

1462
02:15:30.640 --> 02:15:36.800
on the foundation that they lay is chasing money inherently bad.

1463
02:15:37.479 --> 02:15:41.840
Not necessarily everyone needs to make a living, but the

1464
02:15:41.880 --> 02:15:47.960
potential for financial incentive to exaggerate or fabricate is clearly

1465
02:15:48.039 --> 02:15:52.720
present in the Warren's model. When a case could yield

1466
02:15:52.800 --> 02:15:57.399
a lucrative book or movie deal, the temptation to make

1467
02:15:57.439 --> 02:16:02.359
it as frightening and marketable as possible would be strong.

1468
02:16:03.399 --> 02:16:08.000
Joe Nickel once noted how the Snedeker's story seemed almost

1469
02:16:08.359 --> 02:16:13.079
tailor made for a Hollywood script, and indeed it did

1470
02:16:13.199 --> 02:16:18.039
become one. He pointed out the formula quote, take a

1471
02:16:18.079 --> 02:16:22.920
house reeking of death, bring in a demonologist, commission a

1472
02:16:22.960 --> 02:16:28.039
writer to enhance alleged events, and hollywoodize the book into

1473
02:16:28.079 --> 02:16:34.200
a thriller flick. That formula very easily applied to Amityville,

1474
02:16:34.799 --> 02:16:41.000
to Snedeker, to Smirl, etc. It's hard to imagine it's

1475
02:16:41.040 --> 02:16:47.840
all just a simple coincidence, Although there is another aspect

1476
02:16:47.920 --> 02:16:53.159
to consider. What if the Warrens weren't entirely legitimate but

1477
02:16:53.360 --> 02:17:07.239
also were not outright frauds and hoaxters. It's worth considering

1478
02:17:07.959 --> 02:17:15.319
confirmation bias and exaggeration rather than outright fraud. It's possible

1479
02:17:15.399 --> 02:17:19.840
the Warrens began by It's possible the Warrens began by

1480
02:17:20.440 --> 02:17:27.040
genuinely investigating and just gradually started interpreting any odd thing

1481
02:17:27.200 --> 02:17:32.120
as supernatural, as the old saying goes, when you're a hammer,

1482
02:17:32.559 --> 02:17:38.920
everything looks like a nail. Once they became demonologists, all

1483
02:17:38.959 --> 02:17:44.440
their cases miraculously involved demons. In that case, you would

1484
02:17:44.479 --> 02:17:48.840
start finding what you expect to find over time, in

1485
02:17:48.959 --> 02:17:52.879
order to keep their stories fresh for books and lectures.

1486
02:17:53.520 --> 02:17:58.040
Maybe they embellished a bit more each time. Perhaps Ed

1487
02:17:58.200 --> 02:18:03.319
rationalized it as a ramatization. In service of a higher truth,

1488
02:18:03.959 --> 02:18:09.159
teaching people about evil. This is, of course speculative, but

1489
02:18:09.319 --> 02:18:12.799
many who met Ed described him as having a big

1490
02:18:12.920 --> 02:18:17.319
ego and a flare for the dramatic. He may have

1491
02:18:17.360 --> 02:18:21.040
thought a little enhancement of facts was fine if it

1492
02:18:21.120 --> 02:18:24.879
made for a better lesson or a more convincing tale

1493
02:18:25.719 --> 02:18:32.000
to save souls. Lorraine's role in this dynamic is interesting,

1494
02:18:32.120 --> 02:18:37.440
to say the least. By most accounts, she was kind, empathetic,

1495
02:18:38.040 --> 02:18:43.280
and maybe genuinely believed in her gift. Some wonder if

1496
02:18:43.319 --> 02:18:48.000
Lorraine was as clueless as outsiders in cases where Ed

1497
02:18:48.280 --> 02:18:53.920
or others may have concocted things, or if she was complicit.

1498
02:18:54.840 --> 02:18:59.000
Garton's comments about Lorraine needing a second opinion if she

1499
02:18:59.120 --> 02:19:03.120
said the son Will, implies he found her just as

1500
02:19:03.239 --> 02:19:09.120
lacking in credibility as a but publicly, Lorraine retained a

1501
02:19:09.559 --> 02:19:15.600
grandmotherly near saintly reputation. The movies certainly cast her that way.

1502
02:19:16.600 --> 02:19:21.239
The Judith Penny allegations, if believed, tarnish that image by

1503
02:19:21.280 --> 02:19:27.639
suggesting Lorraine allowed or tolerated serious wrongdoing for the sake

1504
02:19:27.719 --> 02:19:34.120
of appearances. It introduces the idea that Lorraine could compartmentalize

1505
02:19:34.760 --> 02:19:39.760
fervently devout on one hand, and capable of moral compromise

1506
02:19:40.159 --> 02:19:44.879
on the other. In weighing opposing viewpoints, we should note

1507
02:19:44.879 --> 02:19:50.920
that many devout paranormal believers still defend the Warrens. They

1508
02:19:51.040 --> 02:19:56.440
argue that skeptics have an anti religious or anti spiritual bias,

1509
02:19:57.159 --> 02:20:01.280
or that families like the Glatzells or Snedic who oppose

1510
02:20:01.360 --> 02:20:07.680
the stories are motivated by embarrassment or payback. For instance,

1511
02:20:08.000 --> 02:20:12.440
David Glatzel, the supposed possessed boy, did not join his

1512
02:20:12.559 --> 02:20:18.159
brother Carl's lawsuit and has never publicly refuted it being possessed.

1513
02:20:18.879 --> 02:20:24.559
In fact, he reportedly still believes something did happen to him.

1514
02:20:24.799 --> 02:20:28.479
Arn Johnson and his wife, Debbie Glatzel stuck by the

1515
02:20:28.520 --> 02:20:33.120
Warren's account until their deaths. The Warren's son in law,

1516
02:20:33.239 --> 02:20:38.399
Tony Spera, frequently states that thousands of grateful letters exist

1517
02:20:38.760 --> 02:20:43.719
from people the Warrens helped, but those cases just aren't public.

1518
02:20:44.760 --> 02:20:49.120
If that's true, it could be because minor cases without

1519
02:20:49.159 --> 02:20:54.079
dramatic demons were never promoted. But the Warrens might have

1520
02:20:54.159 --> 02:20:58.520
done a lot of quiet good by easing people's fears,

1521
02:20:59.159 --> 02:21:05.840
even if only psychologically. Another defense worth looking at is

1522
02:21:05.959 --> 02:21:11.879
deception in pursuit of a good cause and ends justify

1523
02:21:11.959 --> 02:21:16.799
the means. Kind of attitude. Some have suggested ed may

1524
02:21:16.840 --> 02:21:22.159
be embellished because he thought scaring people about demons would

1525
02:21:22.200 --> 02:21:26.760
bring them closer to God. The Warrens often said their

1526
02:21:26.840 --> 02:21:30.559
main message was quote to make people aware of the

1527
02:21:30.600 --> 02:21:35.239
devil so they'd turn to God. If one takes a

1528
02:21:35.360 --> 02:21:40.200
charitable view, they might have seen themselves almost as pastors,

1529
02:21:40.680 --> 02:21:47.360
using ghost stories as modern parables. Still lying for Jesus

1530
02:21:47.680 --> 02:21:52.479
is as one would imagine, not a doctrine any church

1531
02:21:52.959 --> 02:22:00.000
would endorse. And finally, Hollywood versus reality deserves some attacks.

1532
02:22:01.360 --> 02:22:05.000
The conjuring movies have cemented an image of Ed and

1533
02:22:05.079 --> 02:22:11.079
Lorraine far more heroic and clean cut than reality. In films,

1534
02:22:11.120 --> 02:22:16.040
they swoop in, figure everything out, risk their lives, and

1535
02:22:16.159 --> 02:22:22.239
save the day, all while exchanging loving gazes and quoting scripture.

1536
02:22:23.200 --> 02:22:28.239
The real Warrens, as we've cataloged, had far murkier outcomes.

1537
02:22:29.239 --> 02:22:33.559
It was rare they conclusively solved a case. No one

1538
02:22:33.760 --> 02:22:37.760
was clearly freed by them, except via claims we have

1539
02:22:37.840 --> 02:22:43.479
to take on faith. Often priests or time would solve

1540
02:22:43.520 --> 02:22:49.000
the issue. They also didn't always immediately identify what was

1541
02:22:49.079 --> 02:22:55.440
going on. They misidentified ghosts as demons or vice versa. Arguably,

1542
02:22:56.440 --> 02:23:01.360
and crucially, their marriage, as portrayed on on screen a

1543
02:23:01.440 --> 02:23:07.040
perfect union, clashes with the Penny story, as one Vox

1544
02:23:07.159 --> 02:23:14.680
article put it. On one side, we have the cinematic Warrens, lovable, wise, courageous,

1545
02:23:15.280 --> 02:23:20.239
the type of happily married couple anyone would want as friends.

1546
02:23:21.120 --> 02:23:26.280
On the other side, skeptics see them as conniving, reality

1547
02:23:26.399 --> 02:23:32.639
distorting self promoters running a long term con job. Plus

1548
02:23:32.680 --> 02:23:37.239
allegations of a deeply unhealthy private life where Ed was

1549
02:23:37.280 --> 02:23:42.639
a predator and Lorraine complicit. That's a gulf as wide

1550
02:23:42.680 --> 02:23:56.360
as well heaven and hell. The truth probably lies somewhere

1551
02:23:56.520 --> 02:24:00.680
in between the two extremes. Ed and Lorraine were devout,

1552
02:24:01.280 --> 02:24:06.040
They did sincerely hold a belief in the supernatural, and

1553
02:24:06.120 --> 02:24:11.079
they did actually visit haunted houses and spend long nights

1554
02:24:11.079 --> 02:24:17.360
in cold attics waiting for ghosts. That does take a

1555
02:24:17.479 --> 02:24:24.120
certain kind of dedication or obsession. They likely brought comfort

1556
02:24:24.200 --> 02:24:28.440
to some people and perhaps deterred a few from dabbling

1557
02:24:28.479 --> 02:24:33.639
in occult things that they considered dangerous, but at the

1558
02:24:33.680 --> 02:24:39.559
same time they embellished and monetized these experiences to serve

1559
02:24:39.600 --> 02:24:45.159
a narrative, one that made them quasi celebrities and eventually

1560
02:24:46.000 --> 02:24:51.479
characters in a lucrative pop culture franchise. As time goes on,

1561
02:24:51.959 --> 02:24:56.120
the real Ed and Lorraine will probably be subsumed by

1562
02:24:56.159 --> 02:25:01.159
the legends they helped to create. The movies will stand

1563
02:25:01.719 --> 02:25:07.920
loosely inspired by real events but largely fictional. Tony Spera

1564
02:25:08.159 --> 02:25:14.120
and nesper will continue to portray the Warrens as pioneering researchers,

1565
02:25:14.719 --> 02:25:22.719
minimizing the controversies as lies or misunderstandings. Skeptics will continue

1566
02:25:22.760 --> 02:25:26.920
to use the Warrens as a cautionary tale of why

1567
02:25:27.040 --> 02:25:33.200
not to trust ghost stories without evidence. Regardless of where

1568
02:25:33.280 --> 02:25:37.399
one falls on the belief spectrum, Ed and Lorraine Warren

1569
02:25:37.719 --> 02:25:42.559
undeniably left a mark. They can, in many ways be

1570
02:25:42.719 --> 02:25:48.239
seen as the progenitors of modern ghost hunting culture. Today's

1571
02:25:48.280 --> 02:25:53.440
plethora of paranormal reality TV shows, from Ghost Hunters to

1572
02:25:54.159 --> 02:25:59.079
Ghost Adventures o a debt to the Warren's template. Go

1573
02:25:59.200 --> 02:26:05.000
to a spooky location with gadgets and a medium, seek evidence,

1574
02:26:05.479 --> 02:26:11.360
dramatize the slightest bump in the night, and always conclude

1575
02:26:11.479 --> 02:26:18.799
something paranormal is afoot. Shows like these rarely find anything conclusive,

1576
02:26:19.600 --> 02:26:25.120
Yet the format itself is popular, and that's essentially what

1577
02:26:25.159 --> 02:26:32.040
the Warrens were doing decades prior. Moreover, the idea of

1578
02:26:32.159 --> 02:26:37.280
the demonologist as a vocation wasn't really a thing in

1579
02:26:37.399 --> 02:26:43.079
public consciousness until Ed Warren. Now you have self styled

1580
02:26:43.120 --> 02:26:49.440
demonologists everywhere, often also laying claim to being sanctioned by

1581
02:26:49.479 --> 02:26:55.120
some religious authority, much like Ed did, though that claim

1582
02:26:55.159 --> 02:27:00.479
of recognition by the Catholic Church is disputed. The Warrens

1583
02:27:00.600 --> 02:27:05.280
brought religious warfare into ghost hunting, framing it as a

1584
02:27:05.360 --> 02:27:11.159
fight of good versus evil. That's become standard in many

1585
02:27:11.360 --> 02:27:16.879
paranormal circles. If there's a ghost, assume it might be demonic.

1586
02:27:17.719 --> 02:27:23.600
Have crosses and holy water ready. Their influence extends to

1587
02:27:23.680 --> 02:27:29.520
the occult artifact fascination as well. John Safis, their nephew,

1588
02:27:29.959 --> 02:27:34.600
has a show called Haunted Collector, where he, quite like

1589
02:27:34.639 --> 02:27:41.079
his uncle, collects supposedly cursed items in a museum. Zach

1590
02:27:41.200 --> 02:27:45.319
Baggins of Ghost Adventures now has a famous haunted museum

1591
02:27:45.440 --> 02:27:50.479
of his own in Las Vegas, displaying things like Dibick

1592
02:27:50.600 --> 02:27:56.319
boxes and allegedly a piece of the Amityville House, clearly

1593
02:27:56.399 --> 02:28:02.159
echoing the Warren occult museum concept. The whole trope of

1594
02:28:02.200 --> 02:28:07.959
the evil doll in popular culture arguably has turbocharged since

1595
02:28:08.000 --> 02:28:13.680
Annabel's story went mainstream. Now we have multiple Annabelle movies

1596
02:28:14.200 --> 02:28:18.920
plus other creepy doll films, and most people post videos

1597
02:28:19.000 --> 02:28:24.479
on TikTok of their very own haunted dolls moving, usually

1598
02:28:24.719 --> 02:28:30.639
using phishing line or ai. Annabel took a story about

1599
02:28:30.680 --> 02:28:34.319
a raggedy ann doll, gave it a new coat of paint,

1600
02:28:34.840 --> 02:28:39.360
a more sinister appearance and face, and managed to create

1601
02:28:39.920 --> 02:28:46.120
a horror icon, which is pretty remarkable on social media.

1602
02:28:46.680 --> 02:28:52.959
Thousands of amateur investigators trade EVPs or electronic voice phenomena,

1603
02:28:53.079 --> 02:28:58.680
recordings and ghost photos sincerely or for clicks. A lot

1604
02:28:58.719 --> 02:29:01.680
of them site being in inspired by reading Ed and

1605
02:29:01.799 --> 02:29:06.639
Lorraine's books or seeing them on television when they were younger.

1606
02:29:07.799 --> 02:29:12.079
The Warrens are almost folk heroes to the believer community,

1607
02:29:12.879 --> 02:29:17.159
figures who fought the darkness and prove to the world

1608
02:29:17.239 --> 02:29:22.440
that supernatural forces exist, and of course, in the image

1609
02:29:22.520 --> 02:29:28.959
of their own Christian beliefs. That image persists robustly in

1610
02:29:29.040 --> 02:29:34.959
believer communities, with the skeptical expose as known but heartily

1611
02:29:35.280 --> 02:29:41.120
dismissed the conjuring universe. Films also introduced the Warrens to

1612
02:29:41.239 --> 02:29:46.000
a whole new generation globally. Many who watch the movies

1613
02:29:46.120 --> 02:29:50.840
then search and are surprised to find the Warrens or

1614
02:29:50.920 --> 02:29:55.440
real people. From there, many fall down the rabbit hole

1615
02:29:55.520 --> 02:29:59.639
of reading the pros and cons about them. In a way,

1616
02:29:59.719 --> 02:30:03.799
the w the Warrens have attained a legendary status where

1617
02:30:03.840 --> 02:30:09.680
they themselves are now characters in ghost lore. People share

1618
02:30:09.799 --> 02:30:14.799
alleged true tapes of Ed Warren's exorcisms on YouTube or

1619
02:30:14.959 --> 02:30:21.360
revisit old interviews as if they are cryptic gospel. Religiously,

1620
02:30:21.520 --> 02:30:27.479
the Warrens might have impacted how some individuals view the paranormal. Typically,

1621
02:30:27.559 --> 02:30:32.159
the Catholic Church Warrens against ghost hunting and especially taking

1622
02:30:32.200 --> 02:30:37.840
it lightly. They urge people to go through priests, not freelancers.

1623
02:30:38.719 --> 02:30:42.239
Ed's claim of being recognized by the Church was refuted

1624
02:30:42.559 --> 02:30:49.440
by Catholic spokesmen. Officially, no lay demonologists are sanctioned. However,

1625
02:30:49.559 --> 02:30:54.079
the Warren's high profile possibly pressured the Church to clarify

1626
02:30:54.200 --> 02:30:58.760
its stance on exorcisms. Notably, in the two thousands, the

1627
02:30:58.840 --> 02:31:03.360
church did start and were formally training exorcists in response

1628
02:31:03.520 --> 02:31:07.399
to demand and ironically, to counter a lot of the

1629
02:31:07.760 --> 02:31:12.319
freelance exorcists that were popping up. The Warrens were a

1630
02:31:12.319 --> 02:31:16.600
bit renegade in that sense, Ed performed parts of rituals

1631
02:31:16.639 --> 02:31:21.719
he wasn't supposed to, and Lorraine held seances things conservative

1632
02:31:21.760 --> 02:31:27.000
Catholics frown upon. Yet they remained devout Catholics and had

1633
02:31:27.079 --> 02:31:32.200
friendly relations with some clergy. It's a complicated legacy in

1634
02:31:32.239 --> 02:31:36.840
religious terms. They promoted faith on one hand, but also

1635
02:31:37.120 --> 02:31:40.959
kind of dabbled in the areas the Church considered risky.

1636
02:31:41.600 --> 02:31:45.799
Seeking out spirits is discouraged in doctrine, even if the

1637
02:31:45.840 --> 02:31:51.440
Warrens framed it as helping people under attack. Another interesting

1638
02:31:51.520 --> 02:31:55.920
aspect of their legacy is the conversation about mental health

1639
02:31:56.399 --> 02:32:01.200
versus supernatural. Many cases they had handled, like the Glatzell

1640
02:32:01.319 --> 02:32:06.639
Boy or the Snedeker's Son, or even Janet Hodson at Enfield,

1641
02:32:07.040 --> 02:32:11.600
could be interpreted as mental or emotional issues that might

1642
02:32:11.639 --> 02:32:16.559
have been better helped by therapy or medical intervention rather

1643
02:32:16.680 --> 02:32:22.200
than exorcism. The Warren's approach was always through a demonology lens.

1644
02:32:23.280 --> 02:32:28.920
This sometimes came under ethical fire, were they possibly delaying

1645
02:32:29.040 --> 02:32:33.639
proper care for people by insisting it was a demon

1646
02:32:34.600 --> 02:32:38.959
Carl Glatzel insinuated as much, saying his brother had an

1647
02:32:39.000 --> 02:32:44.319
illness and recovered, implying the demon narrative was simply a

1648
02:32:44.440 --> 02:32:57.760
harmful distraction. Modern ghost hunter teams often include psychologists or

1649
02:32:57.879 --> 02:33:03.520
emphasize ruling out mental ill illness first, a nod perhaps

1650
02:33:03.959 --> 02:33:10.239
to lessons learned from past excesses. The Warren seldom, if ever,

1651
02:33:10.760 --> 02:33:16.079
publicly entertained the idea that something might not be supernatural.

1652
02:33:17.040 --> 02:33:23.600
That absolutism is something current paranormal investigators are more cautious about,

1653
02:33:24.079 --> 02:33:30.680
at least publicly, to avoid liability. In the end, Ed

1654
02:33:30.799 --> 02:33:36.399
and Lorraine Warren leave us with a paradoxical legacy. They

1655
02:33:36.440 --> 02:33:42.000
advanced the popularity of the paranormal while simultaneously serving as

1656
02:33:42.079 --> 02:33:49.000
examples of why paranormal claims demand scrutiny. They have ardent

1657
02:33:49.120 --> 02:33:53.879
fans and equally ardent critics, and both camps use the

1658
02:33:53.920 --> 02:33:59.680
Warren saga to bolster their worldview. Believers say, look at

1659
02:33:59.680 --> 02:34:04.280
the war Barrens files, so many cases, all these people

1660
02:34:04.920 --> 02:34:10.120
surely not all made up. Skeptics would say, look at

1661
02:34:10.159 --> 02:34:15.559
all the inconsistencies and admissions of fabrication around the Warrens.

1662
02:34:16.239 --> 02:34:20.200
It shows how even intelligent people can be fooled or

1663
02:34:20.760 --> 02:34:26.520
befooling others. In a sense, the Warrens will forever occupy

1664
02:34:26.959 --> 02:34:33.600
a gray space between fact and fiction, belief and doubt.

1665
02:34:34.879 --> 02:34:40.040
As we conclude this lengthy expose, it's only fair to

1666
02:34:40.159 --> 02:34:44.879
acknowledge that Ed and Lorraine themselves, if they were here,

1667
02:34:45.600 --> 02:34:49.840
would likely shrug off the criticism and reiterate their mission.

1668
02:34:51.079 --> 02:34:55.600
Lorraine often said she never paid mine to skeptics. She

1669
02:34:55.760 --> 02:35:00.280
felt vindicated by her faith and the evidence she had

1670
02:35:00.319 --> 02:35:04.719
seen with her own eyes. Ed would likely go on

1671
02:35:04.799 --> 02:35:09.280
the offensive, challenging doubters to spend a night in the

1672
02:35:09.319 --> 02:35:14.559
Old Haunted Museum with Annabelle to see just how brave

1673
02:35:15.360 --> 02:35:21.239
they really are. For my listeners, the Warren story is

1674
02:35:21.440 --> 02:35:26.200
a cautionary tale. It teaches us about the power of belief,

1675
02:35:27.000 --> 02:35:31.719
the hunger for wonder and fear in a modern world,

1676
02:35:32.959 --> 02:35:37.639
and the very human tendency to let narrative and emotion

1677
02:35:38.600 --> 02:35:44.719
override empirical truth. Whether one sees Ed and Lorraine Warren

1678
02:35:44.799 --> 02:35:51.319
as dedicated demon fighters, kindly grandparents with a unique calling,

1679
02:35:52.239 --> 02:35:58.399
or as Charlatan's simply spinning yarns for fame and fortune,

1680
02:35:59.440 --> 02:36:03.840
or per perhaps as a bit of both. One thing

1681
02:36:04.319 --> 02:36:11.000
is very certain. Their impact on paranormal culture is indelible.

1682
02:36:12.000 --> 02:36:18.000
They've become, in essence, ghosts in their own right, haunting

1683
02:36:18.040 --> 02:36:24.520
the annals of American folklore, refusing to fade away, continuing

1684
02:36:24.559 --> 02:36:32.000
to provoke curiosity, dread, admiration, and doubt in equal measure.

1685
02:36:33.000 --> 02:36:36.840
If you've listened this far into the program, our lengthiest

1686
02:36:37.000 --> 02:36:40.920
Terrifying and True ever, thank you for joining us on

1687
02:36:40.959 --> 02:36:47.280
this ride, because you, like me, love everything spooky, You

1688
02:36:47.440 --> 02:36:50.719
love thinking about what goes bump in the night, but

1689
02:36:50.840 --> 02:36:55.799
you also maintain a bit of objectivity. You love to

1690
02:36:55.840 --> 02:37:00.479
know the stories, but that doesn't mean you always believe them.

1691
02:37:00.680 --> 02:37:07.079
You simply find joy in the telling and retelling. So

1692
02:37:07.200 --> 02:37:10.680
I hope this episode has shined a little light onto

1693
02:37:10.719 --> 02:37:13.920
the reality of the war ends, while still giving you

1694
02:37:14.000 --> 02:37:18.319
a bit of that spooky fun all about the yarns

1695
02:37:18.879 --> 02:37:26.000
they spun, Happy Halloween, My Spookies. Terrifying and True is

1696
02:37:26.079 --> 02:37:29.959
narrated by Enrique Kuto. It's executive produced by Rob Fields

1697
02:37:30.040 --> 02:37:33.920
and Bobbletopia dot Com and produced by Dan Wilder, with

1698
02:37:34.000 --> 02:37:37.000
original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you have a

1699
02:37:37.040 --> 02:37:39.840
story you think we should cover on Terrifying and True,

1700
02:37:40.079 --> 02:37:44.000
send us an email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com,

1701
02:37:44.040 --> 02:37:45.559
and if you want to support us for as little

1702
02:37:45.559 --> 02:37:48.280
as one dollar a month, go to Weeklyspooky dot com

1703
02:37:48.319 --> 02:37:51.079
slash join. Your support for as little as one dollar

1704
02:37:51.120 --> 02:37:53.680
a month keeps the show going. And speaking of I

1705
02:37:53.680 --> 02:37:55.440
want to say an extra special thank you to our

1706
02:37:55.479 --> 02:37:58.639
Patreon podcast boosters, folks who pay a little bit more

1707
02:37:58.760 --> 02:37:59.959
to hear their name at the end of the show.

1708
02:38:00.319 --> 02:38:04.120
And they are Johnny Nicks, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller,

1709
02:38:04.239 --> 02:38:08.399
Mike Escuey, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Karen we Met, Jack

1710
02:38:08.440 --> 02:38:10.920
Ker and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much and

1711
02:38:11.000 --> 02:38:13.600
thank you for listening. We'll see you all right here

1712
02:38:13.719 --> 02:38:17.079
next time on Terrifying and True