Morbid - Episode 608: The Snedeker Haunting: A Haunting in Connecticut

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

When Al and Carmen Snedeker found out that their son Phillip was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the treatment plan required the family to relocate into a three floor home in Southingto...n, Connecticut. The second floor apartment quickly became a nightmare for the inhabitants, with attacks escalating to demonic assault. Thank you to the incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and writing support!ReferencesCarpenter, B. (1988, September 15). Exorcism performed in 'spirited' home. Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), p. 37.Carpenter, B. (1988, August 18). Researcher says home haunted by evil presence. Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), p. 33.Carpenter, B. (1988, August 13). Southington haunting is daunting . Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), p. 1.Cohen, J. (1992, October 27). Their Southington haunt was hellish, couple tell Sally Jessy. Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), p. 1.Garton, R., & Warren, E. (1992). In a Dark Place: The True Story of a Haunting. New York, NY: Villard Books.I was raped by a ghost (1992). [Motion Picture].Nickel, J. (2009). Demons in Connecticut. Skeptical Inquirer, 25-27.Schmidt, K. (1992, October 30). Couple sees ghost; skeptics see through it. Hartford Courant, p. 126.Smith, G. (1991, May 15). Family still haunted by ghastly experience. Record-Journal (Meriden, CT), p. 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:02:11 It's leopard print. We've been on a journey. We had the little mini book tour. Yes, went so well. Went so well. But man, we were slap happy for a lot of it. Oh my God. And just to explain the leopard print comment, quickly up at the top,
Starting point is 00:02:29 we were listening to Alaska Thunderfuck's discography as one does. And I showed Alina the song Leopard Print. And if you haven't heard it, throw that shit on because it's a banger. When I tell you it's one of the funniest things I've ever, I don't know why. It's great. It hit my funny bones and it hit again. When I tell you it's one of the funniest things I've ever, I don't know why. It's great. It hit my funny bones and it hit again. So it wasn't just the slap happy exhaustedness.
Starting point is 00:02:50 Yeah, because it hit during the day. Yeah, it hit during the day too, the same way. I was laughing so hard. It's me. It's brilliant. It's who I am. Everything must be leopard print. And if it's not leopard print, it's irrelevant.
Starting point is 00:03:02 And I too, Alaska Thunderfuck, would buy a leopard print elephant. See? So there you go. There you go. Yeah, the book tour was a lot of fun. It was, it was great. You guys were great. You're fantastic. It was so cool
Starting point is 00:03:14 to see everybody. I'm still not quite understanding how it was real. It was real, I saw it with my own two eyes. Like, that was crazy. Big crowds. Big crowds. Huge. And you were lovely. You were crazy. Big crowds. Big crowds. And you were lovely. You were great.
Starting point is 00:03:27 And so engaged and you asked great questions and you gave me good face while I was up there. You were serving face. You gave me good like, I'm intrigued by what you're saying face, which makes me feel good. And mugs were mugging. I appreciated that.
Starting point is 00:03:40 Yeah. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I would do it sometime in the future. I would do it sometime. I would do it sometime again in the future. Yeah. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I would do it sometime in the future. I would do it sometime. I would do it sometime again in the future. It made me tired, though. That's the... I'm yelling right now.
Starting point is 00:03:52 I was literally just yelling. I'm a very big introvert. So I get super depleted by any kind of outside of my house activity. So it was an exercise in stamina for me. I know anyone who met me at the Brickshares event, I'm sorry if I was very low energy. I kept thinking on the way home, I was like, I hope I was like kind and like,
Starting point is 00:04:14 we're just like good. Cause I was like, when I'm tired, I can't make conversation. Like I can't. No, I'm just, I'm terrible at it. And I just keep saying, oh, I love that. Yeah. I love that. And oh, I love that. Yeah. I love that.
Starting point is 00:04:26 And I genuinely do love that. Yeah. But it's all my brain knows that is set after a certain point. It's true. But it was so cool meeting some of you guys. And it was awesome. It was so much fun.
Starting point is 00:04:35 You guys rule so hard. I can't even begin to tell you. You rule so hard that motherfuckers want to find you. And it sounds like, you know, you guys are digging the second book, which is blowing my mind and making me so happy because I really love the second book. It's pretty all right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:50 You guys have been awesome. I appreciate that. I love the second book. But yeah, the butcher game, hang on tight because don't go anywhere after. Yeah. Because maybe there's more. I don't know. Alina's got more to say at all times. maybe there's more. I don't know. Alina's got more to say at all times.
Starting point is 00:05:07 I don't know. I don't know. But don't be mad at the end, okay? I'm mad. I'm big mad. You're big mad. But technically I'm not because I've seen some other stuff. Yeah, because you know there's a...
Starting point is 00:05:20 I've seen the secret whiteboard. You have, it's true. Ha ha. All right. Well, it's spooky season and we have a haunting, specifically a haunting in Connecticut. Which is right over there. It's right over there. Looking at it.
Starting point is 00:05:35 This is the Snedeker family haunting. I looked up how to say that multiple times. So if it's wrong, Google's wrong. Okay. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Alan Carmen Snedeker met in Plainville, Connecticut in 1977. She was working as a server at a local bowling alley and he stopped in for a beer and they immediately thought the other
Starting point is 00:05:57 one was a cutie-pah-tootie. They said, who's that, honey? They said, who's that, them? But then. What? What happened? I don't know why I said but then. But then? Nothing big happened. Oh. There was an undeniable attraction is what happened.
Starting point is 00:06:19 But then. An undeniable attraction came in the room and told you guys I was tired. You really led that one in. You were like, but then. But then. And I was like, what? There was undeniable attraction.
Starting point is 00:06:32 You're like, no, they just really liked each other. Yeah, but there is a but. Carmen was a single mother with two small boys at home. She was very hesitant to dive back into her relationship again. And Al had also just come out of a bitter divorce after a pretty short lived marriage. So they both had similar hesitations about moving too quickly into something. That makes sense. Yeah. And it's responsible.
Starting point is 00:06:53 That is. So they took things slow. They dated casually, but eventually things did become more serious over like two years and they decided to get married. Oh, look at them. So after the wedding, the family moved to Hurleyville, New York where Al found work at a local stone quarry and Carmen was babysitting for local families while raising her own children which included her sons Philip and Michael from her first marriage and eventually two more children that she and Al had together. Their life in Hurleyville was small, it was simple, but they liked it that way.
Starting point is 00:07:25 They had a good community, Carmen was involved in church activities, that kept her busy when she wasn't taking care of all the neighborhood children. But in 1986, Al and Carmen received very unexpected and very awful news that would upend their lives. In April of 1986, 14-year-old Philip developed a dry hacking cough that he just couldn't seem to shake. And Al mentioned it to Carmen. He was like, what's that about? And he was kind of concerned that it could be serious.
Starting point is 00:07:52 But she was like, oh, I think it's probably just like a seasonal cold, you know, everybody gets them. But a week later, Philip called his mom's attention to this small lump he found on the left side of his neck. And that was when she got really concerned. So they made an appointment with the pediatrician. Out of an abundance of caution, that doctor recommended that Philip be admitted
Starting point is 00:08:11 to the hospital for tests. And a few days later, Alan Carmen learned that their son had Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer of the lymphatic system. Oh damn. At 14 years old. I was just gonna say, so young. Really sad. Now, as
Starting point is 00:08:26 one of the many small towns and villages that make up the Catskills, Hurleyville, New York, didn't have a hospital of its own. And the local medical providers didn't have any of the resources or expertise really needed to provide ongoing cancer treatment. Yeah. So Alan Carman really didn't have any choice but to travel back and forth between Hurleyville and Farmington, Connecticut. So that Philip could receive treatment out there. So they were making daily trips to John Dempsey Hospital and these trips were two and a half hours each way. So Carmen and Philip were both usually completely exhausted by the time they got home and he's exhausted anyway. Fortunately Al did have some family in the area. completely exhausted by the time they got home and he's exhausted anyway. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:05 Fortunately, Al did have some family in the area. So Carmen and Philip could stay with them on occasion instead of doing the drive back and forth. But it became clear pretty quickly that staying with family and driving five hours a day, it was just not sustainable. Yeah. And it's not helping the situation. You're all stressed.
Starting point is 00:09:20 Yeah. You know, adding lack of sleep and all of that is like probably not great. Too much. So in the interest of time, money, and most importantly, Philip's health, Alan and Carmen decided it was probably in everybody's best interest that the family moved to Connecticut to be closer to the hospital. So when Philip wasn't going through treatment at John Dempsey Hospital, Carmen spent her days looking for an apartment that could accommodate their now large family. Yeah, I was going to say it's a lot of people. Yeah, it's a lot of kids, the two of them. But the problem was that what was available at the time was either too small or like way beyond their budget.
Starting point is 00:09:53 One afternoon she was driving to see an apartment in nearby Southington and she drove by a beautiful three story home on a quiet street and it had a four rent sign in the front yard. So she was like, oh. She was like, bitch. Now the apartment that she was supposed to be going to see ended up being too small. It was not going to work out. Yeah, fuck that apartment. Fuck that apartment. Fuck that noise.
Starting point is 00:10:14 Yeah. But she had some time to kill before heading back to the hospital. So she decided to stop at the house that she saw earlier that day with the big for rent sign out in front and inquire about the availability. So inside she said when she got there the house was full of contractors, workmen of all types, all renovating one part or another of the first floor. She wasn't really sure who she should speak to about renting, so she just went from one workman to the other until she found the foreman. And the foreman told her that the owners weren't there at the time, but he did let her into the second floor apartment to give her an let her into the second floor apartment
Starting point is 00:10:45 to give her an idea of what the first floor apartment was going to look like once it was all done. OK. Now, the second floor apartment, it was beautiful, it was spacious, it could definitely accommodate Carmen, Al, and the four kids. It was perfect. She loved it. She didn't want to get too excited, though, because she figured an apartment so large and nice
Starting point is 00:11:03 was probably out of their price range. But she still took the landlord's number and she called him as soon as she got home. Because you never know. You never know. She said, shoot your shot. Yeah. What do you, what do you say you miss? You miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take. Yes.
Starting point is 00:11:17 It's not my quote. It's the office, right? Wayne Gretzky, Michael Scott. Yes, of course. You know. So the landlord, Darryl Kern, he was polite on the phone, but when Carmen mentioned that they had four children, she said she noticed a change in his tone, but he didn't say that kids weren't allowed. And to her surprise, the rent was actually well
Starting point is 00:11:33 within their budget. So when he offered the downstairs apartment, she didn't hesitate. She took it. She said, hell yeah. She said that was a little weird, but it's a gorgeous apartment, whatever. Yeah. So finding an affordable apartment near the hospital was obviously a relief. It meant that they could start saving money again. Carmen and Phillip could stop spending half their day driving between New York and Connecticut. But still, Carmen was left with this weird feeling
Starting point is 00:11:56 in her chest. It was anxiety. She couldn't shake it. Listen to that. And she said she figured it was because she hadn't seen the first floor. And she was like, what if it's not as nice?
Starting point is 00:12:06 What if it's not as spacious? And what if in her rush to make, to find an apartment, she made things worse for her family? Like inadvertently, you know, she didn't know what at the time, but her decision to take the apartment in Southington would definitely have serious consequences for their entire family and space and affordability would be the least of their concerns soon. Oh, boy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:28 So obviously for most people, moving from one state to another is pretty fucking difficult and daunting, regardless of their circumstances. But for Carmen and Al, this was pretty shitty timing. Like their son is very sick. Yeah, very shitty. And also, Al put in a transfer request with his company,
Starting point is 00:12:46 but it was going to take a while for them to fulfill it. So he was going to have to stay back in New York while everybody else moved to Connecticut. Oh, that sucks. And Phillip was too ill to be of much help in the moving process. And Carmen's second oldest son, Michael, was spending the summer with his grandmother in Alabama.
Starting point is 00:13:03 So pretty much all of the responsibility was on her to get things packed and moved over. Obviously Al could help, but he was also working. And the process was made doubly challenging by the fact that, you know, of course they needed to pack and move as soon as they could, but at the same time, Philip still was going back and forth for treatments. So they were hardly out of the woods.
Starting point is 00:13:23 Yeah. Now one night, a couple weeks before the move, they're still in their place, Carmen had this dream where she was walking through a, this is so fucking creepy, she was walking through a hallway lined with caskets, and she said each one contained a pale nude body of some unknown deceased person. And she wasn't alone in her dream.
Starting point is 00:13:42 There was another man walking through the halls. She said he was, quote, zigzagging in and out between the caskets, carrying one of those old ominous tools that Undertakers once used in the embalming process. Oh. When she woke up, she turned to Al and she just blurted out,
Starting point is 00:13:57 the apartment, that house, it's a funeral home. What the fuck? Like, just, she knew. What the fuck? Like just she knew. What the fuck? Immediately. Now, no one had said anything to Carmen about the home having ever been a funeral home, she said, but she said somehow she just knew that it was or at least that it had been one at one point in time. So Al was like, okay, do you want to back out of it? Like, we haven't signed anything yet. But the thought of continuing to drive back and forth every day was just too much to bear.
Starting point is 00:14:26 And she had already looked at a ton of apartments in the towns around the hospital, and they had either been too small or too expensive. So she just felt like she couldn't give up this opportunity. Yeah. So on June 30th, 1986, she started unloading the moving truck at the new apartment. Now, the day they arrived with the truck was the first time that Al and Carmen actually saw the new apartment, because remember, they saw the second floor. They were working on it.
Starting point is 00:14:50 They were working on it. So before they unloaded the truck, they went inside just to look around. And contractors were actually still working on the first floor. There was like sawdust, wood, just construction mess everywhere. But the basement was empty,
Starting point is 00:15:03 so they went downstairs to see what kind of space they had to work with there. Like most basements in old New England homes, it was kind of musty, the air was thick, it was cold down there. We all know that basement. I can smell it. But the space was quite a bit more than either of them was expecting.
Starting point is 00:15:19 At the foot of the stairs, there was a pretty large room that opened onto the right, and then on the left, there was a set of French doors that led to an even larger room. And there were three other smaller rooms adjacent to the larger ones. But Alan Carmen were like, what would those be used for? Like, why is there so much room for activities down here? So they like poked her on the basement and they started to get a sense of what had once gone down in these rooms. Carmen found what she described as a quote, gruesome blood stained wall and a quote chain powered body lift that looked more medieval than contemporary.
Starting point is 00:15:54 What? The more they explored the basement, the more evidence they found confirming that the residence had definitely been a funeral home at one point in time. And it had a blood spattered wall. According to them. What's going down there? Blood. It's wily.
Starting point is 00:16:09 Everywhere. You're supposed to clean. I kind of thought that too. It's important part of that job, I would think. Yeah, I was like, I feel like- It wasn't the morgue, I'll say that. I feel like bloodborne pathogens are a thing. Yeah, you never want blood spatter on anything.
Starting point is 00:16:22 No, I definitely don't. You're so right in that statement. Yeah, you just really don't. I really. No, I definitely don't. You're so right in that statement. Yeah, you just really don't. I really don't. You really don't. It happens in that industry for sure. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. It's going to be there while you're doing your thing. You clean it up after. Well, isn't there usually like a sheet or something up? Like is there anything up to protect the wall?
Starting point is 00:16:39 I can't speak for a funeral home because I don't know how the, you know, in the embalming process, I would assume there would be precautions to make sure that blood isn't just spattering against a wall. Also I'm like, why did that happen? Like once it gets to the funeral home, it's like, that shouldn't be happening. All the blood usually happens in the morgue.
Starting point is 00:16:59 That's kind of what I thought too. And we clean that shit. But we'll get there. But you know, here we are. We'll get to the questions at the end, okay? I'm like, what kind of sh I thought too. And we cleaned that shit. But we'll get there. But you know, here we are. We'll get to the questions at the end. What kind of shenanigans was going on? I don't know. But apparently at the end of the hall, there were shelves on the wall that held boxes of
Starting point is 00:17:12 old embalming tools. That's kind of cool. I thought the same thing. They didn't have the same reaction. There was also a box in the corner that contained blank plaques for the coffins that had already been removed from the house. That's chilling. That I didn't love.
Starting point is 00:17:27 I didn't like the plaques, but the embalming tools might be kind of cool to see. It would be very fascinating, yeah. I don't know if I'd want to keep them in my house though. Yeah, I don't know. It's giving you. It's giving you. I don't know that I would want that.
Starting point is 00:17:40 I'm fascinated by embalming tools. Yeah, and I can understand that, definitely. But Al and Carmen were not. They were shaken as they made their way back upstairs. But Carmen reiterated that she couldn't bear to look for another apartment while also taking care of Philip and the other three kids. So they agreed to keep the houses passed to themselves. They weren't going to tell the kids.
Starting point is 00:17:59 They said, you know, we'll remove all the funeral items before the kids can see them. And I'll paint the walls and, you know, cover all those disturbing states. Yeah, that's fine. It'll be fine. Seems fine. The landlord's special. I feel like this is not going to end badly at all. No.
Starting point is 00:18:15 Now, by the time they were rock outside, the landlord, Mr. Kern, was said to have arrived to greet them. Carmen was surprised that he seemed amused when she asked whether the house used to be a funeral home. And she said he told her, Oh, don't worry, Miss Snedeker. The place hasn't been in use full time for two years or so. Oh, I'd be like two years. Two years. Pretty fucking recent. Cool. That's like fresh blood as far as I'm concerned. That's pretty fresh. He also informed them that he would prefer that the old funeral tools remain in the basement. And he said, they make great conversation pieces, don't you think? I mean, while I agree with him, while I would be on your side, landlord, no, you can't,
Starting point is 00:18:57 maybe you should take them then. Well, that's the thing. You can't tell me what to keep in my house. Yeah, you can't do that. If somebody... Like I'm paying rent. And understand, you may find them fascinating. Other people might not.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Right. And that's okay. Right. People can be put off by them and that's fine. Now, it is important to state, of course, that this is the Snedeker's version of events. Of course. It's not- It's not, you know, somebody following them with a camera and watching them.
Starting point is 00:19:21 No. We don't know that the landlord never said this, but according to them, that's what he said. Then you say, hey, you know, maybe that's not for you to say. Now it took a few days before the renovations were finished. So Carmen and the kids stayed in a motel room while Al went back to New York to finish out the last few weeks of work. After all the expenses that they had incurred, the motel was an additional hardship because
Starting point is 00:19:41 they didn't have a ton of money. This family was like very hard on cash at this point. Because I mean, they're... The illness, the move... Exactly. That's a big family to take care of. Yeah, exactly. So Carmen was relieved when a few days later,
Starting point is 00:19:54 they were finally able to move into the house. She and Al managed to move those objects in the basement over to the garage, while the larger items like the body lift, they tried to tuck into a corner to kind of obscure it, but it's a pretty big thing. Yeah, body lift, like a chain powered body lift is not going to be easy to just like make into a sculpture in the corner.
Starting point is 00:20:19 Yeah, probably not. I've never had experience with one, so I can't say, but... Yeah, it's not going gonna be easy to find. Yeah, but try as she might, Carmen realized pretty quickly that the children were bound to find out sooner or later, because like we just said, it's not easy to hide. So after a few days moving in, Carmen was in the kitchen washing dishes. When behind her, she heard Philip enter the room,
Starting point is 00:20:40 and she said that he said to her quietly, Mom, we have to leave this house. There's something evil here. Oh, surprise. She turned around to find that Philip actually looked very serious and she was like, leave, we just got here. But he insisted that they needed to go back to New York and get the fuck away from this house. He said, if we don't leave here, something bad is going to happen to us. Something really bad. That's scary. Like, I would be like, all right, pack your shit up. Let's go. You know what?
Starting point is 00:21:06 Let's go. But they don't really have anywhere to go back to, which is a predicament, if you will. So she explained, she was like, houses aren't evil. Nothing here can hurt us. But Philip was not persuaded. Years later, Carmen would say, I didn't believe in ghosts. I thought they were just a thing of imagination.
Starting point is 00:21:23 But above all, Philip's biggest concern was sleeping in his new room in the basement, which I was like... I don't blame him on that one. I don't know if we should put the kid fighting cancer in the musty dusty basement. With embalming tools. With embalming tools and just like, it's colder down there and like musty, like it's a New England, I don't think you...
Starting point is 00:21:45 It's a New England basement. That's the thing. And it's a New England basement of a former funeral home. I don't really think... This doesn't seem like a great idea. Yeah. He didn't want to be there. Him and Michael were going to be sharing the room,
Starting point is 00:21:57 but remember, Michael's away, so... Oh, yes. He was in... He's with his grandmother. Alabama with his grandmother, which meant that Phillip was going to have to sleep downstairs alone. That's a no for me. And he was like, I'm grandmother, which meant that Philip was going to have to sleep downstairs alone. And he was like, uh, I'm not going to do that.
Starting point is 00:22:09 He told Carmen he would sleep on the living room floor before he slept in that basement alone. Oh, same. Which retweet. Yeah, no. Let's talk about something really important that most people don't realize. Did you know that there actually aren't any requirements for baby food companies to test their products for chemical contaminants? 93% of parents are concerned about the presence of toxic
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Starting point is 00:24:32 morbid. That's GoodRx.com slash morbid. So Carmen knew that neither she nor Al had said anything to the kids about the home's past as a funeral home, and Philip hadn't said anything about it either, but he just seemed to have the sense that something was off about this place. But she also was like, okay, it's fairly common for kids to be unhappy after a move, and Philip also has a lot on his plate right now, like physical, emotional stress. Which is true.
Starting point is 00:25:03 He's going through daily treatments, and the cobalt treatments that he was getting daily had a range of side effects from fatigue and hair loss to nausea and even cognitive impairments. Okay, so they're thinking of it like this potentially could be that. Exactly. She chalked up his apprehension and anxiety just to his circumstances. And she said, you know what, I just thought he would settle in eventually. But a few days later, when Al arrived for the weekend,
Starting point is 00:25:28 he reassured her that she was probably right. It was just anxiety. Philip would forget about it in due time once he got more comfortable. But Philip did not forget about it. And he stayed true to his word, and he spent the first week sleeping on the couch in the living room. He would not step foot down there.
Starting point is 00:25:44 His fears of the basement were just the beginning of what would eventually become what the family claimed was two years of psychological trauma and paranormal attacks. Just days after telling his mom that he felt the house was evil, Philip started hearing disembodied voices saying his name, but he couldn't figure out where they were. Like he would hear them but couldn't pinpoint the origin. At the same time, he felt this growing sense that he was never alone in the house, or even
Starting point is 00:26:11 in his bedroom. It was like he was just being watched all the time. But whenever he would experience something he couldn't explain, he fought the urge to run to his parents to tell them what would happen, because I mean, they didn't believe him. Yeah. So why are you going to keep saying it? And also, he knew that they had moved to Connecticut to be closer to the hospital, so he kind of felt like he was the reason
Starting point is 00:26:32 why everybody's lives got upended. So he didn't want to... He didn't want to cause further problems, what he saw as problems in his mind. Exactly. Even though everybody was happy to move, they were like, it's okay. But he's thinking he's like a burden. Yes, exactly.
Starting point is 00:26:46 So one morning, a few weeks after moving in, Philip was walking from the kitchen to the living room when he said he heard a man's voice, strong and clear, say his name in a questioning tone, like, -"Philip." -"Ooh." So he turned slowly, looking around for whoever had called out to him, but there was nobody there. In the bathroom down the hall, he could hear the shower running,
Starting point is 00:27:04 and he knew his mom was like in there, and he was like, okay, maybe she's talking to him, but there was nobody there. In the bathroom down the hall, he could hear the shower running and he knew his mom was like in there and he was like, okay, maybe she's talking to herself, but that definitely sounded like a man's voice. And then he heard it again and they said, Philip, he said the voice wasn't louder gruff, but it was clear and whoever it was, they sounded irritated and continued, come here, Philip. Now the voice sounded impatient, like whoever it was was like expecting a response. So he took a few steps toward the bathroom, desperately wanting to call out for Carmen. But instead he took, so he like moved to the bathroom
Starting point is 00:27:35 and he's like wanting to call out for his mom, but then he walks back to the basement to be like, is it coming from down there? Then he walks toward the basement stairs and the door standing open. And he said, the voice called out again saying, Philip, come down here. Ooh.
Starting point is 00:27:50 Is it? He was like, okay, it's coming from the basement. No, thank you. So he took a few more steps toward the basement stairs and the voice called out again, Philip, come down here, you gotta see this. No, can you describe it to me? I don't wanna see it.
Starting point is 00:28:04 I have a lot of plans today. Sorry. Thank you so much. And he said the tone, like when it was like, you got to see this, was almost like joking. Like it was like a light tone. Like a friend would be like, oh my God, you got to see this. Yeah. And then the voice said again, come here, Phillip, I want to show you something.
Starting point is 00:28:19 Just fucking terrifying. I don't like that at all. I don't like it. He backed away from the basement, he said slowly, and the voice got quieter and quieter with each step until he was in the living room where he just turned on the TV
Starting point is 00:28:31 and hoped that it would drown out the man in the basement calling for him. I'm sorry, if I heard somebody say my name from the basement and tell me to come down and look at this. That many times. That many times. There's no way I'm pulling this age, this age old chestnut of, well, I figured it would
Starting point is 00:28:48 just stop and I went to sleep. I never understand that because I'm sorry if I'm here. Like there's certain things you see something out of the corner of your eye. You think you're seeing a sleep paralysis demon and nothing's there. I can get that. Like you just go to sleep because you're like, that was my wacky mind. Right. Sorry. If I'm getting full-blown auditory hallucinations
Starting point is 00:29:07 where I'm hearing somebody saying my name and telling me to come downstairs and then I move closer and they continue to, I'm outta here. I'm telling everyone. I'm getting the whole family and then I'm light in the place of blaze. Pretty much. We out.
Starting point is 00:29:21 We out. We out. We out. There's no way I'm turning on the TV and hoping that that man in the basement doesn't come up to show me the thing he wanted to show me. Yeah. That's not my cup of tea personally. That's wild. I don't know. So this time he did tell, he decided he was like, I'm going to tell my mom about that. That's a great idea. That was fucking weird. But she didn't take him seriously. No, come on. Your kid's saying there's a person in the basement.
Starting point is 00:29:45 You got to do something. I think she thought that it was like a side effect of the treatments. 100% probably. But I'm just looking at this from a totally third party. 100%. In 2024. The 2024 lens. We're nowhere near the situation.
Starting point is 00:29:57 And so he was like, no, like you got to listen. And he said it was a man's voice, but not a person. Oh, no. Like she would somehow understand what he was saying, but not a person. Oh, no. Like she would somehow understand what he was saying, but she was like, there's no one downstairs, Phillip. She didn't even say, what does that mean? She was just like, there's no one downstairs, like stop. Again, like kids say wacky shit too.
Starting point is 00:30:17 It's like that's why it's so hard to like, you don't wanna feed into every single thing like that because then you are gonna cause issues. Well, and she also didn't want him feed into every single thing like that because then you are going to cause issues. Well, and she also didn't want him scaring the younger kids. She was like, all right, cut it out. Yeah. Don't make them suddenly think they're hearing something.
Starting point is 00:30:33 And also she's got this anxiety that she's kind of shoving to the side because she didn't love the idea that this place used to be a funeral home. So she's like, fuck. Please stop confirming. And she knows what's in that basement, what they saw in that basement. So she's probably like, fuck. Like, no, thanks. And all the more reason to be like, shit. Well, so she decided that she didn't want to be wholly dismissive, but wanted to soothe
Starting point is 00:30:53 his anxiety so she can fight it in him. I don't know why she thought this. I'm sorry, Carmen. I don't know why she thought this was going to, uh, soothe his, thank you. I don't know why she thought this was going to make him feel better, but she told him about the house's history as a funeral home. She said that she didn't say anything before because she didn't want to scare the children. And also she was like, please don't say anything to them. But she was like, maybe you're just picking up on our anxieties about the history of the house and that's why you're feeling so uneasy.
Starting point is 00:31:24 I don't know about that. Yeah, I think she... I mean, you don't know what to do in that situation. I understand. It's a route. It's a route you can take. It is. It's one of those paths that you can choose.
Starting point is 00:31:34 Choose your own adventure. I don't know if that would have been the one I would have chosen, but... Yeah, I don't know. But you know, desperate times call for desperate measures. But I haven't been in this situation. She's also probably sleep deprived because she's been doing the most. Very true. It's just like, I don she's like been doing the most. Very true. It's just like, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:31:46 I think you just confirmed his fears more than anything. She said that she hoped her honesty would reassure him there was nothing wrong with the house, but all it really did do was confirm his suspicions that this place was haunted as fuck. He's like, of course it is. Now in the weeks that followed, the other kids started reporting strange experiences in the house. Oh no.
Starting point is 00:32:06 Carmen's youngest daughter, Stephanie, told her mom that she had seen a woman standing in her bedroom with, quote, her arms open as if she was beckoning her to come. No. Like, no thanks. No, and that would also make me really angry. Because I'd be like, who's this bitch? Oh, I'd be like, get out of my kid's room.
Starting point is 00:32:22 Carmen actually figured that despite his promise, Philip had told the other kids about the funeral home past, and that's what caused Stephanie to think that she was seeing ghosts. But when she confronted him about it, like when Carmen went to Philip and was like, what the fuck, you're upsetting all the younger kids now, he was like, I didn't say anything to them. Like, I swear I didn't. So she gave him a lecture about scaring the little kids,
Starting point is 00:32:44 but she was like, I also couldn't help but feel that he was telling the truth. Like, I believed him when he said he didn't say anything. So they're just going through it. And Alan Carmen hoped that Philip's fears and anxiety would subside once everything got settled in the house, like once the move was kind of officially, like everything unpacked, you know, in. But things really only seemed to get worse. Philip continued hearing voices in the basement calling out to him, trying to lure him down the stairs. And a few times he thought that he'd seen something moving in the dark at the bottom of the basement stairs. But every time he brought it up to his parents, they dismissed his claims. Now, fortunately, he found an ally in his sister Stephanie who quite a bit younger than him, even though
Starting point is 00:33:23 she had seen things in the house and she believed what her brother was saying. She was like, I think that basement is also haunted as fuck. It's like, I'm with you, dude. Now, within just a few weeks after moving in, the tension in the house was felt by everybody. Al was finishing out the last days of his job and Carmen just couldn't wait to have him home full time
Starting point is 00:33:39 to help with the kids because she was losing her fucking mind. Especially when everyone's thinking they're hearing ghosts. Yeah, that's a lot. That's tough. Like this family is dealing with the most. Philip, meanwhile, was now several months into cancer treatments, and it was starting to take a toll on him physically and of course emotionally. So the stress was just affecting the entire house and Carmen just didn't know what to do.
Starting point is 00:33:59 One afternoon while the kids were playing outside, she was kind of lost in her thoughts, just mindlessly mopping the floors. And she said she caught the scent of something metallic and unpleasant. Blood? And while the kids were playing outside, she was kind of lost in her thoughts, just mindlessly mopping the floors. And she said she caught the scent of something metallic and unpleasant. And when she looked down, she saw that the water in the mop bucket had become a bright red color and it started to strain to stain the strands of the mop. So she snapped out of her thoughts and realized that whatever was in the bucket, she had smeared it all over the floor because she wasn't paying attention before.
Starting point is 00:34:27 And then the smell made her pay attention. And when she looked down, everything was like crimson colored. Oh yeah. So not wanting the children to see the mess, she grabbed a roll of paper towels and cleaned up everything the best she could. And she was like, you know, something must have been under the linoleum. It got into the water. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:34:44 Yeah. She was like, maybe it's a chemical reaction to something. But in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but think of what Philip had said about when they moved in. Now, by summer's end, she was starting to feel more optimistic about the move. Luckily, her son Michael had come home from Alabama and he brought like very positive energy to the house. Oh, he brought good vibes. He brought good vibes. Yeah. And also Phillips treatments were almost done.
Starting point is 00:35:09 So they had like a waiting period where things would settle a bit more. And now that his brother was home, Philip had agreed to start sleeping downstairs as long as he and Michael could share a room. And Michael was like, yeah, no problem. I bring good vibes. I bring good vibes. Let's hang. So a few nights after they settled into their shared basement bedroom, Philip told his brother
Starting point is 00:35:27 about the history of the house and of the basement in particular. And he expected his brother to react with horror, but he had a sibling like Elena. So Michael thought this entire thing was hella exciting. See, Michael with the good vibes. Michael with the good vibes. He was like, what? This is interesting. Now, his enthusiasm waned slightly when Philip told him about the other things.
Starting point is 00:35:46 Yeah, I would imagine. The voices calling out from the dark. Yeah, that would fuck me up. The glimpses of things moving, seeing things out of the corner of his eye, like, he didn't love that. Now that night, as they were getting, you know, ready for bed in their room,
Starting point is 00:35:59 Michael went upstairs to brush his teeth and Philip was left alone in the room. So he's trying not to panic. He gets into bed and he says he puts his headphones on, hoping that the music would distract him until Michael got back. But out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw something move. So he froze in bed, not wanting to look up, but at the same time he couldn't not look. So he raised his head slowly and he looked toward the French drawers that led into the other room. And he said, then he saw a man's face pale and young peering back at him through the crack in the doors.
Starting point is 00:36:30 Which if you picture that, that's fucking horrifying. No, that yeah, that's true horror. One thing about me is that I fucking love French doors. And that could even ruin French doors for me. French doors get out, you're out of here. Yeah, throw it out. But he said the face was one he had never seen before. It was gaunt sickly and had dark black eyes.
Starting point is 00:36:49 And he said the man's lips were moving like he was saying something, but Phillip couldn't hear anything. He just saw that the man was like talking but not saying anything. Oh, why do I hate that more? I do too. Right? Okay, thank you. Like I hate the idea of a man's face just looking through my French doors at me in the middle of? Like, I hate the idea of a man's face just looking through my French doors at me.
Starting point is 00:37:07 I hate the idea of a man's face. And even just if they're sitting there just looking at you. The mouth moving would be the end. Because then what makes you feel like they're like whispering something? Yeah, I don't want to hear what you have to say, sir. Like, I don't like it. I don't want to hear what you have to say. I don't like it. It's probably some dumbass, like, anecdote that you're going to hear what you have to say, sir. Like that's the thing, I don't want to hear what you have to say. I don't like it.
Starting point is 00:37:25 It's probably some dumbass like anecdote that you're going to say that's going to fuck me up for the rest of my life. Yeah, even it's, it's also almost worse. Like not knowing what he's saying. Cause I'm like your mind fills in the blanks. Oh, it's probably just like a bad opinion. A bad opinion you think? I don't need your opinion.
Starting point is 00:37:42 That's my opinion. You gross face in the door. Oh, gross. Yeah. Oh. So Philip watched in horror as he saw the man start to slowly reach one hand out like he was going to open the door. Don't do that.
Starting point is 00:37:54 And at that moment, Philip had finally gathered the courage to kick those sheets off the bed and he took two stairs at a time. Oh my god. Up the basement steps. I felt that in my legs. You know that crazy ass feeling in your legs when you're running up up the basement steps. I felt that in my legs. You know that crazy ass feeling in your legs when you're running up from the basement. Yes.
Starting point is 00:38:10 You just like shut the light off and you're running six stairs at a time, but you feel that burning. Boobity got burning. Like blah, blah, blah. And your back, whenever I like run away from something freaky, I feel like my back like locks. Yes.
Starting point is 00:38:22 You know what I mean? Oh, and you just feel like there's electricity in your legs. Yes. They're like tingling up your, oh, I can feel it right now. I'm so stressed. Even my ears are prickly. That made my legs hurt. So he burst into the living room and he crashed to his knees when he was finally in the safety of the living room. But the commotion drew everybody to the living room. As it should. Of course. And everybody gathered around Philip as he was just breathlessly trying to explain what he had seen in the basement. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:38:50 Now Al rushed down the stairs, unsure of what he would find there. Because he's probably like, is there a person in the basement? Yeah. So he rushes down into the basement to check everything out, but finds nothing there. And when he came back up to the living room, he was fucking pissed. Oh, I don't like that. So he yelled. Hey. Yeah. He yelled at Philip demanding that he stop telling childish ghost stories and start acting his age. Oh, don't do that. Which like that's really fucking weird. The kid is clearly upset. Yeah. And then they just sent everyone
Starting point is 00:39:18 to bed. Oh, come on. Parenting in the 80s. Yeah. I was just going to say that's some 80s parenting right there. My notes here, not a parenting one. No, definitely not. You got to talk through that shit. Yeah, that's something. You can't dismiss fears like that. You got to gentle parent your way through that shit. Right. Well, parents in the 80s were so far away from gentle parenting. It's not even... That's where that I'll give you something to cry about originated that line.
Starting point is 00:39:41 I'll give you something to fear ghosts about. Yep. They definitely wasn't going to have like a talk through feelings at that moment. No, definitely not. So the weeks passed, the voices and the apparitions became a common part of the boys' lives. Years later, Michael said, the first time I seen a ghost, it appeared with cat-like eyes glowing up on the ceiling, looking down on my bed. So even he's experiencing it. You know, my uncle used to tell me that I had cat eyes. Really?
Starting point is 00:40:07 Yeah. You just kind of have cat like eyes. Cause they're orangey. They turn orange sometimes. I could see that. Yeah. So maybe that was me. You're weird.
Starting point is 00:40:15 You're so weird. Don't do that. You're weird. Weird. That was such a like asshole response. You're weird. You're weird. Gross. I didn't know what to say to that.
Starting point is 00:40:26 Yeah, I did. Honestly, I probably wouldn't either. But the ghosts moved about the rooms in the basement. Sometimes Michael said they would like study him and Philip from the corners of the room, just kind of like looking at them. And other times they would whisper to each other in hushed tones that sounded rude. Yeah, they would whisper and he said it sounded to them like the hiss of a lizard or a snake. Like...
Starting point is 00:40:48 Ew. No. I don't know. That was my best shot. It sounded like when you touch the end of like a candle that's gone out if you touch it with your finger. That just sounds like boom roasted. It does.
Starting point is 00:41:03 You know, but Philip hoped having Michael home would make things better, but now his parents were just accusing him of filling Michael's head with these scary stories. Cool. Yeah. Everybody's kind of being addicted to Philip. Yeah. But yeah. Oh.
Starting point is 00:41:16 So despite... I was like, oh, I see that. You know, it's just... Okay, I'll hang tight over here. Yeah, hang tight. But despite her near certainty that it was nothing more than just silly ghost stories, Carmen still couldn't shake the feeling that something about the stories that her boys were telling about these pale menacing figures dressed in fucking suits was genuine.
Starting point is 00:41:37 She said they seemed, the stories just seemed too outrageous to be true, but also too detailed to have been made up on the spot. So she was like, I fucking hate this. And you can tell when your kids are really scared. Yeah. Like you really can. You can tell. That's it. And I think she saw that in them, especially as like a mama. Yeah. Like she saw that in them and was like, she was like, I don't want to believe any of this. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:57 And you might not believe that it's like, there's ghosts down there scaring your kids, but something is upsetting your child. Yeah. she's worried about them. Genuinely. Yeah. So the end of summer brought some welcome distractions as three of the four kids returned to school. That gave Carmen some alone time. Al finally moved into the house for good, like he got transferred. But whatever relief the distractions brought was soon overshadowed by a series of undeniable experiences that would forever change the family. Oh. Al had only been home about a week or so when his first experience happened. He got woken up in the middle of the night from the sound of movement and hushed voices.
Starting point is 00:42:35 He said to him it sounded like somebody was in the house but didn't want to be detected. So immediately he's like, what the fuck? Yeah, I don't like that. So he listened closely for a moment or two. And then he heard the faint sound of music playing in the distance. And he said, it sounded like 30s music from an old Victrola. Along with the music, I could hear three or four older men. OK, that's like kind of awesome.
Starting point is 00:42:58 OK, so glad you had that reaction. So did I. Yeah, you hear like an old Victrola, three old guys just chatting it up. Let's fucking go, girls. I'm like, what are you guys talking about? Let's do this. You want a beer? Yeah, let's go.
Starting point is 00:43:10 Throw that Victrola on. So we got out of bed, he followed the sounds, assuming that he would find one of the kids in the living room, like watching TV or something. Listening to a Victrola. Listening to a Victrola, yeah. Talking like an old man. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:43:21 But when he got to the hallway, he discovered that the sounds seemed to be coming from the basement. Oh. At first, he thought that, you know, maybe it was Michael and Phillip, but also it didn't sound like just two boys. It was loud. Like it sounded like a party. He was like, did they sneak friends into the basement? Did they find a Victrola? Yeah, you know, kids and their Victrola parties are their problem.
Starting point is 00:43:42 Like our parents of the world. Dave wrote in the notes here. He goes, if they had, why would they be listening to such mournful antiquated music? So they snuck a bunch of chickens in just to listen to a Victrola. Just to listen to quote unquote mournful antiquated music. Dave's comments are my absolute favorite. Dave for the win. So he started down the stairs expecting to find this group of kids listening to antiquated music. But when he got about halfway down, he stopped because he realized that the basement was completely dark and he could still hear hush tones of multiple voices talking,
Starting point is 00:44:17 but he could also hear the slow steady breathing of his kids like they were asleep. With HelloFresh you get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip those trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. You guys, make this fall the tastiest season yet with farm fresh produce and easy autumn inspired recipes delivered right to your door with HelloFresh. You can whip up tasty restaurant style meals in your own
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Starting point is 00:46:45 right now by joining Wondry Plus. Now when he noticed that like when he heard them sleeping, that was when the music stopped and the people stopped talking like very abruptly. Oh, I don't like that. Yeah. He slowly pushed open the French doors and stepped inside. And he said it was a naturally and inexplicably freezing in that room. Like, but for, he was like,
Starting point is 00:47:12 I don't know why it was so cold in there. Cause there was like a hundred ghosts in there having a Victrola party. Having a big old party, the Victrola party. But so he just went back to bed, didn't say anything to Carmen about what he experienced. Communication is not key here, I guess. This is so 80s.
Starting point is 00:47:27 But a few hours later, he woke up again, and this time the bed was vibrating underneath him, like shaking. So he just lay there, as he said, staring at the ceiling, and trying to ignore the fact that his fucking bed is vibrating. Let's stop ignoring this stuff, guys. Let's definitely. At some point, he said it got to be too much to ignore so he got up and went into the living room to watch TV and just tried
Starting point is 00:47:50 to like put the night's events out of his head. Valid. He's like I'm gonna go watch the TV. Yeah, I'm just you know what. Hey my my bed is vibrating so if you need me I'll be in the living room watching the television. What do you turn on? That's what I was just wondering. I was gonna say like I'll just go turn and I was like what do you do? What would you turn on? That's what I was just wondering. I was going to say like, oh, I'll just go turn it. And I was like, what do you do? What would you turn on? My immediate thought was the simple life. Gilmore Girls.
Starting point is 00:48:09 Boom. Yeah. That would be it. Our different forms of comfort. So later, once they were out of the house and living elsewhere, Alan Carman would talk of their experiences. They kind of started suddenly out of nowhere. But the truth was each of them was having their own experiences,
Starting point is 00:48:26 but they just never shared them with each other. Oh, damn. So, like, she had experienced the same thing too. Both of them also saw things move out of the corner of their eye. They heard sounds, they heard voices. And Carmen said more than once she had woken up to the bed vibrating underneath her, but she just never told her husband. And then there was also Phillip's behavior.
Starting point is 00:48:48 He had always been a really well-behaved, respectful kid, but after moving into the new apartment, they said his personality really started to change. He was more defiant, he was challenging, he was like sullen. Which you could chalk up to the fact that he's a young kid going through cancer, like, he's probably pretty fucking pissed off at life. Yeah. But more disturbing was the fact that he actually had come He's a young kid going through cancer. Like he's probably pretty fucking pissed off at life. I would be. But more disturbing was the fact that he actually had come
Starting point is 00:49:07 to enjoy spending time in the basement. Oh. Which like he was so scared, remember of the basement that he was sleeping in the living room. And then all of a sudden they couldn't get him out of the basement. Like he loved being down there. No, I don't like that.
Starting point is 00:49:21 So Carmen, she said she tried to ignore everything by focusing on volunteer work with the church and Al turned to alcohol to quiet his mind. But soon the horror in the house was unavoidably present. One night in the winter, Al woke up in the middle of the night by the shaking. And at first he thought it was just the vibrating of the bed, but soon he realized it was Carmen shaking him out of his sleep, like waking him up. And she yelled to him that their bed was vibrating. But for the first time since this happened, both of them could feel it at the same time.
Starting point is 00:49:54 And in the weeks that followed Carmen said that she would often hear a mocking laughter coming from behind her when she was at the sink doing dishes. Oh, I don't like that. And Al could hear the sounds of things moving around the house and that they said that there was always the faint sound of music coming from the basement. Like even when like Philip wasn't playing music down there, like it was like old weird fucking music. Trollaparty music. Exactly. Holy shit. Now in June of 1987, just about a year after the family moved into the house, Carmen got a call from her sister, Megan, in Alabama. And Megan explained that she was going through a really bad time
Starting point is 00:50:29 with her health. And on top of that, she and her husband were going through a really messy divorce. And she was hoping that Al and Carmen would be willing to take her two daughters, 12-year-old Mary and 17-year-old Kelly, just until she was able to get back on her feet. So Carmen talked it over with Al that afternoon and they agreed that if Megan needed help, they wanted to lend a hand. That's nice of them. Yeah. Now Carmen knew that, you know, helping her sister was the right thing to do,
Starting point is 00:50:55 but she also felt very apprehensive about bringing more people into an already like super chaotic house. Yeah. The experience that the experiences that she and Al had been having, but never talking about ever, had continued. And Philip's behavior and general demeanor was just getting worse over the year. Like, he was spending a lot of his time in his bedroom alone.
Starting point is 00:51:17 And even more disturbing was the way that he talked about the ghosts. He had once been, like, we just just had terrified to be alone in the basement. And now they said he preferred the spirits of the dead to the company of his own family. And then even started calling the spirits his friends. Okay. Which is like, I would hate that. Yeah, we're going into a dark place now. Yeah. So by that fall, Carmen's nieces settled into the house. They didn't really like once
Starting point is 00:51:45 they got settled, they felt like they were like part of the family. They weren't just guests. I just want to give a trigger warning here for like sexual assault. Oh, yes. It gets very rough here. It's quick, but it's not awesome. So one night in the early fall, Mary and Kelly were asleep in their beds when Philip's quote-unquote friends told him that it was quote, time to go visiting with his cousins. So he went up the stairs from the basement to the main floor as quietly as he could, trying not to wake anybody up. And he crept into the girls' room where they were deep in sleep. And he stood over Kelly.
Starting point is 00:52:20 He put a hand on her shoulder to see if it would wake her. And when she didn't wake up, he moved his hand down to her chest. So he like groped her in her sleep. What the fuck? Later, he would claim that the men in the basement forced him to do what he did. According to him, the voices pointed out that Kelly was quote, too big and could defend herself because she's the older girl. This is so fucked up.
Starting point is 00:52:42 This is very dark and like actually very hard to even talk about. But on the other side of the room, he said that the ghosts were telling him that there was someone much smaller who probably wouldn't resist him. So Philip turned away from Kelly and walked toward Mary's bed and did the same thing to her. Oh my God. Now two days later, Kelly told Carmen that she had actually walked in on Philip, attempting to do the same thing to Mary again, and that she stopped him before he could get very far. So, Kelly did put a stop to this. Now, Carmen was stunned, like, Philip had changed,
Starting point is 00:53:15 his personality had darkened quite a bit, but she never thought he was capable of something like this. These are his fucking cousins. And this is disgusting. And I don't want to hear about fucking ghosts telling you to go molest your cousins. Exactly. Get out of here.
Starting point is 00:53:29 So I will say, it sounds like Carmen did the right thing. She went and confronted him and was like, what the fuck? But he denied everything with a smirk on his face. Oh, I hate that. So she was super frustrated, and she didn't know what to do with him. So she called the police and reported the assault like on her own child. That, I mean, that must have been the hardest thing for her to ever have to do.
Starting point is 00:53:52 It's obviously the correct thing to do. Because it's also her nieces, you know, like that's family no matter what. What a horrible position for her to be in. And those poor nieces. I know, especially going through everything that they're already going through. So that afternoon, Phillip was taken by police to the local precinct So those poor nieces. I know, especially going through everything that they're already going through. Yeah. So that afternoon, Philip was taken by police to the local precinct and questioned
Starting point is 00:54:09 about the accusation of assault. And he confessed after some questioning that he had been sneaking into their room at night and touching them regularly while they slept. Oh my God. He also, trigger warning, this is really horrible. He said he, quote, attempted unsuccessfully to have sex
Starting point is 00:54:25 with his 12-year-old cousin. What the fuck? Yeah, so he was taken from the police station immediately to a juvenile detention center. Bye, Philip. Bye. He was interviewed at length by a prison psychiatrist who told Alan Carmen that, in his opinion,
Starting point is 00:54:40 Philip was experiencing symptoms of early onset schizophrenia. Oh, God. Yeah. The diagnosis obviously was devastating for his opinion, Philip was experiencing symptoms of early onset schizophrenia. Oh God. Yeah. The diagnosis obviously was devastating for his parents, but it also kind of explained his behavior over the previous year, the ghosts, the voices, the depression, and now these assaults.
Starting point is 00:54:57 Yeah, it's making more sense. It is. So the doctor recommended that Philip be placed in a psychiatric unit for 60 days of observation, and then from there they would develop a treatment plan. But until they could find a bed for him at the hospital, the psychiatrist recommended that he remain in the juvenile detention center because he didn't think it would be safe for the family to have Philip return home.
Starting point is 00:55:17 That makes sense. Obviously. Yeah. So Philip's diagnosis, the assaults on their nieces, they were devastating for Carmen, Al and the kids. But at the very least, Carmen hoped that with Philip out of the house for a while, things would finally go back to normal. She was wrong.
Starting point is 00:55:33 In the days and weeks that followed, strange occurrences in the house continued. There was inexplicable noises, flashes of movement from the corners of the room. There was always that strange music playing in the middle of the night. Oh, I hate that. And having been traumatized by the assaults, Mary no longer wanted to stay in the house. So Carmen had to make arrangements for her to stay with her other sister in Connecticut,
Starting point is 00:55:54 that poor girl. And a few days after her sister moved out of the house, Kelly started having her own horrific experiences in the middle of the night. She had heard everybody else in the house talk about the ghosts, but she was like, maybe I heard a few weird noises, but I never knew what to make of anything.
Starting point is 00:56:11 I never saw anything. But then, one night, as she was trying to fall asleep, she felt something touching her leg. She said later, I couldn't see it, but it was freezing cold. So she said she threw back the sheets and she kicked out whatever was touching her, but it only crept closer and moved up her calf. So she didn't know what to do. So she grabbed her rosary that she kept next to her bed and she started saying the Lord's Prayer over and over. But the cross in her hand suddenly bent, she said, like
Starting point is 00:56:38 somebody was trying to rip it from her hands violently. So she screamed for her aunt and uncle. And from their bed, Carmen heard her niece screaming for help in a way that by then was familiar from all the times that Philip and Michael had claimed to see ghosts. Carmen said, I grabbed my Bible from the nightstand and I'm just saying to myself, I've got to find something to put all these ghost stories to rest. I've had it up to here with the ghost stories. But when she, so she entered Kelly's room and she doesn't see anything, but she listened as Kelly explained what she felt.
Starting point is 00:57:09 And later, Carmen said, "'I didn't believe her. I thought the older boys had gotten her excited about the stories in the funeral home.'" But the scene repeated itself the next night, and Carmen approached it with the same skepticism as she had the night before. But on the third night,
Starting point is 00:57:23 she just could not deny what was happening to Kelly. And trigger warning for sexual assault here, this is really awful. That evening when Kelly yelled for help, Carmen went into the room expecting to find nothing. But she said she found her niece struggling on the bed. And when she went closer, she saw a hand, or she felt a hand, sorry, push her back violently. And she caught a glimpse of what was attacking her niece. She said, I saw an arm, the knuckles and joints go up under her night shirt, up over her breast and back through the wall. At that point, I realized something was going on.
Starting point is 00:57:56 What the fuck is going on here? It only gets worse. What? So much worse. Oh my. After that night, the attacks on the entire family escalated to the point that one or more of the family members were being attacked or harassed like daily. At first, Kelly seemed to be the main target and she was assaulted several more times by this unseen entity. She said, this asshole of a ghost. She said the covers would be pulling off the bed,
Starting point is 00:58:24 there would be voices and lots of scratches. And she said, it seemed as though with Philip out of the house, the ghost had shifted the attention to the other members of the family and nobody was spared. Wow. One evening after Carmen had fallen asleep in the bed next to her husband, the entity turned its attention toward Al. He, I have like a quote here of his experience,
Starting point is 00:58:46 and it's, uh, triggering, I would say. Oh, boy. So he told Sally Jessie Raphael, I felt a strange sensation coming over my body. It started at my feet and was climbing up through my body. Before I had a chance to reach over to tell Carmen to tell her something was wrong, I was frozen and couldn't move. Then I felt a stinging penetration in my anal area,
Starting point is 00:59:04 and I was trying to scream, to cry out for Carmen to help me somehow, but and couldn't move. Then I felt a stinging penetration in my anal area, and I was trying to scream, to cry out for Carmen, to help me somehow, but I couldn't move. After a while, I don't know how long, it had gone away, and there was no more sensation. I woke Carmen up and I said, Carmen, I think I was just sodomized by this demon. Yikes. I have no words. I have so many feelings. Do carry on. Okay. So he said when he tried to explain to Carmen what happened, he struggled to find the right words. He said, and this is sad. He said it wasn't like a normal rape, not like a person to person type. Like he felt like this was like an entity. This is horrific. No, it really is. It reminds me of the, um, we covered it. The Smurl family. Yes. I thought
Starting point is 00:59:54 of them too. So a few nights later, Carmen had her own experience with the entity in the middle of the night. She said, when it would take me sexually assault me, it would laugh with such pleasure. It enjoyed what it was doing to me and I just couldn't move. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. So this started with like voices seeing things out of the corner of their eyes and then it turned to full blown like sexual assault, demon style. This is so much. This is not just a regular haunting. This isn't a run of the mill haunt. It's not.
Starting point is 01:00:33 This isn't one of those fun ones. It's definitely not. Nope. So after more than two years at this point, the family knew that they couldn't just continue living like this, being attacked nightly, but they didn't really know what to do or how they should even proceed. Their first instinct was to call the police, but you can't. What are you going to say? And they didn't think anybody would believe them.
Starting point is 01:00:57 So instead, Carmen turned to their church for comfort and hoped that their priest, Father Wheatley, would have some idea about what to do. He did not. I'm shocked. He had like one idea, but it didn't really work out. He had one idea. He had like one idea. He had a crumb of an idea to really pan out though.
Starting point is 01:01:13 A few days later, Father Wheatley came over. He was sitting in the living room and he listened as Carmen told him about what had been happening. And he was patient, he was supportive, but as Carmen suspected, he was skeptical, to say the least. He said, your entire family has been through a great deal. But then he rattled off a list of the traumas that they had experienced since Philip had been diagnosed with cancer and then, you know, everything else they had gone through. So he was essentially being like, you've gone through a lot and I think it's manifesting
Starting point is 01:01:43 this way. But he still offered to bless the house, and he assured Carmen that he and the congregation would continue to be a source of support for them. But whatever relief Carmen felt after Father Wheatley blessed the house was very short-lived, because apparently hours after the priest left the house, she was violently assaulted in her bedroom.
Starting point is 01:02:01 And that experience only ended when Kelly burst into the bedroom and like saved her. Wow. So after all that had happened in the house, nobody felt comfortable living there anymore. But Alan Carmen didn't have any money to move. Like they were stuck there. That's usually the worst thing in these scenarios. I know.
Starting point is 01:02:17 You're like, I wouldn't stay there. And then you're like, but where are you going to go? Exactly. They hoped that the blessing would get rid of whatever was attacking them. But it actually only seemed to make whatever this was, this entity angrier and more aggressive. So as she sat thinking about what they should do, she remembered a magazine that her friend had given her a week or so earlier.
Starting point is 01:02:35 And in there was an article about this Connecticut husband and wife team. They were like paranormal experts who specialized in demon cases. I've never really heard of anybody like that. No, me either. No. Yeah. Carmen went into the living room, she found the magazine and she flipped the pages until she came to this article about Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Starting point is 01:02:55 You said Ed and Lorraine? Yeah, it doesn't really. I'm interested to hear about these folks, these newcomers on the scene. Good old Ed and Lorraine Warren. The article said that the Warrenrains lived in Monroe, which was just less than an hour away. So Carmen called information and was able to get their number.
Starting point is 01:03:12 Oh boy. She called and Lorraine picked up on the first ring. She said, yellow. She said, hello, it's Lorraine. It's me, Lorraine Warren, demon exorcist at your service. That's literally how she answered the phone, I know it. Me too. So then Carmen immediately launched into her story so fast and with so much intensity that
Starting point is 01:03:29 Lorraine had to ask her to slow down several times. And she was like, you need to take a breath. You got to start over. When Carmen finally got through the story, Lorraine told her to keep her rosary handy and to use it that evening if there were any attacks, but that she and her husband would be there at that house the very next morning. Hell yeah, they are. Just as they promised, Ed and Lorraine Warren showed up at the house a little after 9 a.m.
Starting point is 01:03:51 that very next morning. Ed and Lorraine. And they interviewed Alan Carmen in the living room. Carmen had worried about how she sounded on the phone the previous afternoon and couldn't help that the Warrens probably wouldn't believe her. But before she could say anything more, Ed said, we'd like you to know that if we sound as if we doubt what you're saying, that's not the case at all. We just have to be sure in every way we possibly can be that the things you tell us about have been brought on by supernatural forces. Okay. So his words were a relief to Alan Carmen.
Starting point is 01:04:21 They felt like somebody was finally going to help them. Somebody was finally listening. a relief to Alan Carmen. They felt like somebody was finally going to help them. Somebody was finally listening. And in late July of 1988, Ed and Lorraine Warren started their investigation into this family's haunting. Here we go. It would ultimately last several months and it actually involved the Warrens living in the house with the family for nine weeks. That is so Ed and Lorraine coded. I can't even. They just said, we're staying for dinner. They just said- For nine weeks straight. They said, roomies? Company?
Starting point is 01:04:48 Roomies? I like the little finger gun you did. Both of them did finger guns and said, roomies? And Ed said, I'm literally so random. So random. We were watching a haunting- Moving into your house. Moving into your house.
Starting point is 01:05:01 Oh my God. We were watching a haunting the other night with Mikey and Dave and there was like another case. Mikey's snorting. It was like another case and this like person got possessed at a table with Ed and like shoved him back in his chair. But he's like making this, like the actor that plays him is making this face. Like, ooh.
Starting point is 01:05:21 And Mikey goes, I'm literally so random. We were crying. Now whenever I picture Ed Warren, it's all I think about. Yep. He's literally so random. Literally so random. But according to random Ed Warren, whatever was in the house was demonic in nature, of course. He said, it's very old, very cunning and absolutely without a doubt, very, very evil. Mean, you know? Not nice. Just overall a bad time. Lorraine explained that demonic infestations like the one that the family was experiencing, quote, always occur in a five-step progression, encroachment, infestation,
Starting point is 01:06:02 oppression, possession, and finally, death. Oh, shit. And she said that somebody, probably Philip, had either knowingly or unknowingly let the demon into the house. And ever since then, it had been working to drive the family apart and destroy them. Damn, real nice, whoever let the demon in. I know. But Lorraine was quick to add that things weren't as dire as they seemed.
Starting point is 01:06:23 She told Alan Carmen, we can fight it, but only with the help of God will we win. Okay. Which like, I would think that God's like really busy. Yeah. He, I mean, he's got a lot to worry about. So that's a little nerve wracking. Yeah. But for more than two years, Carmen and Al had struggled to understand what was
Starting point is 01:06:40 happening in their house and now they were finally getting some answers. So they were happy. Yeah. And in 1988 interview, Carmen said, you always think, am I going crazy? Did I imagine all this? But the Warrens gave them both perspective and reminded them that they weren't alone. And Carmen said, the big problem is, is whether or not so many people could be crazy. This isn't happening to one person.
Starting point is 01:07:00 That's true. She was like, this happens all the time. And there you go. You know, I mean, there's a little thing called hysteria, but there is that. We'll put that to the side. I'm just here to say that I believe in hauntings. I do too. I very much believe in ghosts. Not sure about this one. But I'm just, you know, just laying it all out. Just, you know, this is the story. We look at it from all angles. It's a crazy story no matter what. It's a nutbag story.
Starting point is 01:07:26 This is a nutbag story. This is a bag of nuts. ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"]
Starting point is 01:07:34 ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] ["The Last Post"] Are you in trouble with the law? Need a lawyer who'll fight like hell to keep you out of jail? We defend and we fight just like you'd want your own children defended. Whether you're facing a drug charge, caught up on a murder rap,
Starting point is 01:07:49 accused of committing war crimes, look no further than Paul Bergrin. All the big guys go to Bergrin because he gets everybody off. You name it, Paul can do it. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? From one dream, The Makers of Dr. Death and Over My Dead Body comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules.
Starting point is 01:08:10 Isn't it funny how witnesses disappear or how evidence doesn't show up or somebody doesn't testify correctly? In order to win at all costs. If Paul asked you to do something, it wasn't a request. It was an order. I'm your host Brandon James Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. But in the, in the months slash weeks of their investigation, the Warrens along with their
Starting point is 01:08:46 assistants, they always have assistance. Oh yeah. Who is, who is Ed and Lorraine Warren's assistant? Not now, obviously, but like who is that person? There's multiple. Yeah. That's what I'm like, who is the person that helps them in your life? Like who, who goes for that job?
Starting point is 01:09:04 I don't know. I'm not saying it's a bad person. I'm just saying like, who are you in your life? Like who goes for that job? I don't know. I'm not saying it's a bad person. I'm just saying like, who are you? Yeah. If you were one of Ed and Lorraine Warren's assistants, I just want to know. Hit us up. What was it like?
Starting point is 01:09:14 Just be like, what? Yeah. Tell me, I don't know anything. I'm just, I'm here. Yeah, well they had like all different kinds of people work for them. Like even the episode we were watching the other night, the one, the girl that got possessed was their assistant.
Starting point is 01:09:24 Yeah. And she was clairvoyant. Oh, yeah, you're right. So they always had people with like different gifts. Who are sensitive to the... Yeah, like empaths. The other side. This time their assistants were John Zaphis and Chris McKinnell. And they claimed to have experienced a variety of unpleasant and assaultive experiences in the house.
Starting point is 01:09:43 That's scary. On the first night in the house, Zaffis, excuse me, and McKennell claim to quote, have suffered burning sensations when they tried to corner their supernatural foe. Oh, I love that. And yeah, I love supernatural foe. We are supernatural foe.
Starting point is 01:10:00 That's a great one. That fucking slaps. That's a banger of a band name. Supernatural flow. Oh, yeah. Listen to their supernatural flow. Oh. Boom.
Starting point is 01:10:13 Just being like, hey, have you heard the new Supernatural Faux album? What would it, I love, I love so much. Oh, it would be, the first album would be called Ectoplasm. Whoa. You should be a tour manager. Yeah. The first album would be called Ectoplasm. Whoa! You should be a tour manager. I like this a lot.
Starting point is 01:10:30 But that night, when they were facing off their supernatural foe, not the band, the actual foe, everybody in the house heard heavy footsteps, banging noises, there were flickering lights, a ton of shit. In one instance, Al had just fallen asleep and he was awoken by a noise and a bright flashing light. And he said from within the light emerged the dead decaying face of Jesus Christ that mocked him
Starting point is 01:10:53 and told him there was nothing he could do to help. This is when we really need to start filming these because I just took the most judgmental sip of water. I was just going to say, had you seen the sip of water? I said, I said, clingity, cling, cling, raise eyebrows, sip. Cause like, what a bitch move. Like him just be like, nothing you can do about a loser.
Starting point is 01:11:25 It was like the demon. It was the demon. That was not Jesus. No. It's not Christ-like. I just pictured this like a decaying face of Christ just being like, nobody likes you. Boo, you whore. You're dumb. I wish the decaying face of Jesus looked at Al and said, boo, you whore.
Starting point is 01:11:43 Boo, you whore. That's funny. I don't actually wish that, but moving forward. There's some wily sentences being spoke during this. I think that's where I am. There are some wily sentences. The sentences spoken during this are off the charts. Imagine having to speak them in a storytelling voice. I love it. Well, as the Warrens and their assistants continued their investigation,
Starting point is 01:12:08 the demonic forces in the house were just growing stronger, bolder. At one point, they even tried to possess Carmen. And it was at that point that Ed concluded the only way to confidently get rid of the entities in this house was to have a Catholic priest perform an exorcism. Brought to you by Catholic priests performing exorcisms. Let's go. After the attack on Carmen, Ed made a few calls allegedly
Starting point is 01:12:34 in order to get- Allegedly. Yeah, very allegedly. Oh man. In order to get permission from the Catholic archdiocese of Hartford. Oh, shit got real. According to Ed and Lorraine Warren, on September 6, 1988, two Roman Catholic priests and a deacon arrived at the house and performed the exorcism, which successfully drove the demons out of the home. The vibes. So anti-climactic. Oh, that was just it. They just came and they were like, well, we did it. Yes. Oh, all right. Thanks, Priest.
Starting point is 01:13:06 Yeah. And Deacon? It's unclear how it happened, but within a week or two, Word of the Exorcism reached the press, as it always does. Exorcisms are always going to reach the press. You can't ever sweep an exorcism under the rug. Yeah. What are the things you can count on in life? Death, taxes. Death, taxes, and Word of the exorcism reaching the press.
Starting point is 01:13:25 Three things you can count on in life. Truth. So this family and the Warrens were flooded with calls from reporters seeking comment on the story. Ed told a reporter, An exorcism has been performed in the house and it's been very successful. But someone going into that house and performing a seance or some type of ritual could bring it back. There's something in that house that is intangible. It's invisible. It has the power to inflict physical pain. It is something that is very evil.
Starting point is 01:13:51 Oh, yeah. Sounds like a movie. It sure does. In his initial statement to the press, Ed Warren insisted, quote, the ritual was sanctioned by the archdiocese of Hartford. But- I smelled a butt. I smelled a butt coming. When they were contacted for comment, a spokesperson for the diocese refuted those claims. Reverend John Gatsick, I believe it is, said, from what I can gather, there was an exorcism performed and supposedly it was with the Archbishop's permission. But according to Gatsick, the diocese never received any formal request for an exorcism.
Starting point is 01:14:25 And as far as he knew, none had been performed by any of his people. I'm pretty sure that Ed and Lorraine have a couple of those under their belt where they say they contact the archdiocese of goop-a-doo-pa-doo. And then they don't. And then something happens. And then the church is like, we didn't do that. That's happened in at least one of our other stories. I feel like that's kind of like, that's like their thing. Yeah. Like, you know, like we
Starting point is 01:14:48 all have our things. Did we contact the archdiocese or y'all? Like, you know, like, like Ash loves leopard print. Yeah. I love ghost. I love ghost. And Ed and Lorraine Warren love to not contact the archdiocese of blah, blah, blah to get permission. Precisely. And this guy, this reverend said, no permission has been given, nor is there any intention in the near future to have an exorcism performed. Because I'm pretty sure the church is like, I mean, at least like the Catholic Church, I don't know about like all churches, but I'm pretty sure they're like, not interested in exorcisms anymore. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's, yeah. Like I think it got them a bad rep.
Starting point is 01:15:25 But I definitely, I think it's bad press for them. I don't think they, they love an exorcism. I don't think so either. But in late, I was going to say in late exorcisms. In the late exorcisms. In late September rather, just a week after the exorcism of the home, the family moved out of the house. Although the house was supposedly clear of any demonic activity after the exorcism,
Starting point is 01:15:47 the trauma that they claimed to have endured while living there made it very difficult to stay. Carmen told a reporter, the memories and things that have happened will never feel comfortable in that house again. My children are frightened to the point where they don't want to go to the bathroom alone. That's so sad. Which is sad. That's really sad. So they moved back to New York, and their experiences with the paranormal seemed to come to an end, but interest in their story only grew in the years that followed the move.
Starting point is 01:16:12 Between 1988 and 1992, several members of the family gave interviews to the press and they appeared on popular national talk shows. There was Sally Jessie Raphael, Larry King Live, my personal favorite, the Maury Povich show. Oh, Maury. Do you remember when you would stay home from school and watch the Maury Povich show and like change the channel when your mom would come in? Yes, absolutely. And Sally Jesse Raphael is like a blast from the past.
Starting point is 01:16:37 She's the one with the glasses, right? Big red glasses. I never watched her show because I think it was like before my time. Yeah, I think so. But Maury Povich, honey. Maury Povich. Wasn't Mori like the governor of somewhere at one point? Was he?
Starting point is 01:16:48 I'm pretty sure he was the governor of somewhere. He just looked at me like, I don't know. I mean, you could absolutely be right, but I don't remember that. Governor. There's like Mori and then there's another guy. There's one guy that was like the governor or something. Or like the mayor. Was he like another talk show host? Yes.
Starting point is 01:17:08 I think about like Jerry Springer. Yeah. Jerry Springer. It is Jerry Springer. Oh. He served as one year for mayor. There you go. Jerry Springer did?
Starting point is 01:17:16 Cincinnati. Jerry Springer. Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. Fun fact. I wasn't allowed to watch Jerry Springer. Oh, honey.
Starting point is 01:17:21 I wasn't allowed to watch any of this, but I was watching it. I was watching it. I was mad wasn't super crazy about like Maury, but she wasn't like forbidden. But Jerry Springer was forbidden. My friend shout out to Taryn once skipped school and I think it was Jerry Springer. She went to go see the Jerry Springer show and when her mom saw her in the audience and knew that she skipped school to go to the Cherry Springer show. What an experience. Love you, T. But so yeah, they were doing like all these talk show appearances. And according to Carmen,
Starting point is 01:17:52 their appearances in the press and on television, we're getting to the end here. On the television. She said they were motivated by a, quote, desire to help others with similar problems and discourage people from dabbling in the supernatural. That's entirely possible. But critics and skeptics of this story couldn't help but notice that the media attention culminated in a book about the haunting that was written by Ed Warren and horror author Ray Garten with the help of the family. And those critics may have had a good point because in A Dark Place, the true story of a haunting was released in 1992 and all the media attention that the story had received up to that point only helped to promote the book. Look at that.
Starting point is 01:18:37 In a statement to the reporters, the owner of the house, Darrell Kern, our guy, dismissed the family's claims and he said he had never received any complaints about the house, not even from that particular family. He said they're just trying to make a buck on a book. As far as I'm concerned, it's a dead issue. Oh. Among the more vocal of the Snedeker's critics were the tenants on the second floor, because remember, this was an apartment. I didn't wonder. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:19:01 Yvonne and Jim Safford and Yvonne's brother Richard were their neighbors on the second floor and Yvonne told a reporter I've been here for two years and I haven't seen or heard anything Wow That's a little you know, yeah in October of 1992 The Saffords actually appeared alongside the syneticers on Sally Jesse Raphael for an episode titled, I Was Raped By A Ghost. Early 90s talk shows went crazy. They went absolutely crazy. They went off. They went bonkers.
Starting point is 01:19:33 You could never get away with the shit they used to get away with now. Never. In the episode, the Snetikers talked about their experiences focusing mostly on the sexual assaults that they said happened, after which the Saffords were brought on stage to refute their claims. Jim Safford said, "'The most obvious thing for me is the inconsistencies in their story. I researched it with my wife and a close relative of the Snedekers
Starting point is 01:19:57 told me there was nothing to it, that they were making it up just for the money.'" Wow. "'And in fact, Yvonne claimed that the entire story was made up after the Sneddickers started having really bad financial troubles. I wondered if that was part of it. Which is sad. Yvonne told Sally Jessie Raphael they never had a problem until they got behind on the rent.
Starting point is 01:20:15 Ooh. Which like, that's mean. You don't need to like air their dirty laundry. Damn. Other neighbors soon joined the chorus of those who believed that the Sneddickers were lying. A friend of Philip's, Jeff Pooler, told Sally Jessie Raphael that Philip had a history of using hallucinogenic drugs and that went a long way to explaining the change in his behavior. Yes, absolutely.
Starting point is 01:20:35 He said, I personally don't think there was anything going on there. He was a storyteller. He always had to be center of attention. Similarly, the Snedeker's neighbor across the street, Catherine Altamus, kept a journal of all the disruptive events and claimed that many of the loud noises and other claims that the Snedekers made could just be explained by traffic sounds and cars with loud mufflers. It was her opinion that they had planned this from the moment that they moved in. And even those who had been once supportive of the Snedekers, like next door neighbor Joan Mirabel, started to get suspicious after the story started to spread. She said, I don't believe they made the whole thing up, but every time I've seen
Starting point is 01:21:14 Carmen on TV, the story became more and more involved and it just got bigger. Yeah, and that's when you know. Yeah. Among the more suspicious claims of the story, at least as far as locals were concerned, was that they had no idea the house had been the former location of a funeral home. Like they thought that was more like malarkey. Yeah. According to Darrell Kern, who was the landlord, the Snedekers were told of the house's history before they rented. The funeral home had only shut down two years before they moved in. And at the time that Carmen went to look at the apartment, the old sign for the business was still standing in the front yard.
Starting point is 01:21:48 Oh, come on. And could easily be seen from the road. Okay. There you go. Yeah. Now, while the criticism from skeptical neighbors was a prominent feature of the book's publicity, there were perhaps none more skeptical of the Sneddickers than members of Committee for the Scientific Investigation
Starting point is 01:22:04 of Claims of the Paranormal or CSI Cop. You know, that's kind of their job. That's actually their entire job. For those who don't know, they're a national group of scientists and industry expert, and it's their mission to promote critical thinking in America. I mean, I love that. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:22:23 Beginning in the mid-19 1970s, CSI cop, I don't know if that's actually what they're called, but it's very funny. It sounds hilarious. They were very vocal critics of Ed and Lorraine Warren. As they should be. And they saw this particular case, the Snedeker case, as part of a pattern where the Warrens were just kind
Starting point is 01:22:38 of promoting their own agenda. The Warrens had done something very similarly a decade earlier with the story of George and Kathy Lutz, the family who inspired the Amityville Horror. And we all know how that one went. Which we will be covering this spooky season. We will because that is attached to a very real and very tragic true crime story. Very tragic.
Starting point is 01:22:59 CSI cop member Joe Nickel wrote, already having helped promote the Amityville horror and similar West Pitts in Pennsylvania nightmare, the Warrens continued their modus operandi of arriving at a quote unquote haunted house and transforming the case into a quote unquote demonic one. And you know, claiming that they contact the archdiocese of a place and not doing it. Also that's a pattern of behavior. Joe Nickell, don't fucking forget that. Yeah, don't forget it.
Starting point is 01:23:23 That's their thing. Yeah. Joe was one of the many skeptics who spoke out publicly against the family, including appearing alongside them on Sally, Jesse, Raphael and the Maury Povich show. That's awesome. I love that everybody was like just beefing on television. Just beefing on daytime television. Just beefing while everybody's at work.
Starting point is 01:23:41 But like several other critics, he pointed out the many inconsistencies in the family story, including the fact that contrary to how it had been presented in the press, the family did not actually move from the house voluntarily. Nickel wrote long before the Sally show, the Snedeker's landlady had served them with an eviction notice for failing to pay their rent, which is very sad. He also pointed to several other facts about the family that were not mentioned in the book or in their many television and media appearances,
Starting point is 01:24:11 including the sexual assault allegations, Al's history of alcoholism, and a very long history of just dysfunction in general. It sounds like it. And he noted that perhaps most telling was that many years after its publication, Ed Warren's co-author on In a Dark Place, Ray Garten, he repudiated the book and the Warrens, which is not great.
Starting point is 01:24:34 I mean, yeah, I'm like, join the long line of people. Yeah. Not a great thing for the story. No, definitely not. He quoted the Garten as, not the Garten quoted the Garton as, not the Garton, he quoted Garton as saying, the family involved, which was going through some serious problems like alcoholism and drug addiction, could not keep their story straight.
Starting point is 01:24:52 And I became very frustrated. It's hard writing a non-fiction book when all the people involved are telling you different stories. Oh. Very sad. That is sad. It's kind of sad all the way through,
Starting point is 01:25:01 and then it gets like realistically sad in the end. Oh no. Yeah. In 1993, after the release of In a Dark Place had made them very controversial stars, Alan Carman moved their family to Tennessee to kind of like quiet down a little bit. Carman's family lived out there. But despite the controversy surrounding the story and the large number of skeptics and critics, the book actually sold really well for the first couple years. And in the mid-2000s, members of the family appeared in a feature-length docudrama for the Discovery Channel entitled A Haunting in Connecticut. Oh, I remember that. Yep. The family, they told their story, it was dramatized with interviews and paid actors.
Starting point is 01:25:44 And then in 2009, the story would surface again this time as the source material for The Haunting in Connecticut, which is a mostly fictionalized version of what they say actually happened. Artistic license. Yes, yes. Since the release of The Haunting in Connecticut, members of the Snedeker family have tried to stay out of the spotlight. And in the decades that followed,
Starting point is 01:26:05 Philip's cancer remained in remission, but in late 2011, his cancer returned and he passed away on January 9th, 2012, at the age of 38. Oh, damn. Yeah. And that is the end of the Snedeker family haunting, AKA the haunting in Connecticut. Wow.
Starting point is 01:26:24 It's a wily story. That's a truly wily story. And anytime it involves Ed and Lorraine, I say, sign me up. Because you know it's going to be. Cuckoo nuts bananas. It's going to take you into another realm. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:26:39 And aren't we all just looking for that? We're always looking for that. Ed and Lorraine are such like fascinating creatures. Like they're such a fascinating case study. They are. On like, you know, scammers that I think also believe some of the stuff that they peddle. That's the thing, because I don't believe,
Starting point is 01:26:57 I definitely believe that they were like scamming people. Yeah. But I don't believe that, I think that, I think they believed some of their shit. I think they believe some of their shit. Like I don't believe they... I think they believed some of their shit. I think they believed some of their shit. Like I don't believe they were 100% scammers. Yeah, I really do believe that they at least believed some of it. Yeah, and I think it got bigger than them,
Starting point is 01:27:16 and they were just like, all right, let's roll with it. And I think they just rolled with it, and they saw what was working for them, and they saw the dollar signs, and they turned it into what it shouldn't have been. But that's why I think they're fascinating people. I agree.
Starting point is 01:27:29 Fascinating creatures that in Lorraine LeBourne. And also so random. Literally so random. With such a serious pattern of behavior. Truly. The archdiocese of it all. The archdiocese of it all is just a great way to wrap up there. It really is.
Starting point is 01:27:47 It is. It's a great like two truths and a lie for them. Yes. Like that one of their truths or lies can be like, I always call, say I call the archdiocese, but I never do. Or I always call the archdiocese and maybe that's the truth or maybe it's the lie. Who knows? Who can tell? It's Lorraine Ed Warren, you know?
Starting point is 01:28:06 Wiley bitches. They're crazy. Well, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't actually call the Archdiocese if you say you're going to call the Archdiocese because if you call the Archdiocese and then you lie about it, they'll get mad. Yeah, just do it if you say you're going to do it.
Starting point is 01:28:23 I just kind of like to say Archdiocese. Call them. Hello? It's us the Archdiocese. I'm going to go to the bathroom. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. In a quiet suburb, a community is shattered by the death of a beloved wife and mother. But this tragic loss of life quickly turns into something even darker. Her husband had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web
Starting point is 01:29:51 to kill her, and she wasn't the only target. Because buried in the depths of the internet is the Kill List, a cache of chilling documents containing names, photos, addresses, and specific instructions for people's murders. This podcast is the true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those who lives were in danger. And it turns out convincing a total stranger someone wants them dead is not easy. Follow Kill List on the Wanderer app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can
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