The Real Terror of “The Haunting in Connecticut”
March 30th, 2009
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In Southington Connecticut there is a house that, upon first glance, looks like any other. In this home lives a family who have experienced a terror that is very real and has proven very difficult to deal with. During the day or the night, the family has heard noises and seen figures in their windows. The house has become haunted… by trespassers and rude, nosy people. These people look in their windows, come to their door constantly, stand in their yard to take pictures and otherwise bother the hell out of them.
Why? Because this is the house that was the inspiration for the movie “The Haunting In Connecticut” which opened Friday. The events reputed to have happened in the home had also been the subject of a book and a television “documentary.” The family which lives in the home today has never actually experienced paranormal activity, and write off the reputed events that occurred to previous residents as embellished or just plain made up. Since the reputed haunting occurred in 1987, several people have lived in the house, which had rented out part of the house for some time. The former residents of the house even include a US Congressman, Democrat Chris Murphy, who lived there from 1996 to 1998.
But now, with the movie out, what was a nice home in a peaceful neighborhood has become a very difficult and downright scary place to live. The movie doesn’t reveal the actual location of the home, but there are plenty of “paranormal” websites that will give you mapped directions to the house. It’s not that difficult to find, being located on a major road in Southington and well known to the community.
Horror film draws unwanted visitors to Conn. house
SOUTHINGTON, Conn. (AP) — A Hollywood horror film that depicts the alleged haunting of a former funeral parlor in central Connecticut is turning into a nightmare for the home’s current owners and their neighbors.
The movie, “A Haunting in Connecticut,” doesn’t open until Friday, but curious fans are already making a beeline for the Southington home that inspired the movie.
“It’s just been really, really stressful,” said Susan Trotta-Smith, who bought the home 10 years ago with her husband. “It’s been a total change from a very quiet house in a very quiet neighborhood to looking out the window and seeing cars stopping all the time. It’s been very, very stressful, and sometimes worrisome.”
The family has never seen anything unusual inside their five-bedroom, two-family white wood-frame house and does not believe the property was haunted.
“It’s got beautiful woodwork, and there is a nice warm feeling to the house,” Trotta-Smith said. “Because it was a funeral home, the upstairs apartment is much more spacious. It’s like two full houses, and it has a beautiful yard, too.”
The movie, starring Virginia Madsen and Kyle Gallner and released by Lionsgate, is loosely based on stories that revolved around the house in the 1980s.
based on stories that revolved around the house in the 1980s.
The residents at the time, the Snedeker family, claimed their son would hear strange noises in his basement bedroom, which once held casket displays and was near the old embalming room. He also claimed to see shadows on the wall of people who were not there. A niece visiting the home said she felt hands on her body as she tried to sleep, and her covers levitated.
The family brought in Ed and Lorraine Warren, self-described paranormal researchers, who became famous for documenting the alleged “Amityville Horror” haunting of a home on Long Island.
Lorraine Warren says she felt an evil presence in the Southington home and experienced the haunting herself when she spent a night there.
“In the master bedroom, there was a trap door where the coffins were brought up,” she said. “And during the night, you would hear that chain hoist, as if a coffin were being brought up. But when Ed went to check, there was nobody down there.”
Warren, whose husband died in 2006, has nothing to do with the movie. She said the house was “cleared” of the evil presence after a seance in 1988. A book and a television documentary followed.
The current owners, who rent out part of the home to another family, have removed the street number from the house and posted “no trespassing” signs. Trotta-Smith says they are concerned about the four children who live there.
“Most people are respectful. They stay on the road. They might take a picture,” Trotta-Smith said. “But we have had a few problems with people kind of rudely coming up to the door and scaring our kids, telling them the house is haunted.”
Police have added extra patrols to the neighborhood.
“There are creatures looming in the night but not inside the house,” Southington police Sgt. Lowell DePalma said. “They happen to be people who are trespassing on the property, looking in windows and that kind of stuff. People are going to be disappointed. There are no ghosts.”
As for the reality of the stories:
The home was indeed once a funeral parlor and it is true that in the 1980’s a family lived there who reported having various ghostly experiences, but there is little evidence to back these claims. There are still a few residents in the neighborhood who lived there at the time of the reputed haunting. Those who remember the events write off the claims of a haunting, and cite the fact that the electrical service was prone to interruptions, many caused by an old tree whose branches had grown long enough to occasionally brush against the uninsulated power lines. One account of the haunting involves a story of a tree branch catching fire and falling during an exorcism ritual – a story that seems less demonic in view of the dangerously close power lines.
It’s also worth noting that the family who moved into the home at the time had a son who was beint treated for cancer and were relocating themselves to be closer to the hospital where he received treatment. Being in a new home in an unfamiliar area can be stressful enough to begin with, but throw in the stress of treating a disease like cancer and the fact that the house was known to be a former funeral home and it’s easy to see how a child’s imagination could run wild.
Another aspect of the movie and the stories which preceded it had to do with the funeral home that had previously occupied the house in question. The Hallahan Funeral Home was run by the Hallahan family. Members of the family still live in the community and many residents have relatives whose wakes and burrials were handled by the Hallahan Funeral Home. There have been accusations of rumors surrounding the owners of the funeral home. These rumors, not surprisingly, include fantastic claims of satanic worship and even necorphilia. A few who live in the community have investigated these claims, looking through old newspapers and asking some of the long time residents if they had ever heard such claims at the time. All indications are that these stories were entirely made up, and those who knew and worked with the operators of the funeral service remember the operators as being honest, respectable and ordinary.
Contrary to what some pages have reported, (including that the funeral home closed after the morticians were arrested or some other sinister event), the funeral home was not closed due to any such legal problems. According to one website the funeral service did not close completely but rather merged with another funeral home in an adjacent town. The funeral service in question still operates as the the Bergin Funeral Home. The accuracy of this can’t be verified, but it is clear that family members of the funeral operators as well as those who worked at the site or with the service still live in the community and probably would not take kindly to the bizarre and outlandish accusations that have been made.
The Committee For Skeptical Enquirery has additional information about this story.
Sadly for the current residents, whether or not the original story is real, the haunting they now experience from gawkers and rude nosey film goers is very very real.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Culture, Paranormal, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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July 26th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Mandy said:
The home had been a funeral parlor, with most of the areas being used for wakes and funeral services. As I understand it, the “Master Bedroom” was on the first floor and was not a bedroom when the house served as a funeral home.
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February 4th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
DV82XL said:
How about you take the time to do some research before you start ridiculing someone..Yes Spirits and Ghost are real. Spirits are often that of a loved one or someone who is close to you watching over you..
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February 5th, 2011 at 12:00 am
Danielle From NH said:
You are very much correct..Spirits and Ghost are real..
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February 5th, 2011 at 12:44 am
Drakken said:
“Research”? You don’t know what the word means, idiot. There is no research that proves the existence of such things, only a lot of stories from pathetic folk like you.
What is sad is that all of you intellectual weaklings depend on people like me to feed you, and clothe you and give you shelter, and something to do with your useless lives, because left on your own you would be dead in a week. You want to believe in the supernatural, go ahead, but leave your betters alone, and stop pestering us with your childish nonsense.
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February 5th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Drakken said:
Why do you assume that I have not done research?
Actually, when I was much younger and had done far less research I actually believed that hauntings might be real. I have since concluded that they’re not based on having looked at numerous examples and also at the individuals who promote them as real and what their actual motives, qualifications and techniques are.
I’ve become involved with groups and individuals who have been dedicated researchers into claims of the paranormal and have found many cases of mistakes and hoaxes and not a single example of verifiable proof. It’s not like they have not looked high and low.
All the techniques claimed to work have been tested. In many cases by very knowledgeable individuals. Ghost photos have all been explainable. Ghost recordings have been explained. Sometimes these might not be apparent on the first glance to the lay person, but they’ve all been proven to have reasonable explanations if you go looking for them.
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March 11th, 2011 at 1:27 am
I think after checking facts, these people are full of crap. However, I have been present for enough strangeness to keep me guessing about the existence of ghosts or spirit entities. If such a thing were to exist, how would one go about proving it? So little is known of these things, outside of religious contexts. I suppose I will always wonder…
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May 29th, 2011 at 4:03 am
You have to keep in mind that this family was going through alot with their son’s cancer and perhaps the family was having “experiences” because of the mental anguish one goes through with a sick child. It is also believed that true demons can be attached to particular objects or people, and they go where the object goes with unattachment to the home itself. Bottom line, we can theorize all day long but we may never know the truth and people need to accept that while entertaining other possibilities. You can miss out on some pretty incredible things when you keep a closed mind and never leave the option for re-forming opinions you’ve already made.
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May 29th, 2011 at 4:51 am
Athena said:
Bottom line, you’re a closed minded fool who can’t accept that there might be nothing supernatural.
When we compare the real world with the ravings of the deluded what we find is that the real world is so much more interesting.
See for example:
http://cectic.com/036.html
http://skeptic.mike-combs.com/satvsufo.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20090108185510/http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/stars.html
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June 2nd, 2011 at 1:05 am
Anon said:
No actually, I’m not. I’m a hard working military wife, mom and most of all open minded individual who is aware of the fact that this MAY or MAY NOT be true. Looks to me like you’re reading too much into things, otherwise you would see where my comment was not for one side versus the other, rather, a meeting of the minds or an agreement to disagree. Also, I don’t have to puff out my chest or call someone an idiot to prove a point. That is the beauty of being able to carry on a conversation without having to lower my standards or degrade people whom I don’t even know. <—-Thanks for helping me raise my standards just then.
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June 2nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Athena said:
You don’t seem to be doing such a good job at it.
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July 20th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Ive read through a couple of the stories concerning ‘The Haunting in Connecticut’ and was reading some of these comments when i thought to say something. *Everyone* has their own opinion on whether or not ghost and or entities exist. So there is no need to ‘to puff out my chest or call someone an idiot to prove a point.’ as said. though, in my opinion. i believe if you do believe in entities or ghost, i wouldn’t be saying it out right. because that could make them all the more real and may be an invitation to such ghost or entity. Now, if you do not believe in any such things as ghosts or entities. then that’s on you. you are entitled to your own opinion. and who is anyone to say otherwise? you may even find *actual* evidence and explanations for any paranormal claims, which proves otherwise. so, i just thought id put that out there. oh. and the claim that the ‘real world’ may be more interesting, could in your opinion be true. but to other people, it may not. they may find these sort of subjects more interesting. so please, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then dont say it all.
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July 21st, 2011 at 12:25 am
Lexy’Cylene said:
er…
And also STAY THE F*** OFF OF OTHER PEOPLE’S LAWNS!
I swear if people tried to get their own “evidence” by harassing me like they do the family that currently lives in this home, some of them would find out what it is like to be a ghost first hand.
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July 21st, 2011 at 3:44 am
Lexy’Cylene said:
That’s one of the most idiotic pieces of advise possible.
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August 22nd, 2011 at 6:43 pm
DV82XL said:
– no it’s people like u who deny what they can’t see so since u cant see it u don’t believe it most ppl like u don’t believe in god cause u can’t hear or seem him even tho some ppl claim to have seen him u can’t believe until u do .. when I was younger I use to see ghosts n I’m 19 now n hate driving at night .. Basically I’m saying get over yourself n do ur research ur full of it
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August 22nd, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Goldengurl15 said:
As a matter of fact I don’t believe in a god and anyone who claims to have sen one, or ghosts for that matter, is delusional.
19 is very young, I’m almost 60 – grow up a bit before you arrogate yourself the right to tell your betters what to do. In other words: I’m not the one who needs to get over themselves here.
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August 23rd, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Goldengurl15 said:
If you had asked me if ghosts were real ten years ago (when I was 19) I would have said “I don’t know. maybe”
Now I will say I am pretty sure they are not.
What changed? I learned a lot. learned about human perception and suggestion, about the history of reported hauntings, about those who claim they can see ghosts and what happens when these claims are put to the test.
The fact of the matter is that for all the claims there’s not a shred of evidence any of it is real. This is not for lack of looking. It’s been investigated many many times and every time it turns up empty.
What we do have is very compelling evidence that can explain these phenomena by other means. Science has unlocked many mysteries about how human being work. We’ve learned about sleep paralysis, about how people can perceive dreams mixed with reality when they’re on the edge of sleep.. We’ve learned about false memories and optical illusions and the power of suggestion.
These turn out to be very good explanations for people seeing ghosts.
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