Everyone loves a good scary movie. Well, almost everyone. If you’re one of the former, then chances are you’ve seen The Conjuring, or at least heard of it. But did you know it’s based on a true story. Read on to learn about the history of the Perron family, and the Arnold estate, also known as The Conjuring House.
In January 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron moved to Harrisville, Rhode Island with their five daughters, Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy, and April. Their new home, the old Arnold estate, was a 14-room farmhouse on 200 acres of land. The perfect place to raise their children.
When the previous owner handed them the keys, he had just one piece of advice. Leave the lights on.
When move-in day came, the weather was less than cooperative. A snowstorm settled in, making their job more difficult than it should have been. When Andrea, who was 12 at the time, was handed a large box by her father to take to the kitchen. As she passed through the dining room where she encountered an “oddly dressed” man. She greeted him politely before heading into the kitchen. There she asked her mother who he was, but she saw no one.
Andrea’s sisters confirmed that he had disappeared.
While that could be chalked up to move-in stress, or overactive imaginations, the behavior of their pets screamed that something was not right. “They were thrashing themselves…,” said Andrea Perron in a later interview, “And before long… the dog was dead.” Not long after, the cats abandoned the home altogether.
Things were strange from the beginning, though they started out small, from items disappearing, to hearing strange noises. Carolyn noticed that her broom would go missing, or seemed to move from one place to another, without anyone taking it. She could hear something scraping against the kettle in the kitchen, despite the fact that no one was in there.
She would find small piles of dirt in the center of the kitchen floor – easy for clean-up, except the floor had just been cleaned.
The children were the first to realize there were ghosts in the house. They even claimed that the ghosts tucked them in at night, and kissed their foreheads. “When we first moved into the house, for the first two months, there was a woman that came and kissed me every night on the forehead that I thought was my mother,” said Cindy. Her older sister, Andrea added, “Mom smelled like Ivory soap and this spirit smelled like flowers and fruit.”
From there, things began to escalate. Birds would fly, crashing into their windows. They reported hearing things crashing through their windows – but upon investigation, found no shattered glass.
Their landline phones had to be replaced regularly, the phone lifting off the cradle until someone entered the room – at which time it would slam itself back down. Clocks throughout the home consistently stopped at exactly 3:07am. Their beds would repeatedly lift off the ground around 5:15am.
In the kitchen, the dishwasher would turn itself on. Cindy Perron, the second youngest daughter, saw the freezer door open and close again and again, as items were thrown out. In the bathrooms, the toilets would flush themselves.
They began to see blue lights traveling through their home. Cindy would hear spirits every night, telling her that there were seven soldiers buried in the wall. Lending credence to this was the smell of rotting flesh that filled the home.
Nancy reported hearing ghosts, calling her to the cellar well.
Terrified, the girls began to move in groups. “We traveled in numbers,” Andrea said. “We used the bathroom in multiples of three or more because there was an evil male presence in that house that frequently lurked…” She added, “You couldn’t use the bathroom without feeling like you were being watched. It was extremely uncomfortable.”
Roger Perron wasn’t convinced at first. He denied the presence of any spirits.
Carolyn, however, was a true believer. She was being tormented regularly with pinches and slaps. She would feel searing pains, where it would appear that she had been pierced by a sewing needle. The haunting was so bad, she was convinced she had to know the history of their home.
The property dates back to 1680. The property was surveyed by John Smith, one of the original Virginia colonists. The land was deeded to the Richardson family, who then sold parcels of the land to several families – including the Arnold family.
The home had been owned by the same family for eight generations. Many members of the family had died under mysterious or horrible circumstances, with several children drowning in a nearby creek. At least one was murdered, and a few even hung themselves in the attic.
Carolyn claimed that shortly after moving in, she was visited at night by a woman in gray, whose head was hanging at her side. The woman told her to leave, or she would be driven out with doom and gloom. “Whoever the spirit was, she perceived herself to be mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position,” said Andrea.
Bathsheba
Worse than that, is the story of Bathsheba Sherman. Bathsheba was born in Rhode Island as Batsheba Thayer in 1812 and married Judson Sherman in 1844. They lived on the farm next to the Arnold estate. She stayed home, taking care of their son, Herbert, while her husband farmed the land. Though some believe the couple had several children, none who lived beyond the age of seven, there is no evidence to support this claim.
At one point, Bathsheba was caring for another couple’s infant child. The child died, the cause of death: a large sewing needle had impaled the base of the baby’s skull.
Many believed Bathsheba to be a witch, even before the death of the child. Afterwards, their suspicions grew like wildfire. The townspeople believed she had murdered the baby as an offering to the Devil. Again – with no evidence, she was never convicted.
Speaking with a local historian, Carolyn Perron learned that Bathsheba had a reputation for starving and beating their hired farmhands. She died at the age of 41, in 1885. Some claim her “body literally turned to stone” upon her death, while others claim that she suffered a “bizarre form of paralysis.”
Today, Bathsheba Sherman’s remains lie inside the Harrisville Cemetery.
Then, Ed and Lorraine Warren appeared on the family’s doorstep. No one from the Perron family had contacted the Warren’s, instead they received a call from a paranormal investigator and his team from Rhode Island College. The young man had received a phone call from someone pretending to be Carolyn Perron.
Ed and Lorraine Warren were renowned paranormal investigators, who founded the New England Society for Psychic Research. Ed was an expert demonologist, and Lorraine a medium.
Their investigation at the Arnold estate began on October 30, 1973, the day before Halloween. They visited the home numerous times, and after about a year and a half of investigating, Lorraine was convinced the spirit of Bathsheba was haunting the family. She hypothesized that Bathsheba could have taken her deadly sewing needle with her into the afterlife, using it to stab Carolyn.
The couple determined that a seance was necessary for Carolyn.
The Seance
The seance was conducted in the family’s dining room. In addition to the Warrens, there was a priest, a medium, and a full film crew.
The medium invited the spirits in, and with them came something sinister. Carolyn was attacked, even possessed. She began speaking in tongues, in a language that does not exist; she levitated in the chair she was in.
Her body was curled into a ball, so tight you would expect her bones to break. A split second later, she was thrown into the adjacent parlor, about 20 feet away.
“When my father tried to race to her side,” Andrea said, “Ed Warren grabbed his arm to stop him and my father turned around and punched his lights out…” Roger kicked the Warrens out.
According to Andrea, “The spirits were quiet for several months after the seance.” Despite their silence, Carolyn’s health declined. She lay, wasting away, with no hope in sight. Unable to move due to financial insecurity, they remained in the home until 1980, when they were compelled to leave. According to Carolyn, if they didn’t leave, she wouldn’t survive another winter.
They moved to another farm, this time in Georgia. But things for the Perron’s would never be the same. According to Andrea, “… when you are touched by a spirit, it is a door that opens, that can never be closed again. You can turn your back on it. You can pretend that it doesn’t exist. But eventually… something is going to reach out and tap you on the shoulder.”
Roger began to insulate that Carolyn and the girls weren’t being honest with him. That is, until he began having incidents and episodes of his own. By then, however, it was too late. Roger
The Warrens concluded that the haunting of the Arnold estate was the most compelling, most intense, most disturbing, and the most significant investigation they ever conducted.
Today
The property, located at 1677 Round Top Road, is currently owned by Cory and Jennifer Heinzen, though they recently listed it for sale, with a price tag og $1,200,000. The listing notes that the buyer has an opportunity to “possess an extraordinary piece of cultural history.”
Andrea Perron, in an interview with WJAR, said “Franky, if I had the money I’d buy it myself just to protect it. That was always my dream to someday have the farm back, but not to live in the farm, I don’t want to live there.”
During their time at the home, they witnessed a “black mist in one of the rooms,” shortly after moving in. “It looks like smoke. It’ll gather in one area, and then it’ll move.”
The couple has opened up the property for visitors, though it is fully booked out until the end of 2022. You can learn more at www.theconjuringhouse.com.
If you’re interested in another famous case investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren – check out the story of the Real Annabelle.
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