Episode 465: The Devil Made Me Do It

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna.

And this is morbid.

Hey guys, you've been here before? probably. yeah, you probably have, and if you haven't, welcome, hey, what's up? You're coming in on a weird case because we're getting, like, weirdly demonic.

And we have a lot of priests in this week's episodes. Yeah, right, yeah, no, that's weird. I thought you were about to say there's a lot of priests in yours, there is.

And I was like, my whole thing is about a priest. I also have a lot of priests or a pastor. I think there's a difference. I have lots of priests in mine.

I have pastors and youth pastors. There you go, I have demons, I have the warrens in mine. Oh, you got any prophecies?

Kind of, oh, I have a lot of prophecies, a little bit. yeah, there's a claimed and alleged prophecy. Should we play like Demon Bingo?

My God, guys set up a demon bingo when you get to my case. after you finish mine, combine me and Alayna's and make a demon bingo. I love that. And when you get bingo, instead of saying bingo, you have to say something in Latin.

Oh, don't read the Latin, do not read the Latin. No, no, baby. Well, I don't think we have anything we really want to touch upon this week.

No, the Vanderpump Rules reunion hasn't happened yet, it hasn't happened yet, so we got nothing to talk about. If we have something to talk about, we will touch upon it in the next episode. But right now I have nothing.

My brain is just thinking about Demons and the Warrens and all this craziness. So we are talking about today today, the case that the conjuring Part 3 The Devil made me do it is based on.

Ooh, slightly. Fun fact I've never seen any of the conjuring movies I saw the first one, or Wait is the first one, Annabelle.

No, or is that a completely separate movie? Yeah, that's a different one. Never seen any of them. The first conjuring, I thought, was great.

I didn't see any of the other ones, so maybe they're great too. Yeah, first one was fun. Religious, scary movies have a way of, like, really scaring the shit out of me.

That's what I love about them. See, I tend to avoid them. You don't want to be scared? No, I do, but I want to be scared in a different way.

Not in a religious way, I don't like the religious scared feeling. Well, the first one is fun, I think the first one has, like, it's like a fun, haunted house kind of thing. This one's definitely more religious based.

But, you know, I don't think the first one's like, super religious. I think it's more just haunted house fun. Yeah, but this one is actually. This case is called The Devil Made Me Do It case.

Oh, so, the third conjuring is based off of this. They definitely go a little, you know, they take some artistic license towards the end, but they do base a lot of the facts of the case on this. Okay?

This is a wild case. You're going to have your own thoughts about it. Okay, have those thoughts, I will.

Everyone's entitled to them. I just want to get that right off the bat. Oh, her face, you guys. There's beliefs here that everybody's going to have different beliefs about, yeah.

There's there's, you know, demonic possession, there's exorcisms, the church is involved, you know, the Warrens are involved. People have thoughts about all these things, and you're allowed to have those thoughts, have them exist with them. But this one involves a guy named Arnie Johnson and his at the time, his girlfriend, Debbie Glatzel.

Okay, we're going to start with talking about them because they are, you know, where the actual criminal case comes in. Oh shit, so. According to his family, growing up Arnie Johnson was always a kind, thoughtful person. He'd go out of his way to help others.

He was a pretty normal kid, his name's Arnie, so I feel like he kind of has to be friendly. I feel like you have to for now anyways, you know? They said that while everyone around him, all his peers, were, oh, you know, drinking and, you know, going to clubs, just being rowdy teenagers.

Vibing Arnie was singing in the church choir and just playing little league and taking his younger sister fishing. Aw, just like a, you know, he's just being a good brother, good old American boy.

His one of his friends said to reporters This is a direct quote. He didn't go discoing, he wasn't into drugs, he doesn't have long hair, and he never raised his voice. Okay, I would like to point out that discoing, having long hair and raising one's voice was just attributed to being a bad person here. Yeah, so I don't know about that, but okay.

No long hair. Okay, we are in Connecticut, just want to point that out. But yeah, so that I was like, discoing, huh?

Discoing it leads to having long hair. Being a bad, being a bad. And it's like, what would constitute raising one's voice? Where's the line there, like?

See, that's that's also like, everybody has a different opinion on that. Yeah, like, what is loud to someone is not loud to another. Exactly, I don't know.

But apparently his parents separated pretty early on in his life. He was only nine months old. Oh, that's sad. There were periods that they attempted to reconcile with each other, but they it didn't work out, and they officially divorced when he was about four years old.

Oh shit, that's a long time of tumultuous, yeah. His mother, Mary Johnson, was a single mother at the time. She struggled kind of working several jobs just to support Arnie and his younger sisters, Wanda and Janice.

Wanda Yeah. There was also a younger cousin named Mary, who was living with the family on and off, so she was supporting her as well. When he finished eighth grade, he did try to move in with his father, who at the time was working as a landscaper in Bethel, Connecticut.

But unfortunately, it didn't really work out. I think they just couldn't really make their relationship work that closely after all that time. That's sad. It was like, kind of moving in with someone you don't really know, yeah.

That well, so he ended up returning to live with his mother and his sisters in Bridgeport pretty quickly after trying this out with his dad. But Arnie's mother was really trying her best, just kind of, but struggling to support all these children on her own, that's a lot of kids. So Arnie ended up dropping out of school at 16 to work odd jobs and just try to support his siblings as well.

It always makes me so sad when, like a kid will drop out of school to, like, help the family, like to try to help out. Yeah, now. According to his mother, she said, quote He took odd jobs, that was really.

The only reason he left school was to help support us, and it was through his mother that Arnie Johnson met his future girlfriend and then wife, Debbie Glatzel. He was just 12 years old when they met. She was 19..

Oh shit yep. oh shit shit shit shit yep.

Yep, yep. It was 1974, and Debbie was working as a checkout clerk at a local grocery store. She later said. Quote I knocked over a display in the supermarket and Arnie said to his mother, I'm going to help that lady. I'd like to point out that I'm uncomfortable here.

I would like to point out that I think we should all be uncomfortable. This is the part where I get uncomfortable and I stay uncomfy.

Debbie and Mary Johnson became close friends through seeing each other at the grocery store. Reminder Mary is Arnie's mother. Arnie is 12. Debbie and Mary, Arnie's mother, are now close friends. Yeah.

What the fuck is happening here? So, despite this seven-year age difference, and remember, it's all about phases of life. If they were in their 30s, if they were in their 20s, even this is a different story. 12 and 19. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's also all about the law, like, that's illegal. It's like, No, no, no, no, no, no. And like, Baby girl, what are you finding like stimulates your relationship with a 12-year-old? I was just going to say, I'm going to stop you there.

But yeah, but yeah. They began dating a few years later. I don't know how old he was when they began dating. They didn't date when he was 12, but that's when she had met him. It's fucking weird.

And at the beginning of their relationship, they actually lived with Debbie's family in Brookfield for a few months to save their money. And by 1980, when he was technically an adult, the couple decided to move in together. And they also brought along Arnie's mother, sisters and younger cousin Mary, the one that was living with them. To live with them in a small house that they found to rent in nearby Newtown, so Debbie set about that home, it was like my dream house.

I thought we could build a nice, beautiful life there. Okay, Debbie? Spoiler alert They didn't. They were very excited about the move. But that all changed very quickly. Because on moving day, Debbie's 11-year-old brother David had an alleged paranormal experience that terrified them and changed everybody's lives. Oh, shit.

Debbie's brother, You said yes, so Debbie's little brother was 11 years old. David, according to Debbie, David really liked Arnie, like, got along very well with him.

Just wanted to be around him a lot, so like, he wanted to help. The couple move that day, and so the day of the move he went with them to get everything settled. And when they got to the house, they noticed that the previous tenants had left some furniture, which included a bed in the main bedroom. And it was while he was cleaning in the main bedroom that David. The 11-year-old, first saw what he called the fiendish-looking figure that he described as an old man, burnt and black-looking.

Ooh, yeah. And apparently he was basically telling them, Beware, get out of this house. That was the vibe that David was getting the little 11-year-old. Now. Apparently, upon seeing this horrifying sight, David yelled, screamed and ran from the house altogether.

And this is like during the day, it sounds like this is during the day. And Debbie and Arnie followed out behind him, and he was freaking out he would not go back in the house. David told his sister that the old man had pushed him and that he was not going back in that house.

He was terrified and he wouldn't. Debbie and Arnie went back in and continued cleaning, but David stayed outside until they were ready to leave. He wouldn't go back in. So later that night, over dinner at Debbie's parents house, Debbie and Arnie were telling Debbie's mom about what had happened at the house.

And while they were talking about it, David came out of his bedroom and said he was still having visions of the old man in the house. But now he could hear his voice in this house, what now? According to David, in visions, he could see the old man. And he said, This old man has an animal trapped in the house and is tormenting it, and he said the animal is scratching at the door, trying to escape.

What the fuck? And this kid is just coming out of this with nowhere, just coming out of it. Like, never had any other conversations like this, not that we know of.

Okay, but over time, he would keep elaborating on this story and it became more and more detailed. And the man eventually apparently was described as having like hooves for feet. And that sometimes there was other men around him and they were wearing grotesque costumes like it was getting scarier and scarier.

Yeah, and as this got more detailed and more frequent, the story started to scare Debbie. And she honestly wondered, Should we move into this little rental house? I don't think we should. I mean, after a while, you would start to be nervous.

But they had invested so much time and money in it that they really couldn't afford to back out. So they did return to Newtown the following day and kept moving into the house. And when they got to the house that day, things changed a little bit. Because Arnie and Debbie immediately noticed scratches on the inside of the front door and they looked like an animal had caused it. Oh shit, yeah, that would freak me out.

So Arnie later told producers of A Haunting, which was a reality series that talks about paranormal experiences. He said When I saw the scratches on the door, I was starting to really question, Well, maybe something is definitely wrong here. Now. I have to ask, did David see those scratches the day before, when he was helping them move? And was possibly influenced by that? Like, maybe he did see something scary and maybe he saw those scratches?

In the narrative of the story, do we know if the previous tenants had a dog? We do not know that, and that's the thing. I was like, Bailey, we didn't train her to like, Oh my god, ring a bell or anything like that.

Like, we've now got a bell on the door for Sydney and Blanche. But with Bailey, she just scratched the hell out of our door. And so I was like, that could definitely just be a dog. Yeah, exactly, but, you know, just saying.

So, either way, though, Debbie interpreted this as confirmation that what David was saying about the old man and what he was seeing was true. And he was like, she was like. They had already invested two months rent into this place, but they decided they weren't moving in after this. Wow, yeah.

So Arnie and Debbie felt comfortable with this decision. They were like, nope, not doing it. But Mary Johnson, who is Arnie's mom, she was not so convinced that there was really reason to back out of this. Mainly because Mary had already given notice to her landlord that she was going to be moving out and had to live somewhere. Because the plan was she was going to move into this house with Debbie and Arnie with her kids. And so she was like, So, Arnie and Debbie were going to live with Debbie's family in Brookfield for the time being until they could find another place.

But Mary and her children had already given notice to the landlord, so they decided to actually move into the house in Newtown. I mean, where else? exactly where else could they go? So you would think that the house in Newtown, that place, is going to be where the problem is. No, no, no.

That didn't have a problem.

Now, Arnie and Debbie Now, their plans have been put on hold. They're not moving into that little house his mom did his little sisters have, so they kind of took all their stuff out of that house. Went back to Debbie's parents house. They were going to stay there for a while.

But when they got there, Debbie's mom was very agitated and she was saying that David had been upset all evening and was insisting that. The old man, who he was now calling the beast, was angry with him for telling Arnie and Debbie not to move into that house in Newtown. And what David was saying was that the beast had followed him from that home and had followed him to the Brookfields home. It was now in their house. And that he wanted to take his soul, that he was like aggressive, like he was pushing him and scratching him and hurting him.

And Arnie later said, quote The fear in this child was so overwhelming. Something was going wrong and I believed him. Okay. So the following day, Arnie and Debbie were like, You know what? Like, he's so upset.

Let's get him out of the house for a little while. So they were hoping, like, just a casual afternoon outside at the park. Or whatever was going to hopefully take his mind off this scary ass old man beast that he was seeing distract him. Seemed like it was going okay, but then, when they returned back to the Glatzel House in Brookfield, David refused to go inside.

And he told his sister the beast was in that house and he was like, I'm not going in. And they had to convince him. It took a lot of convincing for him to finally go in that house. God, if my kid starts doing this shit, man, I'm gonna, I gotta go.

I gotta go return the whole ass kid. And that night, as David was going to bed, it apparently escalated, and according to Arnie and Debbie, David was being physically attacked by an unseen force. Y'all, David just didn't want to go to bed.

This force was striking him, pushing him around the room, Arnie said later. Quote The scariest part to me was seeing David go through this with nothing there to do it. It was terrifying, so no one knew what to do, okay.

So, and he was having outbursts, he was like, according to them, he was having convulsions, he was yelling, screaming, swearing, kicking, becoming more and more aggressive. And David's 11 at this point, and it's like, out of character.

It's out of like, it's to them, according to them, it's out of nowhere, it's getting worse and worse, so they don't know what to do me. I would call a doctor.

Debbie's family went to the priest at their church.

Or some kind of similar, similar ritual? Since the early 1960s, the Catholic Church had definitely tried to minimize. Like the talk of demons and, you know, evil like that, like, you know, this kind of thing. But then Rosemary's Baby and the Exorcist came out, it became more popular.

People started suddenly knowing about exorcisms, people who didn't know about it previously. Suddenly it's a thing where, like everybody needs an exorcism, right? And after hearing the family story about what's going on with David, the priest who is unnamed, lots of unnamed priests in here.

There's always unnamed priests, Yeah, because there isn't. So. The priest told the family he wasn't going to do an exorcism because he was like, that's kind of wild. And you need a lot of permissions and it's like, this big process, we can't just do one. It seems like you're like jumping.

Well, and he's literally like you would have to wait for weeks.

Like, we can't just perform exorcisms really dangerous. Yeah, like, very involved do we need lots of people?

So he was like, Yeah, I'm not going to do an exorcism. But he was like, let me do some more research. And while I'm doing this research for what I can do for you, why don't you bless your house with some holy water, light some candles, do some prayers? Get out of here? So seems very helpful. Thanks. So shockingly.

David's behavior did not change, what was happening to him was not changing. Allegedly, he was speaking in Latin at times and reciting passages from Paradise Lost. He was contorting, screaming. It was getting worse and worse.

What is Paradise Lost? It's a poem about a battle between Satan and God, so it's got religious connotations and also, like, occultist connotations in it. Oh, okay.

I was going to say, I know you're thinking of the Robin Hills murders at the West Memphis. Three. That's kind of why it's very much in popular culture that the name paradise lost. But he was 11 at the time. He had not read the epic poem by John Miller, so him apparently reciting things from it was strange to the family. Which I understand it would be.

I get that, so, you know, out of options again. The family went back to the unnamed priest, who had now agreed to come to the Glatzel House to perform a blessing ritual. Not an exorcism, just blessing the house. Well, that's the thing I'm like, usually there are a couple steps.

First, yeah, the Holy water and the blessing you lead up to the exorcism, you know? read a prayer. A hail. Mary I guess, yeah. They were like, we need an exorcism.

Now, according to the Glatzels, when the priest had completed the blessing, he told them it's definitely not going to be sufficient enough to end what's going on here. Like, I've done my best. But he was like, then they said, he. This unnamed priest, who is never named, told them to reach out to Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators who lived in nearby Monroe, Connecticut.

So this was interesting to me, so Dave, our Dave found some information that was really interesting to me. This story has been told over and over in various forms of media over the years, like in the basis of a conjuring movie. I know it's so funny because I know nothing about it. Yeah, it's been told a million times, but the more sensational parts are the ones everyone remembers, or the ones that get retolds.

But there is lesser parts of this story that are pretty important, just to round the whole thing out. I don't think it's good to tell the story from one point of view, which is demon possession. Yeah, no, I think it's probably smart to look at the other people involved. And if somebody else is saying I didn't see any of that, then at least you need to hear that part of it.

That's not fun and not discussed. A lot was the fact that there was a third Glatzel child who falls between David and Debbie in birth order and has a very different version of events than his two. Than, you know, especially his older sibling, Debbie So I was going to say, in the middle of David and Debbie, Yeah, so David is his younger brother and he's very protective of him. Okay, what is this person's name?

CarL Damn it. I thought it was all going to be DS and that's something that happens in my story. And I was like, Whoa, you're like, Wait a second, No, this guy's name is Carl.

That was amazing. I wish John was up here, Carl, Carl, but I'm not saying who is right or wrong because none of us were there.

But it's interesting that Carl Jr. has a different version of events. And he shouldn't be left out of the narrative for the sake of only telling the demon narrative.

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Exhibit C Live presents Dr. Death A Closer look. Tickets go on sale August 9th, so get your truest true crime fans together and get tickets before they sell out. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. And I'm like, stop f***ing around. And she's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down low.

Everybody thought I was holding something back. well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, oh, it's hysteria, it's all in your head.

It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here?

Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical follow Hysterical.

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So, beginning in 1979, Carl Glatzel Jr. was 14 years old. And he said at the beginning of 1979, he was feeling very helpless because he was watching his younger brother. David's mental and emotional health begin to rapidly decline. That's how he saw it, and at first, he said, this manifested with some acute behavioral problems.

He saw him having trouble in school, like learning disabilities, but by 1980, the problems really allegedly escalated, he said. David began experiencing what Carl referred to as delusions. And he said he was having seizures sometimes. Or what he saw was seizures, and other people maybe saw as convulsions, exactly. And Carl told reporters in 2007 It was a living hell. When we were kids, it was an absolute nightmare. That's really sad. According to Carl, the family was convinced David's issues were spiritual and not physical or psychological.

So they insisted on turning to a priest at church instead of a doctor. But when he, this priest, this unnamed priest, was unable to offer really anything besides this blessing ritual. In like, a little bit of spiritual guidance. And like Ed and Lorraine Warren, he says he believes his parents turned to the Warrens. His family turned to the Warrens themselves. And that Carl and he. What Carl says is that the Warrens saw their family as a goldmine.

Oh, shit, allegedly? Yeah, allegedly, of course, this is just a part of the story, not often included. And it's important to talk about the fact that not everyone in the family saw this as a spiritual or demonic issue. Yeah, at least Carl saw it as a psychological or physical issue that a doctor, a medical doctor, should have been consulted on. Well, and that's the thing.

It's like you can consult a doctor and a priest. yeah, maybe consult both, like neither is exclusive. Yeah, exactly, you can have both of them working at the same time right now. Back to where we were.

Ed and Lorraine Warren have entered the chat. Now. Can I stop you for a quick second? Yes, so David, sorry. Carl sees David having all these problems and the problems that he saw started before even he, like, talked about the beast. Or right around the same time, No, he said, it's about the same time. Okay, he just saw it starting to rapidly decline.

Okay, gotcha, he said. It was, it was small, but it it started to really escalate. So Ed and Lorraine Warren have entered the chat and by this time, they had been. But that the by the time that they became involved with this whole thing, they were already very well known. Since the early 1950s, even the Warrens had been involved in paranormal investigations, Lorraine was a psychic medium, and Ed was a self-described demonologist.

They flew under the radar at first a little bit, but in 1975 is when they really blew up to paranormal stardom. Which makes sense, because that's when Ronald DeFeo Jr. went on trial for the murder of his family in Amityville, New York. Mm-hmm. The Amityville horror is very well known to both horror and true crime buffs worldwide. Yep, it's become its own kind of cultural force at this point. But in the beginning, it was a real, straightforward, shocking case of a family annihilation. Yeah, that's what it is.

I know I think that gets lost, it gets buried, which is really tragic. It was on November 14th, 1974 that Ronald Defeo Jr. silently went room by room in his family home in the middle of the night, shooting and killing his parents, Ronald Defeo Sr. and Louise Defeo and four siblings, Don, his sibling Don, 18, Allison, 13, Mark, 12, and John, 9.

So sad. They were all in their beds and he shot them all in the head with a rifle. After doing so, he left. And he just unleashed and unloaded what he had just done to a bar full of people and was very much quickly arrested. Initially, he claimed that these killings were a professional hit. Mm-hmm. That was his initial story, initial story, excuse me. But that fell apart pretty fast and it became clear that it was him, he had done it.

Yeah, he struggled a lot with several different things. He had a terrible, tumultuous, violent relationship with his father. There were many factors in this whole case that you can point to for what was going on at that time. That's the straightforward answer for that. Yeah, a year later, so that happened, and that was like, Whoa?

Okay, yeah, family annihilation, that's horrific. What a case. What an awful thing to happen. What a vibe that house must have.

Now, the end, No. Well, a year later, a newly married couple named George and Kathy Lutz moved into the Defeo home with their blended family. Even though that home had those like, bad, you know what had happened there, they were like, you know what, we're gonna make it our home, it's okay.

But after living there for only about a month, they abandoned it, leaving a lot of things behind. Just fleeing that house, uh, they claimed it was haunted. It was horrible, horrible things were happening in that house. The claims were very, very heavily and completely investigated by skeptics, paranormal investigators, literally anybody that could go in there.

They were pretty, pretty like, quickly looked at as like, I don't know about that, right. Pretty unfounded, um. But the people who really believed them, really believed them, and two of those people were Ed and Lorraine Warren. Uh. Also. Defeo's lawyer, William Weber, looked at this and said, Oh, I believe them, too. And he claimed that Defeo was possessed by a demonic entity when he murdered his family. What an argument, the same entity that drove the Lutzes from their house.

So the story behind the supposed Amityville haunting and its connection to the Defeo murders is so long, so complicated, very confusing at times. There's just a lot there, very layered. But in the decades that followed, this whole thing, claims of demonic possession and hauntings at the Defeo slash later. Lutz Household, Um, were definitely called into question in some court cases where they admitted it was a hoax. Yeah, like it was very much admitted to being a hoax, but people were really interested in it. There's, there's novels, there's a long line of films that, you know, catapulted the whole thing into, like the zeitgeist. And everybody questioning whether everybody wants to believe that the haunting of Amityville is true. I did it, too, when I first read it.

Yeah, people love hauntings, people love like spooky shit, and Amityville is like the most iconic to most people. And I remember, like, when I was younger and I first read about it, I was like, Oh my god, you read about the walls bleeding, and you're like, Holy shit, the walls bled. Like, that's wild, all the flies, all the flies, like the the pig in the corner with the glowing red eyes, like, what the fuck? And it's like, so to hear it was all bullshit.

And this is just a straightforward story of, like, a really tragic, tragic family annihilation.

It's, of course, everybody's like, Oh, bummer, yeah, nobody wants to look to that part of it. And then Lorraine are a huge part of this story because they really went hard at it. They believed it, it catapulted them into the public eye at that point. Um, and they were like the IT couple of the paranormal world at that time.

They got booked on talk shows, they were becoming public speakers, they this shot them into the stratosphere. Now, according to Lorraine Warren, the blessings on the Glatzel's house bringing it back to this case, yup, it had no effect on David Glatzel's behavior.

When she went in there, she saw that they had done nothing. Which the Glatzel's priest, apparently, according to them, had reached reached out to the Warren's. Because he also believed it wasn't going to have an effect on David. Uh, they lived only 30 minutes away from this family, so they were like, why not? And Lorraine claims she received the call from that unnamed priest who said, There's something definitely wrong. And I believe it would be possession. So I'd like you to look into it.

Okay, this is what she said, and she said the priest told her the story, told her all about what was going on with David. That he had tried, that the family had tried with the blessings and nothing worked, and that they needed urgent help. So they went straight from Monroe and went right to the Glatzel home pretty shortly after. But other people say that the mom just called them directly. That's Carl's feeling.

That's Carl's feeling, I don't know if anybody else feels that way. These are just feelings. Nobody really knows what happened. But when Lorraine met David, she said she believed Whoops, sorry, I just dropped my charger. How dare you? How dare I?

Lorraine said she believed there was, quote a creature in that child's body, wow, and she said that creature was there to cause considerable psychic and physical harm to him and his family. But like, why, though? I'm not really sure. Uh, but you know, he, it was there, apparently. The Glatzels told Ed and Lorraine that David's behavior was becoming increasingly more aggressive.

They had seen the beatings that had been inflicted upon this boy by this unseen beast themselves. And of course, the Warrens looked at this and said 100. He is possessed by a demon now. Debbie Glatzel figured it was linked to the property somehow, which makes no sense because it initially supposedly attached to him. At the other house where Mary Johnson is currently living. Fine, but she figured, why can't we just move away from this house and hopefully solve the problem? But Lorraine was like, No, and she said it would do no good at this point because it wouldn't. A haunted house and haunted. People say what you want about the Warrens, but they know how to speak.

Spooky is what I have to say about that, the difference between a haunted house and haunted people. Yeah, that's beautiful, poetic justice. I would get sucked into, I would, too, so the Warrens insisted.

According to them, the only thing that was going to fix David was an actual exorcism performed by a Catholic priest. But like I said before, you don't just get an exorcism. Getting an approval for an exorcism can take months. You have to petition the church, they have to go through a whole thing.

They didn't have that kind of time. David is increasingly getting worse and worse, so luckily, Ed Warren tells the family Don't worry about it. I can perform a minor exorcism, which can be done sooner. Okay, and the glatzels were like, cool, interesting that this sounds like super duper dire. And he's like, I think a minor exorcism sounds like, if he needs an exorcism, he needs a motherfucking exorcism.

Don't you think that if you have to get all that permission and shit, there's a petition? There's a reason you have to do that now. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, minor exorcisms are quote prayers used to break the influence of evil and sin in a person's life. I just have to say it's wild that, like, actual documents exist that, like, explain what this is and how to go about it. Yeah, that's just how I feel, and here's the thing.

I am a believer in many things, I'm also a healthy, I was meaning to say, healthy, and also I'm also a healthy. Skeptic, but an open-minded skeptic. I am willing and honestly eager to have my mind changed about certain things. That's true, she is I, but I am always looking at the logical side of things. If I possibly can. Demonic possession, I can't rule it out in life, no, and I can't say that I don't believe it happens.

I can't say that, I don't think that anything like that could happen. I can't say it because I don't know, I'm not here to say I know. Either way, that would be foolish to me.

But I think when it comes to the religious part of it is where I have the problem, mainly because I am not a religious person. So to me, why would that help me if I don't believe in it? And I feel like some people that are dealing with this possibly maybe don't believe in it either, and is that going to help them?

Why is it so connected? I know it's so connected because of the Bible and all the stories and everything like, you know, Satan and all that shit. Well, and I think a lot of times people that believe in demons think they're like, like, hell's demons, yeah, it's just.

I feel like it's too linked with religion for me to fully engage in it. But I like, believe in ghosts. I believe in, well, that's the thing. I believe. Entities, but I look at it more like energy, a bad entity. Yeah, like, I don't look at it as like a hell demon, same, you know, like, because I don't think it has any link to that. I think it's just bad, right?

That's what I was just going to say and I think that's where I lose it. And I think a lot of times, like things are bad because of, like, energy and things that happened there. Yeah, like, I can get down with the idea that like, a ghost is like, this is at least what I kind of think is like a ghost was a person, yeah.

I'm very open-minded to understanding it. But when it gets too wrapped up with like this kind of thing, I'm like, You're losing me because I don't. I don't think I believe that that's where it comes from, but you might so, and that's fine. Yeah, exactly, but I'm just saying, what, what? I think? So, while the Glatzels waited to hear back from the Warrens about getting this minor exorcism up and chugging, David's behavior got worse and it got more aggressive. So Lorraine later told reporters You can't even begin to believe the things we witnessed in that home and to that boy.

He came under hideous attacks, he had marks all over his body. He could tell things that were going to happen in the future. The Warrens said that they saw David levitate off his bed. Okay, so eventually, they began to record their interactions with David because pictures or it didn't happen. Yes, but mainly audio recording.

Oh, and pictures. And it didn't exactly so audio recording, or it didn't happen in a recording made October 14th, 1980. David You can hear David breathing really heavily and he's making like guttural sounds that's really scary, and then it's followed by a voice.

Debbie says Is David saying Cheyenne dies at work tomorrow now? This was apparently a reference to Arnie Johnson, because his middle name is Cheyenne. Oh, now, according to Debbie. The next day, Arnie, who was he worked at a tree surgery company, fell 20 feet from a tree and suffered a quote minor knee injury. Oh shit, so like he didn't die.

No, he had a minor knee injury, yeah, but I mean, to fall 20 feet from a tree, that's really fucking scary. I found no reports of this, but it happened, according to them, so allegedly that happened. He had a minor knee injury.

So, uh, he didn't die at work that day, but something scary, strange, very strange. And if it did happen, then, like, whoa, something bad happened and he could have died. Yeah, exactly, so there's that a near-death experience, exactly.

So maybe he just wasn't being detailed, you know? But in another incident, Arnie, apparently, and this happened a lot, apparently, Arnie would challenge the.

Demon a lot, and he would challenge it to leave David's body and enter his, oh, no, but. And he was 19 at the time. Tough guy, tough guy. yeah, tough guy, shit, and you know, and he loves this boy. And again, David, like, was really close to Arnie at some point, according to reports, according to the family.

So, like he, he didn't like seeing him like this, you know, brotherly relationship. So he would do this a lot he would like. And Lorraine and Ed would look at it as taunting. And they said that it was, it was not a good idea and they didn't like that. He was doing it. And Arnie can be heard on a recording saying, Tell him, I'll fight him. And after that, Arnie claims he started having paranormal experiences of his own. And.

He's like, Come at me, bro, get out of here. I'm sorry. That's all I could think of. No, it's true, cause that's such new England vibes. I'm like, Are you like from Massachusetts, though?

Cause that's very Massachusetts vibes, like squaring up with a demon, like, get out of that fucking kid, I'll fight ya like, get.

Out of there, I'll fight ya. But yeah, he started seeing dark figures, he was having experiences of his own. And in an interview later, Debbie recalled an incident where she said they were had her and Arnie were having a discussion with another couple. And Arnie, out of nowhere, began to growl and started shaking all over, and she said, I could tell it wasn't Arnie.

How did the other couple feel about that? Nobody tells you how they reacted.

In a New York Times article, David's mother further said what was happening with David at the time, saying he would kick, bite, spit. Terrible swear words. And she said he was thrown around on the floor like a rag doll. But then she was quoted as saying about David and he can't even do a sit up, he's too fat.

That's a weird thing to throw at the end of. He's being possessed and beaten by a demon. I don't know about this guys. I just thought it was so shitty.

That's a I can't imagine ever calling anyone fat, especially my child, in my opinion, no matter what something was happening with David. Whether you believe it is demonic possession or he's going through some kind of mental illness, very distressing mental illness, he's suffering. He's going through it and he's not getting the proper help. And it's like to talk about him like that, that just wasn't cool to me, I was like, I don't know about that.

It doesn't sound very loving, no, I was like, Whoa, you're so worried about him, but you still have time to be a.

Yeah, like the end, you don't need to add that extra crack in there. You could even say he wasn't very agile. Yeah, like any way of saying it. But either way, by the end of 1980, David's behavior reached peak uh-oh status when, in a fit of rage, he allegedly tried to stab Arnie with a kitchen knife.

Oh, no, according allegedly. Yeah, again, I'm saying, there's no report of this, I did not find a report of this.

But according to the Glatzels, David claimed the beast had called on more demons to possess him. So it wasn't just the beast anymore, there were several demons. In fact, according to Ed and Lorraine, there were 43 specific yep.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

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Now, after five weeks, priests from the Glatzel's church came to the house to perform a second blessing. Which I'm like, guys, it's not working. Put your water away. And then they did do a minor exorcism, not a full one, not a major one, and there is also no record of them doing an exorcism like an actual exorcism now. Ultimately, the family claims the Glatzel's claim that four minor exorcisms were performed on David.

And in one of them, he stopped breathing and CPR had to be administered. Oh my God. But the priests were eventually, according to them, able to expel the demonic entities that were possessing. David Glatzel. It worked through the minor exorcisms, okay?

And in the months that followed these minor exorcisms, according to them, things started to settle a little bit. But then also, they claim that David continued to have several behavioral issues and psychiatric problems and showed no improvement. Okay, so I guess they just gave up on him being possessed, but like.

So they said he's not possessed anymore, but he still has behavioral issues. Yeah, which to me, I'm like, you call a doctor. Can we call a doctor now? Because, like, that's what that says to me.

But with the minor exorcisms behind them, they were all concentrating on that for a long time now. Arnie was able to devote more time to work, where he was working as a tree surgeon. And he was honestly kind of relying on more work because he was helping to support his mother, sisters and cousins, Debbie was also focusing on work She got a new job as a groomer at the Brookfield Kennels.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly. And while working there, Debbie first, that's where she first met 40-year-old Alan Bono, which and she. He had recently moved to Brookfield to manage the kennel, and he also managed an apartment complex nearby. Which I guess they were both owned by his sister, but he was managing them now. There were reports later that Arnie said he was feeling strange around this time.

Still, even though things had settled, he was still feeling strange. And he said that he was having encounters with what he thought were demons or spirits. They were trying to possess him still.

He said he believed that him taunting those demons and him telling them to jump to him worked, and that something stuck with him. Okay, and he said, at the old house, he saw a demon in an old well like, looked him right in the face. And Debbie told reporters later Cheyenne would go into a trace. Remember Cheyenne's his middle name?

Yep, yep. He would go into a trance, he would growl and say he saw the beast later, he would have no memory of it. It was just like David, but they assumed it was just like leftover demon from David's exorcism, I guess.

I don't.

To me, it sounds like a PTSD. Yeah, I'm like, what's good? Because those exorcisms? Whatever was going on with David sounded traumatic for everyone involved, and so I assume everyone's going to have some trauma after that.

Lingering effects. Yeah, but they were looking at it as he was also possessed now. But it doesn't sound to me. They didn't. I couldn't find anything about them doing anything for this, like Arnie was dealing with this.

Right? But it was going about his day-to-day life. They didn't call a priest or anything like that. Like, you're, he's possessed, but you're letting him, like, climb up to tall trees.

Yeah, so I get whatever. But at the beginning of the New year, Arnie and Debbie moved into one of the apartments in Allen Bono's complex. Okay, the guy who was working at the kennel with Debbie, okay.

They had Arnie's teenage sisters, Wanda and Janice, and his younger cousin Mary move in with them as well. Okay, so, according to Arnie's mother, Arnie and Allen got along very well, had a very friendly relationship. This is according to Arnie's mother, and in 1981, Mary Johnson, Arnie's mother, told reporters He used to tell me, what a wonderful person, Mr.

Bono was could have been true, but on the afternoon of February 16th, something happened that would suggest that may not be true. Okay, it's difficult to know exactly what happened on this day because several different stories have been told. And the only people that can tell the stories are the people that survived the incident.

And they all have different stories, and there's stories that have just changed a little bit. Okay, we're not really sure exactly what happened. But on the afternoon of February 16th. 19-year-old Arnie Johnson and Allen Bono went to lunch at the Mug and Munch Cafe in Brookfield with Arnie's sisters and 26-year-old Debbie Glatzel, his girlfriend.

I think it was about three hours. They all hung out there. And apparently the two men drank between 13 and 15 glasses of wine. Sorry, how many? 13 and 15 glasses of wine?

And they were there for three hours, three hours, 13 each between them, between them.

Okay, so, like, call that 14.

That's seven glasses of wine each. Four glasses of wine is a bottle. They almost had two bottles of wine each. Holy fucking shit.

And apparently after that, they group all left the restaurant and went back to the apartment. I don't think Debbie was drinking. Oh my god. I assume they went back to the apartment to spew for days, but apparently not. Or like to go to sleep forever.

Like, Oh my God now. Based on interviews with Debbie Glatzel and Wanda Johnson, who was the older of the sisters. Police conclude that around 6 30 that evening, Alan Bono had made some kind of remark about Johnson's girlfriend, Debbie. This caused an argument between the two men. That argument was taken outside the apartment at one point and it turned violent and again. They are both very drunk.

So in interviews and court documents, Arnie claimed that he has no memory of what happened next. I believe that. But Debbie, Wanda and several neighbors have witnessed testimonies, and they said the argument continued to escalate outside the apartment. And then Arnie eventually pulled out a five inch folding knife and stabbed Alan Bono four times in the stomach. Bono fell to the ground and Arnie allegedly walked off into the woods.

Okay, and Debbie ran back inside the apartment, and she called, Nope, not an ambulance, but her father, Carl, who arrived shortly after. Okay, Debbie. An ambulance did arrive. It's unclear who called for it.

Maybe Carl, the father, maybe, but. The ambulance driver testified that he found Alan Bono lying face up in the parking lot alive but badly injured. From four half-moon shaped stab wounds below his rib cage, why would they be half-moon shaped? It must have been some kind of curved blade, I assume.

Oh, okay. As they looked at his injuries and were trying to get him on the stretcher, the ambulance driver overheard. Debbie Glatzel tell her father Oh, daddy, he didn't mean to do it. You know how he gets when he's been drinking? Oh, like, possessed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Later, in an interview with police, Carl Glatzel would tell investigators Cheyenne did it.

So there was no question here that Arnie did this, Cheyenne Arnie did this. There is an ambulance driver who heard her telling her father, You know how he gets when he's drinking, just putting that out there now. Alan Bono was taken to Danbury Hospital.

Remember, he is alive at this point, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital. No, I was hoping you were gonna say he survived. Police were given Arnie's description and he was found only about an hour later. He was only a couple miles away. He was charged with the stabbing and now murder and taken to Bridgeport Correctional Center and held on a $125,000 bond.

So to the Brookfield police, this murder was pretty straightforward. It was a drunken argument that got out of control with a very tragic outcome. Yeah, there were multiple witnesses. But only days after Arnie's arrest, Ed and Lorraine Lawren began promoting the story that it may have appeared that Arnie killed Alan Bono. But he had only done so because he was possessed by a demonic entity, Oh.

And not just one, but demonic entity, he was possessed by many demonic entities, never even like if he was. I just feel like it's not a good idea to insert yourself in the middle of a murder trial. That's the problem. Here is like, I don't know if this was a great idea. Like, yeah.

No, I do know it's not a great idea. Maybe he was possessed, like, perhaps if you feel that way, you can, but even so, he murdered someone.

He murdered someone and, like, you can't blame that on anyone else. Yeah, that's pretty black and white, he murdered someone. And Ed Warren said that Arnie made a big error when he challenged those demons to leave David's body and come into his own.

No, I think he made a big error when he drank multiple bottles of wine and then killed someone and then killed someone. And Lorraine told reporters he never realized there were so many demons in the boy, 43, as we found out.

Now I'm like, how do you think you're gonna prove that? Don't worry, they're not, I don't even think they know how they're gonna prove it. But ever since that whole thing happened. They had claimed that Arnie had been under that demonic influence that wanted to hurt the Glatzel family and ruin Arnie's life for challenging them.

Lorraine said We knew this case would end in tragedy, but Arnie was the last one. We would have thought that this would happen to the demon used Arnie to achieve its goal. It wanted to really destroy this young man's life. Oh my God.

I'm sorry, that's so fucking distasteful. Yeah, I think it's gross. I think that's disgusting. I think it's really gross.

Like, you're sitting there saying that a demon wanted to ruin Arnie's life when Arnie just took the life of another human being. Yeah, like, that's making a mockery of that man's murder. Well, and what's interesting is that. Lorraine added also that he was definitely. He might've been possessed at the time of the murder, a few days earlier. But she and Ed didn't believe that he was still possessed. Just a few days later, when they gave their, he was like, No, like this happens quick.

Well, yeah, I mean, the demon had already ruined his life, so then he just like popped up and did it to somebody else. But the considerable lengths that the Warrens and the Glatzels claim to have gone through to literally exercise 43 demons out of David Glatzel. That's wild that they went through all those lengths to get them out of David, but all 43 demons just voluntarily just took off. They just dipped out right after, like, Yeah, I don't know, just like Rachel didn't dip out.

Yeah, I don't think these demons didn't dip out now. Under normal circumstances, investigators would have very quickly dismissed any of these claims of demonic influence. But because there was involvement of the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport in the previous minor exorcisms, the investigators kind of took a beat to think about this. I have to go at a time when nearly one third of Americans reported some participation in the Catholic church. The involvement of the church did give this claim more credibility, and people in the faith would have taken this claim in this case very seriously.

And Brookfield's police sergeant, John Lucas told reporters As a basic religious precept, it's all possible. In this case, I'm just not sure, I'm keeping an open mind. So I think they were essentially trying to be like, we're not discounting it because they didn't want to piss everyone off, okay?

Now people went wild and there was a flood of inquiries coming in after the Warrens made that statement about demonic possession to the press. And in response, the Diocese of Bridgeport confirmed that they had received a request for help from the Glatzel family and had assigned Reverend Francis Virgilak of Stamford to investigate for possible diabolical possession of the boy. According to the diocese, that Reverend had not yet returned a report on the investigation of the Glatzel family. And he had been sent on assignment out of country shortly before this whole thing, so he couldn't even be reached for comment. This was the only statement the Diocese of Bridgeport would make on this case.

And they said a formal exorcism had never been approved and had never happened. And then they were very silent on the matter. They would not talk about it again, huh? They were like, Nope, probably a good choice.

Now, while Arnie Johnson sat in Bridgeport Correctional Center awaiting his trial, the Warrens kept this story going. Within a week of the murder, they had appeared on a number of television shows, radio shows. Claiming Arnie's case would be the first in American legal history in which an accused murderer will argue that he was possessed. Wow. Arnie's court-appointed lawyer, George Timm, refused to comment on these claims. But it didn't really matter because he was soon kicked out of there and was replaced by Martin. Minella, who was a young private attorney who was very excited to work on this case and did it pro bono, Oh, shit.

Yeah, so. On March 19th, a grand jury weighed the evidence and witness testimony and returned an indictment after only 25 minutes of deliberation. By now, he was being represented by Martin Minella, who seemed to really be into this media tension. And following his indictment, Minella announced that he was intending. He was going to intend to argue Arnie's actions were the result of demonic possession. He was ready to go forward with this.

According to Minella, the defense would require quote psychic experts from all over the country and from England, which could be very costly. So a defense fund has been set up to cover the costs associated with this strategy. What about a fucking fund to help? Oh my god, I'm just like the victim's family.

Exactly now, obviously. Martin Minella's defense plan immediately attracted a lot of attention from the press all over the country. Why? They all just wanted to see how this was going to play out in a real court of law and a trial for murder, remember? And, of course, everyone wondered whether the diocese, who were still committed to being silent on this matter, would actually be called to testify. Or would have to offer any proof of their participation in these supposed minor exorcisms of David?

Right, Minella really played into it, telling reporters. I hope the priests will have enough moral conscience to come forward.

A choice, okay, glasshouse. a choice, okay, glasshouse, morals, you say.

In a New York Times article, he was quoted as saying The courts have dealt with the existence of God. Now they're going to have to deal with the existence of the devil. I literally must go. This is real, that is the thing that is absolutely mind-boggling.

Yep, now. Like Martin, Ed and Lorraine Warren were also very frustrated with the Catholic Diocese's refusal to confirm or validate any of their claims. Ed said the church is acting like they've committed a crime. And then, he said he feared the diocese would scatter the priests involved to the Four Winds to avoid having them testify. This is all very theatrical.

Very intense, oh so theatrical the most. Meanwhile, a ton of clergy members were speaking against the case. Like, actively good.

Pointing out that supposed cases of demonic possession are many times the result of mental illness requiring an actual doctor and not a priest. I have to say I'm kind of surprised, right? I'm impressed, yeah.

And impressed, exactly. According to the New York Times article referenced above. At the time of this case. A Gallup poll showed 34 of adults believe that the devil is a personal being who directs evil forces and influences people to do wrong 34. So this was a time when this defense and this kind of panic would have really been a thing. It would have really like, gotten everybody up in arms.

Do you hear me blinking? Yeah, Blink, blink. So, by the end of March, the case had made headlines everywhere. But not because of the murder, exactly, and because it's a horrific murder.

And the tragic loss it was about, it was gaining attention more because of the Warrens and Martin Manella. And important to note as a point for the skeptics out there, because we're trying to tell both sides here. During the five weeks of David's ordeal, his diabolical possessions seemed to manifest, as it was being told by people, in ways that were very similar to those of one Reagan McNeil from a film, The Exorcist, Okay?

Interestingly, the family had allegedly watched the film pretty shortly before any of this had happened. When you said they saw him levitating on his bed, I was like, Oh, did they? Also? The Glatzels said they were put in contact with the Warrens by that unnamed priest at their church, who was never named. But Debbie Glatzel had attended at least one of the Warrens lectures before they were involved in this family's case, so she was definitely aware of them.

Blink, blink. All of this is not to say that this is a hoax, fraud, anything else. No, you're just telling both sides. It's just putting more facts into this case. Just so you can see the full picture here. Again, doesn't mean anything, just interesting.

The church and investigators were staying pretty silent. But the Warrens and Manella were sharing their story with as many TV cameras as they could get in front of the Warrens. Spoke of their close working relationship with the Catholic Church, told reporters There's a great deal of respect between us and them. But the church would not confirm or deny this, and actually, the church said, I don't know her, they said, I don't know about that. Also, while the diocese refused to discuss the matter with reporters, they were willing to tell the press quote. No formal exorcism was ever asked for or performed.

That's interesting. Yikes, not asked for yikes.

Huh, so? In June 1981, George Kresge, a mentalist who performed under the name The Amazing Kresgen, he accused the Warrens of preying on a superstitious public. And he said, this is all to promote themselves and increase revenues for their lectures. And he said, quote They have an excellent Vaudeville act. It's just that this case more involves clinical psychologists than it does them.

I love Vaudeville, that's hilarious. The Warrens peers within the paranormal research community also were very critical of their behavior, really, a paranormal researcher named Robert Pyle said. The Warrens haven't contributed one bit to the settling of pandemonium in this case.

In fact, they may have even caused some of it. I mean, that I agree with, I'll say that. And as for Manila Manila, the lawyer, his peers in the legal community were slamming him about this. A lawyer from Connecticut told the Hartford current Marty Manila Manila is handling this case for Marty Manila.

Yeah, it sounds like it. I also saw some pictures that are truly questionable. David Golub, a lawyer in Stamford, Connecticut, also agreed with this. He told reporters This case is not being treated seriously by the legal community. Lawyers know that it's extremely unlikely that a Connecticut jury will accept a demon possession defense.

Manila only seemed to gain steam from his haters. He said I took this case because I believe in it. They told Columbus that the world was flat, but that didn't stop him. Ooh, get better heroes. Wow, my guy.

Get better heroes. It's like when Gilmore girls, when I think it's Rory, when they're like, doing a student like they have to come up with. Like a royal thing, like a kingdom in school, sure, like a dynasty. And I think at one point, Rory is like, Well, King Henry VIII did this. Like, separated from the church, you know, like, made his own church, and I think Paris is like, yeah. He also beheaded two of his wives.

How much of a role model do you want me to make? This guy? Yeah, exactly, literally how I feel about that statement, I love it. But the Brookfield Police Department was also receiving dozens of letters and correspondence, mostly from concerned citizens of Brookfield. Who were angry that Manila and the Warrens had used this case to cause so much chaos in their community.

Yeah, I'd be pissed. They had never had a murder before. Brookfield this was the first, so it was like this was a sleepy town. It wasn't like this was, and it was causing a lot of havoc, disruption, yeah.

Now, in the end, all of this was really for naught. Because on October 28th, the first day of Arnie's trial, Superior Court Judge Robert Callahan refused to allow a defense of demonic possession. I'm so glad to hear that, he said. Evidence of demonic possession is simply not relevant. And he said his decision came after Manila announced his intent to call several priests and other experts to stand and prove that quote. There is such thing as demonic possession, and it does, in fact, exist. That isn't what is on trial here.

Right? And Callahan says he based his decision on the fact that such a defense could not be reliable and could actually mislead the jury. It's so opinion-based, he said. It would be incompetent evidence and I would not allow it. Good for him.

It is, it's all opinion-based, that's the thing, and it can't be proved right like there's no tangible thing to prove it.

Now, apparently, Manila, which I'm shocked that he's shocked. He was shocked by the judge's decisions to disallow the demon defense, which I'm like, were you really shocked by that, my guy? And after asking for a recess to now come up with a new defense strategy, he went right back to it anyway. He actually decided to go against the judge and smear his reputation. He told reporters outside the court he may have to disqualify himself, and then he accused the judge of prejudice and anti-catholic bias.

I don't think that's going to help you win the case here. Dude. Like, what? Also, I love it. Luckily, the judge, Callahan was not rocked at all by that. Obviously not.

He stood by his decision to bar the demonic possession thing, and he also added that even if Manila could prove demonic possession, which you can't. He said it would not affect the intent of the crime, and he said any testimony relating to possession would only be rooted in subjective religious beliefs, not scientific fact. Yeah, and there's also no law that says, like, we can acquit you if you were possessed at the time of murder. Where is the separation between church and state here?

You can't do that. Uh-huh, I feel like there isn't one. After all of this was done, the case went on pretty normally because now it's just a murder trial. Yeah, exactly what it should be.

The prosecutor, Walter Flanagan, presented his case as he always had planned to do, which was. Arnie Johnson, in a drunken rage, stabbed Alan Bono in the stomach four times after Bono allegedly made a derogatory remark about his girlfriend. The evidence offered in support of this claim was the five-inch folding knife found at the scene that belonged to him. He was also known to use it at work, like it was his, Yeah.

It was now covered in blood and hair, matching Bono's blood type. Well, that's sad. Credible witnesses were called by the prosecution. This included the state's chief toxicologist, who testified that Bono, the victim, had a heavy concentration of alcohol in the blood sample taken at the time of his death. A server was also called to testify from the Mug and Munch Cafe.

And they said both Arnie and Alan had been served a large number of drinks on the afternoon of the murder. But forensic experts admitted that while Arnie was almost certainly drunk at the time of the murder, they were like, absolutely. It was Bono, who had consumed a lot more of the wine at the cafe, he was more drunk now. Other witnesses included Debbie, Glatzel and Arnie's sister, Wanda, who gave their pretty straightforward accounts of the day's events.

There was also some people who reported that Arnie did have previously drunk and aggressive behavior that they had witnessed. Well, Debbie said to her father. Allegedly, exactly that was true. Now unable to use that airtight, demonic possession defense, Minella just said that it was self-defense, which is a pretty normal defense to Mount, I would say.

I'm actually surprised he didn't go after the restaurant. Yeah, honestly, that would have even made more sense than demonic fucking possession, but I think, honestly, the restaurant was like. Alan drank more, actually, so I don't even think it would have helped, but he claimed a drunken Alan. Bono instigated a violent confrontation with Arnie, and Arnie killed Bono in defense of himself and his family.

There were claims made that Alan Bono had attempted to grab the youngest. Mary, who was nine at the time. Held her and not let her go. I don't know why, like, just during the confrontation, had grabbed her and wouldn't let her go, and that's alleged, yeah. But they were claiming this was also what set Arnie off.

Like an aggravating factor, which would be an aggravating factor. That's his nine-year-old niece, absolutely, or sister cousin, Sorry, Jesus.

But obviously we only have the accounts of whoever survived here to go off of. Nevertheless, Minella still found a way to put in some demonic stuff, like a little bit, by calling several local priests as character witnesses. But when he called them, the judge, Judge Callahan said, You better tread very lightly with your questioning. Like he was like, don't even test me, dude, Melinda. He's also like, I'll just fucking throw the jury out.

Yeah, I'll just throw it out. But before sending the jury out for deliberation, judge Callahan did say to them they should only consider the evidence presented in court and ignore anything they may have known about the much publicized demon possession defense.

Because it had been promoted so heavily before this trial, well, it sounds like even in the media, too, exactly now. Despite the warnings. There was really no way that this jury wasn't going to be able to think about that a little bit. I was going to say that.

It was months of, like, sensational coverage by the Warrens by Minella. And just 50 minutes after going for deliberation, they sent word to the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked. I had a feeling you were going to say that. And in response, Callahan told the jury, he said, I would like you to remember the Chip Smith charge, which is a Connecticut case in which a deadlocked jury managed to reach a conviction. When the jurors and the minority chose to quote, respect the intelligence of those in the majority and consider their views carefully.

The jury agreed and they went back to deliberate more, and 16 hours later, they found Arne Johnson guilty of manslaughter, not murder. Because it didn't seem like it was planned, it seemed like it was in the heat of the moment, it truly did seem like that.

And according to several jury members, their decision on the manslaughter charge was really due to their belief that Arne had possibly only intended to injure Alan and not actually kill him. Which when you look at it, it's a messy situation. Who knows? If that was the intent, it certainly didn't seem like it was planned out, No?

It was certainly in a spur of the moment, angry, violent confrontation that this happened, which doesn't excuse any of it. But it's a different situation than straight up first-degree murder. Arne came back to court on December 18th, 1981, for sentencing. And Judge Callahan imposed the maximum sentence allowed under Connecticut state law, which was 10 to 20 years in prison. Oh wow, yeah. He said. It was Arne's lack of apparent remorse as his reasoning for imposing the maximum sentence. Oh, he didn't seem sorry.

He said I do not assume the powers of God, but you took a human life and you showed no acknowledgement of guilt and little remorse. And as this was said, Debbie, Glatzel shouted That's sick and then stormed out of the courtroom, Yeah, that is sick, that you haven't shown any remorse.

It's also sick to stab a man four times in the stomach and leave him to die, and it's also sick to call your dad instead of an ambulance. For, said guy. Yeah, but OK, Debbie Manella, Apparently. He filed an appeal, of course, on the sentence.

But in March 1982, the appeal was withdrawn. At Arne's request. Arne's defense team released a statement saying Arne didn't want to appeal and he consulted with his family and made the decision. OK, so I'll give a little bit of, I was going to say.

Now, no longer confined by the restrictions of the Connecticut Superior Court, the story of Arne Johnson's supposed demonic possession definitely grew into a legend. Now. In 1983, Friends of the Warrens Gerald Brittle published The Devil in Connecticut, which was an allegedly non-fictional account of the Johnson case. The book is interesting.

Her face says something. That same year, The Devil in Connecticut was adapted into The Demon Murder Case, which was a made-for-TV movie, which stars Clovis Leachman, Kevin Bacon and Andy Griffith. Oh shit, so that happened. Arne Johnson began serving his sentence in December 1981 at the Connecticut Correctional Institution in Summers, Connecticut.

In January 1985, Arne married longtime girlfriend Debbie Glatzel in a ceremony at the Correctional Institute. Just two months later, Arne was granted early release after serving only five years, five fucking years. In January 1986, the Parole board cited that he was a model prisoner and that was the reason for his decision. In 2007, Carl Glatzel Jr. the third Glatzel child, and David Glatzel, who was the subject of the demonic possession. They filed a civil suit against Gerald Brittle and iUniverse Publishing in an attempt to stop them from republishing The Devil in Connecticut.

Wow, which, the author admits in court documents, is a quote fictionalized account of David and Carl Glatzel's past lives. But it was being marketed as nonfiction, among other things, I guess. The suit says that Brittle's book included considerable, false and defamatory subject matter, and unreasonably and seriously interfered with the plaintiff's interest in not having their private affairs known to others. Yeah.

Now, according to Carl, in the years following the trial, both he and David were like, they had a lot of difficulty in school. I would think, so, yeah, they were like, mocked, shunned, and later they had difficulty getting jobs. Because of all the notoriety that had come from this whole thing, that's fucked up.

And it had also exasperated, exacerbated, excuse me, David's mental health issues, of course, and he was continuing to struggle because in the press, that hurts my heart. Didn't give a shit. No, of course not.

So it's like, I feel for them, that sucks. And the civil suit also, really, like. Deepened the rift between Carl and David and the rest of the family. Because David and Arnie maintain that the story from the Warrens is entirely true, so there's two very different versions of this. Wait, so David and Arnie said that it was, they maintained that it was true.

No, David, and I might've said, David, I'm sorry. I meant Debbie and Arnie. Oh, Debbie and Arnie. Okay, so David and Carl are saying this is being highly, you know, exaggerated, right? There are real issues here that we would like to not continuously have to deal with.

Yeah, we'd like them to remain private, yeah, and David and Arnie are saying, obviously the details are already out and there's been several things about it. But they would, just, they're like, I would like it to not be that like that. My brother was possessed by a demon, yeah.

We do not know what the hell was going on, you know, can we not all just agree that that's what happened? But then Debbie and Arnie are like, But Debbie and Arnie are saying, that is absolutely what happened. And the Warrens are telling the truth, so Lorraine Warren also was very dismissive of Carl and David's civil suit.

She said It was ridiculous. She said the book was based on statements made by the children's parents, and she also cited the involvement of six unnamed priests as evidence of the book's legitimacy. I think six unnamed priests should be a band name, I like that.

I think that's a cool band name, I like that also. It's like, I love that. She's sitting there being like, Yeah, well, your parents made statements to this guy. And David's like, Yeah, motherfucker, I'm the one that was supposedly possessed. Yeah, like, Can you please listen to me?

Yeah, unfortunately, in the end, the court ruled in favor of Brittle, really, and dismissed the case, they said. First, the subject matter of the book, The Devil in Connecticut, concerns the supernatural and demonic possession.

Such matters cannot be proven objectionably true or false, and thus are matters of opinion, which unfortunately is true. Second, an inquiry into the allegations would entail an excessive entanglement into religious and theological questions, in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. But could they not prove that it was defamatory? I guess not, and it's like, I feel for them.

I do, too, because, like, that's really shitty. That is their life. Do you know whatever ended up happening to David? I do not, actually.

I hope he's okay. I hope I didn't look too far into it because I'm hoping he's living a very normal or was able to live a normal and private life. And you know, I'm just hoping that they at least could separate from it. It makes sense that you didn't look into it because it seems like he wanted to go and live his life privately. So yeah, yeah.

It feels like whatever he's doing now, I hope he's doing great me too, and Carl and Carl Jr. and Carl Jr. I hope they're doing all right.

And Arnie is out. I think Debbie passed away.

Before the Conjuring movie came out. So I know she is no longer alive. Arnie, I believe is, and I think he got a job, so yeah, I mean, hopefully he led a better life.

And hopefully he still feels sorry that he murdered someone. It's a really sad all-around case. It's sad, it's strange, it's confusing. Yeah, you did a good job telling it, though I wasn't ever confused.

Oh, thank you. I don't think Ed and Lorraine Warren helped this case at all. I think they caused a big mess and I don't like it, it gives me gross feelings, I don't like it.

It gives the yuck a taste in the mouth. Yeah, and I think a lot of people in the paranormal community don't like their involvement in this either. So I think it's kind of like a pfft on them, a big, a big yuck, but wow, yeah.

So that is the conjuring case. The devil made me do it. Case interesting, case. It is a sad one. Because the other thing is, too, when you look into Alan Bono, there's not a lot about him.

You can't find a lot about his life. So yeah, that's like a sad part of it, too, that he kind of got lost in the fray. Yeah, and it sounds like he was really young when he died.

Yeah, he was only in his 40s. Yeah, that's so sad, and he was just, you know, managing a kennel, right? managing an apartment complex.

His sister owned. He seemed like a friendly guy. Yeah, I don't know about the reports of him grabbing the nine-year-old. I don't know what that's all about.

Again, very alleged. We don't have any proof of it. But you know, that's why you don't. Everybody don't drink that much, don't drink that much. bad things happen when people drink that much.

And if it doesn't happen outwardly, it's happening inwardly. Exactly. Your liver is suffering, my God, so don't do that. I still can't believe that amount of wine.

Yeah, that's what shocked me, like, a lot. Damn, I had like two glasses and I'm like, woo, oh, I have one glass of wine and I will be sick. Yeah, like, I can't.

Oh my god, but yeah, wow. Well, that was a good one. And as always, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it. Weird bye, but oh, but not so weird that any of that bye, yeah, no.