Submitted by Constantine on
The following version of this story (An excerpt from ALONE THROUGH THE VALLEY
by Francis Richards and Carl Glatzel Jr. with David Glatzel), is the one most commonly known among the general public and paranormal circles and those that happen to remember the story when it was headline news in the early 1980s. This reconstruction is culled from many sources, mostly based on information documented by psychic investigators and demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren in their books, lectures, public television series Seekers of the Supernatural, and documentation found in “mystical theologist” Gerald Brittle’s account “The Devil in Connecticut” (1983) (2006) as well as various sources such as newspaper, radio, and television reports. This is the story as it was given to the press and the public from 1980 until present day. The purpose of the following account is to familiarize the reader with the story as it has been untruthfully portrayed for the past twenty-five years so that he or she may fully understand the accusations made and their implications.
According to some members of the Glatzel family, the demonic siege started when strange things began to happen during the first week of July, 1980 in the small Connecticut town of Brookfield, a quiet town of about twelve thousand people located near the New York border.
Eleven year old David Michael Glatzel, the youngest of three Glatzel boys, was helping his only sister Debra, twenty-five, and her boyfriend, Arne Cheyenne Johnson, nineteen, move into a rental home in neighboring Newtown, CT. Arne and Debra were planning to move in along with Arne’s mother, Mary, and his three younger sisters, Janice, Wanda, and Mary. The couple wanted a change from the crime ridden streets of Bridgeport and the quiet, woodsy town of Newtown seemed perfect and was only a few minutes ride from Debbie’s family’s home in Brookfield. Debbie’s parents, Judy and Carl Glatzel Sr., married for over twenty five years, were hesitant of the move due to Arne and Debbie’s current financial situation; Debbie was a dog groomer and Arne worked as a tree surgeon in neighboring Bethel. Carl Sr. and Judy nevertheless gave their support and an extra few hundred dollars to help get them started. By all indications, the Glatzel family appeared to be a normal, loving family, with the parents having the best interest in their children’s future.
The three Glatzel brothers, Carl Jr., sixteen, Alan, thirteen, and David, along with their mother and Arne and Debbie, went to the rental home in Newtown on July 2 to help clean up and prepare it for Arne and Debbie’s big move. It was during this average summer day that the first of a series of bizarre incidents would begin to take place that would change their lives forever.
Oddly, there was one room that still had furniture in it. The master bedroom still had a large canopied waterbed in the center of it, making it difficult to clean, never mind move in furniture around. The previous tenant said they would be dismantling it and moving it soon. Carl and Alan had fun jumping on the bed as you would expect young boys to do, but David refused to join in, as he became motion sick easily. Suddenly, the door mysteriously slammed shut on its own, locking the boys inside. No matter how they tried, they could not free the door. Finally, after many attempts, Carl was able to pry the door open. David was a bit shaken, but they put the incident behind them, and they continued to help their sister and Arne with sweeping and cleaning, but unfortunately the strange incidents had only just begun.
A short while later, while sweeping alone around the waterbed, David was confronted by what he later described as a “see through” old man who was wearing a dirty plaid shirt with patchy holes in it. The “ghost man” pointed at him and told him to “Beware” and then forcefully pushed the young boy onto the waterbed. David felt the blow against his stomach. The ghost man vanished into thin air as David rolled off the bed and ran out of the house in tears and refused to return for the remainder of the day, despite the taunting of his older brothers.
Later in his own home that night, David confided to his brother Alan that the ghost man he saw was real and that he could still see him, even when he closes his eyes, but now, the old man looks blackened and burned, had pointy horns protruding from his head, and cloven feet that he described as “deer’s feet.” David was terrified and in tears. David says the ghost man is tormenting their sheepdog, George, who was left back at the rental home in Newtown for the night, and George was terrified and frantically clawing at the basement door in an effort to escape his tormentor. Alan, now equally terrified, talked his brother into forgetting about it and going to sleep. They did, and had the last peaceful night’s sleep they would have for years.
The next day, David told his mother and sister about the encounter with the ghost man, but they dismissed his strange tale and assumed it was just the overactive imagination of a young boy.
David also tells another person. He tells Arne. Arne, being a good natured, all American young man who was fond of his girlfriend’s youngest brother, believes the young boy and confirms his story when he finds bloody scratch marks on the basement door at the rental home where George, had spent the previous night. The dog appeared shaken and exhausted, his paws bloodied and his breath labored
.
Debbie also speaks to Karen, the woman who was still in the midst of vacating the premises as she still had some of her belongings there, including the waterbed. Debbie inquired if anything out of the ordinary had taken place during her tenancy there, and to her surprise, Karen relayed stories about the apparition of on old man, much like David had described. Karen also said it was partly the reason she was moving; she heard her name whispered at night, long and ghostly, “Kaaaaaaaaaaaaren.” Late one night in the darkness, she saw the apparition of the old man appear, and as she lay frozen with fright, it slid into her bed and attempted to fondle her with icy hands. This was more than enough for Arne and Debbie to reconsider moving in, despite their non-refundable $550.00 down payment, and decided they needed to warn Arne’s mother and sisters that the house they were about to rent had something terribly wrong with it.
Over the next few days, ghostly phenomena swiftly began to occur within the Glatzel’s small ranch home, located off a long, quiet dirt drive not far from Brookfield center. It began benign enough when David said he could “see” the ghost man in his mind travel out of an old well built into the foundation of the rental home in Newtown and glide above the trees and towards their home in Brookfield. David hysterically pleaded to his confused family to protect him as the ghost man drew closer. As David yelled that he was now at the front door, three mysterious loud raps announced its arrival and Arne, Debbie, and Judy were being forced to consider taking David’s tale seriously. Judy attempted splashing holy water at the door, and then at the windows, and anywhere David said the entity was trying to get in. David said it somehow found its way into the attic and waited in the hot rafters of the home as the boy helplessly and hysterically tried to seek shelter. Strange sounds of banging, scratching, and objects apparently being dragged and shifted occurred in the attic, and Arne bravely went up to investigate. Although nothing was to be found but old dusty, storage boxes and an eerie silence, Arne felt an ice cold shiver wash over him and then heard the flutter of distant whispers. They did not realize, as the Warrens would later say, that they had just experienced the first stages of demonic infestation.
Within a day, David explained the ghost man in the attic now had a bunch of “helpers,” forty-two of them of them to be exact, that he had poured out of several boxes that he brought with him from the rental home in Newtown. David was able to describe each of them; hideous monsters, bloody and deformed, mutilated and horrific, each answering to the ghost man by number. They paraded invisibly around the house, constantly fighting with each with other, threatening the boy with torture and terrifying him with their grotesque grimaces and frightful stares with glowing, glaring eyes that moved wildly independently of each other. They teased and taunted David, taking weapons such as clubs and whips and pretending to deal the helpless boy a blow, but stopping inches away from making contact. The demons were testing their waters, slowly breaking the boy down, and making him theirs. David was able to identify and describe each being in horrid, vivid detail. Up until now, the family hoped that there was an explanation for all this, perhaps a psychological one, and wondered if it could all be in the young boy’s mind. The next few hours would assure them something very real was happening.
They began a terrible physical assault on David and an orchestrated, psychological attack on the family. The ghost man told David all he wanted was one thing; something David never used and didn’t even know he had; his soul. If David offered it to him, he would leave him alone, if not, he would stay forever to torment him. David refused, proclaiming his love for his family and God, and his punishment came swiftly.
No longer were the helpers feigning their blows. David was repeatedly punched, slapped, clubbed, whipped, and beaten by the invisible entities. At one point he was even stabbed and then shot by one of the demons in retaliation for telling people about the ghost man that Debbie later referred to as “the Beast.” The family was helpless to do anything to stop the attacks and could only watch the horrible ordeal and wonder what was happening to their youngest son, who indeed appeared to be being beaten and battered by unseen forces. Sounds of the physical abuse were audible as slaps and punches and David’s body went through the motions of receiving blows showed signs of the attacks in the form of welts, marks, and bruises that would quickly fade away. David would at times be strangled, visible indentations of hands around his throat as he gasped for air and attempted to fight off the invisible assailant. There was no way to explain what was happening, but it appeared real enough to those present and especially real to David.
Missing from the majority of these incidents was the father, Carl Sr., who was an earnest, hard working refrigeration mechanic working sixty hours a week and spent a majority of his home time sleeping. He ignored the situation in the beginning until it demanded his attention, yet he still remained silent on the matter. As for the eldest boy, Carl Jr., when he wasn’t home he was usually out with friends or riding his dirt bike and so happened to ‘just miss’ the majority of purported phenomena. He often taunted David and told him to stop, “making it all up.”
In desperation, Judy Glatzel turned to Father James Dennis, the pastor at St. Joseph's Church in Brookfield center. Father Dennis, a well respected and elderly priest who had been pastor for several decades, listened to Judy's horrible accounts of the incidents taking place in the Glatzel home. Father Dennis had heard of such things before, but feared involvement due to the psychological toll he had taken from being involved in another exorcism a decade before. He was also planning to visit his mother in Ireland and was not sure if his health and stamina was prepared for what he knew needed to be done. He in turn contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren in neighboring Monroe, who he knew specialized in such strange occurrences and how to battle them.
Although the Warrens have called themselves ghost hunters, psychic investigators, and parapsychologists, at the time Ed and Lorraine were referring to themselves as a demonologist (Ed) and a light trance medium (Lorraine), both of whom had attracted a lot of media attention from their involvement in the Amityville Horror case several years prior. The Warrens had been investigating the paranormal for over twenty five years and just had their first book published the previous spring, The Demonologist by author Gerald Brittle, which was Prentice Halls' follow up to notorious best seller The Amityville Horror. The Demonologist is the tell all story of the Warren's many battles with demonic forces before their involvment with the demons that terrorized George and Kathy Lutz in Jay Anson's book. Having assisted in more than four hundred exorcisms, they were the noted experts in the field of both the paranormal and the theological, mainly in the unique field of demonology, despite skepticism drawn from various members of the paranormal community and sometimes even the Catholic Church itself, despite the Warren's claims of working along side them in secrecy.
The Warrens rushed to the Glatzel home the same evening. During the half hour drive to Brookfield, Lorraine had a powerful psychic feeling they were beginning a profound and dangerous case. They brought along with them a good friend, Dr. Anthony Giangrasso, so they could have a medical evaluation of the boy as well. They were told that David had previously been diagnosed with having a learning disability, something Dr. Giangrasso was quite familiar with as he had a son with the same disability. The Warrens wanted to be sure they were not confusing a medical disorder with a supernatural one.
On the hot and humid evening of July 9th, 1980, the Warrens turned onto the lone dirt drive that leads to the Glatzel home. As Lorraine recalls, “We went to the house this hot night I can remember, like the steam and moisture coming off the ground. It was a weird night when we arrived there.”
Strange things began the moment they arrived. Both Ed Warren and Dr. Giangrasso were tripped by unseen forces on their way up the steps in the front of the Glatzel home. Ed recalls the incident:
“When I started up the front steps, I tripped. I’m not a particularly clumsy man, but I did a great big pratfall. I hadn’t stubbed my foot against the step, I hadn’t loosened my grip on the banister, but there I was tripping. It was as if an invisible hand had grabbed my ankle. I went right down, and it so happened that the doctor found this funny. We were close friends and so I knew he was laughing out of affection and not malice. But when I explained to him that I really hadn’t tripped, he went, “Sure, sure,” and made a joke about how clumsy I was. Then he came right behind me and stumbled too.”
David knew about the incident and mentioned it upon meeting the Warrens for the first time When Ed asked him how he knew about the incident, David laughed and said “The Beast told me."
After a full medical examination, Dr. Giangrasso declared that David was medically fine. The Warrens interviewed the Glatzel family without the presence of Carl Sr. and Carl Jr., and found them to be sincere and credible, and more importantly, terrified.
Lorraine recalls her first encounter with David, “We were sitting there at the table talking. Now, we would watch David and he would be doodling, you know, drawing or something like that and he’d be concentrating on what he was doing, and then he would look up and it was no longer a little eleven year old boy.” Lorraine was able to discern that the entity appeared to be a powerful, blacker than black, spirit mass that centered on David. When Lorraine asked David where he saw the beast, David’s affirmation concurred with her psychic vision.
Then a spectacular outbreak of poltergeist activity erupted in full view of everyone. Knocks and raps sounded out throughout the house. A leather belt and a flower vase levitated up and flew across the room. The demon was showing his presence with out even being summoned.
Ed Warren communicated with the entity by speaking out loud and the entity replied with loud bangs, raps, and knocks which Ed described as sounding like “somebody hammering on the basement ceiling with a wooden two by four.” The entity appeared to show intelligence, and seeing David was the only one that could see and hear the beast, it spoke to Ed using David as a medium. The entity claimed to be Satan, and Ed, knowing that demons are known to lie and deceive and often claim to be Satan, challenged the unseen force to throw him out the window. When it didn’t happen, Ed mocked the entity and told it that when he got the Church involved, they would send it straight back to hell. The beast assured Ed that nothing would be able drive him out, and they would all suffer for their interference.
It was obvious to the Warrens that David was genuinely under demonic attack, and was in danger of becoming completely possessed at any time. They were most concerned for the family’s safety as the natural progression of such a demonic attack had moved extremely fast in David’s case. The family described all the signs of initial demonic infestation and David was already displaying signs of precognition and clairvoyance. Poltergeist phenomena had heightened to the point where physical attacks were being carried out on the boy. David could see the beast and his helpers, and hear their voices. It was past the point of oppression and possession was the next progressive step. The Warrens explained to the family the serious problem they were facing and that they would gather the necessary information needed in order for the Roman Catholic Church to sanction an exorcism. In the meantime, the Glatzel’s were given holy candles and salts, and were told to pray to keep David's demons at bay.
While awaiting the Church to conduct a formal investigation, the Glatzel family home was subjected to all sorts of terrifying paranormal activity. Most of it centered on young David. Objects were thrown about, strange noises and voices were heard, cloven hoof prints were found in Judy’s bedroom, a scaly, claw like hand materialized and grabbed people’s ankles as they walked by, personal items were destroyed or disappeared altogether, and even a plastic toy dinosaur walked out of a room and spoke to David, telling him that he would be punished in retaliation for allowing the Warrens to interfere.
The eldest Glatzel boy, Carl Jr., was used by the demons to escalate arguments among the family that usually lead to physical violence. As David explained, several demons were assigned to Carl Jr., constantly whispering in his ear and unconsciously oppressing him, causing him to start trouble and instigate fights. Like Carl Sr., Carl Jr. was apparently immune to the paranormal phenomena. They did not see, hear, or witness anything out of the ordinary, only that everyone was “acting crazy.” The Warrens stated that Carl Jr. was under demonic oppression and it was part of Satan’s sinister plan to use young Carl as a catalyst, and when physical violence broke out, Carl Jr. joined in beating his mother, sister, and younger brothers with apparent joy. Carl Jr. was being used as a demonic pawn to add pandemonium and instability to the decaying family structure.
By now, Arne and Debbie had totally abandoned the thought of moving to their new rental home, convinced it was haunted and the source of their trouble. Arne’s mother, Mary, and his three younger sisters moved into the rental home in Newtown, despite Arne and Debbie’s pleading with them to reconsider as they believed the house to be haunted.
The demons continued to relentlessly punish and torture David. His hair was ripped from his scalp. His body was forced to do sit ups until he vomited. He was choked and strangled by invisible hands. David levitated on two separate occasions, and he was deprived of sleep and hardly given a moments rest from torment. Even on August 13th, his twelfth birthday, when the family tried hard to have a moment of normalcy, David’s demons gave him beatings and destroyed his birthday cake.
Judy, Arne and Debbie, were often up late at night saying prayers for David as he came under these violent attacks. Most involved was Arne, who often taunted and challenged the demons to leave the helpless boy alone and to pick on him instead. He repeatedly told the demons to ‘take him on.’ David would hiss like a snake, groan and wail disgustingly, and use vile profanity and words the young boy could not have possibly known. He spoke Latin, quoted the Bible and Milton’s Paradise Lost, and spoke a bizarre language none of those present could identify. Many of these late night sessions were recorded on a tape recorder by the family, Alan helming the microphone a majority of the time.
Eventually, as the Warrens had unfortunately predicted, David came under full possession on September 8th. His face contorted completely into an unrecognizable, frightful grimace, his stomach and head bloated to nearly double in size, and he attempted to attack his own family members with knives, fireplace pokers, and anything he could get his hands on. He broke Judy’s nose on one occasion and another time held his visiting grandmother at knifepoint after she attempted to do the Rosary with him. Often he was wrestled to the ground or wrapped in a bed sheet by Carl Jr. and Arne to prevent him from injuring anyone or himself. During one of these episodes, the demon in David proclaimed that “Arne will kill with a knife.” The statement was caught on tape.
Even Carl Sr. finally broke down and admitted that he too, had seen the face of the beast and thought he was losing his mind. He had to admit to his family that what young David was saying was true, and he had been in denial, and was now at a complete loss as to what to do for his son and his family. Officially, the Glatzel family was convinced they were facing the real thing; a violent haunting, a deranged poltergeist outbreak, or actual demonic attack and possession, they didn’t care what it was called, but it was real and they desperately needed help.
As the horrifying incidents at the Glatzel household continued to intensify, the Warrens contacted the Arch Diocese of Bridgeport and told them of the family’s ordeal. Acting Bishop Walter Curtis dispatched several priests to investigate the validity of the claim of possession. Father Francis E. Virgulak of Stamford headed the investigation, along with Father James Grosso, Father Steve DiGiovanni, and Father William Millea.
At one point during the investigation, Ed Warren and Father Grasso witnessed David levitate up to the ceiling of his bedroom, Father Grasso becoming so terrified it renewed his faith. The other priests, who were at first skeptical about the situation, realized they just may be facing the Devil himself. After conversing with the Warrens, the priests, and the Glatzel family, Father Virgulak agreed an exorcism was in order, but needed to have permission granted from the Bishop. He collected evidence such as witness testimony and audio recordings made by the family of the child under possession. These were submitted to the Arch Diocese of Bridgeport for review.
Although a major exorcism was not officially sanctioned by the Bishop, four “deliverance” sessions took place at the end of August and in early September. One was a Holy Mass held in the Glatzel home and the others in the rectory of St. Joseph’s Church in the center of Brookfield. The deliverance sessions were actually minor rites of exorcism, but without the granting of the reading of The Roman Ritual (Rituale Romanum), the Roman Catholic Church's official manuscript containing the rites of exorcism. On all occasions, the demons in David refused to depart and he needed to be restrained as he attempted to attack all those present, displaying super human strength and needing his father, Arne, and the other priests involved to restrain him. Ed remembers it vividly, “Now this eleven year old boy could become extremely strong. I’ve seen nights when it would take four and five men to hold him down. I saw him one time, when he actually levitated, had extreme strength, and terrible obscenities would come from him.”
Father Virgulak headed the exorcism, and several times the possessing entity threatened to kill David if the ritual continued. Indeed, several times David was brought to the brink of death by his demons, one time he dropped over and showed no signs of life, only to attack those that got near enough to attempt taking vital signs. The beast threatened all present with pain and death and twisted the truth into malicious lies, accusing those present, especially the priests, with the vilest of obscene crimes.
The young priests involved were severely traumatized by the horrific events and eventually become victims of demonic attack themselves, even being assaulted in their own rectories and followed by black apparitions. The reality of demonic possession had them terrified; some of them even needing medication to cope with the trauma of the events. The beast proved to be a powerful adversary and proclaimed that David’s soul now belonged to him and said no priest could ever drive him out.
Once the deliverance sessions proved to be failures, the Warrens ascertained that the only way to truly free David from his demons would be to perform the major right of exorcism. Bishop Curtis had not yet given such permission as the case was bogged down in Church politics and procedures. The Warrens tried to explain that time was of the essence and the major right of exorcism needed to be performed immediately. While David's case continued to be investigated by the clergy, the Warrens warned the Brookfield Police Department in October that there was a strong risk of physical violence and potential danger in the Glatzel household due to incidences of a supernatural nature.
As winter drew near, David's attacks seem to lessen in frequency. Debbie got a job at the Brookfield kennels grooming dogs and she and Arne leased a small apartment from the owner, forty year old Alan Bono. It was convenient for the couple because the apartment was right above the kennels and was only a few miles from the Glatzel home. Arne, Debbie, and Alan spent a lot of time together and both men frequented the local bar and became “the best of friends.” The friendship lasted only a short time however, as the beast was about to fulfill the terrible prophecy it made the previous summer when it was challenged by Arne.
On February 16, 1981 Arne Cheyenne Johnson murdered Alan Bono with a large folding knife. It took place during an argument that began in Alan’s apartment when Alan insisted that Debbie, Arne, and his three sisters who were visiting for the day, stay for pizza. Alan had been drinking wine the better part of the day, and Debbie, seeing that he was intoxicated and becoming increasingly obnoxious and threatening, attempted to leave with Arne’s sisters. Alan became agitated and told them not to leave, and followed them down the stairs towards the exit. He attempted blocking the passage to the doorway and grabbed hold of young Mary Johnson’s arm.
It was at this moment that the demons Arne had taunted and challenged several months before took their vengeance. During the argument, or shortly before, Arne came under full demonic possession. He first attacked Debbie, knocking her down and kicking her violently in the stomach. He then approached Alan, who had his fists up ready to fight and was saying, “Come on, I’ll fight you!” There was a flashing glint of silver in the air. All of a sudden, Alan Bono dropped without Arne even getting near enough to get in a swing. He just appeared to have collapsed for no apparent reason. Arne growled like a wild animal, or as Wanda would later say in court, “like the Hulk,” and took off into the woods behind the kennel as Debbie and his sisters frantically called after him. It was then they noticed that Alan Bono appeared to be bleeding from multiple stab wounds in the chest and stomach. Several feet away lying on the ground was Arne’s bloody, opened knife. The girls were afraid to touch it because it appeared to be glowing. Debbie ran into the apartment and frantically called her mother and said there had been a fight and they needed to get down to the kennels right away. In the background Debbie could hear young David screaming “The beast did it! No one saw it. He just killed with a knife. He went into Arne and stabbed Alan! All the helpers are there laughing. Arne didn't do it! The beast stabbed Alan five times with a knife!”
Carl Sr. and Judy raced down to the kennels and were there in several minutes. Upon pulling in, they were met by Debbie, who was hysterical and in tears. Carl Sr., asking and finding out no one called for help, ran into the apartment and dialed 911. Paramedics arrived shortly after and began resuscitation efforts on Alan Bono. Meanwhile, Brookfield police began to scan the area for Arne Johnson, who was now the chief suspect. Alan Bono was raced to Danbury Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival at 7:39 p.m.
Arne Johnson was found approximately an hour later wandering aimlessly on Silvermine Road, about a mile from the murder site. Coincidentally, he was found by the same ambulance driver who had just finished taking Alan Bono to the hospital. Arne was reported as being “in a daze” and said he thought “he might have hurt someone but can't remember.” He put up no resistance and was arrested moments later when the police arrived. A half hour later he was charged with first degree murder. Sitting in his cell, dumbfounded and in shock, Arne Johnson spoke incoherently and then fell asleep.
Not only was this the first murder to ever occur in the quiet town of Brookfield, it made national headline news within only a few days when Arne’s attorney, Martin J. Minnella (a seasoned young trial lawyer from Waterbury who took the case for free after reading about in the papers) was going to attempt to enter the unprecedented plea of not guilty by virtue of demonic possession. After conversing with the Johnson and Glatzel families and the Warrens, Minnella was sure he would be able to demonstrate to the court and the jury that Johnson was indeed possessed at the time of the murder. He planned to use the members of the Glatzel family, the Warrens, and the priests involved as witnesses, being subpoenaed if necessary, and present physical evidence such as recordings of David under possession prophesying that Arne “would kill with a knife.” Minnella said “We’re coming up with something completely unusual in American jurisprudence. We’re dealing with the existence of the Devil.”
Debbie Glatzel went public with the story behind the story, telling news reporters of their horrible ordeal that has plagued the family for months and the about the possession case of David that had recently been cloaked in secrecy. Judy Glatzel came forward as well, telling of their plight and the failure of the three minor exorcisms and publically pleaded for the Church to sanction a full exorcism. The story of young David Glatzel’s burden slowly emerged and became public knowledge and the center of controversy and debate among believers and skeptics alike.
While news and media crews began flocking to the town of Brookfield and mail flooded the local post office with literally thousands of letters from around the world, the nation looked on with interest about the man who claimed “the Devil made him do it.” The jury was selected and as the trial was set to begin, thousands pondered the ramifications of the case on talk radio, television and in print. It made front page news for days on end. Magazines such as People carried it as a cover story and the trashier tabloids, such as The National Enquirer, detailed the unbelievable events that took place in the Glatzel home the previous summer that cumulated with the murder of an innocent man. Was the Devil really going to be put on trial?
All the attention was short lived when acting Danbury Superior Court Judge Robert J. Callahan said he would not allow the “demon defense” in his courtroom. Callahan said “Evidence of demonic possession is simply not relevant. It would be incompetent evidence and I will not allow it.”
Minella countered with several different tactics, claiming that the details about David Glatzel’s case were relevant to his client’s actions and will still eventually be brought into the courtroom. Judge Callahan remained firm and squelched the plea repeatedly, suppressing any references to ‘possession.’
The trial commenced in Danbury Superior Court on October 28, 1981. Johnson refused to plead guilty, maintaining that he did not remember the crime. The State prosecutors claimed that the murder was the result of a drunken brawl fueled by a secret love triangle between Debbie Glatzel and Alan Bono, something Debbie venomously denied.
Arne’s three young sisters were forced to testify on the stand what they saw that night, which contradicted the statements that were taken from them the night of the murder. The girls, brought to tears before the court, said they were tricked by Brookfield Police into making statements that they actually witnessed Arne kill Alan with the knife on the night of the murder. On the stand however, they all swore to not seeing it happen at all. The girls’ testimony was the only thing remotely connected to the plea of possession as they swore on the stand that they did not in fact see Arne fight or stab Alan, and that Alan simply went down, and Arne made noises like a wild animal during the attack that seemed to come from “multiple voice boxes.”
On November 24th, after a day of a deadlocked jury, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was found not guilty of first degree murder, but charged with manslaughter in the first degree and was sentenced to thirty years in Somers Prison in Somers, CT.
The Warrens were convinced that because the Catholic Church refused to take the proper steps to have a major exorcism sanctioned, not only had a life been take taken, but David was still not completely free from his demons. He continued to have visitations from the beast, who bragged about the murder to him. Due to the controversy and the attention the case received, the Arch Dioceses of Bridgeport refused to comment on the case other than stating that “No exorcisms where performed,” and they “had never heard of Arne Johnson.” The priests involved were dispersed and scattered and told not to speak to the press about the incident, as the rite of exorcism holds the same status as confession, remaining a private matter for the individuals involved. The Glatzels and the Warrens said the Roman Catholic Church had turned their backs on them to avoid controversy and scrutiny, and the only way to totally and successfully free David of his demons was to seek help outside of the country.
While the trial was in full swing, the Glatzels took an emergency trip to Quebec, Canada, where the Warrens arranged for a “gifted exorcist” named Father Deschamps to exorcise the remaining demons with a classical form of exorcism called “the laying on of the hands.” The Warrens had submitted an eighteen page report on the possession case of David Glatzel to Father Dechamps, who carefully reviewed the circumstances before arranging the Glatzels to make the long trip to Canada. On November 7, 1982, David was completely exorcized in less than thirty minutes by Father Deschamps. The demon that had raised such havoc since July of 1980 identified itself before departing, as was expected in such cases, but not before causing momentary havoc in the small church by breaking windows and opening and slamming the doors. Speaking through another priest, Father McEwan, who acted as a medium during the session and allowed the demon to speak through him, the beast finally revealed its true identity; it was not forty-two demons, it was one, it was legion, it was an arch devil known as Beelzebub.
Not only was David freed from his demons, but the Glatzels and the Warrens learned from Father Deschamps the true origin of the evil. For months, the Glatzels wondered why they were chosen to be subjected to such horrors. What had they done to deserve this? Why was young David, an innocent happy eleven-year old, singled out to be tormented and possessed by demons? How could God let this happen, they wondered?
Father Deschamps had the answer; the Glatzels had been cursed. Not only had they been cursed, but it was a satanic death curse that was levied by friends of theirs, a family they had met several winters ago while snowmobiling in upstate New York. Unbeknownst to the Glatzels, their friends, who they curiously had a falling out with several years before, were actually Satanists who hoped to gain power by offering an innocent soul to the Devil. The curse was placed on the first and last born son of the Glatzels, Carl Jr. and David, and although it focused its onslaught on both the boys, it chose David as the target for possession because he was the weaker of the two. Then came the most startling revelation of all: the curse had been placed on them the previous winter during their yearly snowmobile trip on February 16th, the exact day the demon possessed Arne Johnson and forced him to kill with a knife exactly one year later. The Warrens called it a total metaphysical connection. Father Deschamps explained that a death was preordained to take place on that day, and it didn’t matter who it was. The unfortunate victim just happened to be Alan Bono, although he believed the original victim was supposed to have been Debbie Glatzel. He stated that when Arne challenged the demons in David the previous summer, he had quite possibly saved the boy’s life, but now he took the full burden of the beast’s actions.
Arne spent only five years in prison during which time he married Debbie Glatzel, and was released after being called a model prisoner. During his time in jail however, he received several visitations from the beast, and was stabbed by the entity on the anniversary of Alan Bono’s death. Although David was freed from his demons, the family has never fully recovered from the horrible ordeal and would never be completely free of the residue of the demonic presence that had so personally interfered with their lives.
Occasionally, strange occurrences would still take place in the Glatzel home, including what appeared to be the ghost of Alan Bono, who appeared to David, apparently unaware of his own death. The beast continued to visit David from time to time, just to make itself known, and on one occasion, appeared to Debbie’s young son Jason during a raging fever. The demon told the boy it was personally responsible for thousands of deaths and atrocities during World War II and said it would remain in Connecticut because man failed to point him out. As a chilling threat that would linger for years, the beast also promised the boy that one day, it would “kill again.”
The story was documented by Gerald Brittle and Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Devil in Connecticut and was published by Bantam Books in 1983, but lawyers for the Church had the books recalled and destroyed due to the fact is revealed the actual names of the people involved along with supposed secret information. The paperback original, now a collector’s item, can be found on EBay and other online auction sites with prices fetching as much as over a hundred US dollars. In 1983, Dick Clark productions released the made for TV movie The Demon Murder Case (AKA The Rhode Island Murders) which starred Andy Griffith as Ed Warren and a young Kevin Bacon as Arne Johnson. Screenwriter William Kelly changed the family name and some of the instances, but the story is indeed about the Glatzel family and can still be found occasionally on late night television. Besides the residents of Connecticut and those interested in the field of the paranormal, this left only a handful of people who had ever heard of the “Brookfield Demon Murders” or “the Devil Made Me Do It” case. As the publicity died down over the next several years, and the family tried to return to their everyday lives, the story of their bizarre encounter eventually dwindled down to the status of an urban legend, being mostly whispered around late night New England campfires. No one who ever heard the story would soon forget that not only had the Devil been in Connecticut, but had sworn to return and kill again.