The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren (24 page)

“No.”

“Has anyone in the family bought or received an unusual gift or figurine from abroad? Carved statues? A Haitian voodoo doll? A picture of a deity from another religion?”

“No.”

As Ed and Lorraine interviewed the Beckfords, intermittent knockings began to occur. The sounds could be heard in the walls for a few minutes, then they’d stop. The noises started up again a few minutes later, this time erupting from various points on the floor. The sounds were audible enough to be picked up on the tape recorder.

The Warrens pressed forward with the questioning, giving no recognition to the activity. Ed then began to ask specific questions which would hopefully pin down the origin of the problem.

“Are you people interested in the occult as a pastime? Have you been attending sessions with consciousness-raising groups?”

“No.”

“Has anyone bought or withdrawn from the library books on Satanism or witchcraft rituals?”

“No.”

“To your knowledge has a séance ever been held in this house—even years ago?”

“Never,” was the firm reply.

“Eric, Vicky, are any of your friends interested in the occult, who maybe perform rituals, or ceremonial magic?”

“No.”

“Has anyone here used a Ouija board or automatic writing device?”

“Oh,” Vicky said, just above a whisper.

“Have
you
used a Ouija board, Vicky?” Lorraine asked pointedly.

“Yes,” the young girl admitted, to her family’s amazement.

“All right, dear, you’d better tell us all about it then.” Lorraine said “Start right from the beginning, please.”

With that, Vicky Beckford told how she’d been using the Ouija board to communicate with the spirit of a “teenage boy” who supposedly died in the area some ten years earlier. Vicky admitted that she never actually saw the spirit, though she once asked it to manifest. She also defended the spirit as real, citing how it accurately predicted future events days before they happened. She denied her spirit friend could have caused the gruesome activity in the house. He was “kind and understanding,”
not
cruel and destructive.

“Did this spirit tell you its name?” Lorraine asked the girl when she’d finished talking.

“No, he told me he wasn’t
allowed
to
.”
Vicky replied.

“I presume you are still communicating with this spirit?” Lorraine said.

“No,” Vicky admitted somewhat dejectedly. “I must have done something wrong. I’ve never been able to talk to him again after I asked if he’d show himself to me that night.”

“When was
that night?”
Lorraine pressed her.

“Just a minute,” said Vicky, who got up and went into her bedroom. “March 2,” she called out, then returned to the table.

“And the activity began...?”

“On March 3!” Pete Beckford said, looking at Ed.

Pete, Sharon, and Eric had listened in astonishment to Vicky’s bizarre tale. How could something so trivial as a Ouija board cause so much calamity? Accordingly, amidst the knockings, Ed had no other choice but to spend the next half hour explaining the gruesome reality of demoniacal phenomena to them.

After Ed finished his explanation, the Beckfords sat dumbfounded and silent “Mr. Warren,” Pete finally felt compelled to ask, “how do you
know
all this?”

“Mr. Beckford,” Ed replied, “this is my work. I have done it all my life. I am a demonologist.”

“My God,” was all Pete was able to utter.

Completing the interview with the Beckford family, Ed and Lorraine excused themselves and held a private conversation outside on the front lawn. The case, they agreed, was far more serious than they’d first imagined. Certainly the siege would never stop of its own accord. In fact, the activity was now reaching a dangerous stage. And as the family had already learned, they could not avoid the problem by running—it would follow them wherever they went. The Warrens decided the quickest solution was to get the Church involved immediately—so the phenomena could be verified and then acted upon.

Somewhere along the line, Ed knew a clergyman would have to bear witness to what was happening, and he specifically wanted Father Daniel to be that witness. With the Beckfords’ permission, he telephoned the same priest singled out as an enemy by the spirit associated with the rag doll, Annabelle. Father Daniel, a learned young priest in his early thirties, had recently studied demonology and over the past year Ed had been tutoring him on the practical aspects of the discipline.

A few hours later, just after sunset, the priest arrived at the Beckford house. By that time, activity had already begun afresh, with scratchings and poundings, and the levitation of small objects. To test whether the pounding was being caused deliberately, Ed pounded twice on the wall. There came two poundings in reply! He then pounded four times
in
quick succession. Four quick raps sounded on the floor, then on a table. Obviously there was an intelligence behind the activity.

Ed asked Father Daniel to perform a blessing in each room which, when accomplished, reduced the power and frequency of the poundings—the most annoying aspect of the disturbance. When that was done, Ed and Lorraine sat in the living room and briefed the priest. The Warrens had to leave for Maine that night, but Father Daniel would be staying on with the family in their absence.

“You will now be the object of hatred,” Ed told the young priest in no uncertain terms. “Under no circumstances must you challenge the undiscerned spirits that are here. You are in both physical
and
mental danger in this house. If you’re not careful, you can be hurt seriously. So don’t try to resolve the problems yourself. Just be strong, and don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Use the rosary, not your temper.” Ed handed him a card, “Now, here’s the phone number where we’ll be. Don’t take anything for granted. If there’s something you don’t know, or can’t handle, call us day or night.” Writing down another phone number, Ed added, “Father Shawn McKeegan will be your immediate superior in this case. I have already contacted him. Call Father McKeegan every day and give him an update on the activity occurring here.

“In the meantime,” Ed told Sharon Beckford, “we know you’re in the best of hands, and there’s always the possibility the presence of a priest will cause the phenomena to stop.”

After doing everything they could that night, Ed and Lorraine left for the airport. They would remain in constant phone contact and return from Vermont immediately if Father Daniel needed them.

After the Warrens left, Father Daniel was offered the spare bedroom. That night, after turning out the lights, the priest lay in bed and listened to all the terrifying sounds the Beckfords had been hearing over the past month.

During the next few days, activity went on as usual. Father Daniel continued to witness the noises and strange movements of objects. Yet by Wednesday of Easter week, it was apparent the activity was occurring in defiance of the priest, if not in contempt of him. Whenever Father Daniel asked for a pencil, a glass of water, or a book, that object would either rise up and float over to him; or, more often, would simply be there the
next
time he looked. On a few occasions, the object would already be on its way to him before the priest even asked for it. Such actions seemed amusing, but Ed warned Father Daniel not to take them personally. These sarcastic challenges were intended to try his patience, if not lure him into an emotional involvement he might not be able to control.

When they all went to bed that Wednesday night, the atmosphere in the house was anything but playful. The fury of the noises made it impossible to sleep. But beyond the havoc, an appalling evil presence was quite evident in the house. All night long Father Daniel could feel its violent, passionate enmity.

On Thursday, April 18, when the Warrens returned, Father Daniel was ashen and drawn. After four days and nights with the Beckfords, he had to get away from the intense demonic turmoil. That afternoon he returned to his rectory to recompose himself for a few days. He would also report to Father McKeegan that an exorcism might have to be performed in the house.

Meanwhile, Ed and Lorraine stayed the night with the Beckfords to verify the phenomena for themselves, as well as try and discern the precise nature of the spirit presence. Out of fear, Eric and Vicky settled down on the floor of their parents’ bedroom. Sleeping in their clothes like everyone else, Ed and Lorraine would rest in the twin beds in Eric’s bedroom, across the hall.

When the Warrens’ lights were turned off that Thursday night, the phenomena rose up in full strength, beginning with gruntings and other bestial noises, followed by the sort of piercing, bloodcurdling screams one associates with a horror movie. Added to that were ripping and tearing sounds, which then changed into the noise of boards being wrenched off the walls. Soon the familiar pounding started up. This upgraded into what seemed like the blows of a gigantic fist pounding on the house. The force of the blows made the whole building shake. Ed worried whether the structural integrity of the home could withstand much more abuse.

Over the better part of an hour, the phenomena grew in power and intensity, with all the mad sounds going on at once. Suddenly, terrified yells erupted from Pete and Sharon’s bedroom. When Ed reached them, the hysterical family claimed that some sort of ultra-black figure had manifested and begun to move in the room.

Disgusted with the abuse being heaped on the family, Ed decided to go ahead and challenge whatever was in the house to reveal its identity. Sending Eric into the bedroom to stay with Lorraine, he had Vicky and her parents sit on the bed.

Then, he traced a large cross in the air with his right hand. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I demand that you reveal your identity. In the name of Jesus Christ,
are
you a demonic spirit?”

With that, the double bed with the three Beckfords on it rose eerily into the air and remained suspended, some two feet off the floor. Suddenly the dresser careened across the room as though on rollers. Ed managed to step out of the way just before it smashed into the wall, whereupon the double bed crashed to the floor.

At the same time, Eric lay quietly sobbing on the other twin bed in his own bedroom. When Lorraine looked over to comfort the young teenager, to her astonishment, Eric was
levitating
some two feet above the bed! A second later, she watched as the boy was propelled with tremendous force against the far wall, five feet away. The boy then fell to the floor in a crumpled heap,

Lorraine leaped off the bed and switched on the light as the others entered the bedroom. Dazed and trembling, Eric had suffered no broken bones, but his face and chest were bruised and swollen.

The sign Ed asked for had been given. The demonic was indeed at work! This was made even clearer the next morning, after the sun came up, when Lorraine looked outside the bedroom window. Upside down, stuck in an unmelted pile of snow, was the foot-long walnut crucifix that had been a fixture in Pete and Sharon’s bedroom from the day they were married.

On Friday, April 19, as Ed and Lorraine continued their stay with the Beckfords, the phenomena became more and more a display of preternatural power. Obscenities and blasphemies showed up on the ceiling of the parents’ bedroom, written in indelible red ink. More astounding still, as everyone watched, the wallpaper began to peel off the walls, one sheet at a time, revealing foul language and Diasphemies, again written in blood-red ink, on the wall underneath! Pictures not only moved on their own now, they began to smolder and break into flames. Doilies and towels and scarves would suddenly ignite, and then, flaming, hurl themselves at someone in the room.

The fierce activity continued into the weekend. The Warrens canceled all commitments so they could stay with the Beckfords until Father Daniel ’s return on Sunday. Meanwhile, the rampage continued unabated. In the downstairs rec room, heavy recliners floated up into the air, drifted to the middle of the room, then piled atop one another in ostensibly sexual postures. Eventually, the rest of the furniture floated to the same area, then dropped haphazardly to the floor. Upstairs, the wallpaper continued to peel itself down, exposing the hateful sentiments of the demonic. And throughout it all, fires started spontaneously, requiring everyone to be on guard to prevent a sudden conflagration.

By Sunday, when Father Daniel returned, it was apparent to Ed and Lorraine the fury could be stopped only by exorcism. Ordinarily, a priest does not need permission to exorcise a house. However,
The Exorcist
had just been released as a movie, and the Church was extremely sensitive to criticism at the time. Therefore, the priest’s instructions from Father McKeegan were explicit: be able to support your request for exorcism with documented evidence of
supernatural
activity!

The Warrens had anticipated this paperwork complication, and were already collecting the necessary evidence by the time the priest arrived. The bulk of the work would still have to be done by Father Daniel, though. The Warrens, unable to postpone other important commitments to people involved in other cases, had to leave that night for upstate New York. Therefore, the priest would again have to remain in the home—to interview the family and list all incidents of phenomena that had occurred, while keeping a record of the ongoing activity now taking place with even more force and violence.

On Monday and Tuesday, April 22 and 23, Father Daniel set about documenting the activity. Assembling a personality profile of each member of the family, the priest came to see the human cost of a diabolical siege. Perhaps the worst affected was Pete Beckford. Right from the very beginning, every sound, every movement, had filled him with fear that rose up from the soul itself, He could not, moreover, bear the thought that his home was now apparently the abode of the devil. How inconceivable, how unwanted it all was! Tired, humiliated, and emotionally spent, Pete Beckford was also physically ill with a painful ulcer for which he took expensive medicine. Even though he kept the pills hidden, the medication was found dumped in the toilet every morning, and he could no longer afford the luxury of renewing the prescription. He had not been able to work in over a month, and the ongoing expense of damages and repairmen was now eating into his meager savings.