RedHanded - DAY 9: The Conjuring (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

In the last 13 days before Halloween, a different ShortHand will rise from the archives for 24 hours only – before disappearing back into the vault. Get exclusive access to every ShortHand episode ad free only on Amazon Music Unlimited.--In 2013, horror blockbuster The Conjuring packed out cinemas worldwide, terrifying moviegoers with its alleged ‘true story’ of a house haunted by malevolent demons. But the real truth behind the tale is far sketchier than we might think – with marital discord, pissed-off neighbours, and a ghost-busting power couple spearheading a very unfair smear campaign against a 19th century farmer’s wife. This is the ShortHand.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waged on our planet? Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis. Uncover shocking tales of crime and corruption threatening our world's future. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Scams are every day. on your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen.

Looking at you, Tinder Swindler. What is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it could happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all so deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease, cheat with no guilt, and convince the world that they are who they say they are, even when they're not. Scamfluencers is a weekly podcast that takes you into the world of deception, sharing the stories of today's most notorious scams.

Like the recent episode of Natalie Cochran, the pharmacist Femm Fetal. It seemed like she had it all. A good job, loving husband, and two kids. But behind the scenes, Natalie was scamming friends and family using fake contracts, fake government emails, and she even faked cancer. But when the wall start closing in, she'll do anything to keep the lie alive until someone ends up dead. Listen to scam influencers now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Scams are everywhere, on your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen. So what is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it can happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease and cheat with no guilt. Listen to scamplencers now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello there's spooky listener. It's October, our favorite time of the year. And so to celebrate and give you all a well-deserved treat,

we're bringing you the 13 days of Halloween Shorthand Edition Usually every single week over on Amazon Music We release brand new episodes of our bite-sized sister show Shorthand, it's like Red Hand's little friend Where we delve into all sorts of fascinating topics From hell in different religions, Haitian voodoo The Death of Edgar Allan Poe, Catard Syndrome

Japan Suicide Forest And so much more And this Halloween from the 19th of October to the 31st of October, we are going to be pulling out 13 of our most terrifying episodes of shorthand to drop straight into your red-handed feed every single day. But beware. Each episode will only be available for 24 hours. So get listening or abandon or hope.

Enjoy. Hello And welcome to a very spooky episode of Shorthand I hope it is Not really Well I'm sure we will get onto it But we have had some first-hand experience

With this particular situation Yeah I can't promise anything Let's get into it and see what the fuck is what Being a fan of horror movies is all too often a disappointing pursuit. Hollywood churns them out faster than any other genre because, well, they sell. No matter how shit or pointless paranormal activity 37 is, you can bet your ass people will pat the cinemas,

even the post-COVID ones, to get their cheap thrills. So, if you're anything like me, you may have been pleasantly surprised in 2013 when the film The Cundering came out. Now listen, it's not exactly thought-provoking. paradigm shifting horror. I grant you. It's a simple story of a family who move into a house

that's haunted, are they haunted, there's some sort of haunting, but it is pretty good. It's well-paced, it shows you just enough of the scary witch and at points it is genuinely scary. And it absolutely cleaned up

at the box office, grossing nearly $320 million against its modest for this day and age, $20 million budget. So when we found our little butts in Connecticut earlier this year and got the opportunity to take a little detour to the real life conjuring house, obviously we went.

Was it great? Not really. I don't want to shit on it too much. Like it just, if you're in that neck of the woods and you're looking for a spooky tour, go to the Lizzie Borden house. Yes, that's it. That's what I was going to say. I thought you were going to say, go to the conjuring house.

And I was like, I'm going to shit on it. more than that. So let's reassess how we feel about it at the end of the episode because I've written this episode I have some stronger feelings I think. But yes, the Lizzie Gordon one, fantastic. Go, go, go.

I would love to go back. Absolutely fantastic. This one. But not five star, but it did tickle our curiosities about the true story behind the Hollywood hit of a family

whose perfect life was seemingly destroyed by demonic entities. So how much of the conjuring really is based on a true story or how much of it was a big fat hoax? We're going to find out. This is the shorthand. Firstly, let's talk about what is definitely real. There does exist a house, 1677 round top road.

So difficult to find. We drove past it like three times. Yeah, fucking nightmare. But yes, that house definitely exists. And it is the one that we visited. And this house is indeed where a family, the parents, including Carolyn and Roger, plus their five daughters, lived for 10 years from 1971. Now the parents, or at least some of them, claimed to have experienced all manner of horrors while living in this property. And the eldest daughter, Andrea, actually grew up and wrote a trilogy of books called House of Darkness, House of Light, detailing firsthand what happened.

Very British London. Anyway, according to Andrea Perrin, shortly after the family moved into the 1736 farmhouse, they began to notice some strange occurrences. Things would disappear and then reappear in different rooms. The family would hear noises, including rasping coming from inside the walls. Objects would fly across the room, and they were constantly confronted with the smell of rotting flesh. And all of that can only mean one thing. Demons

Andrea says that one of these demons would frequently attack her father and trap him in the cellar and her mother, Carolyn, was convinced that a female demon was the ringleader directing all of the other spirits. Apparently this boss bitch spirit

saw herself as the mistress of the house and she resented the competition that Carolyn posed for that position. However, the movie, The Conjuring, is not based on Andrea Perrin's, books, but rather on the case files of paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. According to Andrea Perrin, and this is a quote from an interview that she gave in 2014 and

prepare yourselves, I have put in the entire quote because I think it is worth us all hearing. The screenwriters, Chad and Carrie Hayes, twin brothers, lovely men, wanted desperately to include elements of the true story from my book, and they wrote some of the stories into the screenplay. But every time, every single time, the suits at New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers sent the script back and said, take that out, redact that. We're not going to run people out of the theatre. We're not going to make a movie that nobody will stay to watch to the end because they're too terrified. They thought it was just too scary. It was too real.

It was too raw. People who read my trilogy of books are changed. They're never the same again. Nothing is ever the same. It's because the books aren't very good. That's what changed me. I will never be the same because I don't think I'm actually able to structure a sentence anymore.

It's like joining a cult. Yes. Destroyed your brain. Anyway, Andrea did say later on that other than a few small discrepancies, the film is actually pretty accurate but toned down version of what really happened. Yes, apparently the film The Cundering,

that has a witch demon at one point, on top of a cupboard screaming at people and then you see Carolyn Perrin being exercised in the cellar by the Warrens while she's screaming and bleeding from the face and trying to kill the youngest daughter, that's a toned-down version of what really happened. Because the true story is too scary.

Too scary for Hollywood. Andrea followed that comment up with, quote. I would not be one of the very best-selling authors in this genre worldwide had it not been for the conjuring, so I don't hold any grudges. I'm not fucking surprised, mate. She's basically like, Hollywood ignored my story.

They went with the Warren's notebooks, their case files, and the Warrens sold our story to them, but I don't hold any grudges. Yeah, because I'm fucking loaded. Oh, God, it's all just so much, because, yes, Andrea's on board.

The Warrens are on board. Hollywood is on board, but not everybody involved was on board. Because the parents had moved, out of the conjuring house in 1980. They lived there for a decade and then they moved out, selling the farm to a couple, Norma and Jerry Sutcliffe. And after the release of the film, decades later in August 2013,

the place suddenly became an absolute mecca for trespassers and gawkers. And Norma Sutcliffe was absolutely furious, saying that it completely devastated her and her family's life. Norma and Jerry, by the time the film comes out in 2013, they're retired, and Norma had issues with her mobility following a back surgery. And in this really sad interview that Norma gives that's on YouTube, which I'll leave a link to in the episode description, she explains how she spent almost every night following the release of the film,

absolutely terrified. Not because of any ghosts or demons or scratching from inside the walls, but because of the random weirdos that would just turn up to her house in the middle of the night. According to Norma and Norma's neighbours, these people would just arrive at the property, ignore all of the no trespassing signs, sneak onto the grounds and carry out seances, or sometimes they just run around the garden into the woods, screaming. Can you even imagine?

They buy this house in 1980. They live there happily for 23 years. They raise a family there. There's absolutely no issue, no problem. The film comes out. The producers make no effort to hide the true identity of where this happened, allegedly, allegedly, and then suddenly the Sutcliffe's lives are absolutely destroyed. Imagine fucking random widows turning up and doing seances in your garden.

And if they're that crazy, how could you possibly feel safe that they're not going to do something? to you. Hell as other people. Some of these absolute plebs were to go through the Sutcliffe's mailbox or even their bins and some of them would just ring up the house to harass this elderly couple. It's disgusting.

And as Suru said, for more than 20 years that farm had been a tranquil, idyllic place for the sucklifts and their children. There had never been a peep of anything weird or ghostly, but now in an instant all of their peace was gone. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps?

The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead, in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain. Miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened. And cases so baffling, they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted

horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people. ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us, and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And so, Norma, who is an absolute fucking hero, in my opinion, decided enough was enough. She decided the only way to get these people to piss the hell off from harassing her and her family was to break the spell surrounding the house and prove that the movie and Andrea Perrin's books were all total bullshit. Get it. Oh yeah, she's so fucking cool. So Norma, with the help of a journalist, scoured local historical records

and found out some very interesting things. And the more she discovered, the more angry she became. Andrea and her mother Carolyn had been incredibly detailed in their telling of the story because although the books are Andrea Perrin's work, a lot of it is written based on what her mother Carolyn told her. and in the book they are very very specific about murders, suicides and drownings that they claim had all happened on the property

over its 200 year history down to which rooms these terrifying events had unfolded in but according to Norma and her research none of these stories that are detailed in the book House of Darkness, House of Light about the history of the farmhouse are even remotely true Andrea's books were written three decades after she lived at that house as a kid,

and she largely relies on research, quote-unquote, that her mother did. This research, or historical evidence gathering, as Carolyn called it, mainly involved her speaking to locals and then verifying their stories with psychics. Yeah. And the stories Carolyn formulated are cited throughout the book. I would add books, sir. There's three of them and they're fucking long. But these stories that are the foundation of that trilogy are riddled with inconsistencies and assertions that do not match historical records, as Norma on a mission quickly discovered.

Carolyn claimed that multiple people had been murdered, killed themselves or drowned by accident in the house, the barn or on the grounds of this farmer. house. And this is all so easily disproven thanks to something that I had never come across before but is very interesting. Basically there's this thing called the Black Book of Boroughville which sounds so sinister and it kind of is but it's also really really cool. Basically it's a record of all unnatural and suspicious deaths that occurred in that area from 1777 to the 1990s. And then they were just like, we don't care anymore We're not keeping a record or this shit

You have the internet now Yes, exactly I really think when Carolyn tells all these lies Because that's what they are I think she thinks That was fucking keeping record back then I could just say whatever fucking crazy shit I want And no one's ever going to find out

Enter the Black Booker Boroughville And Norma Sutcliffe And she's like, none of the things you say Are in this book So yes, as I said None of the deaths Carolyn claim to have uncovered in relation to that house had happened in that house.

I'm not saying none of the deaths had happened, but not in that house. Some of them had happened in other towns, while some had seemingly never happened at all. Which makes it more insidious because it's like Carolyn did find out about these murders or these deaths or these suicides. And she knew damn well that they had happened somewhere else.

But she just is like, I'll have it. Yeah, I'll have it. I'll have that one. And this is the thing. It's backed up by. the warrants. Because Carolyn tells Lorraine Warren, the self-professed clever end, a child was murdered in this house.

And Lorraine is like, you're right. A girl was killed in this house, in this pantry, there was blood everywhere. The family must never enter this pantry. It is too haunted. Look at the Black Book of Baraville. A child was murdered, but in a town called Uxbridge,

fucking miles away. The only two, unusual deaths, linked to the farmhouse, are from 1850 and 1901. The first one was Edward Arnold, who was found frozen to death near Sherman Farm Road, nearby, so not even on the property. And the second one was a man called Jarvis Smith, who again was found frozen to death in a shed on the farm. It seems as if he was on his way home from a bar. That are asleep in the cold and never woke up. Yeah.

And look, two deaths in a farmhouse that's over 200 years old, and both of them are men who accidentally froze to death? And one of them who was drunk on the way home from a bar and just went into the shed to properly try to keep warm. Come on. Yeah, sad, but hardly a Hollywood sensation. No. So I think when Carolyn discovered this,

she had to try a bit harder. And boy, did she try hard. during her digging into the history of the house Carolyn came across a woman named Bathsheba Sherman a woman she claimed had a dark reputation according to Carolyn Bathsheba had lived in the farmhouse in the 1800s and that she had allegedly killed an infant

possibly her own with a knitting needle by impaling its skull but Carolyn claimed that she was acquitted at trial due to a lack of evidence but bad news Bathsheba would not let up She was cruel and sadistic to her farmhands and then eventually, after drowning another one of her children in the basement well on the property, which we had a look at, Bathsheba hanged herself in the attic of the parent home. In the birthing room?

Possibly. But scary shit, right? A scary, scary stuff. The borning room, sorry. Wash my mouth out. She's here. If you are here, Badsheba, I can. can only apologise for all the bullshit that's been done to your name.

Apparently, locals believed that Bathsheba was a witch who practiced the dark arts and worshipped the devil, whom she'd made a pact with to stay young and beautiful forever, which you have seen the conjuring is not what happens. And Carolyn became convinced that the female demon in her house was indeed Bathsheba Sherman. Carolyn was so convinced that her family was under attack that she started to reach out to paranormal investigators.

And I love this bit because at first, she manages to get some experts to come to the house. And the first set she gets there from university are like, there's absolutely no evidence of anything paranormal. There's no haunting here. We've observed absolutely nothing unusual. Thanks very much. We're off. So Carolyn kept going.

And eventually she came across Ed and Lorraine Warren. who just heard cash register sounds brought to you by Shopify. Now we could and will at some point do an entire episode on the Warren's. But today, let's keep it brief. Ed Warren was a self-taught and self-professed demonologist. And as I mentioned earlier, his wife Lorraine claimed to be a clever aunt. In 1971, they visited the farmhouse multiple times at the request of Carolyn Perrin, even though Andrew claims that her mother never called them

and that they had just turned up the night before Halloween. But we know that Carolyn was putting the feelers out, left, right and centre. And the warrants had just gained quite a lot of national attention thanks to their involvement with a strange case involving a raggedy and old. See the Annabelle Hollywood franchise for more. So I don't buy Andrew's story that Carolyn didn't call them and they just turned up one night. Like Carolyn was fucking hunting out.

Yeah. Pull the other one. It's called Cuthbert. Carolyn told Lorraine all about Bathsheba and her historical research. And Lorraine obviously ate that shit up. Andrea claims in her book that Lorraine was the one to bring Bathsheba up before Carolyn even said anything. But I don't believe it.

Andrew's like, Lorraine came into the house and was like, don't tell me anything. And then she was laying her hands on the house and suddenly she was. like Bathsheba. I'm like, no, she fucking wasn't. No, she wasn't. Because none of it's true. Even if she did, which I don't think she did, that doesn't like solidify her as a clairvoyant anyway because it didn't happen. No, it didn't. After the Warrens arrived, the demonic activity at the farmhouse shifted up a gear and one night Carolyn experienced a sudden pain in her cough while lying on the sofa. Something had stabbed her. On her leg there was a circular wound, as if a large sewing needle had punctured her skin.

Lorraine suggested that Bathsheba must have taken her baby-killing needle with her into the afterlife and used it to hurt Carolyn. And after this incident, the Warren said they absolutely had to carry out a seance in the house. And during this bizarre situation, Carolyn was supposedly possessed by Bathsheba, spoke in tongues, up until her husband Roger put an end to it. He threw the warrens out. Andrea Perrin claims that she secretly witnessed the seance and that it was the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen. So yeah, that's all from the story that Andrea and Carolyn spin in the trilogy of books. But what's the truth about Bathsheba? What did Norma Sutcliffe find? Well, Bathsheba Sherman was indeed a real person. She was born in 1812 in Rhode Island and married a man

named Judson Sherman in 1844 at the age of 32. And Bathsheba Sherman's grave notes that she died of a stroke on the 25th of May 1885 at the age of 73. She did not hang herself in the Perrin's barn, as Carolyn claimed. Bathsheba also, and this is very important, did not ever live at 1677 Round Top Road. She lived miles away on the Sherman farm. Clues in the name, really, isn't it?

Yep. In Andrea's book, she also states that all of Bathsheba's children died before the age of four. But Norma Sutcliffe easily managed to track down government census records that show that one of Bathsheba's sons, Herbert, lived a long life as a farmer and had a family and even outlived his mother, who died at the age of 73. In Andrea's book, House of Darkness, House of Light, Carolyn Perrin, is a lot. described speaking with a man named Mr. McCurchin, a local historian. And he's the one who allegedly told Carolyn about Bathsheba's history and the rumours that

surrounded it. But Norma found him. And he said that absolutely no such conversation or meeting ever happened. No one in the area had ever heard these stories until the 1970s when the Perrin showed up. Even though the farmhouse had been there. for hundreds of years. Yeah. So in the book, they change his name. Mr. McIritcham is like a fake name. And they're like, it's because we want to protect his privacy.

So you're fucking lying. Yeah. So Norma just finds out who that historian would have been. Fines any historian, it could have been. And they're all like, never ever spoke to anybody called Carolyn Perrin. And never told them that because I don't know what you're talking about. And there's lots of historical houses. There's lots of historical records that are kept in this area and museums.

Norma Sutcliffe goes to all of them, and they're like, we have no record of anything you're talking about. And she's like, la, la, la, la, never mind. Forgot my notepad, whoops. Exactly. And another thing that is really, really important is that no one, Norma, not anyone, has ever been able to find any evidence of a trial or inquiry involving Bathsheba being accused of killing an infant with a knitting needle.

Because remember, Carolyn Perrin and Andrea Perrin are very, very clear in the book. they say that Bashiba was arrested but that she was acquitted or, you know, the trial fell apart because there wasn't enough evidence. There was no fucking trial. There's no record of anything to do with an infant being murdered with a knitting needle in any of the local papers. There are no courthouse documents.

There's nothing. I mean, even back then in the 1800s, they had newspapers, Carolyn. They had newspapers. If a baby had been stabbed in the head with a knitting needle by a woman, it would have been in. the papers. It would have been on the bloody front page. Also, Bathsheba Sherman was buried next to her husband, Judson Sherman, after she died, and she had a full church funeral. She was not

buried on the grounds of the house as the parents claim in their book. Also, it's highly unlikely that if Bathsheba had been suspected of being a witch as the parents claim, that she would have been buried on consecrated ground. But she was. So Bathsheba Sherman was not a demon. a child murderer, a witch, or a worshipper of Satan. Based on actual facts that are provable and true, Bathsheba Sherman appears to have been a normal, hard-working farmer's wife. Sadly, the conjuring smeared her memory with unfounded accusations. Bathsheba's grave and her headstone have been targeted by vandals for years.

And Carolyn and Andrea Perrin are to blame for that. And this is important. It's not just Carolyn lying about why, happened in the house, which you could just chalk up to delusions on mental illness. She lies about things that are easily provable, that she says that she researched. Why would she do that? What could Carolyn Perrin possibly have to gain? Don't know, tricky to say. Journalist Jim Nicol, who took an exhaustive look into the events for a 2016 article, did find that contrary to the happy, tranquil family described in Andrea's books,

the parents were a dysfunctional mess with Carolyn and Roger on the verge of divorce. So perhaps Carolyn was trying in a very odd way to keep Roger there with her. And you do have to ask

if the house is so haunted and scary and you're terrified all the time and you're getting stabbed in the leg by a ghost, why did not only Carolyn stay there? Why did she keep her children there? For 10 years? They lived there for a decade. And they say that all the haunting stuff started straight away.

I really do think that the kind of rosy, everything is great and we were just a nice normal family and we ended up being haunted out of this house. I do think that Roger was just unhappy because they end up divorcing afterwards. And I think, you know, how do you keep a man there is tell him that his five daughters are in some sort of mortal danger, possibly? How much Roger buys into all of this is hard to know.

Andrea and Carolyn are definitely the ringleaders. So yes, Carolyn, lie a liar, pants on fire. As for Andrea Perrin, she's also lying. Now yes, at the time of the events, she was a child, and probably manipulated by her mother. But as an adult, Andrea Perrin has also lied a lot. She said in an interview following the film's release, that Warner Brothers had given the Sutcliffe's protection.

That is not... True. Basically, the film comes out. Norma and Jerry start getting hounded. They start giving interviews, making YouTube videos about how much they're being hounded. It's like, you know, starts to pick up traction. There's a backlash. Andrea Perrin, who was fucking eating out on the conjuring film.

I bet she still does. Oh, yeah. Then comes out and it's basically like, the Warner Brothers have given them protection. What more could be done? Not true. Norma Sutcliffe is like, I never heard a peep from any of those Hollywood producers. Nobody got in touch with me.

That is not true. Andrea also said that she was attacked by Bathsheba when she visited the house and that Norma Sutcliffe saw it. Norma Sutcliffe is categorical that that is not true and that the one time Andrea Perrin visited her, no fucking demon attacked her. Andrea also claims that Norma has asked her time and time again to stay over at the house. Again, Norma says, I've never said that,

I don't want any of them in this house. And Andrea told people, and this is one that really, really piss Norma off and you can understand why, is that while Norma was living there, in the 24 years she lived there with her husband and their kids, she ran a daycare there, which we heard about when we visited the house. And Andrea Perrin had the gall to tell people in interviews following the movie's release so that she can sell more of her fucking shit books, that Norma Sutcliffe had told her that when she ran the daycare there, she had seen her multiple times children levitating and being thrown to the ground.

Norma Sutcliffe is like, I never ever said that. How dare you say that? Can you imagine saying that about somebody who's running a daycare centre where they're looking after other people's children? Yeah. Andrea Perrin is sick. So, what happened to the house after the Sutcliffs moved out in 2019? Well, they sold it, obviously, to another couple for $439,000 redos.

And the people who bought the house claimed that they too experienced all sorts of demonic activity. But maybe, just maybe, they had been motivated to draw attention to the house's demonic side for financial reasons. And if that was their plan, it worked. They sold the house in

2002, just three years after they bought it and just two years from now, for $1.5 million in profit. It's absolutely bonkers. So yes, I'm going to be like Are these people lying? There's a real clear motive. Yeah.

And they sold this farmhouse for that monumental price to a Boston developer named Jacqueline Nunes. A woman with a self-described fascination with the supernatural. But Jacqueline doesn't live there. No, no, no. She says, quote, The house doesn't allow people to live there year round because the energy is so powerful. Also, it's fucking freezing. It is that.

But I do have to say, Norma and Jerry managed to live there for 27 years before they sold it. I think Jacqueline, who knows, just doesn't want to live in a run-down farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, she's a property magnate, isn't she? Yes. Instead, Jacqueline now probably turns quite a tidy profit on this huge investment that she made, allowing paranormal investigators and horror enthusiasts to visit the house. Whoops. So, yeah, I just want to be clear as well.

All those people that were harassing the suckcliffs, we were not one of them. We went on a proper tour. So let us end our shorthand. for you today with the Warrens. In the conjuring the warrants are played as these nice kindly ghost-hunting, guitar-playing investigators of the paranormal. But the

truth is, many people over time have successfully debunked the bulk of their work as exaggerated and even exploitative. And in some cases, like Amityville, downright money-grubbing. They weaseled their way into

countless cases and clearly seemed to have preyed upon vulnerable families. going through, for whatever reason, their darkest moments. I don't always agree with Vox, but I can certainly get on board with their description of the Warrens as, quote, a pair of conniving, reality distorting, shamelessly grandiose self-promoters and sham psychics running a long-term con job. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, so that's basically it. The point of this whole shorthand is that the parents live there right. They live there for a decade, but people live there before and live there after. Everybody who lives there after is like, apart from Norma Sutcliffe, like this place is haunted. But Norma Sutcliffe lives there after the parents and lived there for 27 years

and never saw or felt or experienced a single weird thing happening in that house. Happily raised a family until that fucking film came out and ruined her life, basically. Luckily, they managed to sell the farmhouse and move on with their lives. And my issue now is like, I'm not like, oh, I wish we hadn't gone on the tour.

The reason I'm like, I don't care about shitting on it that much is the money's just going to line the pockets of this property developer Jacqueline Nunez. And I wish at least the Sutcliffs had made that kind of profit. And they didn't. Just another family that also lied in order to make a huge profit on that house. Yeah. No, you're right.

I did feel a bit bad, but I don't feel bad. I just... Do you know what? That was the vibe of the whole thing. Like, we didn't learn anything about what happened. They were just like, do you want to buy some well water? Yeah. Do you want to buy some well water for like $10 in this little vial?

Do you want to buy a t-shirt with a conjuring merch? It was so, like, tax. key and money grubbing and I'm sorry but that's what it feels like and now I know who owns it I feel I give even lesser a shit if Norma Sutcliffe still owned it and she was like you know what I've been fucked over by the parents and by Hollywood I might as well make a quick buck and go live somewhere else and make some money off this I'd be all in yeah but it just seems with this everyone who lied made money off this hoax and the people who didn't lie Norma and Jerry who just wanted to live there and raise their family and be nice and normal

more people got their lives totally ruined by all of the lies. So that's it. That's the real story behind the country. And I think a lot of people on the internet kind of have this thing of like, well, the movies based on the Warren's case files, who are grifters. But the real story is Andrea Perrin's books that Hollywood didn't use. And I'm like, no, no, no. No, no.

The real story is fucking Norma's ugly. Exactly. It's like based on the ghostly grifter's warrants. But Andrea Perrin's story is also a lie. It's like another layer down. from that you have to go to to get to the truth of this and i think andrew perrin really dines out too much on the well i'm telling the real story behind the country and i'm like no you're fucking not trash so that's it guys welcome to october that is the first shorthand of the month

we'll be back next week with something else that is hopefully a bit more creepy bye It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another

and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists out there's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That motherfucker is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tail of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine

and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious. You should tune in to our podcast. Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.