Darkness falls. Shadows creep along the walls. Your heart pounds as you realize you’re not alone. Something sinister lurks in the blackness, hungry for your soul.
Welcome to the terrifying world of Ed and Lorraine Warren, pioneering paranormal investigators who devoted their lives to battling the forces of evil. During their decades-long career, the Warrens investigated some of the most bone-chilling cases of demonic possession, ghostly hauntings, and supernatural terror ever recorded.
Are you brave enough to peer into the darkness with them? Read on, if you dare…
Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cases
Ed Warren grew up fascinated by ghosts and the spirit world. As a teenager in the 1940s, he began investigating local hauntings and cemeteries, using his artistic talents to sketch the spectres he encountered. This obsession led him to meet Lorraine, a clairvoyant who shared his mystical interests.
Together, Ed and Lorraine dove headfirst into the paranormal. Ed apprenticed under notorious demonologists while Lorraine developed her psychic abilities. By the 1950s, the couple had formed the New England Society for Psychic Research, through which they lectured, wrote books, and took on clients plagued by violent hauntings.
For the Warrens, it was more than just a career – it was a calling. They believed they were God’s servants with a holy mission: to battle the Devil and protect the innocent from evil. This crusade would lead them into the heart of darkness…
1. Ghost Of Bathsheba
In January 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron purchased a rundown farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island along with their five daughters. Ghostly events began immediately, with doors opening and closing on their own. The family reported feeling watched by an unseen presence. Carolyn saw apparitions of a woman wandering the grounds.
The Perrons endured these creepy occurrences for nearly 10 years before finally seeking help from the Warrens in the late 1970s. Lorraine later described feeling an evil spirit named Bathsheba Sherman present in the home – a real-life 19th-century resident accused of practicing witchcraft and sacrificing her child to the Devil.
Through seances and rituals, the Warrens attempted to drive away the vengeful Bathsheba. However, the Perron family continued experiencing unsettling paranormal activity until they finally fled the property in 1980. Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter, insisted until her death that the haunting was genuinely supernatural and not a hoax.
2. Annabelle Doll
The real story of the conjuring leads to the cursed doll Annabelle which was first introduced to the horror universe in the opening scene of “The Conjuring”. The story proved to be so fascinating that it has inspired a multimillion-dollar franchise – Annabelle (2014), Annabelle: Creation (2017) and Annabelle Comes Home.
In 1970, a nursing student named Donna received an antique Raggedy Ann doll from her mother as a gift. Soon Donna and her roommate Angie began finding mysterious notes around their home reading “Help me.” The women noticed the doll changing positions on its own and would even find it in different rooms.
Terrified, they sought help from a psychic medium who told them the doll was possessed by the spirit of a girl named Annabelle Higgins. But when the Warrens evaluated Annabelle, they concluded it was no ghostly child, but a malicious demon craving souls. They took the doll and placed it in their occult museum after performing an exorcism.
Annabelle remains locked in her glass case to this day. The Warrens issued solemn warnings never to underestimate the wickedness this seemingly harmless toy contained. Annabelle’s story inspired a whole film franchise, proving some nightmares are based in fact…
3. Enfield Poltergeist
A troubling case of potential demonic possession that made headlines in England.
In August 1977, single mother Peggy Hodgson called police to her London home to report strange noises and furniture moving by itself. Before long, paranormal phenomena escalated to alarming levels. The Hodgson children claimed to see ghostly figures and complained of being pulled out of bed at night by an invisible force.
Observers witnessed objects levitating and flying through the air, targeting the children. A photographer captured an image of Hodgson’s daughter Janet recoiling as water dashed over her – supposedly from an empty cup. The dramatic case drew paranormal researchers from around the world, including the Warrens in 1978. 11-year-old Janet seemed to go into trances and spoke in a deep male voice, claiming to be the ghost of a man who died in the home.
The bizarre activity ended abruptly in 1979, just as mysteriously as it had started. Janet later admitted to faking some incidents but maintained the majority were real. The Enfield Poltergeist, as it came to be known, remains one of the most sensational supposed hauntings ever recorded.
4. Snedeker House
A family moves into a former funeral home with a disturbing history.
In 1986, the Snedeker family rented a house in Southington, Connecticut to be near the hospital where their son was receiving cancer treatment.
Unbeknownst to them, their new home was a former funeral parlor. In the basement, they discovered mortuary tools and equipment that prior owners had left behind.
The Snedekers soon reported bizarre paranormal phenomena like hearing screams and finding strange wounds on their son’s body. Their experience became the basis for the horror movie The Haunting in Connecticut.
When Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated, they concluded the former funeral home’s dark history had opened a portal to the spirit realm. The spirits of the deceased were haunting the home and physically tormenting the living. After years of disturbances, the Snedekers finally moved out.
5. Amityville Horror house
On the night on November 13, Ronald J. DeFoe Jr., “Butch” murdered all of his family by shooting them while they slept. Butch used .35 magnum rifle and shot two bullets to each of the parent and one for each of the four siblings.
Butch was however arrested for the horrific murders he committed and was sentenced to 6 life term sentence, Butch has been changing his statement over the years, he first said that the mafia hitman Louis Fellini did it, but when checked the hitman was outside of the town the particular night.
Years later he said that he was possessed by some unknown force that made him do all the killings, and in recent years, he claimed that his sister killed the family and when he found out about the incident he killed her.
The children’s spirit was seen by the family who moved in later. “The Lutz” Family moved after the murders and started noticing things out of place.
Before moving into the house they had the house blessed by a priest while doing so the priest felt a bad presence in the bedroom and told them not to sleep inside the room.
Although the priest did not tell them that when he was blessing the room below he heard a man shout “get out” which he believed was from the same presence he felt in the bedroom.
The portraits hanging on the wall would turn upside down by itself on night and somehow everyone would wake up at 3:15 in the morning which is believed to be the time of the killings.
Although many believed it to be a hoax created by the family to earn profit by their book over time there have been 18 movies released. However, they did gain only a marginal profit.
These enduringly chilling tales leave lingering questions. Do demons walk among us, hungry to possess the vulnerable? Do ghosts haunt those who trespass into their domain? Or are some phenomena created in the mind, manifestations of trauma or delusion? What truly lurks in the darkness is ours to ponder…if you dare.
The Warrens devoted their lives to searching for answers and found evil often leaves its mark. Their terrifying investigations confront us with the unknowable – and remind us true horror rests not in creaking floorboards and flickering shadows, but within the human soul itself.
