Annabelle According to the Warrens, in 1970, two roommates said their
Raggedy Ann doll was possessed by the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle Higgins. The Warrens took the doll, telling the roommates it was "being manipulated by an inhuman presence", and put it on display at the family's "Occult Museum". The legend of the doll inspired several films in
the Conjuring Universe and is a
motif in many others.
Perron family In 1971, the Warrens claimed that the
Harrisville, Rhode Island, home of the Perron family was haunted by a witch who had lived there in the early 19th century. According to the Warrens, Bathsheba Sherman sacrificed her baby son to the devil, and after that, cursed the land so that whoever lived there died a terrible death. The story is the subject of the 2013 film
The Conjuring. Lorraine Warren was a consultant to the production and appeared in a
cameo role in the film. A reporter for
USA Today covered the film's supposed factual grounding.
Amityville The Warrens are best known for their involvement in the 1975
Amityville Horror, in which a New York couple, George and Kathy Lutz, said their house was haunted by a violent, demonic presence so intense that it eventually drove them out.
The Amityville Horror Conspiracy authors Stephen and Roxanne Kaplan characterized the case as a hoax. Lorraine Warren told a reporter for
The Express-Times newspaper that it was not. The reported haunting was the basis for the 1977 book
The Amityville Horror and adapted into the
1979 and
2005 films of the same name, while also serving as inspiration for the
film series that followed. The Warrens' version of events is partially adapted and portrayed in the opening sequence of
The Conjuring 2 (2016). According to
Benjamin Radford, the story was "refuted by eyewitnesses, investigations and forensic evidence". In 1979, lawyer William Weber said that he,
Jay Anson, and the occupants invented the horror story over many bottles of wine.
Guy Lyon Playfair, a parapsychologist who investigated the Enfield case alongside Maurice Grosse, also says the film greatly exaggerated the Warrens' role in the investigation. He said in 2016 that they "turned up once" and that Ed Warren told Playfair the Warrens "could make a lot of money [...] out of" the case. Playfair corroborated the claim that the Warrens were "not invited" to the Enfield house and that "Nobody [...] in the family had ever heard of him until [Ed Warren] turned up".
Arne Johnson '' based on the Warrens' real-life Connecticut case. In 1981, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was accused of killing his landlord, Alan Bono. The Warrens had been called before the killing to deal with the alleged demonic possession of Johnson's fiancée's brother. The Warrens subsequently claimed that Johnson was also possessed. At trial, Johnson attempted to plead Not Guilty by Reason of Demonic Possession but was unsuccessful. This story serves as the inspiration for
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). The case is described in Gerald Brittle's 1983 book
The Devil in Connecticut.
Snedeker house In 1986, the Warrens arrived and declared the Snedeker house, a former funeral home, was infested by demons. The case was featured in the 1993 book
In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. A TV film that later became part of the
Discovery Channel series
A Haunting was produced in 2002.
The Haunting in Connecticut, a film based on the Warrens' version of events and directed by
Peter Cornwell, was released in 2009. Horror author
Ray Garton, who wrote an account of the alleged haunting of the Snedeker family in
Southington, Connecticut, later called into question the veracity of the accounts in his book, saying, "The family involved, which was going through some serious problems like alcoholism and drug addiction, could not keep their story straight, and I became very frustrated; it's hard writing a non-fiction book when all the people involved are telling you different stories". To paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford, Garton said of Lorraine, "'If she told me the sun would come up tomorrow morning, I'd get a second opinion'".
Smurl family Pennsylvania residents Jack and Janet Smurl reported their home was disturbed by numerous supernatural phenomena, including sounds, smells, and apparitions. The Warrens became involved and claimed that the Smurl home was occupied by four spirits and also a demon that allegedly sexually assaulted Jack and Janet. The Smurls' version of their story was the subject of a 1986 paperback,
The Haunted, and a
television film of the same name directed by
Robert Mandel, as well as
The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025).
Union Cemetery Ed Warren's book
Graveyard: True Hauntings from an Old New England Cemetery (St Martins Press, 1992) features a "
White Lady" ghost that haunts Union Cemetery. He claimed to have "captured her essence" on film. ==Other activities==