From Rhode Island to Conneticut: Two Families, Two Hauntings

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Whispers from the Mist, Conversations from the Spiritual Byway. In this week's episode, we're taking a look at two families whose stories became some of the most recognizable cases connected to Ed and Lorraine Warren. Today we're looking at the Perone family, whose story became the Conjuring, and the Sneedecker family, whose experience inspired Haunting and Connecticut. We'll look beyond the Hollywood versions at what these families said they experienced, where the Warrens fit into the story, and the questions that still remain decades later. So settle in, keep an open mind, and as always, join us as we travel a little further down the spiritual. Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Whispers from the Myths, Conversations from the Spiritual Byway. I am Michelle. Today I am here with the outlandish and amazing Stacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

I am certainly outlandish. Thank you for that intro. That was glorious.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

You're just you. You're unique and you're just a force in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So outlandish seemed right. I feel like you're saying that because I'm definitely wearing a dinosaur dress today and I'm in love with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So growl. How have you been?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

I'm all right. How have you been?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

You know, I'm here today. And for the listeners out there, I just want to share that we had some technical glitches. We had some personal things that came up that did not allow us to record this episode prior to myself going into the Warren House. And I'm only about 72 hours out of the house right now, and I haven't completely processed everything yet. So I'm coming in anxious and excited to be here, but I'm also a little nervous being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Okay. What do you think is making you feel nervous? Is it because you have more information or because you were sitting in that energy?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I think sitting in that energy taught me more than all the research I've done on everything could. And if we could go back in time and do this all over again, I would have had the experience and then done everything on the Warrens because I don't feel like I did them justice, but you'll get to hear about it. It's just, I've been there, I know how everything went, and I'm excited to share it with you, but I got to process it first.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Oh, absolutely. And I can't wait to hear. I'm so excited. And I think what's cool to me about doing this episode after you've been in the Warrens house, after you've had that experience, is you might be able to actually shine a little bit more light on the two cases that I'm looking at. So I'm kind of excited about that too.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Okay, well, we can jump right in. So, what is the first case that you're going to be sharing with us today?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

We are going to be talking about the conjuring house and the Perone family. So I'm reading, so I apologize if I sound very ble, bleh bleh ble, but that's life. We'll put some energy into it, Stacey. Today we are talking about the conjuring house. The house was built in 1736. It sits in a large piece of land in Harrisville, Rhode Island, which isn't actually too far from me, which I thought was really kind of interesting. In 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron moved into the farmhouse with their five daughters, and everything seemed normal at first. According to the Perone family, strange things began happening almost immediately, though. Objects reportedly disappeared and reappeared in unexpected places, doors opened and closed on their own. Unexplained sounds, scratching, footsteps, and voices. Carolyn Perone later claimed that she began experiencing things that were much more frightening as well. She said she would sometimes feel an unseen presence touching her. And then there were stories of the apparitions, you know, ghosts kind of just being there. The Perone family said they encountered figures that appeared to be both female and male, and some of them seemingly were connected to the property's past. So this is kind of an interesting little piece. In the past, you and I have talked about lands actually holding that spiritual energy or um paranormal activity happening due to the land. So this kind of goes alongs along those lines. Um, the Perones eventually finally began researching the history of the property and discovered that the land had been occupied by generations of families, and there were stories of death, accidents, suicides, and other tragedies associated with the people who lived there. One name did become particularly famous, and I think more so because of the movie, but Bathsheba Sherman was believed to have been a witch who lived in the area during the 19th century and was supposedly responsible for the death of a child. They claimed that Bathsheba's spirit was attached to the house and that she was particularly hostile towards Carolyn. And this is kind of where the story in the research gets a little fuzzy because there's no solid historical evidence that Bathsheba Sherman was a witch or that she murdered a child. Historical researchers have challenged many of the claims surrounding her specifically. She became a terrifying character in the legend of the house, but the historical woman and the supernatural story about her are two very different things. So that's a little bit of the history. But stepping into the mid-70s, the Perone family became absolutely desperate for answers and contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren. And the Warrens visited the house. Lorraine claims she sensed numerous spirits on the property. Ed believed that some of the activity could be caused by more dangerous than ordinary spirits. And according to the Warrens, the house is filled with a combination of human spirits and darker supernatural forces. They conducted an investigation and eventually performed what was described as a seance. And according to the Perones, this is where things took a really disturbing turn. They claimed during the seance, Carolyn became violently affected by a supernatural presence. And the family's account says that the Carolyn appeared to enter an altered state. The Warrens interpreted that as evidence of a possession. But the Perone family's recollection of the event and the Warren's version have not been identical. Roger Perone, who was reportedly deeply uncomfortable with the investigation, eventually demanded the Warren's lead. You actually had information about that, didn't you? I did.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And this is one of those places where the real story is more uncomfortable than the movie. Roger wasn't standing beside Ed in a heroic exorcism. According to Andrea, he believed the seance had put Carolyn in a lot of danger. He was obviously very upset about that. He did punch Ed, and when Ed tried to stop him from reaching her, he threw the Warrens out of their home. Whatever happened in the event, Andrea describes it as terrifying. Roger reacted as a husband trying to help his wife, and the Warren's involvement did not neatly or heroically end that night of the exorcism. And you've got to kind of think of Roger and what his job was at the time. I think he was out of the house a lot. So many of the things that happened, he wasn't really present for a lot of them. And the things that happened to him, it's been said that maybe, you know, they were female spirits trying to be nice to him. So he only saw the niceness of everything where his family, his wife, his daughters were experiencing everything else.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Well, it does say that the Perone family maintained that something genuinely strange happened and the Warrens believed they encountered paranormal activity. Skeptics have pointed out that many of the more dramatic claims are difficult or impossible to independently verify. So we have three separate things happening in this entire story: what the parents say they experienced, what the Warrens believe they discovered, and then what can actually be proven historically, and they don't necessarily match. It's it's interesting in everything that I have read, the accounts of the family are what speak most strongly to me. And I I truly believe that the Warrens stepped in to assist the Perone family and try to help them alleviate these issues. And my understanding is they they weren't able to completely alleviate it.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

I recall seeing in my research that the person who sold them the house, he might have been a member of the Arnold family because that is the family who um had the long history in the house. But he told them at night, you sleep with your lights on. That's just what you do. And so he did try to warn them. And again, things started immediately. I do want to also note that when we talk about the conjuring house, it wasn't like they were pushed out of it by the energies that live there. They learned to deal with it and they lived in the house for nine or ten years. It's not like George and his wife from Amniville, they left after 28 days. This is a story where this family survived, they functioned, they lived there, their girls grew up there. So they weren't pushed out of it by the spirits.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

It's true. It's true. I I honestly don't think I have a lot more to say about the conjuring house because I feel what Hollywood kind of turned it into is too far off the beaten path for, you know, what actually happened. And I really do think it was dramatized significantly. And honestly, it's funny I say this and I haven't seen it, but I also understand fully how Hollywood works. Is there anything else that you wanted to throw out there about the Foundry House and Shelf?

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah, there are a couple things I want to throw out. Again, I haven't seen the movie, but to me it appears that Bethsheba Sherman was like the villain in the movie, like the worst of the worst. There was a spirit in there that was often attributed to her. It was a woman with a crooked neck, like she'd been hung or something. In later years, Andrea, the oldest daughter, has said she does not believe they are the same person. And she has actually come to the defense of Bathsheba Sherman because, again, the movie gave us one villain. Andrea's account gives us something much messier. And even she later challenged the identification of the broken necked woman as Bathsheba. So it's important to remember that Bathsheba also kind of became a victim in this because she had her life, she lived her life, she was accused of being a witch. Was she really, though, of being a child murderer? Was she really, though, or just a person in the wrong place, wrong time? So I wanted to share that. And then I also wanted to talk a little bit about Andrea Perone. Again, the oldest daughter of the Perrones, her own understanding of the property did not stop with ghosts. She later came to see it as something much more interdimensional or cosmic. And she did later go on to claim that she was like a UFO enthusiast. She does go to different uh conventions. And it's very interesting when she thinks about people who are chosen to be, I don't know, UFO attaches. Experiencers. Experiencers. She says a lot that plays into it are people that are RH negative and people who were firstborn, which hello, all three of those things are me. And I don't know what to say about all that other than I know there's a connection out there. I haven't explored it though. So that's what I know about that. If you want to learn more about Andrea Perone and her thoughts on the Conjuring House, she did write a book called House of Darkness, House of Light. And I believe there might be one or two sequels out there too. So you want to do a little bit more of a deep dive into her perspective of things, you can find it in that book. I love it. Thank you for that research. You're very welcome. Thank you for the story of the Perones. And again, they were brave. They lasted many years in that energy. They stayed, they faced it. And maybe after the seance, maybe after the attempted exorcism when everything happened, it all calmed down a little bit. I don't know. Again, I didn't watch the movie and I can't say what happened.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Well, let's talk about the haunting in Connecticut. We can just kind of move right on forward.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Yeah, this one happened like 15 years later, right? 1986.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I believe so. Let's see. So I'm gonna read it like a story because that's what my notes look like. Okay. Imagine moving your family into a new home because you need to be closer to medical treatment for your child. You find an apportable house in Southington, Connecticut. It seems like a blessing until you discover that the basement used to be a funeral home. Yik. This is the story of the Snedeker family haunting one of the most controversial paranormal cases investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren. In 1886, 1986, wow, I just subtracted a couple years off of that. Uh, 1986, Al and Carmen Snedeker moved their family into a house in Southington, Connecticut. Their son Stephen undergoing treatments for cancer, so the family needed a home that would make getting him to medical care easier. The house seemed perfect, it was affordable and had enough space for the family. But there was one problem that they didn't know when they moved in. The basement was once used as a funeral parlor. The family later said that they discovered old embalming equipment and other items associated with the building's former use. And then strange things started happening. It's always interesting to me when you have a family moving into a house that's much older and potentially used for other things, that when you start uncovering different areas of the house or remodeling, it wait it seems to wake up spiritual or paranormal activity. Have you ever noticed that?

SPEAKER_01 14:13

I've noticed that and I've heard about that. But let me do share here, if I had a graveyard near my house, I'd come to a place in my life where I think I would be okay with it. I would not be okay with knowing a mortuary had been in a place that I'm living. I would be very unsettled by that.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

I I will not make any arguments against this. So according to the family, the house just didn't feel right. They reported seeing strange figures and experiencing unexplained activity. Objects allegedly moved on their own, and there were disturbing noises. Members of the family claimed to have experienced frightening encounters with something they believed was supernatural, but the most disturbing reports involved Stephen. The family said his behavior began changing dramatically. He allegedly became aggressive and claimed to experience terrifying encounters, and eventually the family became convinced that something supernatural was happening inside the house. So they turned to Ed and Lorraine Warren, who investigated the house and concluded that the family was dealing with something much darker than ordinary paranormal activity. According to their account, the property was being affected by demonic forces. They claimed the history of the building, including its use as a funeral home, had somehow contributed to the supernatural activity. They believed that some of the entities connected to the house were not human spirits at all. They were something darker. And eventually an exorcism was performed. According to the family's account, the activities eventually stopped, but this is where the story kind of became a little controversial. The case became widely known through a book published in 1992 called In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting, written by author Ray Garten. Garten had been brought in to document the family's experiences, and the book presented a terrifying account of what supposedly happened inside the house. Years later, he, the writer himself, became incredibly critical of the story. He said the family's accounts were inconsistent and that he had serious doubts. So we're looking again at two different versions where the warren stepped in to do an exorcism on this home, and the family is kind of wishy-washy of their own accounts.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, but the truth of the story is there was a house. It used to be used as a mortuary. Some of the equipment was left in the basement. One of the children slept down there, and all of these things started to happen. So the house itself is energetically trauma bonded to everything that went on in that house before. And I know when people go to a mortuary, they're now dead. To me, that's terrifying. So you have that history and then bringing in your own terror. And maybe you're manifesting some of it. Maybe you're bringing it out in the house. Because I think space's energy responds differently to different people and what their approach is. Your approach can be conscious, it can be subconscious. But if you're having a reaction, you may feel it more intensely.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Absolutely. And it's important to note that in 2009, too, this became a movie, The Haunting in Connecticut. But why is this important to Ed and Lurie and Warren? And I think it's because this demonstrates why they became such legendary figures in paranormal history. They investigated some of America's most famous alleged haunting and believed strongly in demons and spirits and the possibility of possession. They investigated cases like this that eventually inspired so many movies, such as The The Conjuring, The Amneiville Horror, and The Haunting in Connecticut. And their investigations made them famous. But also, again, we've talked about it. It's also attracted those skeptics to say, did they make some of it up? And I don't, I don't really think that they they did. And you know, with the Connecticut story, there's no way to know what is it truly haunted or is it not? With every retelling of the story, the story became darker and and worse and and more um cruel. And it's interesting because I'm reading through my notes here and it says, was there something in the house? We don't know. Every time the family told the story, it seems to have gotten worse and the experience were harsher.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

And listening to this, what's coming to mind is I just spent a night in the Warren House and I'm trying to decompress right now and bring it all from the lived experience that I'm holding in my energetic body into a written account of what happened. And I know I'm not doing it in one sweep through. I'm gonna have to keep revisiting it because reading through it, I remember other things that happened. So maybe it wasn't so much that it kept getting darker as when you sat with it, you're like, oh, that happened too. And in addition, in the moment when you're living it, it's dark, it's freaky. I remember sending my sister and my mom one of the video clippings from the house. And I really felt like I got a uh response from them. And I'm like, but you don't get it. You weren't living there. It was terrifying. And so I don't know, if their versions changed over time, the more you move away from it, maybe it feels less scary, but the more you move away from it, maybe like you remember other things that happened.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Well, and and I think that that's actually a really good point because, you know, one of the experiences that I had as a a young, young girl changed my view on paranormal or paranormal activities for the the rest of my life until like late in adulthood. And I can still look back at it and the experience it gets creepier over time and it might change a little bit over time too, because you also remember things differently.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Right. And, you know, I don't want to give uh away too much right now because I want a whole period of time to just devote to the house. But sitting down as I decompress, writing out my story, sharing it with Bonnie and Jen, who are also in the house, having them help so we get a well-rounded experience. Because even though the three of us are there, the three of us are having completely different yet connected experiences. And I will tell you at the end of the night, when we finally went to bed, the three of us shared a room. Two of us were in the bed, one was on the floor. And in that room, in my own headspace, I was saying, I'm never going to another haunted location. I'm not ever going to put myself in this position again. I don't still feel that way. But in that moment, I was terrified. I can only imagine. And I guess I'm just saying you have the initial experience, you decompress, you remember more things you can add to it. It doesn't mean that they're not being honest. It just means that what they're holding on to has maybe shifted. And again, Hollywood gets a hold of it and it shifts a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And I also think having space away from an experience too allows you to look back with a different lens as well. Because you can jump in and share your experience when it first happens and it's accurate, right? And then you can look back at the experience and there's more detail, there's more color, there's more things that you didn't share before, but it's not necessarily that you're changing the story. It's that, oh, I remember this ball and it was bright red, and and the ball is really standing out to me now. Whereas You know, you might have just said there was a toy in the corner of the room in a previous uh sharing of a story.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah. So it can change just from that natural progression of how you step away from it. The Warrens, again, we all already said they view these experiences through a Catholic frame of work. So they're going to call them demons. That's who they were. He wrote the demonologist. So we we have to remember that too, where they were, what was available to them, the information available to them, the tools available to them. You gotta take it with a grain of salt. And then you have the author of the book who's coming in getting recollections from both, and they're not completely lining up, or he's feeling like he's being asked to change things. So he's debunking it after writing it. Right. I don't know if he completely debunked it, but he's questioning it allegedly. But I mean, most of these stories are alleged. I mean, and you've got to use discernment in what feels right for you. That's very true. Yeah, definitely. Well, that's a great story. Is there anything else you're wanting to share about that story?

SPEAKER_00 23:04

You also have to remember that the family was under a lot of stress at this point in time, too. If they have a child that's going through treatments, you know, regarding cancer or any sort of illness, their experience is going to be vastly different because of that too.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Definitely. Well, I do have three listener questions.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

That's here.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Okay. The first question is if a family lives with unexplained activity for years, do you think they eventually become more sensitive to it or more likely to interpret ordinary things as paranormal? Number two, do you think a place can hold multiple kinds of energy all at once? Some human, some residual, and possibly something darker? Or do you think hauntings usually have just one main source? And your last question When a family story changes or expands over time, does that make you trust it less? Or can memory, trauma, and years of reflection actually bring more people forward?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Those are really good questions.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I like these questions and I'm again in awe, my jaws dropped a little bit because I didn't really spend a lot of time looking at them. And I think we answered most of them, at least from our perspective, during this episode. Absolutely. How cool is that? I think it's really cool. Thank you, Stacey, for doing the research on those two cases. There are many more that you can research if you want to. In next week's episode, my friend Bonnie is coming in. We are going to discuss the house as it currently is. Now, I just want to put a little disclaimer out there. We recorded that episode six or seven weeks ago. And since then, some of the information about the house has changed, but we'll correct that in a future episode. And then after that, it's on, baby. It is our experience in the Warren House. And maybe it's one episode, maybe it's two episodes. We had a whole trip leading up to it, three or four days. It it blows my mind. I'm still trying to figure it all out. I can't wait. I can't wait either. I hope I can get there. I know I can get there. I just need to sit with it a little bit longer. Absolutely. Well, if that's Stacey, would you please close out this episode? Right, listeners. Stay curious. Trust what you know. And we will meet you along the spiritual five way. Bye bye. Thank you so much. Listen to me. Let's go. Spiritual five. We don't always know what I have. If you are enjoying this podcast, we truly appreciate it. Or to share the show with someone who might need it. Your support helps this podcast reach others who are searching for the same sense of understanding and community. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and for walking the stretch of the spiritual pilot. Wherever you are on your journey right now, just know you're not alone. We're here for you, and we're all in this together.