Summary
The Morbid podcast explores the Perron family haunting in Harrisville, Rhode Island, which inspired The Conjuring films. The episode details the family's experiences with supernatural activity in their 1736 colonial farmhouse, including apparitions, physical attacks, and the local legend of Bathsheba Sherman, a woman accused of witchcraft.
Insights
- Lack of spousal belief and emotional support during traumatic experiences can exacerbate psychological stress and relationship deterioration, even when children corroborate claims
- Paranormal investigators can exploit families' vulnerability by publicizing cases without consent, creating unwanted media attention and property harassment
- Historical narratives and local legends can shape interpretation of unexplained phenomena, with vulnerable populations more likely to accept supernatural explanations
- Guilt and denial are common coping mechanisms for individuals who feel responsible for placing family in perceived danger
- Documented increase in violent crime (60% in Rhode Island 1970-1974) created psychological vulnerability that may have influenced perception of supernatural events
Trends
Paranormal investigation as entertainment industry: exploitation of families' trauma for media spectacle and investigator notorietyHistorical revisionism: reassessment of accused witches and marginalized figures after media popularizationGenerational perspective shifts: adult children reframing parents' experiences with more nuance than original accountsProperty harassment as consequence of media exposure: haunted house tourism creating security and privacy issues for current ownersGender dynamics in belief systems: women's experiences dismissed by skeptical male authority figures despite corroborating witnesses
Topics
Paranormal investigation ethics and media exploitationWitchcraft accusations and historical marginalizationFamily trauma and spousal communication breakdownSupernatural apparitions and physical manifestations1970s violent crime wave in Rhode IslandExorcism and religious ritual practicesHaunted property tourism and trespassingChildhood trauma from witnessing supernatural eventsSkepticism vs. belief in paranormal phenomenaThe Conjuring film franchise and real-life inspirationBathsheba Sherman legend and local folkloreColonial architecture and historical housesSeance rituals and paranormal investigation methodsDivorce and family separation following traumaMedia sensationalism and privacy invasion
Companies
The Conjuring (film franchise)
Horror film series inspired by the Perron family haunting case, which brought renewed attention and harassment to the...
Ticketmaster
Mentioned as the platform for purchasing tickets to Morbid's Radio City Music Hall live episode event
Crime Reads
Platform where an excerpt from Ash's book 'The Butcher Legacy' is available for readers to preview
Spotify
Music streaming service mentioned for its radio playlist feature that prompted nostalgia discussion
People
Ed Warren
Co-founder of paranormal investigation team who investigated the Perron haunting and publicized the case without fami...
Lorraine Warren
Co-founder who conducted seance and exorcism ritual at Perron house, identified Bathsheba Sherman as demonic presence
Joe Nickel
Wrote book about the Perron haunting case, provided skeptical analysis and historical research cited throughout episode
Andrea Perrin
Primary source for family experiences; provided detailed accounts and later reassessment of events as adult
Carolyn Perrin
Primary victim of supernatural activity; initiated contact with paranormal investigators; advocated for family reloca...
Roger Perrin
Skeptical of supernatural claims; punched Ed Warren during seance; later admitted guilt about purchasing haunted prop...
Bathsheba Sherman
Former resident blamed for haunting; later reassessed as unfairly maligned by historians and Warrens
Norma Sutcliffe
Experienced property harassment and unwanted visitors after The Conjuring film release publicized the house
Fran
Shared local legend about Bathsheba Sherman and the house's history with Carolyn Perrin
Quotes
"Leave the lights on at night. Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
Mr. Kenyon, groundskeeper•Early in episode, day family moved in
"My mother told my father she would not survive another winter in that house."
Andrea Perrin•Near end of episode, 1980
"Do you realize you're being played by a pair of two-bit charlatans?"
Roger Perrin•After seance incident
"Essentially, Bathsheba copped the blame for everything evil, and it simply wasn't the case."
Andrea Perrin•Recent interview, decades later
"She loves me mom. She wants me to be friends with her."
Cynthia Perrin (child)•Mid-episode, describing entity's approach
Full Transcript
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid. It is. I'm covered in soy sauce. You guys. No, I am. Did you not see? Mikey did not get that. It sounded like a weird like 900 number beginning to like some kind of weird like that you were like, hello, I'm covered in soy sauce. Is there a sexy way to say that? I mean, hey, big boy, there's something for everyone. I'm not here to kink shame. Me either. If that's your kink, that's niche. Get yourself some soy sauce. Yeah, we got Chinese food today and I opened my like packet a little bit. and I was like it went fine because I was nervous I was like oh I don't want to open it too much because it'll get all over my shirt and now there's just little like sprays of soy all over me you just soy sauced I do love soy sauce but this is a brand new 7-up shirt she is wearing a t-shirt a 7-up a cherry 7-up and it's cute on the back too it's got like a whole thing going that's a little about me but now it's got soy sauce on it I know like the rest of my clothes yeah uh deb deb also got a squishy butter like stress things we're very into like what are the are these called like fidget toys yeah are these considered that i feel like we're very into these lately they're nice especially when we're recording if they don't make sound yeah because i had a dumpling that did make it sound like i was shitting myself and alena would look over at me and be like and i'd be like it's not me it's the dumpling i'm not shitting myself in the pod lab god and she couldn't do it while we were recording because you guys want to hurt it i think i probably did a couple times mikey either edited them out or did me dirty i did a couple times like squeeze my dumpling and it sounded like it farted that's not a euphemism i was gonna say what the fuck is going on right now no it's a literal dumpling you guys god damn all right we're gonna talk about a haunting today you have shit to say other than that oh yeah i do um oh yeah i do so i there's uh if you okay hi you got this i just didn't know how to start that if you you right there are psyched about the butcher legacy which like i am you better be i am uh you can read an excerpt of a chapter of it right now on crime reads you can do it i'm gonna post it on my socials we got it in the show notes you can read a little excerpt i believe it's chapter four i'm pretty sure not the whole chapter but it's an excerpt say that again excerpt um and yeah you get to read some of the books so you can see if it tickles your fancy i bet it will so go go do that because it's fun yeah fuck yeah that's really cool that's like a huge deal and then if you are on the fence somehow somehow about pre-ordering the butcher legacy after you read it you're gonna be like um i'll take 10 you're gonna be like i I got to hop off of this fence and onto the other side where the grass is greener. Yeah. And Elena's book is a plenty. What am I doing on the fence? Yeah. Let me jump into the pit of the butcher legacy. You'll say what a loser I was hanging out on that fence. You will. And you know what? I'll forgive you because we listen and we don't judge. Yeah. So period. Go read that excerpt. You should also buy tickets to our Radio City Music Hall. Yeah. Do that. I was going to say episode. Episode. We will. It will be an episode. In fact. Yeah. We have come up with some really good merch ideas. Yeah. I'm really excited about. So, and you can only get them there. Yeah. Only there and one night only. Better get tickets. Only go to Ticketmaster. Have some fun segments planned. Shit's going to get Buck. It is. All right. Whatever that, whatever Buck is, it's going to get there. You remember that song that I wanted to play at my wedding, but everybody was like, you can't play this at your wedding. Yeah. Which I didn't understand. Yeah. Everybody was being mean. I supported you. You may get Buck in here. I want to drop into the ground like she ain't got man. There's too much booty for one man to handle. that's a wedding song the fuck i would have got buck at my wedding i mean i did anyway but i would have loved that there was an hour of my wedding that did in fact get so buck that the children needed to be removed like kids went home parents were like we should get them out of here and those parents included john yes i was like bye brother he was like bye i love you he's like I gotta get them out. Go, go, go. I miss my wedding. I want to do it again. I miss one too. Yeah. But I want to do it again, but I wouldn't. Yeah. I don't want to like plan. That's the thing. Like the planning of it all. Yeah. I don't want to plan a wedding again. No. But I want to have one again. Period. You know what song? I promise we're going to get into the case, but. Yeah. Just tell people when it starts. It might be 19 minutes. Yeah. I was going to say someone's timing. Who gives a fuck? Several people. It's my show, not yours. But. I was listening to, you know how Spotify will give you like this band's radio, you know, like a playlist. Yeah. I had a something corporate like radio, which let me tell you, brought the used was on there. Oh my God. We had, oh, it was great. It was total throwback. And then it had, which I was like, I don't know if this one fits, but like all, it kind of does. It had fun on there, which makes sense because he's the singer from the format. The format was on it as well. And that was very of that era. but there's a song called some nights is that the one where it's like some nights I stand in my castle you're gonna stand in my castle yeah it's not in my castle but this song we we are young is the last song that played at my wedding when everyone was like clearing out oh yeah and I was like oh my god like it immediately brought me back to the like but I was like oh that just like brought me right back that's a really good ending song i didn't pick mine and i should have i forget what it ended with but i remember being like i hate this song oh no that's not great it was still fun i danced to it anyway but i was like who the hell played this no we had a good one and everybody sang it hell yeah because you also because we were young so we're in fact i feel like i was so much younger and mine was only two years ago yeah anyways we should get to the story yeah we'll get to the story all right mark down the number i was just gonna say what's the time leave it in we're being so shady um i should also mention that i have a cold so if my energy feels weird i don't know what to tell you and you know what mikey will do his best to make this not i hope he leaves the shade in leave the shade in yeah he'll leave some of it all right so we are going to be talking about the Perrin family haunting today which apparently apparently was the inspiration for the conjuring movies oh like the first one at least dang yeah now weirdly enough from conjuring to this the story of the Perrin haunting begins with a simple catholic wedding oh shit yeah all right let's start there let's start at the wedding roger and carolyn perrin got married in 1957 like a lot of people in new england roger grew up in a devoutly catholic household we all know what that's like around and they're done that and mine wasn't devout mine was not about I knew I knew a lot of catholic bitties yeah yeah we got lots of catholic bitties around yeah they're always running around I don't know what they say but anyway I was like they're always running around saying like they're just always running around you know what they're always running around saying they're always running around saying and also with you yes it's true they're always saying Jesus Mary and Joseph and all my saint and sisters that's what my dad says my grandpa. Now, Carolyn grew up somewhat Christian, but she and her family really weren't like deeply steeped in religion by any means. And as she got older, she was really less interested in organized religion. But at the same time, she knew it was important to her husband and even more important to his mother. So she embraced Catholicism to keep the peace between herself and her new mother-in-law. She said, sure, I'll have a Catholic wedding. Now, they wasted no time starting a family and within a year carolyn was pregnant with their first child andrea not long after andrea was born carolyn was pregnant again and it was obvious that if their family was going to continue to grow like this they were going to need a bigger house so they moved to willimantic connecticut which is a small city in the southeastern part of the state over the next few years they continued to grow and grow as a family starting with nancy who was followed by christine and then cynthia and then finally april whoa so five gals five gals oh the dream i hope i have five i have three gals i know and five sounds like a lot you have five girls because you have the pups that's true no yeah exactly in her memoirs their oldest daughter andrea describes her mother as approaching each of her daughters with quote a usual thoughtful and kind consideration of each child i love that yeah wow what a parenting win right that's the thing they were all very close in age and they you know obviously had a lot in common but carolyn did her best to try to recognize their individuality and she praised their effort she minimally criticized them like she was a good mama now their dad on the other hand he was less encouraging and he wasn't that emotionally available he also worked as a long-haul trucker so there were just periods where he wasn't home yeah so i think that was kind of just like by design yeah not like he designed it to not be home but just like he wasn't always available because he was literally across he was literally in a truck across the state yes thank you author joe nickel we will link his book in the show notes wrote it was a fact that harmed his marriage and kept him largely a stranger to his children oh which is very sad that is sad i know now andrea is a lot less negative though in framing her father but her description of him at least in their younger years was a lot less warm than her memories of her mother she wrote his acknowledgments were always more subdued and understated always a critical mention of room for improvement though meaningful nonetheless. So obviously their mom was home more so they were a bit closer with her. Yeah of course. With their father out of the house more often than not and their mom responsible for five young kids the girls kind of turned to each other obviously first as playmates but then as they grew up they kind of became caregivers for one another like the older girls helped with the younger girls and so on and so forth. This dynamic seemed to suit Carolyn more than the typical parent-child relationship. Andrea said that she was less a caretaker and more a playmate. She took great pleasure in their company. It's just like six besties living in a house. Hell yeah. Now the big family and the need for some extra help, Roger and Carolyn ended up moving back to Rhode Island in 1964 and they settled in a small cape style house in Cumberland where the schools were good and they both had family nearby if they needed a sitter, yada yada. The parent kids remember their early life there fondly. They said it was an idyllic experience. But by 1970, their idyllic life started to feel like it was falling apart all around them. Uh-oh. So by 1970, their idyllic life started to kind of feel like it was falling apart all around them. The first signal that things were changing for the family came in the form of a tragedy just days after summer vacation started in 1970. A few months earlier, Roger and Carolyn had bought a puppy that Carolyn inexplicably named Bathsheba. I love that a lot. Yeah, she said that she just pulled that name from the ether, I guess. Okay. Like, no reason, but yeah. You just look at the dog and you're like, Bathsheba. It's interesting because Bathsheba, I looked a little bit into, like, her origins, and she had five kids. Oh, shit. And so did Caroline. So I was like, weird. Huh. There's also another part that you're like, really? Like, interesting. When things align. So, one afternoon, Andrea begged her mom to let her take bathsheba for a walk and carolyn was like go for it with her sisters by her side andrea held on tight to the leash and bathsheba walked obediently beside her for a while um trigger warning we're gonna talk about animal death the girls had been walking for a bit when a car full of teenagers came racing up over a hill with no warning and andrea remembered they must have been cheerleaders because they were quote shouting out something in unison while shaking brightly colored tassels from their open windows well stop speeding stop speeding and get your fucking head in the window just get it together period truly to to surmise get it together thank you Bathsheba ended up running into the street after the car like probably trying to protect the girls yeah or seeing like the brightly colored yeah like thinking it was like a toy or like a treat or something now luckily she made it to the other side of the street safely but in a panic Andrea called out for her to come back immediately and didn't check to see if there was any cars coming and Bathsheba did as she was told and was tragically struck by an elderly couple who never saw her walking into the street oh that makes my heart hurt it's horrific elderly people too and all five girls just watching their puppy that'll fuck you up yeah big time that's rough that's the thing well and the thing the other thing was Carolyn and Roger brought the dog home and they were like obviously this is a pet for the whole family but there was a bond between Andrea and Bathsheba like immediately like they really vibed together sad and now her constant companion was ripped away in what felt like impossible circumstances yeah you know those feelings when you're just like oh my god I just want to rewind time yeah so badly even worse she couldn't help but feel responsible if she hadn't told Bathsheba to come back across the street she felt she probably wouldn't have been struck by the car so obviously this is a devastating incident all five of the girls were at the scene when she was hit. So they ran home immediately and they explained to their mom what had happened and Carolyn was just as devastated. Also, it wasn't just the loss of a pet for her, but she was heartbroken for her children and worried that they had seen something so traumatizing. Oh, yeah. And there was also this weird underlying feeling that Bathsheba's death signaled something about the subtle changes in their community. Things were shifting that summer. If that carload of teenagers had actually been following the law and not yelling and hanging out of their fucking windows maybe that entire scene wouldn't have happened yeah so in the weeks that followed everyone in the family dealt with their grief in their own ways but andrea seemed to struggle more than the other kids she was wracked with an intense sense of guilt and she was usually like a very chatty outgoing girl but this just made her kind of like pull into herself the shift in her personality was really concerning for carolyn but at the same time there were other things going on that were kind of occupying most of her attention she couldn't pinpoint exactly when things started to change. But that summer, Cumberland, Rhode Island was actually experiencing kind of a juvenile crime wave. Wow. Which is wild. The hell? Yeah. Boys around the neighborhood who were like once friendly, awkward little kids had started to feel kind of menacing and dangerous. Ew. And according to Andrea, a list of minor and major infractions included a number of petty thefts, gangland assaults on the schoolyard playground, from vicious pranks to more threatening encounters with rumors of weapons involved. Damn. And things took a very serious turn when, again, according to Andrea, there was a, quote, attempted sexual assault on a young girl who had been gagged and bound to playground equipment at their elementary school. What the fuck? Yeah, so shit was getting fucking gnarly. I say it again. Get it together. Get it together. What the fuck? Between 1970 and 1974, violent crime in Rhode Island, in Cumberland, Rhode Island, increased more than 60%. whoa so like this wasn't just a feeling that something weird was happening it was shit shit was going on yeah and the city was becoming more dangerous damn so by the time the summer had come to an end the traumatic events of the season which were capped off by the death of the family's cat and a break-in at their house oh my god it had all been way more than carolyn could tolerate yeah that's a lot when they had moved back to an island six years earlier it was to put down roots to raise their family in a safe quiet community with family nearby but now this community did not feel safe and the home and town had multiple tragic memories that carolyn wanted to shield her kids from yeah to make matters worse with roger out on the road more often than not the growing stress and anxiety of all of this fell solely on carolyn to manage so she was just really going through it so finally when roger got back from a job that fall she sat him down at the kitchen table and she basically said in no uncertain terms she was straight up not having a good time in Cumberland, Rhode Island. I am not having a good time. Straight up not having a good time. Not killing it. She said it's not for us out here in these streets. No. And I would like to sell this house and move into the country. This place is harshing my mellow. Harshing the vibes. And I need to get out. So the vibes are rancid. So harsh. There's this new thing that the kids are saying. I don't know. It's like aura mogging or something like that. Just what? Yeah I don know How do you mog someone aura I don even know if it aura mogging It aura something I gotta look this up really quick What are the Gen Zs saying about auras What do the Gen Zs have to say about auras? Aura farming, that's what it is. Aura farming? Aura farming is the act of consciously and sometimes desperately trying to boost one's cool image. It is frequently used in a derogatory way to describe somebody as trying too hard, often seen as cringe. You know what's trying too hard? It's saying aura farming. Coming up with a term called aura farming. Wait, you know what? I am kind of obsessed with that. Stop caring. Whatever. You know what I'm obsessed with though? What? Aura maxing. I need all the maxing to stop. I like the maxing. You guys are all talking about fiber maxing. We are fiber maxing. I'm hearing idiots on the internet talking about looks maxing. i'm hearing whatever the fucking is it or a max or a max maxing is like apparently all these is that like a glow up but it's like extreme i think like crazy i like or a maxing i think everyone just needs to chill the fuck out what about chill out max and relax and all cool shooting some b-ball outside of the school is that good yeah that is cool all right that's what i mean yeah i was just gonna say that cumberland rhode island was not or a maxing at this time in case there's any gen z's listening let me translate that for you yeah there was yeah it was not oramaxing so when carolyn first made her case to roger he was like i don't really know if we're in the financial position to do that this feels very impulsive and he was like i also don't think a few bad experiences are sufficient enough reason to leave like we've lived here for years though i was like the home invasion is the crime is the crime of it all upsetting to you roger that would bum me out so by the time they reached uh by the time they got to bed that night they reached an impasse there was no immediate solution and as far as roger was concerned he said there was no point on dwelling what they couldn't change it's like well you could you can change your surroundings you can change whatever you want to change you can change your hair and you can change your clothes and you can change your mind and that's the way it goes exactly and after that ask hillary no that's is that that's not hillary that's hannah no that's hillary that's hillary yeah you can change your mind no no no i I was saying, you can change your hair and you can change your clothes. You can change your mind and that's the way it goes. So what is Hillary's? She says, you can change your mind if you want to. You can act real tough. But I've heard enough. I'll trust you on this one because. I know I'm right here. Yeah, I know you're right here. And the Hannah Montana resurgence like put that into my head. See, and I think I'm for the Hillary Duff resurgence. Yeah. I had that on the brain. She's not resurging at this very moment. Hannah Montana is resurging at this very moment. I think Hillary's on fucking tour. Is she? I would go to that. Yeah, she's resurging. I would go to that. Yeah, she's resurging in a good way. We can't bring John though because one time they made eye contact. Yeah, he claimed that one time at a concert when he was younger, yes, he went to a Hilary Duff concert. He took his niece, right? No, he dated a girl. Oh, he dated a girl. Gross. That had him going to Hilary Duff concerts. You know who you are. Just kidding. No, you should be mad. I'm just kidding. We have three children and have been married for like a hundred thousand years. But we still hate her. Real girl shit. Yeah. But I'm totally kidding. It's a joke. But he went to, we're like, this is a joke. Please know that. Yeah, she made him go to a Hilary Duff concert. And he said, he claims to this day. I believe him. So Hilary, if you're listening, back off, bitch. I understand him because I made eye contact with Harry Styles at a Harry Styles concert. And he definitely sang to me for a solid second. I know. I'm the only one who has not had this experience. Here's the thing, too. I have photographic evidence of Harry Styles looking at me. He's looking right at my camera. That's actually true. In his sexy little jumpsuit. See, when John went, it was a time before the camera. Yeah, so. But you know what? I believe, as somebody who's made eye contact with a handsome fella slash beautiful lady. Yeah. You know. You know. You know. I haven't had that experience. I need to add that to my repertoire. I bet Tobias has made eye contact with you, but you just can't see because contacts. I just can't see. There you go. I'm going to hold on to that. I got you. I'll hold on to that. I love these episodes because they get so loosey-goosey. They do. I love these. It's my fave. So Roger said, hell nah, Carolyn. We can't afford that and who cares? Yeah. So Carolyn started keeping her anxieties to herself and she didn't bring up moving again. Oh, no. And a few days later, Roger was back on the road. Oh, no. According to Andrea, her father's latest trip, quote, kept him away just long enough for the universe to intervene on their behalf. Oh, boy. Which I fucking love. So while waiting for one of her daughter's music lessons to end, Carolyn was just flicking through a copy of the Woonsocket Call and, you know, just mulling along. Just mulling along. Flipping through the real estate section, she came across a listing for a nine-room colonial farmhouse in Harrisville on 200 acres of land for $75,000. Oh, give it to me. Give it to me. That would be $600,000. Damn. Or is it $600,000? Hold on. I'll be back. so yeah it was like six hundred thousand dollars like give or take which honestly for 200 acres of land i'd yeah i'd do that if i could you know that's sick so for the rest of the afternoon carolyn just couldn't help but think that that was the perfect opportunity and the fact that she had come across it in the paper was a sign that it was the house for them hell yeah despite roger having emphatically told her that they literally did not have the money to move that night carolyn said 1-800 listing agent and she scheduled a showing for the following day i love that i love it. I'm team Carolyn. You want it? Go get it. Period. Yeah. I would have been the same way. I want to see it. It's the conjuring house. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were saying to me, I want to see the house. I was like, it's the conjuring house. Thank you. Thank you for that. You said you want to see, you can. You can. It's the conjuring house. No, I would just be like, I want to see it. Yeah. Show it to me. Yeah. Show me to me, Rachel. There it is. I was waiting for it. I know you were. So Carolyn met the realtor the following morning and they drove out to Harrisville together. Along the way, she gazed longingly out the window at what was to her a quaint, idyllic, beautiful town perfect to raise her daughters in. Oh, it's gonna be amazing. Yeah, it was exactly what she wanted for her family. Yeah, I don't think anything bad is gonna happen. No, it's not. This is just a nice story. It's gorgeous. She's just like gazing out the window like she's in a music video. Yeah. Do you remember when it would rain and you were sitting in the back seat and you'd just be like, I'm in a music video right now? Oh, yeah. Anybody who isn't the main character in their own music videos, movies, TV shows all the time. Do it. You're either lying or you need to do it. Yeah. Whimsify your life. Yeah. So things only got better when they got to the house. There were apple trees in the yard, a lush green lawn. The house itself was this picturesque colonial home. According to the groundskeeper, the house was actually built by a master shipwright in 1736. That's sick. And it was made of solid oak. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah. And it was thanks to that masterful construction and solid materials that the house managed to survive during so many devastating hurricane seasons that destroyed a lot of the other colonials in town. It had legs. It had legs. By the time they finished storing the house, Carolyn was pretty much sold that it was hers. But the groundskeeper is the one who really convinced her. after giving her a tour of the property he walked both women back to the car and he shook carolyn's hand and he gave her a genuine look of kindness and said this is a wonderful place to raise a family oh that would have sold me me too you know they hadn't even closed their doors and carolyn was reaching into that purse for her checkbook and she said to the realtor my husband is out of town how much does it take to hold this place good honestly good for her i'm obsessed yeah I'm absolutely obsessed. Because at least you got to make sure nobody else gets it. Yeah. So Andrea's account of how they came to live in the house has this like mystical quality that strongly suggests some unseen force had intervened to ensure that Carolyn found the listing, saw the house, and made the down payment. As a signs girly myself, I love that Carolyn thought this was the universe. Oh, hell yeah. And maybe it was. No, the universe wants to teach you things. Maybe this was like her Saturn return or something. There you go. Probably not. But maybe. I don't know. But maybe. She had five kids at this point, but it was a different time. Anyways, unfortunately for Carolyn, Roger was upset. He was like, hey, it's the 70s. You can't spend money without me. I mean, here's the thing. Like, you should probably talk together if you're going to buy a house. For sure, for sure, for sure. You know, that's... But she tried to talk to him and he wasn't listening. Well, that's the thing. What's a woman to do? Were steps taken that maybe should have waited? Yeah. Yeah. But like, who am I? He's in a truck. What was she meant to do? We listen and we don't judge. Period. You know? so more than mad he also just wasn't interested in hearing about the house or the beautiful grounds or how perfectly suited it was for their family he was interested in one thing only how the fuck they were going to get that check back from the realtor oh no but carolyn persisted she was like no this is the right decision for us roger listen to me listen roger and eventually he yielded and he agreed to tour the house with her okay he said i'm not saying we're moving but i'll go look at it yeah so then the next day the entire family piled into the car and they headed back to Harrisville to see the house. Once again, they were met by the groundskeeper, Mr. Kenyon, who Roger was immediately charmed by and very endeared to. The girls ran off to play in the yard and Mr. Kenyon showed the parents the house. And although he was still pretty pissed at his wife for being so impulsive and completely disregarding his wishes on the matter, Roger did have to admit it's a pretty great house. It is. Yeah. The interior was just as beautiful and stately as the exterior. It was much, it was more than adequate for their family. And a few hundred yards away, a stream ran through the woods with water clear enough for Roger to legit see little fishies swimming beneath the surface. Little fishies? It was perfect. Oh my goodness. It was picturesque. So back at home that night, they put the girls to bed and they sat down to discuss everything. For every glowing word that Carolyn had for the house, Roger offered a critique, though. He was not quite sold yet. She brought up the crystal clear stream and the natural spring on the property. and he pointed out the ancient plumbing and the fact that there was only one bathroom in the entire fucking house but no matter it'd be rough that would be rough but no matter how pragmatic he was or how many reasonable concerns he had in the end there was no getting around the fact that he was just as impressed with the house as carolyn was and he agreed that night okay we'll figure it out let's do it let's go so after lots of planning lots of preparation moving day finally arrived the second week of January 1971. You couldn't pay me money to move in New England in January. No. Why? Yeah. Wait till at least March. That's the real horror. Yeah. Here. It really is. Yeah. Moving in January. What? So having spent everything on the down payment for the house, there was no money to hire movers. But luckily, friends and family pitched in to help the parents get settled into their new house. As the last pieces of furniture were being carried inside, Mr. Kenyon, the groundskeeper, appeared at the door to say hello and welcome everybody and he was charming as ever and roger appreciated having somebody nearby who was familiar with the property but before he left that afternoon mr kenyon said something that would haunt roger in the days and weeks to come he said leave the lights on at night better to light a candle than to curse the darkness okay that that might send me that would fuck me up don't send me i'd be like what the fuck do you It would send me, but it would send me. It would send me away. Yeah. Far away. It would send me on my way. On my way. On my way. Be out of there. Out of there. No, thank you. Yeah, I'd be like, I'd like to leave now. Also, I'm pretty sure the Conjuring house is like closed. Really? Yeah. I think it like they. Is it in between owners? Is that why? Yeah, I think they don't have their, their business license was like revoked. Oh. And then I think it was going up for auction. it definitely was because um wasn't some tool trying to buy it i don't remember who i do and uh i do too but i don't remember like my wife we're looking at you but i don't see who i don't see like what happened i just looked online i don't know what the results of all that was interesting i'm just interested now i'm like what's going on you gonna buy it like give me the conjuring you're like hey can i see a haunted location i see some paperwork what didn't sam and colby buy a haunted location they bought a school i wanna so yeah the comment i guess didn't really necessarily come off as menacing to roger anyway but something about it put roger off and he was very uncomfortable something about it probably just the comment yeah probably just the content the whole comment leave the lights on at night i'd be like first of all that's expensive mr kenyon That's when he goes to walk and you go, ah, ah, ah. What does that mean? And you do the little finger walk. Like, get back here. Wait a minute. Hold up, brother. Brother. Brother. Brother. Brother, what's that? So from the moment that they. The moment. This is an unhinged episode. From the moment. This is the conjuring. They moved into the old farmhouse. Carolyn was very surprised by how much noise that it made. Like when everything was quiet. the house yeah oh it wasn't that surprising they moved in during the coldest part of the year and every new englander obviously knows like your house is gonna be creaking and cracking the clinging the clanging the the creaking the cracking plumbing old floors what have you oh yeah i used to love when our family from like out of town like john's family from out of town would come stay over and they were like what the fuck is that i was like just house just the pipes it's just how the house is settling don't worry about it there's like a random crack in our wall i was like what the fuck is that and drew goes i don't know the house settled oh my god i don't know oh okay that's good like i don't know it's new england but even by those standards new england standards the greeks and groans from the old house were definitely eerie and like they happened much more frequently than the usual one the house was like oh sort of and they were like that's new they're like huh now it was all the more noticeable since they never got any keys to the house when they moved in yeah mr kenyon just was like i never locked the doors no need nobody will bother you here okay i love that but like i hate that i love that nobody will bother me but i'd like some keys but why it's my question they had they had gone through a break-in yeah i'm gonna lock everything yeah if you're if you're buying somewhere um like to get away from crime yeah get keys or even if you're not moving there to get away from crime if you're if you're moving into a place get keys and then change the locks yeah definitely get those keys now a few weeks after they moved in carolyn was surprised to learn that it wasn't just her who had been hearing strange sounds in the house one day while she was home alone with april who was the youngest daughter april was like yeah i hear shit upstairs all the time she was like yeah shit's going crazy and she was like i think she was like four or five and she literally said like shit's going crazy she was like mom shit is popping the fuck off upstairs the comment caught carolyn off guard and she didn't really know how to respond because she doesn't want to scare her daughter but she's like oh cool you're hearing it too yeah and she's like where'd you learn those words she's like damn i better get the dawn dish soap out so by the time she got around to asking what kind of things april had heard in her room april was like distracted with something else because she's a kid yeah she's got to go learn new swear words she's got shit to do so she said that too she's like i have shit to do mom so one february day when the older girls were all were all at school and carolyn was home with april she had just put april down for a nap and she got this eerie feeling she got used to all the noise that the house made the creaking the popping the sat the walking the dropping they'd also heard hush talking from rooms my parents also hear that you hear that too all the time no i can't even like say that that's just them i used to hear that when i did too so they were used to that but this time something was different it felt like there was somebody else in the house with her but like a it was a presence that she couldn't see but she could for sure feel she said the air felt heavy thick and dark so she closed her eyes and she tried to push the heavy feeling away and within a few minutes it passed later that afternoon after the girls got home from school carolyn gave them some milk and cookies and she was like go play like over here so you don't wake april up because she's still sleeping so doing as they were told they went to the living room to play a game and eat their snack but they were interrupted a few minutes later by an unhappy and obviously still sleepy april and she wanted to know who the fuck shook me in my goddamn sleep like yeah thinking that their sister was overtired or just being silly the other girls laughed but they were immediately admonished by carolyn who was like not very happy that april was up from her nap that early so she had been in the kitchen next to the living room she could see and hear the girls very clearly like she knew all four of them were down there playing so she also knew that none of them had gone upstairs to wake up april so she pulled april onto her lap and she's trying to soothe her she's like nobody touched you while you were asleep like they didn't none of the girls went into your room it was probably just a bad dream that technique was usually successful but on that afternoon april could not be soothed she was very upset she insisted that one of her sisters had slapped her and pushed her while she was sleeping and then ran out of the room oh and she said she could even hear their footsteps as they fled into the hallway that's terrifying yeah so seeing that april was genuinely upset and like inconsolable at this point with what she'd experienced the rest of the girls got more serious and they joined in trying to help calm her down oh shit they all told her none of us went into your room like you probably were dreaming but after a while even carolyn wasn't so sure that april was dreaming her mind flashed back to the feeling that she had earlier that day putting april down for her nap that she wasn't alone in the room and she was sure that if there was somebody else in the house she would have noticed them by now after all the house was not that big yeah and it also seemed like every floor board had its own noise yeah but she still couldn't help but wonder was there something in the house with them. You don't want to have to wonder that. You don't. It's probably on my top 10 list of things to not want to have to worry about. Yeah. I want to go my whole life wondering. Not that. Yeah. So since moving in that second week of January, Roger had only been able to enjoy the new house for a few days before he was back out on the road. So when he finally got home in mid-February, he was just eager to relax and enjoy the house. But from the moment he got home, he could tell that something was off with Carolyn. She seemed very troubled. That night after the girls went to bed, he was like, what's going on? Like, you seem super off. And it took a little work, but eventually Carolyn did start to tell him about the noises that she'd been hearing and the more recent unshakable feeling that there was somebody in the house with them. He told her that the light in the house was definitely strange and it even played tricks with his eyes, but it was probably just that. But the more he talked, the more Carolyn realized that he didn't really understand what she was saying. it wasn't just that she had an uncomfortable feeling like everybody gets from time to time it was a genuine like feeling that there was actually somebody else there with her watching her so it was obvious to roger that carolyn was upset and something had for sure frightened her but whether it was his catholic upbringing or just that he hadn't had any experiences like that himself he just couldn't bring himself to accept that anything was going on in the house it had to have been reasonable he insisted that she just was spending too much time alone or maybe she was alone with the kids and their imagine imaginations too much so throughout most of their ordeal in the house this was kind of roger's like way of handling things yeah according to nickel roger eventually seemed to acquiesce possibly to promote domestic harmony but he never appears to have truly believed the claims from his wife and interesting which is rude it seems like he was accusing her of aura farming yeah this haunting he was saying your aura points have gone down a lot. So as winter turned to spring and then to summer, the noises continued and that feeling of being watched would come over Carolyn and the girls now every so often. In time, the area of the hallway that connected the kitchen and the dining room became the least comfortable place in the house. The temperature inexplicably fluctuated wildly between hot and cold, like super, super hot or absolutely freezing. See your breath cold. And it didn't matter what the temperature was in the rest of the house according to andrea the girls always quote moved quickly through that corridor unconsciously sensing the presence always feeling watched within the dark spaces as time passed they started to share their own experiences with each other and were kind of relieved to find that they weren't alone in what was going on yeah andrea said nobody ever lingered too long near the cellar door and that was because on the day they moved in two of the girls had seen what they thought was a man standing in the dark corner just beyond the door. And at the time, they dismissed it as like a shadow or like their dad said, a trick of the light. But over time, the heavy feeling that they got around the cellar door and the sounds that came from the cellar convinced them that it wasn't an illusion. Now, it was Cynthia who first encountered the full-blown apparition of a man. I don't want to see an apparition of a man. Neither did Cynthia. Yeah. The school year had just started. She was rushing to get her things together one morning so she wouldn't miss the bus the bus driver was literally out front like blaring the horn and she's trying to scoop everything up and make the make it in time but before she could get there a quote silky smoky figure emerged from the cellar so she had no time to even react to what was going on and she just rushed headlong into it which caused the mask to disappear in an invisible and foul smelling cloud. Ew, a fart cloud? A fart cloud. Gross. A paranormal fart cloud. Now, as soon as the odor entered Cynthia's nostrils, the smell was apparently so overpowering that it sent her into a coughing fit. Oh my god, go to the doctor. Yeah, well, she kind of did. She made it out to the bus and she got to school on time, but within an hour of getting to school, she was exhausted. She couldn't concentrate. She was falling asleep at her desk. So the teacher sent her to the nurse because they were like what the fuck is going on they said i think you i think you inhaled a fart cloud i think you ingested a paranormal fart cloud yeah that we don't really have treatment for that so i guess go home and sleep that often yeah but a short time later carolyn picked her up and brought her home oh shit so cynthia's encounter didn't really result in much more than the symptoms of a cold but like the fact that that gave her a cold yeah what the fuck she's got pink eye from ghost but it was an indication that whatever they shared their home with could and would interact with them when it wanted to yeah and those interactions might have physical consequences damn a few days later speaking of physical consequences carolyn was out in the barn clearing out some of the old objects that had been left behind and she had an encounter of her own as she was working she started to hear a kind of whoosh sound come from the hayloft above her like a whooshing i don't like that like that yeah carolyn wondered if it was like a bird or an animal that was trapped up there and she started to climb the ladder to try to help if it was then out of nowhere a hand scythe came flying in her direction from above what so she tried to move or jump out of the way but she felt like she was paralyzed like she literally couldn't move now to her relief the scythe struck the ground just inches from her foot holy shit which spared her any harm but the question remained who or what had thrown a fucking scythe in her direction yeah that's bullshit she didn't know wow wow or hi wow or hi or how or why but the thing carolyn did know was that the implement had not just fallen it had clearly been thrown like with force that's crazy now from that point on is when the activity in the house really escalated the worst of it always coming when roger was away one afternoon a few weeks after the attack in the barn there was a knock on the door and when carolyn opened it she was met by her neighbor mrs pedigrew who knew that roger was away and was just kind of stopping in to be like how you doing so carolyn invited her in she went upstairs to change and into more presentable clothes and mrs pedigrew and the children sat in the kitchen eating the cake that she brought and suddenly they were startled by the sound of carolyn screaming from the bedroom down the hall oh no now rushing to her aid they all burst in the room just in time to they all saw this see her being whacked across the face head and neck with a wire coat hanger held in the air just like by some unseen force it was not joan crawford no it was not no she doesn't like wire hangers no she doesn't no wire no wire hangers what the fuck yeah so seconds after they entered the room the coat hanger just dropped to the floor whatever had held it previously was gone and carolyn was just sitting there in tears just having been hit with a wire hanger but they all saw this what's that how many people saw this six people her five daughters and her neighbor yeah so frightened and kind of embarrassed yeah carolyn ushered everybody out of the room and back down to the kitchen where they all just kind of sat awkwardly like nobody knew what to say and before long mrs pedigree was like i'ma head out i'ma leave so she was like thanks so much for the coffee enjoy the cake peace out carolyn walked her out and but before mrs pettigrew left she turned and took carolyn's hand and told her the kenyans always kept the lights on overnight all the lights every night that would fuck me up that would fuck me for that to be the second comment about like you should keep your lights on and just for like her to like take your hand and just be like you know that wire hanger that just beat the shit out of you yeah the previous owners kept their lights on yeah maybe think about maybe you should do that like no maybe the wire hangers wouldn't come for you babe maybe not i don't know who's to say oh so then she just let go of carolyn's hand walked in the direction of her house and quite literally never came back for another visit honestly i don't blame her she was like that house is not for me dog's rancid she said it's Oral points are low. Yeah. So in the months that followed, the Perrin family kind of just fell into a regular routine, living alongside whatever the fuck was in their house and doing their best to carry on while still enduring strange events and strange encounters. With Roger away most of the time, Carolyn and the girls were left to fend for themselves. And when he would return, there was always the inevitable disappointment when he refused to believe their stories of the haunting. The experiences themselves were incredibly stressful, but Roger's skepticism seemed to make everything worse. According to Joe Nickel, Carolyn came to feel as though she was being overtly challenged by Roger's disbelief, as though her opinion was entirely irrelevant, her recounting of events fraudulent. Well, it would piss me off. If John just straight up didn't believe me, I'd be like, okay, that sucks. Yeah, it's not cool. I would be very upset. Yeah. So the tension that grew between Roger and Carolyn acted as kind of a wedge between them and only pushed them farther apart from each other. And that was when Carolyn really needed a lot of support. Yeah. Things took a turn for the worse when in the absence of her husband's emotional support, Carolyn turned to a neighbor, Sam, as a kind of confidant. There's no indication that their relationship was anything but platonic. Thank you for that. you betcha no carolyn's a queen my my like my reality television show head just went and with that being said team sierra oh yeah i don't even watch it in team sierra period yeah you're on the right side of history so they were like platonic but just the fact that his wife had started sharing her ghost stories with people outside of the house and a man another man at that yeah felt kind of like a betrayal to roger but it's also like i don't know maybe believe your wife believe Believe her. Yeah. Make her feel heard. And all your kids are saying this too. Exactly. But through sharing her story, Carolyn finally started to feel some sense of support. And she also started moving towards finding some answers. Now, despite their growing inability to communicate with each other, Roger and Carolyn just kind of carried on their lives like there was nothing wrong in their relationship. It was the 70s. You know. When he was home, Roger was present. Not necessarily warm, but there. And his being home helped Carolyn feel a little bit safer. One night, a few years into their time at the house, Roger said, you know what? Why don't we get a babysitter? We'll go out for a date. Like, we need a little action here. So they went out. They had a nice night together. They got home a little after midnight. Roger thanked the babysitter, paid them. Carolyn went upstairs, checked in on the girls. Everything seemed normal. And then they went to bed. A few hours later, Carolyn was awoken by the sounds of footsteps near their door in her bedroom. She obviously assumed it was one of her five children. So she called out without opening her eyes, like, who is it? What can I do for you? What you need? What's up, girl? And she got no response, so she groggily opened her eyes and saw the grotesque figure of a woman standing before her, staring directly into her eyes from across the room. That's so much worse than a kid. Yeah. That's so much worse. She was also completely paralyzed. Oh. And her eyes just rapidly scanned the entity in front of her, looking for any indication of what the fuck it might want. A grotesque woman? Yeah. She said the age of the woman was difficult to discern, but based on her outfit, she knew that she was not of a modern era. Her dress was a, quote, rusty green jersey, handmade, hand-dyed fabric, cinched at the waist with a belt. And her hairstyle was slightly more modern. It kind of looked like a beehive, but it wasn't as well quaffed because she's grotesque. Presumably dead. Yeah. Now, worst of all was the way that her body was contorted and twisted. her neck seemed to have been snapped causing her head to tilt at an unnatural angle i remember hearing this one and she stared gray-eyed and unblinking at carolyn oh isn't there i seem to remember that there's like a drawing on like a wall or something that one of the kids did of that lady yeah it is it's literally it's fucking it's like silly but it's scary because you know like what it results from that's fucked up yeah and it was found on furniture like by new owners of the house later and it's just the lady with like her crazy bent neck yeah we'll take it we'll put a picture in yeah that's fucking scary in the carousel on instagram at first to caroline because remember she just woke up out of nowhere to this at first it seemed like this woman was like floating in the darkness but once her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness she could see that the woman wasn't floating she was crouched inside of the bureau across the room the doors flung open on both sides to reveal the full extent of Miss Girl's hideousness. Of our girly. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? Yeah. In her mind, Carolyn imagined herself shrieking, but no matter how loud she was yelling in her mind, nothing would come out of her mouth. Oh, that's the worst. So she watched in frozen terror as the woman thing at the other end of the room climbed out of the bureau and started slowly moving toward her in the dark. Finally, feeling like the paralysis was slipping, she started kicking Roger. But the blows must have been too soft to register because stupid Roger didn't wake up. It was only when the thing was directly in front of her, one of its arms literally laying across her pillow, that she finally regained the functionality to move away from the thing. And it started leaning its gray face towards hers. So she shot back against her headboard with such force that the metal of the headboard slammed into the wall. And she said it was so loud that it should have woken up everybody. but nobody came running and roger stayed asleep holy shit to her surprise the only person that did seem to respond to the noise of the clanging bed frame was the figure of the woman pressed as far back against the wall as she could be she just watched in shock as the figure started to dissolve before her eyes leaving behind a cloudy residue and a terrible odor oh everyone's so stinky stank ass why is everyone so stinky girl you stank take a bath what's going on i don't know so terrified and wanting to get out of that room asap she just scooped up her pillow and went to the living room to sleep on the couch she was like you know what she was like i don't want to deal with this yeah she's like you know what roger's probably not going to believe me if i tell him what just happened inches away from him but there's no doubt in her mind their house was haunted and whatever it was it was not friendly so in the days after the attack what's that and stanky and stanky not friendly and stanky horrible combination yeah so in the days after the attack in the bedroom the dam broke and carolyn started learning what her daughters were experiencing in the house andrea told her i see shadows in my bedroom even when the moon is small in the dark the other girls had experiences too their bed shook in the middle of the night toys moved across the room shapeless figures stared at them from the dark corners the worst was the way that the thing had approached cindy not as a menacing figure but with tenderness cindy told her mom she loves me mom she wants me to be friends with her oh my god this sounds that's very amityville it really is so carolyn said fuck that i gotta do something to protect myself and my babies roger's not gonna believe us and he's not gonna like sell our house and move even if he does so i need to figure out how to make this happen exactly so mama that's a mama so she reached out to her good buddy platonic sam and told him we love platonic sam we do too uh she told him about the thing and as they were talking april looked up from the tv pointed at the door to the cellar and just said something real fucking bad happened in there and then she turned back to the tv like she hadn just dropped that lore now in case you weren catching on I just like making her swear because we started that bit and it funny But she literally was like something real bad happened in there She said something bad happened in there. And then just like went back to the TV. I'm not sure how I would recover from that as a parent. I'd leave. I'm just being honest. Like there's a lot of things I can handle. Yeah. That might be the moment I say, well, I guess we're camping out. like no no i was literally just gonna say i might camp in nearby woods yeah i spent another night there something real bad happened in there would fuck me up on a level i can't describe it makes me think of the fucking sixth sense yep that fucking cabinet yep and like oh and they lock him oh i can't even think of that no no i can't even think of it because that scene that scene scared the voice in that fucking cabinet the growl oh my god no i hate it that just makes we think of it i hate it guys do you know that mikey's never seen the sixth sense he doesn't know he doesn't know we should show you that it's such a good movie but it's so fucked up we gotta show you so shocked by the statement carolyn and sam were like okay given everything we know the cellar seems like the most obvious source of the haunting so sam had it out because he was like wow this place is freaky as fuck but i burped he agreed that he would do some research and get back to her okay finally a few weeks later he returned and among other things he had looked into whether there was like a legal loophole that might get them out of the mortgage i realized i said weird i was like are we let that just fly by no i didn't want to re-say it but i realized i said it weird loophole loophole there might be a legal loophole my nose is like popping i don't know so in some states if the seller had withheld any pertinent information from the buyer at the time of the sale that could nullify the contract oh unfortunately that's not the case in rhode island or at least it wasn't back then carolyn shared the information with roger when he got back from another work trip but he was just not interested in hearing it andrea said he wasn't having the same experience as we were having and when he did come home exhausted the last thing he wanted to hear was my mother saying roger i think we have ghosts i mean yeah but like come on come on come on roge come on roge now years passed and the women in the parent house continued to be attacked and terrified by all manner of scary shit while roger just remained free of any harassment i don't know if they were just like he's not worth it he's not here they're like he doesn't care so yeah that's not fun i feel like that would be fun i'd fuck him up if i was i know i'd be like i'm gonna make you believe oh yeah so in time carolyn continued looking for an explanation or in that time she continued looking for an explanation for the experiences and one day she found it in an old story once shared by the locals but mostly forgotten by the time that they had moved into the town. She'd been visiting a local general store and she was chit-chatting with the owner, a lifelong local named Fran. Because that's what a lifelong local is named. Oh, hell yeah. I mean, in I'm pretty sure in Gilmore Girls there's a lifelong local named Fran. Yeah, there is a lifelong local named Fran. She owns a bakery. Say lifelong local five times. Lifelong local. That's hard. Five times. I don't think I can do it. Yeah, I don't blame you. So she's chit-chatting with Fran and she finds herself telling Fran about, you know, you tell Fran whatever you need to oh you tell fran everything exactly so she's like hey i was attacked by a ghost woman in my house recently oh yeah fran's gonna take that she's gonna no she literally she'll know what to do to carolyn's surprise fran knew something about the house that nobody had ever told the family it had once been the home of a woman named bathsheba sherman and her neighbors believed that she was a witch oh hell yeah i'm obsessed let's go according to local legend bath sheba had been a member of the arnold family who lived in the house all those years ago and she was said to be in league with the devil and had sacrificed a child to Satan in exchange for power. Oh, she's a yucky one. No, no. When she was arrested, Bathsheba claimed that the child died in an accident and the case was dismissed. But still, the rumors persisted around town and she became an outcast, left alone in her house to her black magic. Oh no. It was this, Fran suggested, that was likely the source of the haunting. If the stories were true and Bathsheba had in fact sacrificed a child, surely an act so evil would leave a permanent stain on the land and the house. Oh, hell yeah, it would. And while there was literally no evidence to support that belief, Carolyn said, yeah, I bet that happened at my house. I mean, here's the thing. There's a lot of shit going on in that house. And then the kid's saying something bad happened in there. Yeah, she wants to be my friend. All the stinky fart smells, all the, you know, the scythes getting thrown at you. Yeah. I might sit, I might, that might be my first thought too. was like you know what i bet somebody did do some fucked up shit like that oh i would absolutely think so i'd be like that that's enough evidence for me i'd take it so knowing the potential origin of the haunting was one thing but that still didn't help carolyn solve the problem they still had to live there then one day in early fall of 1973 help came from an unexpected place by then carolyn had been pretty open with a lot of people at that point about what was happening in the house including a friend who recently attended a lecture by paranormal investigators say it with me now ed and lorraine warren oh i've never heard of them no are they are they well known yeah they're like people know about them are they good at what they do they are nobody can argue that they're good at what they do are they charlatans perhaps oh my god that word literally gets used later holy shit listen to you so yeah maybe maybe so at the time the warrens actually hadn't really reached the level of notoriety that they have now that they really came to notoriety after amityville i think oh yeah then they became the warrens exactly they were not the warrens at that point they were just ed and lorraine more and they were like look at these adorable couple yeah so they were also easily accessible at this point and they lived close by because they lived i think they lived in rhode island shit they got it on the ground floor yeah and lorraine carolyn did so she placed a call to the couple and they agreed they said hell yeah i'll come down to your house so they Toward the house, they reviewed the notes and the research that Carolyn had pulled together. And after doing so, Lorraine Warren agreed that there was definitely an evil presence living amongst them. I mean, I'm with her on that. Same. You know. After hearing the story about Bathsheba, Lorraine informed the parents that it was she who was the, quote, lone demonic presence in the house. And all the other paranormal activity was drawn to her or commanded by her. Oh, shit. So grateful that somebody was finally taking her plight seriously, a wave of relief washed over Carolyn. when Lorraine not only believed her, but also said, hey, I think we can help you here. Oh, hell yeah. Unfortunately, what Carolyn thought was a story shared in confidence soon turned out to be anything but. Ed and Lorraine definitely would do their best to help the family, but they also would create a public spectacle that would benefit them more than the parents. Yeah, and at that point, there was no knowledge of their wily ways with the media. Uh-huh. Yeah. So before Carolyn even knew what was happening, there were strangers showing up outside of her house all the time to get a look at the haunted house. Every few days, ghost hunters were arriving at the door offering their services. One ghost hunter included a man who insisted that he could solve the problem with, quote, only one tool of the trade in his hand, his holy Bible. I don't think you can do that. He didn't. He didn't. It was only later that Carolyn and Roger found out that, in between their first meeting and their last one, Ed and Lorraine shared their story at an unknown number of lectures given around New England. Oh, Ed and Lorraine. So they were just like, hey, this address in Harrisburg or Harrisville? Yeah, this place in fucking Rhode Island. Go see it. Check it out. In October, Ed and Lorraine came back to the house for what Carolyn was told would be a seance. but what turned out to be what joe nickel described as part of a ghost hunting session with lots of cumbersome equipment and part intended exorcism including in addition to a medium shaman holy woman and a parapsychologist and also a priest whoa so she was like i thought we were just having a seance who are all these people yeah i thought we were just sitting around with some candles yeah so she was scared about roger's reaction initially so she didn't tell him about the seance oh no until the warrens got there to perform said seance oh babe and roger was livid yeah i mean here's the thing you got to inform everybody yeah i too would be pissed if a seance was occurring without my knowledge yeah but he would have stopped the seance so i get both sides he would that's the thing i understand that she didn't want to say anything because he would have like we're not doing a fucking seance and she needed to do a fucking seance and you need to do a fucking seance but i can understand i would also be aggravated it's complicated people if ed and Lorraine Warren showed up at my house with seance accoutrement yeah and like a whole entourage of seance of like seance people and like holy men and women yeah just unannounced and John was like oh I might have set this up I don't like unexpected I'd be like sick idea yeah but you have to tell me I don't even like when solar panel people show up at my house unexpectedly so I get it I don't like any of that you know so he was pissed but he was like okay do your seance at least he was like do your seance yeah but he was he was pretty pissed about it i mean so over the course of the evening ed and lorraine with the help of all of their entourage guided carolyn through a ritual cleansing intended to drive bathsheba out of the house during the cleansing carolyn started mumbling incoherently and a quote low-pitched guttural utterance emerged from deep within her being as her quaking body trembled in place holy shit yeah lots was going on wow after lots of shouting prayer and exorcism of what they were told was the demon that had entered carolyn's body roger had had enough and he tried to intervene in what he thought was a hoax but when he stepped forward ed tried to pull away from the exorcism tried to pull him away and that caused roger to whip around and punch ed directly in the face dropping him down to the ground bam ed went down I was just gonna say that. Roger, super bitch. I'll send you a copy. Yeah. So seeing her husband bleeding from the face. Oh, no. Lorraine ran to his side and started wiping the blood. And Roger used the break and the chaos to demand that everybody get the fuck out of his house. Yeah, he said this is getting crazy. And with that, the seance came to an end. Oh, no. Now, in her memoirs, Andrea Perrin recalled her father's demeanor after the Warrens and the others left that night. She said he bitterly resented the intrusion, the theatrical farce of pseudo-intellectual endeavor. He also called the entire scene ritualistic nonsense and shouted at his wife, Do you realize you're being played by a pair of two-bit charlatans? Charlatans! I told you. I mean, you shouldn't yell at your wife. You shouldn't yell at your wife. Don't yell at your wife. But what he said was a little bit valid. Was he correct? Maybe. But perhaps. That's not nice. But like, whatever, Roger. Because obviously something is going on in this house. If she's that desperate to get rid of it, exactly. And these kids are feeling it. The kids are saying shit. She's a mama. Things going down. She's a mama trying to help her children. Yeah. I'm team Carolyn. Me too. Thank you. You know? Now, at the time, his behavior and his perspective seemed unwarranted. But as an adult now, Andrea kind of gets where he was coming from, given the circumstances. is according to her later in life roger quote admitted that he didn't want to believe his wife because he didn't want to think that he had put his family in a perilous situation with the purchase of the house i wondered if there was some like guilt i think going on there and also that he's not home a lot to protect them so definitely he doesn't want to believe that there's any kind of danger that's happening that he can't be around to help right he probably like put it out of his head and and just yeah he's just not reacting in a way that is telling us that yeah it's the 70s He's a man. What's he to do? What's he to do? So after the seance, things did seem to calm down in the house, but the activity never did stop completely. They kept living in the house until 1980, when they finally decided it was time to move. Andrea said, My mother told my father she would not survive another winter in that house. She'd been under attack in that house for 10 years. Damn, you must be tired after that. In the decades since they moved out, other people have lived in the house, and nobody's reported supernatural activity that's lived there. Non-supernatural harassment, on the other hand, has been occurring regularly since the parents' story was made public, reaching a peak with The Conjuring in 2013. That movie that was released. I don't know if you've heard of it. According to former homeowner Norma Sutcliffe, she and her husband were, quote, plagued by a conjuring-instigated siege of their property. That's included countless harassing phone calls and people just randomly showing up at their house, which is shitty. Yeah. As for Andrea, who has now had decades to consider her own experiences and her family's experiences, she kind of lands somewhere in between skeptic Joe Nickel and true believers Ed and Lorraine Warren. Oh, okay. She definitely believes that the house was haunted, but when it comes to the cause, she's not sure. Yeah, I could see that. The release of the film, based loosely on her family's experiences, prompted a significant interest, too, in the legend of Bathsheba Sherman, who Andrea and local historians now believe was unfairly maligned. Aw, Bathsheba. Yeah, not only by history, but also by the Warrens. In a recent interview, Andrea said, Essentially, Bathsheba copped the blame for everything evil, and it simply wasn't the case. Not long after moving out of the house, Carolyn and Roger divorced, and they went their separate ways. But they both did their best to maintain positive relationships with their kids. That's good. And they occasionally appear in media relating to the haunting, but they lived their lives mostly out of the spotlight. Aw, good for them. Yeah. I'm glad they kind of just separated from it. Yeah, me too. I think it was for the best. And I really do believe that this was like, do I think Roger reacted great in all those circumstances? No, it was a little poor. But I do think Andrea, like the daughter, is correct. Yeah. That probably was a lot of guilt. Yeah, an underlying guilt thing for sure. I want to go to the Conjuring House so badly. I want to too. Corinne and Sabrina went. And they said, I know, I forgot about that actually. John got me tickets to go there and have a medium there. That would have been sick. For our anniversary. And then he had to go and get vertigo. And then he got a horrible case of vertigo. Yeah. And we couldn't go. You and I should have gone. I know. On my anniversary. Yeah. He honestly wanted us to. He probably would have said to us. But I felt bad leaving him. So yeah, that's my story of The Conjuring House. But yeah, Corinne and Sabrina spent the night there. Yeah. I forget what they said. I remember they said it was definitely like fucked up. They filled some shit. Yeah. Yeah. I want to go, but I think I don't. Can you go now? Yeah. It leads you to like a weird empty page. So I don't know if you can go. If you look on the Google page, like the homepage way. When you search it, it says closed temporarily. Well, temporarily. Yeah. At least there's that. I would like to go. I want to go. Maybe we'll go. But yeah, that's crazy. It is. And what a tale. I love haunted episodes. They're so much fun. I love hauntings. I know they're horrifying for the people who live through them, but I... I love hearing them. I really love hearing the stories of hauntings. So guys, we hope that you love us. And we hope that you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's a weird thing you also don't love hauntings. Yeah, love hauntings. Love them. Because it's almost spooky season. Oh my god, we're so close. We're so close. We're out of winter. That means it's spooky season. Only like five and a half months. Oh, that's fucking nothing. Zero. Less than half a year. All right. Party. We're here. It's Halloween. Oh, oh, oh. Thank you. Thank you.