August 4, 2021 • 41 mins
Known as one of the most infamous haunts in America, this unassuming farmhouse in Burrilville, Rhode Island is most often referred to as "The Conjuring House." This in depth episode dispels a lot of the lore surrounding the home, but raises even more questions about who could possibly be haunting it and whether or not it's safe.
Special guests: Jen and Cory Heinzen.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
In the summer of I was sitting around a pleasant
(00:23):
dining table in a beautiful old home in Rhode Island,
watching a family reminisce about what it was like to
grow up there. They spoke of all the birthday parties
and holidays they had. They talked about where their rooms
were and where they put the Christmas tree every year.
In that moment, the room was filled with laughter and joy,
and you would never look at these folks and think
(00:43):
anything traumatic had happened to them there. That was until
one of the women who spent her childhood in the
home softly touched my arm and whispered in my ear.
I forgot to tell you something, Yes, I replied, smiling.
She said, I forgot to tell you that every night
I would go to bed and hear this in my ear,
(01:04):
seven soldiers in the wall, seven soldiers in the wall,
seven soldiers in the wall, seven soldiers in the wall.
She then proceeded to whisper a harsh stream of sounds
and gibberish in my ear that was absolutely terrifying. She
rocked back and looked at me with tears in her eyes.
At some point during this moment of merriment, this sweet
woman walked outside and got into the car and waited
(01:26):
for her family. She declared that this would be the
last time she would ever set foot in that house.
I'm Amy Bruney and this is Haunted Road on six
(01:50):
seventy seven Roundtop Road in Burrowville, Rhode Island. There's a
plot of land that seems much too small to hold
all the contention and controversy surrounding it. Some folks refer
to the house as being in Harrisville, which is also correct.
Harrisville is a small town known for its historic homes,
but it's part of the larger Burrowville. The house has
(02:11):
been called the Old Arnold Estate, the Sutcliffe House, the
Old Brook Farm, the Dexter Richardson House, the Harrisville farm House,
the Farm on Roundtop Road, and most notoriously, the Conjuring House.
People can't really settle on when the farm house came
into existence. Having personally been in the town Clerk's office
(02:31):
and after pulling the deeds myself, they go back incredibly far.
But it's not quite clear when the house in its
current form took shape. Some say seventeen thirty six, others
say eighteen thirty six. Having been in the home numerous
times in being pretty familiar with New England historic houses,
my best guess is sometime in the seventeen hundreds. But
(02:52):
the house fell into the hands of the parent family
in nineteen seventy. They purchased it, along with two hundred
acres from a gentleman named Mr Kenyon. Mr Kenyon had
lived in the home for two decades and had no
reason to warn the family of the incredible paranormal trauma
they were about to experience, because in his twenty years
there he never claimed to experience anything strange. Now, don't
(03:15):
let that dissuade you from what the parents claim to
have gone through. I've been on plenty of cases where
one family has nothing happened in a home, only to
have the next family move into a paranormal hotbed. I
firmly believe some people either bring that energy with them
or feed that sometimes long dormant energy into manifesting. The
parent family consisted of parents Caroline and Roger parent and
(03:39):
their children Andrea, Nancy, Christine Cindy and April. Andrea has
been the most willing to engage the public about the
family's experiences in the home, and has written three books
on the subject. I know Andrea personally, and she is
one of the most warm and incredible people you could meet.
She's very passionate about what on in that farm, and
(04:01):
she also has some pretty amazing UFO stories, but those
are for another day. The family claims that paranormal activity
began just minutes after arriving. At first, it was just
piles of dust or other things moving around on their own.
It escalated to terrible smells, mysterious failures of the heating system,
(04:21):
and objects thrown in glass shattered. They also reported that
their beds would shake every morning at five AM. That's
not an alarm clock, I want to wake up too.
In nineteen seventy three, the parents invited famed paranormal investigators
Ed and Lorraine Warren into their home. Members of the
Catholic Church, Ed was a paranormal investigator and self taught demonologist,
(04:45):
and Lorraine professed to be a clairvoyant and light worker.
Together they formed the New England Society for Psychic Research
in nineteen fifty two if you're wondering if the experiences
in the home or anything like the Conjuring film. When
being inner View to promote the film, Lorraine attested to
the clock stopping at three oh seven am, birds flying
(05:05):
into windows, and the family dog being found dead in
the yard after it refused to go inside the house. However,
the exorcism included in the film did not take place,
though Lorreene did hold a seance during which Caroline began
speaking in tongues, and along with the chair, she was
seated and floated into the air before being thrown. It
(05:26):
was at that point the Warrens were asked to leave,
Andrea tells me there was even a bit of a
physical altercation between Ed and Roger following the seance as well.
The parents could simply not afford to leave the home,
so did not do so until nineteen eighty. In the meantime,
the two acre lot was reduced to eight acres when
the parents were forced to sell land to pay for
(05:48):
flooding that occurred in their place of business. Eventually, Norma
and Jerry Sutcliffe purchased the home and it remained with
the Sutcliffs until twenty nineteen, though Jerry passed in seen. Initially,
Norma and Jerry claimed there were paranormal happenings in the house,
even calling in the TV show ghost Hunters, which I
used to be on, but this was before my time
(06:10):
to investigate. In two thousand five, they said they experienced
banging doors, voices chatting in the other room, footsteps leading
to the opening of a door, chairs that vibrated, a
fog inside the home, and once they saw a blue
light flash across their bedroom. But since the Conjuring movie
was released in ten, Norma has been dedicated to downplaying
(06:33):
and denying any claims of the paranormal within the house.
It could be because of how disruptive the constant stream
of people driving by the home or trying to actually
break into the property became once the movie was released,
or some claim it's because the Sutcliffs never received any
compensation from the production of the film. None of the
filming happened on the property, by the way, all I
(06:54):
know is when we filmed an episode of Kindred Spirits
there in twenty nineteen, after Norma had sold the property
to the most recent owners, Norma showed up in the
driveway extremely upset. Still defensive of the home she had
sold months before, and before she had any knowledge of
who we were or how we operate. I'm sure she
has years of pent up frustration with all the court proceedings,
(07:16):
et cetera, and hopefully by now she has seen that
the current owners aren't about misinformation now. Despite whether or
not the Sutcliffs experienced anything paranormal in the home, Norma
did operate a daycare there for twenty years. I'd like
to think she wouldn't have done so if she thought
anything there was dangerous. Norma sold the home to Corey
(07:36):
and Jennifer Heinesen, paranormal investigators and friends of mine, who
we will be interviewing in a little bit. They bought
the home in the summer of twenty nineteen and immediately
began investigating. They've had a slew of activity since they
moved in, so much so that their teenage son is
reluctant to stay there alone. Before you decide to pop
(07:57):
by the home yourself, know that the Heinzen's have ad
on her more security cameras running on the property. Watching
those cameras really puts into perspective just how many people
drive by that house and how many people actually have
the audacity to walk onto the property or try the
front door. This is a residence, folks. The great news
(08:18):
is the Hinzens have the full confidence of the remaining
parent family members. We even brought them back to the
property for our episode of Kindred Spirits we filmed there.
It was surreal walking the grounds with them that first day.
But I'll never forget walking with Cindy, who I spoke
of in the intro to the show. She really seemed
to be the most affected. She was relating to me
(08:40):
some memories of them as children playing in the yard,
and I told her that my own daughter had been
there earlier in the day to visit on our lunch break,
and she had loved running around the grounds and exploring
the little maze of rooms inside the house. Cindy was
still looking in the distance when she mat her of
factly said that's wonderful, but this is no place for
(09:01):
children and walked away from me. After the break, let's
discuss who we think is haunting the farmhouse, and we'll
also dispel some historical myths long associated with the home,
and later on we'll talk to Corey and Jen Hinzen,
the current owners of the house and talk about a
new theory they have developed on who could be causing
the haunting. Now, as far as desk go at the house,
(09:33):
there are a few that have been documented. In nineteen
o one, a Jarvis Smith died of exposure on the property.
Jarvis had been tried and acquitted of a murder in
eighteen nine, which may or may not be relevant, but
was apparently his claim to fame. In nineteen o three,
Edwin Arnold was walking home from an event back to
(09:55):
the house where he lived at the time, and decided
to take a short cut and disappeared. He disappeared on
October and was not found until Saturday, December seven, a
full seven weeks later. A hunter found the remains leaning
against a stone wall, as though he laid down to
rest and just never resumed his journey. There is a
(10:17):
claim that there are a lot of suicides nearby. While
I don't have numbers of suicides versus population, I can
say that as I looked through newspapers trying to find
relevant occurrences nearby that could lead to a haunting, there
definitely were more articles about folks taking their own lives
than on any case I've researched enough that I mentioned
it to Adam. I was not aware this was something
(10:39):
that was brought up about the property at the time.
There is a little book called the Black Book that
records all sorts of unusual deaths in the area. Many
historical areas have these. That's also probably where the parents
and others got the idea for strange deaths nearby. Now,
Bathsheba Sherman. That's a name anyone who has seen the
(11:00):
original Conjuring movie is extremely familiar with. Unfortunately, just about
everything you've heard about her is completely untrue. Bathsheba was
the wife of a farmer whose land adjoined the original
plot of land that is now where the house sits.
We're not sure exactly how her name became mixed up
in the lore of the house. Originally, some say Lorraine
(11:22):
Warren said the name during her time investigating the house.
Others claim Caroline Parrin found the name in historic records somewhere. Regardless,
at some point in recent history, people began declaring that
Bathsheba had been a witch. They even went so far
as to say that she murdered an infant. In reality,
Bathsheba died in eighty five and was buried beside her
(11:44):
first husband in a nearby cemetery. The burial was presided
over by a reverend, which is hardly something that would
have happened if she was an accused witch and child murderer.
Nowhere in history is her name associated with any of
the rumors about her. And I can tell you the
history of Burrowville is pretty well documented. I poured through
old newspapers myself. You couldn't even visit a neighbor up
(12:07):
the road without it being reported in the local paper.
To this day, the local historical society has fought against
this misinformation about Bathsheba. Her gravestone has been desecrated and
knocked over so many times they have now removed it
and put it in a safe location. Even Andrea Parent
has declared that the information passed around about Sherman is
(12:28):
completely inaccurate, yet the damage has been done. It's the
perfect example of why in the world of paranormal investigation,
you've got to get your historical facts as straight as
you can. Ghosts may be hard to prove the existence of,
but history is not now, believe it or not, This
was actually a very high level overview of the history
(12:48):
of the farmhouse. I think it's best if we have
a little chat with the new owners and get an
idea of the activity level there. Now, coming up, we'll
talk to Corey and jen Hinzen parent them investigators, friends
of mine and the most recent owners of the farm. Alright,
(13:10):
so I am now joined by Corey and Jennifer Heinzen,
who are the very brave couple who actually purchased the farmhouse,
and they're here to tell us their story and tell
us what's going on there now. So welcome guys, Thank
you for having us, Thank you for having us. Full disclosure.
When we were setting up this interview, we had to
(13:31):
reschedule at a number of times because something was always
going wrong. And I told Corey I blamed the house,
and he said, everyone blames the house. They do. It
seems to be the default answer. So I mean it
makes sense, I guess. I mean, if I lived in
the do you guys call it the farmhouse, the conjuring house?
What do you refer to it as whatever? We won't
(13:53):
get sued before. I guess we usually just refer to
it as the farm, the farm. Okay, Well, I feel
like if I had bought the farm, I too would
just blame everything on it. I think you haven't out
for life at this point. So true, very true. So
can you just kind of tell us how you came
(14:14):
to own the house and why would you buy such
a place? Honestly, it was a Facebook post at like
four o'clock in the morning that I came across. It
was in a random uh I t C group that
I was a member of at the time, and it
was the first post in a while, and I was
just like, well, that's kind of funny. And we had
(14:36):
friends down in this area that actually knew the owner
and got us in touch with the realtor, and the
realtor said, yes, in fact, she was going to be
putting it up for sale, and she didn't want to
put it on the market because there were certain people
that she didn't want to have bidding on it and
stuff like that. So they actually had us sit down
with her. We were sitting down with the owner before
(14:58):
we were even sitting down with the realtor and getting
tours of the house and stuff, and basically it was
like for sale by owner, if you will. That's interesting,
And so what was the talk like between you two
when you made this decision to buy the house. What
have your plans been for it? We planned to move in.
I mean it was like kind of a family decision.
(15:19):
We were going to move in. It would have been
Jen and I and our son Tyler. He would have
been starting his junior year of high school. Yeah, Maddie
was in Maine in college. You know. He thought he
would be like the king of the high school. Yeah,
the cool kid. Yeah, the cool kid. And he ended
up having an incident, and it just I guess I
kind of overlooked it because him being an investigator with us. Yeah,
(15:44):
he'd been doing it for a long time. It's not
like none of this was brand new to him. Yeah,
but I guess being totally immersed and it would be
a different story. Yeah, And he just kind of tapped
out and he's like, I can't do it, and injury
gave him a walk through the house is well, And
I think watching the emotion on her face and everything
that she went through tapped into the reality of living
(16:07):
here would be totally different than investigating a location, right,
that makes sense. It's one thing to go into a place,
you know, for a night or two and investigate, but
she gets to leave doing nothing follows you home, but
you know, it's totally different to kind of move into
one of the most notoriously haunted homes in the world, really,
(16:28):
and so I could see that being tough. So is
he going back and forth between Maine or is he's
living there now or he's still up in Maine. It
took him a long time before he'd come back here,
and then when he finally did come back, he would
travel here and there, not as much as we did.
But then once COVID hit, it was too hard for
him to travel with other regulations and work in school,
(16:48):
and so he's not here as often as we are.
But I think he kind of likes it that way.
I think he's okay with that. So what was the
breaking point for him? What happened to him? He um,
we were sleeping in one of the rooms. We slept
in two main rooms for like the first four months
that we were down here, kind of getting a field
(17:09):
for the place and letting the spirits get used to us.
Everybody thinks we're crazy, but that's just how we did it.
And he was sleeping in the room with us, sleeping
in between Jen and I, and he said he heard
footsteps coming down the stairway, and he said he ended
up seeing this black mist, and like the way he
described it, I know for a fact he saw it
because my friend and I witnessed the same thing a
(17:32):
few weeks prior, and he didn't mention it to us
until later on. Yeah. It was the weekend of the
para con here on Rhode Island and he was supposed
to be here with us for the entire weekend. And
after the first night he left before his sister was
driving from New York back up towards Maine, and he
asked her to stop in and pick him up and
(17:53):
bring him back up to Maine with her. So we
didn't really know why. He just kind of said he
was ready to go home. He didn't tell us why. Yeah,
oh that's right. Yeah, I remember that weekend because I
think that's when you first came up to me and
you were like, guess what we did. Yeah, it was
still new to us. We've only been here for a
(18:13):
couple of weeks. Three weeks, three weeks. Yeah, So Andrea
was here that weekend as well, and she's the one
that walked him through the house. I think everything just
hit him all at once that weekend and seeing visually
seeing that black mass himself, was that was it for him? Well?
I also think that for our episode of Kindred, we
brought the parents back into the house as many of
(18:34):
them as we could, you know, some of them had
passed on, and it was it really did something to
the energy in the house. And so I could almost
see having Andrea back for the first time and so
long could have definitely caused a shift that would, you know,
kind of wake something up. Do you think that probably
(18:54):
was part of it? I think it was part of it. Yeah, Okay, Well,
so what's going on in the house currently, what's the
activity level? Like, I mean, the teams that have been
coming in have been getting some extraordinary stuff. For us,
it's just it's normal stuff. It's like, if you see it,
you see it. If not, you don't. You know, the
(19:15):
teams event just getting some phenomenal catches. But for us,
like I think the last time we had something happens
when the door opened as we were watching TV. We
just had and watched it open. It's like, if you
want to come in watch TV, come and watch me.
That's fine. It's just you know, it's it is what
it is. You just kind of get used to it.
So you guys, basically at this point, do you teams
(19:37):
rented out for the night or how do you work
that you have a lot of investigators coming in and out.
I see them posting quite often. Yet we were doing
overnight investigations where we do allow teams to come in
as a group and investigate overnight. We have a lot
of people reaching out trying to do day tours, but
we COVID it's so hard to regulate. Like the teams
(19:57):
that come in at night, they booked together, they stay together,
they already know each other, they've already been exposed to
each other, so that no strangers are being next. But
most weekends we have people here they are investigating and
yeah we just knew Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Yeah, that
makes sense. And do you kind of give them a
little rundown beforehand of things that are off limits or
(20:18):
do you feel like everyone's been mostly respectful? Oh? Absolutely,
you know. We we tell them, you know, treat our
house as you'd want your house treated, because regardless of
what you think, we we have to deal with the
consequences of whatever you do during your time here. So
no seances, no trying to cross over. Spirits and stuff
like that can't come in here under the influence of
(20:40):
alcohol and drugs, and we do keep an eye on
them with the cameras and stuff like that. If we
see something stupid going on, which surprisal we never have
would put the nicks on that real quick. So I mean,
ultimately you're the one that has to live with whatever
happens there. Overall, the paranormal community has kind of made
a shift in the last few years to being a
(21:00):
lot more respectful. I know when I first started investigating,
and Corey you know too, because Coria a long time
ago help me with events up in New Hampshire, and
you can attest to you know, when people investigate for
the first time or they get into groups, they get
very excited and sometimes they have this inclination to start
provoking and getting rough to get spirits agitated. Have you
(21:22):
had any indication and all these investigations going on, have
you had any indication or clues as to who you
think is haunting the farm? Oh? God, we still don't.
Like we still get multiple names. I mean, I guess
we could say we we know for sure that there's
at least a man. Yeah, there's a man that he's
(21:43):
very very prevalent when we have all female teams here,
and from what some of the psychics on the teams
have described him as is like a just a giant
man like Quaker outfit, and he gives the all female
teams a hard time kind of like because he's very
very proper, like where's the men? Why am I talking
to females kind of thing, And that's really the only
(22:08):
one we've really noticed. Yeah, I mean, I'm eager to
kind of get back there at some point because I know,
you know, we kind of finished up our investigation with Kindred.
I felt went really well. I felt like we've provided
a lot of closure for the parents, which was pretty great.
But I always go back to, like I think of
Edwin Arnold a lot, just because he was walking home
(22:28):
to his family and then died and it wasn't found
for weeks, and that to me is like that's kind
of a classic spirit. I feel like that would come
back to the house like never made it home, was
found seven weeks later, leaning up against the fence, like
he just kind of sat down to rest and didn't
wake up. I just I don't know, there's something about
(22:48):
that death to me, that resonates and I'm so curious
if it's him. No, I mean it most definitely could be.
I mean, you're right, circumstances like that, that's what you
look for. There's all with the Crooked Neck woman. A
lot of people have said it was Susan Arnold, but
it's the wrong Susan Arnold, because there was a John
and Susan Arnold that lived here, and then there's a
(23:09):
John and Susan Arnold lived in Uxbridge. She was the
one that hung herself. She gets associated with the property,
Crooked Neck and stuff like that. Well, there's actually something
came out recently in the news that there was a
giant that had been on earth near this property, and
a lot of people are saying that's actually what it
(23:30):
is that we're seeing is just a giant person trying
to fit through the hallways of this house. That is
so interesting. I had no idea you're gonna have to
send me that info because that makes complete sense. Yeah,
because when we were investigating for Kindred and you guys
pointed out to us too, like so the previous owner
had a daycare center in the holm for twenty years,
(23:53):
which I'd like to think if she thought it was dangerous,
she probably wouldn't have done that. But we found these
drawings that the kids drew of an actual woman or
person with their neck crooked, and it reminded me so
much of the Haunting of Hill House, you know, and
it was really bizarre. And it's just these multiple drawings
(24:13):
of this kind of crooked neck person, which is so strange.
It's interesting. No, it's definitely makes you scratch your head. Yeah,
you're like, where who draws that? Especially? This was pree
Haunting of Hill House. Obviously this was years ago. So
what do you think has been the craziest experience you
guys have had since you purchased the house? I would
(24:35):
probably say still to the day. Is the shadow figure
that we saw, So that's the one that you had
seen before your son saw the miss. I think he
saw the miss first. Well, that was probably a few
weeks before. Like this was like a full bodied shadow figure,
like well defined, and Jen and I saw both at
(24:57):
the same time, which made it even more awesome because
usually like it's a personal experience because we didn't catch
it on camera. Was this during an investigation or was
this just in the middle of the day or when
did this happen? It was actually at night. We're both
sleeping on the same cot for some reason, I don't
know why, but she was restless. She woke me up,
just moving around and I woke up and it was
(25:19):
actually I think it was the first night that we
had left the door open into the adjoining room. Yes,
it was the first night that we left the door open.
And because for some reason we would think, you know,
closing the door, we keep ghosts out closing and locking it. Yeah,
it's just like when you as long as your feet
and hands are under the blanket, nothing bad can happen
(25:41):
to you, exactly. But I woke up and I just
see this thing looking around the corner of the doorway
looking at us. And I didn't freak out because I
had seen shadow figures before, but just not as well
defined as this. And I'm like, okay, i know what
i'm seeing. I know I'm awake, and I'm not saying anything.
And then Jen was the one that's like, tell me
(26:03):
you're seeing this, and she said it out loud, and
as she talked, it scurried out of the way real fast,
and I'm like, yeah, that was a shadow figure and
we just high fived each other, were like, that was
so awesome. It wasn't like we were freaking out or
it was upset and we didn't catch it on camera, right,
but it was still cool that we both started at
the same time. You guys are definitely paranormal investigators because
(26:24):
most people would have run screaming from the home and
would never return. I love ire. Like we high fived.
It was cool. We went back to sleep. It was great.
That was nice. I mean it, honest to God, just
didn't give us like a scary feeling. It didn't the
house doesn't give us a bad vibe. Yeah, having been
in their multiple days, I definitely do not get a
(26:47):
bad vibe from the house until I get into the basement.
Like there's just a very different feeling down there. And
I don't know if that's just because it really is
like a textbook spooky New England basement or if there
is actually something else down there. How do you guys
feel about the basement. It's been weird, like it's hit
or miss. Sometimes sometimes you'll go down there and like,
(27:08):
I won't feel anything. Then sometimes you go down it's
a little bit of a heavy feeling but still at
the same time, it's not the typical heavy feeling you
would associate with something that's malevolent or something, you know,
if that makes sense. It's just, you know, there's something there.
You're kind of tapping into that sensitivity thing, and it's
still it's making you aware that it's there. And it's like,
(27:30):
we just started upkeep of the house maintenance. Thank you
and everything that we've done. Everybody that was here working
with us, I was like, look, before you swing a hammer,
before you do anything, you explain to these spirits what
you're doing. I don't care how stupid you feel. That's
just being respectful. And we haven't had no problems. I'm
(27:54):
sure those contractors are like, this is new, this is
a new instruction. But you know, actually, I've never heard
of someone kind of instructing people beforehand to kind of
like talk the spirits through a renovation or and I
think that might be a good idea for people who
think their house might be on it, like actually show
them what you're doing and why, because that tends to
(28:17):
really stir up activities. So I bet you guys were
concerned about that, right, Oh, absolutely. I mean a lot
of the residential cases I dealt with, Like back when
I was on a team, it was always seemed to
revolve around renovations and things like that. So it was like,
just let them know we're doing this because you know,
the house has been here almost three hundred years. We
wanted here for another three hundred years. It's just fixing
(28:40):
it up a bit. You know, we're not making any changes,
just reinforce and stuff. I mean, it's a beautiful house
and the property is beautiful, and like, obviously I felt safe.
I brought my daughter there when we were filming. You know,
one of the nice things when we're local because I
live in Rhode Island, is that I can bring the
babysitter and my daughter out for dinner or something for
our dinner break. And so Charlotte loved it, Like I remember,
(29:01):
I have a picture of her just running on the
lawn and she felt very comfortable there and very safe.
And so it's just so interesting that you have this
house with this kind of crazy reputation, but then you
can sit there on the porch in the summer and
just feel completely at ease. Have you had any people
come in who felt otherwise, like any of the teams
(29:22):
or anything. Has anybody had to leave or anybody felt
like something bad happened to them there. Yeah, we've had
multiple teams that can't stay overnight. The majority of them
that can't stay are psychic mediums that feel like they're
personally being attacked or targeted. Targeted, I should say, not
necessarily attacked, because nobody's ever I don't believe anybody's ever
(29:43):
felt attacked, but they feel like whatever is here knows
that their psychic mediums and they're just being picked on.
I think a lot of people come here just too
overwhelmed with the movie Yeah, and they're like, oh my god,
you know, we're walking into walking into hell. And we
explained to him it's not that at all. I'm like,
(30:03):
it's a classic haunting. It's intelligent. You know. You treat
them with respect and you're going to get the same
in return. We haven't had anything say otherwise, right, although
at the same time, we've had multiple people tell us
to be aware that it's drawing us in, it's making
us feel comfortable, So we always have that in the
back of our mind. We know enough paranormal people that
(30:26):
we do have people that look out for us, that
watch our movements that watch our body language. That can
you know, tell if we're acting funny. Yeah, I wonder
if whatever is there maybe has a distrust for mediums
or something, just because I mean, Lorraine Warren was really
kind of the catalyst for the whole Bathsheba Sherman story beginning. However,
(30:48):
well meaning they may have been or wherever that came from.
You know, I don't ever want to say that someone
did something purposefully. I don't think anybody spread that story
on purpose, you know, in a negative way, But it happened,
and I won or if they are very aware of
everything that went on in the house kind of with
Edan Lorraine. And so now when someone comes in and
says their psychic, the energy there automatically kind of recoils
(31:10):
or goes on guard kind of do you think that
could be a possibility. It could definitely be a possibility.
I mean, the problem is the whole reason we're here
is because and Lorraine Warren we're here. Something definitely did
happen here. You had Pyro, which was Keith and Carl
Johnson's team. They called in the Warrens. The Warrens came in,
they witnessed things and for us to sit there and say, well,
(31:35):
I don't believe that happened. That's kind of foolish because
unless you have there to personally experience something, how can
you tell somebody what their experience. And I saw it
in the parents eyes when they came with the show
with Kindred, they went through something absolutely like, I definitely think,
you know, something definitely happened there. I felt like Cindy
(31:56):
in particular, was having this kind of throwback moment when
she was there where she was shaking. She didn't even
like she couldn't wait to get out of here. She
ended up just going and waiting in the car and
was like, I'm done never coming back here. So I
think that there was definitely something there happening. And I
wonder if the parents energy. They have a really great
(32:17):
energy about them, especially Andrew, Like she walks in the
room and you can just feel her presence. There's a
reason why that woman everywhere she goes people just end
up hugging her and confiding every bit of their being
to her, Like she's just this very warm energy. There's
something about her and them, you know. Obviously like Bathsheba
(32:38):
was not in that house, and I think that was
the biggest story that came from that, regardless of what happened.
And so I'm just wondering if maybe the spirits are
kind of weird. I can't imagine what the energy was
like in the house, like you have the parents and
the warrants together. I wish I could be a fly
on the wall of what that was like. Like that
is like a perfect storm of energy, you know, and
(33:00):
then whatever spirits are, they're reacting like that must have
just been the most tumultuous moment for that house. I
could see the house almost being scarred from it. If
that makes sense. Yeah, no, it makes sense too. It's
interesting to look back and look at the different dynamics
and look at the different situations and what we know
(33:21):
now compared to what we knew then, and and I
think that's one of the greatest things you guys are doing,
is that you're saying the house has spirits, that it
is haunted, and you're very cautious about it, but you're
also working hard to kind of figure out why, getting
the history right and everything. And I know the Historical
Society watched the episode with us at the home and
they were really thrilled. And I think that is such
(33:43):
an important message for the field in general, Like just
because you're correcting history doesn't mean a place isn't haunted.
It's important to at least get that part right as
much as we can. And I think we're so lucky
right now too, because we have so many resources that
I know, when I first started investigating, we did not have.
(34:03):
I remember just going into the town clerk's office in
your town and just going back through those deeds all
the way to where I couldn't even read them anymore
because they were like old English cursive. Yes, we've seen that,
and I have a hard time deciphering. Yeah. So that's
a great message, and I think it's really awesome of
you guys to open the house up the way you have.
(34:25):
I feel like some people might look at that like
you're trying to make up business out of it or something,
but I think that there's a way to do it respectfully.
And so how how are you guys kind of navigating that?
It's really hard because if you want to consider it
like supply and demand, especially with the new movie coming out,
people like I don't really say demanding dates, but we're
(34:48):
just always constantly getting emails it's like wanting to book this,
wanting the book, that people wanting to have weddings here,
and it's like, uh, definitely, don't want to turn it
into a circus. And that's what we've said from day one.
And we love that there are so many people interested
in it, but it honestly has been really hard to
(35:08):
try and navigate the two to be able to let
people in and the right people in and the people
that want to be here for the right reasons, and
to not go overboard and be like, Okay, this is
way too overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, I said earlier before
I started interview, you guys kind of reminded the audience
that it's a residence. It's a house, people live there.
You know. When I was there, you guys have multiple
(35:30):
security cameras up, and I remember on breaks we would
just sit and just watch car after car just pull
up and people almost feeling like they have every right
to just walk up to your door. I mean, I
know that our crew had to stop multiple people, and
it's so strange to me, like that people actually feel
(35:52):
like they can just roll on up. And I think
actually at one point I just walked right in and
we were like, Hi, we're working here and this is
a house, but it has that reputation. What is that like?
Living around that? Most days aren't too too bad. I
feel like most people have been pretty respectful, but we
definitely find from right now until fall time is the
(36:13):
worst and people. I don't know why, but for the
last probably two three weeks, maybe it's because the trailer
for the new movie, people are pulling onto the property
all the time. Now, last night we had somebody pull
into the end of the driveway at what twelve thirty
this morning, and they were parked out there for like
a good fifteen minutes before Corey went out there. Last
(36:35):
night was the first time it felt like an evasion.
Who just does that on somebody's property in the middle
of the night. Yeah, that's bold. So I'll just once
again spread that message to the audience that this is
a house and you can contact their website and book
like everyone else if you wanted to take a chance
with that. Do you guys have to ever call the
police or anything? I feel like you must have them
(36:56):
on speed dial. Yeah I haven't yet. Is That's one
thing that Jen and I agreed upon was we knew
what we were getting ourselves into as far as having
to deal with that sort of element. But at the
same time, it's like, if we've given them access, if
they go through the proper channels, which with the previous
(37:19):
owner that was never an option. But if we've given
them that option, as long as they go through the
profit channels, it's like, hopefully it will cut it down,
and then we'll cut it down. We understand there's always
going to be that element we have to deal with,
but as long as that remaining respectful and stuff like that.
But like last night, there was no need of like
what transpired last night, I mean that kind of got
(37:40):
out of hand. Yeah, they then threw something at Corey.
We thought it was water, but I think it might
have been a red bull. Yeah, it was a red
bull or something like that. It's like, seriously, is this
what it's come? You know, they're dressed up like ninjas.
I'm like, I'm fighting out here with like five ninjas
in a car. And if you hadn't gone out there,
what was their plan or they going to get out
(38:01):
of the car and try to get in the house.
You know, that's most of the time, I'm sure it's
pretty relaxing and chill, but there's got to always be
that kind of little bit in your mind where you're like,
anyone could just roll up here. Everyone knows where this
house is, especially locally, everyone knows where the house is,
you know. I feel like I constantly see stories about
the house, and you guys are very generous with your
time and with the information and with opening the doors,
(38:24):
So I think you're right. Hopefully over time it will
kind of peter out and people will realize that they
can have access in some way. Now that being said,
if people do want to visit the house or get
in touch with you guys, what can they do? They
can visit our website which is the Conjuring House dot com.
(38:44):
I know it's very original, or on Facebook page which
is the Farm on Round Top Road because the Conjuring
House was taken well. As always, it's a pleasure talking
to you guys. I'm hoping to see you in person
again soon since things seem to be kind of improving
and I'm vaccinated, I'm ready to take on the world.
(39:07):
So you guys are welcome any time. Yeah, we would
love that. Well, thank you so much, and again, anyone
who is interested in the barn please go check out
their website and their Facebook. And these are two very
lovely people who also happen to be paranormal investigators. And
I think of, you know, whenever I say what I
do for a living at like a dinner party or something,
(39:29):
how everyone asks me so many questions. But I think
you guys might one up me on that. I feel
like the second you tell people you own the Conjuring House,
like that's it. Some people don't. I love it all right. Well,
thank you so much, guys, and I hope to visit soon.
(39:50):
Thank you for having to me. The farm stands as
one of the most iconic paranormal locations in the world.
The lore, legends, and ghost stories surrounding it cannot be
denied and will forever be associated with that property. It's
also a place that has taught us so many lessons
(40:11):
in the paranormal field. It's shown us what happens when
a haunt becomes commercialized and sensationalized, and what happens when
the history is reported incorrectly. It's pretty clear how that
has affected the living who are associated with the farm,
but let's not forget how it affects the dead as well.
Not just their spirits, but their memory. I'll be watching
(40:33):
and probably investigating that house as the years go by,
and while I think it's in very good hands at
the moment, I'm incredibly interested to see how the activity evolves.
I very strongly believe haunt responds directly to the living
who surround it, and I think we're just a few
chapters in what's going to be quite the story of
the farm on round Top Road. I'm Amy Bruney, and
(40:56):
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive
producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
(41:17):
show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
In the summer of I was sitting around a pleasant
(00:23):
dining table in a beautiful old home in Rhode Island,
watching a family reminisce about what it was like to
grow up there. They spoke of all the birthday parties
and holidays they had. They talked about where their rooms
were and where they put the Christmas tree every year.
In that moment, the room was filled with laughter and joy,
and you would never look at these folks and think
(00:43):
anything traumatic had happened to them there. That was until
one of the women who spent her childhood in the
home softly touched my arm and whispered in my ear.
I forgot to tell you something, Yes, I replied, smiling.
She said, I forgot to tell you that every night
I would go to bed and hear this in my ear,
(01:04):
seven soldiers in the wall, seven soldiers in the wall,
seven soldiers in the wall, seven soldiers in the wall.
She then proceeded to whisper a harsh stream of sounds
and gibberish in my ear that was absolutely terrifying. She
rocked back and looked at me with tears in her eyes.
At some point during this moment of merriment, this sweet
woman walked outside and got into the car and waited
(01:26):
for her family. She declared that this would be the
last time she would ever set foot in that house.
I'm Amy Bruney and this is Haunted Road on six
(01:50):
seventy seven Roundtop Road in Burrowville, Rhode Island. There's a
plot of land that seems much too small to hold
all the contention and controversy surrounding it. Some folks refer
to the house as being in Harrisville, which is also correct.
Harrisville is a small town known for its historic homes,
but it's part of the larger Burrowville. The house has
(02:11):
been called the Old Arnold Estate, the Sutcliffe House, the
Old Brook Farm, the Dexter Richardson House, the Harrisville farm House,
the Farm on Roundtop Road, and most notoriously, the Conjuring House.
People can't really settle on when the farm house came
into existence. Having personally been in the town Clerk's office
(02:31):
and after pulling the deeds myself, they go back incredibly far.
But it's not quite clear when the house in its
current form took shape. Some say seventeen thirty six, others
say eighteen thirty six. Having been in the home numerous
times in being pretty familiar with New England historic houses,
my best guess is sometime in the seventeen hundreds. But
(02:52):
the house fell into the hands of the parent family
in nineteen seventy. They purchased it, along with two hundred
acres from a gentleman named Mr Kenyon. Mr Kenyon had
lived in the home for two decades and had no
reason to warn the family of the incredible paranormal trauma
they were about to experience, because in his twenty years
there he never claimed to experience anything strange. Now, don't
(03:15):
let that dissuade you from what the parents claim to
have gone through. I've been on plenty of cases where
one family has nothing happened in a home, only to
have the next family move into a paranormal hotbed. I
firmly believe some people either bring that energy with them
or feed that sometimes long dormant energy into manifesting. The
parent family consisted of parents Caroline and Roger parent and
(03:39):
their children Andrea, Nancy, Christine Cindy and April. Andrea has
been the most willing to engage the public about the
family's experiences in the home, and has written three books
on the subject. I know Andrea personally, and she is
one of the most warm and incredible people you could meet.
She's very passionate about what on in that farm, and
(04:01):
she also has some pretty amazing UFO stories, but those
are for another day. The family claims that paranormal activity
began just minutes after arriving. At first, it was just
piles of dust or other things moving around on their own.
It escalated to terrible smells, mysterious failures of the heating system,
(04:21):
and objects thrown in glass shattered. They also reported that
their beds would shake every morning at five AM. That's
not an alarm clock, I want to wake up too.
In nineteen seventy three, the parents invited famed paranormal investigators
Ed and Lorraine Warren into their home. Members of the
Catholic Church, Ed was a paranormal investigator and self taught demonologist,
(04:45):
and Lorraine professed to be a clairvoyant and light worker.
Together they formed the New England Society for Psychic Research
in nineteen fifty two if you're wondering if the experiences
in the home or anything like the Conjuring film. When
being inner View to promote the film, Lorraine attested to
the clock stopping at three oh seven am, birds flying
(05:05):
into windows, and the family dog being found dead in
the yard after it refused to go inside the house. However,
the exorcism included in the film did not take place,
though Lorreene did hold a seance during which Caroline began
speaking in tongues, and along with the chair, she was
seated and floated into the air before being thrown. It
(05:26):
was at that point the Warrens were asked to leave,
Andrea tells me there was even a bit of a
physical altercation between Ed and Roger following the seance as well.
The parents could simply not afford to leave the home,
so did not do so until nineteen eighty. In the meantime,
the two acre lot was reduced to eight acres when
the parents were forced to sell land to pay for
(05:48):
flooding that occurred in their place of business. Eventually, Norma
and Jerry Sutcliffe purchased the home and it remained with
the Sutcliffs until twenty nineteen, though Jerry passed in seen. Initially,
Norma and Jerry claimed there were paranormal happenings in the house,
even calling in the TV show ghost Hunters, which I
used to be on, but this was before my time
(06:10):
to investigate. In two thousand five, they said they experienced
banging doors, voices chatting in the other room, footsteps leading
to the opening of a door, chairs that vibrated, a
fog inside the home, and once they saw a blue
light flash across their bedroom. But since the Conjuring movie
was released in ten, Norma has been dedicated to downplaying
(06:33):
and denying any claims of the paranormal within the house.
It could be because of how disruptive the constant stream
of people driving by the home or trying to actually
break into the property became once the movie was released,
or some claim it's because the Sutcliffs never received any
compensation from the production of the film. None of the
filming happened on the property, by the way, all I
(06:54):
know is when we filmed an episode of Kindred Spirits
there in twenty nineteen, after Norma had sold the property
to the most recent owners, Norma showed up in the
driveway extremely upset. Still defensive of the home she had
sold months before, and before she had any knowledge of
who we were or how we operate. I'm sure she
has years of pent up frustration with all the court proceedings,
(07:16):
et cetera, and hopefully by now she has seen that
the current owners aren't about misinformation now. Despite whether or
not the Sutcliffs experienced anything paranormal in the home, Norma
did operate a daycare there for twenty years. I'd like
to think she wouldn't have done so if she thought
anything there was dangerous. Norma sold the home to Corey
(07:36):
and Jennifer Heinesen, paranormal investigators and friends of mine, who
we will be interviewing in a little bit. They bought
the home in the summer of twenty nineteen and immediately
began investigating. They've had a slew of activity since they
moved in, so much so that their teenage son is
reluctant to stay there alone. Before you decide to pop
(07:57):
by the home yourself, know that the Heinzen's have ad
on her more security cameras running on the property. Watching
those cameras really puts into perspective just how many people
drive by that house and how many people actually have
the audacity to walk onto the property or try the
front door. This is a residence, folks. The great news
(08:18):
is the Hinzens have the full confidence of the remaining
parent family members. We even brought them back to the
property for our episode of Kindred Spirits we filmed there.
It was surreal walking the grounds with them that first day.
But I'll never forget walking with Cindy, who I spoke
of in the intro to the show. She really seemed
to be the most affected. She was relating to me
(08:40):
some memories of them as children playing in the yard,
and I told her that my own daughter had been
there earlier in the day to visit on our lunch break,
and she had loved running around the grounds and exploring
the little maze of rooms inside the house. Cindy was
still looking in the distance when she mat her of
factly said that's wonderful, but this is no place for
(09:01):
children and walked away from me. After the break, let's
discuss who we think is haunting the farmhouse, and we'll
also dispel some historical myths long associated with the home,
and later on we'll talk to Corey and Jen Hinzen,
the current owners of the house and talk about a
new theory they have developed on who could be causing
the haunting. Now, as far as desk go at the house,
(09:33):
there are a few that have been documented. In nineteen
o one, a Jarvis Smith died of exposure on the property.
Jarvis had been tried and acquitted of a murder in
eighteen nine, which may or may not be relevant, but
was apparently his claim to fame. In nineteen o three,
Edwin Arnold was walking home from an event back to
(09:55):
the house where he lived at the time, and decided
to take a short cut and disappeared. He disappeared on
October and was not found until Saturday, December seven, a
full seven weeks later. A hunter found the remains leaning
against a stone wall, as though he laid down to
rest and just never resumed his journey. There is a
(10:17):
claim that there are a lot of suicides nearby. While
I don't have numbers of suicides versus population, I can
say that as I looked through newspapers trying to find
relevant occurrences nearby that could lead to a haunting, there
definitely were more articles about folks taking their own lives
than on any case I've researched enough that I mentioned
it to Adam. I was not aware this was something
(10:39):
that was brought up about the property at the time.
There is a little book called the Black Book that
records all sorts of unusual deaths in the area. Many
historical areas have these. That's also probably where the parents
and others got the idea for strange deaths nearby. Now,
Bathsheba Sherman. That's a name anyone who has seen the
(11:00):
original Conjuring movie is extremely familiar with. Unfortunately, just about
everything you've heard about her is completely untrue. Bathsheba was
the wife of a farmer whose land adjoined the original
plot of land that is now where the house sits.
We're not sure exactly how her name became mixed up
in the lore of the house. Originally, some say Lorraine
(11:22):
Warren said the name during her time investigating the house.
Others claim Caroline Parrin found the name in historic records somewhere. Regardless,
at some point in recent history, people began declaring that
Bathsheba had been a witch. They even went so far
as to say that she murdered an infant. In reality,
Bathsheba died in eighty five and was buried beside her
(11:44):
first husband in a nearby cemetery. The burial was presided
over by a reverend, which is hardly something that would
have happened if she was an accused witch and child murderer.
Nowhere in history is her name associated with any of
the rumors about her. And I can tell you the
history of Burrowville is pretty well documented. I poured through
old newspapers myself. You couldn't even visit a neighbor up
(12:07):
the road without it being reported in the local paper.
To this day, the local historical society has fought against
this misinformation about Bathsheba. Her gravestone has been desecrated and
knocked over so many times they have now removed it
and put it in a safe location. Even Andrea Parent
has declared that the information passed around about Sherman is
(12:28):
completely inaccurate, yet the damage has been done. It's the
perfect example of why in the world of paranormal investigation,
you've got to get your historical facts as straight as
you can. Ghosts may be hard to prove the existence of,
but history is not now, believe it or not, This
was actually a very high level overview of the history
(12:48):
of the farmhouse. I think it's best if we have
a little chat with the new owners and get an
idea of the activity level there. Now, coming up, we'll
talk to Corey and jen Hinzen parent them investigators, friends
of mine and the most recent owners of the farm. Alright,
(13:10):
so I am now joined by Corey and Jennifer Heinzen,
who are the very brave couple who actually purchased the farmhouse,
and they're here to tell us their story and tell
us what's going on there now. So welcome guys, Thank
you for having us, Thank you for having us. Full disclosure.
When we were setting up this interview, we had to
(13:31):
reschedule at a number of times because something was always
going wrong. And I told Corey I blamed the house,
and he said, everyone blames the house. They do. It
seems to be the default answer. So I mean it
makes sense, I guess. I mean, if I lived in
the do you guys call it the farmhouse, the conjuring house?
What do you refer to it as whatever? We won't
(13:53):
get sued before. I guess we usually just refer to
it as the farm, the farm. Okay, Well, I feel
like if I had bought the farm, I too would
just blame everything on it. I think you haven't out
for life at this point. So true, very true. So
can you just kind of tell us how you came
(14:14):
to own the house and why would you buy such
a place? Honestly, it was a Facebook post at like
four o'clock in the morning that I came across. It
was in a random uh I t C group that
I was a member of at the time, and it
was the first post in a while, and I was
just like, well, that's kind of funny. And we had
(14:36):
friends down in this area that actually knew the owner
and got us in touch with the realtor, and the
realtor said, yes, in fact, she was going to be
putting it up for sale, and she didn't want to
put it on the market because there were certain people
that she didn't want to have bidding on it and
stuff like that. So they actually had us sit down
with her. We were sitting down with the owner before
(14:58):
we were even sitting down with the realtor and getting
tours of the house and stuff, and basically it was
like for sale by owner, if you will. That's interesting,
And so what was the talk like between you two
when you made this decision to buy the house. What
have your plans been for it? We planned to move in.
I mean it was like kind of a family decision.
(15:19):
We were going to move in. It would have been
Jen and I and our son Tyler. He would have
been starting his junior year of high school. Yeah, Maddie
was in Maine in college. You know. He thought he
would be like the king of the high school. Yeah,
the cool kid. Yeah, the cool kid. And he ended
up having an incident, and it just I guess I
kind of overlooked it because him being an investigator with us. Yeah,
(15:44):
he'd been doing it for a long time. It's not
like none of this was brand new to him. Yeah,
but I guess being totally immersed and it would be
a different story. Yeah, And he just kind of tapped
out and he's like, I can't do it, and injury
gave him a walk through the house is well, And
I think watching the emotion on her face and everything
that she went through tapped into the reality of living
(16:07):
here would be totally different than investigating a location, right,
that makes sense. It's one thing to go into a place,
you know, for a night or two and investigate, but
she gets to leave doing nothing follows you home, but
you know, it's totally different to kind of move into
one of the most notoriously haunted homes in the world, really,
(16:28):
and so I could see that being tough. So is
he going back and forth between Maine or is he's
living there now or he's still up in Maine. It
took him a long time before he'd come back here,
and then when he finally did come back, he would
travel here and there, not as much as we did.
But then once COVID hit, it was too hard for
him to travel with other regulations and work in school,
(16:48):
and so he's not here as often as we are.
But I think he kind of likes it that way.
I think he's okay with that. So what was the
breaking point for him? What happened to him? He um,
we were sleeping in one of the rooms. We slept
in two main rooms for like the first four months
that we were down here, kind of getting a field
(17:09):
for the place and letting the spirits get used to us.
Everybody thinks we're crazy, but that's just how we did it.
And he was sleeping in the room with us, sleeping
in between Jen and I, and he said he heard
footsteps coming down the stairway, and he said he ended
up seeing this black mist, and like the way he
described it, I know for a fact he saw it
because my friend and I witnessed the same thing a
(17:32):
few weeks prior, and he didn't mention it to us
until later on. Yeah. It was the weekend of the
para con here on Rhode Island and he was supposed
to be here with us for the entire weekend. And
after the first night he left before his sister was
driving from New York back up towards Maine, and he
asked her to stop in and pick him up and
(17:53):
bring him back up to Maine with her. So we
didn't really know why. He just kind of said he
was ready to go home. He didn't tell us why. Yeah,
oh that's right. Yeah, I remember that weekend because I
think that's when you first came up to me and
you were like, guess what we did. Yeah, it was
still new to us. We've only been here for a
(18:13):
couple of weeks. Three weeks, three weeks. Yeah, So Andrea
was here that weekend as well, and she's the one
that walked him through the house. I think everything just
hit him all at once that weekend and seeing visually
seeing that black mass himself, was that was it for him? Well?
I also think that for our episode of Kindred, we
brought the parents back into the house as many of
(18:34):
them as we could, you know, some of them had
passed on, and it was it really did something to
the energy in the house. And so I could almost
see having Andrea back for the first time and so
long could have definitely caused a shift that would, you know,
kind of wake something up. Do you think that probably
(18:54):
was part of it? I think it was part of it. Yeah, Okay, Well,
so what's going on in the house currently, what's the
activity level? Like, I mean, the teams that have been
coming in have been getting some extraordinary stuff. For us,
it's just it's normal stuff. It's like, if you see it,
you see it. If not, you don't. You know, the
(19:15):
teams event just getting some phenomenal catches. But for us,
like I think the last time we had something happens
when the door opened as we were watching TV. We
just had and watched it open. It's like, if you
want to come in watch TV, come and watch me.
That's fine. It's just you know, it's it is what
it is. You just kind of get used to it.
So you guys, basically at this point, do you teams
(19:37):
rented out for the night or how do you work
that you have a lot of investigators coming in and out.
I see them posting quite often. Yet we were doing
overnight investigations where we do allow teams to come in
as a group and investigate overnight. We have a lot
of people reaching out trying to do day tours, but
we COVID it's so hard to regulate. Like the teams
(19:57):
that come in at night, they booked together, they stay together,
they already know each other, they've already been exposed to
each other, so that no strangers are being next. But
most weekends we have people here they are investigating and
yeah we just knew Friday, Saturday and Sundays. Yeah, that
makes sense. And do you kind of give them a
little rundown beforehand of things that are off limits or
(20:18):
do you feel like everyone's been mostly respectful? Oh? Absolutely,
you know. We we tell them, you know, treat our
house as you'd want your house treated, because regardless of
what you think, we we have to deal with the
consequences of whatever you do during your time here. So
no seances, no trying to cross over. Spirits and stuff
like that can't come in here under the influence of
(20:40):
alcohol and drugs, and we do keep an eye on
them with the cameras and stuff like that. If we
see something stupid going on, which surprisal we never have
would put the nicks on that real quick. So I mean,
ultimately you're the one that has to live with whatever
happens there. Overall, the paranormal community has kind of made
a shift in the last few years to being a
(21:00):
lot more respectful. I know when I first started investigating,
and Corey you know too, because Coria a long time
ago help me with events up in New Hampshire, and
you can attest to you know, when people investigate for
the first time or they get into groups, they get
very excited and sometimes they have this inclination to start
provoking and getting rough to get spirits agitated. Have you
(21:22):
had any indication and all these investigations going on, have
you had any indication or clues as to who you
think is haunting the farm? Oh? God, we still don't.
Like we still get multiple names. I mean, I guess
we could say we we know for sure that there's
at least a man. Yeah, there's a man that he's
(21:43):
very very prevalent when we have all female teams here,
and from what some of the psychics on the teams
have described him as is like a just a giant
man like Quaker outfit, and he gives the all female
teams a hard time kind of like because he's very
very proper, like where's the men? Why am I talking
to females kind of thing, And that's really the only
(22:08):
one we've really noticed. Yeah, I mean, I'm eager to
kind of get back there at some point because I know,
you know, we kind of finished up our investigation with Kindred.
I felt went really well. I felt like we've provided
a lot of closure for the parents, which was pretty great.
But I always go back to, like I think of
Edwin Arnold a lot, just because he was walking home
(22:28):
to his family and then died and it wasn't found
for weeks, and that to me is like that's kind
of a classic spirit. I feel like that would come
back to the house like never made it home, was
found seven weeks later, leaning up against the fence, like
he just kind of sat down to rest and didn't
wake up. I just I don't know, there's something about
(22:48):
that death to me, that resonates and I'm so curious
if it's him. No, I mean it most definitely could be.
I mean, you're right, circumstances like that, that's what you
look for. There's all with the Crooked Neck woman. A
lot of people have said it was Susan Arnold, but
it's the wrong Susan Arnold, because there was a John
and Susan Arnold that lived here, and then there's a
(23:09):
John and Susan Arnold lived in Uxbridge. She was the
one that hung herself. She gets associated with the property,
Crooked Neck and stuff like that. Well, there's actually something
came out recently in the news that there was a
giant that had been on earth near this property, and
a lot of people are saying that's actually what it
(23:30):
is that we're seeing is just a giant person trying
to fit through the hallways of this house. That is
so interesting. I had no idea you're gonna have to
send me that info because that makes complete sense. Yeah,
because when we were investigating for Kindred and you guys
pointed out to us too, like so the previous owner
had a daycare center in the holm for twenty years,
(23:53):
which I'd like to think if she thought it was dangerous,
she probably wouldn't have done that. But we found these
drawings that the kids drew of an actual woman or
person with their neck crooked, and it reminded me so
much of the Haunting of Hill House, you know, and
it was really bizarre. And it's just these multiple drawings
(24:13):
of this kind of crooked neck person, which is so strange.
It's interesting. No, it's definitely makes you scratch your head. Yeah,
you're like, where who draws that? Especially? This was pree
Haunting of Hill House. Obviously this was years ago. So
what do you think has been the craziest experience you
guys have had since you purchased the house? I would
(24:35):
probably say still to the day. Is the shadow figure
that we saw, So that's the one that you had
seen before your son saw the miss. I think he
saw the miss first. Well, that was probably a few
weeks before. Like this was like a full bodied shadow figure,
like well defined, and Jen and I saw both at
(24:57):
the same time, which made it even more awesome because
usually like it's a personal experience because we didn't catch
it on camera. Was this during an investigation or was
this just in the middle of the day or when
did this happen? It was actually at night. We're both
sleeping on the same cot for some reason, I don't
know why, but she was restless. She woke me up,
just moving around and I woke up and it was
(25:19):
actually I think it was the first night that we
had left the door open into the adjoining room. Yes,
it was the first night that we left the door open.
And because for some reason we would think, you know,
closing the door, we keep ghosts out closing and locking it. Yeah,
it's just like when you as long as your feet
and hands are under the blanket, nothing bad can happen
(25:41):
to you, exactly. But I woke up and I just
see this thing looking around the corner of the doorway
looking at us. And I didn't freak out because I
had seen shadow figures before, but just not as well
defined as this. And I'm like, okay, i know what
i'm seeing. I know I'm awake, and I'm not saying anything.
And then Jen was the one that's like, tell me
(26:03):
you're seeing this, and she said it out loud, and
as she talked, it scurried out of the way real fast,
and I'm like, yeah, that was a shadow figure and
we just high fived each other, were like, that was
so awesome. It wasn't like we were freaking out or
it was upset and we didn't catch it on camera, right,
but it was still cool that we both started at
the same time. You guys are definitely paranormal investigators because
(26:24):
most people would have run screaming from the home and
would never return. I love ire. Like we high fived.
It was cool. We went back to sleep. It was great.
That was nice. I mean it, honest to God, just
didn't give us like a scary feeling. It didn't the
house doesn't give us a bad vibe. Yeah, having been
in their multiple days, I definitely do not get a
(26:47):
bad vibe from the house until I get into the basement.
Like there's just a very different feeling down there. And
I don't know if that's just because it really is
like a textbook spooky New England basement or if there
is actually something else down there. How do you guys
feel about the basement. It's been weird, like it's hit
or miss. Sometimes sometimes you'll go down there and like,
(27:08):
I won't feel anything. Then sometimes you go down it's
a little bit of a heavy feeling but still at
the same time, it's not the typical heavy feeling you
would associate with something that's malevolent or something, you know,
if that makes sense. It's just, you know, there's something there.
You're kind of tapping into that sensitivity thing, and it's
still it's making you aware that it's there. And it's like,
(27:30):
we just started upkeep of the house maintenance. Thank you
and everything that we've done. Everybody that was here working
with us, I was like, look, before you swing a hammer,
before you do anything, you explain to these spirits what
you're doing. I don't care how stupid you feel. That's
just being respectful. And we haven't had no problems. I'm
(27:54):
sure those contractors are like, this is new, this is
a new instruction. But you know, actually, I've never heard
of someone kind of instructing people beforehand to kind of
like talk the spirits through a renovation or and I
think that might be a good idea for people who
think their house might be on it, like actually show
them what you're doing and why, because that tends to
(28:17):
really stir up activities. So I bet you guys were
concerned about that, right, Oh, absolutely. I mean a lot
of the residential cases I dealt with, Like back when
I was on a team, it was always seemed to
revolve around renovations and things like that. So it was like,
just let them know we're doing this because you know,
the house has been here almost three hundred years. We
wanted here for another three hundred years. It's just fixing
(28:40):
it up a bit. You know, we're not making any changes,
just reinforce and stuff. I mean, it's a beautiful house
and the property is beautiful, and like, obviously I felt safe.
I brought my daughter there when we were filming. You know,
one of the nice things when we're local because I
live in Rhode Island, is that I can bring the
babysitter and my daughter out for dinner or something for
our dinner break. And so Charlotte loved it, Like I remember,
(29:01):
I have a picture of her just running on the
lawn and she felt very comfortable there and very safe.
And so it's just so interesting that you have this
house with this kind of crazy reputation, but then you
can sit there on the porch in the summer and
just feel completely at ease. Have you had any people
come in who felt otherwise, like any of the teams
(29:22):
or anything. Has anybody had to leave or anybody felt
like something bad happened to them there. Yeah, we've had
multiple teams that can't stay overnight. The majority of them
that can't stay are psychic mediums that feel like they're
personally being attacked or targeted. Targeted, I should say, not
necessarily attacked, because nobody's ever I don't believe anybody's ever
(29:43):
felt attacked, but they feel like whatever is here knows
that their psychic mediums and they're just being picked on.
I think a lot of people come here just too
overwhelmed with the movie Yeah, and they're like, oh my god,
you know, we're walking into walking into hell. And we
explained to him it's not that at all. I'm like,
(30:03):
it's a classic haunting. It's intelligent. You know. You treat
them with respect and you're going to get the same
in return. We haven't had anything say otherwise, right, although
at the same time, we've had multiple people tell us
to be aware that it's drawing us in, it's making
us feel comfortable, So we always have that in the
back of our mind. We know enough paranormal people that
(30:26):
we do have people that look out for us, that
watch our movements that watch our body language. That can
you know, tell if we're acting funny. Yeah, I wonder
if whatever is there maybe has a distrust for mediums
or something, just because I mean, Lorraine Warren was really
kind of the catalyst for the whole Bathsheba Sherman story beginning. However,
(30:48):
well meaning they may have been or wherever that came from.
You know, I don't ever want to say that someone
did something purposefully. I don't think anybody spread that story
on purpose, you know, in a negative way, But it happened,
and I won or if they are very aware of
everything that went on in the house kind of with
Edan Lorraine. And so now when someone comes in and
says their psychic, the energy there automatically kind of recoils
(31:10):
or goes on guard kind of do you think that
could be a possibility. It could definitely be a possibility.
I mean, the problem is the whole reason we're here
is because and Lorraine Warren we're here. Something definitely did
happen here. You had Pyro, which was Keith and Carl
Johnson's team. They called in the Warrens. The Warrens came in,
they witnessed things and for us to sit there and say, well,
(31:35):
I don't believe that happened. That's kind of foolish because
unless you have there to personally experience something, how can
you tell somebody what their experience. And I saw it
in the parents eyes when they came with the show
with Kindred, they went through something absolutely like, I definitely think,
you know, something definitely happened there. I felt like Cindy
(31:56):
in particular, was having this kind of throwback moment when
she was there where she was shaking. She didn't even
like she couldn't wait to get out of here. She
ended up just going and waiting in the car and
was like, I'm done never coming back here. So I
think that there was definitely something there happening. And I
wonder if the parents energy. They have a really great
(32:17):
energy about them, especially Andrew, Like she walks in the
room and you can just feel her presence. There's a
reason why that woman everywhere she goes people just end
up hugging her and confiding every bit of their being
to her, Like she's just this very warm energy. There's
something about her and them, you know. Obviously like Bathsheba
(32:38):
was not in that house, and I think that was
the biggest story that came from that, regardless of what happened.
And so I'm just wondering if maybe the spirits are
kind of weird. I can't imagine what the energy was
like in the house, like you have the parents and
the warrants together. I wish I could be a fly
on the wall of what that was like. Like that
is like a perfect storm of energy, you know, and
(33:00):
then whatever spirits are, they're reacting like that must have
just been the most tumultuous moment for that house. I
could see the house almost being scarred from it. If
that makes sense. Yeah, no, it makes sense too. It's
interesting to look back and look at the different dynamics
and look at the different situations and what we know
(33:21):
now compared to what we knew then, and and I
think that's one of the greatest things you guys are doing,
is that you're saying the house has spirits, that it
is haunted, and you're very cautious about it, but you're
also working hard to kind of figure out why, getting
the history right and everything. And I know the Historical
Society watched the episode with us at the home and
they were really thrilled. And I think that is such
(33:43):
an important message for the field in general, Like just
because you're correcting history doesn't mean a place isn't haunted.
It's important to at least get that part right as
much as we can. And I think we're so lucky
right now too, because we have so many resources that
I know, when I first started investigating, we did not have.
(34:03):
I remember just going into the town clerk's office in
your town and just going back through those deeds all
the way to where I couldn't even read them anymore
because they were like old English cursive. Yes, we've seen that,
and I have a hard time deciphering. Yeah. So that's
a great message, and I think it's really awesome of
you guys to open the house up the way you have.
(34:25):
I feel like some people might look at that like
you're trying to make up business out of it or something,
but I think that there's a way to do it respectfully.
And so how how are you guys kind of navigating that?
It's really hard because if you want to consider it
like supply and demand, especially with the new movie coming out,
people like I don't really say demanding dates, but we're
(34:48):
just always constantly getting emails it's like wanting to book this,
wanting the book, that people wanting to have weddings here,
and it's like, uh, definitely, don't want to turn it
into a circus. And that's what we've said from day one.
And we love that there are so many people interested
in it, but it honestly has been really hard to
(35:08):
try and navigate the two to be able to let
people in and the right people in and the people
that want to be here for the right reasons, and
to not go overboard and be like, Okay, this is
way too overwhelming. Yeah, I mean, I said earlier before
I started interview, you guys kind of reminded the audience
that it's a residence. It's a house, people live there.
You know. When I was there, you guys have multiple
(35:30):
security cameras up, and I remember on breaks we would
just sit and just watch car after car just pull
up and people almost feeling like they have every right
to just walk up to your door. I mean, I
know that our crew had to stop multiple people, and
it's so strange to me, like that people actually feel
(35:52):
like they can just roll on up. And I think
actually at one point I just walked right in and
we were like, Hi, we're working here and this is
a house, but it has that reputation. What is that like?
Living around that? Most days aren't too too bad. I
feel like most people have been pretty respectful, but we
definitely find from right now until fall time is the
(36:13):
worst and people. I don't know why, but for the
last probably two three weeks, maybe it's because the trailer
for the new movie, people are pulling onto the property
all the time. Now, last night we had somebody pull
into the end of the driveway at what twelve thirty
this morning, and they were parked out there for like
a good fifteen minutes before Corey went out there. Last
(36:35):
night was the first time it felt like an evasion.
Who just does that on somebody's property in the middle
of the night. Yeah, that's bold. So I'll just once
again spread that message to the audience that this is
a house and you can contact their website and book
like everyone else if you wanted to take a chance
with that. Do you guys have to ever call the
police or anything? I feel like you must have them
(36:56):
on speed dial. Yeah I haven't yet. Is That's one
thing that Jen and I agreed upon was we knew
what we were getting ourselves into as far as having
to deal with that sort of element. But at the
same time, it's like, if we've given them access, if
they go through the proper channels, which with the previous
(37:19):
owner that was never an option. But if we've given
them that option, as long as they go through the
profit channels, it's like, hopefully it will cut it down,
and then we'll cut it down. We understand there's always
going to be that element we have to deal with,
but as long as that remaining respectful and stuff like that.
But like last night, there was no need of like
what transpired last night, I mean that kind of got
(37:40):
out of hand. Yeah, they then threw something at Corey.
We thought it was water, but I think it might
have been a red bull. Yeah, it was a red
bull or something like that. It's like, seriously, is this
what it's come? You know, they're dressed up like ninjas.
I'm like, I'm fighting out here with like five ninjas
in a car. And if you hadn't gone out there,
what was their plan or they going to get out
(38:01):
of the car and try to get in the house.
You know, that's most of the time, I'm sure it's
pretty relaxing and chill, but there's got to always be
that kind of little bit in your mind where you're like,
anyone could just roll up here. Everyone knows where this
house is, especially locally, everyone knows where the house is,
you know. I feel like I constantly see stories about
the house, and you guys are very generous with your
time and with the information and with opening the doors,
(38:24):
So I think you're right. Hopefully over time it will
kind of peter out and people will realize that they
can have access in some way. Now that being said,
if people do want to visit the house or get
in touch with you guys, what can they do? They
can visit our website which is the Conjuring House dot com.
(38:44):
I know it's very original, or on Facebook page which
is the Farm on Round Top Road because the Conjuring
House was taken well. As always, it's a pleasure talking
to you guys. I'm hoping to see you in person
again soon since things seem to be kind of improving
and I'm vaccinated, I'm ready to take on the world.
(39:07):
So you guys are welcome any time. Yeah, we would
love that. Well, thank you so much, and again, anyone
who is interested in the barn please go check out
their website and their Facebook. And these are two very
lovely people who also happen to be paranormal investigators. And
I think of, you know, whenever I say what I
do for a living at like a dinner party or something,
(39:29):
how everyone asks me so many questions. But I think
you guys might one up me on that. I feel
like the second you tell people you own the Conjuring House,
like that's it. Some people don't. I love it all right. Well,
thank you so much, guys, and I hope to visit soon.
(39:50):
Thank you for having to me. The farm stands as
one of the most iconic paranormal locations in the world.
The lore, legends, and ghost stories surrounding it cannot be
denied and will forever be associated with that property. It's
also a place that has taught us so many lessons
(40:11):
in the paranormal field. It's shown us what happens when
a haunt becomes commercialized and sensationalized, and what happens when
the history is reported incorrectly. It's pretty clear how that
has affected the living who are associated with the farm,
but let's not forget how it affects the dead as well.
Not just their spirits, but their memory. I'll be watching
(40:33):
and probably investigating that house as the years go by,
and while I think it's in very good hands at
the moment, I'm incredibly interested to see how the activity evolves.
I very strongly believe haunt responds directly to the living
who surround it, and I think we're just a few
chapters in what's going to be quite the story of
the farm on round Top Road. I'm Amy Bruney, and
(40:56):
this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey.
The podcast is written and hosted by Amy Bruney. Executive
producers include Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
(41:17):
show is produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young.
Taylor Haggerdorn is the show's researcher. For more podcasts from
I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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