October 14, 2025 • 32 mins
In 1981, a quiet Connecticut town became the center of one of the strangest murder cases in American history.
When nineteen-year-old Arne Johnson stabbed his landlord, he claimed something no U.S. court had ever heard before, that he was possessed by a demon.
This episode of State of the Unknown uncovers the true story that inspired The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Host Robert Barber takes you inside the real case, from the alleged possession of eleven-year-old David Glatzel, to the Warrens’ controversial involvement, to the trial that tried to put the Devil on the witness stand.
You’ll hear what was verified, what was exaggerated, and what Hollywood left behind. No jump scares. No clichés. Just the documented events, chilling details, and quiet questions that still haunt Connecticut to this day.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
It's a cold Monday in February 1981, Brookfield,
Connecticut.
The kind of small town wherenothing really happens.
19-year-old Arnie Johnson callsoff work that morning.
He heads over to the dog kennelwhere his girlfriend Debbie
Clatzell works.
Her boss is Alan Bono.
(00:24):
40 years old, big personality,and a guy who really likes to
talk.
By lunchtime, the three of themgo out with a few friends to a
local bar called the Mug andMunch.
They eat, they drink.
Bono has a few glasses of redwine.
More than a few, really.
(00:45):
And by the time they're back atthe kennel, something's
different.
The music's too loud.
Bono's pacing, irritated aboutsomething nobody can quite
figure out.
Debbie's nine-year-old cousin isthere too.
Just a kid.
Then suddenly, Bono grabs herarm and won't let go.
(01:08):
Arnie steps in and tells him toback off.
There's yelling, a blur ofmovement, and then Bono stumbles
back, eyes wide.
He collapses.
When police arrive, they findfour deep knife wounds, one of
them near his heart.
Arnie's gone, vanished into thetrees behind the kennel, like
(01:32):
he's in a daze.
Before the sun goes down, he'sin custody.
And before the week is over,that quiet little New England
town has its first murder in 193years.
But that's not what makes thiscase different.
It's what Arnie says next.
(01:53):
That something else was with himthat day, and that it made him
do it.
What happened at that kenneldidn't come out of nowhere.
People in Brookfield say Arniehad been acting strange for
months.
Quiet one moment, angry thenext, like he was carrying
(02:13):
something heavy that nobody elsecould see.
And if you ask his girlfriendDebbie, she'll tell you it
started long before that day.
Back when her little brotherDavid began waking up screaming
about something standing in hisroom.
At first, the family thought itwas just nightmares.
Then he started talking about anold man with burned-looking
(02:37):
skin, torn clothes, and blackeyes.
He said it threatened to takehis soul.
That's when the Glatzels calledfor help.
And the people who showed upweren't doctors or counselors or
police.
They were Ed and LorraineWarren, the same husband and
(02:58):
wife team who'd claimed they'dfaced demons before.
And what happened next is whatthe Warrens would later call one
of the most dangerous cases oftheir career.
(03:27):
In 1981, a 19-year-old fromConnecticut claimed something no
American court had ever heardbefore.
That a murder wasn't committedby a man, but by the thing
inside him.
This is the story of ArnieCheyenne Johnson in the case
that tried to put the devil ontrial.
(03:48):
And this is State of theUnknown.
It started in the summer of1980, a few miles outside of
Brookfield, Connecticut.
Arnie Johnson and his girlfriendDebbie Gladsel had just rented a
(04:09):
small house on Blue Trail Roadover in Newtown.
It was older, kind of run down,a fixer operated that they could
afford.
They were planning to move intogether for the first time, and
they wanted to get it cleaned upbefore hauling their stuff
inside.
Debbie's family lived close by.
(04:30):
Her parents, Carl and Judy,offered to help, and her
youngest brother David camealong too.
He was eleven, smart kid, alittle sensitive, but not the
type to make trouble.
They spent the day scrubbingwalls and sweeping floors, just
trying to make the placelivable.
And that's when David saidsomething that changed
(04:53):
everything.
He told his mom he saw an oldman inside the house.
Not a neighbor, not someonepassing by, but a man with
burned scaly skin, wearing tornclothes and staring at him from
one of the rooms.
He said the man told him,Beware, and then if you move in,
(05:17):
something bad will happen.
At first, everyone brushed itoff.
It was a hot day, the house wasdark, and maybe he'd scared
himself.
But that night, when David wasback home in Brookfield, he woke
up screaming.
He said the old man had followedhim there.
(05:38):
Over the next few days, Davidstarted waking up the same way,
screaming, shaking, saying theold man was at the foot of his
bed.
His parents said he'd sometimeswake up with bruises and
scratches that hadn't been therebefore.
They thought maybe he washurting himself in his sleep
until the marks got worse.
(05:59):
Long scratches across his chestand neck, too high for him to
reach easily.
That detail came straight fromtheir later interviews.
The Glatzels said they heardstrange noises too.
Footsteps, knocking, growling.
And David began talking about abeast.
(06:20):
He said it had hooves instead offeet, a face like an animal, and
eyes that glowed red.
He told his mother it wanted hissoul and that it had promised to
hurt anyone who got in its way.
It scared them.
They moved his bed into theirroom so he wouldn't be alone.
They tried prayers, holy water,anything that might calm him
(06:45):
down.
Nothing worked.
Sometimes, they said, his voicewould change, deeper, older.
He'd shout in Latin phrases orcurse at them using words he'd
never heard before.
Now, none of that was recordedby anyone outside the family.
Those accounts come from theGlatzels themselves, later
(07:08):
repeated in the Warren's casenotes.
There's no medical documentationof the events, but that's how
they described it.
Eventually, Debbie and herparents reached out to their
parish priest from St.
Joseph's Church in Brookfield.
He came by, blessed the house,sprinkled holy water, and told
them to get David checked out bya doctor.
(07:30):
That visit is confirmed.
The Diocese of Bridgeportacknowledged it later when
reporters started askingquestions.
But according to the family,things only escalated.
David claimed the beast was nowthreatening him, saying it would
throw him into a wall or chokehim in his sleep.
(07:50):
And they swore they saw ithappen.
He'd be lifted or pushed orflung like something invisible
had grabbed him.
That's the Gladzel story, andthe Warrens, once again, backed
it up.
By late July, Judy Gladzel,David's mom, didn't know what
else to do.
She'd already been to thepriest, the doctor, and a
(08:14):
psychiatrist who said David wasfine.
Nothing stopped the attacks.
So she picked up the phone andcalled Ed and Lorraine Warren,
the couple who'd become knownacross New England for
investigating hauntings likeAmityville and Annabelle.
She didn't know if they couldfix it, but she figured if
anyone could make sense of whatwas happening, it might be them.
(08:38):
And when the Warrens arrived,they said they felt it the
moment they stepped through thedoor.
That's when this story stoppedbeing about a haunted house.
It became something the Warrenswould later call a true case of
demonic possession.
By the time Ed and LorraineWarren showed up, the Gladsel
(09:01):
family was exhausted.
They'd been through priests,doctors, and sleepless nights,
and nothing was getting anybetter.
The Warrens were already famousby then, mostly because of
Amdeville.
People either loved them orrolled their eyes at the mention
of their names.
But to the Glatzels, they werethe last chance left.
(09:25):
Lorraine said that the momentshe walked through the door, she
felt something dark, somethingheavy, like the air itself was
watching her.
She later described it as apresence of pure evil.
Ed started taking notes andaudio recordings right away.
They said David would suddenlysnarl or growl, sometimes in a
(09:48):
voice that didn't sound like hisown.
He'd shout words in Latin ordescribe violent visions, people
being stabbed, blood, murder.
According to Lorraine, he'd evenpredicted that someone would be
killed with a knife.
Now, those details come entirelyfrom the family and the Warrens.
(10:09):
There's no outside recordconfirming any of it, but that's
what they claimed.
Lorraine said she could see darkshadows moving near the boy.
Ed called it a demonicinfestation, and they told the
Gladzles they needed help fromthe church.
Priests from St.
Joseph's Church and later St.
(10:31):
Mary's in Bridgeport werebrought in to observe.
They performed blessings andwhat the Warrens called minor
exorcisms.
The church didn't call it that,though.
The Diocese of Bridgeportconfirmed later that clergy had
visited and prayed with thefamily, but they made it clear
that no official exorcism hadever been authorized.
(10:53):
Father Nicholas Greco, thediocesan spokesman, told
reporters in 1981 that thefamily refused the psychological
evaluations required before thechurch can approve a formal
rite.
That statement's on record.
According to everyone in thatroom, the family, the Warrens,
(11:14):
and the priests, there werethree of these deliverance
sessions.
And during the last one,something changed.
They said David suddenly wentquiet, still.
Then Arnie, who had beenstanding beside him, shouted at
whatever was inside the boy,telling it to leave David alone
and come into him instead.
(11:36):
Lorraine claimed she'd warnedhim not to say that, but he did.
And the room, she said, wentcold.
From that day on, David seemedlighter.
He stopped having the fits.
But Arnie began to change.
He'd zone out mid-conversation,his temper got short, and he
(11:58):
told Debbie once that he'd seensomething staring at him through
a window, something with blackeyes and a grin that didn't
move.
Those moments are onlydocumented in interviews with
Debbie years later, but that'swhat she remembered.
The Warrens told the family thatArnie had invited the entity
into himself, what they calledtransference.
(12:23):
Lorraine said she even calledthe Brookfield police afterward
to warn them that somethingterrible was coming.
There's a record of her call,though the details of what she
said aren't written down.
And for a few months, thingswere calm again.
David went back to being a kid.
The Warrens moved on to theirnext case, and life, at least on
(12:47):
the surface, went back tonormal, and everyone wanted to
believe the worst was finallyover.
But Debbie said she could stillsee it in Arnie's eyes
sometimes, like he was halfthere, half somewhere else.
He'd stare off, tense his jaw,then blink it away like he
didn't even notice.
(13:08):
She told her mom once, I thinkit's still with him.
A few weeks later, she wasright.
By February 1981, things in theGlassel and Johnson household
had mostly gone quiet, at leaston the surface.
(13:28):
David was back in school.
Debbie and Arnie were stilltogether, still working hard.
Arnie had taken a job withWright Tree Service, trimming
branches near power lines.
Debbie worked full-time at theBrookfield boarding kennels,
managing the office for her bossAlan Bono.
Bono was 40, big personality,friendly when sober, but he did
(13:53):
like to drink.
He lived in a small apartmentabove the kennel, and he'd often
invite Debbie and Arnie upstairsfor dinner.
Most nights were easy.
That's what makes what happenednext so strange.
It was Monday, February 16th,President's Day.
Arnie called in sick thatmorning.
(14:14):
He told his boss he wasn'tfeeling right and planned to
spend the day helping Debbie atthe kennel instead.
Around noon, they all went outfor lunch at a local bar called
the Mug and Munch.
Witnesses later said Bonoordered wine, read, by the
carafe, and drank most of ithimself.
They came back to the kennel alittle after three.
(14:37):
At first, everything seemedfine.
The radio was on upstairs inBono's apartment.
Then the mood changed.
Bono started pacing, turning thevolume up, shouting to no one in
particular.
Debbie's younger sister Wandaand her nine-year-old cousin
Mary were there too.
Debbie told them it was time togo.
(15:00):
As they headed towards the door,Bono suddenly grabbed Mary's
wrist and wouldn't let go.
She screamed.
Debbie tried to pull her free.
That's when Arnie stepped in.
He told Bono to release thechild.
There was shouting, loud enoughthat neighbors later said they
heard voices through the openwindow.
(15:21):
And then everything happened atonce.
Arnie growled, a deep, gutturalsound Debbie said she'd never
heard from him before.
He pulled a pocket knife fromhis belt, and in a flash, he
lunged.
When it was over, Bono stumbledoutside and collapsed on the
ground.
(15:42):
He'd been stabbed four or fivetimes, one wound running from
his stomach to near his heart.
Police later said the blade wasroughly five inches long.
Arnie didn't run.
He walked away into the woodsbehind the kennel, along the
railroad tracks as if he were ina trance.
(16:02):
Officers found him about twomiles away.
He was calm, confused, anddidn't resist arrest.
At the station, when they toldhim Bonawood died, he reportedly
put his head down, fell silent,and then fell asleep.
Brookfield police chief JohnAnderson called a press
(16:23):
conference that night.
He said it was the firsthomicide in the town's 193-year
history.
That's verified.
There were no other recordedmurders in Brookfield before
1981.
Within 24 hours, the story waseverywhere.
Not because of the crime itself,but because of what came next.
(16:47):
Lorraine Warren called thepolice and told them that Arnie
hadn't acted alone, that thesame force they tried to drive
out of David Gladsel had takencontrol of Arnie instead.
And soon that single phone callwould turn a local tragedy into
a national headline.
(17:08):
Arnie Johnson was charged withmurder the same day he was
arrested.
He was 19.
Bail was set at$125,000, and forweeks, Brookfield couldn't stop
talking about it.
A homicide was unheard of there.
But what really caught people'sattention wasn't the killing
itself, it was what his lawyerssaid next.
(17:32):
His attorney, Martin Manella outof Waterbury, went straight to
the press and told them heplanned to argue something no
one in American law had evertried before.
That his client wasn't guiltybecause he'd been possessed by
the devil.
Manella said he'd call priests.
He'd call Ed and LorraineWarren.
(17:53):
He told reporters there weretapes from the Glatzel home,
tapes where Arnie could be heardshouting at the spirit, daring
it to enter him.
He said he'd prove transferencewasn't folklore, it was
evidence.
Those claims never made it tojury, but they made front page
news all spring.
(18:14):
When the trial opened in DanburySuperior Court on October 28,
1981, Judge Robert J.
Callahan shut the door on thesupernatural right away.
The warrants were there, readyto testify, and the judge let
the defense make a brief offerof proof outside the jury's
(18:34):
presence.
But after hearing it, he ruledtheir testimony inadmissible,
saying it had, quote, no basisin science or law.
His exact words from UPI'scoverage at the time were, I'm
not going to allow the defenseof demonic possession in this
courtroom.
Once that ruling came down, thecase turned back into what it
(18:57):
had started as a straightforwardhomicide.
Manella pivoted to self-defense.
He said Bono was drunk,aggressive, and that Arnie acted
to protect Debbie and her littlecousin.
Prosecutor Walter Flanagan toldjurors it was simple.
Two men argued, one man pulled aknife, and now one of them was
(19:20):
dead.
The trial lasted three weeks.
Jurors heard from bar employees,kennel workers, police, and
medical examiners.
They saw the knife, they saw thephotos.
No one mentioned demons again,at least not inside the
courtroom.
Outside, though, the press keptcalling it the Demon Murder
(19:44):
Trial.
After three days and 15 hours ofdeliberation, on November 24,
1981, the jury found Arneyguilty, but of first-degree
manslaughter, not murder.
Judge Callahan sentenced him onDecember 18th to 10 to 20 years
in prison.
(20:05):
Arnie served about five yearsbefore being released for good
behavior.
He and Debbie Glanzel gotmarried while he was still
behind bars.
After his release, they built aquiet life, mostly away from the
spotlight.
Debbie stayed close withLorraine Warren until Lorraine's
death in 2019.
(20:26):
Legally, the case was simple,but to the public, it never
would be.
Because by then, the headlineshad already outgrown the
verdict.
To most people, it wasn't aboutmanslaughter or sentencing
guidelines anymore.
It was about a haunting, apossession, and a question
(20:46):
nobody could answer cleanly.
If a person truly believesthey're under the control of
something evil, does intentstill matter?
(21:37):
When the verdict came down,manslaughter, not murder, the
courtroom went silent.
Arnie Johnson didn't say a word.
He just nodded.
Debbie sat in the front row,crying but calm.
He was sentenced to 10 to 20years, but he only served a
little over five.
(21:57):
By every account, he was a modelinmate.
He kept to himself, worked inthe prison laundry, and took
correspondence classes.
Debbie visited every week.
They even got married while hewas still inside.
When Arnie was paroled in 1986,they went back to Connecticut
(22:18):
and tried to slip quietly intonormal life.
But the story didn't fade awaywith them.
It followed.
Within a year of the trial, theWarrens helped broker a book
deal with author Jared Brittlecalled The Devil in Connecticut.
It told the story entirely fromthe Warrens and Gladsel family's
perspective (22:39):
a clear case of possession, a heroic boyfriend,
and an evil force that jumpedfrom boy to man.
The book sold well, too well.
When it was re-released in 2006,members of the Gladsel family
filed suit against thepublisher.
They claimed parts of the storywere exaggerated, even
(23:02):
fabricated without theirconsent.
That lawsuit was laterwithdrawn, but it reopened an
old debate that's followed theWarrens for decades.
Were they documentingsupernatural events or shaping
them into stories that sold?
Lorraine Warren never backeddown.
She said, even late in life,that she believed Arnie had been
(23:25):
overtaken by something inhumanthat summer, and that she'd
called police to warn themsomething terrible was coming.
And that part is true.
Brookfield police logs from thatweek show a call from Lorraine,
warning of possible danger.
The Catholic Church, though,stayed quiet.
The Diocese of Bridgeport stuckto the same line it had always
(23:48):
had.
Yes, priests prayed and blessedthe boy, but no, there was never
an official exorcism.
They didn't endorse the Warren'sfindings and they didn't confirm
possession.
They treated it as a privatefamily matter.
After Arnie's release, he andDebbie lived quietly.
(24:08):
They gave a few interviews, onefor People magazine, another
years later for a show called AHaunting on television, but
mostly stayed out of thespotlight.
Debbie passed away in 2021, justbefore the latest film based on
their story was released.
Arnie hasn't spoken publiclysince.
(24:30):
Lorraine Warren lived until2019, still giving lectures into
her late 80s.
She always said the Glassel casewas one of the most compelling
of her entire career.
And even now, more than 40 yearslater, the case still holds a
strange place in American legalhistory.
(24:50):
It's the only time a defenseattorney has ever tried to argue
not guilty by reason of demonicpossession.
The court didn't accept it, butthe idea never really went away.
It's been retold for decadesthrough books, talk shows,
documentaries, and eventually,Hollywood.
(25:12):
And that's where we'll go next,because the version that made it
to the big screen looked verydifferent from the one that
happened in Brookfield.
When the Conjuring The DevilMade Me Do It came out in 2021,
it opened with that familiartagline, based on the true case
files of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
(25:34):
And technically, that's true.
It was based on their files.
But the story the movie tells,that's something else entirely.
In the film, the Warrens arefront and center, charging into
rooms, performing exorcisms,facing demons head on.
It starts with David Glatzel'spossession, but it quickly
(25:56):
shifts into a supernaturalthriller about curses, cults,
and a satanic witch hiding intunnels beneath Connecticut.
None of that ever happened.
There was no witch, nounderground altar, no curse
passed through demonic objects.
The Warrens never uncovered asatanic cult connected to this
(26:18):
case.
That was pure Hollywoodinvention.
In real life, the Warrens didn'tperform an exorcism at all.
The priests who visited Davidprayed over him, yes, but there
was never a sanctioned rite.
That's not speculation.
It was confirmed by the Dioceseof Bridgeport back in 1981.
(26:39):
In the movie, though, Ed Warrenstands in spotlight commanding
the demons to leave the boy'sbody.
Dramatic, cinematic, andcompletely fabricated.
The film also shows Arniekilling Alan Bono while in a
trance as the Warrens raced tostop it.
In reality, they weren't even inBrookfield that day.
(27:02):
They didn't find out until afterit happened, when Lorraine saw
the news and called police towarn them that she believed
possession might be involved.
Even the courtroom scenes wererewritten.
In the movie, Arney's attorneyreluctantly uses demonic
possession as a defense, coachedby the Warrens.
But in truth, Martin Manella,Arnie's lawyer, came up with
(27:26):
that strategy on his own aftermeeting the family.
The Warrens didn't testify, andJudge Robert Callahan never
allowed possession as a legalargument.
It was dismissed before the juryeven heard it.
And the real Arnie Johnson neverdescribed the murder the way the
movie does.
He didn't claim to remember itin detail.
(27:46):
He told police he felt foggy,disoriented, like something had
come over him.
That's in the official policerecord.
All the rest, the glowing eyes,the levitations, the
camera-ready evil.
That's fiction.
What's interesting though is howthe film reshaped the story.
(28:08):
In The Conjuring The Devil MadeMe Do It, it becomes a story
about love overcoming darkness,about Arnie's devotion to Debbie
saving him from possession.
It's romantic, hopeful, almostredemptive.
But in the real story, there'sno evidence of possession.
(28:28):
Just a family trying to makesense of something tragic and
terrifying.
The movie also paints theWarrens as risking their lives
to save Arnie's soul.
In truth, they'd already movedon to other investigations long
before the trial began.
They weren't called to testify,and they had no official role in
(28:49):
his defense.
Hollywood did what Hollywoodalways does.
It took a quiet, strangeConnecticut case and turned it
into a spectacle.
But the real story is smaller.
It's quieter.
And somehow, that makes it evenstranger.
Because in the end, this wasn'ta story about demons.
(29:12):
It was a story about belief.
About what happens when peopleare so sure something is real
that it starts to shapeeverything around them.
For the Gladsel family, thatbelief tore them apart.
For Arnie Johnson, it definedhis life.
And for the rest of us, itleaves a question that still
(29:34):
lingers.
How much of what we call evilcomes from outside us?
And how much do we bring intothe dark?
Every time I read about thiscase, I come back to the same
thought.
No one here was lying.
(29:55):
Not exactly.
Everyone involved, theGladstells, the Warrens, Arnie,
they were all trying to makesense of something that didn't
fit inside the world they knew.
If you strip away the headlinesand the Hollywood version,
what's left is a family underenormous pressure.
(30:15):
A little boy who was terrified.
A young man who believed hecould protect him.
And a small town that had noframe of reference for what they
were hearing.
Maybe there was something darkin that house.
Or maybe the darkness wassomething more familiar.
Grief, fear, exhaustion, allamplified until it started to
(30:38):
feel like evil.
Either way, what happened thatyear changed every life it
touched.
What's always struck me is howquickly belief became evidence.
Once people decided this was ademonic case, every bruise,
every nightmare, every shadow inthe corner became proof.
(31:00):
That's the part that sticks withme, how fragile the line is
between faith and fear, and howfast we cross it when the things
we love are on the line.
In the end, this story isn'treally about devils or demons,
it's about people, and thelengths we'll go to convince
ourselves that the worst thingswe do aren't really ours.
(31:25):
This has been State of theUnknown, a quiet New England
town, a family desperate forhelp, and a man who claimed the
devil made him kill.
Maybe it was madness.
Maybe it was faith gone too far.
Or maybe it was something noneof us really understand.
(31:47):
The way fear can make its homeinside ordinary people and call
itself something else.
If you've been enjoying State ofthe Unknown, thank you for
listening and sharing thesestories with me week after week.
The best way to help the showgrow is simple.
Leave a quick rating or review.
On Spotify, it's just a tap.
(32:08):
On Apple Podcasts, a few wordsgo a long way.
I read every one, and it trulymeans the world.
Next time, we're headingoverseas to a story that shook
an entire neighborhood and leftinvestigators questioning what
they saw, what they heard, andwhat followed them home.
(32:29):
Until then, stay curious.
Stay unsettled, and whatever youdo, don't invite it in.
It's a cold Monday in February 1981, Brookfield,
Connecticut.
The kind of small town wherenothing really happens.
19-year-old Arnie Johnson callsoff work that morning.
He heads over to the dog kennelwhere his girlfriend Debbie
Clatzell works.
Her boss is Alan Bono.
(00:24):
40 years old, big personality,and a guy who really likes to
talk.
By lunchtime, the three of themgo out with a few friends to a
local bar called the Mug andMunch.
They eat, they drink.
Bono has a few glasses of redwine.
More than a few, really.
(00:45):
And by the time they're back atthe kennel, something's
different.
The music's too loud.
Bono's pacing, irritated aboutsomething nobody can quite
figure out.
Debbie's nine-year-old cousin isthere too.
Just a kid.
Then suddenly, Bono grabs herarm and won't let go.
(01:08):
Arnie steps in and tells him toback off.
There's yelling, a blur ofmovement, and then Bono stumbles
back, eyes wide.
He collapses.
When police arrive, they findfour deep knife wounds, one of
them near his heart.
Arnie's gone, vanished into thetrees behind the kennel, like
(01:32):
he's in a daze.
Before the sun goes down, he'sin custody.
And before the week is over,that quiet little New England
town has its first murder in 193years.
But that's not what makes thiscase different.
It's what Arnie says next.
(01:53):
That something else was with himthat day, and that it made him
do it.
What happened at that kenneldidn't come out of nowhere.
People in Brookfield say Arniehad been acting strange for
months.
Quiet one moment, angry thenext, like he was carrying
(02:13):
something heavy that nobody elsecould see.
And if you ask his girlfriendDebbie, she'll tell you it
started long before that day.
Back when her little brotherDavid began waking up screaming
about something standing in hisroom.
At first, the family thought itwas just nightmares.
Then he started talking about anold man with burned-looking
(02:37):
skin, torn clothes, and blackeyes.
He said it threatened to takehis soul.
That's when the Glatzels calledfor help.
And the people who showed upweren't doctors or counselors or
police.
They were Ed and LorraineWarren, the same husband and
(02:58):
wife team who'd claimed they'dfaced demons before.
And what happened next is whatthe Warrens would later call one
of the most dangerous cases oftheir career.
(03:27):
In 1981, a 19-year-old fromConnecticut claimed something no
American court had ever heardbefore.
That a murder wasn't committedby a man, but by the thing
inside him.
This is the story of ArnieCheyenne Johnson in the case
that tried to put the devil ontrial.
(03:48):
And this is State of theUnknown.
It started in the summer of1980, a few miles outside of
Brookfield, Connecticut.
Arnie Johnson and his girlfriendDebbie Gladsel had just rented a
(04:09):
small house on Blue Trail Roadover in Newtown.
It was older, kind of run down,a fixer operated that they could
afford.
They were planning to move intogether for the first time, and
they wanted to get it cleaned upbefore hauling their stuff
inside.
Debbie's family lived close by.
(04:30):
Her parents, Carl and Judy,offered to help, and her
youngest brother David camealong too.
He was eleven, smart kid, alittle sensitive, but not the
type to make trouble.
They spent the day scrubbingwalls and sweeping floors, just
trying to make the placelivable.
And that's when David saidsomething that changed
(04:53):
everything.
He told his mom he saw an oldman inside the house.
Not a neighbor, not someonepassing by, but a man with
burned scaly skin, wearing tornclothes and staring at him from
one of the rooms.
He said the man told him,Beware, and then if you move in,
(05:17):
something bad will happen.
At first, everyone brushed itoff.
It was a hot day, the house wasdark, and maybe he'd scared
himself.
But that night, when David wasback home in Brookfield, he woke
up screaming.
He said the old man had followedhim there.
(05:38):
Over the next few days, Davidstarted waking up the same way,
screaming, shaking, saying theold man was at the foot of his
bed.
His parents said he'd sometimeswake up with bruises and
scratches that hadn't been therebefore.
They thought maybe he washurting himself in his sleep
until the marks got worse.
(05:59):
Long scratches across his chestand neck, too high for him to
reach easily.
That detail came straight fromtheir later interviews.
The Glatzels said they heardstrange noises too.
Footsteps, knocking, growling.
And David began talking about abeast.
(06:20):
He said it had hooves instead offeet, a face like an animal, and
eyes that glowed red.
He told his mother it wanted hissoul and that it had promised to
hurt anyone who got in its way.
It scared them.
They moved his bed into theirroom so he wouldn't be alone.
They tried prayers, holy water,anything that might calm him
(06:45):
down.
Nothing worked.
Sometimes, they said, his voicewould change, deeper, older.
He'd shout in Latin phrases orcurse at them using words he'd
never heard before.
Now, none of that was recordedby anyone outside the family.
Those accounts come from theGlatzels themselves, later
(07:08):
repeated in the Warren's casenotes.
There's no medical documentationof the events, but that's how
they described it.
Eventually, Debbie and herparents reached out to their
parish priest from St.
Joseph's Church in Brookfield.
He came by, blessed the house,sprinkled holy water, and told
them to get David checked out bya doctor.
(07:30):
That visit is confirmed.
The Diocese of Bridgeportacknowledged it later when
reporters started askingquestions.
But according to the family,things only escalated.
David claimed the beast was nowthreatening him, saying it would
throw him into a wall or chokehim in his sleep.
(07:50):
And they swore they saw ithappen.
He'd be lifted or pushed orflung like something invisible
had grabbed him.
That's the Gladzel story, andthe Warrens, once again, backed
it up.
By late July, Judy Gladzel,David's mom, didn't know what
else to do.
She'd already been to thepriest, the doctor, and a
(08:14):
psychiatrist who said David wasfine.
Nothing stopped the attacks.
So she picked up the phone andcalled Ed and Lorraine Warren,
the couple who'd become knownacross New England for
investigating hauntings likeAmityville and Annabelle.
She didn't know if they couldfix it, but she figured if
anyone could make sense of whatwas happening, it might be them.
(08:38):
And when the Warrens arrived,they said they felt it the
moment they stepped through thedoor.
That's when this story stoppedbeing about a haunted house.
It became something the Warrenswould later call a true case of
demonic possession.
By the time Ed and LorraineWarren showed up, the Gladsel
(09:01):
family was exhausted.
They'd been through priests,doctors, and sleepless nights,
and nothing was getting anybetter.
The Warrens were already famousby then, mostly because of
Amdeville.
People either loved them orrolled their eyes at the mention
of their names.
But to the Glatzels, they werethe last chance left.
(09:25):
Lorraine said that the momentshe walked through the door, she
felt something dark, somethingheavy, like the air itself was
watching her.
She later described it as apresence of pure evil.
Ed started taking notes andaudio recordings right away.
They said David would suddenlysnarl or growl, sometimes in a
(09:48):
voice that didn't sound like hisown.
He'd shout words in Latin ordescribe violent visions, people
being stabbed, blood, murder.
According to Lorraine, he'd evenpredicted that someone would be
killed with a knife.
Now, those details come entirelyfrom the family and the Warrens.
(10:09):
There's no outside recordconfirming any of it, but that's
what they claimed.
Lorraine said she could see darkshadows moving near the boy.
Ed called it a demonicinfestation, and they told the
Gladzles they needed help fromthe church.
Priests from St.
Joseph's Church and later St.
(10:31):
Mary's in Bridgeport werebrought in to observe.
They performed blessings andwhat the Warrens called minor
exorcisms.
The church didn't call it that,though.
The Diocese of Bridgeportconfirmed later that clergy had
visited and prayed with thefamily, but they made it clear
that no official exorcism hadever been authorized.
(10:53):
Father Nicholas Greco, thediocesan spokesman, told
reporters in 1981 that thefamily refused the psychological
evaluations required before thechurch can approve a formal
rite.
That statement's on record.
According to everyone in thatroom, the family, the Warrens,
(11:14):
and the priests, there werethree of these deliverance
sessions.
And during the last one,something changed.
They said David suddenly wentquiet, still.
Then Arnie, who had beenstanding beside him, shouted at
whatever was inside the boy,telling it to leave David alone
and come into him instead.
(11:36):
Lorraine claimed she'd warnedhim not to say that, but he did.
And the room, she said, wentcold.
From that day on, David seemedlighter.
He stopped having the fits.
But Arnie began to change.
He'd zone out mid-conversation,his temper got short, and he
(11:58):
told Debbie once that he'd seensomething staring at him through
a window, something with blackeyes and a grin that didn't
move.
Those moments are onlydocumented in interviews with
Debbie years later, but that'swhat she remembered.
The Warrens told the family thatArnie had invited the entity
into himself, what they calledtransference.
(12:23):
Lorraine said she even calledthe Brookfield police afterward
to warn them that somethingterrible was coming.
There's a record of her call,though the details of what she
said aren't written down.
And for a few months, thingswere calm again.
David went back to being a kid.
The Warrens moved on to theirnext case, and life, at least on
(12:47):
the surface, went back tonormal, and everyone wanted to
believe the worst was finallyover.
But Debbie said she could stillsee it in Arnie's eyes
sometimes, like he was halfthere, half somewhere else.
He'd stare off, tense his jaw,then blink it away like he
didn't even notice.
(13:08):
She told her mom once, I thinkit's still with him.
A few weeks later, she wasright.
By February 1981, things in theGlassel and Johnson household
had mostly gone quiet, at leaston the surface.
(13:28):
David was back in school.
Debbie and Arnie were stilltogether, still working hard.
Arnie had taken a job withWright Tree Service, trimming
branches near power lines.
Debbie worked full-time at theBrookfield boarding kennels,
managing the office for her bossAlan Bono.
Bono was 40, big personality,friendly when sober, but he did
(13:53):
like to drink.
He lived in a small apartmentabove the kennel, and he'd often
invite Debbie and Arnie upstairsfor dinner.
Most nights were easy.
That's what makes what happenednext so strange.
It was Monday, February 16th,President's Day.
Arnie called in sick thatmorning.
(14:14):
He told his boss he wasn'tfeeling right and planned to
spend the day helping Debbie atthe kennel instead.
Around noon, they all went outfor lunch at a local bar called
the Mug and Munch.
Witnesses later said Bonoordered wine, read, by the
carafe, and drank most of ithimself.
They came back to the kennel alittle after three.
(14:37):
At first, everything seemedfine.
The radio was on upstairs inBono's apartment.
Then the mood changed.
Bono started pacing, turning thevolume up, shouting to no one in
particular.
Debbie's younger sister Wandaand her nine-year-old cousin
Mary were there too.
Debbie told them it was time togo.
(15:00):
As they headed towards the door,Bono suddenly grabbed Mary's
wrist and wouldn't let go.
She screamed.
Debbie tried to pull her free.
That's when Arnie stepped in.
He told Bono to release thechild.
There was shouting, loud enoughthat neighbors later said they
heard voices through the openwindow.
(15:21):
And then everything happened atonce.
Arnie growled, a deep, gutturalsound Debbie said she'd never
heard from him before.
He pulled a pocket knife fromhis belt, and in a flash, he
lunged.
When it was over, Bono stumbledoutside and collapsed on the
ground.
(15:42):
He'd been stabbed four or fivetimes, one wound running from
his stomach to near his heart.
Police later said the blade wasroughly five inches long.
Arnie didn't run.
He walked away into the woodsbehind the kennel, along the
railroad tracks as if he were ina trance.
(16:02):
Officers found him about twomiles away.
He was calm, confused, anddidn't resist arrest.
At the station, when they toldhim Bonawood died, he reportedly
put his head down, fell silent,and then fell asleep.
Brookfield police chief JohnAnderson called a press
(16:23):
conference that night.
He said it was the firsthomicide in the town's 193-year
history.
That's verified.
There were no other recordedmurders in Brookfield before
1981.
Within 24 hours, the story waseverywhere.
Not because of the crime itself,but because of what came next.
(16:47):
Lorraine Warren called thepolice and told them that Arnie
hadn't acted alone, that thesame force they tried to drive
out of David Gladsel had takencontrol of Arnie instead.
And soon that single phone callwould turn a local tragedy into
a national headline.
(17:08):
Arnie Johnson was charged withmurder the same day he was
arrested.
He was 19.
Bail was set at$125,000, and forweeks, Brookfield couldn't stop
talking about it.
A homicide was unheard of there.
But what really caught people'sattention wasn't the killing
itself, it was what his lawyerssaid next.
(17:32):
His attorney, Martin Manella outof Waterbury, went straight to
the press and told them heplanned to argue something no
one in American law had evertried before.
That his client wasn't guiltybecause he'd been possessed by
the devil.
Manella said he'd call priests.
He'd call Ed and LorraineWarren.
(17:53):
He told reporters there weretapes from the Glatzel home,
tapes where Arnie could be heardshouting at the spirit, daring
it to enter him.
He said he'd prove transferencewasn't folklore, it was
evidence.
Those claims never made it tojury, but they made front page
news all spring.
(18:14):
When the trial opened in DanburySuperior Court on October 28,
1981, Judge Robert J.
Callahan shut the door on thesupernatural right away.
The warrants were there, readyto testify, and the judge let
the defense make a brief offerof proof outside the jury's
(18:34):
presence.
But after hearing it, he ruledtheir testimony inadmissible,
saying it had, quote, no basisin science or law.
His exact words from UPI'scoverage at the time were, I'm
not going to allow the defenseof demonic possession in this
courtroom.
Once that ruling came down, thecase turned back into what it
(18:57):
had started as a straightforwardhomicide.
Manella pivoted to self-defense.
He said Bono was drunk,aggressive, and that Arnie acted
to protect Debbie and her littlecousin.
Prosecutor Walter Flanagan toldjurors it was simple.
Two men argued, one man pulled aknife, and now one of them was
(19:20):
dead.
The trial lasted three weeks.
Jurors heard from bar employees,kennel workers, police, and
medical examiners.
They saw the knife, they saw thephotos.
No one mentioned demons again,at least not inside the
courtroom.
Outside, though, the press keptcalling it the Demon Murder
(19:44):
Trial.
After three days and 15 hours ofdeliberation, on November 24,
1981, the jury found Arneyguilty, but of first-degree
manslaughter, not murder.
Judge Callahan sentenced him onDecember 18th to 10 to 20 years
in prison.
(20:05):
Arnie served about five yearsbefore being released for good
behavior.
He and Debbie Glanzel gotmarried while he was still
behind bars.
After his release, they built aquiet life, mostly away from the
spotlight.
Debbie stayed close withLorraine Warren until Lorraine's
death in 2019.
(20:26):
Legally, the case was simple,but to the public, it never
would be.
Because by then, the headlineshad already outgrown the
verdict.
To most people, it wasn't aboutmanslaughter or sentencing
guidelines anymore.
It was about a haunting, apossession, and a question
(20:46):
nobody could answer cleanly.
If a person truly believesthey're under the control of
something evil, does intentstill matter?
(21:37):
When the verdict came down,manslaughter, not murder, the
courtroom went silent.
Arnie Johnson didn't say a word.
He just nodded.
Debbie sat in the front row,crying but calm.
He was sentenced to 10 to 20years, but he only served a
little over five.
(21:57):
By every account, he was a modelinmate.
He kept to himself, worked inthe prison laundry, and took
correspondence classes.
Debbie visited every week.
They even got married while hewas still inside.
When Arnie was paroled in 1986,they went back to Connecticut
(22:18):
and tried to slip quietly intonormal life.
But the story didn't fade awaywith them.
It followed.
Within a year of the trial, theWarrens helped broker a book
deal with author Jared Brittlecalled The Devil in Connecticut.
It told the story entirely fromthe Warrens and Gladsel family's
perspective (22:39):
a clear case of possession, a heroic boyfriend,
and an evil force that jumpedfrom boy to man.
The book sold well, too well.
When it was re-released in 2006,members of the Gladsel family
filed suit against thepublisher.
They claimed parts of the storywere exaggerated, even
(23:02):
fabricated without theirconsent.
That lawsuit was laterwithdrawn, but it reopened an
old debate that's followed theWarrens for decades.
Were they documentingsupernatural events or shaping
them into stories that sold?
Lorraine Warren never backeddown.
She said, even late in life,that she believed Arnie had been
(23:25):
overtaken by something inhumanthat summer, and that she'd
called police to warn themsomething terrible was coming.
And that part is true.
Brookfield police logs from thatweek show a call from Lorraine,
warning of possible danger.
The Catholic Church, though,stayed quiet.
The Diocese of Bridgeport stuckto the same line it had always
(23:48):
had.
Yes, priests prayed and blessedthe boy, but no, there was never
an official exorcism.
They didn't endorse the Warren'sfindings and they didn't confirm
possession.
They treated it as a privatefamily matter.
After Arnie's release, he andDebbie lived quietly.
(24:08):
They gave a few interviews, onefor People magazine, another
years later for a show called AHaunting on television, but
mostly stayed out of thespotlight.
Debbie passed away in 2021, justbefore the latest film based on
their story was released.
Arnie hasn't spoken publiclysince.
(24:30):
Lorraine Warren lived until2019, still giving lectures into
her late 80s.
She always said the Glassel casewas one of the most compelling
of her entire career.
And even now, more than 40 yearslater, the case still holds a
strange place in American legalhistory.
(24:50):
It's the only time a defenseattorney has ever tried to argue
not guilty by reason of demonicpossession.
The court didn't accept it, butthe idea never really went away.
It's been retold for decadesthrough books, talk shows,
documentaries, and eventually,Hollywood.
(25:12):
And that's where we'll go next,because the version that made it
to the big screen looked verydifferent from the one that
happened in Brookfield.
When the Conjuring The DevilMade Me Do It came out in 2021,
it opened with that familiartagline, based on the true case
files of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
(25:34):
And technically, that's true.
It was based on their files.
But the story the movie tells,that's something else entirely.
In the film, the Warrens arefront and center, charging into
rooms, performing exorcisms,facing demons head on.
It starts with David Glatzel'spossession, but it quickly
(25:56):
shifts into a supernaturalthriller about curses, cults,
and a satanic witch hiding intunnels beneath Connecticut.
None of that ever happened.
There was no witch, nounderground altar, no curse
passed through demonic objects.
The Warrens never uncovered asatanic cult connected to this
(26:18):
case.
That was pure Hollywoodinvention.
In real life, the Warrens didn'tperform an exorcism at all.
The priests who visited Davidprayed over him, yes, but there
was never a sanctioned rite.
That's not speculation.
It was confirmed by the Dioceseof Bridgeport back in 1981.
(26:39):
In the movie, though, Ed Warrenstands in spotlight commanding
the demons to leave the boy'sbody.
Dramatic, cinematic, andcompletely fabricated.
The film also shows Arniekilling Alan Bono while in a
trance as the Warrens raced tostop it.
In reality, they weren't even inBrookfield that day.
(27:02):
They didn't find out until afterit happened, when Lorraine saw
the news and called police towarn them that she believed
possession might be involved.
Even the courtroom scenes wererewritten.
In the movie, Arney's attorneyreluctantly uses demonic
possession as a defense, coachedby the Warrens.
But in truth, Martin Manella,Arnie's lawyer, came up with
(27:26):
that strategy on his own aftermeeting the family.
The Warrens didn't testify, andJudge Robert Callahan never
allowed possession as a legalargument.
It was dismissed before the juryeven heard it.
And the real Arnie Johnson neverdescribed the murder the way the
movie does.
He didn't claim to remember itin detail.
(27:46):
He told police he felt foggy,disoriented, like something had
come over him.
That's in the official policerecord.
All the rest, the glowing eyes,the levitations, the
camera-ready evil.
That's fiction.
What's interesting though is howthe film reshaped the story.
(28:08):
In The Conjuring The Devil MadeMe Do It, it becomes a story
about love overcoming darkness,about Arnie's devotion to Debbie
saving him from possession.
It's romantic, hopeful, almostredemptive.
But in the real story, there'sno evidence of possession.
(28:28):
Just a family trying to makesense of something tragic and
terrifying.
The movie also paints theWarrens as risking their lives
to save Arnie's soul.
In truth, they'd already movedon to other investigations long
before the trial began.
They weren't called to testify,and they had no official role in
(28:49):
his defense.
Hollywood did what Hollywoodalways does.
It took a quiet, strangeConnecticut case and turned it
into a spectacle.
But the real story is smaller.
It's quieter.
And somehow, that makes it evenstranger.
Because in the end, this wasn'ta story about demons.
(29:12):
It was a story about belief.
About what happens when peopleare so sure something is real
that it starts to shapeeverything around them.
For the Gladsel family, thatbelief tore them apart.
For Arnie Johnson, it definedhis life.
And for the rest of us, itleaves a question that still
(29:34):
lingers.
How much of what we call evilcomes from outside us?
And how much do we bring intothe dark?
Every time I read about thiscase, I come back to the same
thought.
No one here was lying.
(29:55):
Not exactly.
Everyone involved, theGladstells, the Warrens, Arnie,
they were all trying to makesense of something that didn't
fit inside the world they knew.
If you strip away the headlinesand the Hollywood version,
what's left is a family underenormous pressure.
(30:15):
A little boy who was terrified.
A young man who believed hecould protect him.
And a small town that had noframe of reference for what they
were hearing.
Maybe there was something darkin that house.
Or maybe the darkness wassomething more familiar.
Grief, fear, exhaustion, allamplified until it started to
(30:38):
feel like evil.
Either way, what happened thatyear changed every life it
touched.
What's always struck me is howquickly belief became evidence.
Once people decided this was ademonic case, every bruise,
every nightmare, every shadow inthe corner became proof.
(31:00):
That's the part that sticks withme, how fragile the line is
between faith and fear, and howfast we cross it when the things
we love are on the line.
In the end, this story isn'treally about devils or demons,
it's about people, and thelengths we'll go to convince
ourselves that the worst thingswe do aren't really ours.
(31:25):
This has been State of theUnknown, a quiet New England
town, a family desperate forhelp, and a man who claimed the
devil made him kill.
Maybe it was madness.
Maybe it was faith gone too far.
Or maybe it was something noneof us really understand.
(31:47):
The way fear can make its homeinside ordinary people and call
itself something else.
If you've been enjoying State ofthe Unknown, thank you for
listening and sharing thesestories with me week after week.
The best way to help the showgrow is simple.
Leave a quick rating or review.
On Spotify, it's just a tap.
(32:08):
On Apple Podcasts, a few wordsgo a long way.
I read every one, and it trulymeans the world.
Next time, we're headingoverseas to a story that shook
an entire neighborhood and leftinvestigators questioning what
they saw, what they heard, andwhat followed them home.
(32:29):
Until then, stay curious.
Stay unsettled, and whatever youdo, don't invite it in.
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