Ed and Lorraine Warren were famous paranormal investigators, demonologists, and a seemingly happy married couple. Were they also abusers?
Bettmann/Getty ImagesFamed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren were accused of horrific abuse in 2014.
Ed and Lorraine Warren likely need no introduction. The two paranormal investigators have been permanently embedded into the pop culture zeitgeist thanks to the success of The Conjuring franchise. The Warrens spent decades crafting a public image of themselves as a wholesome Christian couple battling the Devil and his demons. But that image was called into question in 2017 when it was revealed that a woman named Judith Penney accused Ed and Lorraine Warren of abuse in 2014.
Penney, who was in her 70s when she came forward, claimed that she had lived in the Warrens’ Connecticut home for about four decades, during which she was in a sexual relationship with Ed — which began when Penney was just 15 years old. When Ed first met Penney, he was already in his mid-30s.
According to Penney, Lorraine was fully aware of this relationship. Penney also claimed that she eventually became pregnant with Ed’s child in May 1978 — after which, Lorraine allegedly convinced her to have an abortion and to tell people that she had been raped by a home invader.
Both of the Warrens are dead now, but the film franchise based on their paranormal experiences certainly is not. Ed and Lorraine Warren are paraded as heroes of the war against Satan, supposedly because of their devout faith and pure hearts. But Penney’s allegations of abuse paint a very different picture of Ed and Lorraine Warren — one that isn’t quite so righteous.
Who Were Ed And Lorraine Warren?
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd Warren was a self-taught demonologist, and Lorraine Warren claimed she could communicate with spirits.
If you’re not familiar, Ed and Lorraine Warren were a husband-and-wife duo of paranormal investigators who first came to fame in the 1970s. The self-proclaimed “demonologists” recorded detailed, extensive accounts of their investigations, which they published and sold. They also opened a museum of reportedly haunted objects in Connecticut, including the real-life “Annabelle” doll that features in The Conjuring and its spin-off, Annabelle.
Among the Warrens’ most famous (or infamous) cases were, of course, the Perron family haunting from The Conjuring, the Enfield haunting from The Conjuring 2, and the case that inspired The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, in which the Warrens argued that 19-year-old Arne Cheyenne Johnson was compelled by the Devil to brutally murder his landlord in 1981.
In this latter instance, the real-life events that inspired the movie marked a major moment for the Warrens, as they were actually present in the courtroom arguing for Johnson’s defense. At the time, some people considered the Warrens to be quite credible — though others viewed them as con artists. In either case, the jury was put in a difficult position: Could demonic possession really be used as a defense in a court of law?
Bettmann/Getty ImagesArne Cheyenne Johnson, a 19-year-old who killed his landlord and said the Devil made him do it.
Johnson was ultimately sentenced to 10 to 20 years for first-degree manslaughter, so the answer, it seemed, was no.
Still, the Warrens continued to conduct their investigations and promote their past stories, including their infamous investigation of the Amityville Horror House, a Long Island home rumored to be haunted after Ronald DeFeo Jr. brutally murdered his parents and siblings there in 1974. It’s now widely believed that the house was never haunted, and many have accused George Lutz, the homeowner who moved into the house after the DeFeo murders, of making the whole ghost story up. Naturally, the Warrens were also accused of playing a role in fabricating the so-called “Amityville Horror.”
Despite the ongoing skepticism surrounding some of their cases, the Warrens continued their work in paranormal investigation up through the early 2000s, though by then they had slowed down somewhat. Their names reentered the public sphere in 2013, however, when Warner Bros. released James Wan’s The Conjuring to immediate, unprecedented success.
The film cost $20 million to make, and netted nearly $320 million — and the studio knew it had just created a cash cow. Though the first film mostly focuses on the Perron family, the Warrens play key roles in the movie as well. And in the second film, they are even more central — despite the Warrens not being as heavily involved in the Enfield haunting case in real life.
Graham MorrisA photo taken during the Enfield haunting, purportedly showing young Janet Hodgson levitating.
But the third Conjuring film is especially important to bring up here, because although the film focuses on the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, it also tells another story about Ed and Lorraine Warren’s enduring romance and a strong theme about how the couple’s love helps them overcome evil.
Of course, the film takes a lot of creative liberties, but it does help to push the image of the Warrens as a wholesome, loving Christian couple. It certainly leaves out any details about Ed sleeping with an underage girl — a shocking allegation that was later levied against him by Judith Penney.
Judith Penney’s Abuse Allegations Against Ed And Lorraine Warren
In 2017, The Hollywood Reporter received legal filings and recordings that allegedly revealed a horrifying truth about the Warrens amidst a sprawling legal battle over the billion-dollar Conjuring franchise. (By this point, Ed Warren had already died in 2006, and Lorraine Warren would soon die in 2019, just two years after the abuse allegations came to light.)
Russell McPhedran/Fairfax Media via Getty ImagesLorraine Warren performing a technique that she claimed helped her sense spirits.
Generally, the abuse allegations levied against the Warrens by Penney assert several shocking things: One, that Ed Warren, in his mid-30s, knowingly entered into a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old Penney with Lorraine’s full knowledge; two, that Penney lived in the couple’s home for about four decades; three, that Penney was, at one time, pregnant with Ed’s child; four, that Lorraine convinced Penney to get an abortion, and then tried to get Penney to lie about the situation and say that she was raped by an intruder; and five, that Ed Warren was sometimes physically abusive to Lorraine.
Penney said that she moved in with Ed and Lorraine Warren when Ed was still working as a city bus driver in Monroe, Connecticut. She allegedly lived in a bedroom across the hall from them, and then later in an apartment above them when she got a bit older. In 1963, Penney was arrested after police received a report about her and Ed Warren, during which authorities tried to persuade Penney to sign a statement admitting to the “affair.” When she refused, she was ordered to report to a delinquent youth office for one month — which, she said, Ed Warren drove her to.
Then, in May 1978, Penney said she became pregnant with Ed’s child while she was in her 30s. But Lorraine, reportedly worried about a potential scandal and what it could do to their business, told Penney to get an abortion, she said. Penney also said that despite portraying themselves as devout Catholics, the Warrens’ “real god is money.” After getting an abortion, Penney said she was told to lie about the circumstances.
Warner Bros. PicturesThe Warrens were famously given a flattering depiction in The Conjuring franchise.
She said, “They wanted me to tell everyone that someone had come into my apartment and raped me, and I wouldn’t do that. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, but I had an abortion. The night they picked me up from the hospital after having it, they went out and lectured and left me alone.”
But Penney’s abuse allegations went even further than her relationship with Ed Warren: According to her, Ed was also an abusive, cruel husband, who once backhanded Lorraine so hard she lost consciousness.
“Sometimes Ed would actually have to slap her across the face to shut her up,” Penney said. “Some nights I thought they were going to kill each other.”
And these abuse allegations were just one part of the Warrens’ controversies, because as more and more people reevaluated Ed and Lorraine Warren and their stories, the more holes started to show up.
Ed And Lorraine Warren’s History Of Alleged Lies And Manipulation
Public DomainA controversial “spirit” photo supposedly captured by the Warrens in the Amityville Horror House in 1976.
Before The Conjuring films made a fortune for Warner Bros., the Warrens made a fortune of their own publishing books that recounted tales of their various paranormal investigations. One from 1992, In a Dark Place, for example, was a bestseller and later became the basis for the 2009 horror film The Haunting In Connecticut. However, the Warrens’ co-writer of that book, Ray Garton, would later explain how much of the book was a hoax.
As Vox reported, Garton once admitted in an interview that the Warrens were fully aware that the case was likely a hoax, but allegedly encouraged him to make things up in order to sell their book:
As I gathered all the necessary information for the book, I found that the accounts of the individual Snedekers didn’t quite mesh. They just couldn’t keep their stories straight.
I went to Ed with this problem. “Oh, they’re crazy,” he said. “Everybody who comes to us is crazy. Otherwise why would they come to us? You’ve got some of the story – just use what works and make the rest up. And make it scary. You write scary books, right? That’s why we hired you. So just make it up and make it scary.”
This interview seemingly confirms long-held suspicions that the Warrens were fraudsters and not the credible paranormal investigators they made themselves out to be. This would be relatively harmless if it were just about The Conjuring films — most people could view the on-screen Warrens as separate from their real-life counterparts — but it gets into dangerous territory when considering the real-life implications of this.
For example, what if the Warrens had actually convinced a jury that Arne Cheyenne Johnson’s actions were forced upon him by the Devil? Could that same excuse be used in court again? Even beyond these hypothetical scenarios, the Warrens made money off of the stories they published — stories which they claimed to be true. While they never took money to conduct the investigations, they had no issue profiting off those stories.
NetflixThe Warrens with a young boy named David Glatzel, who was supposedly possessed by a demonic spirit.
All of this, coupled with Penney’s allegations of abuse, deconstructs Ed and Lorraine Warren’s image. And Penney’s claims are seemingly supported, at least in part, by Gerald Brittle’s 1980 book, The Demonologist, a biography about the Warrens that makes mention of Penney’s presence in their home:
“Pete telephoned the Warrens and spoke with Judy Penney, a young woman who works as a liaison when Ed and Lorraine are out of town. Judy has heard some hair-raising tales over the phone, but this one in particularly scared her. ‘The Warrens are out West,’ she told Pete Beckford, ‘but I’ll relay the message to them.'”
This was in reference to a 1974 case in which Peter Beckford, the man on the phone with Penney, said that his 19-year-old daughter had invited a demonic entity into his home via a Ouija board. He was apparently referred to the Warrens, hence the phone call that Penney took for them.
While Penney was often described as a “liaison” or “assistant” who helped the Warrens, other times she was presented as a niece, or simply a poor girl they had taken in out of the goodness of their hearts. Of course, the Warrens could never admit the actual — alleged — reason why she was at their home so often. Sadly, Penney said she felt that she really loved Ed Warren for a long time, until she approached her 70s and reflected on the situation.
“As I’m older now, I can’t even fathom why Lorraine let me stay there,” Judith Penney said. “Lots of times I think about, ‘Why did I do this? Why did I screw up my life like this?’ Sometimes I get angry thinking about it, how so much was taken away from me.”
After reading about the allegations of abuse levied against Ed and Lorraine Warren, learn about Valak, the demon featured in “The Conjuring 2.” Next, learn about Ed and Lorraine Warren’s only child, Judy Warren. Then, go inside the true story behind “The Haunting In Connecticut.”
