Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Summer Scares: Real Stories of the Conjuring Universe

Episode Date: August 30, 2026

Step beyond the screen and into the real-life terror behind The Conjuring Universe. Heidi explores the Perron family’s decade-long haunting in a Rhode Island farmhouse and the sinister origins of Annabelle the Doll. From ghostly apparitions to demonic encounters, these true horror stories prove that reality can be far scarier than fiction.If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a threat at 2 a.m. that starts with, You have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis. are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or subscribe

at Crimes of Reddit Pod on YouTube. This is Crime House. An old farmhouse with dark secrets, a doll that attacks you in your sleep. If you love horror movies, this might sound familiar. But behind the films, it's all too real. Welcome to Twisted Tales, a crimehouse original. I'm Heidi Wong. I'm an artist, poet, and creator, and if you've seen my TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, you'll know I'm obsessed with horror movies, watching them, writing about them, talking about them, the scarier the better. Every week I'll take you deep into the true stories behind horror's biggest legends. From vengeful ghosts to bloody

slasher's to alien encounters and more, these real-life accounts are guaranteed to keep you up at night. But scary stories aren't any fun if you're telling them alone. If you've ever had a haunted moment or a twisted tale of your own, I want to hear about it. Drop it in the comments. the creepier, the better. Today I'm going behind the scenes of one of my favorite horror franchises, the Conjuring Universe. Since 2013, these movies have captivated and terrified audiences around the world. And in this episode, I'll tell you about two of the chilling, true events that inspired them. In 2013, a movie came out that was so scary it built an empire off of your nightmares. That's right, I'm talking about The Conjuring. If you haven't seen it,

or just need a refresher, here's a quick recap. In 1970s, a family buys an old run-down farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Surprise, surprise, it's haunted. And when the spirit attacks them, the family decides to fight back. Enter paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. With the Warren's help, the family overcomes their ghost problem and banishes their tormentor back to hell. Or so they think.

Sounds pretty scary, right? But I promise you, the real story is even more terrifying. Just like in the movie, it all started in 19. when the parent family of Roger and Carolyn and their five daughters bought an old farmhouse in Rhode Island. But here's the thing. In The Conjuring, everything ramps up in a pretty short amount of time. In real life, though, the parents endured their haunting for nine years until 1980. Their oldest daughter, Andrea, wrote a series of books about their experiences called House of Darkness, House of Light. You should totally check them out if you don't ever want sleep again.

And if you've already read them, tell me what you think in the comments. According to Andrea, moving to the farmhouse was her mom's idea. Carolyn wanted to get her kids out of the city, and when she saw the listing, she thought that it was perfect. The place was almost 250 years old, so it needed a lot of fixing up. But it was quiet, peaceful, perfect for raising a family. At least that's how it seemed. Carolyn was so eager to start their lives there, the parents moved into the farmhouse in the dead of winter in January 19th. And yes, it was just as miserable as you'd think.

Not only that, but when the former owner handed over the keys to Roger Perrin, he gave an ominous warning, for the sake of your family, leave the lights on at night. Now, if I were Roger, I'd be saying no deal, I'm taking my family and going back to the city. But at that moment, he didn't think too much of it, just the ramblings of an old man. However, it wasn't long before the Perens realized the former owner of the president. was dead serious. It started with strange noises around the house, which made sense. The place was hundreds of years old.

But it wasn't just pipes clanking or floors creaking, though. Sound just traveled differently there, like Carolyn could hear someone whispering from clear across the house one minute and the next everything was completely muffled. If that wasn't enough, Carolyn would sometimes feel a heaviness come over her, like there was a presence in the house watching her. And then the flies came. Within a few days of moving in, the house was infested with them, even though it was the middle of winter.

And that is when I would have left. When they called an exterminator, the bugs disappeared just for them to come back as soon as he left, because of course they did. This went on for weeks until one day when they vanished just as suddenly as they'd arrived. But by then, something even more terrifying had replaced them. At some point that winter, Carolyn felt a strange earth. urged to go out to the property's barn. The weather was freezing, so she bundled up to make the quick walk. When she got inside the barn, something just felt wrong.

Carolyn shivered as her breath emerged in an eerie mist. Somehow, it was even colder in the barn than it was outdoors. But that's when she decided to nope out of there. But just as she turned to leave, she heard a swooshing sound above her. One of the previous owners had left a small harvesting scythe up in the rafters, and now, the sharp, curved blade was coming straight down at her head. In a stroke of luck, Carolyn's heavy winter clothes saved her from getting hurt, but she was convinced that the malevolent force had lured her into the barn

and tried to kill her. But her husband wasn't so sure. Roger was a traveling salesman and wasn't there to see a lot of these paranormal events, and whenever Carolyn tried to talk to him about it, he insisted there was a rational explanation for it. For my fellow horror fans, classic skeptical husband. Although eventually the flies, the weird sounds, and all the things that they couldn't explain, they got to him. And as much as Roger hated to admit it, Carolyn might be right.

But with how much money they put into the place, leaving just wasn't an option either. So they put up with their ghostly housemates. And there were a lot of them. One was especially terrifying. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night. you're not really sure why you're up, but you're overcome with this sense of dread. As you try to get your bearings, you think you see something in the darkness, a shapeless form. And then it's right next to you.

That's exactly what happened to Carolyn. One night she woke up and saw an apparition at her bedside. It was a woman, or at least appeared to be. Her face had no features. It was described as, quote, a swirling, rancid mass of rotting flesh resembling a desiccated, hornet's nest covered in what appeared to be a mesh of blackened cobwebs. Yeah, not super pleasant. And this wasn't a friendly visit. Carolyn could feel it in her bones. This spirit wanted to hurt her.

She tried to shake Roger awake, but no matter how loud she screamed, he wouldn't stir. The ghoulish woman inched closer and closer until her face was inches away from Carolyn's. In that last desperate plea, Carolyn muttered, God help me. Then the woman vanished. This This prayer was enough to make her leave Carolyn alone, for the moment. But the spirit wasn't done with her, or her family. And she was about to do a lot more than appear to them in the dead of night. On the first day of the girl's summer vacation, that first year in 1971, eight-year-old Cindy Perrin was playing in her room when she heard her door open.

She figured it was someone coming to get her for dinner, but when she looked up, it was that same ghost, a woman with a featureless, crooked head. She stretched her arms towards Cindy and said, Come here, little girl, come to me. Cindy was smart enough not to do that. Instead, she ran straight to her mother. Cindy told Carolyn the ghost had tried to take her, which is an understatement.

To everyone's relief, the ghostly woman didn't come back for a long time after that, but Carolyn was terrified that she'd return. Who wouldn't be in that situation? Running wasn't an option, though, so Carolyn decided the best way to defeat this enemy was to understand. her. And that started by figuring out who she was.

Carolyn went through every record in the local library, the town hall, even the cemetery, and eventually she got an answer. The evil apparition was a woman named Bathsheba Sherman. According to the town historian, Bathsheba lived in the farmhouse sometime in the mid-1800s. She was accused of witchcraft for supposedly sacrificing a child by stabbing the base of its skull with a large sewing need. Bashiba swore the death had been an accident. Whether or not that was true, it seemed like she was never actually punished for it. But after she died, her spirit lingered on in the property to torment all who lived there. And shortly after Carolyn made the discovery, Bashiba struck again.

After about a year and a half of living in the farmhouse, around the summer of 1972, Carolyn was relaxing on the sofa late at night. It was a warm, muggy evening. Quiet, serene. the exact kind of night she envisioned when she moved her family out to the country. As the clock chimed 1 a.m., Carolyn yawned and stretched ready to call it a night. And then she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her calf, almost like a bee sting. But when she looked at her leg, she saw that it was bleeding as if someone had stabbed her

with a massive sewing needle. Carolyn didn't know what to do or how much worse it would get, If Bathsheba was capable of physically attacking her, what else could she do? Thankfully, Bathsheba didn't immediately escalate things. About a year and a half later, in October of 1973, help finally arrived on the parents' doorstep in the form of Ed and Lorraine Warren. In case you're not familiar with the Warrens, here's some background on them. By the time they came to help the parents, Ed and his wife Lorraine were already world-famous paranormal investigators.

Lorraine says she developed supernatural abilities when she was only seven years old, which allowed her to communicate with the dead. Ed was a self-taught demon expert who'd grown up in a haunted house. The two of them made a great team, and in 1952, they founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, going on to investigate thousands of cases. And when one of Carolyn Perrin's friends learned about the family's ghost problem, they called Ed and Lorraine for help. The Warrens came to the parents' farmhouse just before Halloween.

1973. It was a dark and stormy night. Yes, really. The setting sun filtered through the clouds, casting twisted shadows from the trees surrounding the farmhouse, like outstretched arms clawing to get in. But when Carolyn saw Ed and Lorraine standing on her doorstep, she felt a wave of hope that they be able to hold the evil at bay. That night, Carolyn took the Warrens on a tour of their home. Lorraine was like a human EMF reader. She immediately sensed a malevolent presence. She thought the parents' daughters could be in danger. According to her, children were more susceptible to paranormal influences. Which, if you've seen pretty much any scary movie, definitely tracks.

The girls were hesitant to talk to the Warrens, though. There hadn't been any major activity in a few months. They were afraid that if they talked about what they had seen, Bathsheba would come back. But Lorraine said that the only solution to their problems was to confront them. So the family told them everything. After a few more visits, Ed and Lorraine came to a conclusion, the parents' farmhouse had a serious demon problem that could only be cleansed with a seance. When the time came, the Warrens brought the big guns, a medium, a priest, a professor from Duke

University, along with a whole crew to record the event. In case things went sideways, Carolyn and Rogers sent their daughters upstairs. They had no idea that two of the girls crept back down to watch, Andrea and Cindy. Meanwhile, the adults, the adults crept back down to watch, Andrea and Cindy. Meanwhile, the adults gathered around a table where the medium placed candles and talismans in a circle. Once the flames were lit and the lights were off, everyone took their seats. As everyone joined hands, the medium called for God to create a peaceful connection with the spirit in the house. But Bathsheba wasn't interested in peace. After a moment, Carolyn's body jerked back.

Lifting her head, she started speaking in tongues. Watching from behind a door, Andrea realized the voice wasn't her mother's. it was deeper, demonic. Carolyn wrenched her hands away, clenching her fists so tight her nails dug into her skin. She let out a cry, and a wave of dark energy burst from her body.

Then Carolyn's chair lifted into the air, rocketing back into the parlor and slamming her to the ground. As Roger ran to his wife's side, Andrea heard a deep guttural roar come from the cellar. It was so loud it shattered glass throughout the house.

After what felt like an eternity, Carolyn stirred and the house went quiet. The seance was over. Once Carolyn came to her senses, she told Rogers she didn't remember anything. But after that night, she became quiet, withdrawn. Eventually, though, she regained her old loving personality. And while there was still spiritual activity in the house,

it was peaceful, harmless even. The farm finally became everything she hoped that it would be. But in the process, something had fallen by the wayside, Carolyn and Rogers' marriage. They tried to give it a shot, but after a few years, they divorced. The ordeal had put a huge strain on their relationship. It became totally joyless, and in time, their house did too. In the summer of 1980, the parents moved out and left for Georgia, forever changed and forever haunted. Coming up next, the shocking true story behind another major part of the conjuring universe,

Annabel, the doll. Some mysteries have haunted us for centuries. Others are unfolding right now. How does a modern airliner with 239 people on board disappear from the sky without a trace? This is History's Greatest Mysteries, a history channel original podcast brought to you by Rewind Studios. Adapted from the hit TV show, every episode dives into one of the world's greatest enigmas, the vanishings, the myths, the lost relics. and the unexplained.

With contributions from top historians, authors, scientists, and researchers, we separate fact from folklore and evidence from rumor, from unsolved crimes to buried treasure, to the deaths and disappearances of famous figures. These are the stories we think we know, but dig beneath the legend and the truth gets far stranger. Follow history's greatest mysteries, available now wherever you listen to podcasts. After The Conjuring made millions at the box office, the franchise expanded in a major way by introducing one of Ed and Lorraine Warren's most notorious cases, Annabel the Doll. Ever since the movie was released in 2014, Annabelle has become a horror icon.

In the Conjuring universe, she's possessed by a demon summoned in a satanic cult ritual by a woman named Annabelle Higgins. Desperate to claim a human soul, the demon pretends to be the spirit of a little girl named Annabelle, who owned the doll before her tragic death. She goes on to terrorize all sorts of innocent people until a couple of nursing students hand her off to the Warrens right before they go on to help the parent family. And in real life, Annabelle's story is even more sinister.

Over the years, she's caused chaos in countless people's lives. And just in July of this year, an investigator with the Warrens Institute named Dan Rivera died while taking Annabelle on a nationwide tour. During a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Dan sadly passed away in his hotel room. Officially, his cause of death has not been deemed suspicious, but we don't have the autopsy results yet.

No matter what, it was a tragic loss, my heart goes out to Dan and his loved ones. But given his proximity to Annabelle, it's become another dark chapter in her terrifying legacy, one that began over 50 years ago. It all started in 1970, with two nursing students known as Donna and Angie. They were about to graduate,

and Donna's 28th birthday was. coming up too. To celebrate, her mom decided to buy her a present. And for some reason, she thought it would be fun to get Donna a raggedy and doll. That's right. In real life, Annabelle wasn't the porcelain doll you see in the movie. This change was possibly due to trademark issues or the producers just thought their version was creepier. I'm not so sure about that, though. Tell me what you think in the comments or answer on our Spotify poll. Either way, the doll was harmless at first. Donna even thought it was pretty funny. She and Angie kept the Raggedy Ann on their living room sofa, sort of like a mascot for their apartment.

But what happened next was no joke. A few days after getting the doll, Donna noticed it was positioned differently than before, and Angie swore she didn't move it. Donna was pretty trusting, so she took Angie at her word. Maybe she just chalked it up to a memory lapse or something. After all, Donna was about to graduate, so she had a lot going on. But Donna could only deny the truth for so long. Soon she'd come home and the doll wouldn't be on the couch at all.

It would be sitting on her bed or even standing by the door, which is especially freaky because raggedy anns are super floppy. And then the doll started leaving Donna and Angie messages. About a month into owning the doll, the woman found a note in their apartment scribbled on parchment paper, the kind you use for baking. That was disturbing on its own since neither of them kept any parchment paper around the home. But the worst part was what it said.

In what looked like a child scribble, the note read, Help Me. And things only got scarier from there. Shortly after that, Donna came home and found what looked like drops of blood on the doll's hand and chest. I don't know about you, but that's when I be getting this thing out of my place ASAP. Donna had finally reached her breaking point too. She knew something was going on with her doll. Something supernatural.

But instead of putting the doll through an incinerator, Donna and Angie called a medium who of course wanted to do a seance. Luckily, this one was a lot less violent than the one at the parents' farmhouse. According to the medium, a little girl's spirit had possessed the doll. Her name was Annabel Higgins. She'd lived on the property way in the past before the apartment building was built. When she was seven, she died there, although it wasn't clear how, but something had kept her tethered to the mortal plane.

And now, she wanted to stay with Don. and Angie. How could they say no? They gave Annabel permission to keep possessing the doll, a decision they'd soon regret. Because even though Annabelle seemed to like Donna and Angie, the same couldn't be said for Angie's boyfriend, Lou. He thought Annabel was a little creepy. Bit of an understatement, I'd say. He told Angie they should get rid of her, which Annabel did not appreciate. One night, Lou was over at the apartment when he experienced what seemed like sleep paralysis. Lou couldn't move or speak and just felt this overwhelming sense of panic. If this has ever happened to you, it's terrifying, right? As Lou's eyes darted across the room, he spotted

something at his feet. It was Annabel, and then she started moving. The doll slid up Lou's legs onto his chest, her arms shot out, wrapping around his throat. Lou was powerless to fight back. his vision started to blur, the world around him faded away. All he saw was Annabel. Can you imagine the fear? The horror? As Lou took his final breath, he shot awake, sunlight streaming through the window.

It had all been a dream. Or was it? Lou was convinced that Annabel had really attacked him. He knew that he had to get rid of her. It seemed like Annabelle sensed his intentions and decided to strike first. Later that day, Lou and Angie were at the apartment alone, planning out a road trip. He hadn't told her about his encounter with Annabel yet.

Maybe he was just waiting for everyone to be home. As they looked over some maps, they heard a rustling sound coming from Donna's bedroom. Lou and Angie knew for a fact that she wasn't around, so they thought someone might be trying to break in. If this was happening in a movie, this is the part where I'd be shouting, don't go in there! But Lou was a good guy. He wanted to make sure his girlfriend was safe. so he quietly opened the door and flipped on the light. The room was empty, except for Annabel, who was lying in the corner.

All of a sudden, Lou was overcome with this terrible feeling like he was being watched. He turned around, nobody was there. But a moment later, he doubled over in pain. Lou looked down and saw that his shirt was stained with blood. He ripped it open and found seven deep gashes in his chest, like something had slashed him with massive claws. And weirdly, or maybe conveniently, the wounds healed really fast, within a couple of days they were completely gone. But after what happened to him, Donna and Angie finally realized Annabel was not the harmless spirit of a little girl.

They knew they couldn't just throw the doll in the trash, though. With Annabel's powers, she's just come right back. If they wanted to get rid of her, they needed a more permanent solution. They contacted an Episcopal priest named Father Cook, but he didn't know how to help. so he called someone who would. Ed and Lorraine Warren. After hearing about this haunted, raggedy ann doll, Ed and Lorraine were happy to take on the case. Once they talked to Donna, Angie, and Lou about their experiences with Annabelle,

the Warrens knew they had a bigger problem on their hands. Annabelle wasn't a ghost. According to the Warrens, they're not capable of possessing inanimate objects. No, Annabelle was a demon. I told you. I literally told you to get out of that house. house, and you didn't do it, and now look at where we are. The more attention people gave it, the more powerful the demon became, which explained how its actions became more intense. The

Warrens believed that if another few weeks had gone by, Annabelle could have gotten strong enough to possess Donna, Angie, or Lou, and killed the others. To banish Annabelle back to hell, Ed and Lorraine believed they needed more than a seance. They needed an exorcism. Father Cook, the priest who called them, reluctantly agreed to do it. The ceremony Tony seemed to go off without a hitch. But just in case Annabel was still inside the doll, the Warrens agreed to take her with them. Donna, Angie, and Lou were finally free of her,

but the exorcism hadn't worked, and now Annabelle had new targets, her new owners, Ed and Lorraine Warren. On their way back home, the brakes on the Warren's car failed. Thinking fast, Ed grabbed a vial of holy water and splashed it on Annabel. That was enough to get them home safe,

but the demon was still in there. And in the years that followed, the Warrens were never able to get her out. To this day, Annabel remains enclosed in a glass case. It's been said that anyone who antagonizes her or questions her power immediately pays the price. Now, I have to say that a lot of people are skeptical about these stories. Ed and Lorraine, who have both since passed away, have been called frauds, who profited off of people's fear of the supernatural, or made up these stories altogether. But there are just as many people who back up the Warren's accounts.

Andrea Perrin insists that her family's experiences were real, and even though they made money off The Conjuring, there's no way Andrea could have known that when she published her book, which she did on her own, by the way. Not to mention, after the parents moved out of the house, its new owners eventually opened it for guests to spend the night, and you can find tons of people who've experienced paranormal events there. Have you stayed in the parents' house? Let me know in the comments.

And when it comes to Annabel, you'll find a lot of debate there as well. Donna, Angie, and Lou never gave a firsthand account. of their experiences with her. Everything we know about Annabelle's origins came from the Warren's. But they're not the only ones who've come face to face with Annabelle. She was on display in the Warren's Paranormal Museum for years. Since then, plenty of folks have sensed a dark force radiating from her, including the host of ghost adventures, Zach Bagan's.

Not to mention Dan Rivera's tragic death earlier this year while he was on tour with Annabel. So how much of this is real? How much of it is legend? It's hard to say. All I know is there's so much out there that we can't explain, and I can't wait to explore it all together. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of Twisted Tales, A Crime House Original.

I'd love to hear from you. What did you think about today's stories? Anything you're dying for me to cover? Leave a comment or review wherever you're tuning in. And be sure to follow Twisted Tales so we can keep building this community together. I'll be back next week with another unbelievable true story. Until then, stay curious. and remember there's no reason to fear the dark unless you try to hide from it.

I'm Sarah Turney. And I'm Courtney Nicole. We're the host of the Crime House original podcast, The Final Hours. Crime has impacted both of our families, teaching us how the last conversations, the missed red flags, can change everything. On the final hours, we examine the moments before a disappearance and the questions that never got answered. A podcast that puts the moments before a disappearance under a moment. microscope. Listen to and follow the final hours, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an internet rabbit hole and not come up

for hours? You'll love crimes of Reddit, a new crimehouse original with Sabrina Deanna Roga and Alexis Linkletter. Every week, one host brings real true crime stories from Reddit, while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, then they swab. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a threat at 2 a.m. that starts with, you have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or subscribe at Crimes of Reddit pod on YouTube.