The Smurl Family Haunting

The duplex at 328 Chase Street in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, was an unremarkable home in an unremarkable town, the kind of place where families raised children, attended church on Sundays, and expected nothing more dramatic from their walls than the occasional creak of settling timber. For Jack and Janet Smurl, who moved into one half of the duplex in 1973 while Jack’s parents, John and Mary, occupied the other, the house represented stability and family togetherness. What it became instead was the setting for one of the most disturbing and prolonged cases of alleged demonic infestation in American history. Over the course of fifteen years, the Smurl family would endure escalating torment that progressed from minor annoyances to physical assaults, sexual attacks by unseen entities, and apparent possession of family members. Their ordeal would draw the attention of America’s most famous paranormal investigators, generate national media coverage, and spark a controversy that continues to divide researchers and skeptics to this day.

West Pittston: A Quiet Town with Deep Roots

To appreciate the improbability of the Smurl case, one must first understand the community in which it unfolded. West Pittston sits in the Wyoming Valley of northeastern Pennsylvania, a region shaped by the anthracite coal industry that once powered America’s industrial revolution. By the 1970s, the mines had largely closed, but the communities they built remained, populated by close-knit families of Irish, Italian, Welsh, and Polish descent who maintained strong ties to their churches and to one another. This was not the kind of place that bred sensationalism or attracted attention. The people of West Pittston were practical, hardworking, and deeply Catholic. They did not invite the spotlight, and they certainly did not seek notoriety through claims of demonic harassment.

The Smurls were thoroughly embedded in this community. Jack worked as a neuropsychiatric technician, Janet was a homemaker devoted to their growing family, and John and Mary Smurl were respected members of the parish. When the family first began experiencing strange occurrences in their home, their instinct was not to publicize but to endure quietly, seeking explanations in faulty plumbing, old wiring, or the natural settling of an aging house. It would take years of intensifying phenomena before they accepted that something beyond the mundane was at work in their home.

The First Disturbances

The earliest signs appeared in 1974, shortly after Jack and Janet moved in. A stain materialized on a new carpet, spreading and darkening despite repeated cleaning. A television set burst into flames without any apparent electrical fault. Water pipes leaked despite being recently inspected and repaired. Taken individually, each incident had a plausible explanation. Taken together, they formed a pattern that the family would only recognize in retrospect as the opening salvo of a sustained assault.

Scratching sounds emerged from within the walls, the kind of noise one might attribute to mice or squirrels, except that no evidence of rodent activity was ever found. Footsteps echoed through empty rooms, deliberate and measured, as though someone were pacing with purpose. Doors opened and closed on their own, not slamming dramatically but swinging gently, as if moved by an invisible hand exercising restraint. An inexplicable stench would periodically pervade certain rooms, a foul odor that appeared without warning and vanished just as mysteriously, defying all attempts at identification or elimination.

Through the late 1970s, the activity remained at this relatively low level. The family adapted to it, as people do to chronic irritations. They replaced damaged items, cleaned persistent stains, and learned to ignore sounds that had no visible source. Jack’s parents experienced similar disturbances in their half of the duplex, but the older couple, shaped by a generation that prized stoicism, dismissed them as the eccentricities of an old house. No one spoke of the supernatural. No one entertained the possibility that their home might harbor something malevolent.

The Escalation

Everything changed in the early 1980s. The phenomena shifted from nuisance to menace with a swiftness that left the family reeling. What had been scratching became pounding, violent blows from inside the walls that shook pictures from their hooks and rattled dishes in their cabinets. The temperature in certain rooms would plummet without explanation, creating zones of piercing cold even in the heat of summer. The family dog, previously calm and well-behaved, began acting aggressively, growling at empty corners and refusing to enter certain rooms.

Then the apparitions began. A black, humanoid figure was seen throughout the house, a shadow with form and substance that moved with apparent intention through hallways and bedrooms. It appeared to multiple family members independently, eliminating the possibility that a single person’s overwrought imagination was to blame. Janet described it as darker than shadow, a void in the shape of a man that radiated malice. The figure was sometimes accompanied by other forms, indistinct shapes that hovered at the periphery of vision and vanished when confronted directly.

The physical attacks commenced around 1985. Family members were scratched, slapped, and pushed by unseen forces. Janet was struck across the face hard enough to leave marks. Jack was thrown against walls. The family’s daughters, Dawn and Heather among them, were terrorized in their beds at night by sounds, smells, and the oppressive feeling of a hostile presence pressing down upon them. The youngest children, too small to fabricate such experiences, screamed about the “bad thing” in their room with a consistency and terror that could not be dismissed as childish nightmares.

Most disturbing of all were the sexual assaults. Both Jack and Janet independently reported being violated by invisible entities, experiences they described with visible anguish and reluctance. Janet spoke of being held down in her bed by a force she could not see while something assaulted her sexually. Jack described being raped by a succubus-like entity, an experience so traumatic and humiliating that he struggled to discuss it even years later. These claims, by their very nature, were impossible to verify, but the psychological toll they took on the couple was evident to everyone who knew them. Their marriage, previously strong, strained under the weight of experiences they could barely articulate to each other, much less to the outside world.

Shannon, one of the Smurl daughters, began displaying signs that the family and later investigators interpreted as possession. She would enter trance-like states, her demeanor shifting dramatically from the personality her parents knew to something alien and hostile. During these episodes, she reportedly spoke in voices that were not her own and demonstrated knowledge she could not have possessed. The episodes were terrifying for the family, who watched helplessly as their child seemed to be overtaken by something they could not fight.

The Warrens Arrive

By 1986, the Smurls had exhausted their own resources. Prayers brought temporary relief at best. Blessings from local clergy seemed to provoke rather than pacify whatever inhabited the house. In desperation, they contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, the Connecticut-based paranormal investigators who had risen to fame through their involvement in cases like the Amityville Horror and the Perron family haunting in Rhode Island.

Ed Warren was a self-taught demonologist, the only layperson recognized by the Catholic Church to investigate cases of alleged diabolical activity, a claim that has been disputed by some within the Church. Lorraine described herself as a clairvoyant and light trance medium, capable of perceiving spiritual entities invisible to ordinary people. Together, they had investigated hundreds of cases over several decades and had developed a methodology that blended Catholic theology with practical investigation techniques.

The Warrens arrived at Chase Street and conducted their assessment. Lorraine reported sensing multiple entities within the duplex, including what she identified as four spirits and a powerful demon. The spirits, she claimed, were human souls trapped or manipulated by the demonic presence, used as instruments of torment against the family. The demon itself was an entity of considerable power, one that had established deep roots within the home and would not be easily dislodged.

Ed Warren confirmed Lorraine’s assessment through his own investigation, documenting the family’s experiences in detail and noting patterns consistent with what demonological literature described as the three stages of demonic assault: infestation, in which the entity makes its presence known through disturbances; oppression, in which it targets specific individuals with escalating harassment; and possession, in which it attempts to inhabit and control a human host. The Smurl case, the Warrens concluded, had progressed through all three stages.

The Warrens’ involvement brought media attention that the Smurls had neither sought nor welcomed. News crews descended on West Pittston. Reporters knocked on the door of 328 Chase Street at all hours. Curiosity seekers and amateur ghost hunters parked on the street, hoping to witness something extraordinary. The quiet family that had endured their torment in private suddenly found themselves at the center of a media circus, their most intimate and horrifying experiences discussed on television news and in newspaper columns across the country.

The Exorcisms

The Warrens, convinced of the demonic nature of the infestation, lobbied the Catholic diocese of Scranton for an official exorcism. The Church approached the matter with characteristic caution. An exorcism is not undertaken lightly in Catholic tradition; it requires the authorization of a bishop and is reserved for cases where all natural explanations have been thoroughly excluded. The diocese initially resisted, wary of the publicity already surrounding the case and uncertain about the validity of the claims.

Eventually, multiple exorcism attempts were conducted by Catholic priests, though the details of these ceremonies were kept deliberately private. The Smurls reported that each exorcism brought temporary relief, a period of calm that might last days or weeks, during which the house felt genuinely peaceful and the family dared to hope that their ordeal was over. But the respite never lasted. The activity would return, sometimes gradually, sometimes with explosive force, as if the entities were reasserting their dominance over the territory they had claimed.

One particularly dramatic account described events during an exorcism ceremony itself. As a priest recited the prayers of the Rituale Romanum, the house reportedly shook, furniture moved of its own accord, and a foul smell engulfed the room so powerfully that participants gagged and struggled to continue. The entities, it seemed, were not merely passive in the face of spiritual warfare. They fought back, targeting both the clergy conducting the rituals and the family members present, as though demonstrating that no earthly authority could compel their departure.

The failure of traditional exorcism to produce lasting results troubled everyone involved. Ed Warren theorized that the demon in the Smurl home was exceptionally powerful, perhaps an entity of high rank within the infernal hierarchy, and that it had established such a profound connection to the location and its inhabitants that standard procedures were insufficient. Others suggested that the demon’s resistance might indicate that someone connected to the house had at some point, knowingly or unknowingly, invited the entity in, creating a spiritual permission that could not easily be revoked.

Beyond the Walls

One of the most alarming aspects of the Smurl case was the family’s discovery that the activity was not confined to 328 Chase Street. On a camping trip intended to provide respite from the haunting, the family reported that the entities followed them, manifesting the same phenomena in the wilderness that they had endured at home. Scratching sounds came from inside their tent. An oppressive presence settled over their campsite. The stench that had plagued their house appeared in the open air of the Pennsylvania countryside.

This development was profoundly demoralizing. The family had clung to the hope that their problem was localized, that the house itself was the source of the infestation, and that leaving it would mean leaving the nightmare behind. The realization that the entities could pursue them beyond the walls of their home stripped away that final comfort. They were not living in a haunted house. They were, it seemed, a haunted family.

The phenomena also manifested at Jack’s workplace and in the homes of relatives the Smurls visited. Wherever they went, disturbances followed, though typically at a reduced intensity. It was as though the entities maintained their strongest grip at Chase Street but could extend tendrils of influence wherever the family traveled, reminding them that there was no escape.

The Public Response

The Smurl case divided public opinion sharply. Supporters pointed to the family’s character, their deep Catholic faith, and their evident reluctance to seek publicity as evidence that their claims were sincere. Why would a quiet, working-class family in a small Pennsylvania town invent such a story, knowing the ridicule and disruption it would bring? What did they stand to gain from claiming they had been sexually assaulted by demons, an assertion so outlandish that it invited mockery?

Critics countered that the involvement of the Warrens was itself cause for skepticism. Ed and Lorraine Warren had been accused of credulity and self-promotion throughout their careers, and their track record included cases, notably Amityville, where the alleged hauntings had been substantially debunked. The Smurls’ story, skeptics argued, bore the hallmarks of a case that had been shaped and amplified by the Warrens’ influence, with ambiguous phenomena interpreted through a demonological framework that found the supernatural wherever it looked.

Paul Kurtz, the prominent skeptic and founder of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, dismissed the case as a product of suggestion, stress, and the Warrens’ well-documented tendency to validate claims of demonic activity. Others pointed out that the Smurls had eventually profited from their story through a book, “The Haunted,” written by Robert Curran and published in 1988, and a television movie of the same name that aired in 1991. While the family maintained that they had shared their story only to help others in similar situations, the financial dimension provided ammunition for those who questioned their motives.

Neighbors on Chase Street offered mixed testimony. Some reported experiencing minor disturbances of their own, lending credibility to the idea that something unusual was occurring in the area. Others, including the family who lived in the adjoining half of the duplex before and after the Smurls, reported nothing out of the ordinary, a significant counterpoint given that the Smurls claimed the entire building was infested.

Departure and Aftermath

In 1989, after fifteen years of torment, the Smurls made the decision to leave 328 Chase Street. They relocated to another home in the area, hoping that physical distance from the duplex would finally sever the connection between their family and the entities that had terrorized them for so long.

Accounts differ on what happened next. The Smurls themselves gave somewhat varying statements over the years about whether the activity followed them to their new home. Some interviews suggest that the phenomena diminished significantly after the move, eventually fading to nothing. Others indicate that low-level disturbances continued for a time before finally ceasing. The family’s reluctance to speak publicly about the later period of their experience has left this chapter of the story frustratingly incomplete.

The house on Chase Street continued to stand, occupied by subsequent tenants who, by most accounts, experienced no phenomena of note. If the duplex had indeed been home to a powerful demonic entity, it seemed to have departed along with the family it had targeted, or simply fallen dormant in the absence of its preferred victims. This detail has been cited by both believers and skeptics to support their respective positions. For believers, it suggested that the entities had been attached to the Smurls rather than the location, consistent with cases of personal oppression described in demonological literature. For skeptics, it suggested that the phenomena had been generated by the family themselves, whether through deliberate fabrication or unconscious psychological processes.

A Case That Defies Easy Answers

More than three decades after the Smurls left Chase Street, their case remains one of the most polarizing in the annals of American paranormal investigation. It lacks the kind of hard evidence that might settle the question definitively. There are no convincing photographs of the black figure, no recordings of the disembodied voices, no physical traces of the attacks that could be subjected to scientific analysis. What exists is the testimony of a family, the assessment of investigators whose methods and objectivity are themselves subjects of debate, and the judgment of clergy who were bound by the confidentiality of their sacramental duties.

What is not in dispute is the suffering the family endured. Whether the cause was supernatural or psychological, the Smurls were plainly traumatized by their experiences at 328 Chase Street. Their marriage was tested to its limits. Their children grew up in an atmosphere of fear and instability. Their relationship with their community was complicated by publicity they had not sought and attention they did not want. Whatever was happening in that duplex, its effects on the people who lived there were entirely real.

The Smurl case also raises broader questions about the nature of belief and the boundaries of knowledge. In a culture that increasingly prizes empirical evidence and scientific methodology, claims of demonic possession occupy an uncomfortable space, dismissed by secular authorities as superstition but treated with absolute seriousness by religious traditions that have addressed the phenomenon for millennia. The Catholic Church, which maintains an active office of exorcism and trains priests in the Rite, does not consider demonic oppression to be a relic of the medieval past but a present reality that requires ongoing pastoral response.

For the Smurls, these were not abstract theological questions. They were the daily reality of a family that believed itself under siege by forces it could not see, could not fight, and could not escape. Whether one accepts their account as literally true, interprets it through a psychological lens, or dismisses it entirely, the case of 328 Chase Street stands as a sobering reminder that there are experiences at the margins of human understanding that resist easy categorization. The darkness that the Smurl family encountered in their modest Pennsylvania duplex, whatever its ultimate nature, left marks that neither time nor distance could entirely erase.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “The Smurl Family Haunting”
• JSTOR — Religious studies — Peer-reviewed research on possession and exorcism