The Encyclopedia Of Demons And Demonology

238 Smurl Haunting
her kitchen, then it dematerialized through the wall and
appeared to Mary Smurl.
From that point on, the haunting increased. A large
ceiling light fixture crashed down on Shannon, nearly
killing her, on the night 13-year-old Heather was to be
confirmed. Jack levitated. In June, Janet was violently
pulled off her bed after making love to her husband,
while Jack lay paralyzed, gagging from a foul odor. The
family German shepherd, Simon, was repeatedly picked
up, thrown around, or whipped. Terrible rapping and
scratching noises were heard in the walls. Phantom dogs
ran through the duplex. Shannon was tossed out of bed
and down the stairs. Invisible snakes hissed, bedspreads
were shredded, and heavy footsteps crossed the attic.
Even neighbors were not spared; several heard screams
and strange noises from the house when the Smurls were
not home, and others detected the presence in their own
homes. Most of the neighbors were sympathetic. The
Smurls vowed to fight.
In January 1986, Janet heard about the Warrens, and
the couple decided to call them. The Warrens arrived with
Rosemary Frueh, a registered nurse and psychic, and began
the investigation by quizzing the Smurls about their
religious beliefs, the happiness of their family life, and
whether they had ever practiced SATANISM, used a OUIJA
board, or in any way invited the supernatural into their
home. The Smurls said they had not. Then, the Warrens
and Frueh walked the house, identifying the bedroom
closet as the crossover point between the two sides of
the duplex. The team said they detected the presence of
four evil spirits. Three were minor, but the fourth was a
demon.
Without any evidence of family discord, occult invitation,
or tragedy, the Warrens could only surmise that the
demon must have been dormant, probably for decades,
and had risen to draw on the emotional energy generated
by the girls’ entrance into puberty.
The Warrens tried twice to induce the demon to expose
itself through religious provocation, by playing
tapes of religious music and confronting it with prayer.
The demon reacted by shaking the MIRROR and dresser
drawers; another time by spelling out “You filthy bastard.
Get out of this house.” The portable television emitted
an eerie, silvery white glow. Only prayer and holy water
seemed to stop the manifestations.
Phenomena continued. The eerie glow returned, the
pounding in the walls worsened, and Jack and Janet were
slapped, bitten, and viciously tickled. Small items disappeared.
One day, Janet tried to talk to the demon, asking
it to rap once for yes and twice for no. When she asked
the demon whether it were there to harm them, it rapped
once. Two phantom women dressed in colonial clothing
appeared to Jack.
Even more horrifying, Jack was raped by a scaly SUC-
CUBUS posing as an old woman with a young body. Her
eyes were red and her gums green. Ed Warren was choked
and suffered terrible flu symptoms. An INCUBUS sexually
assaulted Janet. Pig noises were heard in the walls.
The Smurls said they tried several times to obtain support
and action from the Catholic Church. The Roman
Catholic Diocese of Scranton said it would consult experts,
but official involvement seemed unlikely. At one
point, Janet thought she was getting help from a Father
O’Leary but discovered he did not exist: Allegedly it was
the demon impersonating a priest.
The Warrens called in BISHOP ROBERT MCKENNA, a
traditionalist priest who refused to abide by the changes
in ritual mandated by the Second Vatican Council. He
said Mass in Latin and had performed more than 50 EX-
ORCISMS for the Warrens. He conducted the ancient rite,
infuriating the DEMON.
The infestation intensified. Their daughter Carin fell
seriously ill from a strange fever and nearly died. Dawn
was nearly raped by the presence. Janet and Mary had
slash marks and bites on their arms. Everyone was depressed.
Ed Warren explained they had moved into the
second demonic stage, OPPRESSION, which follows infestation
and is followed by POSSESSION and death.
McKenna performed a second exorcism in late spring,
to no avail. The demon even accompanied the family on
camping trips in the Poconos and harassed Jack at work.
The family could not move to another house since the
demon would simply follow. After repeated refusals by
the church to help, the Smurls decided to appear on
television.
Remaining anonymous behind a screen, the Smurls
were interviewed by Richard Bey on a Philadelphia talk
show, People Are Talking. Later at home, the demon retaliated.
It levitated Janet, then hurled her against the wall.
It appeared to Jack as a monstrous creature resembling a
pig on two legs. A human hand rose up through the mattress
and grabbed Janet by the back of the neck. Jack was
raped again.
In August 1986, the Smurls felt that the risk of ridicule
did not outweigh the need to tell their story to a wider audience
and granted an interview to the Wilkes-Barre Sunday
Independent newspaper. Their home became a tourist
attraction for the press, curious onlookers, and skeptics
who wished to investigate. Some skeptics, who included
some of the Smurls’ neighbors, said they believed the family
was concocting a story in order to profit from book
and movie contracts.
Paul Kurtz, chairman of a skeptical organization, the
Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of
the Paranormal (CSICOP) in Buffalo, New York, sought to
investigate but was rebuffed by the family and the Warrens.
Kurtz proposed to pay for the family to spend a
week in a hotel with a private security guard while a team
of investigators examined the house. Kurtz also offered
free psychiatric and psychological examinations, which
might have provided clues to the alleged activity. The
Smurls said CSICOP had already made up its mind that