The Smurl Haunting — The True Paranormal Story Behind The Conjuring: Last Rites

Before Hollywood gave it a name, there was the real story.
Between 1974 and 1989, Jack and Janet Smurl claimed their quiet Pennsylvania duplex had become a battleground of good and evil — a haunting so violent it drew the attention of famed investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

In this episode of State of the Unknown, Robert Barber revisits one of America’s most disturbing real-life hauntings - the true events that inspired The Conjuring: Last Rites. From unexplainable noises and levitations to an alleged demonic presence that terrorized an ordinary family, this case remains one of the most chilling chapters in modern paranormal history.

🎧 Haunted history. True encounters. Real fear.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Smurl Haunting Begins
• 2:09 Chase Street: A Fresh Start
• 4:00 From Noises to Shapes
• 6:30 Violence and Shared Witness
• 9:20 Escalation and Signature Phenomena
• 12:06 Turning to the Church
• 14:16 The Warrens Arrive
• 18:00 Apparitions, Tapes, and Attacks
• 21:00 Media Storm and The Haunted
• 24:10 Skepticism and Explanations
• 27:10 Leaving Chase Street

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Imagine you're sitting at home and the pipes start banging. You brush it off. Old houses make noise. Then it keeps happening. Scratches in the walls. This sour, rotten smell that fills the rooms out of nowhere. And before long, it's not just sounds and smells. Beds are shaking. Dark shapes are moving across the hallway. One night, even the family dog gets thrown against the wall. And that's what the Smurl family said they lived through. And it only got worse from there. This was West Pittston, Pennsylvania, 1974. Jack and Janet Smurl had just moved into a duplex with their daughters. Jack's parents lived right next door. They weren't chasing ghost stories. They were just a working-class Catholic family trying to live a normal life. But over the next 15 years, they claimed something dark moved in with them. Something that wouldn't leave. And when they couldn't take it anymore, they called two names you've heard before, Ed and Lorraine Warren. The haunting that followed the Smurl family for more than a decade and inspired the new film, The Conjuring Last Rights. This is the story of the Smurl Haunting, a case that blurred the line between ordinary and the unimaginable. And this is State of the Unknown. Let's start at the beginning. Picture West Pittston, Pennsylvania, mid-1970s. It's a small town in the Wyoming Valley, not far from Scranton. Working class, blue collar. People knew their neighbors. Families went to church on Sunday, and life moved at a steady, ordinary rhythm. That's where Jack and Janet Smurl were raising their family. They'd already had a rough couple of years. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes had devastated the valley. Floods forced the Smurls, like thousands of others, out of their home. They spent months scraping their lives back together, looking for stability. And when they found a duplex on Chase Street in 1973, it seemed like the answer. This house was practical. It wasn't fancy, but it worked. Jack and Janet moved into one half with their four young daughters. On the other side, right through the shared wall, lived Jack's parents, John and Mary, two generations under one roof line. For a Catholic family trying to start fresh, it meant security. It meant support. It meant normalcy. But normal is not what they got. At first, it was just the kind of stuff you'd expect in an older house. Pipes rattling when the heat kicked on, knocks in the walls, lights flickering now and then, appliances turning themselves on and off. Things that, honestly, you could explain away if you really wanted to. And sometimes they did. Old wiring, they thought. Drafty house. The kind of answers that make you feel better so you can sleep at night. But then the little annoyances started getting a little harder to dismiss. There were sudden waves of an awful smell. Sulfur, rot, something sour that would roll through a room and then disappear as quickly as it came. No broken pipes, no dead animals in the walls, just stench that appeared out of nowhere. And then there came the sounds. Not just bangs or creaks anymore, but heavy footsteps, thuds across the floor when no one was home, beds that trembled in the middle of the night. Before long, the family said they began seeing things too. Figures. At first, just vague shapes moving in the corners of their eyes. Then darker, more distinct forms crossing rooms and hallways. And these weren't just Jack and Janet's imagination. Their daughters saw them too. Jack's parents, right next door, saw them as well. Same house, same walls, same experiences. Then there was the dog. Their German shepherd, Simon, was the family protector. But even he wasn't safe. The Smurls said that one night, without warning, the dog was lifted into the air and slammed against the wall. Imagine seeing that. It's not just creepy noises anymore. It's physical, violence, and it's happening to the one creature in the house who had no reason to invent stories. And the activities didn't stop there. Jack and Janet both reported scratches on their arms and chests. Janet described being pulled by unseen hands. Later, both of them would even talk about assaults. The kind of disturbing, intimate attacks that are hard to say out loud, let alone admit to reporters and priests. The key thing here is that it wasn't just one person, or even one branch of the family making these claims. Jack and Janet in one half of the duplex, Jack's parents in the other, both households saying, something's wrong in this house. That kind of shared experience is what makes this case stand out. By the early 1980s, word was beginning to spread. Neighbors whispered. Local papers picked up the story. Reporters started to show up. But before the cameras and the headlines, it was just the Smurls. A Catholic family on Chase Street trying to survive in a house that, according to them, was slowly tearing them apart. So at first, it was noises, smells, and flickering lights, the kind of stuff you could just shrug off if you tried hard enough. But over time, the Smurls said it all escalated into something much darker. The shadow figures, for example. Early on, they were just shapes, like moving shadows where there shouldn't be any. But as the years went on, the family described them becoming more defined. They weren't just tricks of the eye anymore. They looked solid, human-like. They walked across doorways, down halls, stood in corners, and didn't move. And these weren't just quick glances. The family said they could watch them. Jack, Janet, their daughters, even Jack's parents next door, all of them reported seeing these same forms. And then there was the physical side of it. The beds didn't just tremble anymore, they shook violently. Jack said the frame of his bed rattled so loudly at night you could hear it echo through the walls. Janet described being yanked out of bed by something she couldn't see. Both of them showed scratches across their arms, their backs, and their chests. And the part of their story that still makes people stop cold? They both claimed they were sexually assaulted by whatever this thing was. Not whispered in private. They told priests. They told reporters. And eventually those claims ended up in print in the 1986 book, The Haunted. For a Catholic family in small town Pennsylvania to make that kind of accusation publicly, you know it wasn't something they did lightly. The dog story kept coming up too. Neighbors and reporters heard about it. Simon being picked up and thrown against a wall. That one detail got repeated so often it became almost a shorthand for the case. Because if an animal was attacked, that's harder to chalk up to imagination or suggestion. And then there were the smells. The rotten sulfurous stench became one of the case's signatures. Sometimes it was described as burning. Other times, Jack said it was like rotting flesh. So thick you could almost taste it. The odor would appear out of nowhere, linger for a few minutes, and then vanish just as suddenly. No explanation. Neighbors started noticing things too. One family down the street claimed they heard blood-curling screams coming from the Smurl House when no one was home. Another reported flickering lights in empty rooms. It wasn't just an isolated story anymore. People outside the duplex were saying something was going on at Chase Street. By the mid-1980s, the toll on the family was obvious. They were exhausted, shaken, and by their account, being worn down night after night. Jack and Janet talked about how they couldn't sleep. They constantly felt watched as if the house itself was alive and hostile. Desperate, they turned to the church. Priests from the parish came into the home, blessed rooms, sprinkled holy water, recited prayers. One of them, Father Joseph Adenizio, later confirmed publicly that he'd been there, that he'd heard their stories and tried to help. But according to the Smurls, the blessings didn't solve the problem. In fact, they said things sometimes got worse afterwards. The activity would return more violent, more aggressive. Meanwhile, the story was spreading beyond West Pitston. Local newspapers ran articles. TV crews started parking on the street. Strangers showed up, curious or skeptical, wanting to get a glimpse of the haunted house. By 1985, the Smurl Haunting wasn't just a private family tragedy anymore. It was becoming a full-blown media story. And that's when two very familiar names stepped onto Chase Street, Ed and Lorraine Warren. By 1986, the haunting at 330 Chase Street had already gone beyond whispered rumors and neighborhood gossip. The Smurls were drained. Their parish priests had been in and out, and reporters were circling. That's when the Warrens showed up. Now, you probably know those names, Ed and Lorraine Warren. To some people, they were respected investigators and demonologists. To others, they were headline chasers who knew how to turn a haunting into a spectacle. But for the Smurl family, they weren't celebrities. They were the last hope. From the moment they entered the house, the Warrens said they felt it. A heavy, suffocating oppression. Lorraine called it a demonic presence. Not a ghost, not the spirit of some restless human, but something inhuman. Someticious, something feeding on the family's fear. And if you listen to the reports from this period, the activity had reached its peak. Janet claimed she was lifted right off her bed and thrown down again. Jack said he was dragged across the floor by something invisible, deep scratches tearing down his chest. And those deeply disturbing allegations of sexual assault? The warrants confirmed the family told them that directly. They didn't whisper about it, they put it on record. And later, it was printed for the world to read in Robert Kieran's book, The Haunted. It wasn't just Jack and Janet either. Jack's mother Mary, living on the other side of the duplex, said she wasn't spared. She claimed that she was shoved down the basement stairs with no one behind her. Another time, she said an unseen hand slapped her hard across the face. And then came the apparitions. The family described grotesque, impossible things. A half-human, half-pig creature standing in doorways. An old woman appearing silently at the foot of Janet's bed, staring and refusing to move. The warrants reported guttural growls, low and animal-like, filling the rooms. Ed later said they even caught some of it on tape. Hours of knocking, rapping, and what he described as voices. One, he claimed, told them flat out, get out. Those tapes have never been released to the public, but the story of them has circulated ever since. Even the family dog was unsafe. Simon was reportedly lifted into the air by his collar, suspended as though strangled before being dropped to the floor. The Smurls said they stood there, helpless, watching it happen. And the voices. Those were maybe the most unnerving. The family described moans, screams, curses, even guttural laughter. Sometimes the voice mimicked people they knew. Janet said she once heard her daughter's voice screaming from the basement, only to find that same daughter fast asleep upstairs. Imagine that. Religious symbols didn't offer protection either. Crucifixes they hung on the walls were found bent or snapped. Rosaries were broken. Janet recalled trying to pray and hearing guttural voices joining in, mocking, cursing, daring her to continue. Lorraine Warren claimed she saw it herself. A black mass, thick and shifting, moving across the walls. She said it rolled like smoke, but it was solid enough to blot out the light. The Warrens believed there was no question. This was a demonic infestation, and they wanted the Catholic Church to step in formally. But the Church doesn't move quickly on these things. That's not how it works. The Diocese of Scranton, once they were notified, required process, investigations, psychological evaluations, ruling out natural explanations. To the Smurls, it felt like dragging feet while they endured night after night of torment. To the church, it was caution, making sure this wasn't something else before calling it demonic. According to the family, four separate attempts at exorcism were made over the years. Priests blessed the home, sprinkled holy water, and recited prayers. And each time, the Smirls said the activity came back, sometimes worse than before. Meanwhile, outside, the story was blowing up. News vans on Chase Street, cameras flashing at the front door. The Smirl haunting had become a spectacle, and Ed and Lorraine Warren were giving interviews, calling it one of the darkest cases they had ever seen. But as always happens, with attention comes doubt. Skeptics began lining up to challenge the story, and that tension between what the family swore they endured and what the investigators couldn't prove would define what came next. By 1986, the haunting of 330 Chase Street wasn't just a private nightmare anymore. It had exploded into a full-blown media storm. Reporters camped outside the Smurl's duplex. TV vans lined Chase Street, their satellite dishes aimed skyward. Neighbors complained about the noise, the lights, and the constant stream of strangers walking through their yards hoping to catch a glimpse of the haunted house. For Jack and Janet, who were by all accounts quiet, working-class people who never asked for this kind of spotlight, it was chaos. Then came the book. That same year, journalist Robert Curin teamed up with the Smurls and the Warrens to publish The Haunted. It laid everything out in print. The apparitions, the assaults, the Warren's investigation. For the family, it was a way to tell their side of the story. For critics, it was fuel for suspicion. To them, the timing was too convenient. Book deal, movie interest, media frenzy. It all looked like a circus. The reaction split almost instantly. Some people, especially fellow parishioners and friends, defended the Smurls. They said they'd seen the toll this took on the family, and no one would make up something that horrifying just for attention. Others, reporters, skeptics, even some clergy, thought the whole thing smelled of sensationalism. And then Hollywood got involved. In 1991, just a few years later, 20th Century Fox released a made-for-TV movie, also called The Haunted. If you watch it now, it feels very much of its time. Dramatic acting, thunder and lightning, lots of shadows. But for the Smurls, seeing their story fictionalized on screen was strange, almost surreal. Jack later said the movie didn't come close to capturing the real horror they lived through. The Warrens, meanwhile, leaned into the publicity. They gave interviews, went on talk shows, and told the world this was one of the darkest cases of their careers. That didn't help their reputation with skeptics, who accused them of milking the case for attention and money. And skeptics were loud. Organizations like Syscop, C S I C O P, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, sent investigators. They found no hard evidence, no photos, no public recordings, nothing physical that could back up what the Smurls described. Paul Kurtz, one of the Ciscops leaders, suggested the experiences might have been explained by stress, sleep paralysis, or even psychological suggestion. Others speculated that family tension or medical issues could explain some of the symptoms. Even the diocese of Scranton was cautious. A spokesman admitted the family was being taken seriously, but insisted exorcisms required undeniable evidence. The Smurls claimed four separate attempts had been made, but the diocese never confirmed that a formal exorcism had ever taken place. Neighbors were just as divided. Some swore they'd heard screams coming from the duplex when no one was home. Others said they lived nearby for years and never saw or heard a thing. The Scranton Times and other local papers reflected that split, reporting the haunting but always noting the lack of proof. And that's the heart of it. On one side, you had a family who repeated the same horrifying claims year after year, never wavering. On the other, you had skeptics pointing out that nothing physical, nothing verifiable ever backed it up. By 1987, the Smurls were exhausted. They said the activity was still happening. The smells, the voices, the assaults. But now they were also dealing with ridicule from neighbors, skepticism from the press, and strangers camping on their lawn. It wasn't just a haunting anymore, it was a battle for credibility. And finally, after more than a decade, the family made a decision. They would leave Chase Street behind. By 1987, the Smurls had been living with this for over a decade. Imagine that. Ten plus years of noises, shadows, smells, attacks, priests coming and going, reporters knocking on the door, cameras flashing outside. Janet later said she felt like her family was being eaten alive. Not just by whatever was in the house, but by the constant attention that came with it. Finally, in 1988, they made the decision that they had resisted for so long. They left 330 Chase Street, packed up their lives, moved to another part of Pennsylvania in hope that the thing that tormented them wouldn't follow. And here's the strange part. Once they left, the activity seemed to stop. The new tenants in the duplex reported nothing unusual. No banging pipes, no sulfur smells, no shadows, no voices. Just life in an old Pennsylvania house. For skeptics, that was the smoking gun. Proof that the whole thing had been exaggerated, or maybe even imagined. For believers, it was more complicated. Maybe the entity had latched onto the Smirls themselves. Maybe it wasn't the house that was haunted, it was the family. As the years went on, the Smirls carried the weight of the story with them. Jack's health declined. He struggled with diabetes and passed away in 2017. Janet continued to speak publicly about their experience. She never backed down, never softened her account, never once said, maybe we were wrong. For her, what happened on Chase Street was real. And the house itself, it's still there, a quiet duplex in West Pittston, standing like any other on the block. No signs, no plaques, just a building that holds one of the most infamous haunting stories in American history. And every time Ed and Lorraine Warren came back into the headlines, after the conjuring films, after Annabelle, after the other cases resurfaced, the Smurl haunting was mentioned again. Their story became part of that catalog of cases the Warrens were known for, folded into the larger legend, forever linked to the pop culture universe of the paranormal. So let's step back for a moment. The Smurl Haunting sits at this strange crossroads, part family tragedy, part religious battle, part media spectacle. And like so many of the Warren's cases, it lives in that gray space between belief and doubt. Because on one side, you've got a family who never wavered. For over a decade, they told the same story. They endured ridicule, skepticism, and media intrusion, and still stood by every claim. They weren't laughing about it later. They weren't cashing in on a blockbuster payday. They weren't changing their story to fit the times. And that kind of consistency, well, that matters. But then, on the other hand, you've got the lack of proof. No public tapes, no photographs, no evidence that could silence the skeptics once and for all. And the fact that when the family moved, the house went quiet, that sticks with people. So what do we do with a story like this? Maybe some of it was stress, maybe sleep paralysis, medical issues, or suggestion amplifying what they thought they were experiencing. Or maybe, just maybe, something darker really was in that house. I can't tell you exactly what happened at 330 J Street. Nobody can. But what I can say is this the Smurl case lingers because it feels too detailed, too consistent, and too traumatic to dismiss outright, yet too unproven to fully accept. And maybe that's why it still unsettles us. Because it leaves us standing in that uneasy middle ground, staring into the shadows, wondering if what the Smurls endured was real. And if it was real, could it happen again? And if it could happen again, could it happen to us? This has been State of the Unknown. The story of the Smurl family isn't just another haunted house tale. It's a reminder of how fragile that line is between the ordinary and the unexplainable. For some, what happened on Chase Street was proof of the devil's work. For others, it was a desperate family caught in the middle of stress, attention, and suggestion. But either way, it left a mark. And maybe that's the real power of stories like this. They live on long after the headlines fade, long after the house goes quiet. They force us to wrestle with belief and doubt. And they make us wonder what we'd do if the same sounds, the same shadows, came creeping through our own walls at night. If you've been enjoying State of the Unknown, thank you. It means the world that you're here, week after week, exploring these stories with me. The best way you can help the show grow is simple. Leave a quick rating or review. On Spotify, it's just a couple of taps. On Apple Podcasts, you can even write a few words. I read every one, and I can't tell you how much it means. Until next time, keep watching the shadows because you never know. They might just be watching you.