The REAL Case That The Conjuring: Last Rites is Based On

The Conjuring universe has ended with a case that famously forced the real-life characters, Ed and Loraine Warren, into retirement. The film itself is what it is – a late summer popcorn horror flick with jump scares and hauntings galore. However, the REAL case is much more complex and has significant ties to the Warrens’ first case. In today’s episode, we look at the facts and discover what REALLY happened in this fateful story. Let’s get into it.

1972, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania—Jack and Janet Smurl (a middle-class family of 6) are devastated by a massive hurricane. The hurricane left their entire family and community displaced and seeking reliable shelter. The town was flooded with 16 inches of rain, destroying homes and businesses.
Jack Smurl, a retired Navy veteran, moved his wayward family to West Patton, PA, to start over. Not knowing that the hurricane that took their home would eventually become the catalyst for a world of shock and horror. This is not just for Jack and Janet Smurl and their four daughters, Dawn, Heather, Carin, and Shannon, but also for Jack’s parents, who lived with them in the house.

For years, the Smurl family lived in this double-block home with eight residents, and each person would experience small paranormal mishaps from the early days of living there. At first, nothing that required paranormal intervention- Doors closing shut on their own, toilets mysteriously flushing in the middle of the night, even strange noises and bizarre nightmares would occasionally haunt the family members.

The thing to remember is that this all started in the early 1970s, when things like this were more difficult to investigate and debunk with the technology available at the time, so nobody really felt the need to try to explain it. A huge family of 8 living under one roof meant that strange noises and goings on could have easily been explained away with logic and reason—until…

Fast-forward to around 1982-1983. The kids are getting older, Jack and Janet have built up a new life from the soggy remains of their old one, and the family has seemingly moved on. Jack is working a high-profile job for the state, and everyone seems happy—minus some hauntings that are seemingly getting harder and harder to explain as the happiness around the new house gets more and more bizarre.

What started as doors opening and closing on their own became night terrors, with Janet unsure in some cases what’s real and what’s a nightmare. This went on for years, not just for Jack and Janet but also for the kids.

It’s 1986 now, and Jack Smurl has had enough. The “demons” he believes to be in his home are now assaulting the family with blatant hauntings. Even going as far as(according to Jack Smurl in a 1986 public statement with Times Leader) as to sexually assault him on more than one occasion AND physically harm members of his family by “tossing one of his daughters down the stairs, and their dog against a wall.” This, coupled with a horrible stench coming from the home, and inexplicable animal grunts keeping them up at night, led Jack and Janet Smurl to call on none other than Ed and Loraine Warren to come to their Pennsylvania home and check things out for themselves. This was only after hiring a priest from Connecticut who attempted three exorcisms in the house that, by his own admission, were found to be “unsuccessful”. All in hopes of figuring out what’s going on, but most importantly, solving it- for good.

Now, would it surprise you if I said that Ed and Loraine Warren immediately deemed this case to be fully legit, and even somewhat personal to them in a way that we will get into later? But just remember this- this may be the Smurl family’s haunting, but Ed and Loraine DO have a dog in this fight.

They begin their vetting process, testing objects, attempting to contact the demons, and looking for clues about what they might be up against.
Loraine Warren – a self-proclaimed clairvoyant with the ability to communicate with the dead and paranormal, even notices that the ghosts she’s searching for seem to know her already.

Around August ’86, the Warrens and the Smurls went public with their story. Siting demonic hauntings and otherworldly evil as “plaguing their home”. This sends the media into an absolute field day. Some find the story to be a tried and true haunting of epic proportions, and some are more skeptical of the claims, thinking they’re nothing more than fantasy for the sake of media attention. The latter party includes the likes of Paul Kurtz, a scientist who specializes in debunking claims of the paranormal. In a press interview in 1986, he was asked about his thoughts on this case as it was sweeping the nation in a frenzy of newspapers and TV. Kurtz called the Smurls’ case and the Warrens’ involvement in it a “hoax” and “A ghost story” and even went as far as to suggest that the Smurls were mentally unstable and were experiencing some form of mass hysteria, with the whole family buying into it.

Some true believers would criticize Kurtz’s staunch belief as undue judgment, stating that it would be nearly impossible for the entire family to experience the same hallucinations and mania without an external force causing it. It didn’t seem to make sense that every family member was recalling these events the same way if it were truly a case of something mentally wrong.

This left the public with questions, though. If it WAS a hoax, why? If it was real, but not something paranormal, who was assaulting Jack and the kids? And how could they not know?

Ed Warren told the Times Tribune in a 1986 interview, “We’re dealing with an intelligence here. It’s powerful, intangible, and very dangerous.”

He knew this from supposedly witnessing a bed and nightstand levitate on their own while investigating the home, and noticing a significant temperature drop of “at least 30 degrees” when entering the house. Loraine’s understanding of what they’re up against seemed to be getting more certain. She believed they were up against a powerful, clever, and incredibly evil demonic force that reminded her of their first case decades earlier. A case that still haunted her.

The media attention swelled, and by 1987, the Smurl Family was being swarmed by dozens (sometimes nearly 100) reporters on their property nearly every day—some who believed, and some who didn’t.

This level of public interest and attention made the Smurls somewhat national figures and indeed local celebrities. They even caught the attention of Jason Miller, a known actor who played Father Damien in the film The Exorcist. Miller reached out to the family, and they offered to have him visit them after he explained his interest in the case.

Jason Miller is one of multiple actors from the set of 1973’s The Exorcist who believe that the making of the film itself may have conjured up some demons and ancient evil. This guy was bought all the way into this stuff. And he was a native Pennsylvanian who felt personally connected to this haunting.

Miller concluded that the family was clearly distressed by something, although he didn’t fully believe it was a haunting situation. And by this point, the Warrens were no closer to resolving the case. Loraine is growing increasingly aware that they’re up against something they can’t beat. Something that knew the Warrens, in its own way, haunted them as well. The “demon” was believed by the Warrens to be the same one they faced in their very first case and couldn’t defeat.

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