In the real story that inspired The Conjuring, the Perron family was allegedly terrorized by malevolent spirits after moving into a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island in 1971.
NESPRThis is said to be the oldest-known photo of what would become the Perron family house, taken decades before the alleged haunting.
When The Conjuring was released in 2013, it both terrified and captivated audiences like few horror movies of its generation. To this day, it remains widely known for its all-too-realistic portrayal of the demonic haunting of an innocent family in 1970s Rhode Island.
Initially, many viewers may have assumed that the movie was nothing but a fantastical tale dreamed up by Hollywood. However, the true story of The Conjuring is actually rooted in a horrifying real-life account of a haunting allegedly endured by the Perron family of Harrisville, Rhode Island in 1971 — and investigated by the famous Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Ed And Lorraine Warren, The Investigators Behind The Perron Family Haunting
Getty ImagesParanormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were the ones who looked into the Perron family haunting.
Ed Warren was a World War II veteran and a former police officer who became a self-styled demonologist after studying the subject on his own. His wife, Lorraine, claimed to be a clairvoyant and a medium who was capable of communicating with the demons that Ed discovered.
In 1952, Ed and Lorraine founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, the oldest ghost hunting group in New England. They quickly gained fame — or infamy, depending on how you look at it — as paranormal researchers after their investigation of the Amityville hauntings. Needless to say, the Warrens were also incredibly controversial.
Their most famous cases, however, were those popularized by the Conjuring franchise, the series of movies that focuses on Ed and Lorraine’s experiences dealing with demons, ghosts, and spirits across America.
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd and Lorraine Warren involved themselves in a number of paranormal cases — some of which were likely hoaxes.
Though the movies may seem over-dramatized and impossible to believe, the Warrens maintain that all of the events depicted actually transpired. They even kept a collection of artifacts from their cases at the Warren Museum in Connecticut, run in part by their daughter Judy. Though Ed died in 2006, Lorraine was a consultant on the films and claims that she didn’t let the directors take any more dramatic license than was necessary.
Nevertheless, the true story of The Conjuring — the first in the series, and the one based on the Perron family’s case — remains perhaps most chilling of all to this day.
The True Story Of The Conjuring: The Perron Haunting
NESPRThe Perron family, minus Roger, in January of 1971, shortly after moving into their allegedly haunted home.
The true story of The Conjuring concerns the Perron family and the vengeful spirit they supposedly encountered in Rhode Island.
In January 1971, the Perron family moved into a 14-room farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island, where Carolyn, Roger, and their five daughters began to notice strange things happening almost immediately after they arrived.
It started small. Carolyn would notice that the broom went missing, or seemed to move from place to place on its own. She would hear the sound of something scraping against the kettle in the kitchen when no one was in there. She’d find small piles of dirt in the center of a newly-cleaned kitchen floor. She also began to exhibit strange behavior of her own, such as sudden fits of rage. Once, Carolyn allegedly opened an orange, to find it bleeding.
NESPRThe Perron house in Harrisville, Rhode Island where the haunting allegedly occurred in 1971.
“She did not seem to be herself; appearing to be lost; elsewhere in her mind,” Andrea Perron later recounted in House of Darkness, House of Light. “Her attention could not be diverted… There was a subtle, simmering fury present in her; the vicious way she’d attacked the orange, ripping it wide open with a vengeance then decimating it, flailing it into the fire.”
The girls too began to notice spirits around the house, though for the most part, they were harmless. There were a few, however, that were angry.
Carolyn allegedly researched the history of the home and discovered that it had been in the same family for eight generations and that many of them had died under mysterious or horrible circumstances. Several of the children had drowned in a nearby creek, one was murdered, and a few of them hanged themselves in the attic.
The main spirit that was depicted in the film, Bathsheba, was the worst of them all — or so the family thought.
“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 Perron, the oldest of the five girls.
Bathsheba Sherman: The Vengeful Spirit Who Allegedly Terrorized The Perron Family And Inspired The Conjuring
New Line CinemaBathsheba Sherman in The Conjuring.
It turns out there was actually a real person named Bathsheba Sherman who lived on the Perron property in the mid-1800s. She was rumored to have been a Satanist, and there was evidence that she had been involved in the death of a neighbor’s child, though no trial ever took place. She was buried in a nearby Baptist cemetery in downtown Harrisville.
The Perrons believed that it was Bathsheba’s spirit that was tormenting them.
However, that narrative later changed. Bathsheba Sherman, Andrea Perron explained, had been wrongly blamed for the family’s suffering. The real ghost of the house, the revised narrative would claim, was a woman named Abigail Arnold, who seemed to be competing with Carolyn for the role of mother in the household.
Owners of the Conjuring House who bought the property years down the line would once again change the narrative, claiming that Abigail Arnold was, in fact, a helpful spirit who would warn guests when a more dangerous spirit was near.
But even this narrative holds little historical weight. There are no records of an Abigail Arnold at the property, and the alleged circumstances of her death cannot be verified. There were reports of a Susan Arnold who had once lived at the property, but her death was of natural causes, not hanging, and the timeline doesn’t line up with any version from the Warrens, the Perrons, or Conjuring House proprietors.
NESPRThe Sherman farm in 1885, in a colorized photograph.
Basically, no one can agree on the story, which makes it difficult to believe any version of events — and adds yet another layer of skepticism to the whole story.
According to Andrea, the family experienced other spirits as well that smelled like rotting flesh and would cause beds to rise off the floor. She claims her father would enter the basement and feel a “cold, stinking presence behind him.” They often stayed away from the dirt-floored cellar, but the heating equipment would often fail mysteriously, causing Roger to venture down.
Over the 10 years that the family lived in the “Conjuring” house, the Warrens made multiple trips to investigate. At one point, Lorraine conducted a seance to attempt to contact the spirits that were possessing the family. During the seance, Carolyn Perron became possessed, speaking in tongues and rising up off the ground while still in her chair.
NESPRBathsheba Sherman’s tombstone, noting her death on May 25, 1885.
Andrea claims to have secretly witnessed the seance. “I thought I was going to pass out,” she said. “My mother began to speak a language not of this world in a voice not her own. Her chair levitated and she was thrown across the room.”
How The Perron Family Haunting Ended In Real Life Vs. The Conjuring
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoThe Warrens claimed they never conducted exorcisms, unlike what’s shown in The Conjuring, but they did perform seances to deal with various demons and spirits.
Though the movie’s version of events culminates with Ed performing an exorcism rather than a seance, the real Conjuring story was different. Lorraine insists that she and her husband would never attempt one, as they must be performed by Catholic priests.
NESPRThe children of the Perron family pictured outside their allegedly haunted house in Harrisville, Rhode Island.
After the seance, Roger kicked the Warrens out, worried about his wife’s mental stability. According to Andrea, the family continued to live in the house due to financial instability until they were able to move in 1980, at which point the spirits were silenced, and the hauntings ceased.
After reading about the real story behind The Conjuring, check out the shocking murders behind the “Amityville Horror” and the chilling story of the supposedly haunted Robert the Doll.
