Josh Clark (2:01)

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And this is Stuff you should know. We're into 2026 now, Chuck. What do you think about that? How you feel?

Chuck Bryant (2:12)

I have high hopes for this year.

Josh Clark (2:15)

Yeah. Oh, man.

Chuck Bryant (2:17)

Do I really? I don't know.

Josh Clark (2:19)

I think you should.

Chuck Bryant (2:20)

Okay.

Josh Clark (2:21)

We should have high hopes for every year and we can be let Down. Sure. But, you know, you can still have high hopes.

Chuck Bryant (2:27)

I guess I have my cynical hat on. So that was a bad to ask me that question, because we're talking about Ed and Lorraine Warren, as Julia said, who titled this one. I'm using this title even. It's Great Paranormal Power Couple that you might know if you've ever seen movies like the Amityville Horror. So we talked about them in that episode, for sure. Or the Conjuring. Or was it Haunting in Connecticut? Yep, was another one. They made a lot of money scamming people.

Josh Clark (2:59)

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's really no. Well, I want to say there's no other way to put it. Plenty of people on the Internet put it differently. They were the real deal. Legit Ghostbusters, Demon Hunters. It just. If you add up all the evidence and you're incredulous and skeptical, you probably not only suspect the Warrens were frauds, but you might actually have a little disdain for them. I say we kind of present both sides, even though I feel like it's pretty clear where we land. Maybe.

Chuck Bryant (3:30)

Okay. Have you seen K Pop Demon Hunters?

Josh Clark (3:35)

No. Is it good?

Chuck Bryant (3:36)

Yeah, I figured you guys would have seen that. I figured Yumi would be into that.

Josh Clark (3:40)

What, is. Is it on Netflix? Because we don't have that anymore.

Chuck Bryant (3:43)

Yeah, it's Netflix original, so.

Josh Clark (3:45)

Okay. No, I guess you haven't seen it.

Chuck Bryant (3:47)

Although they did show it in theaters. They had sing alongs in the theaters and stuff.

Josh Clark (3:50)

Oh, cute. I got to see that.

Chuck Bryant (3:52)

Yeah. I just didn't know. It's a legit sensation.

Josh Clark (3:56)

It's funny that we. I don't know what we were talking about, but the Conjuring came up not too long ago, and you said you hadn't seen it. Have you still not seen it since last week?

Chuck Bryant (4:05)

I have not seen the Conjuring.

Josh Clark (4:06)

Do you remember how it came up?

Chuck Bryant (4:09)

I mean, I think we were talking about Raggedy Ann doll.

Josh Clark (4:14)

That's right.

Chuck Bryant (4:14)

And the doll's up.

Josh Clark (4:16)

Great memory. So, okay. I still say the Conjuring, the first one is a legendary classic. Great ghost horror, horror movie. It's just fantastic.

Chuck Bryant (4:27)

So nothing changed since last week?

Josh Clark (4:29)

No, but it could have. Because learning more and more about the actual backstory behind it and just how exploitive it was and how historically bent it is, it could have really affected how I view it, but I decided not to.

Chuck Bryant (4:45)

Well, you can separate art from the ragdoll.

Josh Clark (4:48)

For sure. I can, and I'm going to. By God. Let's do that right now.

Chuck Bryant (4:53)

All right. So Ed and Lorraine Warren, they founded in 1952 the New England Society for Psychic Research in Connecticut. Ed said, you know, self described demonologist, Lorraine self described clairvoyant and trance medium. And they formed that in Connecticut. Cause they were both from Connecticut and looking at their list of greatest hits, did a lot of ghostbusting in Connecticut.

Josh Clark (5:16)

Yeah. One of the things you can credit them for is they made the idea of like ghost hunting mainstream. All of the terrible. Yeah, terrible TV shows that are around today all owe their existence to the Warrens. Essentially there were ghost hunters and psychical research societies and everything around before them. But they were so huge into publicity and getting their stories out there that they kind of put it on the map as far as. As far as at least America's concerned.

Chuck Bryant (5:51)

Yeah, for sure. So credit or scorn. They were the OGs. Ed was, I guess Warren was his middle name. Cause he was born Ed Warren Miney in 1926 in Bridgeport. He says that he grew up in a haunted house. So that's where he got his first Jones for this kind of work. And his wife was born Lorraine Moran.

Josh Clark (6:12)

Moran, I think Moran.

Chuck Bryant (6:15)

Moran, later Warren, obviously in 1927, just a few months later, also in Bridgeport. Grew up very, very Catholic. And that'll play a part in their careers because it all had a Catholic bent. And they met as teenagers, got married in 1945 when Ed was on leave from the Navy serving in World War II. And then they had a little girl, Judy, and Ed went to art school. And ironically, that's where they got their start, ghostbusting. Because they were traveling around selling hocking his wares as an artist. And they said, well, while we're here, we might as well do some paranormal investigation, because that's what you do, right?

Josh Clark (6:55)

And if you are familiar at all with the Conjuring series, you're like, I already know all this. And that is because the largest horror franchise in history, the Conjuring series, is based on the Warren's files. The books they wrote, the interviews they gave, the TV shows that they. They consulted on. If you put it all together, all of the Conjuring movies that started in 2013 have grossed at least $2.3 billion.

Chuck Bryant (7:24)

Wow.

Josh Clark (7:24)

All based on the malarkey that the Warrens came up with from the 50s to the. The. I guess I think it really kind of tapered off in like the 90s.

Chuck Bryant (7:35)

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of crazy to think, right? This just sort of average couple from Connecticut who were doing their thing. Like, I don't think anyone I Mean, they certainly saw dollar signs, but nothing like that.

Josh Clark (7:45)

No. And we have to say they never charged a dime from anybody in need that they were helping. They didn't make their money that way. They made their money through lectures, through selling their stories, other people's stories, frankly. They had a museum that they charged money to come in and see, you know, entry, but they never charged the people that they were helping. Which I think is definitely worth pointing out.

Chuck Bryant (8:11)

Yeah, they didn't show up and say, what do you got? You got a demon and you got a ghost that's, let me see, carry the one. We can get rid of that thing for five grand.

Josh Clark (8:21)

Yeah, exactly.

Chuck Bryant (8:22)

So let's get into this. Oh, I thought I said it was sort of very Catholic. Their encounters were very much steeped in Catholic dogma. Uh, we're talking, I mean it's. I say it's right out of a horror movie. Cause it literally was. People would speak in different languages. Supposedly there were alleged, like hoof prints appearing in the snow, levitating beds, levitating kids, foul smells, exorcisms, furniture. You know that furniture's moving all over the place by itself. Doors are shutting without any wind blowing. Right, Just shutting for sure.

Josh Clark (9:00)

Yeah. I mean this is a 50 something year career. They founded the New England Society for psychic research in 1952. So they've been doing this for quite a while. But their, their all time huge cases didn't really start to pick up until the 70s. I think the first one that people point to is like the first big deal case was actually became the basis for that first conjuring movie. It was the Perron family haunting with Carolyn and Roger Perrin. And they had five daughters. And they moved into a house in Rhode island, an old farmhouse that was built in the 1750s, I think maybe 1667 Round Top Road. It was also known as the old Arnold estate. And they moved in and they stayed there for 10 years. But during that 10 year time, they had some really hard occurrences, according to them.

Chuck Bryant (9:54)

That's right. That's a great way to say allegedly. Cause I've been thinking about how to mix that up some.

Josh Clark (9:59)

According to them.

Chuck Bryant (10:00)

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'm gonna use that. Yeah. The children were the first ones to sort of get the haunt. And the parents didn't really believe that was going on. They told their daughters like, no, you know, you're just being little girls, of course, and seeing ghosts that aren't there. But the parents soon got on board and said, yeah, something's happening here. The beds are levitating. There's that awful smell. They did a little self research before they called the Warrens and found that there had been apparently a lot of really gruesome deaths over the history of that home, which is not unusual for a super old farmhouse. So that's when they picked up the phone. They called the Warrens. I can't imagine. What year was this? 1971. Like how. I mean, this is in Rhode Island. I guess word just gets around. Or maybe they see a newspaper article or something because, you know, before the Internet, it was. It was amazing to me that all these people just knew who to call.

Josh Clark (10:53)

I was wondering that as well. And I think in some cases they didn't call. It's just people have written that because there's so many cases and they're so convoluted and they're so. Yeah, just, you know, there's so much BS around them that people just take total liberties with it. So it's not entirely clear who called whom, but let's just say they called the Warrens. Right. The Warrens showed up, they held a seance. And in the seance, Carolyn is thrown across the room. But first she starts speaking in tongues. I think her daughter Andrea later wrote that this was. She was speaking in a language that. No, that never existed on earth. I think assuming that this was a demon, that kind of thing. And they traced the whole thing back to the spirit of a witch, a dead witch. And we established in the Bell witch, short stuff, that a witch ghost is the worst kind of both.

Chuck Bryant (11:46)

Mm.

Josh Clark (11:47)

And she had lived in the house in the early 1800s. And not only was she a witch, she was a child murderer. She had murdered an infant with a knitting needle. And so they had the seance. Carolyn gets thrown against the wall. Nothing changes, nothing solved. And the Warrens are like, see ya. Thanks for the story. You know, when the Warrens left, the haunting hadn't ended, but the Perrones stuck it out, or Perrins stuck it out for 10 years total. And then when they moved out, the haunting stopped.

Chuck Bryant (12:21)

That's right. And you know what we're going to do here? We're going to go over some of their greatest hits as told by the Warrens and others. And then maybe we'll come back later and sort of pick them apart a.

Josh Clark (12:33)

Bit, maybe, if we feel like it.

Chuck Bryant (12:35)

The next one, of course, is Annabelle. We talked a little bit about the doll in the Dolls episode. This is the early 70s in Hartford, Connecticut, when a nurse got a Raggedy Ann doll As a gift. And the doll came to life, Started doing some cute things, like, hey, I'll leave a little note for the nurse, and you're gonna put me down in this chair, But I'm gonna really go over in this room, just so you know that I'm fully animated and alive.

Josh Clark (13:01)

Like elf on the shelf kind of stuff.

Chuck Bryant (13:03)

Yeah, exactly. And the nurse was like, all right, this is fine, because I think this doll was haunted by a little girl who died in the house named Annabelle Higgins. And so I kind of feel bad because it's just a little girl ghost. But eventually, her friend. She had a friend that was physically attacked by unseen forces, I guess, you know, via Annabelle the doll. And Ed Lorraine says, we're called in, but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't minding the news and making some calls themselves. You know what I'm saying?

Josh Clark (13:34)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That would be my guess, because this is an era, the 70s. Man. You could call a newspaper and be like, I've got a haunted doll. My house is haunted. There's a ghost witch, and a newspaper reporter would show up and write a story about it. Right?

Chuck Bryant (13:47)

Totally.

Josh Clark (13:47)

Yeah. So, yes, these stories did pop up in the newspaper, and I'm quite sure that the Warrens were reading papers for this. One way or another, they showed up, and they determined, no, this is not the ghost of a little girl named Annabelle Higgins. This is a demon hanging around a doll pretending to be Annabelle Higgins in order to get close enough to Donna the nurse whose doll it is so that she can possess her soul. And that was the story that they told. What do you do when you got a demon, Chuck?

Chuck Bryant (14:18)

You bring in an exorcist. And that's what they did. And this is my favorite part of this whole article is this sentence. It's unclear if it was successful since the doll continued to cause problems.

Josh Clark (14:30)

Yeah.

Chuck Bryant (14:31)

Yeah, I'd say that didn't work then. And the Warren said, all right, we'll just. We'll take that doll, since the doll's not the problem. And one day, we shall make a lot of money from this doll.

Josh Clark (14:41)

Yeah. They put it in their museum under glass, and apparently they. They said a prayer of containment to keep the doll and its attendant demon behind the glass.

Chuck Bryant (14:54)

And I think it's worked, because, you know what? Apparently, that doll just sits there behind the glass.

Josh Clark (14:58)

Yeah. Staring. But they said that the last people who mocked it, somebody who was visiting the museum, died in a motorcycle crash right afterwards. So do you want to move on to the Lutzes Because I love the Lutzes and what they did and said.

Chuck Bryant (15:16)

Yeah, I mean, this. We did a whole episode on this. So I don't think we have to get super detailed. But the Lutzes were the Amityville Horror family there at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. This is in the mid-1970s. And a real tragedy happened here in 1974 at about 3 o' clock in the morning when the guy who lived there, Ronald DeFeo Jr. Killed his whole family. His parents, his four younger siblings. He killed them all as they slept by gunfire. And then a year later, the Lutz family moves in and they don't make it 10 years. They make it about a month before they realize that mortgage was way too much.

Josh Clark (15:58)

Yes, exactly. They said that afterward they went to the press and said that they had experienced terrible odors. Both George and Kathy, the parents, had been possessed. Ish, maybe light possessed. That their daughter had made a friend named Jody with red eyes, who is actually some sort of pig ghost demon that no one else could see. Although I think somebody caught sight of it. Flies swarmed out of nowhere and almost made Rod Steiger throw up. Yeah, this one's the creepiest. I love it the most. Hoof prints came out of nowhere in the snow outside of the house. And you know, it has hoofprints and walks upright.

Chuck Bryant (16:41)

Mm. A talented goat.

Josh Clark (16:44)

A talented goat. A pig ghost demon or Satan himself.

Chuck Bryant (16:49)

That's right. So the Warrens are there. I'm gonna just stop saying called in. They just appear out of the ether. They do their investigation and they said that they at first confirmed the presence of a child ghost, but then did a little more digging and said, actually this is not a haunted house, everyone. And the Lutzes went, oh, thank God. And they said, this is haunted land. The very land under this house is evil. It was built on Native American cemetery where they had some dark rituals in the past. And this is what led Ronald Defeo to kill his whole family. So sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you guys are in bad trouble.

Josh Clark (17:32)

Yeah, this is a one time seance that they held where they found all this stuff out. And they actually. One of the most famous photos of a ghost ever produced. It's called the ghost boy photo from the Amityville house. Came out of this investigation. This one night investigation the Warrens had. If you've never seen the ghost boy photo from Amityville, go type that in and check it out. It is a really great, creepy, unsettling photo, especially if you compare it to John Defeo. I think he was the youngest brother of the Defeos who were murdered by their the oldest brother. It looks an awful lot like him. So a lot of people are like, there you go. The Warrens had it figured out. There's a ghost, there's Indian burial ground is now a trope thanks to them. And we can thank them for Poltergeist as a result.

Chuck Bryant (18:22)

That's right. I say we take a break. Yeah.

Josh Clark (18:25)

Yeah.

Chuck Bryant (18:26)

And we'll talk about three more of their more famous investigations right after this.

Josh Clark (18:30)

This is fun. Hey, everybody. We're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026. And eventually Canada will tell you year dates.

Chuck Bryant (18:51)

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs. And the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th. And then finally back at Sketchfest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

Josh Clark (19:06)

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes to. But don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

Chuck Bryant (19:25)

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

Evan Ratliff (19:30)

Hi Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

Josh Clark (19:37)

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.

Evan Ratliff (19:39)

One page business plan for you.

Josh Clark (19:40)

Here's the link.

Evan Ratliff (19:42)

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able.

Chuck Bryant (19:48)

To do that yet.

Evan Ratliff (19:49)

My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Chuck Bryant (19:57)

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI.

Josh Clark (20:03)

And now will happen.

Evan Ratliff (20:04)

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people.

Josh Clark (20:17)

Oh, hey Evan.

Evan Ratliff (20:18)

Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on.

Josh Clark (20:21)

Adoption rates for AI Agents in small to medium businesses.

Evan Ratliff (20:26)

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your pod.

Chuck Bryant (20:46)

All right, we're back. I guess it's not too far past Halloween. So in our minds, you know, it's not early January. So we're sort of in that spooky mood. So this is sitting quite well with us. But we need to talk about the Enfield haunting. Because this is not in Connecticut, my friends. This is in London, England, in 1977. And Enfield is a suburb of London. And at the time, one Peggy Hodgson and her daughters were. What were they? They were terrorized by unseen forces, just like the rest. They move into this place. Banging sounds coming from the daughter's room. Peggy bursts in and sees this dresser creeping across the floor by itself, seemingly going toward the door to block it. And Peggy was like, I gotta get that dresser. It's out of control. But by the time she got to it, it was like it was glued. She couldn't even move this thing.

Josh Clark (21:40)

No, this is the basis for the Conjuring 2, also a truly great ghost movie, especially for a sequel.

Chuck Bryant (21:50)

Is it London?

Josh Clark (21:51)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's based on this. This is a very famous case that was also investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, which was founded all the way back in 1882, 70 years before the Warrens founded there society. But they showed up because the Hodgsons, or I should say Peggy Hodgson, couldn't get any help from the police. And she had. She had basically reached the end of her rope because one of her daughters, Janet, I think the youngest daughter, started falling into trances and apparently was possessed by a ghost named Bill Wilkins, who said that he had died in that same house, actually in a chair in the corner. And that he wanted everybody out. Cause this was his house. And if you see that movie, it's really well done and super creepy.

Chuck Bryant (22:38)

Have you seen all those movies?

Josh Clark (22:40)

I have seen those two. That's the extent of it.

Chuck Bryant (22:42)

How many are there? Good God, how many things have they conjured?

Josh Clark (22:47)

So with the Conjuring, I think they're up to four, maybe.

Chuck Bryant (22:50)

Okay.

Josh Clark (22:51)

But then there's a whole other, like, sub franchise with the evil nun. I think I've seen one of those spinoffs and stuff, and then the Annabelle stuff too. But I've only seen the first two Conjurings. And they're good. They're good movies. They're hokey in a lot of ways. But as far like a good, decent, even mediocre ghost movie is so few and far between. There's so many terrible ones that, like, you know, I'll take whatever decent table scraps can be tossed at me.

Chuck Bryant (23:20)

Yeah, I hear you.

Josh Clark (23:22)

Okay, I'll check it out.

Chuck Bryant (23:25)

So, like you said, the Society for Psychical Research, is that right? Psychical? Yeah, they come in. They're competitors of the Warren, of course, over there, I guess, and they observed, you know, all the stuff they were talking about, like things levitating, furniture moving, of course. Fires erupting out of nowhere, apparently, cups just filling up with water when there is no water around. Supposedly one of the researchers had a curtain that was slowly creeping around his neck as if to choke him.

Josh Clark (23:55)

Yeah, this is a skeptical society that believes in the possibility of ghosts and poltergeists and stuff, but they're not just credulous ding dongs.

Chuck Bryant (24:04)

Oh, that society. What are they? The Psychical Society.

Josh Clark (24:08)

Yeah.

Chuck Bryant (24:08)

Okay.

Josh Clark (24:09)

Yeah. All right.

Chuck Bryant (24:10)

Well, that's good. Ed and Lorraine maybe investigated, maybe didn't. This is where it gets a little dodgy. And we're going to talk about that in Act 3. But at any rate, in 1978, they said, you got a poltergeist. That's what the deal is. And, you know, New Line Cinema. You want to buy this story, we'll sell it to you.

Josh Clark (24:30)

Yeah, and they did.

Chuck Bryant (24:32)

That's right.

Josh Clark (24:32)

There was a really cool documentary I saw where the. So the SPR made tons of audio tapes, reel to reel audio tapes of this. And somebody made a docu. I guess a docudrama or whatever where they used the tapes as all of the audio and then they hired actors to act out the stuff and the dialogue was the tape. So these people had to lip sync with the tapes. And it was all done in period costumes and all that stuff from the 70s. It's really good. I can't remember the name of it, but I'm pretty sure that's the only. The only documentary to attempt that. So if you can find that, watch it.

Chuck Bryant (25:06)

Did you ever watch that Zoom Call horror movie that I recommended?

Josh Clark (25:10)

Yeah, it was pretty decent.

Chuck Bryant (25:12)

Yeah. Not bad, huh?

Josh Clark (25:13)

Yeah. I was really uncomfortable when they started making light of it in front of the psychic medium. That was the thing that got me the most. It was all weird, you know.

Chuck Bryant (25:23)

Yeah. Plus, you know, that they're going to get it, you know, even worse because of that.

Josh Clark (25:27)

What was it called?

Chuck Bryant (25:28)

I think it was called Host. I thought it was very well done, you know, pretty clever Covid movie when, you know, they were shooting stuff in a. As creatively as they could because of the restrictions.

Josh Clark (25:37)

Yes, it was A good movie.

Chuck Bryant (25:39)

All right, let's move on. We got a couple of more here. The case of Arnie Johnson, also in Connecticut, very conveniently located in Brookfield. This was in 1981. And this one is interesting because there was a 19 year old named Arne Johnson who stabbed his landlord, Alan bono, or bono, 20 times. And in his trial he says, I'm not guilty. And they said temporary insanity. And they said, no, no, no, demonic possession. And the court went, oh boy, here we go.

Josh Clark (26:11)

I think this is the first time anyone ever tried that.

Chuck Bryant (26:13)

Yeah.

Josh Clark (26:14)

The reason he said that is because he said, I really am possessed by a demon. My fiance Debbie, her little brother David has been possessed by a demon for a while. And we had an exorcism. And during the exorcism, to help David out, I dared the demon to inhabit me instead. Well, he did. And when I got into that argument with the landlord, that demon is the one who really stabbed him, not me. That was his defense. But I think the Warrens showed up before all of this, before the stabbing even, and they took a look at David and Ed looks at little David. Up and down is like, yeah, you still got demons attached to you. You still got 43 demons. That's right.

Chuck Bryant (26:57)

He counted them. That's why they had that exorcism is the Warrens came in and said, because initially they thought it was a ghost, you know.

Josh Clark (27:04)

Yeah.

Chuck Bryant (27:05)

And they, you know, the Glatzels, who. That was Debbie's last name, the girlfriend. They brought in clergy from the Catholic Church to bless young David. That didn't work. So that's when the Warren show up and they're like, no, it's demonic, it's not a ghost, and you need that exorcism. And during that exorcism is when Arne Johnson's like, oh, yeah, come into me, I dare you.

Josh Clark (27:25)

Right. And then the murder happens and the guy ends up in trial. Arne Johnson, I think he went by Cheyenne, his middle name. And so the judge is like, I'm not even going to accept that as a defense. What else you got? And they're like, self defense. And they tried him on self defense and he got five years in prison for manslaughter. So they, I guess they believe that to an extent. Yeah, that's not the end of that case, but that's a huge legendary case too. And then there was also there was a movie called the Haunting in Connecticut. It's awful. And it was made kind of outside of the, the Warren's purview But this was a case that's largely associated with them that involved the Snedeker family.

Chuck Bryant (28:10)

That's right. That was also very conveniently located in Southington, Connecticut, right there on Meriden Avenue. And this is a case where two people, Carmen Reed and Alan Snedeker, they got their kids, they had four of them and a niece. They brought them there to live because their son Philip needed nearby medical care, kind of long term medical care. And it made it more convenient. So they moved in there. They move in, and of course, things start going down. Philip, who is the young sick son, he starts seeing a threatening young man with long dark hair who would just repeat his name over and over. And then Carmen, I believe was the mom, was in the basement, and she was like, wait a minute, there are toe tags and there's embalming equipment here and photos of dead people. I wonder what this house used to be. And everyone said, duh, it was a funeral home.

Josh Clark (29:04)

Yeah, the Halahan Funeral Home for decades, I think, pretty much right before it became a home for rent. And it turned out that Philip's room was once the display room for caskets. When they sold you the caskets, you know, they have like half caskets on the wall, that kind of thing. This is where Philip was sleeping. The embalming room was just down the hall. The thing is, Philip needing this. This constant care of treatments for Hodgkin's lymphoma, type of cancer. They couldn't move, they couldn't leave the house. So they had to kind of stick it out. And things just kept getting worse and worse. Finally, Phillips started to change and became very violent and was, I think, forced, forcibly taken to a mental hospital for observation and stayed there for a couple of months, I think. Was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia. He moved out. He avoided the house again. And I don't remember if the haunting continued or not, but one of the big things that came out of this was an appearance on Sally Jesse Raphael. The title of the episode is I was raped by a ghost. Cause Carmen said that she was repeatedly raped by a ghost, and the niece was fondled by a ghost. And the Warrens also show up on that episode. And you can find it online. It's a Sally Jesse Raphael episode for sure.

Chuck Bryant (30:31)

Yeah, you sent that to me, and I did my best to scrub through and hit the highs.

Josh Clark (30:35)

Right.

Chuck Bryant (30:37)

Shall we take a break?

Josh Clark (30:38)

Yeah, let's take a break.

Chuck Bryant (30:39)

All right, we'll take a break and kind of wrap up with what's going on with the Warrens. In all these cases, right after this foreign.

Josh Clark (30:54)

Hey everybody, we're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026, and eventually Canada will tell you your dates too.

Chuck Bryant (31:04)

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs and the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the Paramount Theater on January 27th. We're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

Josh Clark (31:20)

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need and buy tickets@stuffyouchouldknow.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

Chuck Bryant (31:38)

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

Evan Ratliff (31:43)

Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan, just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks.

Josh Clark (31:50)

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.

Evan Ratliff (31:52)

One page business plan for you.

Josh Clark (31:54)

Here's the link.

Evan Ratliff (31:55)

But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able.

Chuck Bryant (32:01)

To do that yet.

Evan Ratliff (32:02)

My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Chuck Bryant (32:10)

There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one person billion dollar company which would have been like unimaginable without AI. And now will happen.

Evan Ratliff (32:18)

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award winning podcast Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh hey Evan, Good to have you join us. I found some really interesting data on.

Josh Clark (32:35)

Adoption rates for AI agents and so.

Chuck Bryant (32:37)

Small to medium businesses.

Evan Ratliff (32:39)

Listen to Shell game on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Josh Clark (32:59)

All right, Chuck, so one of the things that gives the Warren some casework, I guess credence in any quarter is that this is all based on some kernel of truth. Like Ronald Defeo did kill him. His family in the Amityville house. That definitely happened before the Lutzes moved in. The house in that the Snedekers rented was the Halahan Funeral Home before they showed up there. And there were like embalming tools still there, left over. It turns out that a man named Bill Wilkins did die in that house in Enfield in London, just exactly at the time that young Janet, who was apparently possessed by him, said that he had died in the same place that. That she said he had died, too. So there's like, all of this. These different things that are just factual enough to kind of provide a basis that can then be kind of filled in with some fat, maybe a little muscle and sinew to make a full blown, like, you know, haunting story.

Chuck Bryant (34:07)

Yeah. And, you know, the Warrens, if you ask them back then, they would say, hey, we kept a lot of this evidence, they called it hard evidence, and different, you know, artifacts and things. A lot of this stuff was kept in the museum, you know, that they had at their house that you could pay to go into and look over the stuff. Some of it was made public. Some of it they held back, you know, they said some of the juiciest stuff they couldn't even show, of course. And in 1997, finally, the new England Skeptical Society said, all right, let's get together, let's talk this out. Let's look at this evidence that you've got. They brought out that ghost boy photo, of course, they had audio recordings that had these strange sort of non languages or otherworldly voices. That was the one, I think, in Enfield with Bill Wilkins. They trotted that out and played it. They had that Annabelle doll. She shook that doll and said, look, what do you call this? She didn't shake it, of course, because it was stored under glass. And then they had witnesses and personal accounts from people that testified, not in court, obviously, but that all this stuff was very real to them.

Josh Clark (35:14)

Yeah. And so these scientists evaluated all of their evidence and their means and methods and motives, and they decided that it's all bl. They said.

Chuck Bryant (35:24)

That was a quote, by the way.

Josh Clark (35:26)

Yeah. I don't really say blarney very often. I say malarkey, I guess, because I did at the beginning. But this was. I guess it was based on that quote. They said they're not doing good scientific investigation, which I think is generous to even assume that they're doing any scientific investigation and that there's like. They come along, they say it's a demon. And then everything that they kind of. All the evidence they gather supports that hypothesis, rather than gathering evidence and then coming up with a hypothesis from it. And they basically were like, none of this stuff is falsifiable, testable. Like, yes, there's a doll right There that they say is haunted. That's not evidence, right? Yeah. So they just basically said that it's all, they're just total frauds. And if you look at the history of the Warrens, this is not the first time that happened to them. It was not the last time that happened to them. They just rolled with it. It just, it never slowed them down. They never seemed to freak out whenever they were called frauds or hucksters or grifters. Like they just either just shook it off or they had some sort of response like Lorraine Warren had in response to that New England Skeptical Society 1997 study.

Chuck Bryant (36:39)

Yeah. She said they don't base anything on a guide.

Josh Clark (36:44)

Right. So if you don't bring God into it and the idea that they're Roman Catholic God warriors fighting evil incarnate on earth, helping families for free, then of course it's not going to make any sense to you. Egghead, pencil neck, college boy scientists.

Chuck Bryant (37:01)

Yeah. And you know, one of the biggest criticisms of their work and other work by other paranormal investigators because, you know, a lot of these people use pretty questionable techniques at times. So it's not like the Warrens were any worse than a lot of them. But the fact that a lot of times you can trace this back to maybe somebody in that household has some sort of mental illness going on and they're being exploited.

Josh Clark (37:28)

Yeah, that's the thing. Like you can be like, well, it's all just in good fun, but there are actual problems with what they were doing. And that's one of them. And even if they weren't mentally ill, some of these families did believe that there was something going on and they were in some sort of crisis. And the Warrens would come in, tell them they had some demons, maybe give it a shot, maybe solve things or not, and then go off and sell the family story as their own case. Right. That's again, how they made a lot of money, was writing books and giving lectures based on these places where they just show up and then take over the story and insert themselves. That's harmful. I also saw that you can ascribe, at least in part, the satanic panic that came along in the 80s from them kind of normalizing the idea that people were out there getting possessed by 43 demons, getting raped by ghosts. That was a contribution they made. And then also especially these conjuring stories. Now if you watch them, Chuck, Lorraine and Ed Warren are portrayed as this couple who have arguably the greatest marriage in the history of humans. And that they are just steam powered by God. And that's what they're doing. They're battling evil here on Earth. And so I think it kind of whips up like a little bit of potentially misplaced religious version of patriotism in people who are religious.

Chuck Bryant (38:54)

Yeah, probably. So, you know, we can now talk about some sort of the. Maybe the claims against some of these cases. One of the claims was that the Warrens actually paid a guy named Ray Gorton to completely make up the Snedeker haunting. They worked with an author, which is true, his name was Ray Gorton, to write a book about that case called In a Dark the Story of a True Haunting. And Gorton in 2009, said that book was entirely fiction and they're grifters. Because I was interviewing this family and the stories didn't match up from person to person. And I took it to Ed, and he said, quote, they're crazy. All the people who come to us are crazy. That's why they come to us. Just use what you can and make up the rest.

Josh Clark (39:40)

Yeah.

Chuck Bryant (39:41)

So that's one Snedeker case.

Josh Clark (39:43)

That's one little piece of evidence. And this guy actually wrote the book and was paid by it. I don't think that he had much of an ax to grind.

Chuck Bryant (39:50)

Right.

Josh Clark (39:51)

The Enfield house. It's not even clear that they investigated at all. The closest anyone's ever put them to this haunting was one of the Society for Psychical Research Investigators. Guy. I don't know if it's Leon or Lion Playfair, he was one of the lead dudes. He said that at the very least, Ed showed up maybe for an hour or something, was hanging out outside, I guess, with him, and was like, you know, you can make. You can make some money off of this if you want to do some business. And I guess Playfair was like, I don't do that. And so Ed was like, all right, see you, and took off. And then again, took the story as their own. Like, if you watch the Conjuring 2, they are basically the linchpin to freeing this family from this torment.

Chuck Bryant (40:37)

Yeah, yeah. Amity Deville supposedly was a hoax. This all came out later in 1979. There was a lawsuit. And the guy who shot up his family, Ronald DeFeo, his defense lawyer, William Weber, said that he and the Lutz family made it all up one night over, quote, several bottles of wine. And the Lutzes kind of came out and said, yeah, that's pretty much what happened. And Ed and Lorraine Warren were like, no, that's not what happened.

Josh Clark (41:03)

Right. I think Lorraine had a quote during the seance. So they met George Lutz once when he handed off the keys for them to go have a seance. They didn't ever meet Kathy. They never walked around the house or worked with them. They had a one night seance where that ghost boy photo was produced, which must have been just jackpot luck for them because it looks a lot like John Defeo in the face. But John Defeo is also wearing the exact same shirt that an assistant named Paul Bartz who was there that night was wearing. People are like, well, he's probably taking a measurement or working on equipment, kneeling down. And it just happened that the, the his photo was taken. But the idea that they had much if anything to do with Amityville is incorrect, except for all the lore they made up, like the Indian burial ground. As far as I know, they came up with that even though they got the tribe wrong. So the whole idea of Amityville being as off the chain as it was came largely from them, but also from the Lutzes story. They helped publicize it big time.

Chuck Bryant (42:07)

Yeah, I looked up that house. It's been bought and sold quite a bit over the years, but someone eventually changed those two upper windows that, I don't know, just kind of looked creepy. They kind of looked like eyes, I guess, but now they're just regular windows.

Josh Clark (42:20)

I saw that the old Arnold estate that was in Conjuring one, somebody bought it after the first conjuring came out for like half a million dollars and then pumped up the idea that it was still haunted and sold it for a million and a half like two years later.

Chuck Bryant (42:37)

So now they're in demand. Haunted houses?

Josh Clark (42:39)

Pretty much, yes.

Chuck Bryant (42:40)

That's interesting.

Josh Clark (42:41)

One of the biggest things that came out also, just one thing before we go on. I would direct anybody who's into that first conjuring and knows all about that house to go read a blog called Dreaming Casually. Historian Jamie Rubio really looked into Bathsheba Sherman and her history and apparently it is all made up to the point where she's essentially a slandered 200 year old person. Go read that. But I think probably the biggest knock that the Warrens got came in 2017, long after they were international global stars, thanks to the Conjuring series. And a woman named Judith Penny came forward and said, ed Warren and I had a sexual relationship starting when I was 15 and Lorraine knew all about it.

Chuck Bryant (43:30)

Yeah, like she moved into the house and supposedly had a 40 year relationship. And like you said, Lorraine was okay with it. I think they had a, you know, a business going. Penny said that she was impregnated by Ed and Lorraine pressured her to have an abortion because that would hurt the business, the family business. And this is a big sort of red flag here. The Hollywood Reporter said that when Lorraine. Cause they got a bunch of money to consult on TV and movies over the years. I think we've kind of made that clear. But Lorraine specifically had a deal to consult on the conjuring. And she barred New Line from showing Ed and Lorraine being as anything other than what you said, like this sort of perfect couple. Specifically, it said no criminal offenses, no sex with minors, no child pornography, prostitution or sexual assault, or depicted as participating in an extramarital sexual relationship. And just so people know this is not sort of a normal kind of thing, even in Hollywood, when they're doing these big contracts about, you know, supposedly true stories, to include all that very specific stuff is not normal.

Josh Clark (44:43)

Yeah, I was reading that as well. So that's a little odd, especially when you combine it with Judith Penny's story.

Chuck Bryant (44:49)

That sounds totally true, but yeah.

Josh Clark (44:51)

And again, coming forward in 2017, it's not like the moment the first conjuring came out, she's like, give me some money. Like she seemed to have a pretty. I think she actually testified in an affidavit that all of this was true too.

Chuck Bryant (45:05)

Yeah.

Josh Clark (45:06)

So that's tarnished their legacy a little bit. Especially if people, if you already thought they were grifters or hucksters or something like that. It's not entirely clear whether they believed any of the claims that they made. If they didn't, then Lorraine Warren was one of the great character actors of all time who never broke character, at least in front of anyone who was willing to come forward. And she died, I think, in 2019, long after the conjuring had become huge. Ed died. I think sadly, the last movie he got to see was the Haunting in Connecticut. He died in 2006. So they're both gone now. But the New England Society for Psychic Research, which again, they founded in 1952, it's still going on under their son in law, Tony Spira, to whom, quote, all of their knowledge and experience has been successfully passed.

Chuck Bryant (46:02)

That's right. And that Annabelle doll is still around. You know, I don't think they have that museum anymore that closed in 2019 when Lorraine passed away. But Annabelle will show up here and there on tours and special events.

Josh Clark (46:16)

Yes, but they had a really cool museum from what I could tell. But it's shut down inexplicably it's not open anymore and there doesn't seem to be any plans to open it again. Yeah, but there's a new conjuring movie out, I think, Last Rite. Yeah, it's based on a case that we didn't talk about, but there was sexual abuse by demons as well. It was also in the 80s, so that was their big thing then.

Chuck Bryant (46:40)

Who wants to see that?

Josh Clark (46:43)

Millions and millions and millions of people around the world.

Chuck Bryant (46:46)

Are they still super popular?

Josh Clark (46:48)

Oh, yes. And supposedly this one is like their last one. But they hand the reins over to their son in law, Tony Sparrow, so he might become the new leader of the franchise Chase, along with their daughter Judy.

Chuck Bryant (47:00)

Amazing.

Josh Clark (47:01)

Yeah, it's basically like the new Marvel. Yeah. Well, Chuck said. Yeah, everybody. Which means in old school fashion, it's time for listener mail.

Chuck Bryant (47:13)

Yeah, this is just a quickie correction. Hey, guys, I'm listening now. And you might have heard this already, but Chuck was right in pronouncing Villa.

Josh Clark (47:23)

Oh, how you did it, Chuck.

Chuck Bryant (47:25)

The double L sounds Josh is talking about is Spanish, not Italian.

Josh Clark (47:29)

Well, that's what I was saying it in.

Chuck Bryant (47:32)

That is from Christina in New York.

Josh Clark (47:34)

What was it? Huh?

Chuck Bryant (47:36)

Who loves listening.

Josh Clark (47:37)

Thanks a lot, Christina. We appreciate that. I think a few people wrote in to say, yeah, Chuck was right. That's fine.

Chuck Bryant (47:43)

This is the only one I saw.

Josh Clark (47:44)

I'm happy. I'm happy for you, Chuck. Are you happy for me for being happy for you? Sure. Okay. If you want to get in touch with us like Christina did, you can send us an email as well. Send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

Evan Ratliff (48:02)

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.

Josh Clark (48:19)

Hey, everybody. We're hitting the road again starting in January 2026, picking up again in April 2026. And eventually Canada will tell you year dates too.

Chuck Bryant (48:29)

That's right. We're going to do at least three legs. And the first leg is starting out in Denver, Colorado at the paramount theater. On January 27th, we're going to go back to our beloved Seattle at the Paramount Theater there on the 28th, and then finally back at SketchFest on the 29th at the Sidney Goldstein Theater.

Josh Clark (48:44)

Yep. And then April 16th, 17th and 18th, we're going to be in Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois, and Akron, Ohio. And if you're not keeping up with all this or taking notes, don't worry, you can get all the info you need. And buy tickets atstuffyou should know.com, click on the tour button and thank us later.

Chuck Bryant (49:03)

That's right. We can't wait to see everybody again out there on the road.

Evan Ratliff (49:08)

Hi Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link? Thanks.

Josh Clark (49:15)

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick.

Evan Ratliff (49:17)

One page business plan for you.

Josh Clark (49:18)

Here's the link.

Evan Ratliff (49:20)

But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able.

Chuck Bryant (49:24)

To do that yet.

Evan Ratliff (49:26)

I'm Evan Ratliff, here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, shell games on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.

Chuck Bryant (49:41)

Guaranteed Human.