SMURL HAUNTING

Opening

In August 1973, Jack and Janet Smurl moved into one half of a double-block house on Chase Street in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. From 1974, they said, the house began to turn on them: bad smells, loud knocking, a dog thrown against a wall, a mattress shaken, a daughter pushed down the stairs, and eventually physical and sexual assaults by something they called a demon.

In 1986 the demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren took the case, the story went national, and a book followed that year. Sceptics led by Paul Kurtz called it a ghost story with an audience. A woman who lived in the house after the Smurls moved out said she never noticed anything at all.

Timeline

August 1973The Smurls move into the Chase Street house.

1974The disturbances begin, according to the family, and continue on and off for years.

1983Jack Smurl has surgery to remove fluid from his brain, after memory loss linked to childhood meningitis. He later tells a reporter about it himself.

1986The Warrens investigate. Ed Warren describes a very powerful demon, a message on a mirror telling him to get out, and audio tapes of knocking. Priests from the Diocese of Scranton bless the house. One who stays two nights reports nothing unusual.

1986The Haunted is published by St. Martin's Press, written by the Smurls and the Warrens with the journalist Robert Curran. A local pastor, Joseph Adonizio, says things are back to normal.

1987Janet Smurl says the family still hears knocking and sees shadows.

1988The Smurls have moved to Wilkes-Barre. Debra Owens moves into the house and later says she never encountered anything supernatural there.

1991A television film, The Haunted, is broadcast, with Jeffrey DeMunn and Sally Kirkland as Jack and Janet.

Key figures

Jack and Janet Smurl are the main witnesses and the source of almost every claim. Jack died in 2017.

Ed and Lorraine Warren brought the case its demonic framing and its national audience.

Robert Curran co-wrote the book. A reviewer called it a one-sided account.

Paul Kurtz, then chair of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, was the leading sceptic. He said the Warrens were not objective and suggested psychological examinations for those involved.

Physical and documentary trail

The trail: the family's accounts, the Warrens' claims, the 1986 book, press coverage, statements from Diocese of Scranton priests, and Kurtz's public response. Ed Warren's audio tapes have not been released for independent analysis in any source I could find. Janet said an unnamed priest performed three exorcisms that did not work, but no church record of them is public.

Things you might not know

• The priests found nothing. Several priests who blessed the house reported no harmful activity while they were there.
• The next tenant slept fine. Debra Owens, who moved in after the Smurls, said she never experienced anything supernatural.
• The book had five authors. The Smurls and the Warrens are credited alongside Curran, which is why critics called it the family's case rather than an investigation.
• Kurtz used strong words. He called the case a hoax, a charade, a ghost story.
• Hollywood came back to it. The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) is loosely based on the Smurl case.

Competing explanations

A demonic haunting. This is the family's and the Warrens' reading. The Smurls held to it for years and described many kinds of event, from smells to assaults.

A family under strain, shaped by investigators. Kurtz's reading. The Warrens brought a ready-made demonic framework, a book deal followed, and the priests and the later tenant saw nothing. This reading does not require anyone to be lying, only that ordinary noises and fears were interpreted through the Warrens' lens.

A deliberate hoax. Kurtz used the word, but no confession or evidence of fakery has ever surfaced.

Later life of the case

The case outlived its witnesses through film. The 1991 television movie and the 2025 Conjuring film have reached far more people than the original book, and both tell the family's version.

Finding

The Smurls reported a long series of frightening events, and they stood by them. What the record shows is that the events were witnessed almost entirely by the family, that independent visitors including priests saw nothing, and that the house went quiet for the next tenant. The best explanation is a real family experience interpreted as demonic by the investigators they called in. The accounts themselves can't be tested.

What still will not resolve: Ed Warren's knocking tapes, which have never been independently analysed, and any church record of the exorcisms Janet Smurl described.