Transcript

The Warrens: Paranormal Power Couple | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

From Stuff You Should Know · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 43 min · 7,966 words · 141 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Warrens: Paranormal Power Couple | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW", an episode of Stuff You Should Know published January 7, 2026 (43 min, about 7,966 words). It mentions 17 people, works and ideas, including The Conjuring, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, Annabelle, Stuff You Should Know.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: The Conjuring, Bridgeport, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren
  2. – 10:00: New England Society for Psychic Research, The Conjuring
  3. – 15:00: Annabelle, Amityville Horror
  4. – 20:00: The Conjuring, Enfield Haunting
  5. – 25:00: Brookfield
  6. – 30:00: Annabelle, Sally Jesse Raphael
  7. – 35:00: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring
  8. – 40:00: Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring
  9. – 42:49: Fabiola Christina, Annabelle, iHeart Radio, New England Society for Psychic Research

Notable quotes from "The Warrens: Paranormal Power Couple | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"

  • I guess I have my cynical hat on. So, that was a bad time to ask me that question because we're talking about Ed and Lorraine Warren.
    about Ed and Lorraine Warren · at
  • 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?
    about The Conjuring · at
  • Warren was his middle name because 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.
    about Bridgeport · at
  • Yeah. this is a 50-something year career. They founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952.
    about New England Society for Psychic Research · at
  • The next one, of course, is Annabelle. we talked a little bit about the doll and the dolls episode.
    about Annabelle · at
  • 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.
    about Amityville Horror · at
  • But we need to talk about the Enfield haunting.
    about Enfield Haunting · at
  • That is from Christina in New York.
    about Fabiola Christina · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ed and Lorraine Warren — Person · 5 mentions · first at
  • Lorraine Warren — Person · 5 mentions · first at
    That was a bad time to ask me that question because we're talking about Ed and Lorraine Warren.
  • Fabiola Christina — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Tony Spari — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Oh, yes. And supposedly this one is like their last one, but they hand the reigns over to their son-in-law, Tony Spari, so he might become the new leader of the franchise along with their daughter, Judy.
  • Judge Judy — Person · 1 mention
  • Little Chuck — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Sally Jesse Raphael — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Haunting continued or not, but one of the big things that came out of this was an appearance on Sally Jesse Raphael.

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

Concepts & topics

Places & events

  • Bridgeport — Place · 2 mentions · first at
  • Brookfield — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Couple of more here. the case of Arie Johnson, also in Connecticut, very conveniently located in Brookfield.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. 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?

Uh, I have high hopes for this year. Yeah. Oh, man. Do I really? I don't know. I think you should.

Okay, we should have high hopes for every year and we can be let down, sure, but you know, you can still have high hopes.

I I guess I have my cynical hat on. So, that was a bad time to ask me that question because we're talking about Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Mhm. Uh the as as Julia um 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 uh like the Amitavville horror. Uh so, we talked about them in that episode for sure.

Mhm. Uh or the Conjuring. Yeah. Or uh was it the Haunting in Connecticut? Yep. Was another one.

They made a lot of money uh scamming people. 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 that they were the real deal, legit ghostbusters, demon hunters. Um, it just if you add up all the evidence and you're incredulous and skeptical, you probably not only suspect the Warren 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.

Okay. Have you seen K-pop Demon Hunters? No. Is it good? Yeah. I figured you guys would have seen that. I figured Yi would be into that. Uh what is is it on Netflix because we don't have that anymore.

Uh yeah, it's Netflix original. So Okay. No, I haven't seen it. Although they did show it in theaters. Had sing alongs in the theaters and stuff.

Oh, cute. I got to see that. Uh yeah, I just didn't know. It has It's a legit sensation.

It 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?

Uh since last week, I have not seen The Conjuring. Do you remember what how it came up? Uh, I I mean I think we were talking about um the Raggedy and Doll.

That's right. And the Dolls Up. Great memory. So, okay. Um, I still say The Conjuring up, the first one is a legendary classic great ghost horror horror movie. It's just fantastic.

So, nothing changed since last week? 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.

Yeah. Um it it could have it could have really affected how I view it, but I decided not to.

Well, you can separate art from the ragd doll. For sure I can and I'm going to by God. Let's do that right now.

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

Yeah. But 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 Warren essentially. There were ghost hunters and um psychical research societies and everything around before them. Uh but they were so huge into publicity uh and getting their their stories out there that um they kind of put it on the map as far as as far as at least America's concerned.

Yeah, for sure. Uh so credit or scorn, they were the OGs. Um Ed was I guess Warren was his middle name because he was born Ed Warren Miney

uh in 1926 in Bridgeport. Uh he says that he grew up in a haunted house. So that's where he got his first Jones for this kind of work.

Mhm. Uh and his wife was born Lorraine Moran. Moran I think Moran Moran uh later Warren obviously uh in 1927 just a few months later also in Bridgeport grew up very very Catholic and met and that'll you know play a part in their careers because it all had a Catholic bent.

Yeah. Um and they met as teenagers got married in 1945 when Ed was on leave from the Navy. um 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 hawking 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 and if you um 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, um the TV shows that they uh 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.

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

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.

No. And we have to say they never charged a dime from anybody uh 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. Um they they had a museum that they charged money to come in and see um you know, entry. Um but they never charged the people that they were helping, which I think is is definitely worth pointing out.

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

Yeah. Exactly. So, let's get into this. Um oh they, uh, I said it was, you know, sort of very Catholic. Um, 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 cuz it literally was. People would speak in different languages supposedly. Uh, there were alleged like hoof prints appearing in the snow, levitating beds, levitating kids, foul smells, exorcisms, furniture. you know, that furniture is moving all over the place by itself. Doors are shutting without any wind blowing,

right? Just shutting for sure. Um, yeah. I mean, this is a 50-something year career. They founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952. Um, 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 the first big deal case was actually became the basis for that first conjuring movie. It was the Parin family haunting uh with Carolyn and Roger Parin and they had five daughters and they moved into a a house in Rhode Island, an old farmhouse that was built in the 1750s I think maybe um 1667 Roundtop Road. It was also known as the old Arnold estate.

and um 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.

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

According to them. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I'm going to use that. Uh yeah, the children uh were the first ones to sort of uh get the haunt. Um 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." Uh, but uh the parents soon got on board and said, "Yeah, something's happening here. The beds are levitating. There's that awful smell." Uh, they did a little self-ressearch before they called the warrants and found that there had been apparently a lot of um really gruesome deaths over the history of that home. Uh, which is not unusual for a super old farmhouse. So, that's when they picked up the phone. Uh, they called the Warren. I 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.

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 there's so convoluted and there's 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. Um but let's just say they called the Warren right. Um the Warren showed up. They held a seance. Um and in the seance Carolyn is thrown across the room but first she starts speaking in tongues. Uh, I think her daughter Andrea later wrote that this was she was speaking in a language that no um that never existed on earth. I think assuming that this was a demon, that kind of thing. And they trace 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.

Mhm. 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, um, they, uh, they had the seance. Um, Caroline gets thrown against the wall. Nothing, um, changes. Nothing's solved. And the Warren are like, "See you. Thanks for the story." The the, you know, when the Warren left, the haunting hadn't ended, but the Peron stuck it out or parents stuck it out for 10 years total, and then when they moved out, the haunting stopped.

That's right. Uh, and you know what we're going to do here? We're going to go over some of their greatest hits, um, as told by the Warren and others.

Mhm. And then maybe we'll come back later and sort of pick them apart a bit, maybe, if we feel like it.

Uh, the next one, of course, is Annabelle. Uh, we talked a little bit about the doll and the dolls episode. Uh, this is the early '7s in Hartford, Connecticut. Uh, when a a nurse got a Raggedy and Doll

uh, as a gift and the doll came to life. um started doing some cute things like, "Hey, I'll leave a little note for the nurse and or I'm going to be you're going to put me down in this chair, but I'm going to really go over in this room just so you know that I'm fully animated and alive."

Like elf on the shelf kind of stuff. Yeah, exactly. Uh and the nurse was like, "All right, this is fine." Uh 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 uh cuz it's just a little girl ghost. Uh but eventually um her friend she had a friend that was physically attacked uh by unseen forces I guess you know via uh Annabelle the doll and Ed Lorraine says were called in but I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't mining the news and making some calls themselves. You know what I'm saying?

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 switch and a newspaper reporter would show up and write a story about it, right?

Totally. Yeah. Um, so yes, these stories did pop up in the newspaper and I'm quite sure that the Warren were reading papers for this.

One way or another, they showed up and they determined, no, this is not a 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 they told. What do you do when you got a demon, Chuck?

You bring in an exorcist. Uh, 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. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd say that didn't work then. Um 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.

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

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

Yeah. Staring. But they said um 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.

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 uh family uh there at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Uh this is in the mid 1970s. And uh a real tragedy happened here uh in 1974 at uh about 3:00 in the morning when uh the guy who lived there, Ronald Defo Jr., killed his whole family,

uh his parents, his four younger siblings. He he killed them all as they slept uh with 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.

Yes. Um exactly. Um they said that afterward they went to the press and said that they had experienced terrible odors. Both George and Kathy, the parents, um had been possessed, maybe light possessed. um that their daughter had made a friend named Jodie with red eyes who was 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 Stiger throw up.

Yeah. Um 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 what has hoof prints and walks upright?

A talented goat. a talented goat, a pig ghost demon, or Satan himself. That's right. Um, so the Warren are uh are there I'm going to just stop saying called in. They just appear out of the ether.

They do their investigation and they said uh 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 uh some dark rituals in the past. And this is what led Ronald DeFao to kill his whole family. So, sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you guys are in bad trouble."

Yeah. This was a onetime seance that they held where they um 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 Warren had. If you've never seen the ghost boy photo uh from Amityville, go type that in and check it out. It is a creepy

really great creepy unsettling uh photo. Especially if you compare it to John DeFeo. I think he was the youngest brother of the DeFaos 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 Warren had it figured out. Uh there's a ghost. There's um Indian burial ground is now a trope thanks to them. And we can thank them for poltergeist as a result."

That's right. Uh I say we take a break. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk about three more of their more famous investigations right after this.

This is fun. All right, we're back. Uh, I guess it's not too far past Halloween, so in our minds, uh, you know, it's not early January, so we're sort of in that spooky mood. So, this is this is sitting quite well with us.

Mhm. Uh, but we need to talk about the Enfield haunting. Mhm. Because this is not in Connecticut, my friends. This is in London, England, in 1977. Uh, and Enfield is a suburb of London. And at the time, uh, one Peggy Hodgson um, 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. Uh Peggy bursts in and sees this dresser creeping across the floor by itself. Um seemingly going toward the door to block it. And Peggy was like, "I got to get that dresser. It's out of control." But she by the time she got to it, it was like it was glued. She couldn't even move this thing.

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

London Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's based on this. This is a very famous case um that was also investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, um which was founded all the way back in 1882, 70 years before the Warren founded their society. Um but they showed up because the um the Hodgegson's or I should say Peggy Hodgson um 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 was started falling into trances and apparently was possessed by a ghost named Bill W Wilkins who said that he had died in that same house actually in a chair in the corner and that he wanted everybody out because this was his house. And if you see that movie, it's really well done and super creepy.

Have you seen all those movies? I have seen those two. Okay, that's the extent of it.

How many are there? Good god. Um, how many things have they conjured? So, with the Conjuring, I think they're up to four, maybe.

Okay. But then there's a whole other like subranchise with the the evil nun. I think I've seen one of those

spin-offs and stuff. And then the Annabel stuff, too. But I've only seen the first two conjurings. And they're good. They're 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.

Yeah, I I hear you. Okay, I'll check it out. Uh so, like you said, uh the Society for Psychical uh Research, is that right? Psychical. Yeah. They come in, they're competitors of the Warren, of course, over there, I guess,

and um 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.

Mhm. Uh supposedly, one of the researchers uh had a curtain that was slowly creeping around his neck as if to choke him.

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

Oh, the the uh that society. What are they? The psychical society. They are. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that's good. Um Ed Lorraine maybe investigated, maybe didn't. Uh this is where it gets a little dodgy, and we're going to talk about that in act three. Uh but at any rate, in 1978, they said, "You got a poltergeist. That's what the deal is." And uh you know, New Line Cinema, you want to buy this story, we'll sell it to you. Yeah. And they did.

There was a there was a really cool documentary I saw where the So the SPR made tons of audio tapes, realtore audio tapes of this and somebody made a docu I guess a docu drama 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 tapes. So these people had to lip-s 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.

Did you ever watch that uh Zoom call horror movie that I recommended? Yeah, it was pretty decent.

Yeah. Not bad, huh? 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, you know,

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

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

Yes, it was a good movie. Uh, all right, let's move on. We got a couple of more here. Uh, the case of Arie Johnson, uh, also in Connecticut, very conveniently located in Brookfield. Uh, this was in 1981. And this one is interesting because there was a 19-year-old named Arie Johnson who stabbed his landlord. um 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

I think this is the first time anyone ever tried that uh the reason he said that is because he said I really am possessed by a demon 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 to help David out, I dared the the demon to inhabit me instead. Well, he did. And when I got into that argument with the um landlord, that demon is the one who really stabbed him, not me. That was his defense.

But I think the warrants showed up before all of this, before the stabbing even, and they took a look at David. And Ed looks uh little David up and down. He's like, "Yeah, you still got demons attached to you. You still got 43 demons.

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

Yeah. Uh and they, you know, they the the Glatzilles, who was that was Debbiey's last name, the girlfriend. They brought in Clare G 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 Arie Johnson's like, "Oh yeah, come into me. I dare you."

Right. And then the murder happens and the guy ends up in trial. Um Arie 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, "Uh, 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. Um, but that's a huge legendary case, too. Um, and then there was also there was a movie called The Haunting in Connecticut. It's awful. Um, and it was made kind of outside of the um the Warren's purview, but this was a case that's largely associated with them. Um, that involved the Sneder family.

That's right. Uh, that was also very conveniently located in Southington, Connecticut.

Right there on Meridan Avenue. And this is a case where uh two people, a Carmen Reed and Alan Snedeker, uh they got their kids. They had four of them and a niece, uh they brought them there to live because their son Philillip uh 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. Uh, Philillip, 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, uh, Carmen, I believe was the mom, was in the basement and she was like, "Wait a minute, there are toe tags and there's inbalming equipment here and photos of dead people. I wonder what this house used to be." And everyone said, "Uh, duh. It was a funeral home."

Yeah, the Halahan funeral home. for decades. I think pretty much right before um it became a home for rent. Um 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 half caskets on the wall, that kind of thing. This is where Philip was sleeping. The inbalming room was just down the hall. Um the thing is, Philip needing this uh this constant care of treatments for Hodkdins 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. Um, finally, Philillip started to change and became very violent. Uh, and was, I think, forced forcibly taken to a mental hospital for observation and stayed there for a couple of months, I think, and was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Um, he moved out, he avoided the house again. Um, and I don't remember if the haunting continued or not, but one of the big things that came out of this was uh an appearance on Sally Jesse Raphael. Uh, the title of the episode is I was raped by a ghost because Carmen said that she was repeatedly raped by a ghost and the niece was fondled by a ghost. Um, and the Warren also show up on that episode. You can find it online. It's a it's a Sally Jesse Raphael episode for sure. Yeah, you sent that to me and I I did my best to scrub through and hit the highs,

right? Uh shall we take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. All right, we'll take a break and kind of uh wrap up with what's going on with the Warren and all these cases right after this. All right, Chuck. So, one of the things that gives the Warren's um casework, I guess, credence in any quarter is that the this is all based on some kernel of truth. Like Ronald DeFao did kill him his family in the Amityville house. That definitely happened before the Lutzes moved in. Um the house in uh that the Snetkers rented was the Halahan funeral home before they they showed up there and there were like imbalming tools still there left over. Um it turns out that a man named Bill Wilkins did die in that house in Enfield in London. um 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 um factual enough to kind of provide a basis that can then be kind of filled in with some fat, maybe a little muscle and senue to to make a full-blown like you know haunting story.

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 quote hard evidence, uh, and different, you know, artifacts and things. Um, a lot of this stuff was kept in the museum, you know, that they had at their house that they you could, you know, pay to go into and look over the stuff.

Uh, 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. Uh, and in 1997, finally, the New England Skeptical Society said, "All right, let's uh 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.

Mhm. Uh they had audio recordings that had these, you know, strange sort of non- languages or otherworldly voices. Uh that was the one um I think in Infield with Bill Wilkins. They like they trotted that out and played it.

They had that Annabelle doll. She shook that doll and said, "Look, what do you call this?"

Uh she didn't shake it, of course, because it was stored under glass, right? Uh and then they had, you know, witnesses and personal accounts from people that, you know, testified, not in court, obviously, but that all this stuff was, you know, very real to them.

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

that was a quote, by the way. You don't say Blney. Yeah. I don't really say Blney very often. Um 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. Um, 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 Warren, 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 huers 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.

Yeah. She said uh they don't base anything on a god. Right. So if you don't bring God into it and the the idea that they're Roman Catholic God warriors fighting right evil incarnate on earth helping families for free then of course it's not going to make any sense to you egghehead pencl neck college boy scientists.

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 uh any worse than a lot of them. Um, but the fact that uh 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. Yeah, that's the thing. Like you can be like, well, it's all in just in good fun. But there are actual problems with what they were doing and that's one of them. Um, and even if they weren't mentally ill, um, some of these families did believe that there was something going on and they were in some sort of crisis and the Warren 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 the family story as their own case, right?

That's 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. um that's harmful. I also saw that um you can ascribe at least in part the um 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. Um that that was a contribution they made. And then also, especially these conjuring stories now, if you watch them, Chuck, the Lorine and Ed Warren are portrayed as this couple who have arguably the greatest marriage in the history of humans and that they are just steamowered 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 in people who are

religious. Yeah, probably. So uh you know we can now talk about sort some sort of the maybe the claims against some of these cases. Uh one of the claims was that uh the Warren actually paid a guy named Ray Gorton to completely make up the Sneder haunting.

Um they worked with an author I mean which is true. whose name was Ray Gorton uh to write a book about that case called In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. And Gorton in 2009 said that book was entirely fiction. And uh they're 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. Uh just use what you can and make up the rest."

Yeah. So that's one Snaker case. That's one little piece of evidence. And this guy actually wrote the book and was paid by. I don't I don't I don't think that he had much of an axe to grind,

right? Um the Enfield House, it's not even clear that they investigated at all. The the closest um 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. Um he said that 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 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 lynch pin to to freeing this family from this torment. Yeah. Yeah. Uh Amville supposedly was a hoax. This all came out later in 1979. There was a lawsuit and the guy who shot up his family, Ronald DeFao, his defense lawyer, William Weber, uh said that he and the Lutz family made it all up one night over quote several bottles of wine

and uh the Lutzes kind of came out and said, "Yeah, that's that's pretty much what happened." And Ed and Lorraine Warren were like, "No, that's not what happened."

Right. I think Lorraine had a quote during this seance. So, they met um 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 um where that uh 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 Barts 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.

Um, so the whole the whole idea of Amityville being as off the chain as it was came largely from them, but also from the Lutz's story. They helped publicize it big time.

Yeah. I looked up that house. It's been bought and sold quite a bit over the years, but uh someone eventually changed those two upper windows.

Yeah. Uh that I don't know, just kind of looked creepy. They kind of look like eyes, I guess, but now they're just regular windows. I saw that the old Arnold estate that was in Conjuring one, the the somebody bought it in like 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.

So now they're in demand, haunted houses pretty much. Yes. That's interesting. One of the biggest things that came out also just one real one thing before we go on. I would um direct anybody um 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 um Beth Sheba Sherman and her history and apparently it is all made up to the point where she's essentially a slandered 200year-old person.

So go read that. But the I think probably the biggest knock that the Warren 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, um, Ed Warren and I had a sexual relationship starting when I was 15, and Lorraine knew all about it.

Yeah. Like she moved into the house and supposedly had a 40-year relationship. Uh, and like you said, Lorraine was okay with it. I think they had a, you know, a a a business going. Um, Penny said that she was uh impregnated by Ed and Lorraine pressured her to have an abortion uh because that would hurt the business, the family business. And this is a big sort of red flag here. Uh, the Hollywood Reporter said that uh when Lorraine cuz they got a bunch of money to consult on TV and movies over the years. I think, you know, we've kind of made that clear,

but Lorraine specifically had a deal to consult on the Conjuring, and she barred New Line from uh showing Ed and Lorraine being as anything other than what you said, like this sort of perfect couple.

Uh specifically, it said no criminal offenses, uh no sex with minors, no child pornography, prostitution, or sexual assault, or depicted as participating in an extrammarital sexual relationship. And um just just so people know, this is not sort of a normal kind of thing. Uh even in Hollywood when they're doing these big contracts about, you know, supposedly true stories to include all that very specific stuff is is not normal.

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

That sounds totally true. But yeah, 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 I I she she seemed to have a pretty I think she actually testified in an affidavit that all of this was true, too.

Yeah. So, um that's tarnished their legacy a little bit. Um especially if people if you already thought they were grifters or huers or something like that. Um 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 um character actors of all time who never broke character at least in front of anyone who was willing to come forward. Um and she died I think in 2019 long after The Conjuring had become huge. Um Ed died I think sadly the last movie he got to see was The Haunting in Connecticut. He died in 2006.

Oh. 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 um their son-in-law Tony Spir, to whom quote all of their knowledge and experience has been successfully passed.

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

Yes. And but there 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 Right. Yeah. It's based on a case that we didn't talk about, but there was um sexual abuse by demons as well. It was also in the 80s. So that was their big thing then.

Who wants to see that? A lot. Millions and millions and millions of people around the world. Are they still super popular?

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

Amazing. 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.

Yeah. This is just a a quicky correction. Uh, hey guys. I'm listening uh now and you might have heard this already, but uh Chuck was right in pronouncing Villa.

Oh, how you feel, Chuck? The double L sounds Josh is talking about is Spanish, not Italian.

Well, that's what I was saying it in. That is from Christina in New York. Oh, is it? Huh?

Who loves listening. Oh, thanks a lot, Christina. We appreciate that. I think a few people wrote in to say, "Yeah, Chuck was right." That's fine.

I This is the only one I saw. I'm happy. I'm happy for you, Chuck. Are you happy for me for being happy for you?

Sure. Okay. Uh, if you want to get in touch with us like Christina did, you can send us an email as well. Send it off to stuffodcast.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, iMheart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The Warrens: Paranormal Power Couple | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

In order: 0:00 The Conjuring, Bridgeport, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren; 5:00 New England Society for Psychic Research, The Conjuring; 10:00 Annabelle, Amityville Horror; 15:00 The Conjuring, Enfield Haunting; 20:00 Brookfield; 25:00 Annabelle, Sally Jesse Raphael; 30:00 Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring; 35:00 Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, The Conjuring; 40:00 Fabiola Christina, Annabelle, iHeart Radio, New England Society for Psychic Research.

What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?

17 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including The Conjuring, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lorraine Warren, Annabelle, Stuff You Should Know, iHeart Radio. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Warrens: Paranormal Power Couple | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

The episode runs 43 min; the transcript is about 7,966 words in 141 timestamped sections.

More from Stuff You Should Know

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.