The Smurl haunting dragged on for years between 1974 and 1989, eventually causing the desperate family to call in Ed and Lorraine Warren for help.
WNEPThe Smurls, the family behind the true story of The Conjuring: Last Rites.
Nearly 40 years ago, the story of the Smurl haunting created a media firestorm. Jack and Janet Smurl’s claim of paranormal phenomena such as levitations, foul stenches, and blood-curdling screams in the middle of the night drew international attention to the small Pennsylvania town of West Pittston — including that of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The Warrens visited the Smurl home in 1986, which Ed confirmed was possessed by a “very powerful” demon. He and Lorraine spent months at the home, collecting what they claimed to be evidence — mostly in the form of audio recordings — of the demonic presence.
The Smurl haunting and subsequent investigation by the Warrens became the subject of the 1986 book The Haunted, and has more recently inspired the film The Conjuring: Last Rites. As with any case the Warrens have touched, however, there is a great deal of skepticism about the authenticity of the Smurls’ claims.
So, what really happened during the Smurl family haunting? This is the true story behind The Conjuring: Last Rites.
The Smurl Family Before The Haunting
WNEPJack and Janet Smurl talking with reporters about the events that transpired in their home.
In August 1973, Jack and Janet Smurl moved into a double-block house in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, with their two young children. The other half of the home was occupied by Jack’s parents, John and Mary, and the Smurls later also welcomed twins. But soon after they arrived at the house, the Smurl family purportedly began to experience strange things.
According to the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR) — an organization started by Ed and Lorraine Warren and now run by their son-in-law Tony Spera — the Smurls first noticed subtle signs that something was off. Tools went missing, wall stains emerged after being painted over, and the family smelled sudden and foul odors. To the shock of the Smurls, unplugged kitchen appliances even caught fire.
WNEPThe Smurl family’s former home in West Pittston.
As the family suffered from personal setbacks — Mary had a heart attack and Jack, despite a recent promotion, was struggling to make ends meet — their creepy encounters at home increased. Both Mary and Janet heard voices that sounded like one another, and Janet claimed to be molested by some unseen presence in her sleep. Jack, too, said he saw a shadowy figure run up his wife’s leg in the night. The family also claimed to see dark masses.
As the Times Leader reported, the Smurls said the haunting eventually reached the point where the family and their dog were being thrown into walls — and Jack had been sexually assaulted by the presence numerous times. By January 1986, they were desperate for help.
So, they called Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Ed And Lorraine Warren Investigate The Smurl Haunting
It didn’t take long for the Warrens to substantiate the Smurl family haunting. As they toured the house, Ed Warren invoked the name of Jesus and commanded the spirit to reveal itself. According to him, the spirit in the house reacted immediately.
“Within seconds the room turned icy cold,” Warren told the Lakeland Ledger in 1986.
Warner Bros.The Smurl family in The Conjuring: Last Rites.
“There was a foul stench — I would describe it as rotting flesh. Objects on the bureau started to move in front of the bureau gossamer threads — a mucous-like, smoky-type substance — whirled and materialized on the mirror, spelling out filthy obscenities, telling me in no uncertain terms to get out of the house.”
In Ed’s assessment, whatever entity was haunting the Smurls, it was “powerful, intangible, and very dangerous.” Between January and August, the Warrens regularly visited the Smurl home to conduct paranormal research. Throughout it all, they continued to stand by the Smurls’ claims of a haunting, and supposedly collected hours of audio recordings that showcased odd noises being made by the “demon.”
Others, meanwhile, weren’t buying it — and the Warrens’ presence only cast more doubt on the case.
Skeptics Were Unconvinced By The Story
“[Ed and Lorraine Warren] have no credentials in the scientific or parapsychological communities,” said Paul Kurtz, philosophy professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. He added that the Smurls’ story was nothing more than “a hoax, a charade, a ghost story.”
Meanwhile, some offered to lend free psychiatric and psychological help to the Smurls, who many felt were suffering from delusions or hallucinations of some kind. But the Smurls declined.
Instead, they and the Warrens asked a priest to come by the house to perform an exorcism. The priest, in fact, reportedly performed three, all of which were “unsuccessful.” Janet Smurl said they had failed because the demon had traveled back and forth between halves of the double-block, depending on which side the exorcism was taking place.
Warner Bros.Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring: Last Rites.
Reverend Gerald Mullally, the Scranton diocese chancellor, said the Church had been made aware of the Smurls’ troubles, but did not confirm that they were being haunted by a demon: “We don’t know what it is — that’s the problem. We believe what the family is telling us. It’s the explanation for what they are experiencing that we are not sure of.”
In the eyes of skeptics, Jack Smurl’s medical history didn’t help. In 1983, he had surgery to remove water from his brain, before which he had been experiencing short-term memory loss, a problem that likely originated with meningitis he had suffered in his late 20s. His family’s resistance to Kurtz’s suggestion that they undergo psychiatric and psychological examinations only made a hoax seem all the more likely.
Was The Smurl Haunting A Hoax?
WNEPA priest who visited the Smurl family home.
“There is an explanation for the Smurl house, but I wouldn’t simply assume it is a haunting,” Kurtz said. “It seems to us that a great-to-do has been made about it, and we wonder if it is like the Amityville Horror hoax, which was based on imagination rather than on actual haunting.”
The Warrens, it should be noted, had also claimed the Amityville haunting was authentic. In that case, at least, there had been a very real tragedy when Ronald DeFeo Jr. fatally shot his parents and four younger siblings in the Long Island home. In the case of the Smurl family, however, no explanation was offered as to why the house would be haunted in the first place.
Does that necessarily confirm the story was a hoax? No, but it does add another layer of doubt to the whole thing.
Additionally, a priest from the diocese who spent two nights in the Smurl home in October 1986 said nothing unusual happened during his stay. Later that month, Reverend Joseph Adonizio, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in West Pittston, told local media that “Prayers have chased the foul smells and violent demons from the West Pittston home,” and that “things are back to normal.”
WNEPJack Smurl demonstrating to reporters how his bed was shaken during the night.
A year later, Janet Smurl said the family were still experiencing some odd problems at the home, but nothing as severe as when they had contacted the Warrens. They moved out of the home shortly after and settled in Wilkes-Barre. The woman who moved into the home next, Debra Owens, said she never had a supernatural experience. A man who moved into the other half of the double-block said the same.
No member of the Smurl family has ever come forward to confirm if the story was a hoax, but as always, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In this case, however, scientific explanations had barely been tested, let alone exhausted. So, with other, more grounded explanations still on the table, and no conclusive evidence to support the paranormal one, the Smurl haunting remains unconvincing.
At least the Warrens got another movie out of it.
After reading about the Smurl family haunting and the true story of “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” learn about the Enfield haunting and the story behind “The Conjuring 2.” Then, read about The Conjuring House and the events that inspired the franchise.
