PERRON FARMHOUSE

Opening

In early 1971 Roger and Carolyn Perron moved with their five daughters into an old farmhouse in Harrisville, a village in the town of Burrillville, Rhode Island. Over the roughly ten years they lived there, the family say, the house was full of presences: some harmless, some frightening, one that attached itself to Carolyn. Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators from Connecticut, came to see it.

In 2013 the family's story became the film The Conjuring, which made the house one of the best-known "haunted houses" in the world. Most of what people know about it comes from the film. The record underneath is thinner, and more human.

Timeline

1736 or 1836The farmhouse is built. Sources disagree on the century: the older date is usually given, the newer one appeared in a later sales listing.

Winter 1970 to 1971The Perrons buy the house and move in: Roger, Carolyn and daughters Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy and April.

The 1970sAccording to the family, the activity starts almost at once and continues for years. The Warrens visit and investigate. Carolyn later says she felt targeted by one presence in particular, which the family and the Warrens came to identify as Bathsheba Sherman.

During the Warrens' visitsA séance is held in the house. In the family's account, the table lifts off the floor and drops back, and Carolyn is thrown from her chair and speaks in what they describe as another language. Roger, afraid for her, orders the Warrens to leave. There is no exorcism.

About 1980The Perrons move out.

1987Norma Sutcliffe and Gerald Helfrich buy the house.

2011 onwardAndrea Perron, the eldest daughter, publishes the family's account in a series of books, House of Darkness, House of Light.

19 July 2013The Conjuring, directed by James Wan, opens in the US. It was not filmed at the house.

October 2015Sutcliffe and Helfrich sue Warner Bros. in Rhode Island Superior Court, saying the film brought trespassers and threats to their door, and ask for the cost of a security system and damages. How the case ended has not been clearly reported.

2019Cory and Jennifer Heinzen, paranormal investigators, buy the house and open it for overnight stays.

May 2022The house sells for $1.525 million, well above its $1.2 million asking price, to Jacqueline Nuñez, who says she will keep it open to visitors and investigators.

Key figures

The Perron family are the witnesses. Andrea Perron's books are the fullest account, written decades later. The family appeared in promotion for the film and has kept telling its story publicly.

Ed and Lorraine Warren were the investigators. Their involvement is documented, but their own case material on the Perrons has not been published in full.

Bathsheba Sherman was a real woman who lived in the area in the nineteenth century. The film turns her into a witch who killed her baby and cursed the land. No court record I could find shows she was charged with anything. The family came to believe her presence was the one that targeted Carolyn, but the witchcraft and the murdered baby are not in the historical record.

Physical and documentary trail

The record: the house, the family's testimony, Andrea Perron's books, the Warrens' involvement, the court record of the 2015 lawsuit and the property sales. What is missing is anything recorded at the time: no contemporary press coverage of the haunting has surfaced, no photographs or recordings from the 1970s are in public circulation, and the Warrens' notes are not public. The best-known details from the film, such as clocks stopping at 3:07 and the family dog dying, are the film's, not the family's documented account.

Things you might not know

• The film's house is not this house. The Conjuring was shot in North Carolina.
• The later owners found it quiet. Sutcliffe and Helfrich lived there for decades and became known for saying they had not been troubled by ghosts, only by fans of the film.
• It sold for more than the asking price. $325,000 more, in 2022.
• You can spend the night. Its owners run overnight investigations and tours.

Competing explanations

A real haunting. Seven people describe a decade of experiences, and the family has never retracted. Their account is consistent in its main lines, and they had nothing to gain from it in the 1970s.

An old house, a big family, and memory. An eighteenth or nineteenth-century farmhouse makes noises. A family of seven living in it under financial strain can come to experience it as alive, especially once investigators arrive who expect it to be. Accounts written forty years on are shaped by everything that came after, including the film.

The film's version. Bathsheba as a witch who killed her child, and a possession ended by an exorcism. The family's account includes a frightening séance but no exorcism, and the historical record has nothing on witchcraft.

Later life of the case

The Conjuring started a film series that includes the Annabelle films. For the Warrens' other famous case, see Amityville, and for the doll, Annabelle.

Finding

The Perrons lived in the house and have described what happened to them consistently for half a century. Their experiences can't be tested now, and the record from the time is close to empty. The film's story of a witch's curse has no support in the history, even though the family came to believe Bathsheba's presence in the house was real.

What still will not resolve: what the Warrens recorded in the house in the 1970s, since their files have never been opened.