What happened
In the summer of 1980 a family in Brookfield, Connecticut, began to claim that the younger brother of Debbie Glatzel, fiancée of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, was seeing an old man who threatened to harm him, and was growling, speaking in strange voices and quoting the Bible. The family called in the well-known “demonologists” Ed and Lorraine Warren, who declared him possessed; several so-called minor exorcisms were performed with priests present. According to the family, Johnson then challenged the demon to leave the boy and enter him instead. On 16 February 1981, after a day of heavy drinking, a quarrel broke out with Alan Bono, who owned the dog kennel where Debbie worked and rented the couple their flat. Johnson stabbed him several times; Bono died. It was the first killing in the town’s history. The very next day Lorraine Warren told the police that the killer had been possessed.
Witnesses
The Glatzel family, Ed and Lorraine Warren, priests present at the exorcisms, witnesses to the events of 16 February; the case was described by Gerald Brittle in “The Devil in Connecticut”.
Explanations and hypotheses
Defence lawyer Martin Minnella wanted to argue that his client had acted while possessed, but the judge ruled that such a claim could not be proven in court. On 24 November 1981 the jury found Johnson guilty of first-degree manslaughter rather than murder; he was sentenced to 10–20 years and served about five. Critics accuse the Warrens of exploiting a tragedy to build a media legend; one of the boy’s brothers later said the possession story had been invented and took legal action. The case was filmed as “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” (2021).
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.
Sources
- The New York Times – Defendant in a Murder Puts the Devil on Trial (1981)
- The Washington Post – By Demons Possessed (1981)
- University of Virginia Law Library, Dengrove Collection – Arne Cheyenne Johnson
More: Wikipedia (en)