A self-professed demonologist, Ed Warren investigated high-profile paranormal cases alongside his wife Lorraine, inspired The Conjuring film series, and faced a number of disturbing allegations.
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd Warren, a paranormal investigator whose story helped serve as inspiration for The Conjuring franchise.
The Conjuring, one of the most popular horror franchises in Hollywood history, put Ed Warren and his wife Lorraine on the international stage. Portrayed in the films by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively, the Warrens’ story has been nightmare fodder for over a decade now.
But The Conjuring, for all its popularity, is not solely responsible for making the Warrens famous. In fact, their names were already relatively well known, as they had become synonymous with high-profile paranormal cases in the 1970s and ’80s — whether they deserved to be or not.
Some of the Warrens’ most famous cases include the Enfield poltergeist, the Amityville Horror, the haunting of the Perron family, and Annabelle the Doll. But despite their names being attached to many of these high-profile cases, the actual role the Warrens played in investigating them has been called into question. Their own accounts of these cases sometimes differ greatly from the accounts of other people involved, and in more recent years, other disturbing allegations have plagued the Warrens’ legacy.
Ed Warren, in particular, has faced allegations of starting an extramarital relationship with a 15-year-old when he was in his mid-30s. This accusation stands in sharp contrast with the image of himself he tried to portray: a holy, Catholic demonologist battling the Devil. Of course, throughout his career, others had called him a fraudster, as well. In any case, the Ed Warren seen in The Conjuring may be a very different man from his real-life counterpart.
Ed Warren’s Life Before He Became A Paranormal Investigator And Demonologist
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd and Lorraine Warren with their daughter, Judy.
Although the Warrens chronicled many of their investigations, they rarely touched on their early lives. In fact, most of the biographical details about their lives have been told by their son-in-law, Tony Spera, on the official website of the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR).
Ed Warren was born on September 7, 1926 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and it has been documented that he met Lorraine Rita Moran in 1944. At the time, Ed was working as an usher at a local movie theater, and friends of Lorraine wanted to introduce the two. According to Lorraine, she “didn’t have any interest” in boys at the time, but thought that Ed seemed nice enough.
When their movie was over, Ed offered to walk Lorraine and her two friends home. He also offered to buy each of them a soda — but Lorraine took it a step further and ordered an ice cream soda, which cost five cents more. He later joked that he “always knew she was a gold digger” from that moment on. It was the start of their lifelong romance, though they likely had no clue at that time what, exactly, that shared life would entail.
Russell McPhedran/Fairfax Media via Getty ImagesEd Warren’s wife Lorraine claimed to be a clairvoyant and a “light trance medium.”
In 1945, Ed, who had enlisted with the U.S. Navy, was deployed to aid in the war effort during World War II. According to Spera, Ed had a terrifying, near-death experience in which his ship was sunk in the North Atlantic. Granted a 30-day “survivor’s leave,” Ed used that time to marry Lorraine.
After the war ended, Ed studied at the Perry Art School, a subsidiary of Yale. For a time, he and Lorraine traveled around New England, attempting to live off the profits of Ed’s painting sales, during which time they also reportedly visited several haunted locations to inspire some of Ed’s artwork.
During this period, Lorraine also claimed — and continued to claim until her death — that she was a clairvoyant and a light trance medium. These claims, along with Ed’s devout Catholicism and self-taught “demonology,” eventually led them into the next stage of their lives: paranormal investigators.
Ed And Lorraine Warren’s Most Famous — And Controversial — Paranormal Investigations
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd and Lorraine Warren involved themselves in a number of paranormal cases — some of which were likely hoaxes.
It may seem like a drastic and sudden pivot to go from paintings to paranormal investigations, but the Warrens made this transition with surprising ease. Their initial cases started small. Ed began painting scenes of alleged haunted houses, which he would then show to homeowners as a way to start a conversation. Then, once they entered a person’s home, the Warrens would claim to experience paranormal activity in the house and recommend ways of dealing with it, such as seances.
By 1952, they had founded NESPR to legitimize their business. This wasn’t too long after they had their daughter Judy (who lived with her grandparents for much of her childhood). NESPR gave the Warrens more credibility, and Ed’s personal studies of demonology earned him some renown as well. At the time, he was just one of a few recognized demonologists in America. The Warrens would often touch on this in their writing.
“The study of demonic possession never has been, is not now, and very likely never will be, a science,” their book In a Dark Place begins. “There are, however, many who have devoted their lives to that study, who have tried to determine the point at which possession begins so that it might be avoided.”
The book’s preface then dives into the nature of demonic possession, early warning signs, methods for removing demons, and a breakdown on the danger of exorcisms. The Warrens didn’t begin publishing books on their cases right away, though, and they also didn’t become famous right off the bat. Throughout the 1960s, they continued to investigate lower-profile paranormal cases, until they had a major breakthrough in 1970.
That year, the Warrens learned of a 28-year-old nurse named Donna, who claimed to have come into the ownership of a possessed Raggedy Ann doll. This doll, who a medium identified as the spirit of a deceased girl named Annabelle, would reportedly move from place to place on its own and leave notes with troubling messages. At one point, Donna’s roommate Angie claimed that her boyfriend awoke to find the doll attacking him.
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.
The Warrens, however, had a different theory about Annabelle. They claimed that the doll was not possessed by the spirit of a young girl, but instead a demonic presence that was looking to possess a human host, using the guise of Annabelle to manipulate humans in the meantime. To protect Donna, the Warrens took the Annabelle doll away from her, locking it away in a glass and wood case in their home/paranormal museum.
A year later, the Warrens investigated the home of the Perron family, who had just moved into a house in Harrisville, Rhode Island and began to experience strange, paranormal events. This investigation would ultimately go on to inspire the first film in The Conjuring franchise, but even back in the early 1970s, it propelled the Warrens to greater heights.
Years later, after Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family in Amityville, New York in 1974, the Warrens once again involved themselves when they heard the DeFeo house might be haunted. When the Lutz family moved into the Amityville house in 1975, they claimed to have witnessed terrifying paranormal phenomena — and the Warrens corroborated this claim in their own investigation. Lorraine even claimed to see visions of the dead DeFeos.
It should be noted, though, that many are skeptical of the Lutz family’s claims, and there are credible testimonies from people involved that suggest the whole haunting may have been a hoax to, ultimately, make money.
Warner Bros. PicturesIn The Conjuring, Ed and Lorraine Warren were famously depicted by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.
The Warrens’ next high-profile case, the Enfield haunting, was also questionable. And despite The Conjuring 2 suggesting that the Warrens were heavily involved in the paranormal investigation, they ultimately played a much smaller role in the Hodgson family’s story of the alleged haunting.
Then, in 1981, Ed and Lorraine Warren argued in the defense of a young man named Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who was charged with killing his landlord. It may seem strange that the Warrens were involved in this case at all, but their argument, and Johnson’s, was that the 19-year-old had been compelled to commit the crime by the Devil. (Those arguments didn’t work in court, and Johnson was ultimately convicted of first-degree manslaughter.)
The Warrens’ presence in the courtroom was by far one of the most controversial moments in their career, but it would, inevitably, be outweighed by other allegations levied against Ed Warren in 2014 — years after he died.
The Abuse Allegations Levied Against Ed Warren
TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock PhotoEd and Lorraine Warren have been accused of both fraud and abuse.
Years after Ed Warren died at age 79 in 2006, a woman named Judith Penney made disturbing allegations against Ed Warren in 2014. The accusations didn’t gain publicity until 2017, but the actual story goes back much further.
Penney, in her 70s when she came forward, alleged that she first met Ed Warren when she was 15 years old and he was in his mid-30s. At the time, he was working as a bus driver, and he soon began a sexual relationship with her, which, Penney said, Lorraine was fully aware of. Penney said she lived with the Warrens for about four decades, even getting in trouble with the police at one point for the living arrangement when she was young.
Penney further alleged that in 1978, she became pregnant with Ed’s child — and Lorraine, worried about a scandal, told Penney to get an abortion and lie about being raped by an intruder. Penney also said that even though the Warrens portrayed themselves as pious Catholics, their “real god is money.”
Getty ImagesBy the time the abuse allegations against the Warrens were made public, Ed had already died and Lorraine was said to be in declining health and unable to respond to the accusations.
“I was so scared,” Penney said of her alleged pregnancy. “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.”
The allegations levied against Ed Warren went further than the sexual relationship between him and Penney, though. Penney further claimed that Ed was physically abusive to his wife, once backhanding Lorraine so hard that she lost consciousness. The situation was so tumultuous, Penney said, that she often worried that the Warrens “were going to kill each other.”
Others in the Warrens’ orbit also claimed that the demonologist couple encouraged co-authors to lie about obvious hoaxes, claiming true paranormal phenomena had taken place instead. A collaborator once even claimed that Ed told him to continue writing about a paranormal case they both knew was fake: “Make it scary. People come to us. They buy scary.” Taken altogether, these allegations have slowly damaged much of the reputation that the Warrens had built together as a couple.
Of course, it’s done little to impact the greater Conjuring franchise as a whole. Despite the Warrens’ controversial history, and the allegations that they were abusive con artists, their stories still sell. And it’s unlikely that the darker parts of their past will ever find their way to the silver screen.
After reading about Ed Warren, read about Robert the Doll, the supposedly haunted toy of Key West. Then, explore nine of the most haunted forests.
