DAY 9: The Conjuring (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

Summary

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RedHanded: DAY 9 – The Conjuring (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

Podcast: RedHanded | Host: Ash Kelly & Sarah
Release Date: October 27, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this Halloween special of RedHanded’s bite-sized “ShortHand,” Ash and Sarah dive into the true story behind “The Conjuring.” They scrutinize the haunted farmhouse that inspired the famous horror movie, expose the myths and lies surrounding its legends, and lay bare the real victims of the ensuing hysteria. Expect laughs, sharp skepticism, behind-the-scenes tales of their personal visit to the infamous house, and a pointed debunking of both Hollywood and so-called “real-life” hauntings.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Conjuring: Hollywood vs. “Real Life”

• Background of the Film:
  The 2013 movie "The Conjuring" was lauded for reviving the supernatural horror genre, grossing nearly $320 million on a $20 million budget.
  Ash: “It’s a simple story of a family who move into a house that’s haunted. Are they haunted? There’s some sort of haunting, but it is pretty good...and it absolutely cleaned up at the box office.” (04:00)

• Personal Visit:
  Ash and Sarah visited the actual “Conjuring house” in Connecticut, only to find the experience underwhelming.
  Sarah: “If you’re in that neck of the woods and you’re looking for a spooky tour, go to the Lizzie Borden house.” (05:31)
  Ash: “The Lizzie Borden one? Fantastic…this one? Not five star.” (05:48)

2. The Perron Family’s Claims

• Firsthand Accounts:
  In the 1970s, the Perron family (Carolyn, Roger, and five daughters) lived at 1677 Round Top Road and allegedly faced terrifying phenomena: objects flying, ghostly noises, smells of rotting flesh, and demonic attacks, particularly centered on Carolyn.
  Sarah: “Apparently, this boss bitch spirit saw herself as the mistress of the house and she resented the competition that Carolyn posed for that position.” (07:03)

• Andrea Perron’s Books:
  The eldest daughter, Andrea, wrote a trilogy, “House of Darkness, House of Light,” described as the “true story”—a far scarier version than Hollywood dared show.
  Ash (quoting Andrea): “Every time...the suits at New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers sent the script back and said, take that out...They thought it was just too scary. It was too real, it was too raw. People who read my trilogy of books are changed.” (07:56)
  Sarah: “It’s because the books aren’t very good. That’s what changed me.” (08:58)
  Ash: “It’s like joining a cult that destroyed your brain.” (09:09)

• Hollywood’s Adaptation:
  The movie draws from the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, famed (and controversial) paranormal investigators, not Andrea’s books.

3. The Real Victims: Norma and Jerry Sutcliffe

• Post-Film Fallout:
  When the film was released, the Sutcliffes—who had quietly lived in the house for 23 years—were beset by trespassers, occultists, and thrill-seekers at all hours.
  Ash: “The producers make no effort to hide the true identity of where this happened. Allegedly. And then suddenly, the Sutcliffe’s lives are absolutely destroyed...” (11:47)

• Daily Nightmares:
  Trespassers ignored warnings, conducted séances, screamed in the woods, rifled through mail and bins, and regularly harassed the elderly couple.
  Sarah: “Other people...would go through the Sutcliffe’s mailbox or their bins...just ring up the house to harass this elderly couple.” (12:19)

4. Norma Sutcliffe Investigates—and Debunks the Legends

• Fact-Checking the Claims:
  Norma (with a journalist's help) pored over historical records and debunked every major claim about the farmhouse’s bloody history:

  • The purported murders, suicides, and drownings? Invented or had happened elsewhere.

  • The sinister “Bathsheba Sherman”? Never lived on the property, never on trial for infanticide, and lived to old age, buried with her husband in consecrated ground.

  • Ash: “None of the stories that are detailed in the book...about the history of the farmhouse, are even remotely true.” (16:35)

  • The “Black Book of Burrillville” (local death records) showed only two unfortunate frozen-to-death incidents in over 200 years—no murders, no demonic pattern.

  • Ash: “None of the deaths Carolyn claimed to have uncovered in relation to that house had happened in that house...It’s more insidious because it’s like Carolyn did find out about these murders…somewhere else. But she just is like, ‘I’ll have it. I’ll have that one.’” (18:07)

• Bathsheba Sherman Smear Campaign:

  • The origin of the “witch” story was solely the Perrons’ hearsay, unbacked by any local tradition or evidence.
  • Sarah: “Bathsheba Sherman appears to have been a normal, hard working farmer’s wife. Sadly, the conjuring smeared her memory with unfounded accusations. Bathsheba’s grave and headstone have been targeted by vandals for years. And Carolyn and Andrea Perron are to blame for that.” (28:50)

5. Motives, Media, and Money

• Why the Lies?

  • Carolyn Perron’s motives may have been rooted in attention-seeking, marital issues, or “keeping Roger there” during a troubled marriage.

  • The Warrens and later owners likely saw financial opportunity.

  • Ash: “I do think that Roger was just unhappy because they end up divorcing afterwards. And I think, you know, how do you keep a man there is tell him that his five daughters are in some sort of mortal danger, possibly.” (30:12)

• Revolving Door of Haunting Entrepreneurs:

  • The house was resold in 2019, its “haunted” fame leveraged for massive profit ($1.5M resale in 2022).
  • Ash: “Everyone who lied made money off this hoax. And the people who didn’t lie, Norma and Jerry, who just wanted to live there and raise their family and be nice. Normal people got their lives totally ruined by all of the lies.” (36:58)

• Andrea’s Ongoing Fabrications:

  • Multiple claims by Andrea Perron about subsequent hauntings and acts witnessed by new owners or the Sutcliffes are categorically denied by those she names.
  • Ash: “Andrea Perron has also lied a lot...She said in an interview following the film’s release that Warner Brothers had given the Sutcliffe’s protection. That is not true...Andrea also said that she was attacked by Bathsheba when she visited the house and that Norma Sutcliffe saw it. Norma Sutcliffe is categorical that that is not true.” (31:25)

6. Ed & Lorraine Warren: Supernatural Hype Machines

• Skeptical Assessment:
  • The duo’s reputation rests on self-promotion and dubious cases. Many, including the infamous Amityville haunting, have been outright debunked.
  • Ash: “I can certainly get on board with [Vox’s] description of the Warrens as ‘a pair of conniving, reality-distorting, shamelessly grandiose self-promoters and sham psychics running a long-term con job.’” (35:07)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Andrea Perron’s Claim about the Books vs. the Movie
  Ash (quoting Andrea): “People who read my trilogy of books are changed. They’re never the same again. Nothing is ever the same.” (07:56)

• The Real Victim’s Perspective
  Ash: “Imagine random weirdos turning up and doing seances in your garden. And if they’re that crazy, how could you possibly feel safe that they’re not going to do something to you?” (11:47)

• Debunking via Historical Records
  Ash: “The Black Book of Burrillville...it’s a record of all unnatural and suspicious deaths that occurred in that area from 1777 to the 1990s...None of the things you say are in this book.” (17:23)

• On Profiting from Paranormal Claims
  Sarah: “The people who bought the house claimed that they too experienced all sorts of demonic activity. But maybe, just maybe, they had been motivated to draw attention to the house’s demonic side for financial reasons.” (32:59)

• Ethics of Haunted Tourism
  Ash: “Do you want to buy some well water for like $10 in this little vial? Do you want to buy a T-shirt with a conjuring merch? It was so tacky and money grubbing.” (36:31)

• On the Real “True” Story
  Ash: “It’s like based on the ghostly grifter’s Warrens. But Andrea Perrin’s story is also a lie. It’s like another layer down from that you have to go to to get to the truth of this.” (37:32)

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Key Timestamps

• [04:00] – Introduction to “The Conjuring” film and initial personal impressions
• [05:07] – Hosts’ visit to the real conjuring house
• [06:18] – Background on the Perron family and their alleged experiences
• [07:56] – Ash’s full quotation from Andrea Perron about her trilogy and Hollywood
• [11:47] – Impact on Norma and Jerry Sutcliffe, post-film harassment
• [15:34] – Norma decides to independently fact-check the “hauntings”
• [17:23] – Introduction and findings from the Black Book of Burrillville
• [20:18] – The fabricated legend of Bathsheba Sherman exposed
• [28:50] – The lasting damage done to Bathsheba’s reputation and grave
• [32:59] – New owners profit from perpetuating the haunted myth
• [35:07] – Final critical assessment of the Warrens
• [36:31] – Hosts reflect on the commodification of the haunting

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Wrap-Up: The Real Haunting Is the Hysteria

Ash and Sarah conclude that the true horror is not a demonic entity, but the harm done by those desperate for attention or profit—from the Warrens and the Perrons to Hollywood studios and entrepreneurial house-flippers. The real victims, like Norma and Jerry Sutcliffe, suffered not from ghosts, but from people’s credulity and greed. The story of “The Conjuring” is ultimately about people’s willingness to believe, the consequences of folklore in the internet age, and the persistent exploitation of fear for cash.

Sarah: “The real story is fucking Norma Sukhler.” (37:29)

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Note: Segments related to ads, show promos, and non-content material have been omitted for clarity and focus.

Transcript

[Ash Kelly]

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[Sarah]

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[Ash Kelly]

Hello there spooky listener. It's October, our favorite time of the year. And so to celebrate and give you all a well deserved treat, we're bringing you the 13 days of Halloween Shorthand edition.

[Sarah]

Usually every single week over on Amazon Music we release brand new episodes of our bite sized sister show Shorthand. It's like Red Handed's Little Friend where.

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We delve into all sorts of fascinating.

[Sarah]

Topics from hell in different religions, Haitian Voodoo, the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Cotard Syndrome, Japan, Suicide Forest and so much more.

[Ash Kelly]

And this Halloween, from the 19th of October to the 31st of October, we are going to be pulling out 13 of our most terrifying episodes of Shorthand to drop straight into your Red Handed feed every single day.

[Sarah]

But beware, each episode will only be available for 24 hours, so get listening or abandon all hope.

[Ash Kelly]

Enjoy. Hello, hello and welcome to a very spooky episode of Shorthand.

[Sarah]

I hope it is not really. Well, I'm sure we will get onto it, but we have had some first hand experience with this particular situation.

[Ash Kelly]

Yeah, I can't promise anything. Let's get into it and see what the fuck is What? Being a fan of horror movies is all too often a disappointing pursuit. Hollywood churns them out faster than any other genre because, well, they sell. No matter how shit or Pointless Paranormal Activity 37 is, you can bet your arse people will pat the cinemas, even the post Covid ones to get their cheap thrills. So if you're anything like me, you may have been pleasantly surprised in 2013 when the film the Conjuring came out. Now listen, it's not exactly a thought provoking, paradigm shifting horror, I grant you. It's a simple story of a family who move into a house that's haunted. Are they haunted? There's some sort of haunting, but it is pretty good. It's well paced, it shows you just enough of the scary witch and at points it is genuinely scary. And it absolutely cleaned up at the box office, grossing nearly $320 million against its modest for this day and age, $20 million budget.

[Sarah]

So when we found our little butts in Connecticut earlier this year and got the opportunity to take a little detour to the real life conjuring house, obviously we went. Was it great? Not really. I don't want to shit on it too much. Like it just if you're in that neck of the woods and you're looking for a spooky tour, go to the Lizzie Borden house.

[Ash Kelly]

Yes, that's it. That's what I was gonna say. I thought you were gonna say, go to the conjuring house. And I was like, I'm gonna shit on it more. So let's reassess how we feel about it at the end of the episode, because I've written this episode, so I have some stronger feelings, I think. But yes, the Lizzie Borden one. Fantastic.

[Sarah]

Go, go, go.

[Ash Kelly]

I would love to go back. Absolutely fantastic, this one.

[Sarah]

But not five star. But it did tickle our curiosities about the true story behind the Hollywood hit of a family whose perfect life was seemingly destroyed by demonic entities. So how much of the conjuring really is based on a true story? Or how much of it was a big fat hoax? We're going to find out. This is the shorthand.

[Ash Kelly]

Firstly, let's talk about what is definitely real. There does exist a house, 1677 Round Top Road.

[Sarah]

So difficult to find. We drove past it like three times.

[Ash Kelly]

Yeah. Fucking nightmare. But yes, that house definitely exists and it is the one that we visited. And this house is indeed where a family, the parents, including Carolyn and Roger, plus their five daughters, lived for 10 years from 1971. Now, the parents, or at least some of them, claim to have experienced all manner of horrors while living in this property. And the eldest daughter, Andrea, actually grew up and wrote a trilogy of books called House of Darkness, House of Light, detailing firsthand what happened.

[Sarah]

Very British London. Anyway, according to Andrea Perron, shortly after the family moved into the 1736 farmhouse, they began to notice some strange occurrences. Things would disappear and then reappear in different rooms. The family would hear noises, including rasping, coming from inside the walls. Objects would fly across the room, and they were constantly confronted with the smell of rotting flesh. And all of that can only mean one thing. Demons. Andrea says that one of these demons would frequently attack her father and trap him in the cellar. And her mother, Carolyn, was convinced that a female demon was the ringleader directing all of the other spirits. Apparently, this boss bitch spirit saw herself as the mistress of the house and she resented the competition that Carolyn posed for that position.

[Ash Kelly]

However, the movie the Conjuring is not based on Andrea Perron's books, but rather on the case files of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. According to Andrea Perron. And this is a quote from an interview that she gave in 2014. And prepare yourselves. I have put in the entire quote because I think it is worth us all Hearing the screenwriters, Chad and Carrie Hayes, twin brothers, lovely men, wanted desperately to include elements of the true story from my book. And they wrote some of the stories into the screenplay. But every time, every single time, the suits at New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers sent the script back and said, take that out, redact that. We're not going to run people out of the theatre. We're not going to make a movie that nobody will stay to watch to the end because they're too terrified. They thought it was just too scary. It was too real, it was too raw. People who read my trilogy of books are changed. They're never the same again. Nothing is ever the same.

[Sarah]

It's because the books aren't very good. That's what changed me. I will never be the same because I don't think I'm actually able to structure a sentence anymore.

[Ash Kelly]

It's like joining a cult that destroyed your brain.

[Sarah]

Anyway, Andrea did say later on that other than a few small discrepancies, the film is actually pretty accurate but toned down version of what really happened. Yes.

[Ash Kelly]

Apparently the film the Conjuring, that has a witch demon at one point sat on top of a cupboard screaming at people. And then you see Carolyn Perron being exorcised in the cellar by the Warrens while she's screaming and bleeding from the face and trying to kill the youngest daughter. That's a toned down version of what really happened because the true story is too scary, too scary for Hollywood.

[Sarah]

Andrea followed that comment up with, I would not be one of the very best selling authors in this genre worldwide had it not been for the Gunjring. So I don't hold any grudges. I'm not fucking surprised, mate.

[Ash Kelly]

She's basically like, hollywood ignored my story. They went with the Warrens notebooks, their case files, and the Warrens sold our story to them. But I don't hold any grudges.

[Sarah]

Yeah, because I'm fucking loaded.

[Ash Kelly]

Oh, God. It's all just so much because, yes, Andrea's on board, the Warrens are on board, Hollywood is on board. But not everybody involved was on board because the Perrons had moved out of the conjuring house in 1980. They lived there for a decade and then they moved out, selling the farm to a couple, Norma and Jerry Sutcliffe. And after the release of the film decades later, in August 2013, the place suddenly became an absolute mecca for trespassers and gawkers. And Norma Sutcliffe was absolutely furious, saying that it completely devastated her and her family's life. Norma And Gerry. By the time the film comes out in 2013, they're retired. And Norma had issues with her mobility following a back surgery. And in this really sad interview that Norma gives that's on YouTube, which I'll leave a link to, in the episode description, she explains how she spent almost every night following the release of the film absolutely terrified.

[Sarah]

Not because of any ghosts or demons or scratching from inside the walls, but because of the random weirdos that would just turn up to her house in the middle of the night. According to Norma and Norma's neighbours, these people would just arrive at the property, ignore all of the no trespassing signs, sneak onto the grounds and carry out seances. Or sometimes they just run around the garden into the woods screaming.

[Ash Kelly]

Can you even imagine? They buy this house in 1980, they live there happily for 23 years. They raise a family there. There's absolutely no issue, no problem. The film comes out, the producers make no effort to hide the true identity of where this happened. Allegedly. Allegedly. And then suddenly, the Sutcliffe's lives are absolutely destroyed. Imagine fucking random weirdos turning up and doing seances in your garden. And if they're that crazy, how could you possibly feel safe that they're not going to do something to you?

[Sarah]

Hella's other people, some of these absolute plebs were to go through the Sutcliffe's mailbox or even their bins, and some of them would just ring up the house to harass this elderly couple.

[Ash Kelly]

It's disgusting.

[Sarah]

And as Saroo said, for more than 20 years, that farm had been a tranquil, idyllic place for. For the Sutcliffes and their children, there had never been a peep of anything weird or ghostly. But now, in an instant, all of their peace was gone.

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[Ash Kelly]

And so Norma, who is an absolute fucking hero in my opinion, decided enough was enough. She decided the only way to get these people to piss the hell off from harassing her and her family was to break the spell surrounding the house and prove that the movie and Andrea Perron's books were all total bullshit.

[Sarah]

Get it?

[Ash Kelly]

Oh yeah, She's. She's so fucking cool. So Norma, with the help of a journalist, scoured local historical records and found out some very interesting things. And the more she discovered, the more angry she became. Andrea and her mother Carolyn had been incredibly detailed in their telling of the story because although the books are Andrea Perron's work, a lot of it is written based on what her mother Carolyn told her. And in the book, they are very, very specific about murders, suicides and drownings that they claim had all happened on the Property over its 200 year history, down to which rooms these terrifying events had unfolded in. But according to Norma and her research, none of these stories that are detailed in the book House of Darkness, House of Light, about the history of the farmhouse, are even remotely true.

[Sarah]

Andrea's books were written three decades after she lived at that house as a kid. And she largely relies on research, quote unquote, that her mother did. This research, or historical evidence gathering, as Carolyn called it, mainly involved her speaking to locals and then verifying their stories with psychics. Yeah, and the stories Caroline formulated are cited throughout the book. I would add book, sir. There's three of them and they're fucking long. But these stories that are the foundation of that trilogy are riddled with inconsistencies and assertions that do not match historical records. As Norma on a mission, quickly discovered.

[Ash Kelly]

Carolyn claimed that multiple people had been murdered, killed themselves, or drowned by accident in the house, the barn, or on the grounds of this farmhouse. And this is all so easily disproven thanks to something that I had never come across before, but is very interesting. Basically, there's this thing called the Black Book of Boroughville, which sounds so sinister and it kind of is, but it's also really, really cool. Basically, it's a record of all unnatural and suspicious deaths that occurred in that area from 1777 to the 1990s.

[Sarah]

And then they were just like, we don't care anymore. We're not keeping a record of this shit. You have the Internet now.

[Ash Kelly]

Yes, exactly. I really think when Carolyn tells all these lies, because that's what they are. I think she thinks I was fucking keeping records back then. I could just say whatever fucking crazy shit I want and no one's ever gonna find out. Enter the Black Booker, Boroughville and Norma Sutcliffe. And she's like, none of the things you say are in this book. So, yes, as I said, none of the deaths Carolyn claimed to have uncovered in relation to that house had happened in that house. I'm not saying none of the deaths had happened, but not in that house. Some of them had happened in other towns, while some had seemingly never happened at all. Which makes it more insidious because it's like Carolyn did find out about these murders or these deaths or these suicides, and she knew damn well that they had happened somewhere else. But she just is like, I'll have it. Yeah, I'll have it. I'll have that one. And this is the thing, it's backed up by the Warrens because Carolyn tells Lorraine Warren, the self professed clairvoyant, a child was murdered in this house. And Lorraine is like, you're right, a girl was killed in this house in this Pantry. There was blood everywhere. The family must never enter this pantry. It is too haunted. Look at the Black Book of Burraville. A child was murdered, but in a town called Uxbridge, fucking miles away.

[Sarah]

The only two unusual deaths linked to the farmhouse are from 1850 and 1901. The first one was Edward Arnold, who was found frozen to death near Sherman Farm Road nearby. So not even on the property. And the second one was a man called Jarvis Smith, who again was found frozen to death in a shed on the farm. It seems as if he was on his way home from a bar, fell asleep in the cold and never woke up.

[Ash Kelly]

Yeah, and look, two deaths in a farmhouse that's over 200 years old. And both of them are men who accidentally froze to death. And one of them, who was drunk on the way home from a bar and, like, just went into the shed to properly try keep warm. Come on.

[Sarah]

Yeah. Sad, but hardly a Hollywood sensation.

[Ash Kelly]

No. So I think when Carolyn discovered these, she had to try a bit harder. And boy, did she try hard. During her digging into the history of the house, Carolyn came across a woman named Bathsheba Sherman, a woman she claimed had a dark reputation. According to Caroline, Bathsheba had lived in the farmhouse in the 1800s and that she had allegedly killed an infant, possibly her own, with a knitting needle by impaling its skull. But Carolyn claimed that she was acquitted at trial due to a lack of evidence. But bad news. Bathsheba would not let up.

[Sarah]

She was cruel and sadistic to her farmhands. And then eventually, after drowning another one of her children in the basement well, on the property which we had a look at, Bathsheba hanged herself in the attic of the Perron home.

[Ash Kelly]

In the birthing room, possibly, but. Scary shit, right? Scary, scary stuff, the borning room.

[Sarah]

Sorry. Wash my mouth out. She's here.

[Ash Kelly]

If you are here, Bathsheba, I can only apologize for all the bullshit that's been done to your name.

[Sarah]

Apparently, locals believed that Bathsheba was a witch who practiced the dark arts and worshipped the devil, whom she'd made a pact with to stay young and beautiful forever, which you have seen. The conjuring is not what happens. And Carolyn became convinced that the female demon in her house was indeed Bathsheba Sherman. Carolyn was so convinced that her family was under attack that she started to reach out to paranormal investigators.

[Ash Kelly]

And I love this bit because at first she manages to get some experts to come to the house. And the first set she gets there from university and I. There's absolutely no evidence of anything Paranormal. There's no haunting here. We've observed absolutely nothing unusual. Thanks very much. We're off. So Carolyn kept going and eventually she came across Ed and Lorraine Warren, who.

[Sarah]

Just heard cash register sound.

[Ash Kelly]

Cha Ching. Cha Ching, yeah.

[Sarah]

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[Ash Kelly]

Now, we could and will at some point do an entire episode on the Warrens, but today, let's keep it brief. Ed Warren was a self taught and self professed demonologist. And as I mentioned earlier, his wife Lorraine claimed to be a clairvoyant. In 1971, they visited the farmhouse multiple times at the request of Carolyn Perrin, even though Andrea claims that her mother never called them and that they had just turned up the night before Halloween. But we know that Carolyn was putting the feelers out left, right and centre. And the Warrens had just gained quite a lot of national attention thanks to their involvement with a strange case involving a Raggedy Ann doll. See the Annabelle Hollywood franchise for more. So I don't buy Andrea's story that Carolyn didn't call them and they just turned up one night like Carolyn was fucking hunting out.

[Sarah]

Yeah, pull the other one. It's called Cuthbert. Carolyn told Lorraine all about Bath Sheba and her historical research and Lorraine obviously ate that shit up. Andrea claims in her book that Lorraine was the one to bring Bathsheba up before Carolyn even said anything. But I don't believe you.

[Ash Kelly]

Andrea's like, Lorraine came into the house and was like, don't tell me anything. And then she was laying her hands on the house and suddenly she was like, bathsheba. I'm like, no, she fucking wasn't. No, she wasn't. Because none of it's true.

[Sarah]

Even if she did, which I don't think she did, that doesn't like, solidify her as a clairvoyant anyway. Because it didn't happen.

[Ash Kelly]

No, it didn't.

[Sarah]

After the Warrens arrived, the demonic activity at the farmhouse shifted up a gear. And one night, Carolyn experienced a sudden pain in her calf while lying on the sofa. Something had stabbed her on her leg. There was a circular wound as if a large sewing needle had punctured her skin. Lorraine suggested the Bathsheba must have taken her baby killing needle with her into the afterlife and used it to hurt Carolyn. And after this incident, the Warrens said they absolutely had to carry out a seance in the house. And during this bizarre situation, Carolyn was supposedly possessed by Bathsheba, spoke in tongues up until her husband Roger put an end to it. He threw the Warrens out. Andrea Perron claims that she secretly witnessed the seance and that it was the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen.

[Ash Kelly]

So, yeah, that's all from the story that Andrea and Carolyn spin in the trilogy of books. But what's the truth about Bathsheba? What did Norma Sutcliffe find? Well, Bathsheba Sherman was indeed a real person. She was born in 1812 in Rhode island and married a man named Judson Sherman in 1844 at the age of 32. And Bathsheba Sherman's grave notes that she died of a stroke on 25th May, 1885 at the age of 73. She did not hang herself in the Perron's barn, as Carolyn claimed. Bathsheba also, and this is very important, did not ever live at 1677 Round Top Road. She lived miles away on the Sherman farm.

[Sarah]

Clues in the name, really, isn't it?

[Ash Kelly]

Yep. In Andrea's book, she also states that all of Bathsheba's children died before the age of four. But Norma Sutcliffe easily managed to track down government census records that show that one of Bathsheba's sons, Herbert, lived a long life as a farmer and had a family and even outlived his mother, who died at the age of 73.

[Sarah]

In Andrea's book, House of Darkness, House Of Light, Carolyn Perron is described speaking with A man named Mr. McCurchin, a local historian, and he's the one who allegedly told Carolyn about Bathsheba's history and the rumours that surrounded it. But Norma found him and he said that absolutely no such conversation or meeting ever happened. No one in the area had ever heard these stories until the 1970s, when the Perrons showed up, even though the farmhouse had been there for hundreds of years.

[Ash Kelly]

Yeah. So in the book, they change his name. Mr. McKitchum is like a fake name, and they're like, it's because we want to protect his privacy.

[Sarah]

So you're fucking lying.

[Chime Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Ash Kelly]

So Norma just finds out who that historian would have been. Finds any historian it could have been. And they're all like, never ever spoke to anybody called Carolyn Perron and never told them that, because I don't know what you're talking about. And there's lots of historical houses, there's lots of historical records that are kept in this area and museums. Norma Sutcliffe goes to all of them and they're like, we have no record of anything you're talking about.

[Sarah]

And she's like, la, la, la, la, la. Never mind. Forgot my notepad. Whoops.

[Ash Kelly]

Exactly. And another thing that is really, really Important is that no one, Norma, not anyone, has ever been able to find any evidence of a trial or inquiry involving Bathsheba being accused of killing an infant with a knitting needle. Because, remember, Carolyn Perron and Andrea Perrin are very, very clear in the book. They say that Bathsheba was arrested, but that she was acquitted. Or, you know, the trial fell apart because there wasn't enough evidence. There was no fucking trial. There's no record of anything to do with, with an infant being murdered with a knitting needle in any of the local papers. There are no courthouse documents. There's nothing. I mean, even back then in the 1800s, they had newspapers, Carolyn. They had newspapers. If a baby had been stabbed in the head with a knitting needle by a woman, it would have been in the papers. It would have been on the bloody front page. Also, Bathsheba Sherman was buried next to her husband, Judson Sherman, after she died and she had a full church funeral. She was not buried on the grounds of the house as the parents claim in their book. Also, it's highly unlikely that if Bathsheba had been suspected of being a witch, as the parents claim, that she would have been buried on consecrated ground. But she was. So Bathsheba Sherman was not a demon, a child murderer, a witch, or a worshipper of Satan.

[Sarah]

Based on actual facts that are provable and true. Bathsheba Sherman appears to have been a normal, hard working farmer's wife. Sadly, the conjuring smeared her memory with unfounded accusations. Bathsheba's grave and her headstone have been targeted by vandals for years. And Carolyn and Andrea Perron are to blame for that. And this is important. It's not just Carolyn lying about what happened in the house, which you could just chalk up to delusions or mental illness. She lies about things that are easily provable that she says that she researched. Why would she do that? What could Carolyn Perron possibly have to gain? Don't know. Tricky to say. Journalist Jim Nicholl, who took an exhaustive look into the events for a 2016 article, did find that contrary to the happy, tranquil family described in Andrea's books, the Perrons were a dysfunctional mess, with Carolyn and Roger on the verge of divorce. So perhaps Carolyn was trying in a very odd way to keep Roger there with her. And you do have to ask, if the house is so haunted and scary and you're terrified all the time and you're getting stabbed in the leg by a ghost, why did not only Carolyn stay there, why did she keep her children there for 10 years.

[Ash Kelly]

They lived there for a decade. And they say that all the haunting stuff started straight away. I really do think that the kind of rosy everything is great, and we were just a nice, normal family and we ended up being haunted out of this house. I do think that Roger was just unhappy because they end up divorcing afterwards. And I think, you know, how do you keep a man there is tell him that his five daughters are in some sort of mortal danger, possibly. How much Roger buys into all of this is hard to know. Andrea and Carolyn are definitely the ringleaders. So, yes, Carolyn, liar, liar, pants on fire. As for Andrea Perron, she's also lying now. Yes, at the time of the events, she was a child and probably manipulated by her mother. But as an adult, Andrea Perron has also lied a lot. She said in an interview following the film's release that Warner Brothers had given the Sutcliffe's protection. That is not true. Basically, the film comes out, Norma and Jerry start getting hounded. They start giving interviews, making YouTube videos about how much they're being hounded. It's like, you know, starts to pick up traction. There's a backlash. Andrea Perrin, who was fucking eating out on the conjuring film, I bet she still does. Oh, yeah. Then comes out and is basically like, the Warner Brothers have given them protection. What more could be done? Not true. Norma Sutcliffe is like, I never heard a peep from any of those Hollywood producers. Nobody got in touch with me. That is not true. Andrea also said that she was attacked by Bathsheba when she visited the house and that Norma Sutcliffe saw it. Norma Sutcliffe is categorical that that is not true and that the one time Andrea Perrin visited her, no fucking demon attacked her. Andrea also claims that Norma has asked her time and time again to stay over at the house again. Norma says, I've never said that. I don't want any of them in this house. And Andrea told people, and this is one that really, really pissed Norma off, and you can understand why, is that while Norma was living there, in the 24 years she lived there with her husband and their kids, she ran a daycare there, which we heard about when we visited the house. And Andrea Perron had the gall to tell people in interviews following the movie's release, so that she can sell more of her fucking shit books, that Norma Sutcliffe had told her that when she ran the daycare there, she had seen on multiple times children levitating and being thrown to the ground. Norma Sutcliffe is like I never ever said that. How dare you say that. Can you imagine saying that about somebody who's running a daycare center where they are looking after other people's children?

[Alaina Urquhart]

Yeah.

[Ash Kelly]

Andrea Perron is sick.

[Sarah]

So what happened to the house after the Sutcliffe's moved out in 2019? Well, they sold it, obviously to another couple for 439,000 dollary dues. And the people who bought the house claimed that they too experienced all sorts of demonic activity. But maybe, just maybe, they had been motivated to draw attention to the house's demonic side for financial reasons. And if that was their plan, it worked. They sold the house in 2022, just three years after they bought it, and just two years from now for $1.5 million in profit.

[Ash Kelly]

It's absolutely bonkers. So yes, I'm gonna be like, are these people lying? There's a real clear motive.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Ash Kelly]

And they sold this farmhouse for that monumental price to a Boston developer named Jacqueline Nunes, a woman with a self described fascination with the supernatural. But Jacqueline doesn't live there. No, no, no. She says, quote, the house doesn't allow people to live there year round because the energy is so powerful.

[Sarah]

Also, it's fucking freezing.

[Ash Kelly]

It is that. But I do have to say, Norma and Jerry managed to live there for 27 years before they sold it. I think Jacqueline Nunes just doesn't want to live in a rundown farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

[Sarah]

Yeah, she's a property magnate, isn't she? Yes.

[Ash Kelly]

Instead, Jacqueline now probably turns quite a tidy profit on this huge investment that she made allowing paranormal investigators and horror enthusiasts to visit the house.

[Sarah]

Whoops.

[Ash Kelly]

So, yeah, I just want to be clear as well. All those people that were harassing the Sutcliffes, we were not one of them. We went on a proper tour.

[Sarah]

So let us end our shorthand for you today with the Warrens in the conjuring. The Warrens are played as these nice, kindly, ghost hunting, guitar playing investigators of the paranormal. But the truth is, many people over time have successfully debunked the bulk of their work as exaggerated and even exploitative and in some cases, like Amityville, downright money grubbing.

[Ash Kelly]

They weaseled their way into countless cases and clearly seem to have preyed upon vulnerable families going through, for whatever reason, their darkest moments. I don't always agree with Vox, but I can certainly get on board with their description of the Warrens as a pair of conniving, reality distorting, shamelessly grandiose self promoters and sham psychics running a long Term con job.

[Sarah]

Yeah, I agree.

[Ash Kelly]

Yeah. So that's basically it. The point of this whole shorthand is that the Perrons live there, right? They lived there for a decade, but people lived there before and lived thereafter. Everybody who lives thereafter is like, apart from Norma Sutcliffe, like, this place is haunted. But Norma Sutcliffe lives there after the parents and lived there for 27 years and never saw or felt or experienced a single weird thing happening in that house. Happily raised a family until that fucking film came out and ruined her life, basically. Luckily they managed to sell the farmhouse and move on with their lives. And my issue now is like, I'm not like, oh, I wish we hadn't gone on the tour. The reason I'm like, I don't care about shitting on it that much is the money's just going to line the pockets of this property developer, Jacqueline Nunes. And I wish at least the Sutcliffe's had made that kind of profit and they didn't. Just another family that also lied in order to make a huge profit on that house.

[Sarah]

So, no, you're right, I did feel a bit bad, but I don't feel bad. I just.

[Ash Kelly]

No, do you know what?

[Sarah]

That was the vibe of the whole thing, like we didn't learn anything about what happened.

[Ash Kelly]

They were just like, do you want to buy. Do you want to buy some well water? Yeah, do you want to buy some well water for like $10 in this little vial? Do you want to buy a T shirt with a conjuring merch? It was so, like tacky and money grubbing. And I'm sorry, but that's what it feels like. And now I know who owns it. I feel I give even less of a shit if Norma Sutcliffe still owned it. And she was like, you know what? I've been fucked over by the parents and by Hollywood. I might as well make a quick buck and go live somewhere else and make some money off this. I'd be all in.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Ash Kelly]

But it just seems with this, everyone who lied made money off this hoax. And the people who didn't lie, Norma and Jerry, who just wanted to live there and raise their family and be nice. Normal people got their lives totally ruined by all of the lies. So that's it. That's the real story behind the country. And I think a lot of people on the Internet kind of have this thing of like, well, the movie is based on the Warrens case files who are grifters, but the real story is Andrea Perron's books that Hollywood didn't use.

[Sarah]

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. The real story is fucking Norma Sukhler.

[Ash Kelly]

Exactly. It's like based on the ghostly grifter's warrants. But Andrea Perrin's story is also a lie. It's like another layer down from that you have to go to to get to the truth of this. And I think Andrea Perrin really dines out too much on the well, I'm telling the real story behind the country. And I'm like, no, you're fucking not trash. So that's it, guys. Welcome to October. That is the first shorthand of the month. We'll be back next week with something else that is hopefully a bit more creepy.

[Chime Advertiser]

Goodbye.

[Ash Kelly]

Bye.

[Alaina Urquhart]

It's all a lighthearted nightmare. On our podcast Morbid, we're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart.

[Ash Kelly]

And I'm Ash Kelly.

[Alaina Urquhart]

And our show is part true crime, part spooky and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group with a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists out their years. There's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

[Ash Kelly]

That mother is not real.

[Alaina Urquhart]

And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Way Back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Mr. Ballin]

You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now. Joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.