The Devil Made Me Do It | True Haunted History Behind America’s Most Shocking Possession Case

In 1981, a quiet Connecticut town became the center of one of the strangest murder cases in American history.

When nineteen-year-old Arne Johnson stabbed his landlord, he claimed something no U.S. court had ever heard before, that he was possessed by a demon.

This episode of State of the Unknown uncovers the true story that inspired The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Host Robert Barber takes you inside the real case, from the alleged possession of eleven-year-old David Glatzel, to the Warrens’ controversial involvement, to the trial that tried to put the Devil on the witness stand.

You’ll hear what was verified, what was exaggerated, and what Hollywood left behind. No jump scares. No clichés. Just the documented events, chilling details, and quiet questions that still haunt Connecticut to this day.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Brookfield Killing
• 2:30 David’s Visions and Escalation
• 5:20 The Warrens Enter the Story
• 8:40 Transference and Arnie’s Change
• 12:30 President’s Day Turns Deadly
• 16:45 The Devil Defense Meets the Court
• 21:10 Verdict, Aftermath, and Legacy
• 24:35 Hollywood vs. The Record
• 28:00 Belief, Fear, and Responsibility
• 30:50 Closing Reflections and Next Tease

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

It's a cold Monday in February 1981, Brookfield, Connecticut. The kind of small town where nothing really happens. 19-year-old Arnie Johnson calls off work that morning. He heads over to the dog kennel where his girlfriend Debbie Clatzell works. Her boss is Alan Bono. 40 years old, big personality, and a guy who really likes to talk. By lunchtime, the three of them go out with a few friends to a local bar called the Mug and Munch. They eat, they drink. Bono has a few glasses of red wine. More than a few, really. And by the time they're back at the kennel, something's different. The music's too loud. Bono's pacing, irritated about something nobody can quite figure out. Debbie's nine-year-old cousin is there too. Just a kid. Then suddenly, Bono grabs her arm and won't let go. Arnie steps in and tells him to back off. There's yelling, a blur of movement, and then Bono stumbles back, eyes wide. He collapses. When police arrive, they find four deep knife wounds, one of them near his heart. Arnie's gone, vanished into the trees behind the kennel, like he's in a daze. Before the sun goes down, he's in custody. And before the week is over, that quiet little New England town has its first murder in 193 years. But that's not what makes this case different. It's what Arnie says next. That something else was with him that day, and that it made him do it. What happened at that kennel didn't come out of nowhere. People in Brookfield say Arnie had been acting strange for months. Quiet one moment, angry the next, like he was carrying something heavy that nobody else could see. And if you ask his girlfriend Debbie, she'll tell you it started long before that day. Back when her little brother David began waking up screaming about something standing in his room. At first, the family thought it was just nightmares. Then he started talking about an old man with burned-looking skin, torn clothes, and black eyes. He said it threatened to take his soul. That's when the Glatzels called for help. And the people who showed up weren't doctors or counselors or police. They were Ed and Lorraine Warren, the same husband and wife team who'd claimed they'd faced demons before. And what happened next is what the Warrens would later call one of the most dangerous cases of their career. In 1981, a 19-year-old from Connecticut claimed something no American court had ever heard before. That a murder wasn't committed by a man, but by the thing inside him. This is the story of Arnie Cheyenne Johnson in the case that tried to put the devil on trial. And this is State of the Unknown. It started in the summer of 1980, a few miles outside of Brookfield, Connecticut. Arnie Johnson and his girlfriend Debbie Gladsel had just rented a small house on Blue Trail Road over in Newtown. It was older, kind of run down, a fixer operated that they could afford. They were planning to move in together for the first time, and they wanted to get it cleaned up before hauling their stuff inside. Debbie's family lived close by. Her parents, Carl and Judy, offered to help, and her youngest brother David came along too. He was eleven, smart kid, a little sensitive, but not the type to make trouble. They spent the day scrubbing walls and sweeping floors, just trying to make the place livable. And that's when David said something that changed everything. He told his mom he saw an old man inside the house. Not a neighbor, not someone passing by, but a man with burned scaly skin, wearing torn clothes and staring at him from one of the rooms. He said the man told him, Beware, and then if you move in, something bad will happen. At first, everyone brushed it off. It was a hot day, the house was dark, and maybe he'd scared himself. But that night, when David was back home in Brookfield, he woke up screaming. He said the old man had followed him there. Over the next few days, David started waking up the same way, screaming, shaking, saying the old man was at the foot of his bed. His parents said he'd sometimes wake up with bruises and scratches that hadn't been there before. They thought maybe he was hurting himself in his sleep until the marks got worse. Long scratches across his chest and neck, too high for him to reach easily. That detail came straight from their later interviews. The Glatzels said they heard strange noises too. Footsteps, knocking, growling. And David began talking about a beast. He said it had hooves instead of feet, a face like an animal, and eyes that glowed red. He told his mother it wanted his soul and that it had promised to hurt anyone who got in its way. It scared them. They moved his bed into their room so he wouldn't be alone. They tried prayers, holy water, anything that might calm him down. Nothing worked. Sometimes, they said, his voice would change, deeper, older. He'd shout in Latin phrases or curse at them using words he'd never heard before. Now, none of that was recorded by anyone outside the family. Those accounts come from the Glatzels themselves, later repeated in the Warren's case notes. There's no medical documentation of the events, but that's how they described it. Eventually, Debbie and her parents reached out to their parish priest from St. Joseph's Church in Brookfield. He came by, blessed the house, sprinkled holy water, and told them to get David checked out by a doctor. That visit is confirmed. The Diocese of Bridgeport acknowledged it later when reporters started asking questions. But according to the family, things only escalated. David claimed the beast was now threatening him, saying it would throw him into a wall or choke him in his sleep. And they swore they saw it happen. He'd be lifted or pushed or flung like something invisible had grabbed him. That's the Gladzel story, and the Warrens, once again, backed it up. By late July, Judy Gladzel, David's mom, didn't know what else to do. She'd already been to the priest, the doctor, and a psychiatrist who said David was fine. Nothing stopped the attacks. So she picked up the phone and called Ed and Lorraine Warren, the couple who'd become known across New England for investigating hauntings like Amityville and Annabelle. She didn't know if they could fix it, but she figured if anyone could make sense of what was happening, it might be them. And when the Warrens arrived, they said they felt it the moment they stepped through the door. That's when this story stopped being about a haunted house. It became something the Warrens would later call a true case of demonic possession. By the time Ed and Lorraine Warren showed up, the Gladsel family was exhausted. They'd been through priests, doctors, and sleepless nights, and nothing was getting any better. The Warrens were already famous by then, mostly because of Amdeville. People either loved them or rolled their eyes at the mention of their names. But to the Glatzels, they were the last chance left. Lorraine said that the moment she walked through the door, she felt something dark, something heavy, like the air itself was watching her. She later described it as a presence of pure evil. Ed started taking notes and audio recordings right away. They said David would suddenly snarl or growl, sometimes in a voice that didn't sound like his own. He'd shout words in Latin or describe violent visions, people being stabbed, blood, murder. According to Lorraine, he'd even predicted that someone would be killed with a knife. Now, those details come entirely from the family and the Warrens. There's no outside record confirming any of it, but that's what they claimed. Lorraine said she could see dark shadows moving near the boy. Ed called it a demonic infestation, and they told the Gladzles they needed help from the church. Priests from St. Joseph's Church and later St. Mary's in Bridgeport were brought in to observe. They performed blessings and what the Warrens called minor exorcisms. The church didn't call it that, though. The Diocese of Bridgeport confirmed later that clergy had visited and prayed with the family, but they made it clear that no official exorcism had ever been authorized. Father Nicholas Greco, the diocesan spokesman, told reporters in 1981 that the family refused the psychological evaluations required before the church can approve a formal rite. That statement's on record. According to everyone in that room, the family, the Warrens, and the priests, there were three of these deliverance sessions. And during the last one, something changed. They said David suddenly went quiet, still. Then Arnie, who had been standing beside him, shouted at whatever was inside the boy, telling it to leave David alone and come into him instead. Lorraine claimed she'd warned him not to say that, but he did. And the room, she said, went cold. From that day on, David seemed lighter. He stopped having the fits. But Arnie began to change. He'd zone out mid-conversation, his temper got short, and he told Debbie once that he'd seen something staring at him through a window, something with black eyes and a grin that didn't move. Those moments are only documented in interviews with Debbie years later, but that's what she remembered. The Warrens told the family that Arnie had invited the entity into himself, what they called transference. Lorraine said she even called the Brookfield police afterward to warn them that something terrible was coming. There's a record of her call, though the details of what she said aren't written down. And for a few months, things were calm again. David went back to being a kid. The Warrens moved on to their next case, and life, at least on the surface, went back to normal, and everyone wanted to believe the worst was finally over. But Debbie said she could still see it in Arnie's eyes sometimes, like he was half there, half somewhere else. He'd stare off, tense his jaw, then blink it away like he didn't even notice. She told her mom once, I think it's still with him. A few weeks later, she was right. By February 1981, things in the Glassel and Johnson household had mostly gone quiet, at least on the surface. David was back in school. Debbie and Arnie were still together, still working hard. Arnie had taken a job with Wright Tree Service, trimming branches near power lines. Debbie worked full-time at the Brookfield boarding kennels, managing the office for her boss Alan Bono. Bono was 40, big personality, friendly when sober, but he did like to drink. He lived in a small apartment above the kennel, and he'd often invite Debbie and Arnie upstairs for dinner. Most nights were easy. That's what makes what happened next so strange. It was Monday, February 16th, President's Day. Arnie called in sick that morning. He told his boss he wasn't feeling right and planned to spend the day helping Debbie at the kennel instead. Around noon, they all went out for lunch at a local bar called the Mug and Munch. Witnesses later said Bono ordered wine, read, by the carafe, and drank most of it himself. They came back to the kennel a little after three. At first, everything seemed fine. The radio was on upstairs in Bono's apartment. Then the mood changed. Bono started pacing, turning the volume up, shouting to no one in particular. Debbie's younger sister Wanda and her nine-year-old cousin Mary were there too. Debbie told them it was time to go. As they headed towards the door, Bono suddenly grabbed Mary's wrist and wouldn't let go. She screamed. Debbie tried to pull her free. That's when Arnie stepped in. He told Bono to release the child. There was shouting, loud enough that neighbors later said they heard voices through the open window. And then everything happened at once. Arnie growled, a deep, guttural sound Debbie said she'd never heard from him before. He pulled a pocket knife from his belt, and in a flash, he lunged. When it was over, Bono stumbled outside and collapsed on the ground. He'd been stabbed four or five times, one wound running from his stomach to near his heart. Police later said the blade was roughly five inches long. Arnie didn't run. He walked away into the woods behind the kennel, along the railroad tracks as if he were in a trance. Officers found him about two miles away. He was calm, confused, and didn't resist arrest. At the station, when they told him Bonawood died, he reportedly put his head down, fell silent, and then fell asleep. Brookfield police chief John Anderson called a press conference that night. He said it was the first homicide in the town's 193-year history. That's verified. There were no other recorded murders in Brookfield before 1981. Within 24 hours, the story was everywhere. Not because of the crime itself, but because of what came next. Lorraine Warren called the police and told them that Arnie hadn't acted alone, that the same force they tried to drive out of David Gladsel had taken control of Arnie instead. And soon that single phone call would turn a local tragedy into a national headline. Arnie Johnson was charged with murder the same day he was arrested. He was 19. Bail was set at$125,000, and for weeks, Brookfield couldn't stop talking about it. A homicide was unheard of there. But what really caught people's attention wasn't the killing itself, it was what his lawyers said next. His attorney, Martin Manella out of Waterbury, went straight to the press and told them he planned to argue something no one in American law had ever tried before. That his client wasn't guilty because he'd been possessed by the devil. Manella said he'd call priests. He'd call Ed and Lorraine Warren. He told reporters there were tapes from the Glatzel home, tapes where Arnie could be heard shouting at the spirit, daring it to enter him. He said he'd prove transference wasn't folklore, it was evidence. Those claims never made it to jury, but they made front page news all spring. When the trial opened in Danbury Superior Court on October 28, 1981, Judge Robert J. Callahan shut the door on the supernatural right away. The warrants were there, ready to testify, and the judge let the defense make a brief offer of proof outside the jury's presence. But after hearing it, he ruled their testimony inadmissible, saying it had, quote, no basis in science or law. His exact words from UPI's coverage at the time were, I'm not going to allow the defense of demonic possession in this courtroom. Once that ruling came down, the case turned back into what it had started as a straightforward homicide. Manella pivoted to self-defense. He said Bono was drunk, aggressive, and that Arnie acted to protect Debbie and her little cousin. Prosecutor Walter Flanagan told jurors it was simple. Two men argued, one man pulled a knife, and now one of them was dead. The trial lasted three weeks. Jurors heard from bar employees, kennel workers, police, and medical examiners. They saw the knife, they saw the photos. No one mentioned demons again, at least not inside the courtroom. Outside, though, the press kept calling it the Demon Murder Trial. After three days and 15 hours of deliberation, on November 24, 1981, the jury found Arney guilty, but of first-degree manslaughter, not murder. Judge Callahan sentenced him on December 18th to 10 to 20 years in prison. Arnie served about five years before being released for good behavior. He and Debbie Glanzel got married while he was still behind bars. After his release, they built a quiet life, mostly away from the spotlight. Debbie stayed close with Lorraine Warren until Lorraine's death in 2019. Legally, the case was simple, but to the public, it never would be. Because by then, the headlines had already outgrown the verdict. To most people, it wasn't about manslaughter or sentencing guidelines anymore. It was about a haunting, a possession, and a question nobody could answer cleanly. If a person truly believes they're under the control of something evil, does intent still matter? When the verdict came down, manslaughter, not murder, the courtroom went silent. Arnie Johnson didn't say a word. He just nodded. Debbie sat in the front row, crying but calm. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years, but he only served a little over five. By every account, he was a model inmate. He kept to himself, worked in the prison laundry, and took correspondence classes. Debbie visited every week. They even got married while he was still inside. When Arnie was paroled in 1986, they went back to Connecticut and tried to slip quietly into normal life. But the story didn't fade away with them. It followed. Within a year of the trial, the Warrens helped broker a book deal with author Jared Brittle called The Devil in Connecticut. It told the story entirely from the Warrens and Gladsel family's perspective: a clear case of possession, a heroic boyfriend, and an evil force that jumped from boy to man. The book sold well, too well. When it was re-released in 2006, members of the Gladsel family filed suit against the publisher. They claimed parts of the story were exaggerated, even fabricated without their consent. That lawsuit was later withdrawn, but it reopened an old debate that's followed the Warrens for decades. Were they documenting supernatural events or shaping them into stories that sold? Lorraine Warren never backed down. She said, even late in life, that she believed Arnie had been overtaken by something inhuman that summer, and that she'd called police to warn them something terrible was coming. And that part is true. Brookfield police logs from that week show a call from Lorraine, warning of possible danger. The Catholic Church, though, stayed quiet. The Diocese of Bridgeport stuck to the same line it had always had. Yes, priests prayed and blessed the boy, but no, there was never an official exorcism. They didn't endorse the Warren's findings and they didn't confirm possession. They treated it as a private family matter. After Arnie's release, he and Debbie lived quietly. They gave a few interviews, one for People magazine, another years later for a show called A Haunting on television, but mostly stayed out of the spotlight. Debbie passed away in 2021, just before the latest film based on their story was released. Arnie hasn't spoken publicly since. Lorraine Warren lived until 2019, still giving lectures into her late 80s. She always said the Glassel case was one of the most compelling of her entire career. And even now, more than 40 years later, the case still holds a strange place in American legal history. It's the only time a defense attorney has ever tried to argue not guilty by reason of demonic possession. The court didn't accept it, but the idea never really went away. It's been retold for decades through books, talk shows, documentaries, and eventually, Hollywood. And that's where we'll go next, because the version that made it to the big screen looked very different from the one that happened in Brookfield. When the Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It came out in 2021, it opened with that familiar tagline, based on the true case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. And technically, that's true. It was based on their files. But the story the movie tells, that's something else entirely. In the film, the Warrens are front and center, charging into rooms, performing exorcisms, facing demons head on. It starts with David Glatzel's possession, but it quickly shifts into a supernatural thriller about curses, cults, and a satanic witch hiding in tunnels beneath Connecticut. None of that ever happened. There was no witch, no underground altar, no curse passed through demonic objects. The Warrens never uncovered a satanic cult connected to this case. That was pure Hollywood invention. In real life, the Warrens didn't perform an exorcism at all. The priests who visited David prayed over him, yes, but there was never a sanctioned rite. That's not speculation. It was confirmed by the Diocese of Bridgeport back in 1981. In the movie, though, Ed Warren stands in spotlight commanding the demons to leave the boy's body. Dramatic, cinematic, and completely fabricated. The film also shows Arnie killing Alan Bono while in a trance as the Warrens raced to stop it. In reality, they weren't even in Brookfield that day. They didn't find out until after it happened, when Lorraine saw the news and called police to warn them that she believed possession might be involved. Even the courtroom scenes were rewritten. In the movie, Arney's attorney reluctantly uses demonic possession as a defense, coached by the Warrens. But in truth, Martin Manella, Arnie's lawyer, came up with that strategy on his own after meeting the family. The Warrens didn't testify, and Judge Robert Callahan never allowed possession as a legal argument. It was dismissed before the jury even heard it. And the real Arnie Johnson never described the murder the way the movie does. He didn't claim to remember it in detail. He told police he felt foggy, disoriented, like something had come over him. That's in the official police record. All the rest, the glowing eyes, the levitations, the camera-ready evil. That's fiction. What's interesting though is how the film reshaped the story. In The Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It, it becomes a story about love overcoming darkness, about Arnie's devotion to Debbie saving him from possession. It's romantic, hopeful, almost redemptive. But in the real story, there's no evidence of possession. Just a family trying to make sense of something tragic and terrifying. The movie also paints the Warrens as risking their lives to save Arnie's soul. In truth, they'd already moved on to other investigations long before the trial began. They weren't called to testify, and they had no official role in his defense. Hollywood did what Hollywood always does. It took a quiet, strange Connecticut case and turned it into a spectacle. But the real story is smaller. It's quieter. And somehow, that makes it even stranger. Because in the end, this wasn't a story about demons. It was a story about belief. About what happens when people are so sure something is real that it starts to shape everything around them. For the Gladsel family, that belief tore them apart. For Arnie Johnson, it defined his life. And for the rest of us, it leaves a question that still lingers. How much of what we call evil comes from outside us? And how much do we bring into the dark? Every time I read about this case, I come back to the same thought. No one here was lying. Not exactly. Everyone involved, the Gladstells, the Warrens, Arnie, they were all trying to make sense of something that didn't fit inside the world they knew. If you strip away the headlines and the Hollywood version, what's left is a family under enormous pressure. A little boy who was terrified. A young man who believed he could protect him. And a small town that had no frame of reference for what they were hearing. Maybe there was something dark in that house. Or maybe the darkness was something more familiar. Grief, fear, exhaustion, all amplified until it started to feel like evil. Either way, what happened that year changed every life it touched. What's always struck me is how quickly belief became evidence. Once people decided this was a demonic case, every bruise, every nightmare, every shadow in the corner became proof. That's the part that sticks with me, how fragile the line is between faith and fear, and how fast we cross it when the things we love are on the line. In the end, this story isn't really about devils or demons, it's about people, and the lengths we'll go to convince ourselves that the worst things we do aren't really ours. This has been State of the Unknown, a quiet New England town, a family desperate for help, and a man who claimed the devil made him kill. Maybe it was madness. Maybe it was faith gone too far. Or maybe it was something none of us really understand. The way fear can make its home inside ordinary people and call itself something else. If you've been enjoying State of the Unknown, thank you for listening and sharing these stories with me week after week. The best way to help the show grow is simple. Leave a quick rating or review. On Spotify, it's just a tap. On Apple Podcasts, a few words go a long way. I read every one, and it truly means the world. Next time, we're heading overseas to a story that shook an entire neighborhood and left investigators questioning what they saw, what they heard, and what followed them home. Until then, stay curious. Stay unsettled, and whatever you do, don't invite it in.