Hey, weirdos, Elena here.
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Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
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okay you guys went ham sandwich and ordered so many lunar dials in the in the pre -sale there like i was like oh my god you became entire ham hoagies is what you were what's a ham hoagie what is that isn't it like a sub but somewhere else they call them hoagies Oh, a sub is a hoagie?
Yeah. I thought I was going to say a hub is a soagie.
Well, I don't know.
All I know is that the motherfucking lunar dial is going to be available on the Wondery Shop starting August 1st. www .wonderyshop .com And that's starting August 1st. But if you're not one for the internet, that's fine.
Because you can go out into the world.
This is my favorite part.
And you can go to some of my fucking favorite places.
Hell yeah. Target. Target.
Barnes & Noble. Barnes & Noble.
And Amazon starting August 1st. And you can buy it there, baby.
Play the game. Play it.
Play it so hard. Go get it.
Lunar Entire. You bunch of hoagies starting in August. August. Hey, weirdos.
I'm Alina. I'm Ash.
trash and this is morbid look at you following my leader that's me leader that's me you're a leader I'm a follower no I'm I'm a leada.
You're a leada. I'm a follow -a.
Yeah, literally not at all.
Actually, like, I feel like we're both leaders.
I would like to think that.
No, I'm just like balling in my own court.
Absolutely. As you should.
Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Don't ball in other people's courts.
Literally don't ball in other people's courts.
Get out of, get on your own court.
Guys, I, this has nothing to do with what we were just talking about right now, but we didn't have a plan going into this for like a small talk.
But I think I just dropped some good wisdom on you.
I think you did, because usually we have some points we want to hit, and then we just let it go from there.
Yeah. We had nothing when we went into this, so I'm flying off the seat of my pants, but I thought about it.
And Halloween stuff is out right now.
Halloween? And I got to tell you, we're almost in August, and I feel like my soul is coming alive.
It's like an awakening.
Spooky season is upon us.
actually the other night I went outside like probably I don't know like eight or nine o 'clock and I smelled the air and I said to myself that smelled a little bit like and I said that to Drew and he just looked at me like what the fuck he's like it's July I was like not where I'm from not in my soul not in this court not in my heart no it's not July in my heart although I'm getting a little bit like not really but I'm getting like kind of sad because I gardened for the first time this year like you saw my garden the other day it's pretty bad she's fucking thriving she is i feel like i'm gonna be
a little so sad when i can't garden anymore i i don't feel that way but i will feel bad for you yeah you know i'll empathize with you well i can i can still garden what i'm sorry i was correcting my own i was like i won't empathize i'll sympathize i will not but i will sympathize i'll give you a little sympathy yeah um no i think obviously you can can still garden in the fall but then like when the winter hits i'll be so happy during the holidays but then i'll just be like my garden i mean i'm looking forward to that song that you're gonna create so just sing it to you when i come in that single
that you're gonna drop in the winter that's what i'm excited about it's called ball in your own court but you know what else is happening right now um pub day pub day pub day it's paperback pub day for the butcher and the the Ren and you can go get it anywhere you get books and also it has a sneak peek of the sequel that's right it has a fucking chapter from the sequel yeah bitch so you can get started before anybody else reading the sequel except me get on it get on it not the whole sequel but I did read a lot of chunks yeah this bitch is a scary girl I what did I say to you the other day and I
said put that on a quote on the front of it why didn't we write it down I think I said oh I said i said being in her inner orbit truly scares me dot dot dot and she's my sister yeah and i thought that was a great quote yeah it should be on the book jacket it was something like that i think it was a little bit better i liked it but either way it's fun to have another pub day pub days are fun where you guys have been fucking amazing buying the book and buying the paperback and just giving me all kinds of like support and just like support you know and i appreciate it the hurrahs i feel the hurrahs
like they really give it to and i i love you guys for that hurrah you know hurrahs and yeah so go get that paper book paper book paper back paper book back you know paperback book even if you feel get that as well and guess what by the time you listen to this alina will have gone into targets across um not the whole state or even half of it she's gonna go into target though and she's gonna sign some books so if you're lucky enough to go into a Target that Alina signed the book in you could buy that you could have that book it works like that that's what happened to me I've never gone and bought
a book that like the author signed so I feel like that's a special moment oh I'd be excited for authors that I love but it's wild to me that people feel that way about my signature I was gonna say I appreciate your this is a crazy sentence you're an author that people love yeah that still hasn't sunk in there there still has not sunk in there i have just just to end our little uh chat in the beginning so we can get to the case i never end it don't end our track keep going no i was just gonna say guys go read the troop by nick cutter it's a really good book about a lot it's a great book highly
recommend it it's pretty brutal didn't even stephen king say something about it even king said it was scared it scared the hell out of him so that's what drew me to it that's big i I thought he was, Nick Cutter is a great writer.
I thought it was phenomenal.
I'm still chugging my way down the Paris memoir, so.
I feel like we're going to be, years later, you're going to be like, I'm almost done with that.
Yeah. I'm trying to start reading for leisure again because we read a lot for work, obviously.
So I'm trying to read for leisure again, but it's not really working out for me.
It's tough to shoehorn it in there sometimes in the schedule, but it's important and it feels great.
It does. There's words and books and smells of them.
But are you ready to start talking about the rotten meat smell again that was going down in the Smurl House?
I am always ready to talk about the rotten meat smell that's going down in the Smurl House.
Let's go. It's really the only way I could transition to this new conversation that we're about to have. Yeah, there's no real segue.
I'm pretty sure we're leaving most of the rotten meat smell in part one.
But let's recap. There we go.
Yeah. Transitions and sagus.
There you go. Who says sagu?
And that's why we drink.
Go listen to them. Yeah.
We say that all the time, but do it.
Go listen. Listen. Listen.
Listen. I lost my train of thought, but yeah.
So in part one, we were talking about the Smurl family.
And I think in the beginning, I was telling you guys how this article dropped in this fucking newspaper.
And everybody was like, holy shit, this family's really going through it.
Yeah. And then I told you about some of the things that happened.
We had a small house fire as I was telling you about a fire.
It got sinister in here.
It got sinister and dorksided.
Dorksided. So go listen to part one.
What if I just did the whole story in that accent?
I think some people would stick around.
Probably. Some people would.
A couple. A few. It's fun.
The real ones would stick around.
The real ones. The OGs.
But yeah. So we had a small house fire of our own.
And then when I left you guys off in part one.
Everybody was like.
Especially Janet Smurl was like.
I really need to talk to everybody about this.
And everybody was like.
I think you're cuckoo nuts bananas.
Yeah. I don't know why I said banana like that.
But I did. Bananas.
bananas kind of like a minion um and then ed and lorraine stepped on the scene as they do as they as they do they are known to do so as soon as ed and lorraine showed up and you know it was clear to the smurls that they believed in whatever was going on in the house that was a huge sigh of relief for them because that is something they provide a huge sigh of relief they provide unwavering support do you speak from personal experience i just feel like if you're gonna if you're gonna have something like this happening to you ed and lorraine are gonna come in and they're gonna go we believe you they're
gonna say breathe easy baby like no one no one else will probably do that or some people won't but like most people ed and lorraine are gonna come in and they're gonna be like we believe you so they at least give you that and sometimes at the very least they're gonna bring their friend rosemary who also believes in you yeah and i I mean, it's not real if Rosemary doesn't believe it.
So, as soon as she comes in, I'm like, it's real.
Only with her baby, though.
Yeah, absolutely. But like I said, there was years and years of, like, slammed doors in their faces.
So, they were like, okay, wow.
Like, cool that you're not doubting us.
Yeah. But at the same time, the Smurl started noticing that having paranormal investigators in the house was actually pissing off the vibes a lot more.
And things started to seem like they were getting worse.
Oh, no. Oh, my God.
They were getting worse.
Throw me out a window at this very moment.
I won't do that because I love you, but that was pretty rough.
It was pretty rough.
I also didn't write that, so I don't know why I said that.
No, sometimes it just happens.
I feel that. I feel like I have to go shower or something.
A lot of times my mouth will say something in a way that I'm like, I didn't intend to say that at all.
The other day, actually, I literally just came up here and I started to talk and I was like, I can confirm.
And I was like, that's not what I was trying to say.
That's accurate. I used to do that when I waitress too.
i would just walk up to tables and not be able to talk i love that and they were like hey girl hey girl but anyway okay the most disturbing event that the smurls went through was on june 21st 1986 after the warrens had already started their investigation they had eaten dinner together as a family watched a little movie they were having a fam bam night adorable seemingly with no disturbances they put the kids to bed with no issues they went up to bed themselves they went went to sleep.
It was great. Great night.
But a few hours later, after everyone else had fallen asleep, Jack, daddy -o there.
Jack. Jack the dad, woke up out of a deep, deep sleep, and he said he woke up with what felt like a violent jolt.
Oh. He said, at first I didn't see anything at all.
I just felt this tremendous sort of panic.
I wasn't sure if I was having a nightmare or not.
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and like so this is wild this next part and i actually can't believe that i personally have to deliver this to you oh but it's part of the story and my journalistic um truth is driving me forward it is so he is essentially mikey is preparing mikey mikey knows what's next because mikey and dave spoke about this oh no so jack woke up to a ghost straddling him okay and And he said that the figure was mostly human.
But the woman also looked like she had some sort of scales, like on her skin, almost like a snake.
And her skin, he said, was almost like a translucent white, but like with the scales, of course.
And he told author Robert Curran, who I talked about in the first part, she had long white scraggly hair and her eyes were all red and the inside of her mouth and her gums were green.
Some of her teeth were missing, but those she had were very long and vampire like.
like she's is she a succubus is that what's happening here oh he claimed that the woman had some sort of hold over him that was like literally paralyzing him almost like sleep paralysis but he was not sleeping and he realized what was happening and when he did he just froze in terror he said after the woman had i guess i would say sexually assaulted him because he he was not consenting consenting to this she looked down at him menacingly and quote quote, smiled, showing those incredible teeth.
So she, like, literally took advantage of him and, like, she raped him.
Holy shit. According to him, that's what happened.
A scaly, white, translucent woman with sharp, spiny sum teeth.
And red eyes and scraggly hair.
And then she smiled afterwards.
And then later, he described himself as being sore.
And he said, like, really sore.
like from like he had been assaulted yes exactly and he said that's how he knew that because when it happened he woke up the next morning after somehow falling asleep and was like there's no fucking way that happened but then he was like my house is fucked I think that happened and now I'm sore like I'm feeling the aftermath I've been assaulted that's what's always shocking to me in these cases there's one they're like and then I just fell asleep and then I woke up the next day and I'm like you fell asleep you just fell asleep I'd be like up and Adam we're going to yeah like Like, the neighbor's
house. Yeah, we got to get out of here.
Get the fuck out of there.
But then I think about all the times I've had sleep paralysis, and I just fall back to sleep after that.
But it's never been on that level.
No, not – no. Like, you just see, like, a creepy guy in the corner with a hat on.
I've never interacted with my sleep paralysis demon. No. Like, one -on -one.
No, no. Even, like, when I have, like, a nightmare that I know I was sleeping, and it's not any kind of sleep paralysis, I have a hard time going back to sleep.
And sometimes I'm like, maybe I should go to the neighbor's house.
I should just leave. Maybe it's not safe here.
Yeah. It wasn't. safe there um if you do read robert kern's book which i'll link in the show notes and i mentioned it in part one too um he goes a lot more into that specific instance i kind of just wanted to yeah it's very dark so you get the details in the book yes go read the book for sure so after weeks of again increasingly aggressive attacks on the smurl house it was clear to quite literally everyone involved that they needed the help of the church if they were going to get rid rid of this infestation in the home.
Yeah. But the problem was that while the Catholic diocese was sympathetic and the local parish priests offered to come bless the house, they declined a request for, say it with me, an exorcism.
Yes. Since they ran into a bit of another closed door there, the Smurls, and they kind of felt like they were out of options, Jack and Janet, that's when they started thinking about going public with the story basically hoping that someone would hear about them and offer some kind of solution and jack also hoped that once they went public the church would kind of be shamed into helping yeah there's a bit of speculation about more than one timeline in this case i kind of talked about that a bit in part one people question the timeline of the haunt itself but they also argue over who was the first
person to take the story public in this scenario of people okay in their published account of the investigation of the haunting the smurl house the haunted one family's nightmare ed warren claimed that the idea to go public with this family story was solely jack and janet's decision he said lorraine and i believed that janet and jack's sudden desire to find a public forum offered one very good possibility that the scranton diocese would have to recognize at last that something was going on in west pitston and they had to take and they had yet to take seriously so basically it was like he agreed
with jack sentiment of like yeah the church is ignoring this and if we go public with this they're going to realize holy shit something really is going on and we should have helped yeah absolutely but others who became involved in the case a little while later though remember things a little differently so paul kurtz who owns and wrote a piece in the skeptical inquirer said, indeed, it was apparently at the behest of the Warrens that the Smurl family first released their story to the press about the ghostly manifestations.
So, Ed Warren is being like, no, no, no, no, no. That was fully their decision.
Jack and Janet wanted to do this to pressure the church. But Paul Kurtz is being like, no, no, no, no, no. Ed and Lorraine put pressure on Jack and Janet to go public.
I wonder what happened.
Me too. I wonder where the truth Truth lies.
Somewhere in the middle, I'm sure.
Somewhere in there.
What do they say? Yours, mine, and...
Yeah, yours, mine, and the truth.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Yeah. So whoever went to the press aside, when the Associated Press story about the Smurl's haunted house started hitting the newspapers, and that was on August 18th, 1986, it kicked off a huge interest in what they were calling the strange goings -ons in the Smurl house.
All right, the strange goings -ons.
I like that. I think it was actually just goings -ons.
sorry that's okay just like making everything plural we can make it crazy we can go crazy but the media in and around pennsylvania they were going wild and everybody wanted to be reporting with the latest update like each little department of reporters okay so the next day there was a bunch of follow -up articles that appeared in local papers and they were getting quotes from jack and janet in one instance janet told a reporter steve corbett for some reason the devil wants us they the demons are making us pay for something we know nothing about the punishment has to stop and i was like okay okay
janet okay janet what what they're making you pay for something and you don't know anything about it that's the thing i'm like i don't know i feel like this is just demons thing i feel like they don't need a specific reason like they don't have have a vendetta no i don't think you're into like lessons you live here yeah demons aren't necessarily like the ghost of christmas past trying to be like hey you should probably be more generous yeah i think they're just like let's fuck shit up i think demons are like the strangers at the end of the strangers and they say because you were home i think that's
it i fucking love i don't think there's a reason i think it's the scary no motivation answer at the the end of the horror movie where you go fuck you're talking about scream yeah yeah yeah scarier if there's no scarier when there's no motive exactly that's why demons are terrifying that's why demons are demons that's what they do but she went on just like they had planned to to specifically name the catholic diocese when she was doing her interviews obviously putting the pressure on yeah so she said to the same reporter we are a haunted family who desperately needs the power of the catholic church
to help purge the evil they are i just want to tell you that that That light just came on?
Ooh, I don't like that.
What's happening every time we talk about this?
I don't know. This little nightlight just popped on next to me.
We were talking earlier about something top secret.
And the lights, it was just like a vision that we had.
But the lights started flickering on and off.
It was really strange.
You were just saying that, and I happened to look out of the corner of my eye at it, and it popped on as I looked at it.
Strange goings -ons.
Yeah, we're a haunted family.
Yeah. But now that Janet had named the church specifically, the church started getting contacted by reporters.
So they had to say something.
Yeah. So a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Scranton told reporters, The matter is under investigation.
The church takes the reports of demons very seriously.
However, a valid case of demonic possession is extremely rare.
Ash just had a demonic possession.
possession i just had a demonic possession as i was reading that i was like i am sneezing i mean i like that they're being real about it they're like it's pretty fucking rare it's rare and they're like yeah we're taking you seriously we're not saying it doesn't happen we're just saying it's like it's rare not everybody gets a demonic possession like the swirls are not cool enough for a demonic possession yeah they're like the the brendans over there they're cool yours is a common haunting it's just but the really rare ones there's only a few of them cute of you to think you're so haunted cute
of you to think you're so so but now that the case was getting more and more attention ed and lorraine were getting interviews with the press too of course ed warren he would always stand by jack and janet excuse me during their uh interviews too and ed told reporters the smurls are truly a family coming under visual attack the ghost devil demon whatever you want to call it is in that home oh and he pointed to the 1973 exorcist like the movie yeah he said it was only evidence that added credibility to the smurl story he said it was based on a true case of history of a boy from mount rainer washington back
in 1949 i was there but as a young man only in my 20s nobody paid much attention to me yeah no one pays attention to a young man in his 20s i was like what ed what are you trying to say there he's like what he's like proof of the exorcist fun fact i was in mount rainer yeah but nobody cared about me he's like yeah you know i was just a young man in his 20s talking about exorcisms and like you know how they fly under the radar so it's like i don't know i feel like you're talking about two things that are simply not connected and trying trying to make some kind of connection out of it but you know
go off king go off but according to ed the family who lived in the smurl house before the smurls moved in they were the ones responsible for quote the first of the four paranormal stages oh which he referred to as the opening that's the first stage the opening i do love the theatrics i fucking i do i love it now he wasn't able to to provide a ton of details because he didn't want anyone getting sued.
No, of course not. But he claimed that the previous occupants had, quote, allowed the doors to open up that allowed the phenomenon to occur.
Which, like, lots of big words going on, lots of, like...
Sounds pretty blamey.
Blaming, exactly, going on.
But as for how the problem could be resolved, he still said it would require an exorcism by a priest from the Catholic Church. That was the only way out of it.
Yeah, it is. But he also said that the reps of the church in Scranton were young and not knowledgeable about this sort of thing, meaning they wouldn't be of any help.
Yeah. So on one hand, they're like, we fucking need the Catholic Church to help us.
And then on the other hand, they're like, they are unqualified to help us.
So we're kind of fucked.
What do you want? But pretty much every day that went by, more and more articles were being written.
The Smurls were being featured in newspapers across Pennsylvania and even further than that at this point.
and a lot of them were actually front page news which when you think about that that's fucking nuts that is nuts imagine you will grab the globe and it's like about a haunted family that would be pretty amazing tough news week i would love that i would also love that but every outlet seemed to up the ante of course or add some kind of piece of the story that hadn't been mentioned before and sometimes the new information even seemed like it was intended to add credibility to the claims like it seemed like the reporters were like you know what i I believe them, and almost kind of sneaking their
own things in there to kind of like validate the story.
On August 20th, for example, Ed Warren claimed that they had extensive video footage of the haunting.
Ooh. Exciting, right?
I'm excited. Let's go.
Well, when he was asked to provide the tapes, he said that he had sent them to someone, but then they were like, okay, like, can you get them back?
And he was like, can I have those?
Actually, the demonic energy was so strong that it, quote, burned a hole right through the tape.
tape oh you know that happens that'll happen also which one is it did you send it to someone or did it get a hole burned through it burned a hole through the tape don't yeah they're like you know how it is you know how just like things burst into flames kind of like jack watching tv i mean we do know how things burst into flames these days that's very true and how do you argue with that though at that point like at that time you're just like yeah i guess yeah i guess you're You're right.
I would want to see the tape with the hole in it.
Who am I to argue that?
I don't know. I'd be like, at least show me the videotape with the hole burned on the center of it.
You know? Just give me that.
I would say, you didn't want to inhale all that plastic, so that must have been a demon. That's true.
That's what I would say, at least. Yeah, good call.
Thank you. You're welcome.
But other additions to the story were just plain bizarre.
In an interview with Citizen's Voice, a local newspaper, Jack told reporters about a curious Curious incident involving his feet.
His feet, I say. Involving his feet, you say.
This is just truly ridiculous.
I had my legs crossed at the ankles, and my slippers were alongside of the chair.
Without looking and not taking my eyes off the television, which apparently they had replaced, I leaned forward for my slippers and went to put them on, when I realized I couldn't uncross my feet.
Oh. You want to know why he couldn't uncross his feet?
Why? This is quotes.
him quotes the demons had paper clipped my socks together from the inside where they met the paper clip was opened in an s shape you try to do that to your socks without ripping them i can't do it but i did but it did i mean okay that's like that's very fey it's very mischievous first of all i can't even even really picture that in my head nope can't do it i'm like an s shape and like you couldn't i think you would just rip your socks if you tried to cross your legs like i think you'd be able to so i think he's right you really can't no but you would just rip your shit you just rip your shit all
up you would just rip your shit all up like why what what do the demons really get out of that i don't know just i'm like they're just pranksters you know they're like this is funny he'll fall also that's not scary to me i'd just be like fuck off that's silly goofy that's It would piss me off, depending on my mood for the day.
Yeah, I'd more just be like, that's annoying.
I don't like, like, John does this thing that he knows I hate.
To your socks? Because I love, like, I have to have socks on.
Yeah, she always has socks on.
And don't take my socks off.
And so he'll run by me if my legs are crossed, and he'll just rip my sock off, and then he'll run around and throw it.
You guys are really cute.
That's a silly, goofy thing.
But he does it because he knows it makes me lose it.
Like, irrationally angry.
like irrationally angry but he's just like whoa and just grabs myself he's just like whoa he just gets overcome with the world and i feel like he would so i feel like the the demons maybe they're aries okay and maybe that's just their love language maybe they took a page out of out of john's book out of john's book you know maybe that's their love language it's driving this family crazy i like it i mean i kind of feel like you're onto something there i think so maybe the The ghosts are just Aries and that's their love language.
Well, the Catholic Diocese was not Aries and they were not John.
No, that was another good segue.
Thank you. So after being inundated with calls from reporters and very concerned citizens and neighbors, actually, the Scranton Diocese released an official statement on the Smurl case.
Reverend Gerald Mullaly told reporters, we don't know what it is.
That's the problem.
We believe what the family is telling us.
It's the explanation for what they are experiencing that we are not sure of.
We have no idea what the fuck is going on.
They're like, yeah, we believe them, but, like, we don't know what we...
Because the whole thing is, who are they going to exorcise?
Well, that's the problem.
The whole family? Because, like, not one person is, like, you know, like, starting to speak like Reagan or anything like that.
Like, they're having things happen around them, but nobody's possessed per se.
That's the thing. It's like, what's the point of an exorcism?
Like you're not going to exercise, are you going to exercise the whole house?
Is that a thing? That's what I was going to say.
And I don't think so.
I thought you would exercise a person.
Yeah, but like you can like bless a house or, you know.
Which I think they probably are more apt to do is bless a house.
And they did. Yeah.
But they were like, there's really not much more we can do other than that.
Also, what are the, I wonder what it takes to get an official exorcism?
Like what are the guidelines that you need to hit, the benchmarks?
benchmarks i think you talked actually a little bit about it when you were doing the arnie johnson case we did talk about it but there's like like we don't know we didn't talk about the benchmarks of what it is but it has to go up like really high like didn't the pope get involved at one point or something yeah like like in the chain of like you know who decides it has to go up really high but i just want to know what the requirements are like what they need to take to all those people and be like hey this family's dealing with all these things see i wonder if there's requirements or if it depends
on the person at the top like what they think of the whole situation.
Yeah. But at the same time you would think that there would have to be some criteria.
There has to be something.
I don't know. I don't know.
They were like not here.
But they said no. So ultimately the diocese did agree to send a priest that was quote experienced in demonology and parapsychology to go out and investigate.
Okay. And they said that after the priest was through with his investigation they would decide how to go forward. Okay.
So within a week of the first report by the Associated Press, like I said, the coverage, like, daily coverage of the Smurls ordeal had started attracting crowds outside of the house, actually.
Like, it had got so big.
People were getting together just looking at the house, and sometimes the crowds were larger than a hundred people.
That's fucked up. Just, like, causing a scene.
Especially, it's like, people live there.
Exactly. I don't know.
I think they might have, like, said hey.
Oh, they liked it. i don't know oh i don't i never talked to them personally i was thinking i was thinking it's weird just to do that anyway i think like when people live to do that in the house yeah like don't do that no the rude yeah because the thing is a lot of times the police actually had to intervene to disperse everyone and manage the crowd imagine being their neighbor i would be so fucking annoyed that's the thing if you lived on that street i'd be fucking i'd be real annoyed the story though actually caught the attention eventually though like because of all of this of jason miller who played
father damien in the exorcist oh shit so he was because he's from scranton so one day he went along with a journalist from the times tribune and took a tour of the smurl house shut up that's why i think like they let certain people in so oh yeah they were you know for sure but he said of the visit this is no amityville horror with a big spooky house the family is terrified that the infestation of the home will go to the family huh like so i think they were worried that next step was possession yeah of course now while they were in the living room janet told jason miller and the reporter that there
was some activity actually going on in don's bedroom upstairs and she was like we should go up there like i can actually finally show you something like it's happening right now but when jack took the visitors to the room quote everything was normal like nothing was going on yeah yeah you know so by the end i told you no media training for these ghosts they don't want to do they're like no no cameras they're like us no photos don't take a yeah don't take a pic don't take a video don't take a video never so by the end of august the non -stop reports on the smurl haunting started getting a little
mundane for readers they were like okay there's not a lot really happening here nothing new to report so people are losing interest now not wanting to lose an audience potentially jack janet and the warrens allegedly came forward with a new piece of information that they had had gotten via a psychic investigation of the house oh and a possible explanation for the haunting all right which like i think you guys already provided that but go off but sure according to janet quote two psychics who spent time in the house believe there may be a link between the alleged spirits and a decades -old murder
there are two earthbound and one demonic spirit here one is a woman named abigail a friendly spirit who talks to me one is a man named patrick who is angry the other is a demon oh so the psychics told janet allegedly that almost a hundred years earlier in 19 uh excuse me 1898 or 1899 patrick had murdered his wife abigail oh shit and she went on the psychic to explain quote he was supposed to have been hanged nearby and buried here now he's afraid to go into the spirit world because he thinks he will be punished punished as he should as he absolutely should i also was like why was he gonna get
buried on his own property i was gonna ask that it's only legal in some places i don't know about scranton but unfortunately 1800s who knows the truth truth um unfortunately though there's literally no documented evidence whatsoever that either of those people existed or were real um or any evidence that says a murder or an execution took place in that um like regarding those people okay so So there's that.
All right. Now, while the Smurls had gone to the press initially to draw attention to their predicament and as they claimed to get help from anybody who had similar experiences, after a week, the nonstop coverage was starting to take its toll on even the Smurl family.
Yeah, of course. Jack told reporters, it's just getting a little crazy.
Do you know we have people climbing up the tree outside the house at night trying to look in the windows?
It's insane. And they have kids.
Yeah. And like younger kids, too.
That's fucked up. Not cool.
they have four girls yeah it's like get it together people now even worse than that though people were now starting to criticize the story and were talking amongst themselves questioning the validity of what the smurls were claiming yeah and jack said we're starting to read things that have no truth to them at all some people have questioned our integrity i don't like that because we're honest people we never thought it would run away like this oh you wanted you wanted to be in the spotlight a little bit i know unfortunately unfortunately.
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oh no but not all of them were accusing the family of dishonesty or fraud stephen caplan the director of parapsychology excuse me the director of the parapsychology institute of new york actually said it was a bit more involved than that he was like i'm not trying to like make fun of this family he said what you have here is someone taking a cause of psychokinesis and blowing it up into a story about demons yeah he actually believed a lot of what the family had said about the attacks going on within the home.
But where he differed from the Warrens, however, was how it came to be, the cause.
Okay. For one thing, he didn't believe in demons.
And for another, he was suspicious of the Warrens' involvement in the case.
He had actually investigated the Amityville case himself, and he didn't think that case had anything to do with demons either, and nor do I.
And that's why he was worrying about the Warrens' motivations going going public with this case too because he was worried it was all going to take kind of a similar path to the amityville case yeah and he said normally when you investigate investigate a case like this you don't publicize it no like that was his main issue that makes okay so making our way to reverend alphonsus trebold obviously yeah what a fucking name yeah the priest from saint bonaventure university yeah yeah he was invited by the scranton diocese to investigate the matter like I was saying earlier they were like we're going
to send a priest out there he's going to investigate and we'll decide how to move forward so he was very skeptical when he went out there he told reporters he was looking into the matter at the request of the local diocese I feel like Rachel from seven deadly centers and I can't believe that and also deadly diocese yeah go listen to Rachel on seven deadly centers Rachel and Greg and Rachel and Greg on deadly diocese it's really great guys I'm serious listen to it but I just I've just never said diocese so much yeah um but so he he told the reporters he was looking into the matter at the request
of the diocese to determine whether the manifestations quote are true and not just a matter of misjudgment hallucination or illusion illusion is chris angel here oh my gosh mind freak oh my gosh mind freak so among the skeptics who you know were less confident that the smurls and confident that the smurls and warrens were telling the truth and you know kind of just were like i don't know about this and among the people that were like not shy about sharing their opinion with the press ah paul kurtz oh i mentioned him before he was a member and spokesperson for the committee of uh for the scientific
investigation of claims and paranormal also known as csi cop oh yeah i mean i know paul do you know paul csi cop yeah that's fun csi cop yeah well kurtz he saw a lot lot of similarities between the smurls claims and many other cases involving the warrens and that led him to his doubts he said it seems to us you know over at csi cop yeah paul and everybody that a great to do has been made about it and we wonder if it's like the amityville horror hoax which was based on imagination rather than on actual hauntings so despite his skepticism and his general distrust for the warrens the members of csi
cop that's just what i'm calling it 100 obviously why wouldn't you they were more than willing actually to go out and investigate the family's claims themselves and offer assistance if they could i like that but those offers were either completely ignored by the smurls and the warrens or just flat out rejected i wonder why me too it's crazy that's wild so the thing yeah the smurls refusal from this large organization with the knowledge and the resources to explain and possibly even end their ordeal seemed pretty strange yeah to most people like all you're doing like your whole claim with going
forward with this was to get help yeah and then those people that were like hey hey we're over here hi we have help we can help you and then they were like no they're like no we don't want that like that's a little ridiculous so when uh when kurt's there reached out to janet smurl to offer assistance she just kept putting him off.
She told him you know she would get back to him but she would never call him back.
That kind of thing like strange.
She was kind of ghosting him.
Yeah that would make me ghosting him.
That's funny. Oh my god I actually didn't even mean to but like good catch. I like that.
But you know what CSI cop was?
What was it? Undeterred.
I figured. I always knew they were.
They were undeterred.
So they referred a team of local affiliated investigators to the Smurls and after a few brief conversations the Smurl family actually did agree to let them come out to the house and investigate like it took a little poking and prodding but they were like it shouldn't have it shouldn't no definitely should not have especially when you said that's your whole goal yeah but they were like you know what okay come out but when they got to the house they were met by ed warren and jack smurl oh and apparently jack had changed his mind and he and ed refused to allow the team to go inside the house and actually
demanded that they get off the property immediately so like that's going on that's rude you first of all you said no to me and then i was like please and you were like okay and then you were like actually get out right now it's the end of you and me and to wait until you've packed all your shit right and brought it out to the location and then you're like actually no it's like why bitch i bought a button -up shirt for this i got new pants at target like what the fuck what the hell no that's gonna jojo me like that jojo me it's a verb yeah so the refusal to allow the team inside uh i don't know
if you see it this way but i do as a major red flag yeah i would question that the members of csi cop also felt that way they were like that's fucking that's weird that's the csi cop investigator richard bush he told reporters and i i thought of you when i heard heard this quote it said good science says first let's rule out possible fraud let's be careful let's be critical let's be unemotional today there are a lot of emotion here and a lot of secrecy i want to open things up and look at things fairly he was like i want to do good science i like that i like that he's like i want to remove all
the secrecy and the emotional bullshit from this and i just want to look at what's happening and tell you if it's real or if it's fake and then when if If I say, I don't know, it seems like it might be real, then we'll delve a little further into this.
You're not even letting me get to that point.
And I wonder why. Because if it's real, why wouldn't you want me, a pillar of the scientific paranormal community, to go in front of the media and say this is real and we need to investigate it?
Exactly. Huh. I agree.
Also, he's giving Capricorn vibes.
Thank you. He really is.
But so that's the thing.
Their refusal to allow CSI Cop into the house, not enough to stop the organization.
Like I said, undeterred.
Yeah, they're a Capricorn.
So what they did. They are, as an organization, a Capricorn.
You cannot tell them no. You can't stop them.
So what they did was they just started organizing.
No, they didn't start.
Well, yeah, they probably did organize some things.
And then they started investigating off the property, off -site.
And they came to several conclusions about the Smurls' claims. Now, the biggest issues for the independent investigators now doing this outside of the house, the biggest issues for them were that the only supposedly documented evidence of the activity in the home was suspiciously unavailable, like we said.
Hmm. And they also were like the only investigators allowed in this house are Ed and Lorraine or their people.
And any attempt being made so far to understand this phenomenon relied entirely and exclusively on a Christian framework, which like that's fine if that's what you believe in, but it limits you.
But it does limit you greatly.
Yeah. Yeah. And whenever the Warrens were asked by reporters on multiple occasions to produce that video that they had or any photos of activity that they also claim to have, every single time Ed Warren kept putting them off.
He said, quote, he had loaned them to a TV company, but didn't remember its name or quote, they would be released in time, but only to the Roman Catholic Church. It's like the church doesn't even want to help you here.
What the fuck are you doing videos for?
And also they asked you for the videos and you said a hole burned through them.
them yeah so what's the story what is the story here and the warrens weren't the only ones giving weird stories the smurls also adopted a very vague explanation when they asked the same question they would tell reporters quote they don't own the tapes and that if they allowed one or two journalists to stay overnight they'd be deluged deluged deluged deluged deluged i think you can say it kind of deluged but i always think like a deluge of things i like it well they were going going to be deluged with requests from other reporters which i guess is a fair point but it's like at least release some
pictures because you're going to the media so often why can't you just give them a couple that's the thing just give them a little bit right so in time the press much like the public started to wonder why the smurls were being so secretive and now at this point they were refusing to talk to any quote unsympathetic members of the press so like the number one people you don't want to piss off in the story like this are the press yeah especially when they were helping you in the beginning that's the thing and when janet smurl was asked about all of this during an interview with uh an abc news program
featuring paul kurtz our guy janet claimed that she had been that she actually had contacted csi cop a year earlier but it was that organization that had told her that she had been watching too many late night horror movies remember i had said said that earlier yeah that's that's not good that's not good but she didn't have any proof of that well that's the thing and also it's okay to be skeptical at first this is your chance to shine this is your chance to prove them wrong like wouldn't you want that if you are very confident in your own truth right exactly that's the thing but she was pissed
off about that and she was also pissed off that they suggested that she see a psychiatrist okay which i can see why like she She would find that insulting in the manner in which it was said, I suppose.
Yeah, well, and some people just don't want to be told that.
Exactly. So it's like, you know.
But during the interview, Kurtz actually said that was completely false.
He said, although this sounds like good advice, we have no record of having received such a call.
We invariably ask that the caller send us a letter giving all the facts, and we have no such letter on file from the Smurls.
I mean whenever you ask for proof of something over and over again and they don't provide it to you it's probably fucked up and fit like I don't know it's weird I don't know when someone's not willing to provide their receipts but they have them according to them I don't know about it I don't like it I don't know I've been in that position before and I've been like show me the proof there's been several times that I think we've both seen this happen yes where you're like Like, show me the proof of that.
Show me that that actually happened.
And they're just like, mm.
And then I do what Carrie and Laura from Sup, another great podcast you should listen to.
Truth. You just say, so you say.
So you say. So you say.
So you say. So you say.
But some people run with it.
Yeah. Yeah, they do.
But now that the Smurls seem to be gaining a more, you know, adversarial tone with anybody other than Ed and Lorraine Warren, and more and more inconsistencies were starting to to build within their story, this was when the press shifted their tone publicly, and even the public itself started even gaining more suspicions.
Yeah, I mean, I could see that.
So according to Jack, the surgery caused short -term memory loss, and that the operation had no bearing on his family's claims that the house was possessed by demons.
He was basically saying two completely separate events.
Yeah, okay. And as for why they had become so closed off at this point, he told reporters jack if there's action taken in this house it's got to be from a religious point of view so he was like basically i don't want anybody investigating this that is not affiliated with or believes in the church which like okay again i think you're limiting yourself yeah i mean that's just a limited scope right it's all when you're only looking through one lens it's hard to see anything else and you're not seeing the forest past the trees exactly and so skeptics and all all the press and everybody that was starting
to get pissed off about this, they obviously disagreed.
And also, so did a psychiatrist named Dr. Robert Gordon.
We got a doctor up in here.
Dr. Gordon! Dr. Gordon.
Not the one from Saw.
I don't think. What's that?
A Carrie L. Whisplayed.
Well, in a prepared statement written on behalf of CSI cop, he suspected that the family might be suffering from a kind of shared hysteria, quote, similar to that prevalent during the salem witch trials shared hysteria is fascinating fascinating and we're gonna cover more of those because it's a fascinating phenomenon i think i agree with yeah in this particular case and i believe that way in demons and i believe in hauntings that's the thing in this case i think it might have been like a shared delusion kind of thing so do you say and it's like it kind of feels like they believe it oh i think
they believe because i think that's part of shared hysteria and shared delusions right they aren't lying that's the thing they're not like willingly being like fuck you i've told you about fabrication like they're not spinning you a yarn on purpose no they believe what they are telling you because that's the thing i think there's multiple viewpoints on this story as a whole and i think one of them is that they were telling the truth and that like they got fucked over yeah i think another viewpoint is that like they were not telling the truth and they did this to get famous yeah for sure and then
i think this is the viewpoint that I have they did this because they were genuinely terrified and believed it but I think it was a hysteria a shared hysteria it was like I think they they truly did see those things yeah that they thought that they were seeing and could it could absolutely be a little bit a little sprinkle of all three as well I love a good smorgasbord you know we love it's kind of like a girl dinner that's like a thing now where it's it's a tiktok thing right now it is and it's you know how like you just will throw together a dinner with like you know fucking chickpeas and some
salsa tomatoes like just honestly that's like a real dinner like just this is girl dinner of things girl dinner equals three cubes of cheese a couple grapes a capri sun and a cookie oh that's a girl dinner yeah girl dinner is just like like random shit thrown together but it can be like more than like two grapes right oh my it should absolutely be like a handful full yeah like many grapes okay i was like is that what girl dinner is no it doesn't mean small it just means oh okay i thought i had it wrong and i was like oh no your dinner's like i don't like girl dinner your dinner sounded like an actually
good prepared dinner oh yeah yeah okay girl dinner is three pieces of turkey few cubes of cheese a handful of grapes handful of grapes um a capri sun always a capri sun sounds great and like a chumps uh beef jerky stick there you you go there's like some random ass yeah just like whatever you can cobble together that makes sense okay i thought i just thought i had the wrong idea of it and i was like oh no am i like no girl dinner's great i thought i was like i thought girl dinner was fun no girl dinner is okay and girl dinner is what you make it so let's make it raw it's whatever the hell you
make it but what was the point uh oh because i was saying i was saying the the outcome of this you were saying this like really three viewpoints here that they experienced this for real they got got fucked over and they didn't get the justice they needed or that they outright lied to get the media attention and the fame out of it they knew what they were doing about a boot or the third one is this shared hysteria where they really felt like they were experiencing these things and they were getting you know it was just growing within their family exactly and i was saying it could be like a little sprinkle
of all three to kind of like a girl dinner of all the various options.
Whoop there it is. I knew there was a connection.
Who are we? I don't know.
And Dr. Gordon felt the same because he was like you know Jack Smurl is not a patient of mine so I can't comment on his personal health.
He's like I don't live there.
But he did note that the surgeries and potential injuries to the brain often cause lingering symptoms that can mirror those of a psychotic disorder.
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In a letter he wrote, a shared tension might cause mass hysteria with shared symptoms, which could involve delusions or hallucinations.
Okay. The family's strong religious beliefs and demonology might serve to bolster the delusional system of belief.
belief something terribly wrong may be going on in that family system that has nothing to do with demons that's true so i do think i slightly agree with that like i lean more towards that belief i could see it i have no fucking clue but i could see that absolutely right so while kurtz and members of csi cop continued pushing to investigate the smurl home and you know continuing to investigate it on their own the public and press at this point so we've gotten we've gone with them where they were happy and they were like so excited to read more about this started wavering had questions then were met
with kind of like oh like i don't like that now they're just like i don't give a fuck about this story at all because now you've overstayed your welcome that's exactly what it is you've pushed back on too many things but then welcomed other things so i think people get uh people get over that exactly like all right you know what i'm just not going to give it the attention exactly so people these were like kind of like their final thoughts yeah one neighbor told told a reporter they're trying to get a movie made in west pittston that's all pittston excuse me and then another neighbor bernard radsvin which is another
fucking dope ass name he lived a few doors down from the family and he said it's a lot of malarkey there's people been living in this neighborhood 30 years and didn't have nothing happen the kids rather than the demons are all that's screaming around here i love bernard bernard radsvin radsvin forever forever i really love bernard i love that he's like i've lived here my whole life and i haven't seen demons walking down this street not once he's like kids not a bunch of them loud little shits demons nah haven't seen one don't believe it and even the family's parish priest uh reverend joseph adoniso took
a cautious position on the matter he said we're going to pray for their peace of mind we can't pray to remove the demons because we don't know for sure yet that they're there i think that is as close to a sick burn slash roast that you will get from your from rev your local reference i think so too it's like we're gonna pray for you you know what we'll pray yeah we got you but the smurls and and the warrens they didn't like that they were becoming even more antagonistic now that people are losing interest they're mad and they're still feeling like they're going through this so now they're feeling
shunned yeah exactly so reporters began taking a far less serious tone when it came to the story and that's what was pissing them off and an example of this is uh jill porter wrote in the philadelphia daily news it's a little ridiculous she said as a reporter i think a certain amount of skepticism is healthy but i can't understand why the public is so suspicious of the smurls when so many homes are beset by by similar unexplained happenings.
Why, just yesterday, my friend Ellen was telling me of the demons who have turned her summer house at the seashore into a nightmare.
She returned from the beach the other day to discover a paper cup had been stuffed down the toilet, stopping it up and requiring a very expensive visit from the plumber.
None of her three sons, aged 15, 12, and 9, had any idea how it happened.
Of course, though, they were all home all afternoon.
Wow. So basically, she was like, like you don't have demons you have kids i was gonna say so she's literally like i can't imagine she's just being like every home in the country with kids and it goes through the same thing how can we just ignore that yeah ignore that paranormal shun that yeah what a coincidence send the warrants to my friend's beach house is it weird that the kids are home all the time when this happens no no not at all no that's pretty that is that's highbrow that's satire that's highbrow satire it It is.
Honestly, her article was gentle, though, compared to some of the others written and published at the time.
Frances D 'Andrea wrote in the Times Tribune, Most folks are too sophisticated to say that they believe in demons.
I mean, I'm not. All right.
Sid. That's what I mean.
He got a little. Step back.
Yeah, I'm not with you anymore.
No, I'm not there either.
But he said that. And he said, not the Smurls.
They didn't try to hide their ghosts in the family closet.
No, sirree. They told everyone about the visitors from the spirit world and all the nasty things the ghosts have been doing to their family their dog and their furniture for the last 18 months all right okay i mean like i would have been with you a little bit but but i'm not but he was rude a little bit yeah you were rude now jim collins the reporter that had accompanied actor jason miller who played in the exorcist into the smurfs home less than a week earlier wrote at the tail end of a dull august nothing churns up the small town grapevine like having a neighbor who works in the local bubblegum
factory announced that he has been sexually assaulted i'll say repeatedly by a crone -like ghost so basically what he was saying was like i think they're trying to stir up a story because it's the tail end of a dull august i mean yeah we're we're entering into to fall you know fall time spooky season let's spooky with it let's get spooky with but i mean that's a that's that's a lot that's one way to say that's a lot to to spice up a dull august i would say and he was referring when he was talking about this mostly to a very disastrous press conference held in the smurls backyard at the end of august
most of the comments or questions were at this point intensely mocking like the smurls obviously and one person said do you think you can arrange for a night with me in the succubus which like that's really mean and also because especially again like if he had this brain surgery and like that was happened to be a complication afterwards that he's dealing with like hysteria and delusions yeah now you're making fun of him well that's the thing it's also whenever i see like adults bullying and bullying other adults i'm like that's pathetic it is like it really like regardless whether regardless of whether
you think they're pathetic or not right you're on their level if that's the case like Like you're sitting there in their backyard being like, oh, can you make the ghost have sex with me too?
It's like, get out of here, fucking Sally.
Like, see you later.
And it's like, do you have nothing better?
Like you're immersed in this shit.
Go live your life. What are you saying about yourself that you're sitting here?
Yeah. Let them think they have demons.
Why is it bothering you?
That's the thing. People insert themselves in these things and it's like, it doesn't have anything to do with you.
If you don't want to hear about it, don't hear about it.
Exactly. and but then just to explain because we don't always use like this amount of quotes in a story but just to explain why I had used them I feel like this story is such an interesting statement on how people in the press and just in general will believe something so like so wholeheartedly one day and like feast upon it and then fucking turn the next day oh yeah like it's crazy like that's the way they is like you hoist someone up and you believe them and support them and then you smack them down as hard as you can once they've reached a certain point and that's exactly what happened with this family
whether they were telling the truth or not yeah that's exactly what happened exactly like they it just turns i just think it's like standing there and like mockingly asking them questions and stuff it's like i don't know why you think you're better at this point because you sitting there doing that i'm like that's that's like loser behavior behavior loser loser behavior you're a loser like just like just go be like okay i don't believe them bye exactly like just talk about it with your friends yeah i just think in their backyard to be mean to someone's face is like yeah i don't know about that no i
don't like it it's just it's spreading more negativity which is going to create demons for you little bitch yeah exactly in the backyard yeah so but you know safe to say that press conference you know didn't end on the high But the final nail in the coffin came in the beginning of September 1986 when the press reported that what a neighbor told them previously was true.
The Smurls were in negotiations with Star Productions to sell the rights to their story for a feature film.
But again, I think you could say multiple things on that.
One, they're a family of they're like a pretty big family and they have four mouths to feed.
so perhaps this did happen and they need to make money off of that and they see an opportunity or perhaps this was the goal all along you never know we don't know but for skeptics the fact this fact confirmed the suspicion that this had always been about fame and money for them and i can see that i can see anything yeah exactly and star productions president ralph lama came forward and said we have had several discussions we haven't signed anything yet but we hope to it's going to make a hell of a movie when it's finally made i mean it would he confirmed it and janet smurl expressed her disbelief
at the statement telling reporters i don't believe this obviously the press is making things up now we have no comment so she wouldn't say either way all right now it should be said that whether the smurls were actually involved in talks with star productions at this time is pretty unclear but within four years of this news going public They had not only sold their rights for, excuse me, they had not only sold the rights to their story for publication of a book, but that book was adapted and made into a made -for -television movie titled The Haunted.
So they did get some stuff out of it.
Yeah. And in a later story published with the Philadelphia Inquirer, reporter Bill McAndrew contradicted Janet's claims that she couldn't believe this whole rumor.
and he said he actually had been present for one of the family's meetings with the Star Productions president there.
Oh. So that was pretty much the end of the spectacle though.
As soon as people found out that there was a pending like film deal it shattered their confidence in the story.
Yeah. And of course there was still a handful of family and friends and you know like devout Catholics that went to church with them that believed them.
But the majority of people had had enough.
And by late October, the Smurls, maybe trying to spice things up, they were calling the press to report that the demonic activity had miraculously ended.
Oh, after the movie deal?
After the whole debacle.
Oh. And it ended in October.
I was like, I feel like the ghosts do not take vacation on October.
Or maybe that's their busy season, so they were like, we got to get out of here.
They said on to the next one?
Yeah, they were like, we've got shit to do.
Okay, okay. Jack and Janet told reporters, we believe that the elimination of our problem can only be credited to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Michael the Archangel, and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who have answered our prayers and the prayers of the thousands of others through the rosary.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Me as well. That's what I was going to say.
Yeah. Now, CSI cop there, even though they never gained entrance into this house, they were never allowed, they still completed their investigation from afar.
CSI cop. CSI cop forever.
And they offered insight into a possible explanation for the haunting.
In his report, Kurtz concluded, quote, Our investigation of the Smurl case thus far points to several possible alternative explanations for what has allegedly been happening, without the need to invoke the occult or a paranormal one.
Okay. He said there was a faulty sewage pipe, which could account for the strange and horrible that were reported by the Smurls and that it was a known problem within the neighborhood and had actually been reported to the town managers many times.
That's horrifying. Horrifying.
And then the team also managed to track down the previous residents of the house.
They had lived there for 17 years and they reported never having any problems or experiencing anything unusual.
Okay. So ultimately Kurtz and his team of investigators believed that at the urging of and with the encouragement from ed and lorraine warren the smurls got very caught up in the excitement of this moment and that it was dramatically increased by the intense press interest and everything took off from there and they said as for what or they yeah as for why the public spectacle got so far out of control kurt said the fact that the smurls have signed a book contract raises serious questions about their motives i mean yeah it does i get it i'm not saying it that they're lying i'm just saying it definitely
makes you think for sure but what an interesting story because regardless it's an interesting story you really like i don't know if the house was haunted one way or the other but like wow they went through it either way that's it that they and they went for it they went for it and it got through it i guess all around it inside it like they just they did it and you know at the end of the day they made their fucking movie they got their fucking book written so it's like you know they and it it's like they they if they were lying they spun an interesting yarn an interesting enough yarn yeah yeah
that i guess didn't really like hurt anyone no you know honestly it's funny because usually in like haunted stories i'm looking for like the haunted stuff oh yeah and the bobby mackie story all the different things that happened there i was like oh shit like that's interesting in this story i was more interested in like the like how people perceived them and that and it's it really is interesting to me that whole like grown adults will make these things up absolutely it's happening and it is very interesting to me how far they'll go with these stories and again i'm not saying they made it up i
don't know i wasn't in that house no but it is interesting when you do find out like the lutzes like the lutzes admitted that they that it was a hoax right and it's like so you just like went for it like like just full send and it's like did you guys have a discussion about this did you game plan it out was there an outline that's the thing you know like especially with the luxus too because you think about it like you know young couple just vibing i can't imagine just sitting on the couch with drew and being like what do you think if we like went to the fucking press and we're like this place
is haunted as fuck you want to fake a haunting like you're trying to fake a haunting like what just like how does that conversation start and that's what i wonder you're right it's very interesting imagine sitting on the couch with john and being like i got a fucking game changer idea you know i got a date night you want to fake a haunting i got a date you're all planned out for us see how long we can stretch this thing you like the press you like the press they're about to love us it's so strange it really is but i don't think their game plan uh accounted for it going terribly terribly wrong
and everyone turning on them i don't think so either but what an interesting story regardless very interesting story the smurls smurls that's all i got for you with a name like smurl it's gotta be good it does so we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you're mean to people and you doubt their story right off the bat you know don't do that it's rude but like definitely investigate csi cop all the way through So 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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