Before Lorraine Warren's death in 2019, she and her husband Ed spent decades investigating alleged hauntings, from the Amityville Horror house to the eerie case that inspired The Conjuring.
Russell McPhedran/Fairfax Media via Getty ImagesLorraine Warren demonstrating one of the ways she communicates with spirits.
After a career of chasing ghosts and communicating with spirits, Lorraine Warren’s death in 2019 brought her closer to her work than any case she investigated during her lifetime.
Warren claimed that she was a clairvoyant who could sense the presence of the dead. She spent more than 50 years visiting alleged haunted houses and people purportedly possessed by demons with her husband, Ed. Their work inspired some of history’s most famous horror films, from The Amityville Horror to The Conjuring and its sequels.
But despite these brushes with death, Warren herself passed away in her Connecticut home at age 92. The cause of Lorraine Warren’s death wasn’t revealed, but she took her last breaths quietly in her sleep.
Throughout her life, Warren portrayed herself as a faithful Catholic, using a godly gift against the forces of darkness. But her legacy isn’t quite so black and white.
How Lorraine Warren Became Involved With The Paranormal
In many ways, the calm early years and quiet death of Lorraine Warren bookend her unorthodox career. She was born Lorraine Rita Moran in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Jan. 31, 1927.
Her childhood and teenage years were mostly normal, though she did begin having clairvoyant experiences at a young age. According to The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren, Warren once stated, “I didn’t know I had an additional sense ability. I simply thought everyone had the same God-given senses — you know, all six of them.”
Then, when she was 12, she was watching the planting of a sapling at her Catholic school on Arbor Day when the tree suddenly appeared fully-grown in front of her. She told a nun what she had seen and was sent away to pray all weekend. “After that, when it came to things involving clairvoyance, I kept my mouth shut,” recalled Warren.
TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock PhotoEd and Lorraine Warren with their daughter, Judy, circa 1950.
When Lorraine was 16, she was at a movie theater with friends when she met Ed Warren, who was working as an usher. He was deployed to fight in World War II shortly after, but they wed while he was home on leave in 1945. At first, her life remained fairly typical for a middle-class married woman of the time period. She gave birth to a daughter, Judy, and she and Ed both worked as artists.
This career path unexpectedly led the Warrens toward the paranormal. Ed and Lorraine started painting haunted houses and learning the stories behind the homes. Then, in 1952, they founded the New England Society for Psychic Research and began investigating alleged hauntings.
Soon, Ed and Lorraine Warren’s death encounters would make them one of the most famous ghost-hunting duos in American history.
The Ghostly Encounters Of The Warrens
One of the Warrens’ first major cases involved the infamous Annabelle doll. Around 1970, two roommates claimed that the Raggedy Ann toy had been taken over by the spirit of a young girl and was acting maliciously. The Warrens took possession of the doll and put it on display in their Occult Museum.
The following year, the Warrens investigated a home in Rhode Island that had supposedly been cursed by a witch named Bathsheba Sherman. The Perron family moved into the house in 1971, and almost immediately, eerie things started happening. Objects seemingly moved around the house on their own, and the ghost of Abigail Arnold allegedly kissed the Perron children at bedtime.
The Warrens visited the house multiple times, and Lorraine Warren once reportedly held a seance that disturbed the Perron family so much they asked the Warrens to leave. However, their time there later inspired The Conjuring franchise.
New England Society for Psychic ResearchEd and Lorraine Warren with the allegedly possessed Annabelle doll.
Then, in 1974, the Amityville murders rocked Long Island. Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his entire family as they slept, and the couple who later moved into the home where the crime had occurred — George and Kathleen Lutz — fled within a month, claiming that it was haunted. The 1979 film The Amityville Horror details the Lutzes’ experience there.
The Warrens famously investigated the residence after the Lutz family left. They reportedly felt immense pressure inside the house and experienced difficulty breathing. The case put them at the forefront of the paranormal investigation field — and Ed and Lorraine Warren’s death business took off.
They took their work across the globe in 1977 to look into the Enfield haunting, which inspired The Conjuring 2. The Warrens traveled to London to determine whether the bizarre activity occurring at the home of Peggy Hogdson was a hoax or a real case of demonic possession. However, their involvement in the case was highly exaggerated for the film — and that’s not the only controversy the Warrens faced throughout their career.
The Controversies Surrounding Ed And Lorraine Warren
The Warrens positioned themselves as earthly soldiers fighting against the very real threat of demonic possession. Lorraine, in particular, credited her faith with saving her from the fates of her clients.
“When there’s no religion, it is absolutely terrifying,” Lorraine told The Irish Independent in 2013. “That is your protection. God is your protection. It doesn’t matter what your religion is.”
But despite their mission as God’s agents, the Warrens’ reputation wasn’t spotless. Detractors criticized the pair for handing Ronald DeFeo Jr. a convenient alibi for the Amityville murders when they claimed that he was possessed by demons at the time of the attack.
Suffolk County Police DepartmentA mugshot of Ronald DeFeo Jr. taken on Nov. 14, 1974, following his arrest for the Amityville murders.
This wasn’t the only time the Warrens brushed against the judicial system, either. In the early 1980s, they were called to help a boy in Connecticut who seemingly needed an exorcism. The Warrens brought in a priest, and the demon supposedly fled the child’s body and found a new home in Arne Cheyenne Johnson, the fiancé of the boy’s sister. These events inspired The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.
Then, in 1981, Johnson fatally stabbed his landlord, Alan Bono. The Warrens reportedly encouraged Johnson to plead not guilty and claim that he was possessed when he committed the murder.
The Warrens were also accused of abuse by Judith Penney, who claimed that she’d lived with the couple for 40 years while having a sexual relationship with Ed. Penney alleged that she’d seen Ed act violently toward his wife — but Lorraine wasn’t innocent, either. According to Penney, Lorraine Warren convinced her to have an abortion when she became pregnant with Ed’s child as a teenager.
After Ed Warren’s death in 2006 and the emergence of these allegations several years later, Lorraine quietly stepped back from ghost hunting and spent her final years largely out of the public eye.
The Cause Of Lorraine Warren’s Death
Lorraine Warren’s death on April 18, 2019, was announced by her son-in-law, Tony Spera. The official Facebook page for the New England Society for Psychic Research shared the news, writing, “The NESPR team regretfully announces the passing of our loving teacher, mentor, friend, mother, Lorraine.”
The official cause of Lorraine Warren’s death wasn’t revealed, but she passed away in her sleep at her home in Monroe, Connecticut, at age 92.
PictureLux/The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock PhotoJudy Warren with Vera Farmiga, who portrays her in several Conjuring films, in 2012.
As reported by PEOPLE at the time, actress Vera Farmiga, who portrayed Lorraine onscreen in multiple Conjuring films, shared her grief on her Twitter page: “From a deep feeling of sorrow, a deep feeling of gratitude emerges. I was so blessed to have known her and am honored to portray her. She lived her life in grace and cheerfulness… and she has touched my life so. Love you Lorraine. You’re waltzing with Ed now.”
Clairvoyant or charlatan, believer or hypocrite, missionary or mercenary, Lorraine Warren’s life — as complicated and nuanced as it was — seemed to testify to a sentiment that appears on NESPR’s website: “The fairy tale is true. The devil exists. God exists. And for us, as people, our very destiny hinges upon which one we elect to follow.”
In a life lived in such close proximity to violent death and darkness, Lorraine Warren’s own end was one many of her clients would have dreamed of.
After learning about the cause of Lorraine Warren’s death, read about Hans Holzer, America’s first ghost hunter. Then, go inside nine real haunted houses across the United States.
