Submitted by Constantine on
Ever since the debut of the movie The Haunting In Connecticut, there remains much controversy and debate as to whether it was actually true.
The True Background:
On June 30, 1986, Carmen and Al Snedeker moved from upstate NY to the small town of Southington, Connecticut (address 208 Meriden Ave.), with the purpose of being closer to the UCONN Hospital at which their oldest son was being treated for Hodgkin's Lymphoma via colbolt treatments. The home was the former Hallahan Funeral Home which has served the community for decades. It was large enough for their family, which included three children and a cousin. There is controversy surrounding whether Carmen Snedeker was aware that the residence had been a former Funeral home. Being under renovation, as any remaining equipment was in the temporarily blocked basement which Carmen claims she found only after moving in.
Notable Point:
The former owner and their in-house neighbor, claim the family was fully informed of the situation prior to it being rented.
The Story:
Not long after, Carmen says she began experiencing strange phenomena, like items disappearing and her children reporting seeing strange people in the house, as well as hearing voices and the sounds of hundreds of birds taking flight. Her oldest, who was at the time in the middle of radiation treatment, began to exhibit radical personality shifts, becoming withdrawn and angry. He brooded and began writing poetry with necrophiliac themes. During one intense episode he attacked his cousin with the intent to rape her. His family had him arrested and taken for an evaluation, where he was pronounced schizophrenic. He was removed from the house and seemed to get better until returning.
Other phenomena that were reported by the Snedekers included the repeated and brutal rape of both Carmen and her niece, as well as acts of sodomy being performed on her husband, by unseen entities. Mop water was reported to turn blood red, and the scents of rotting flesh and decay were reported throughout the house. She was also frightened of apparitions that she saw, one with long black hair and black eyes, the other with white hair and eyes and wearing a pinstriped tuxedo. It was then that Carmen decided to contact controversial paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Notable Point:
An ambulance took him to a mental hospital where he remained for forty-five days. His mother, Carmen Reed, asked his oncologist about the possibility of visual side effects. “He said there was no chance of him having hallucinations or delusions with the medication he was on.”
Investigators:
Along with John Zaffis and a few investigators, the Warrens moved into the house for several weeks until they'd experienced everything the Snedekers claimed. During their time in the house, they claim to have seen first-hand the damage the "demons" in the home could inflict, with many members being slapped and beaten, pushed, and slammed to the floor. Investigation into the history of the house supposedly revealed that one of the undertakers at the funeral home was found guilty of necrophilia, which fed fuel to the fire. It got to the point that the Warrens deemed it necessary for a full-scale exorcism of the property, after which the house was judged "cleared" by the Warrens. With the evil banished from the house, that should have been the end of the story. But it wasn't.
Controversy:
Like another Warren investigation, the infamous Lutz house in Amityville, there have been numerous claims by people who lived in the house, both before and after the Snedeker family, that there have never been any "evil entities" in the house. In fact, the family’s claim to have no knowledge that the home was once a funeral parlor was refuted by the house’s owner. Perhaps the most damning evidence that the whole event was a hoax came from horror novelist Ray Garton, who was contracted to write the book In a Dark Place with the Warrens and the Snedekers. According to Garton it was difficult to write the “true” story because none of the involved parties could keep their stories straight. It seemed everyone was contradicting everyone else.
Notable Point:
When he went to Ed Warren with the problem, Garton wrote in a post dated April 27, 1999:
“He told me not to worry, that the family was ‘crazy.’ I was shocked. He said, ‘All the people who come to us are crazy. You think *sane* people would come to us?’ He knew I'd written a lot of horror novels prior to that, so he told me to just make the story up using whatever details I could incorporate into the book, and make it scary.”
Prologue:
The Snedeker family lived in the house for two years after it was exorcised, then moved to Tennessee. The children are grown now with children of their own, and Carmen Reed (nee Snedeker) is now a “spiritual advisor.” She also has plans of writing another book based on the experience with John Zaffis. Psychic Chip Coffey was once slated to co-author the book but has since distanced himself from the project.
During the treatments in Southington, Philip Snedeker's cancer went into remission and had not yet resurfaced at the time of the movie's release. He had been working as a trucker and had four children. Unfortunately, his cancer returned and ultimately claimed his life on August 9, 2012. He is buried in the Wilson Cemetery in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
During an interview, Lorraine Warren commented on what she had heard about the movie, "I was also told about scratching on the walls, blood and séances. That isn't the type of things that were occurring within the house at all." Lorraine Warren put it simply when saying, “The movie is very, very loosely based on the actual investigation.”
According to the current owner of the Southington home, Susan Trotta-Smith, the true story is that the house is not haunted now and never was. “We’ve lived in the house for ten years. Our house is wonderful,” Susan said. “This is all Hollywood foolishness. The stories are all ludicrous.”