The Conjuring True Story AKA Justice For Bathsheba: The Smurl Family & the Warrens' Paranormal Case Revealed | Ep #27 - Madame Strangeways: True Spooky Paranormal Stories

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
If you have a true strange storyof the unexplained you'd like to
hear, read on the podcast, e-mail it to
madamstrangeways@gmail.com, or go to madamstrangeways.
Dot com or just check the show notes for a link.
I can't wait to read it. Welcome Strangelings to a

(00:22):
special deep dive episode, the third in my series of Ed and
Lorraine Warren's classic paranormal case files.
In this case the Perrin family. Haunting as.
Usual, I'll share the scary story first, then drag you down
the rabbit hole with. Me kicking and screaming.

(00:43):
And by the way. A Warren is literally a rabbit
hole. So in this case, I'll be
dragging you down a Warren Warren.
And if that's what you're into, well, maybe you would also like
to hear your name read at the beginning of every single
episode, just like my 3 Patreon subscribers.

(01:05):
TJ Hotter. G Man Music and Ted, thank you
so much to my unholy Trinity. If you would like a free sticker
with subscription and an exclusive guided sleep
meditation narrated by yours truly, join the Patreon at
patreon.com/madam Strangeways. And now on to the story of the

(01:31):
Perrin family Haunting here on Madam Strange Ways.

(02:01):
The Perrin Family Haunting In the bitter January winter of
1971, the Perrins moved their large family from bustling New
York City to the quiet, peacefultown of Burlville, Rhode Island.
During a snowstorm no less. Roger and Carolyn Perrin, along

(02:25):
with their five daughters, movedinto the old Richardson Arnold
Estate at 1677 Round Top Rd., A farmhouse dating back to 1736.
The sprawling 14 room house seemed like a dream come true to

(02:46):
the Perrins. But almost immediately the dream
turned into nothing short of a nightmare that seemed it would
never end. It started small.
An old banjo clock on the wall seemed to have a mind of its
own. Despite the family never winding

(03:08):
the clock and keeping the hands set both to 12, Caroline would
wake every morning to find the clock set to 5:15.
Over and over she would set the clock back to 12.
And though the hands would nevermove during the day, in the

(03:30):
night the clock would always move on its own back to 5:15.
One evening, Carolyn had taken abath and retreated to a small
room off the bathroom, a chimneyroom that was warmer than the
rest of the house. She often used it as a dressing

(03:52):
room for its warmth and even turned it into her clothes
closet. As she bent down to pull on her
warm wool socks, something struck her, then began attacking
her in earnest, blow after blow,crying out in terror.
She realized with the shock thatit wasn't someone who had broken

(04:15):
in who was attacking her. It was, inexplicably, a coat
hanger, controlled by some unseen force.
Finally, the hanger dropped lifelessly to the floor as if
nothing had happened. Stunned, she tried to explain

(04:37):
what just happened. Logically, a single strike might
have been coincidental if she had knocked the clothes hanger
the wrong way, but not the deliberate, rhythmic force that
had just rained down upon her. The dining room doors, boarded

(04:58):
shut with planks and fencing wire, burst open one night, as
though some hulking, unseen thing had forced its way
through. The piano in the parlour would
play on its own, eerie, discordant notes drifting

(05:20):
through the house in the dead ofnight.
It was not a player piano. One particularly chilly evening,
Caroline sat by the fire with her girls to enjoy some sun
kissed oranges. She sliced into one of the

(05:41):
oranges, only to find thick, dark red blood oozing from the
segments, dripping down onto herbare feet.
Her daughters all screamed, assuming their mother had cut
herself badly with the knife. But Caroline hadn't cut herself,

(06:04):
only the orange, which bled likea stuck pig at night.
Caroline once woke trembling with cold, hoping to steal some
body heat from her husband. Curled up beside her to no
avail, she became aware suddenlyof the terrible, gut wrenching

(06:28):
stench of mouldy, dead, rotten meat, and then a presence.
They weren't alone in the room, a dark figure loomed the edge of
her bed. When she finally dared to look,

(06:48):
she saw unmistakably the shape of a woman in a severe dark grey
dress, its fabric gathered at the waist with a heavy belt.
When she glanced up to where thehead should have been, there was
only something black and shapeless that sagged from her

(07:10):
shoulders. A woven sack?
A veil? Caroline couldn't tell.
This ghostly presence was said to be the spirit of a witch who
had lived in the house 150 yearsprior, who had murdered her own
baby girl as a sacrifice to the devil.

(07:31):
It's said that once she was caught, she hanged herself on
the estate, an ultimate insult to her creator and a gift to the
Dark Lord she served all to haunt the land for eternity.
The which entity moved through the room soundlessly.

(07:53):
Suddenly, a voice, hollow and human but altogether wrong, rose
from the walls. The chanting bounced from wall
to wall, echoing tortuously in adeafening crescendo until she
had to cover her ears with both hands.
It said get it out, get it out, get out.

(08:19):
Terrified, she turned to her sleeping husband, shaking him
violently, calling his name, pleading for him to wake up and
witness the horror. But Roger could not be roused,
no matter how hard she tried, asif he were in a coma that he
might never wake from. Then the witch's chanting

(08:44):
changed. I'll drive you out with fiery
brooms. I'll drive you mad with death
and gloom. Caroline hid beneath the
blankets, her heart hammering inher chest, until finally the
voice suddenly stopped. When she eventually convinced

(09:06):
herself to peek, the headless woman was gone, but the stench
remain, the scent of rotting flesh lingering long after the
spectre had vanished. The witch's apparition wasn't
confined to the bedroom, however.

(09:26):
One night, Caroline sat in the parlour, reading a book.
In the blink of an eye, the air thickened and turned putrid.
That familiar scent of decay flooded the room, and she knew
exactly what that meant. The headless woman was there, in

(09:47):
the room with her. She tried to ignore it and
pretend she didn't notice, at least until she felt a sharp
pain on her leg, as if she'd just been stung or stabbed.
She gasped and reached down, only to find a single drop of

(10:09):
blood welling from a tiny puncture in her calf, as if
she'd been pricked with a large,sharp needle.
Then one night, the spectre camefor Roger.
Sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating his dinner of

(10:31):
steamed clams, he heard a sound come from the cellar.
He froze, listening intently as slow, heavy, deliberate steps
climbed up the cellar stairs. Then the latch of the cellar

(10:56):
door clicked. It creaked open.
Roger, fed up with such nonsense, slammed his first on
the table. Come out here and talk to me, he
boomed. Or go to hell where you belong.
In the ensuing silence, he held his breath.

(11:19):
Then the cellar door merely shutitself again with a quiet click.
The next morning he awoke to find 3 deep scratches on his
elbow, red and raw, with no explanation.

(11:40):
By then the family had had enough.
Desperate, they reached out to local paranormal investigators
and word finally made its way toEd and Lorraine Warren, a
husband and wife paranormal investigator team who worked in
the New England area. The Warrens, upon setting foot

(12:04):
in the parent home, immediately sensed an infestation of dark,
demonic energy. They interviewed Caroline and
were concerned, but not surprised by the slew of evil
presences they sensed. They spoke of a long, unbroken

(12:24):
history of suffering and tormentthat plagued the estate going
back hundreds of years. The Warrens even held a seance
with Carolyn and Roger to attempt communication with the
most malevolent of entities in the home, The witch.
It didn't go well. Concerned for his wife's mental

(12:49):
and physical health, Roger kicked both Ed and Lorraine out
of their home mid seance. Whatever it was the Warrens had
done that night, it had only made things worse, and Roger
wouldn't allow them to put his wife or children in any more
danger. The Arnold house remained, the

(13:17):
entity remained, the parents endured for another seven years
in that home, and the clock still struck 515 every morning.

(13:43):
That was a retelling of the casefile of the Perrin family
haunting the true, allegedly true story behind the very first
film of the 2 billion with AB dollar movie franchise, The
Conjuring. So The Conjuring one, that's

(14:04):
what you just heard. As a reminder, this is a part of
a series on the Ed and Lorraine Warren case files.
So if you're curious, you can gocheck out the Amityville episode
and also the Annabelle episode, which are the ones before this.
It's not episodic. You don't have to go listen to
them, but you sure can and I do highly recommend it.

(14:27):
So as a further reminder, Ed andLorraine Warren were a famous,
some would say infamous paranormal investigator couple
that operated from the early 50sall the way to their deaths in
2006 and 2019 respectively. Ed rebranded himself as a quote

(14:47):
UN quote demonologist conveniently in the demon craze
that the release of the movie The Exorcist left in its wake.
He was not called a demonologistprior to that movie coming out,
interestingly enough. But make no mistake, Ed was
self-taught. And by self-taught I mean that
he created his own demonic lore in the same way that the show

(15:12):
Supernatural did. You know, except that The CW
never claimed that Supernatural was based on a true story.
Or if they did do that, no one believed them so it doesn't
matter. Lorraine Warren claimed to be a
clairvoyant or a quote UN quote light trance medium, which

(15:33):
mostly means that she could telepathically communicate with
people and ghosts and demons andcreatures like Bigfoot.
Which yes. Was published in the Warren's
non fiction book Ghost Hunters. A story in which Lorraine Warren
telepathically communicates withBigfoot.

(15:54):
Now, I'm not saying Bigfoot's not real, but I just don't know
that that's the best use of Bigfoot's time.
Bigfoot has like bigger and better and footer things to do,
bigger footer things to do. So Ed and Lorraine were both
catapulted into paranormal fame by making a pit stop at the

(16:16):
Amityville house and milking that for all it was worth
forever, and then kind of doing the same thing at the Enfield
Poltergeist house too. They really were the OG
paranormal investigators. Like they were doing it when
other people were not. Doing it yet they.
Were they were indie paranormal investigators like.
Way before it was cool. I, I mean, me personally, I, I

(16:41):
probably, no, definitely would not be making this podcast if
they had not become paranormal investigators, but not in a good
way, not in a good way, not likethey inspired me, but in a
different, worse way. So I want to take just a quick

(17:03):
second and give some context forwhy I feel the way that I do
about the Warrens, which is to say riled.
That's the way that I feel aboutthem.
I do go into this in depth in myAnnabelle episode, so I won't go
too far into it now, but I just want to give some context.

(17:24):
My whole thing is about reminding you that you can feel
afraid and not be in danger. But Ed and Lorraine Warren, they
wanted you to feel afraid, and they wanted you to feel like you
were in real, honest danger, regardless of whether they

(17:47):
believed in what they were doing, which there's strong
evidence to suggest that Ed, at the very least, thought that we
were all a bunch of rubes. That doesn't excuse the
continuous harm that they've left behind.
All for what? The sake of fame and movie deals
doesn't seem worth it to me. And not to mention the damage

(18:09):
that they've done to the paranormal community.
I mean, there's so many fascinating, terrifying, and
truly compelling true unexplained stories out there,
and some of y'all are even kind enough to let me share those
stories with the world. We don't.
We don't need flim flammery muddying the paranormal water.

(18:34):
It's unnecessary. Weirdly enough, both Ed and
Lorraine are names on my mother's side of the family,
which that side of the family was the source of my own
personal religious slash invisible demon drama as a
child, which is the reason why I'm making this podcast today.

(18:56):
Something. About those names, Yeesh.
Anyway, just remember you can feel afraid and not be in
danger, especially did I say especially we're going to just,
we're, I'm on a roll. Especially if it has to do with
literally anything that comes out of Ed Warren's mouth.

(19:20):
And now on to our sources. Unlike the case file for
Annabelle, which was published in the book The Demonologist,
the case file behind the Perrin Family Haunting it was never
formally published, which, as you'll see, is sort of by
design. So we'll never actually truly

(19:41):
know the full juicy details of this particular case file of the
Warrens, which is something thatwe'll talk more about in a bit.
So just put a pen in that. But the story that we just heard
was cobbled together and based on two sources.
The 1st is a 1973 recorded interview with Carolyn Perrin

(20:03):
and Ed Warren, which I found on YouTube.
And I cannot tell what the source is.
It's got like a, an interviewer from it sounds like, you know, a
television segment. And his name is John Larrabee.
And I can't find who he is or what channel it was on or what

(20:24):
was the original source, but it was a recorded interview.
It had Carolyn Perrin, it had EdWarren, it was from 1973.
It was actually from All Saints Day on 1973.
So that's the day after Halloween.
So the second source is the parent family case file as
published on the New England Society for Psychic Research

(20:46):
site, otherwise known as Nesper,which is the society that Ed and
Lorraine Warren first founded back in the 50s.
However, since both of them havesince passed, the running of
said society has passed to theirson-in-law Tony Sparrow, who
runs the site and also the society.

(21:07):
Weirdly, the URL for the Nesper site is not N espr.com or New
England Society for psychicresearch.com.
It's which is too long. OK, I'm not saying it should be
that, I'm just saying it's not. No, the website for Nesper is

(21:29):
tonysparrow.com. OK, to be fair.
OK, nesper.com is taken. I can't see by who nesper.com is
taken, but I just checked godannynesper.net that's
available and it's not expensiveand I.
Just learned this. Another site that's available is

(21:51):
nesper dot Calvin Klein, becauseapparently dot Calvin Klein is a
domain extension that you can have now, which is a thing that
someone might want, must want, or you can.
Choose.dadinsteadof.com or dot dot.
So you could have nesper dot dot.
You could also have nesper dot Unicorn.

(22:13):
Anyway, there's lots of options.There's lots of opportunities
there. He could be using any
combination. He could have any Nesper site
that has a Nesper in the name. Instead he chooses to host it on
tonyspara.com, which is weird, but that's one of the sources.
So the point is, the second source for the original case

(22:34):
file story that I retold just recently 5 minutes ago is the
Nesper site, which is not available at
nesper.shoesornesper.horsebutisavailable@tonysparrow.com.Really weird.
For the rest of the episode where we dig into the real meat
of the story though, and the actual history, here are the

(22:56):
rest of the sources. Source #1 The Exorcist Effect by
Eric Harrelson and Joseph Laycock, which is still my new
favorite book. I think it's going to just have
to stay up there forever. So Eric Joseph, authors of the
book, Eric Joseph, if you're listening, I beg you to please
release an audio book because ifyou have not listened to the

(23:18):
Annabelle episode, I am listening to the book by having
Alexa narrate it to me. And I'm just going to say it's
not an ideal performance. Alexa is doing her best and I
support her in her efforts, justnot ideal so.
Listen, if you could, please, Joe, can I call you Joe?

(23:43):
Joe and Eric, if y'all could please release an audio book,
you know what? I'll record it.
Hit me up madamstrangeways@gmail.com
because I love this book and I highly recommend it to anyone
listening. Or I am happy to continue to
absorb it via Alexa in my ear holes and then tell you stories

(24:05):
and snippets about it through the podcast.
Happy to continue doing that. So that's source number one.
Source #2 I found this. Slew.
Of excellent detailed research articles.
They're just amazing and there'sso many of them and so detailed.
Published by Jamie Rubio, who isa historical investigative

(24:26):
journalist, and you can find herblogs via jamierubiowriter.com.
The information about Bathsheba Sherman especially was sourced
from her blog entries and also her book Stories of the
Forgotten, Volume 1, Infamous, Famous and Unremembered.
I found her because The ExorcistEffect cited her as a source,

(24:50):
and then I found her blog, and then I reached out to her and
she has just been so incredibly lovely and so helpful and just
the most dedicated to clearing Bathsheba Sherman's put a pin in
that. Welcome back to it.
That might be a spoiler. So if you're interested in
especially the history of Bathsheba Sherman or The

(25:11):
Conjuring House or any other bizarre, strange, mysterious
stories of women in history, go by Jamie Rubio's book Stories of
the Forgotten or check out her blogs.
Source #3 is Kenny Bettel and Joe Nickel over at the Skeptical
Inquirer who have both done alsoa tremendous amount of research
on both the history of the Arnold turned Perrin turned

(25:36):
Conjuring House and also the claims made by the Perrins and
the Warrens. Nickel has also written the
book. Bear with me here.
This is the name of the book, American hauntings, Colon, the
true stories behind Hollywood's scariest movies, and N dash from
The Exorcist to The Conjuring. Now, that might be an M dash

(25:58):
because I know Google doesn't use the right one.
Google Google Docs uses the N dash and it means to use the M
dash. So I don't know which one it is.
It doesn't matter. We're moving on.
So that's one of the other sources, Kenny Betel, Joe
Nickel, the Skeptical Inquirer, and of course, many smaller
sources such as Collider and Vulture.
You know, for some tasty little morsels that were hidden in

(26:19):
interviews with the film makers.And we'll hear about that later
on. So listeners familiar with The
Conjuring story or if you have done any amount of research on
it, you may notice what I have not listed as a source for this
episode, which is any of the three books written by Andrea

(26:40):
Perrin, who is the eldest daughter of the Perrin family
who did live through whatever itis that happened at the old
Arnold Estate. Easily 40%, forty, 2% of what
I've read and listened to about this story and.
The. Extreme amount of research that
I've done incorrectly claims that The Conjuring movie was

(27:04):
based on the book trilogy written by Andrea Perrin.
Now I get it. I mean, I can see why you would
think that because a her name isPerran.
She's got the last name Perran. By the way, it is pronounced
Perran, not Perrone, not Perran.Perran.
I I get it. You see her name and also you

(27:24):
hear that the movie is based on a true story.
So. One might guess, one might
assume that there must be a story somewhere that they can
read in order to read the true story.
Just like with Amityville, just like with Annabelle, how you can

(27:45):
read that story in The Demonologist.
But the first book in Andrea Perrin's series, House of
Darkness, House of Light, was published in 2011, and the
screenplay for The Conjuring really technically began way
back in the mid to late 90s. So we'll split the difference
and we'll land on the fact that The Conjuring movie project was

(28:06):
greenlit by New Line Cinema in 2009, which is still before
Perrin finished writing her first book, which, by the way,
she wrote 40 years after her experiences in the Arnold
estate. 40 years. Even if something terrifying is

(28:28):
seared into your brain at the age of 12, that's still a lot of
time between experiencing it andwriting about it.
But she managed to write something like 1400 pages about
it despite the passing of time. I mean, not only that, but when
you experience something traumatic, especially as a

(28:48):
child, your brain has a tendencyto just just play a little game
of forgetsies so that you don't have to remember that traumatic
event. So it's just interesting that
she remembered it in such detail.
In fact, you know what? Here's a fun fact.
Did you know that our brains, unknowingly, without our

(29:12):
permission and without our knowledge, edit our memories of
the past, specifically when we remember them, and then
effectively override that original memory every single
time we access it? So the more times that you've
accessed a memory, the least likely that memory is to be

(29:34):
accurate. The more often you remember
something, oh, the more times that it's been edited and saved
over and you don't even know it.I mean, think about a birthday
as a child. Think about a childhood
birthday, or like a nice memory of you when you were little or
even a bad memory, I guess. I mean, sure, whatever.

(29:55):
I mean, probably don't do that. But my point is, try to think of
something that happened when youwere younger.
Are you remembering what your parents or siblings looked like
back then? Can you really remember what
they looked like? Are you picturing in your mind's
eye the face of your family member from however many years

(30:15):
ago? Or are you kind of picturing
them more now, how they look now?
Or OK, maybe maybe you have a Fantasia where you can't picture
things in your head like an apple, right?
So maybe if that's the case, then how about this?
Have you ever remembered something which with with such
specific detail that you were 100% sure that you were right

(30:39):
about? Like you just know, you know
that you wrote someone's number down on a yellow post it note
and it's on your desk only to find that actually what you
wrote it on was the back of an envelope and the envelope was
not yellow at all. Has your memory ever done that
to you? Just just, I told you,

(31:00):
completely incorrect information.
I mean, that's why eyewitness accounts are some of the least
reliable types of evidence in court cases.
Why? Because our memories are deeply
fallible even over a short period of time, let alone over
the course of nearly 40 years. From 1973 to 2011.

(31:20):
Actually. From 1971, because that's when
they moved in 1971 to 2011. Come on.
So anyway, that was completely apropos of nothing and a total
tangent, and certainly had nothing to do with why I've
excluded Andrea Perrin as a source for this episode.
Totally unrelated, what I will say about Andrea Perrin is that

(31:43):
if I encountered the Warrens at an impressionable, formative
young age and my mother got thrust into the spotlight for
coming forward about a haunted house, I might too be hitting
the paranormal convention circuit and Hawking my book
series. I might also be doing that.
In fact, there's an alternate universe somewhere where that

(32:05):
has happened, I'm sure of it. That's where I I have had that
happen and I have written a trilogy of book series and I go
on the paranormal convention circuit.
I know that's happening. So if you are a listener from
that other dimension where that is my reality, let me know
madamstrangeways@gmail.com. I want to hear from you.

(32:29):
So finally. Go ahead, put on your wellies.
I think those are what they're called in the UK.
What do they call them in America?
Rain boots. Put on your rain boots.
No, you're going to need, they're going to need the thigh
high ones like the like the cranberry guys.
Put on your cranberry waders. While we wade into the.

(32:50):
Thick with two C's, perhaps even3 primordially delicious sludge.
That is the Warren's case file for the Perrin Haunting.
So it was important to me that Ishare specifically only things
that I could confidently state were straight from Carolyn
Perrin, the mother at the time that the haunting was actually

(33:13):
happening, and man. Did she have a lot to say?
In that recorded YouTube interview.
OK, to be clear, it was not a YouTube interview.
It's an interview that's now been uploaded onto YouTube.
Clearly she was not being interviewed on YouTube.
She had a lot to say and it's really interesting, really

(33:33):
weird. Listen, if you, if you liked
listening to things like Art Bell, you know, coast to coast,
go ahead, give it a listen. I'll I'll have the link in the
show notes. Something to note.
Though is that Ed? 'S interview style, it's leading
at best, and he stated early on in this interview with her that

(33:57):
this was their second interview.We don't hear the first one.
We only hear the second one where he has clearly been able
to guide the story and nudge hertowards stories that he wants
her to tell and kind of quickly move past ones maybe that he
doesn't. But it's not just the actual
stories themselves that he is leading her about.

(34:22):
He also, this was crazy when shewas telling him the lengthy and
admittedly terrifying story of the old woman with the black
sack over her head and the bent neck.
He asked her if it resembled someone who had been hung by the
neck. And she said, you know, oh, you

(34:43):
know what? Actually, now that you say that,
yeah, I kind of did look like that.
Maybe it was. Maybe that is it, you know, So a
little bit of a leading the witness situation and harkening
back to how memories work. Maybe the next time she told
that story she included that detail and forgot that she had
ever told the story differently to begin with.
He would even, and this is wild to me.

(35:06):
She would tell him some absolutely horrific and just
like mind blowing story that happened to her and his.
Response would just. Be like now what else happened
by the fireplace? Like no questions.
Like excuse me my dude, she justtold you she was attacked by an

(35:27):
invisible spirit using a clotheshanger and your response is like
now what else happened? No, no questions, no questions.
He didn't even ask a single question to understand the
bleeding orange situation. Just so strange.
OK, so Speaking of Speaking of orange, there's a lot of weird
details that jumped out at me. The first being, what the hell

(35:50):
is a banjo clock? I had to leave that detail in
because she specified it was a banjo clock so I had to look it
up. Apparently it's a type of clock
that is in the general vague. Shape of a banjo so like a round
face and then a long other like neck was that I don't I don't
know music stuff. So the clock face would be on

(36:13):
the the banjo Y part, the round banjo part.
So like details like mentioning the banjo clock kind of make me
think that Carolyn really was experiencing something with the
clock hands moving, even though,you know, OK, the clock didn't
run on batteries and the clock wasn't wound.

(36:34):
So the clock should not have been moving at all.
The clock hands shouldn't have been moving.
But the fact that she mentioned the banjo clock would be a
really weird detail. To include to me or I don't
know, maybe banjo clocks from more standard in the. 70s If
you've you know what, if you've got a banjo clock, let me know
madamstrangeways@gmail.com I would love to see a photo of

(36:57):
your banjo clock. Hopefully the hands on the clock
are not moving without any electricity or winding it.
Let me know. Another thing that jumped out at
me about the story was Carolyn making sure to let us know that
the orange that bled human bloodwas a sun kissed Orange sun

(37:19):
kissed TM. Oh, actually it's sorry.
It's a registered symbol. Sun kissed registered symbol And
I want you to know just how muchwillpower just went into me not
looking up the technical differences between trademark
and registered. Anyway, sun kissed like talk

(37:40):
about strange details to include.
Like Carolyn, what is this? What is this, a paid
sponsorship? Was this all just was?
Was the entire Perrin haunting and The Conjuring story?
Was this all just one long con by sun kissed to sell more
literal blood oranges? Like was Carolyn the original

(38:02):
affiliate marketer slash influencer?
Like what? What are we doing?
What are we doing here? Why is it sun kissed?
I just thought that was so funnyto me and really took me out of
the story. I had to include it.
Maybe it took you out of the story too.
Sorry I I had to like what maybe.
You know what I've been thinking?
Maybe sun kissed oranges were kind of new back then.

(38:24):
I'm not going to. OK?
I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole.
You know what? You know what?
You're welcome. For not going down another
rabbit hole because I have gone down so many already.
So somehow more ridiculous than mentioning sun kissed is what Ed
Warren said in that interview about the bloody sun kissed

(38:45):
registered symbol orange. You know what, actually, OK, I
want you to guess. Just take a few seconds.
I want you to guess what. Explanation Ed Warren gives for
a blood No, for an orange. A normal orange, not a blood
orange. I want you to guess what

(39:07):
Explanation Ed Warren gives for a normal, regular sun kissed
orange to bleed human blood. I want you to guess he's
completely serious. OK, Ready.
All right, Here is verbatim whatEd Warren said as an explanation

(39:27):
for why a sun kissed registered symbol orange would bleed human
blood. Here it is.
This comes through teleportationwhere the molecular structure of
the substance or the items broken down to dematerialized
teleported to another area and it is then seen and viewed in

(39:49):
that area. And that is to say that was real
blood. Oh yes it was real.
OK hmm. Well when pressed to explain
where this real blood was teleported from and into the sun

(40:10):
kissed registered symbol orange.Edwin continued.
This blood would have come from a number of places.
It could have been taken from just any individual, the
structure of the blood being broken down, much as it is in
lycanthropy where you have vampirism.

(40:30):
The demonic spirit which inhabits the vampire of the
physical body of a person who would be known as a vampire,
does not actually bite into the neck of a human being and suck
the blood out. It uses the qualities of magic.
In regards to teleportation again, where the substance is
broken down and materialized, that is.

(40:54):
A quote I heard him say it. This was not an AI deepfake.
He said those words like I'm what?
Excuse me, Excuse me, How? How did we get here?
How did we get from sun kissed to vampires?

(41:16):
And also lycanthropy is about werewolves.
So how did we get from sun kissed to werewolves?
And now hold on because now vampires are real, but they use
vampire magic to teleport people's blood out of their
bodies and into their mouths. Like, hold on because we're

(41:39):
burying the lead here. That is the real story.
This is what the movie should have been about.
This is the movie that needs to be made is vampires.
And look lycanthropy and teleporting blood.
So when you really break it down, The Conjuring movie or the
story of The Conjuring was more or less just kind of like a

(42:01):
haunted house movie with the addition of paranormal
investigators as an, albeit OK successful gimmick.
Family buys new house. House is haunted by ghosts.
Family is terrorized by said ghosts slash demons, some of
which of course turned out to beSatanists.
Ed and Lorraine sweep it, swoop in and save the day and

(42:24):
introduce you by the way, to Annabelle so they can set up a
spin off. Well, quick reminder, the
parents lived in that house for nine years and were in that
house for six years after the Warrens came the last time.
And in in fact, they still claimthat the Warrens did more harm

(42:44):
than good. But jumping back to the whole
satanic ghost inside a haunted house thing, here's something I
really regret not mentioning in the Amityville episode.
You'll never guess what these two stories have in common.
If you guessed, though correctly, that they both follow
the same basic plot, you win a prize.
You win. E-mail me

(43:06):
madamstrangeways@gmail.com if that's what you guessed.
So here's an actual description of one of the movies that I just
changed like 2 words in. OK, Horror film about a family
who are terrorized by supernatural forces.
When they move into a new house in New England, which was once

(43:28):
home to an 18th century Satanist, it's the exact same
story, It's the same movie. Amityville and the parent
family. Now the parent family did happen
prior to Amityville, OK, I'm just going to put that put that
there. We're going to return to that,
but it is the exact same story. It's just that The Conjuring has

(43:48):
Bathsheba Sherman as the allegedSatanist and Amityville had John
Ketchum as the alleged Satanist who is not a Pokémon trainer.
Apparently both Bathsheba Sherman and John Ketchum,
though, were real people, Totally normal, real people who
were not Satanists who have beenpainted.

(44:11):
As Satanists by modern brushes for the sake of sensationalism,
period. That is the only reason they
just take these two people. They say they were alive a
really long time ago. We need a better story.
Let's make them Satanists. So we'll discuss.
We'll discuss Bathsheba in much more detail in a moment, or 12

(44:33):
or 13 or 666. Just we'll get there soon.
So you may or may not be saying at this point, but Madam, The
Amityville Horror didn't come out until 1979 and the parents
met with the Warrens in 1973. So Amityville couldn't possibly
have impacted the parents story.OK, Well, you, you got me there.

(44:54):
You're right. Very good Gold Star.
Except that I'm not arguing thatAmityville impacted the Parents.
No, no, no, I'm arguing that yes, it was The Exorcist.
A familiar argument if you've listened to the other two Warren
Case File episodes that I've done.
The Exorcist book came out in 1971, the very same year that

(45:18):
the Parents moved into the estate.
And the movie The Exorcist came out in late 1973, actually the
day after Christmas, admittedly almost two months after the
recorded interview with Carolyn Perrin and Ed Warren that
informed my rewrite at the beginning of the episode.
So plenty of time for the book, at the very least, to have

(45:40):
impacted them. But wait, there's more.
Rosemary's Baby. The movie was released in 1968,
and the book was released in 1967.
And as a reminder, that movie also dealt with moving into a
new place and encountering a coven of Satanist witches.

(46:01):
Isn't that interesting? So here's an excerpt from The
Exorcist Effect that I that's fun.
Excerpt. Excerpt from The Exorcist
Effect. An Exorcist excerpt.
An excerpt from The Exorcist Effect.
Ah, wait, the excerpt cyst. There it is.
All right, I'm moving on that. I tried to paraphrase, but it

(46:23):
was really just more impactful hearing it in their words, so
I'm just going to read this brief part for you.
Fact and fiction can also becomeblurred through confabulation, a
type of memory error in which fictional images and narratives
come to fill in gaps in memory, thus confusing fact and fiction.

(46:46):
Cognitive scientists such as Jeffrey Zacks, who has written
on this problem as it relates tomovies, have noted that the
brain is better at retaining information than the source of
that information, especially over time.
There is evidence that depictions of events in film
trump other sources of information in shaping what

(47:09):
viewers believe to be true. Zacks performed a research study
in which subjects were presentedwith accurate essays about
several historical events. The subjects were then shown
movies that depicted the same events they had just read about,
but clearly distorted the information in the essays.

(47:31):
When subjects were asked to recall accurate information
about the events, they accepted about 40% of the film
distortions as true. It did not matter whether the
subjects watched the movies before or after they read the
essays, the movie version was consistently remembered as the

(47:52):
true version. Zach's notes that human memory
is adapted to be good at recalling information, but not
necessarily the source of that information.
He explains. I think we are optimized to
build representations of events that allow us to function
effectively, and most of the time there is no particular need

(48:16):
to sort out the source of our memories.
Furthermore, film as a medium islikely more suited than books
for created false memories. If you are trying to remember
something and you recall verbal content, you may also recall
that this is information you read somewhere.
But if you recall images or a feeling of emotional intensity,

(48:40):
you may conclude that you are remembering something you
personally experienced. Now, I don't think we'll ever
know if Carolyn Perrin watched or read either The Exorcist or
Rosemary's Baby, but at a minimum, both movies made such a
huge impact that like, remember,OK, remember, just a reminder, I

(49:02):
should say Rosemary's Baby came out before we landed on the
moon. They didn't have thousands of
movies coming out every year. They couldn't stream whatever
movie they wanted at any time. Rosemary's Baby was completely
new more or less to most people that are going to the movies.
Completely new and terrified people.

(49:24):
And the Rosemary's Baby led to the movie The Exorcist.
The Exorcist led to the movie The Omen and from there life has
never really ever been the same.Just just interesting to me how
fallible our brains are and our memories and how easily
manipulated they are even by accident.

(49:45):
So you can only imagine how easily manipulated our memories
are when a bad actor wants to manipulate them.
Food for thought. And I want to be clear, it
wouldn't have just been Carolyn Perrin and her family who were
affected by those movies. So as I mentioned in The

(50:07):
Amityville Horror episode, in the wake of The Exorcist hitting
movie theaters, there was this sudden and unprecedented demand
for exorcisms where there had been none before.
Literally none. Literally none.
My none, right. But then suddenly lapsed

(50:28):
Catholics especially, who are watching the exorcism, they are
freaking out. They're losing their minds.
They're going to Catholic churches.
They are seeking exorcism for themselves, for their spouses,
for their children, for their pets, literally for their cats.
Like which if your cat. Isn't just a little bit
possessed with a demon, is it? Even really a cat, I ask you.

(50:50):
So Ed obviously saw an opportunity because I have never
met a more opportunistic person in my life.
Ed saw his chance and he went for it and he took it.
So people are freaking out aboutSatan, they're freaking out
about demons. And Ed was all too happy to
stoke their fears and pour fuel on the fire.

(51:13):
He was happy to do it. He's rubbing his hands, twisting
this little. Mustache, I don't.
Think he really had a mustache, but he maybe he grew one and
then he twisted the edges just at this specific moment.
Because like I've said before, Ed's entire business model is
based on fear mongering and convincing you that invisible

(51:34):
evil entities could be lurking in your home or wherever.
And only he and Lorraine can help you.
For the low, low price of $0.00 and emotional turmoil sense, you
know it. Come on.
You'd be losing money not letting them into your home and

(51:55):
sharing all of your paranormal experiences with them.
You'd be losing money. So I said we'd come back to
Bathsheba Sherman, and here we are.
Now, you may have noticed that the story I told in the
beginning of the episode didn't mention her by name at all,
really. It was just kind of mentioning

(52:15):
this really creepy woman in a dark dress with no head, but
kind of a head. It's really unclear.
Anyway, she wasn't mentioned by name.
She wasn't called Bathsheba Sherman in that story.
And there's a reason for that, because Carolyn Perrin didn't
mention Bathsheba's name at all in that 1973 interview.

(52:36):
In fact, neither did Ed, for that matter.
In fact, he went on in that sameinterview to say this of the
Headless Woman ghost, a woman who practiced witchcraft, who
had in her earlier years actually murdered her own child
by driving a stake or a nail through the head of the child as
a gift again to Lucifer and black magic rituals.

(52:59):
This woman lived all of her lifein that home and practiced a
negative witchcraft, black witchcraft, and then at age 97
years old made a pact with the devil to commit suicide, which
is a great insult to the creatorto take the physical life away
from someone. In this case she had destroyed
it on her own and this again goes into black magic and a pact

(53:22):
with the devil. The apparition like figure that
Missus Perrin had seen was this woman.
OK so when did Bathsheba's name get tangled up in the story
then? Because if you look into the
Perrin family haunting, you'll find so many people claiming
that Carolyn discovered Bathsheba the Satan loving witch

(53:45):
on her own and her own research.And a lot of other people claim
that Lorraine Warren pulled Bathsheba's name from thin air
the moment she set foot in the house.
So which is it? Because I can't actually find
the very first reference to Bathsheba because she wasn't
even referenced by name in a 1977 newspaper article in the

(54:08):
North Smithfield Burlville Observer that references the
parents and mentions the headless woman, but not by name.
And I quote according to the tape and slide presentation the
Warrens gave at the Dalton Theatre, The Ghost.
Is that of a woman who had livedin the house 150 years ago,
practiced witchcraft and murdered her young daughter as a

(54:31):
sacrifice to the devil. Later she hanged herself as the
supreme insult to the Creator and her gift to the devil.
In exchange for being allowed tohaunt the premises forever
after, the apparition appears asan old woman with head hanging
to one side as if it had a broken neck, the Warrens said in
their program. She is also.

(54:51):
Supposed to have promised all her descendants to the devil.
OK, I want to share just. This one line from that article
that I really liked, it was above this part but I had to
include it. It said it's not true that the
parents have been driven out by the lady ghost, who reputedly is
no lady. Like the shade, The shade that

(55:14):
they threw at come to find who they would then eventually call
Bathsheba Sherman the shade. Anyway, for my younger
listeners, if you're curious, a tape and slide presentation just
means the lectures quote UN quote, that Ed and Lorraine
Warren would give that shared details about their cases.

(55:34):
And you know, that included playing cassette tape recordings
and showing photo slides with a projector like.
The first thing that comes to mind is like Mindhunter on
Netflix for some reason, if you want a reference for what they
were probably doing, they've gota projector, they have a screen,

(55:54):
they're playing a. Cassette tape.
Like this is old school. So they would investigate
people's hauntings for free, remember, But then they would
take that content that they created on their tapes.
And the photographs that they would have turned into slides so
that they could use a projector to use it as part of their

(56:14):
lectures. So they would take this content
that they created quote UN quotethey.
Stole. From these people like they're
they've said that there's something like 10,000 or more
cases that they investigated over their career.
So they walk in, they take a bunch of photos and they record

(56:35):
a bunch of content that other people phone basically stole it
from them and then use that content for their talks that
they charged for. And then also they would take
that content that they lifted and then use that content to
pitch ideas to movie makers and booksellers.

(56:57):
Like literally this just sounds like the YouTube content
creators. Who like clean houses and do
mowing and edging for free What is SB mowing?
I hope he's not problematic for free you know in exchange for
because it's a they're not stealing they're saying hi.
Can I provide this useful service to you?

(57:19):
It's free for you so long as youallow me to use it on my
channel, which is monetized so that I can make money off of it.
And of course, people are happy to do that because they needed
the service done. However.
The service that Ed and LorraineWarren provided was not only
invisible like the entities theyclaimed were manifest or

(57:43):
investing their house is also not helpful and not real.
Definitely not as helpful as getting your yard edged if you
know you're an old lady and you can't get out there and edge
your own yard and you don't havemoney to pay somebody.
I'm just saying. So I want to clear, I want to be
clear YouTube content creators who are offering a helpful

(58:06):
service. I approve.
That is great. I watch them and I love them.
What I don't love is Ed and the rain Warren, who when they do
it, it's. Gross.
What was also gross was that they were still talking about
the Perrin family haunting yearsafter the last time that they
spoke to the Perrins after the failed seance, Which, by the

(58:29):
way, it was a seance, not an exorcism like the movie
portrayed. Because even Ed will say no, no,
no, no, no, we can't do exorcisms.
We're not with the church. But then sometimes he would be
like, oh, I'm super important and the church knows me and
loves me and gives me all this secret information that you

(58:49):
don't have because you're not like, super high up in in the
church as a demonologist. OK, calm down, Ed.
Sit down. So they were sharing the parent
family's dirty, spooky spectral laundry for years after.
Because if they were watching this tape and slide presentation
in 1977, the Warrens hadn't spoken to the parents since

(59:13):
1974. So they're still you see what I
mean? Do you see what I'm saying?
Because not only that, but they were sharing the address of
their home. And so then now you got a bunch
of weirdos like me and possibly you showing up at the parent
house. Like that's just so annoying.
You saw the same thing, similar thing happening at Amityville,

(59:36):
at the Amityville house, although, OK.
There was a lot more that went on at the Amityville house for
people to go visit, namely the murdering of most of the De Feo
family at the hands of De Feo Junior.
Anyway, moving on. Bath back, back to Bathsheba?
Back in Bathsheba like back in black, Is that something?

(01:00:03):
Is that is that good? Back in Bathsheba?
I can't figure out exactly when they decided decided to blame
everything on Bathsheba Sherman,but sometime between 1974 and
the mid 80s, maybe 90s. The Warrens definitely did.
They sure did, and so did the Perrins.

(01:00:25):
So between the two of them, you can't really pin it on one
specific person, but it came from one of those families.
The parents. Are the Warrens blackening Poor
Bathsheba's name now? Remember, I'm trying not to lean
on Andrea Perrins claims as a source here, but she has a lot
to say about Bathsheba, mostly bad, even though Bathsheba was a

(01:00:48):
real person whose name and legacy has been dragged through
the mud, including by her. The real life Bathsheba Sherman
was born Bathsheba Thayer in 1812, named after her father's
first wife, which is a choice. She wasn't part of the Arnold
family at all. We don't even know that she knew

(01:01:10):
the Arnold family. So the family that lived.
On the Arnold estate that was then turned into the parents
home that is now just called TheConjuring House, Bathsheba
Sherman did. Not live or work or potentially
ever set foot on that land. So I'm not really sure how

(01:01:31):
you're going to blame this on her.
Why would she haunt that house? It doesn't make any sense.
So unlike her portrayal in The Conjuring film.
No historical records, police reports, court documents or
community accounts suggest that Bathsheba ever harmed or killed
any children, let alone her own.And she definitely didn't hang

(01:01:54):
herself. The claim that she murdered a
baby with a knitting needle as asacrifice to Satan is completely
made-up. And by the way, depending on who
you ask, sometimes it's a sewingneedle, sometimes it's a
knitting needle. But Ed Warren in 1973 said it
was a steak or a nail. However, it worked better for

(01:02:15):
his narrative to just say it wasa needle because oh, that ties
up nicely. Saying that the ghost lady who's
reputedly no lady stabbed Carolyn with the very same
needle that she murdered her baby with.
Objection, your honor, Sustained.
So if Bathsheba wasn't an evil baby sacrificing murderous 97
year old Satanist witch, where did all those accusations come

(01:02:38):
from? Where there's smoke, there's
fire, right? Well, sort of.
But also, you know what, that's a good reminder.
Check the batteries and your smoke detectors, everybody.
And if you have gas in your house, make sure that you have
working CO2 detectors, please. PSA go check.
I'll wait. You can come back.

(01:03:00):
OK. We're all good.
Perfect. So you know, it is a good
question. Like why all the libel and
slander to this poor woman with an admittedly witchy sounding
name? Because come on, Bathsheba.
Super cool name, sounds like a witch.
Maybe I've been influenced. By knowing that she's been
accused of. Being a witch.

(01:03:20):
But what a cool name. So Kent Spotswood, journalist
and local historian, suggested that it was more or less just a
mishmash of different local lore, Frankenstein together with
bits of truth and even bigger bits of grossly fabricated
stories. So listen, they've talked about

(01:03:42):
how there's all these different deaths that happened at the
Arnold estate. If you ask Carolyn Perrin, she
does list a ton of deaths that happened on the estate, and
they're all grizzly and they're all super dramatic.
But listen, OK, Susan Arnold, unrelated to the Arnold estate,
not part of the Arnold family, just happens to have the same

(01:04:03):
last name. A Susan Arnold did in fact hang
herself in 1886, but she neitherlived nor worked at the Arnold
house, soon to be The Conjuring house.
There was also a Prudence Arnoldwho was murdered by this
complete piece of human refuse, William Knowlton.

(01:04:24):
But again, Prudence didn't live or die at the Perrin slash
Arnold slash Conjuring estate, and she also wasn't part of that
Arnold family amongst a bunch ofother local lore.
Overtime, likely what happened is that people assumed that the

(01:04:45):
people named Arnold who died in the area were probably of the
same Arnold's that now lived on the old Arnold estate.
And then the lore began to grow and morph like a game of
extremely morbid macabre telephone.
OK, I think that makes sense, but hold on a second because

(01:05:08):
isn't there another New England witch that the Warrens are on
record discussing in 1974, the exact same year they performed A
seance for the Perrins? Oh yeah, that's right, the
Warrens were investigating in 1974 the Phelps mansion in
Stratford, CT when, shocker, they discovered it was haunted

(01:05:32):
by a Satanist witch, Goody Bassett, a woman executed for
witchcraft in 1651. And OK, hold on a second, did
you know Goody is short for GoodWife?
Like what in The Handmaid's Taleis this?
And not only that, but Goody Bassett lived on Elm Street.

(01:05:53):
Like, oh Good Wife Bassett of the Elm Street.
Bassett's no relation to Freddie.
Good Wife is apparently not evenlike a real first name.
It's just like something you call to a lower class woman
who's married in colonial times.What was her even first name?
I can't even find it. It's all just Goody and Good

(01:06:14):
Wife. That's messed up.
I wonder what her birth name was.
But all listen to this. According to the Stratford
Crier, 372 years after she was executed for witchcraft, IE
murdered after being forced or tortured under.
Duress to confess to. Being a witch, which she wasn't,

(01:06:34):
a witch, witch she wasn't. Goody was officially exonerated
and honored with a plaque in hername.
That's nice. Good for her.
Less nice is the quote from thisarticle.
The charge of witchcraft was ordinarily proffered to
outspoken women of a lower social standing in the colony of

(01:06:58):
Connecticut, said David Wright, Stratford's town historian.
Such women were oftentimes healers or midwives, and in
several instances, widows. The charge of witchcraft was
often used to settle property disputes or as a tool to
administer vengeance to an outspoken person.

(01:07:22):
Well, that sucks. OK, well, sorry for that
depressing little rabbit hole there.
Let's jump back to Ed in the rain.
OK, so it's 1974, right? Like the same year that they
performed the seance for the parents and then they get kicked
out. And so that same year, 1974,

(01:07:42):
they just so happened to investigate another house and
claim that that house also has an evil spirit witch lady
haunting it. Just like the Arnold slash
Perrin family estate, except that this witch is famous
because if you haven't heard of her, I'm shocked if you haven't

(01:08:03):
heard of Goody Bassett, but she's definitely famous in New
England. Which can we pause?
What is New England? I had to look this up because I
realized, you know, I don't really know what this means.
It's not a state. I mean, I I assumed that it was
a section of the country that was in the Northeast, but I
didn't quite fully understand like what does that entail?

(01:08:27):
So it basically, if you were an English settler and you came
over and you set foot there kindof before 1776, that's New
England, OK in a nutshell. So if you were British and your
little British feet touched the ground shortly after arriving
here, that's New England, OK? I think that's probably an

(01:08:48):
oversimplified explanation, so please don't come for me.
Anyway, it sounds like to me that the Warrens took Goody
Bassett from their research at the Phelps house.
Which didn't have anything to dowhatsoever with Goody Bassett.
So they took the idea of using Goody Bassett and they had
witches on the mind and then they.

(01:09:09):
Mashed her together with the local Burlville legends for the
Arnold estate and then created their own original character
that suited their needs. And as a bonus, Bathsheba has a
super cool witchy sounding name.So I mean, you know, you on the
one hand, you can't blame them. Because that does that is a
good. Story and it's very scary.
On the other hand, yes, I can blame them because Bathsheba was

(01:09:32):
an innocent woman just like Goody Bassett.
However, Bathsheba doesn't have the honor of being exonerated.
So let's just let's just talk about that right now actually,
because she probably never will be exonerated or fully cleared
because of The Conjuring franchise.
In fact, poor Bathsheba's gravestone has been vandalized

(01:09:56):
enough times since the release of The Conjuring by people who
believed that the movie really is based on a true story and
really believed that Bathsheba really was a Satan loving
villain. And so these people, their
solution is to piss off her ghost.
How is that a good idea? Like, of all the graves to

(01:10:18):
vandalize? Like, don't vandalize anybody's
grave. But if you're going to vandalize
your grave, you're going to picka murderous, Satan worshipping
witch. Make it make sense.
You know, obviously. In all seriousness, though,
Bathsheba was clearly none of those things.
She was just an innocent woman who lost three of her four
children. She lost her husband, and she

(01:10:40):
died at the age of 72 from a stroke.
Rest in peace, Bathsheba. And Speaking of resting in
peace, because I did mention right that the headstone, her
headstone, has been vandalized enough times that it was
actually broken into pieces and had to be removed because people
just kept breaking it every timethey fixed it.
So Jamie Rubio, the historical investigative journalist

(01:11:04):
mentioned earlier, actually organized a GoFundMe to raise
the funds to get Bathsheba a newheadstone when it was so badly
damaged. So she reached her goal in 2023.
Yay. And the new headstone was
installed in late 2024, honoringBathsheba properly, as it should
be. So good job, Jamie.

(01:11:25):
What a great thing to do. If you're wondering, the biggest
donation to the GoFundMe was made by the new owner.
Well, new Yes by the new owner. I'm trying to get my timeline
straight. Yes was made by the new, newest
owner of the old Arnold Farmhouse, Jacqueline Nunez.
And if you're wondering who madethe smallest donation to

(01:11:48):
honoring the memory of an unfairly maligned innocent
woman, that honor is a tie between Andrea Perrin.
And Tony Spera of Tony spera.comand not nesper.com, the Warrens
son-in-law who continues to run their psychic research Society,
whose website claims. Bathsheba is a satanist witch

(01:12:09):
still to this day. Andrea Perrin and Tony Spera
both donated $0.00 zero. When Jamie told me that over
e-mail, my jaw. Dropped.
Like I don't even know why I'm surprised, but I am.
That two of the people, I mean Tony Spear is he's implicated.

(01:12:33):
OK, but Ed and Lorraine Warren were super implicated.
And again, the Nesper site stillto this day says that Bathsheba
was a witch. And Andrea Perrin who speaks
badly of Bathsheba as well, although you can find places
online where she has said, oh, never mind.
Bathsheba's innocent. I support her but not enough to
like edit her. Books that mention anyway those

(01:12:55):
two people $0.00 to the GoFundMeyou can do $5 you caused this
like y'all come on that's just I'm riled is another is again
the right word riled. So hopefully people stop
vandalizing Bathsheba's grave, although I don't know how we'll

(01:13:18):
get that to stop. I don't know, maybe.
What do we do? Do we install a glitter cannon
or like a tar and feather situation, or like you slather
the grave with Vaseline and again, glitter?
You know, there's, there's got to be something there.
There has to be something there.We need justice for Bathsheba.

(01:13:40):
Moving on to The Conjuring movie, The Conjuring film the
first film, was released in 2013and spawned another 7 movies to
date. As of this recording though, the
next conjuring universe title comes out in September 2025 S
Keep an eye out. The Conjuring is the highest
grossing horror franchise in history, and it all started with

(01:14:07):
the parents. Again, Andrea Perrin's book
series had nothing to do with The Conjuring movie being made.
Actually, in the early 1990s, producer Tony Derosa Grund met
the Warrens through a mutual friend of theirs, the writer of
a made for TV movie based on yetanother of the Warrens Case

(01:14:30):
files, The Smerl Family Haunting, which is actually what
the next Conjuring film is about.
The Conjuring Colon last writes like RITES anyway.
Shocker. Here's the description for that
made for TV movie Husband and wife parapsychologists help a
Pennsylvania couple fight demonsin their house.

(01:14:51):
I I don't know what I expected. Now, knowing that the Warrens
had just had a made for TV moviemade about them, all about them.
What do you think Ed pitched to his producer friend?
Yeah, another movie about another case file.
According to Derosa Grund via Collider, Ed had a quote UN

(01:15:15):
quote laser beam focus on selling the Perrin family's
experiences to him to be made into a movie.
He even played the original tapes and interview with Carolyn
Perrin for him. And Ed said to the producer
quote, if we can't make this into a film, I don't know what
we can. But remember everyone, the

(01:15:36):
Warrens were so kind and pious and and self sacrificing and
they never asked for any money from from their victims.
I mean from their clients. But they did ask for a lot of
money in a lot of other ways. Moving on, 2009, when De Rosa
Grund, the producer, brought in Chad and Carrie Hayes, the

(01:16:00):
identical twin writer duo for The Conjuring to redo the
script, they chose to focus moreon Ed and Lorraine Warren rather
than the parent family, which obviously it was a good choice.
Fun fact Chad and Carrie Hayes, the writers also starred in
Doublemint gum commercials in their childhood, and they also

(01:16:21):
wrote a movie called Horse Sense.
Whatever that is. Oh, OK, It's a Disney Channel
movie. So the writers of the most
successful horror franchise in movie history are horse girls.
Got it. OK.
So these two horse girls made a really good call focusing on the
Warrens. I'll give them that, you know I

(01:16:42):
will. I'll give it to them.
From there, New Line Cinema purchased the Warrens life
rights from Lorraine since Ed had already passed away a few
years prior in 2006. Lorraine honestly really could
have negotiated better. You know Ed would never have
stood for the paltry sum that New Line Cinema bought their

(01:17:05):
rights for. Because New Line Cinema walked
away with Ed and Lorraine Warren's life rights for movies
for the low, low price of only $150,000.
That is nothing compared to the 2.2 billion with AB dollars the

(01:17:25):
film franchise has earned, and they're not even done.
Reminder, Lorraine is a clairvoyant, so you'd think that
she might have been able to see that one coming.
But I'll be here all week, folks.
So Hollywood in general can feelkind of slimy, but this next bit

(01:17:50):
feels extra slimy. So the Hayes brothers remember
they were in the Doublemint commercials and their horse
girls. The Hayes brothers are quoted as
hoping that The Conjuring movieswill be like The Passion of the
Christ, where churches will stuff all their congregants into
buses and bus them to the theater for their yearly

(01:18:10):
screening of The Conjuring. So far as I can tell, that is
not how that worked out. But you know, if you are aware
of a church that does, do you know at at a minimum by yearly
viewings, If you are aware of a church that does viewings of The
Conjuring and treats it like thepassion of the Christ, let me

(01:18:30):
know. Leave a Spotify comment or
e-mail me at madamstrangeways@gmail.com.
I am really curious, but so far as I can tell, that's not how
that worked out. But what I will say is the Hayes
brothers know exactly what they're doing.
I mean, they very purposefully refer to their movies not as
horror films, but they market them as quote UN quote,

(01:18:51):
religious supernatural films. And apparently they even coined
the term. They see churches and religious
communities as built in audiences, to the point that The
Conjuring actually partnered with a marketing agency that
specializes in Christian audiences run by an evangelical
Christian. The Hayes brothers based the

(01:19:14):
film's story on the aforementioned recordings of Ed
and Carolyn Perrin, which they listened to.
From over the phone. I think is what I read.
But they also had direct access to Lorraine Warren as well
because she was still alive whenthis movie was being written and
when it was being filmed. So the Hayes brothers would chat

(01:19:34):
on the phone with Lorraine. And I am totally picturing all
three of them laying on their beds on their stomachs with
their hair and little like rollers and they're kicking
their feet in the air and twirling the phone cord around
their finger. And they're just chatting about
demons and exorcisms and the power of Christ compels you.

(01:19:55):
Lorraine, though, was also brought onto the set as a
consultant alongside Andrea Perrin.
But again, reminder for the 50 millionth time, Andrea Perrin's
books did not inform The Conjuring movie, but Lorraine
Warren definitely did. And here's just a little fun
little Easter egg. If you go back and watch The

(01:20:17):
Conjuring, keep an eye on the audience in the scene where
Carolyn attends one of the Warren's talks because Lorraine
Warren has a cameo there and I promise you, you can't miss her.
Even if you have no idea what Lorraine Warren actually really
looked like, you're going to spot her right away.
There she is. She's a very memorable gal.

(01:20:38):
So what about the house itself? The old Richardson Arnold Estate
AKA the Arnold Farmhouse AKA thePerrin Home AKA The Conjuring
House at 1677 Round Top Rd. was a is a three bedroom, 1 1/2
bath, 3109 square foot house buthas 14 rooms.

(01:21:05):
So what are all those rooms? I thought that it would OK
because 14 rooms you'll also. Here's something that you'll
find a lot in research or if you're listening to, but they're
podcasts, talk about this topic.You will hear people say that it
is a 14 bedroom house. That is not true.

(01:21:25):
There are 14 rooms in the house,but I don't.
Know what all those extra rooms are?
Because you've got 3 bedrooms, 11/2 baths, so that's 4 1/2
rooms. Then you've got OK, so 4 1/2
rooms. You've got the kitchen and what
other rooms are there in a house?
You have two bedrooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen, that's
it. That's all the rooms.

(01:21:46):
So I don't know what the heck the other rooms are.
Closets aren't rooms. So like, say they have like a
study, right? That's one room.
Now we're at 7:00 rooms. How the heck?
Wow, what? 14 rooms.
What are the other rooms for? Are they for all their sun
kissed oranges? Are they for what?

(01:22:08):
So Zillow and Redfin list the houses being built in 1863
during the Civil War, but Carolyn Perrin mentions in her
interview with Ed Warren that itwas built back in the 1700s,
specifically, I think 1763. I might be flipping those
numbers anyway. That's well before King George
the Third told America you'll beback.

(01:22:29):
So the owners who owned the house from 1987 to 2019, Norma,
Sutcliffe and Gerald. Helfrich, Helfrich, Helfrich,
you know it's fine. They, Norma and Gerald.
They reported no supernatural orspiritual experiences in the

(01:22:50):
allegedly demon infested home the entire time they lived
there. In 2013, when The Conjuring was
released, their home, however, began to get a lot of negative
attention, but not from spirits or demons or witches, but from
people being assholes. Just like Beth Sheba's

(01:23:13):
gravestone, I wonder what the crossover is there, if there's a
Venn diagram of people who vandalized Beth Sheba's
headstone versus people that harassed the poor family that
was living at that house. So Norma and Gerald sued the
director James Wan, Warner Brothers and other producers in

(01:23:35):
2015 on the grounds that their home was being vandalized
constantly as a consequence of the film.
In 2019, they finally had enoughand they sold the house to, of
all things, a married paranormalinvestigator couple.
Corey and Jennifer Heinzen, who bought the house for $439,000,

(01:23:57):
of course claimed that they immediately started experiencing
supernatural happenings and coincidentally also opened the
house up to fellow paranormal investigators.
Like a creepy bed and breakfast.You know, just, you just have to
ask yourself, why did Norma and Gerald not have any weird

(01:24:19):
experiences? And then as soon as you have,
you know, you could argue, oh, well, they're paranormal
investigators and they're like more in tune with the spirit
realm. And the veil is thinner around
people who OK, sure, OK, you can.
But also they opened it up as a bed and breakfast.

(01:24:41):
So I just you, you got to wonder.
You got to ask yourself. You got to so you got to always
follow the money, right? Who's making what money, where
and how and off of who's back. So Fast forward 2022, they
flipped that bad boy, they flipped that house.
So, you know, we were just we were just saying just seconds

(01:25:02):
ago, follow the money 2022 that paranormal investigator couple
flipped the house and. Sold it for $1.5 million to
Jacqueline Nunez who is the one that donated like something like
$2000 to the headstone replacement for Bathsheba.

(01:25:23):
So they bought the house. This is crazy.
They bought that house for $439,000.
They sold it for $1.5 million. Crazy.
So it was purchased, bought fromthem.
It was purchased from them with the insane stipulation that
whoever owns the house cannot live in it year round because

(01:25:45):
the energy is so powerful according to Nunez, the new
owner of the house. And I know that the Heinzen's
wanted the new owner to continuethe legacy of keeping it open to
the public. And yet on the Google listing
for The Conjuring House, it says, and I quote, The Conjuring

(01:26:06):
House is not taking new bookingsat this time.
This is a private property. Do not trespass.
As for the Perrin family, Carolyn Perrin and Rodger Perrin
have since passed away. One of the Perrin children has
also passed and that was April, the youngest of the Perrin

(01:26:27):
daughters. Unfortunately, she passed away
in 2017. However, the remaining four of
the parent daughters are still alive.
And of course, that includes their spokesperson, Andrea
Perrin. She's still around.
O Let's recap the original Conjuring story, which is the
parent family haunting. It became a movie because Ed

(01:26:50):
wanted to pitch it as a movie because he wanted another movie
made about him. Of course he had passed away by
the time the movie came out, buthe really started this back in
the 90s. He said let's get a movie made
about the parents. The parents don't need to be
involved, only us. They sold their life rights.
There is a whole a whole nother episode worth of content about

(01:27:15):
the story regarding their life rights.
OK, I'm not getting into it right now.
I will when I do an actual episode about specifically only
Ed and Lorraine, but in the meantime I'm just doing their
case files. But I will leave you with this
one disconcerting little disgusting nugget for you to

(01:27:37):
think about for that future episode.
The stipulation that Lorraine specifically had written into
her contract for The Conjuring film franchise is strange and
abnormal. People ask for specific things
to be put in contracts all the time.
That's not that big of a deal. What's not normal is for them to

(01:28:01):
specify that the films were not allowed to show neither Lorraine
nor her husband Ed engaging in any crimes, including sex with
minors, child pornography, prostitution or sexual.
Assault. Neither the husband nor wife

(01:28:23):
could be depicted as participating in an extramarital
sexual relationship. And I'll just leave you, the
listener, to wonder why she might be so specific with some
of those requests in the contract.
And this also might have something to do with why you

(01:28:44):
will never see in The Conjuring franchise anything other than
the most pious and absolutely St. like depictions of Ed and
Lorraine Warren. On the perhaps off chance that
you want to hear a single word more about The Conjuring, I

(01:29:04):
actually have quite a bit more content that did not make it
into this episode, because otherwise this episode would be
5000 years long. So in order to avoid that, I
will have extra bonus content about The Conjuring available on
my Patreon. You can reach that at
patreon.com/madam. Strange Ways.

(01:29:26):
Be sure to join me in 2 weeks when I will go back to reading
the true scary stories that are submitted by listeners just like
you and of course my commentary after each story.
So if you have a true scary story that you want to share for
the show, go ahead and e-mail memadamstrangeways@gmail.com or

(01:29:47):
madamstrangeways.com. Not Madam Strangeways dot Calvin
Klein, though, and also not madamstrangeways.horsejust.com.
For now, thank you so much for listening

(01:30:13):
to these spooky stories. Remember that you can feel
afraid and not be in danger. So if you have a true strange
story that you'd like to hear read on the show, go ahead and
send it to me, Madam strangeways@gmail.com or Madam
strangeways.com. And since word of mouth is so

(01:30:34):
important for podcasts, if you could, to me just one little
weird, spooky, strange, solid, that would be amazing.
And that would be telling your friends about the show.
I'd really appreciate it. Madame Strangeways is produced
and narrated by me. Madame Strangeways theme music

(01:30:55):
is by marina.ryan@marinamakes.co.
All stories are read with the explicit permission from their
original authors. Thank you so much for listening.
See you next time. Go

(01:31:34):
ahead, check out Pat Pet Poop Pet.
Why is that so hard? Oh my God, patreon.com.
What was it? Did I say poo?

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The Conjuring True Story AKA Justice For Bathsheba: The Smurl Family & the Warrens' Paranormal Case Revealed | Ep #27

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Conjuring True Story AKA Justice For Bathsheba: The Smurl Family & the Warrens' Paranormal Case Revealed | Ep #27