The Smurl Family Haunting Part 1

Today i will be delving into the smurl family haunting ,  a creepy story that lasted over 15 years and possibly longer , 

Her is the link for the book I used for my source 

https://amzn.eu/d/9URokKG

i believe this movie is being adapted into a new conjouring movie , but it did have a straight to tv movie way back in the 90s called the haunted , here is the link if you would like to give it a watch , its dated , but good 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=MTY0NTA2LDE2NDUwMw&v=qpidJuzr5Q4&feature=youtu.be

and here is a random video from my instagram account ,

https://www.instagram.com/bizarre_tales_with_dave_/reel/C-GcxmoMyuU/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Bizarre Podcast. I hope
you're all doing well. On today's episode, I have a
ghost story for you, a haunted house story. But this
haunted house was not played by one ghost, but three
and something else, something evil, And this haunting took place
over a fifteen year time period, which beckons a question,
why not move house?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Would you? I know I would well consider this? What
if the ghost followed you wherever you went?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now, this case was actually made into a straight TV
movie way back in nineteen ninety one, and I loved it.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
As a kid. I shouldn't have been watching it.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
I was way too young, but I absolutely loved it,
and it terrified me, absolutely terrified me. Especially when it
says at the beginning of the movie that this is
based on a true story. It makes it even more scurry.
But I used to watch it over and over again.
I used to absolutely love it. And it's available right
now on YouTube. You can go and watch it for free.
It's not the best quality, but it's out there. You

(01:01):
can watch it. And I've got to say, after research
in this case, that TV movie is actually quite accurate
to the actual events. But trust me, there's so many
other events that happened in the story that that movie
just didn't include, because if it did, the runtime would
have been extraordinary. The source material for this episode today

(01:22):
comes from a book called The History and Haunting of
the Smell Family Horror and the author of that book
is Rebecca F.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Pittman.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
This book is available on Amazon. It came out in
much of this year, so it is still very new,
and it is jampacked with events that happen in this case.
It is really really well detailed, and I'll probably link
in the show notes so you can go over there
and buy it if you wish to. This case is
so jam packed with paranormal activity that it is almost
going to sound like I'm just listing off event after event,

(01:53):
and in a way, that is kind of what I'm doing,
because there is so much that actually goes on in
this story. So we vote for Red. I give you
the Small Family Haunting. Now, before we get onto the
actual haunting, let me first tell you a little bit
about the Small Family. Jack and Janet both worked for
the same confectionery company, Top Chewing Gum, but they met

(02:15):
for the first time at the company Christmas party in
nineteen sixty seven, and instantly they both knew that they
wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, and
the year after they were both wed. On December the
twenty eighth, nineteen sixty eight, the happy newlyweds moved in
with Jack's parents, John and Murray Smurle, who lived in
Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. By nineteen sixty nine, Janet gave birth

(02:37):
to the first daughter, Dawn, and life was good. Janet
quit a job to be a state own mother, and
of course Jack's parents were also there to lend a
helping hand with the baby, and like I said, life
was kind of good. Smurles the situation suited them well
and things seemed to be on the up. That is
until nineteen seventy two, when Hurricane Agnes came down upon Pennsylvania,

(02:58):
which caused the embarkment holding the s Squianna River at
Bay to break, sending the water straight towards the Smull House,
as well as many more twelve foot of water who
occupied the family home. The family tried their best to
renovate the property, but the damage was just too great
and they started to look for a new property that
could accommodate John and Murray Smirle and Jack and Janet

(03:19):
Smirle and the ever growing family. Because by nineteen seventy two,
Jack and Janet had welcomed their second child, Heather, they
needed a bigger property to house the entire family, and
they settled on a house that was situated in a
nearby town, and that town was West Pitson. Now West
Pittson was a quaint little town with tragedy written into

(03:40):
its past. The town was built upon a system of
underground caves, and West Pittson saw many mining disasters and
cavings over the years, which resulted in over fifty houses
being swallowed up by the earth. It was also said
that during the excavations of the cave systems, pig bones
were found displayed in the shape of a pentagram. The
old house away the smells was quite big. It was

(04:02):
one of a kind. It had been built in eighteen
ninety six, and at this time in history it would
have sat alone in an empty field. But by nineteen
fifty construction started on more family homes that joined the
old house, and at some point over the years, the
old house had been split down the middle into two
separate apartments a duplex. This house was just perfect for

(04:22):
the Smalls and the address was three to eight three
three zero Chase Street. And even though this house lay vacant,
something inside awaited to greet them in its own special way. Now,
Jack and Janet and the two children moved into the
left hand side of the house, whilst John and Murray
moved into the right and side of the house, and
both sides required renovation. The house was outdated and there

(04:43):
was a smell that hung in the earth, the kind
old houses normally produce. The wallpaper needed to be stripped,
and the bathrooms were outdated and had seen better days,
and there were also stains that lay up on the floors.
But the two families rolled up the sleeves and got
down to work. John Smill was actually a very good
ellet Trician and he was no stranger to a little
bit of plumbing, and Jack knew a thing or two

(05:04):
about diy as well. The house seemed perfect and life
seemed perfect, but all of that was about to change now.
Like many hauntings, the activity actually started small, you know,
bumps and bangs and things disappearing and then reappearing. But
the first major incident started when John and Murray bought
a bright red carpet for the half of the duplex.

(05:24):
A couple of months after moving in, the carpet was
fitted and the elderly couple were very pleased. As you
can imagine, I'm sure many of you out there know
what it's like to move into a new house, do renovations,
do lots of work in the house, and then at
last you get your new carpet fitted, and the room
is kind of filled with this new carpet smell covering
the smell of the old house. And it's a great feeling,
isn't it to finally get that nice, clean carpet fitted

(05:47):
after all the work is done, and it must have
felt like real progress to John and Murray Smoll. But
two days later, Murray smoll awoke in the morning she
ventured downstairs to find a beautiful new red carpet a
big black, greasy stain right in the middle of it.
And they were actually clueless as to where the stain
had come from, and it baffled Murray and John, but

(06:07):
they managed to clean the stain away from the carpet.
But a few days later, to the shock and frustration,
the stain returned. There was absolutely no explanation, and once
again the same spot was cleaned. A few days later,
the stain returned again, and out of frustration, John ripped
up the carpet and the couple purchased a brand new one,
and luckily, no stain ever materialized. Murray and John just

(06:31):
put it down to a defect, maybe a strange, unexplainable defect.
Whilst at the same time, on the opposite side of
the duplex, Janet and Jack were also having issues. They
found that no matter how many fresh coats of paint
they put on the walls, stains would always appear as
all they rolls up from below the paint, and actually
got so bad that in the end Jack decided that
he would be fitting wood panelings to the wall to

(06:53):
overcome this problem. Now you could say that these are
just everyday problems that come with renovating an old house,
or in hindsight, you could say it was almost as
if something did not like the changes being made to
the house, or maybe it was just taking delight in
causing so much trouble. When the decorator was complete on
Jack and Janet's side of the duplex, it was time

(07:15):
for their own red carpet to be fitted, and this
time there was no stains. For a good while, there
was no real activity. Like I said before, the family
heard bumps and bangs, but all of this could be
explained as a house settling. Personal belongings did go missing,
and of course the children were the number one suspect
and they were questioned. By nineteen seventy four, the family

(07:37):
was somewhat settled in their homes and that is when
the activity started to ramp up a little, starting with
a television set that suddenly burst into flames as Jack
sat watching his programs. As far as he could tell
when he actually put the fire out, the TV was fine.
The electrics in the house were sound. Remember his father

(07:58):
was a good electrician. Maybe the TV was just faulty,
after all, what else could the explanation be. But the
TV was not the only household appliants to set on fire.
For the longest time, Janet had been using the stove
that actually came with the house, and it was old.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
It was very old.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
But the day came when they could afford a brand new,
modern stove. Out with the old and in with the new,
But that too would burst into flames. For no apparent reason,
and Janet had to use a fire extinguisher to put
out the fire, and the stove wasn't even being used
at the time when it's set ablaze. But strange fire

(08:36):
related activity was not exclusive to the house, as one day,
whilst Jack was driving home from work, he could hear
strange sounds coming from somewhere in the car. Jack managed
to pull the car over just before flames burst from
beneath the hood and smoke billowed out. Now you could
argue that these things just happen, and that's exactly what
the Smells fought at this point it was just a

(08:57):
string of bad luck, and maybe it was, but fire
was not the only element plague in the smills. And
before we go on, let me remind you that John
Jack's father was a dab hand at DIY and he
had fixed up both sides of the duplex. When it
came to the plumbing, there should have been no issues,
but leaks were a common hinderance for the Smells. Water

(09:18):
would often be spilling out from under the sink cabinet
in the kitchen and also from the bathroom, and John,
of course presumed there was a leaky pipe, but upon inspection,
the pipes were just fine. It also got so bad
at one point that the basement even flooded. On one occasion,
Jack got down under his own sink to stop a leak,
and he was unable to lay his hand on his wrench,

(09:39):
which he had placed down just seconds before, and it
had simply vanished. Jack decided that he could use his
hammer to finish the job, and when he had finished,
he was shocked to see that his wrench had reappeared.
It was back where he had originally left it like
it was mocking him. And then the time came for
Jack and Janet to fit their brand new bathroom, and
even more destruction took place. The bathroom was installed and

(10:01):
it was beautiful, and they said goodbye to the old, crummy,
outdated one and welcomed in the new, clean, sink and
bath tub. The bathroom had not long been installed before
one morning, as Jack row from bed to find that
the new bathroom had been severely scratched and.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Chipped in places.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
It was a dreadful sight. It was only the night
before that it was shiny and new. These scratch marks
would also appear on Jack's freshly painted woodwork around the house.
So far, the haunting had only been an inconvenience to
the smells, fires, water damage, scratch marks, stealing personal belongings.
All of these things can be explained. Your mind does
not automatically go to ghosts must have done this, That is,

(10:41):
until the ghosts started to appear before the very eyes now.
The first member of the family to see something strange
and unexplained was Jack and Janet's six year old daughter, Dawn,
and it happened one night as she lay in bed
trying to sleep, which was proving difficult due to the
thunderstorm that was taking place that night. She lay in bed,
stirring up at the shadows on her ceiling, when all

(11:02):
of a sudden, the shadow shifted into the shape of
a person, and then from the foot of her bed,
another shadow person appeared, who then floated up to the
ceiling to join the other figure. And then another came
out of her closet, which also joined the other shadow figures,
and they all kind of floated around the ceiling above her.
Dawn ran from her room as fast as she could

(11:23):
and into a parent's bed. She dove in between a
mother and a father. Janet asked her daughter what was
the matter. And then when Dawn told her about the
shadow figure floating in a room, Janet simply put it
down to a nightmare brought on by the thunderstorm and
did what all parents would do in that situation, tried
to reassure her daughter that that was exactly what it was.

(11:43):
As Janet was explaining to her daughter that she had
simply had a nightmare, Don looked over her mother's shoulder
and let out a scream. According to Dawn, standing beside
the bed was a white female figure, and before Janet
could turn around, the figure had vanished. And of course,
i as you can imagine, for the remainder of the night,
Dawn slept with her parents. So far, Don was the

(12:05):
only person to see something with her own eyes. But still,
this was coming from a six year old child, and
it was not taken seriously. After all, kids have an
active imagination, so Don must have been having a nightmare right.
The next paranormal activity to occur came one night as
Jack sat in the living room when all of a
sudden he heard the sound of a.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Toilet flushing from upstairs. Nothing unusual there.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Moments went by, and the toilet flushed again, and then again,
and then over and over and over again.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
One after the other.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Jack decided to venture upstairs and he inspected the cistern
and adjusted the float. He placed the lid back down
on the toilet and walked away. He'd only taken a
few steps out of the bathroom when the toilet flushed again.
On another day, Janet was slightly spooked by the kitchen
radio turning on all by itself. As she went to
turn it off, she noticed with her own eyes that

(13:00):
the volume dial was turning by itself, pumping up the volume.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Janet reached for.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
The plug and pulled it free from the socket. There
was a moment of silence before the radio in her
bedroom also started playing. The volume cranked up, and Janet
rushed upstairs and reached for the plug, only to find
that it wasn't even plugged in, and then the radio
cut off abruptly. On one particular day, Jack returned home

(13:25):
to find it was empty and he had the house
to himself, which I must admit as a nice feeling
at times. Jack went to turn on the TV set,
but he was distracted with the sound of footsteps coming
from the floor above, and then he heard what he
believed was the sound of a draw opening in one
of the bedrooms, and then the sound of a closet closing.
He dashed upstairs, probably thinking that there was an intruder

(13:46):
in his house, only to find nothing at all out
of place. Time passed and bumped, some bangs and items
vanishing continued. Janet would give birth to the twins, Carrying
and Shannon, who would move into heather droom, whilst Heaven
moved in with Dawn, which must have been a relief
to the little girl to have someone else in her bedroom,
apart from the shadow figures that floated around her ceiling

(14:09):
on certain nights. One night, is Janet and Jack lay
in bed, they were disturbed by the sound of creaking
coming from downstairs. Whilst the rest of the family was
sound asleep. Jack and Janet crept downstairs and noticed the
sound getting louder and louder as he neared the front door.
The sound was coming from outside on the porch. Jack
opened the front door and peered out to see two

(14:31):
old rocking chairs rocking back and forth. This was not
with the wind. It looked as though the chairs were
rocking slowly and deliberate, as though someone unseen was sat
rocking away, and then they suddenly stopped dead. Now I
must have met. The timeline in the story is a
little bit hard to pin down, but I think around

(14:53):
this point in the story we were around nineteen eighty
two or nineteen eighty three, and things were about to escalate.
Bumps and bangs were now joined by overpowering bad smells.
And the family were of the Catholic faith, and prayer
was part of the routine, and sometimes during these prayers
the smell would fill the room and become overpowering. One night,

(15:14):
as Jack lay asleep in bed, he was woken by
a touch to the arm, the kind of touch that
suggested to him that his wife wanted a certain kind
of affection. Eager Jack turned around to face his wife,
only to find that she was sound asleep and facing
the opposite way, and yet he could still feel the
gentle touch caressing his shoulder. Now, at this point, the

(15:35):
twins were now around five years old, and Dawn was
now a teenager, and ever only a few years behind.
The family decided to bring a dog into the family,
a German shepherd, and they named him Simon.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Maybe the presence of a dog would.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Make the family members feel a little safer if they
were home alone. But that's not to say that the
dog also didn't suffer under the phantom hands of the
unwanted HouseGuests, which we'll get into a little bit later.
One day, whilst Janet was down in the basement loading
some washing into the machine, all of a sudden, she
had a voice call her her name. It sounded just

(16:10):
like Jack's mother Murray, who must have come over to visit.
Janet shouted up that she was in the basement, but
the voice continued to shout her name, but this time
it sounded just like her sister. Janet stood at the
bottom of the stairs, stirring up at the doorway, hoping
her mother in law or sister would appear, but they didn't. Instead,

(16:31):
a name was once again called out, but this time
from inside the basement, directly behind her. And then it
called her name again, this time even closer. And with that,
Janet ran as fast as she could up the stairs
and slammed the door behind her. And I'll just add
in the following years, the entity mimicked other family members voices,
such as Janet's kids, calling out more repeatedly when they

(16:54):
were not even home, and sometimes it mimicked Jack's voice,
and this was from all around the house, not just
in the basement. Now Janet could not ignore what had
just happened. And when she thought about everything else that
had happened, the fires, the leaks, the rocking chairs, her
own daughter witnessing the shadow people in her room, it
had dawned on her that the house just might be haunted.

(17:16):
Not to mention that one of her twin daughters, Karen,
had also started to see things in the house. She'd
woke up one night to see a black shadow figure
stood beside her toy box. It looked like a man,
and the man was looking directly at her from the darkness.
But this dark mass had no features. It was just
the shape of a person. This entity would visit, carrying
on more than one occasion, always in the same spot

(17:39):
beside her toy box. She even started to refer to
him as a man in the box. Janet believed her daughter.
She felt she was being truthful. Janet and Jack were
not the only ones experienced in strange things. Jack's parents
were also hearing the same bumps and bangs and things vanishing,
like Murray's jewelry and even spoons were vanishing one by

(18:00):
one before reappearing a few days later, two at a
time throughout the day, until a week later, all the
spoons were accounted for, but the activity was about to
escalate for Murray and John. On one particular day, Jack's
aunt paid John and Murray a visit, and while sat
in the living room chatting, they could hear the unmistakable
sound of Janet and Jack arguing from the other side

(18:21):
of the wall, something that was unusual. Jack and Janet
rarely argued, but this argument was very volatile and intense.
Vulgar profanities were passed back and forth, real explicit words
that you wouldn't normally hear coming from the mouth of
Janet and Jack and Murray. Jack's mother was disgusted to
hear this kind of language coming from her own son

(18:43):
and his wife. Later that day, Janet decided to visit
next door. She knew that Jack's aunt was visiting and
thought it would be nice to catch up, But up
on arrival, she was not shown the same welcome she
normally received. Jack's mother and aunt looked angry with her
and for what She had no idea and when when
they told her, she insisted that her and Jack had
no such arguments.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
It simply did not happen.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Jack had actually left for work that morning, and Janet
had been alone all day, and yet Jack's ant and
mother insisted that they could hear the explosive arguments from
next door. They simply did not believe her, and Janet
left bewildered. It was like the entity wanted to destroy
this family that was so close to one another. And

(19:25):
I just want to add before we move on, that
this happened on many different occasions, not just to John
and Murray, but also to Janet and Jack. On one
particular night, whilst Janet and Jack were sat in bed,
they could hear his mother on the other side of
the wall rant and shout at his father, and that
was so out of character. It just couldn't have been
her doing it, and it wasn't. This did happen a
few years down the line, like I said, but it

(19:47):
happened so many other times where the entity was mimicking
people in the house. On Sundays, Janet would return on
from shopping to find that her front door was wide open.
She'd locked it before she left. She was sure of this,
and when she went into the house. She couldn't find
the dog anywhere. Janet had left him in the front
room with the TV on a company, but now the

(20:10):
TV was switched off and the dog was missing. Janet
eventually did find Simon the dog in the backyard. The
back door was locked. It was lot when she left
the house, it was locked when she returned. So how
did the dog get into the backyard? It was as
low as the dog teleported from the front room into
the backyard. It was freezing outside, and the dog would

(20:32):
not have been left out by anyone else in the family.
There was simply no explanation for how the dog got
out there. But Janet kind of just shrugged this off.
And later that day, as Janet stood ironing in the
cold house, probably wondering how the dog got outside or
why the front door was left wide open, a black
mass suddenly appeared. It emerged from the wall in the

(20:52):
living room like a mist or smoke that floated through
the air. The black, transparent mask gave off a foul
smell as its form grew to the height of a man.
It floated towards her and then passed her as she
stood frozen, and then the black mass floated into the
living room and vanished through the wall, and directly on
the other side of that wall was John.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
And Murray's living room.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Janet rushed next door to find Murray in a rocking chair,
skirt stiff. Murray had also witnessed this black mass float
into her home, and it moved towards the old woman
and then simply vanished. As horrible as this was, at
least the two women could take some kind of comfort
in knowing that they had seen the same thing. After
the sighting of the black mass, the haunting seemed to

(21:35):
take a break for a few weeks, but in hindsight,
this was most definitely the calm before the storm. On
April twenty ninth, nineteen eighty five, Janet sat in her
kitchen helping make adjustments to Heav's confirmation dress, which, as
we know, is a religious event, a happy event. Maybe
that's why the entity decided to strike. Maybe it was
waiting for this opportunity to ruin a very special day.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Janet sat at the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Table with Heather making adjustments to her dress while six
year old Shannon stood near the refrigerator, when all of
a sudden, she had a noise coming from above. Directly
above was a four foot long fluorescent ceiling light that
came crashing down. It would have hit the mother and
daughter if Janet had not acted quickly and pulled them
both under the kitchen table. Unfortunately, Shannon was just out

(22:21):
of reach, and the light fitting caught the six year
old on the head, cutting her deep, so deep that
she needed stitches.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
This changed things.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Now the entity was trying to harm the children, and
it would not be for the last time. Only a
few nights later, six year old Shannon climbed from her
bed to go to the toilet as the rest of
the family slept. As she made her way to the bathroom,
she was pushed by unseen hands down the stairs, hitting
every step on the way down before crashing at the bottom.
The noise woke up parents, who ran to her aid.

(22:51):
So far the thing in the house that lived with
them had only been a terrifying nuisance, but this was
the second time that it had tagger Shannon. So the
decision was made that the Smell family would take a
little camping trip away from the house to get away
from the voices in the pillows.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
As they tried to sleep, the constant.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Bumps and bangs and the shadow people, not to mention
the man next to Karen's toy box who paid are
a terrifying visit. On certain nights, before the family left
for their camping trip, they left a few lights on
in the house. The trick would be birdlar front know
when that day were out, they locked up and went
on their way, and whilst they were gone, the house
came alive. Whilst the Smells were gone on their camping trip,

(23:29):
neighbors were stood outside on the street looking upon their house.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Lights were flashing on and off.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Inside the house, the light show was accompanied by blood
curdling screams, the most horrendous screams that you had ever heard,
that sounded like some people would be murdered inside of
the house, whilst at the same time they could hear
the strange sound of flapping wings, something that was actually
heard inside the house by visitors on a few occasions.
It was like the house was angry that the Smells

(23:55):
had left it. Now a month or so after the communion,
Jack lay in his bed. Janet had took the children
clothes shopping, but Jack decided to stay behind as he
did not feel well. Eventually, he did manage to fall asleep.
An unknown amount of time went by when Jack opened
his eyes only to find that he was very close
to the ceiling. I can only imagine the confusion he.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Must have felt.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
After waking from his slumber, he quickly realized that he
was floating above the bed, being held up in the
her by some unseen force, and without warning.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
It let him fall back down to the bed.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Now, I'm sure many of you can relate to this
feeling of falling from height and it jolts you awake
just as you're falling asleep.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
It is very unnerving.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
It's happened to me on many occasions, but I can't
say that I've ever awoke to find myself floating close
to the ceiling. On another night, after church, John and
Murray returned home to find the front door wide open,
just like Janet did not that long ago. The couple
entered the house with caution and headed to the kitchen,
only to find that Murray's china cabinet full of china
plates and cups, had been moved from one side of

(24:57):
the room to the other and everything was in place.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Not one piece was broken.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
This, of course, gave the old couple of fright, especially Murray,
who had just actually recovered from a heart attack, and
the last thing that she needed was a skur and
maybe the entity knew that. On another day, Janet stood
in the bathroom whilst unseen forces proceeded to push Janet
around the room over and over, unrelenting. She felt it
was trying to push her into the bathtub that was

(25:23):
full of water. It didn't give up as she grabbed
the safety handle on the tub, trying with all her
might not to fall into the water.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
What would happen if she did fall in?

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Would it be able to hold her under the water
if it could push her with such force and director
towards the tub? But I'm guessing it probably could have
if it wanted to. Luckily, Jack arrived at the door
and the pushing stopped. Now, I'm not sure whether Janet
actually took a bath that night after that terrifying attack,
but I can tell you this, if that happened to me,
I would have probably.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Just had a good wash at the sink.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Now, as terrifying as all this was, you've got to
remember this was happening constantly to the smoke. It was
also as all the family were getting familiar with the
tricks that the entity played on them, and it annoyed them.
If something went missing, they would shout out at the
entity for taking their stuff. It kind of became almost normal,
and the same old annoyances continued, like things going missing

(26:17):
and reappearing, bumps, bangs, doors, slamming, lights being turned on
and off, Janet's name being called out by a phantom
voice that could mimic family members. From this point on,
just rest assured that these things were happening all of
the time, and if it did lesson, it was only
for a short while. It was almost as though this
kind of activity did not exactly skir the family anymore,

(26:38):
it just annoyed them. But there was much more worse
acts the entity could inflict. On one particular night, Janet
and Jack had just finished making love and they rested
when something grabbed Janet's leg from the covers and pulled
her from the bed.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Naked.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Jack reached out and grabbed her arm as she was
being pulled around the room, and as hard as he tried,
he couldnot pull her back onto the bed. When all
of a sudden, the thing that had his wife forced
him down onto the bed. And he lay there, unable
to move as Janet screamed from the floor of the
dark bedroom. All of a sudden, it just simply let
go of both of them. Janet returned to Jack on

(27:15):
the bed as a whole room went crazy. Things were
flying around the walls, fooding and banging, and all of
this was accompanied by the same foul smell that turned
up every now and again. Now days later, the entity
attacked the dog Simon. I just love that they named
the dog Simon. I don't know why I find that
amusing every time I uttered the words now Simon, the

(27:36):
dog had possibly already suffered at the hands of the entity.
Of course, it was home alone a lot of the times,
and then there was a time when it was teleported
into the back garden in the freezing cold weather. But
this time Janet witnessed how cruel the thing could be
towards her dog with her own eyes, as Simon was
levitated into the earth in front of Janet and thrown
at the wall with force, and then the dog came

(27:59):
crashing down to the grip, looking bewildered, as though he
was being punished in the most horrendous way for something
he hadn't done. On another occasion, Simon the dog yelped
out in pain as something invisible attacked it, and all
the doc could do was take the beating until it
was over. Next door, Murray and John did not own
an animal, and yet Murray claimed that she was attacked

(28:20):
by a strange dog one night as John was out
having a drink. Now, the strange thing about this dog
is that it was headless and tailless, and it attacked
Murray's feet, and it did this as she watched TV
before it disappeared under the couch. And when John returned
home that night, he looked underneath the couch and of
course found nothing at all. One day, the twins, who
were now seven years old, came running down the stairs

(28:42):
crying their eyes out, insisting that a flying animal was
flapping its wings around their heads, but it was invisible
they can only hear it. Janet ventured upstairs to find
absolutely nothing at all. And on another occasion, Janet and
Jack lay in bed one night and witnessed a white
mist entered the bedroom through the window and form into
a human figure in front of the very eyes, and

(29:03):
then simply disappeared. After all of this, strange activity. The
family finally decided to get a blessing from the church.
Why they did not do this sooner is beyond me.
The priest arrived and blessed every single room, and he
claimed he could feel that something unearthly was sharing the
house with them. The blessing seemed to take its toll
on the man, and by the time he had finished,
he looked tired and washed out. And as he left

(29:26):
he wished them all the best, and if the strange
happenings continued, then they should contact him immediately. And for
a few days the activity did die down. But I'm
guessing you already know this was not the end. One night,
as Murray lay in bed reading her book, she couldn't
help but notice the bed rumbled beneath her. Before she
could get off the bed, the mattress rose into the

(29:47):
earth a good few feet Shouting for her husband, John,
was a waste of time because John had gone out
for a game of cards. Seeing no option, Murray jumped
from the bed, hitting the floor hard and hurting her
knees as a mattress also came crashed back down onto
the bedframe, and once again the family called for a priest,
and once again the house was blessed, and just like before,

(30:08):
there was peace, peace that lasted only a few days
before the terror returned. The entity also seemed to be
inappropriately mischievous. Once, when Janet took off her clothes and
slipped into the warm, steamy bathtub, she was horrified to
hear creepy wolf whistles as she lay the exposed to
the invisible thing that watched her in the bathroom. Janet

(30:29):
was not the only victim of the ghostly wolf whistles.
It also targeted Jack's mother, Murray, and Dawn, who was
now sixteen years old. It seemed to enjoy making the
women feel uncomfortable in this new, creepy way. It was
as though it had learned a new trick, and it
was eager to show them what it was. But whistling
was not the only thing that it had learned. It

(30:50):
also learned how to hum a tune to whoever was
alone in the house, a tune no one knew, but
it was a tune. Nonetheless, things seemed hopeless. The blessings
were not working, and the family were at their wits end.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Was this now? Forever? Would it ever leave them alone?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Many people have asked over the years if the house
was haunted, if it was so horrific, then why not
just leave? But the Smurlls had a lot of money
tied up into the house and feared that Jack's mother
would not survive another move. But though it was another reason,
according to the Smurlls, the entity followed them wherever they went.
Their situation was hopeless and they needed help. And this

(31:29):
is where Ed and Lorraine Warren come into this disturbing story.
Janet had heard of a couple who held lectures in
the paranormal and offered their services to anyone going through
any kind of haunting. The couple were Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Ed and Lorraine Warren founded the New England Society of
Psychic Research. Ed Warren was a self professed demonologist, author

(31:50):
and lecturer, whilst Lorraine was a clairvoyant analyte, trance medium
who claimed to have psychic abilities that allowed her to
perceive spirits and supernatural phenomena. And it just so happened
that Adam the Rain Warren were holding the lecture at
the nearby college, and Janet, at her wits end, attended
to seek them out, hopefully they could help her family.
The Warrens arrived at the small family home on February

(32:12):
the fourteenth, nineteen eighty six, Valentine's Day. They also brought
with them a young woman named Diane Hayes to help them.
Diane was an avid librarian and had some psychic abilities.
The Warrens sat down at the Smell's coffee table and
set up their tape recorder as Janet and Jack filled
them in on all of the paranormal activity that had
taken place around the duplex. The Warrens had worked on

(32:33):
many a haunting, including the amateurble case, and were noll
strangers to the haunted house. They also had their own
questions to ask, such as as anyone in the family
ever played with a weag board or are they practicing witchcraft?
Things like that the Smells held a strong Catholic faith
and it never faltered, and the answer was a resounding no.

(32:54):
The next step was for Diane and the Rain to
walk the house from room to room to see the
could pick up on any presence in this property to
make sense of what was happening to this down to
earth family. When the women reached the second floor of
the house, they could definitely feel something heavy and thick.
Lorraine explored all of the rooms, the bathroom where Janet
had been pushed over the tub, the kid's bedrooms where
the shadow figure stands on certain nights beside the toy box,

(33:17):
and Jack and Janet's bedroom where Jack and Janet had
both been physically assaulted. Lorraine could definitely feel a presence
in the house, and whilst the two women walked around upstairs,
they were hit by an intense, unpleasant smell that made
them retreat back downstairs. Lorraine sat down at the coffee table,
took a breath, and proceeded to give the smells the
bad news. Lorraine informed them that there were four spirits

(33:38):
in their house. The first seemed to be that of
an older woman who was not aggressive or dangerous and
possibly still seen now even after death. The second was
a young woman who is aggressive and violent and liked
to harm the family. The third was a spirit of
a tall man with a mustache who possibly died in
the house and is also very violent and intended to

(33:59):
do harm, and he also may have harmed someone in
this house at some time in the past in his
living years. And the fourth spirit was a demon and
with that shocking revelation, I will leave it there for today.
Join me next time as we continue the Small Family
Haunting Part two. If you fought, today's episode was jam

(34:20):
packed with paranormal activity, trust me, there's.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Going to be a lot more in the next one.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
So until then, take care of yourselves and each other,
and I will see you very soon for part two
of the Smell Family Haunting.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
See you then, guys,