The True Story of The Haunting in Connecticut

You press play to begin watching a film and you see these four words… “based on a true story.” At first, you are skeptical. How could something this horrifying and supernatural actually happen to someone? How much of it is actually true and how much was made up for entertainment purposes? You would not be the only ones to question the authenticity of this film. Many people have wondered how truthful the family involved in this incident have been to news outlets and reporters because they apparently stayed at the terrifying house for two years after the hauntings and their stories often didn’t line up exactly. Before going into this more, let’s start from the beginning. 

The Snedeker Family

This story begins with Carmen and Allen Snedeker, their three sons, their daughter, and two nieces moving into a home in Southington, Connecticut. The eldest Snedeker son was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and the family made the choice to move to Connecticut to be closer to his doctors to save money. What they weren’t initially aware of was that the home they had rented was once a funeral parlor, with the tools and bloody furniture still in a room in the basement. 

Despite discovering this horrifying and morose addition to the home, The Snedeker’s moved into the home regardless. Many people believe they chose to stay because of financial reasons; it was cheaper to just stay in the funeral parlor home than to find a new home to accommodate all of them at a reasonable price. 

Strange happenings at the house started off fairly innocent with the mother noticing items around the house going missing. Then the children started to talk about seeing strange people in their home, more specifically a man with long black hair. Then the eldest son had a drastic personality change that included violet outbursts. He attacked family members out of nowhere and didn’t seem like himself. Doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia, but the family was not convinced. They believed that his strange and terrifying behavior was the result of the environment and the ghosts in the home. Probably the strangest incident that the family reported was when the parents claimed they had been “raped and sodomized” by something in the home. Like I mentioned earlier, the family stayed at this home regardless for two more years and people made the assumption that their stories were all made up because they didn’t understand why they would stay at a home where they experienced such terrible things. 

When things didn’t get better in the home, the family invited a pair of paranormal investigators to assist in ridding their home of the evil inside of it. 

Ed and Lorraine Warren

Ed and Lorraine Warren were a controversial pair of self-taught paranormal investigators based out of Connecticut. Ed was the demonologist, lecturer, and author, while Lorraine was the clairvoyant and medium. Ed and Lorraine joined the Haunting in Connecticut investigation by spending weeks in the home to get the “full demonic experience.” After their investigation, they declared that the morticians that worked in the home when it was a funeral parlor practiced necromancy and had “infused the home with a deep evil.” The Warren’s performed and exorcism on the home to rid the evil and make it safe for the family to return. 

Debunking the Story

Now, back to what was mentioned earlier. Many individuals who knew the story of the Snedeker family were skeptical about what really happened inside their home. Firstly, the owners of the home refuted the story entirely, stating that the home had never been a funeral parlor or plagued by evil spirits. This one is easy to dismiss, because why would owners of a rental approve of a story that makes their home unappealing to future renters? Later, Ray Garton, author, was interviewing Ed and Lorraine Warren and the Snedeker family while in the process of writing his book In a Dark Place when he noticed that the family’s stories were not lining up. When he went to Ed with the problem, Ed apparently said, “Oh, they’re crazy… You’ve got some of the story- Just use what works and make the rest up… Just make it up and make it scary.” It does seem strange that Ed would tell this individual to make up aspects of the indicent rather than attempting to straighten out the story. 

Regardless of the attempt to debunk this story, many fans of the film and the book still believe that what happened to the Snedeker family was very real. Whether or not you choose to believe the Snedeker’s, it is still a horrifying film and entertaining for all horror fans.