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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
this is morbid hey guys um you've been here before probably yeah you probably have and if you haven't welcome hey what's up um you're coming in on a weird case because we're getting like weirdly demonic and uh we have a lot of priests in this week's episodes yeah that is yeah no that's weird i thought you were about to say there's a lot of priests in yours 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 a difference i have lots of priests in mind i have pastors and um and youth pastors there you go i have demons i have the warrens in mine
oh you got any prophecies uh kind of oh i have a lot of 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 elena'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 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 finale our reunion hasn't happened yet so we got nothing to talk about uh i'm if we have something
to talk about we will touch upon it in the next episode but right now um 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 three the devil made me do it is based on oh slightly uh fun fact i've never seen any of the conjuring movies the i saw the first one or wait is that is the first one annabelle or is that a completely separate yeah that's that's a different one never seen 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 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 gonna have your own thoughts about it okay have those thoughts i will well everyone's entitled to them i just want to get that right off the bat because oh her face you guys there's beliefs here that everybody's gonna have different beliefs about okay uh 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 uh we're gonna start with talking about them because they are you know where the actual criminal case comes in oh shit um 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, 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, you know, he's just being a good brother.
Good old American boy.
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 i don't know about that but okay no long hair okay we are in connecticut just want to point that out um 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 i see that's that's also like everybody has a different opinion on yeah like what is loud to someone yeah 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 uh 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 yeah tumult yeah his mother mary johnson was a single mother at the time she struggled kind of working several jobs just as just to support arnie and his younger sisters wanda and janice wanda um there was also a younger cousin named mary who was living with the family on and off
so she was supporting her as well um 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 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.
Yeah, that's a lot of kids.
So Arnie ended 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.
Yeah, 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 oh 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 and i i stay uncomfy uh 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 it's also all about the law like that's illegal it's like none none none none and like baby girl what are you finding like yeah stimulates your relationship with a 12 year old i was just gonna say i'm gonna stop you there like but yeah uh but yeah they began dating a few years later what do
you think 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 uh and yeah 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 um when he was technically an adult uh the couple moved to 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 said about that home it was was like
my dream house i thought we could build a nice beautiful life there okay debbie spoiler alert they didn't yeah i mean i figured 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 yes so debbie's little brother it was 11 years old david according to debbie david really liked darny we 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 an old man burnt and black looking oh 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 during the day and debbie and arnie followed out behind him and he was freaking out he would not go back in the house um 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 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 like i've never had any other like conversations like this not that we know of okay um 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 um and that this 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 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. OK, 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 and it made its way into the narrative of the story do we know if the previous tenants had a dog we do not know that so that and that's the thing i was like bailey we didn't we didn't train her to like oh my god i ring a bell or anything like that like we've now got a bell on the door for uh 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 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 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 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, oh, 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 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 and was had followed him to the brookfield home and was now in their house okay 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 yeah 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 much 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
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 that.
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 and asked if they could perform an exorcism or some kind of similar ritual.
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 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 for us to get approval from like, higher ups in the diocese.
We can't just perform exorcisms. They're dangerous and very involved.
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, the thoughts and prayers method of getting rid of evil had little effect on this whole thing usually does david's behavior did not change what was happening to him was not changing um allegedly he was speaking in latin at times and uh 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 oh okay so it's It's got religious connotations and also like a cultish connotations in it.
Oh, okay. I just know it as the documentary.
I was going to say, I know you're thinking of the Robin Hills murders.
Yes. The West Memphis three.
Yep. Yeah. That's kind of why like it's very much in like culture, in popular culture that the name Paradise Lost. But he was 11 at the time.
Right. And he had not read the epic poem by John Miller.
So like him apparently reciting things from it was strange to the family, which I understand it would be.
That would be strange to me.
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, like the holy water and the blessing.
You lead up to the exorcism.
Read a prayer, a Hail Mary.
Yeah. but they're just like exorcism 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 by monroe connecticut okay so this was interesting 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 like it's in the basis of a conjuring movie i know it's so funny because like i know nothing yeah it's it's a it's been told a million times but the more sensational parts are the ones everyone remembers or the ones that get retold but there is lesser parts parts of this story that are pretty important just to round the whole thing out i don't think it's good to tell this 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 childs 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 their sibling debbie so i was gonna say in the middle of david and debbie yeah so david is his younger brother and he's very protective of him what is this person's name carl damn it i thought it was all gonna be d's and that's something that happens in my story and i was like whoa like
wait a second no this guy's 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 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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So beginning in 1979, Carl Glatzel Jr. was 14 years old.
And he said at the beginning of 1979, he was feeling very helpless bliss 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 as seizures and other people maybe Babysaws, 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 and likes 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 gold mine 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 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 one that's the thing it's like you can consult a doctor and a priest you don't have to consult 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 uh so david uh sorry carl sees david been having all these problems and the problems that he saw started before even he's like talked about the beast or right around no he said it's
about the same time he just saw it starting to rapidly decline okay he said it was it was small but it it started to really escalate um so ed and lorraine warren have entered the chat and by this time they had been in but that the by the time that they became involved with this whole thing they were already very well known uh since the the early 1950s even the warrens had been involved in paranormal investigations uh 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 because that's when ronald de feo jr went on trial for the murder of his family in amityville new york 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.
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 um initially he claimed that these killings were a professional hit 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 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 de feo's lawyer william weber looked at this and said oh 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. weird but in the decades that followed this whole thing claims of demonic possession and hauntings at the de feo 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 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 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 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 evan 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.
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.
This shot them into the stratosphere.
Now, according to Lorraine Warren, the blessings on the Glatzel's house, bringing it back to this case, it had no effect on David Glatzel's behavior.
When she went in there, she saw that they had done nothing which the glatzels preached apparently according to them had reached reached out to the warrens 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 yeah but she when Lorraine met David she said she believed whoops sorry I just dropped my uh charger charger how dare you uh 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 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 warren's 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 it doesn't she said it would do no good at this point because it would follow us that's the difference between a haunted house and haunted people say what you want about 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 that's beautiful all right i get it poetic justice i would get sucked into i would too uh
so the warrens insisted according to them the only thing that was going to fix david was an actual exorcism performed by a catholic preach priest but like i said before you don't just get an exorcism right 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 i think i can just like do a quickie it sounds Sounds like if he needs an exorcism, he needs a motherfucking exorcism.
Don't you think that if you have to get like 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 i'm also a healthy i i was getting i was meaning to say healthy and also it's hard i'm also a healthy skeptic yeah 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 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 yeah but i think when it comes to like the religious part of it is where i have the problem mainly because Because I am not a religious person.
So to me, why would that help me if I don't believe in it?
You know? 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?
Like, why is it so connected?
And I know it's so connected because of the Bible and like all the stories and everything and 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. 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 bad entities, but I look at it more like energy.
A bad entity. Like I don't look at it as like a hell demon. Same.
You know, like, cause 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 a, like, this is at least what I kind of think, is like a ghost was a person.
Yeah. But a bad entity, like a demon per se, like, if I see what, like, something that I feel like is demonic.
Maybe it wasn't even a person.
Maybe it wasn't even a person.
It's just bad energy.
That's what I think, too.
But I don't know. But then I think there can also be bad spirits that were people.
yeah exactly because it's bad people yeah so it's like i don't know i don't know exactly how i believe it i i just know i don't know everything about it so i'm not gonna sit here and pretend like i do yeah and say that like all that's bullshit because i don't know so it's like 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 him 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 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 obviously but mainly audio recordings 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 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. 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 he didn't die at work that day, but something scary happened.
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 i thought you were gonna say this happened a lot arnie just fell from a lot of trees yeah he just he just fell a lot no no arnie would challenge the demon a lot okay 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 yeah And he loves this boy.
And again, David was really close to Arnie at some point, according to reports, according to the family.
He didn't like seeing them like this, I assume.
Yeah, it sounds like a 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 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 times he started having paranormal experiences of his own and he would see a dark figure like things were happening it's such new england vibes right there like tell him i'll fight him tell that tell that demon i'll fucking fight him kid thank you so much for saying that because all like a picture was somebody being like tell him i'll fight him come at me bro get out of here like it's just i'm sorry that's all i can know it's true because that's such new england i'm like are you like from massachusetts though because that's very massachusetts vibes like squaring up
with a demon like get out of fucking kid i'll fight you like get out of here let's bring this down to dunkin all right i'll take you outside i'll be a medium ice regular and then i'll fight you i thought that same thing when i read it i was like shit this is so new england like damn and again very massachusetts like very dumb new england be like get out of there i'll fight you 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 um 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 okay now later the other couple feel about that right i don't nobody tells you like what how they reacted yeah i need to know Yeah.
And in a New York Times article, his 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 that he was thrown around on the floor like a rag doll.
She remembered seeing it.
But then she was quoted as saying about David and he can't even do a sit up.
He's too fat. Oh, that's so.
mean to say about your child that's a weird thing to throw at the end of he's being possessed and beaten by a demon is to like throw that in at the end i was like body shame him i don't know about this guys oh my god and i just thought it was like so shitty i was like that's like a that's a weird thing to throw at the end of that like to talk about your son so mean and callously yeah i was like i don't like that i can't imagine ever calling i mean anyone fat but especially my child because in my opinion like like no matter what something was happening with david yeah obviously whether you believe
it is demonic possession or you believe he is going through some kind of mental illness yeah and very distressing mental illness he's suffering like he is going through it and he's not getting the proper help and it's like to talk about him like that like that just wasn't cool to me i was like i don't know about that yeah it doesn't sound very loving no that was just like i was like whoa and i'm like you're you're so worried about him but you still have time to yeah like you didn't have to say that yeah like you could have just said like he got got thrown around on the floor it was wild yeah like
the end it does you don't need to add that extra crack and 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.
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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 a factual exorcism now ultimately the family claims the glatzels claim that four 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 claimed that David continued to have several behavioral issues and psychiatric 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 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 he was honestly kind of relying on more work because he was support helping to support his mother's sisters and cousins right um 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 um and she'd he had recently moved to brookfield to manage the kennel and he also managed an apartment complex nearby uh 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 They assumed it was just like leftover demon from David's exorcism, I guess.
To me, it sounds like a PTSD.
Yeah, because whatever was going on with David sounded traumatic for everyone involved.
So I assume everyone's going to have some trauma after that.
Some lingering effects.
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 and bone in alan 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 him with them as well okay so according to arnie's mother uh arnie and alan 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 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 uh 19 year old Arnie Johnson and Alan Bono went to lunch at the Mug and Munch Cafe in Brookfield with Arnie's sisters and 26 year old debbie glatzel his girlfriend um 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 how 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 Wine is a bottle.
Yeah. 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.
Yep. police conclude that around 6 30 that evening bono had alan bono had made some kind of mark remark about johnson's girlfriend debbie okay this caused an argument between the two men that argument was taken outside the apartment at one point and it turned alcohol violent yeah and again they are both very drunk yeah 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 in the back inside the apartment and she called nope not an ambulance but her father, Carl, who arrives 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 he 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 that he did 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 uh -huh 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 uh he was charged with the stabbing and now murder and taken to bridgeport correctional center and held on 125 000 bond damn 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
lauren 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 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 perhaps if you feel that way you can but even so he murdered someone he murdered someone like you there's
you can't blame that 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 any demons in the boy 43 as we found out now but like how do you think you're gonna prove that don't worry they're not uh they 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 would have thought that this would happen to the demon used arnie to achieve 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 and what's interesting is that lorraine added also that he was definitely he might have been possessed at the time of the 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 uh the considerable lengths that the warrens and the glatzels claimed 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 and they just all 43 demons just voluntarily just took off they just dipped out right after like yeah i don't know just like rachel don't know about that yeah i don't think those 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 franck francis virgilac 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 the first in American legal history in which an accused murderer will argue that he was possessed.
Wow. Arnie's court -appointed lawyer, George Tim, 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 Manella, 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 manella who seemed to really be into this media attention and following his indictment manella 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 manella 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. Like the victim's family?
The victim's family, exactly.
Now, obviously, Martin Manella'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.
member 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 manella really played into it telling reporters i hope the priests will have enough moral conscience to come forward word 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 this is real i that is the thing that is absolutely mind -boggling yep now like martin ed and lorraine warren were also very 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, quote, 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 percent of adults believe that the devil is a personal being who directs evil forces and influences people to do wrong 34 so this was 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 for the skeptics out there because we're trying to tell both sides here yeah 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 when you said they saw him levitating on his bed i was like oh yeah 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.
existing 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 and actually said i don't know her they said i don't know about that uh 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?
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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 pile 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 the manila the lawyer his peers in the legal community were slamming him about this a lawyer from connecticut told the hardford 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.
Manela 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.
oh get better heroes get better heroes it's like when gilmore girls when i think it's rory when they're like doing a student like um they have to come up with like a royal thing like a kingdom sure school like a dynasty and i think at one point rory is like well king henry the eighth 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 that's literally how we 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 manella 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 wow this was the first it was like this was a sleepy town it wasn't like this was and it was causing a lot of disruption 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 Manella 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 exists that isn't what is on trial here right and callahan says he based his decision on the fact that no 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 the opinion base that's the thing and it
can't be proved right like there's no tangible thing to prove it now apparently manella 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 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 gonna help
you win the case here dude like what also i love it luckily the judge callahan was not rocked at all by that he stood by his decision to bar the demonic possession thing and he also added that even if manella 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 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 uh 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 oh that's sad credible witnesses were called by the prosecution this included the state's chief toxicologist who testified that bono him said 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, that that was true.
Now, unable to use that airtight demonic possession defense, Manella 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 like over serving that would have even made more sense the 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 conference 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 like like held her like not let her go um i don't know why like just during the confrontation had
grabbed her and wouldn't let her go and this that's alleged yeah but any 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 um sister cousin but sorry but obviously we only have the accounts of whoever ever survived here right go off of nevertheless manella still found a way to put in some demonic stuff almost 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 so they don't hear it out like 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 and 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 sensational coverage by the warrens by manila 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 gonna say that and in response calhan 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 the majority and consider their views carefully the jury agreed and they went back to
deliberate more and on 16 hours later they found arnie johnson guilty of manslaughter not murder um 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 arnie had possibly only intended to injure Allen 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 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 Arnie 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 arnie's lack of apparent um 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 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 Arnie's request. Oh.
Arnie's defense team released a statement saying Arnie didn't want to appeal and he consulted with his family and made the decision.
OK. 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 Arnie 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 a allegedly nonfictional 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 arnie johnson began serving his sentence in december 1981 at the connecticut correctional institution in summers connecticut in january 1985 arnie married long -time girlfriend debbie glatzel in a ceremony at the correctional institute beautiful just two months later arnie was granted early release after serving only five years five fucking years in january 8 1986 the parole boards
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 i -universe publishing in an attempt to stop them from republishing the devil in connecticut wow um which the author admits in court documents is a quote fictionalized account of david and karl glatzel's past lives but it was being marketed as non -fiction among other things i guess the suit says that brittle's book included considerable false and defamatory
subject matter and 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 exacerbated David's mental health issues.
Of course. and he was he was continuing to struggle because in the press that hurts my heart didn't give a shit 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 warns 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 um i might have said david i'm sorry i meant debbie and arnie oh debbie and arnie um 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 because like the 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 i that my my um my my brother was possessed by a demon. Yeah.
We do not know what the hell was going on.
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.
And she said the book was based on statements made by the children's parents.
And she also cited the involvement of six unnamed priests priests priests as evidence of the book's legitimacy I think six unnamed priests should be a band name I like I think that's a cool band 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 that i 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 uh i do not actually i hope he's i hope i'm i'm hope i've 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 yeah i'm just hoping that they at least could yeah well you know what separate from it it makes sense that you didn't look into to 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 and everybody else wow and arnie is out i think um debbie passed away before the conjuring movie came out so i know she is no longer alive uh arnie i believe is and i think he got a job job so yeah I mean hopefully he led a better life hopefully he and hopefully he still feels sorry that he murdered someone yeah it's a really sad all -around case it's sad it's it's strange it's confusing yeah and I don't think 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 know
they they caused a big mess and I I don't I don't like it no it gives me gross feelings I don't like it it gives a yuck a taste in the mouth yeah just and I think a lot of people in the paranormal community don't like their involvement in this either so I think it's it's kind of like a on them a big a big yeah but wow yeah so that is the conjuring case the devil made me do a case interesting case it is a sad one so because the other thing is too when you look into Alan Bono there's a not a lot about him you can't find a lot about his life so yeah um 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 bad things happen when people drink that much and if it doesn't happen outwardly it's happening inwardly exactly that's
the other thing so don't do that I still can't believe that amount of wine yeah that's 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 good one and as always we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird bye but oh but not so weird about any of that but yeah no If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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