Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Most Famous Paranormal Cases

Ed Warren, a self-taught demonologist, and Lorraine Warren, a clairvoyant and medium, were two of the world’s most famous paranormal investigators. Their work in the occult brought them both fame and ridicule throughout their lifetimes. In recent years, some of their more notable cases have been turned into feature films, furthering their fame. Below, read about the most famous paranormal cases that Ed and Lorraine Warren ever investigated.

9. The White Lady of Union Cemetery

Union Cemetery has stood next to Easton Baptist Church for four centuries, and during this time has drawn countless visitors with no relation to any of the deceased residents. Most of these visitors are ghost hunters hoping to catch a glimpse of the boneyard’s famed White Lady.

The White Lady is famous for appearing in the middle of the road near the cemetery, forcing drivers to swerve and wreck their cars. Legends about the spirit state that in the 1940s, she killed her husband only to be killed herself in retribution. She now wanders the haunted cemetery as a restless spirit.

Ed and Lorraine Warren visited Union Cemetery in an attempt to determine if the White Lady is real or bogus. According to the Warrens, this ghost is the real deal. Ed Warren claimed to have captured the White Lady on film, but his footage of the famous spirit has never been released.

8. The Smurl Haunting

Between 1974 and 1989, Jack and Janet Smurl of West Pittston, Pennsylvania were tormented by what they believed to be a demon inhabiting their home. In the beginning, the demon was mostly a nuisance; it shook mattresses and caused loud noises and bad odors. Eventually, the torment escalated. The demon threw the family dog into a wall and physically assaulted several family members.

When the couple could no longer handle the torture, they called Ed and Lorraine Warren. They quickly determined that there was indeed a powerful demon inhabiting the home. They attempted to drive it out with prayer, but this only angered the entity. The Warrens found a message left by the demon on a mirror telling them to get out. During their time in the Smurl house, they recorded numerous audio recordings of the demon making noise in the home.

The Smurls later invited a local priest to help them get rid of the entity and were able to return their home to normal using intensive prayer.

7. The “Devil Made Me Do It” Case

The trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson was the first time in the United States that an accused person attempted to plead not guilty on the basis of demonic possession. Unfortunately for Johnson, the court did not buy his excuse that the devil made him do it.

Problems started with 11-year-old David Glatzel. When the Glatzel family started work on a new rental property, David began to exhibit signs of demonic possession. He began speaking in other voices, levitating, and exhibiting bruises and scratches on his body.

The Glatzel family called on Ed and Lorrain Warren who oversaw an exorcism with the aid of local priests. During one of the exorcisms, Arne Johnson claimed that the demon left young David and took possession of him instead. A few months later, Johnson had a violent argument with his landlord during which he killed the man. When he was arrested, he claimed that he was not responsible for his actions because the demon inside him had been the true culprit. He was found guilty of manslaughter.

6. The Southend Werewolf

Ed and Lorraine Warren lived in the United States, but when the bizarre case of the Southend Werewolf in Essex, England caught their attention, they took a trip across the pond.

When Bill Ramsey was 9, he was playing outside when he was suddenly overtaken by feelings of rage, causing him to uproot a fence post and gnaw on the fence wire. The rest of his childhood and adolescence was mostly uneventful, but then he once again began exhibiting inhuman strength, bared teeth, growling, hunched shoulders, and hands curled like claws. He believed that he was possessed by a demon manifesting as a wolf.

The Warrens visited Ramsey in England where he had asked to be locked up for the protection of those around him. Ramsey accompanied them back to the US where they arranged for Bishop Robert McKenna to perform an exorcism to rid Ramsey of the demon.

5. The Enfield Poltergeist

In 1977, Peggy Hodgson called her local police department in Enfield. She claimed that she and her children had been hearing strange noises and had seen large, heavy furniture moving around the room on its own. Over the next year and a half, visitors to the home all confirmed bizarre things happening in the house including moving furniture, disembodied voices, and the children levitating. Despite the statements of witnesses, many skeptics believed that the children were making up their stories for attention.

Ed and Lorraine Warren arrived at the home, determined to get to the bottom of the case. The two quickly concluded that the children were telling the truth. They believed that the activity in the house was certainly supernatural, most likely caused by a demon.

The case, and the involvement of the Warrens, has been widely criticized over the years. However, the Enfield poltergeist was the inspiration for the 2016 film The Conjuring 2.

4. The Conjuring

The Conjuring, which premiered in 2013, tells the story of the Perron family. The Perrons moved into a new farmhouse in 1971. Before long, they began to doubt whether the move was a good idea. They began noticing things out of place, and the children reported seeing spirits in the house.

Carolyn Perron researched the house and found out that most people who lived in the home died under mysterious circumstances. One former resident, in particular, Bathsheba Sherman, frightened the entire family. She was a Satanist and child killer. As a spirit, she believed herself the mistress of the house and resented Carolyn deeply.

The Perrons called Ed and Lorraine Warren who concurred with the family’s beliefs about Bathsheba. The Warrens led the family in an infamous seance, during which Carolyn became possessed. The seance wasn’t a success, and the family was forced to live with their demons until they moved in 1980.

3. The Haunting in Connecticut

In 2009, The Haunting in Connecticut dramatized the saga of the Snedeker family, who moved into a former mortuary in 1986. Phillip Snedeker was suffering from Hodgkins Lymphoma, and the family wanted to be close to his hospital so he could have an easier time receiving treatment. The family was disturbed to find mortuary instruments in the basement of the house, a cemetery in the backyard, and photos of corpses tucked into drawers.

The family quickly began to suspect a haunting when temperatures fluctuated and objects moved of their own accord. Then, Phillip started to become dark and violent. At one point, he attacked his cousin and was taken to a mental institution where he said that the spirits in the house had been talking to him. This was when Ed and Lorraine Warren were called to the house.

The Warrens determined that while the house was still a mortuary, the workers there had been practicing necrophilia, causing a dark and evil presence in the house. The Snedekers eventually moved away. When they were out of the house, Phillip’s personality seemed to return to normal and miraculously, his cancer went into remission.

2. The Amityville Horror

When the Lutz family moved into their new home in 1975, they never expected that they would be running for their lives in less than one month. They also never guessed that the next few weeks would be the inspiration for one of the most famous horror movies ever made.

The home already had a bad history. The former residents, the Defeo’s, were all murdered in the house, save one: Ronald Defeo, who later confessed to the murders. The Lutz family arrived 13 months later.

Only a few days after moving into the house, the Lutz family started changing, and they argued frequently. Their young daughter started spending all of her time with a red pig-eyed imaginary friend called Jodie. The family started smelling disgusting odors, spotting ectoplasm on the walls, being covered with flies, and having the phone lines cut. One night, George Lutz was horrified to see his wife’s face transforming into that of a hideous hag. On night #28, the family was terrorized by the spirits and their deafening noises, causing them to flee.

Later, Ed and Lorraine Warren were brought in to investigate the house. Lorraine was overwhelmed by a demonic presence that she believed affected both the Defeos and Lutzs. Ed was physically pushed to the ground in the home, and Lorraine saw visions of the Defeos’ dead bodies. Evidently, the property had once housed sick and insane patients who were left to suffer and die, and their torment had tainted the house.

1. Annabelle

An offshoot of the “Conjuring” franchise, the Annabelle movies have been terrorizing audiences since 2014. The real-life doll that inspired the movies is still locked behind glass in the Warrens’ Occult Museum with a warning to never open the case.

A young woman was given the Raggedy Ann doll in 1968. She reported that the doll acted very strangely, often moving about the house with no explanation and leaving ominous notes. The young woman reached out to a psychic, who told her that the doll contained the spirit of a dead girl named Annabelle. She instructed the woman to care for and nurture the doll. She and her roommate tried to follow these instructions, but then the doll attempted to strangle them. At this point, they contacted the Warrens.

The Warrens arrived and determined that “Annabelle” was not a human spirit, but a demon. They arranged an exorcism and removed the doll from the home. Unfortunately, the demon would not go quietly. The couple’s brakes failed on the ride home with the doll.

The Warrens eventually had a special case made for Annabelle, as regular locks are unable to contain the cursed doll.