The Perron Family Haunting – A Very Wicked Witching at The Arnold Estate
The Perron family haunting began in the early 70s when the family moved into a sprawling 14 bedroom farmhouse. Over the next ten years, the Perrons experienced an onslaught of ghostly activity. From moving objects to the stench of death, the family endured terrifying paranormal activity for nearly ten years.
Moving into A new Haunted home on The Arnold Estate Kicks off the Perron Family Haunting
In January of 1971, the Perrons moved into their new/old farmhouse on Rhode Island. The family consisted of Carolyn and Roger, and their five daughters Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy and April. Carolyn had found the house six months prior to the family moving in. But all seven members of the family had fallen in love with the place and already felt like it was their destiny to live there.
Although they were not rich, the Perrons moved mountains to be able to purchase the big house and they finally were able to claim it as their own. There was just one thing niggling at them. And that was a warning from the previous owner to “Leave the lights on at night.”
The girls in the family immediately started to experience strange happenings. Although they fought against the stories their daughters were telling them, Carolyn and Roger eventually began to realise that they were not alone in their house. Not by a long shot.
The Cellar is a Hotspot in the Case of the Perron Family Haunting
As well as their own strange experiences, the Perrons were alarmed when their dog refused to walk along the hallway that connected the dining room to the kitchen. Confused, they tried to lure her with treats, but she wasn’t having any of it.
Eventually, the family came to realise that it wasn’t so much the hallway that was spooking the dog, but the door to the cellar that was in the hall. This realisation came about when Roger had to go down into the cellar to make some repairs to the central heating unit.
The cellar had a low ceiling and a dirt floor and almost immediately, Roger felt uneasy. He said that there was a cold, stinking presence that lurked behind him while he worked. After this first round of repairs, he was relieved to be able to venture back upstairs. But the central heating would mysteriously malfunction often over the ten years that the Perrons lived in the house. Meaning that poor Roger would have to venture down into that hellhole to, once again, repair the heating system under the watchful eye of a frigid, malodorous presence.
Ed and Lorraine Warren Decide to Insert THemselves into the Heart of the Perron Family Haunting
As with several of these high-profile hauntings, the infamous Paranormal Investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, decided to cash in on this alleged haunting.
In 1973, on learning about the Perron family haunting, the Warrens paid the house a visit. It had garnered some interest for its haunted happenings, and the paranormal pair had decided to lend a hand. Carolyn Perron had no idea who they were when they rocked up at the farmhouse.
Sadly, the Warrens decided to conduct a seance, which did shed some light on what was going on in that house. But not before causing the Perrons some distress; particularly Carolyn, who became possessed during the seance. Carolyn Perron spoke in tongues and began levitating in her chair, before she was dropped to the floor, smashing the chair to pieces.
Andrea Perron claims to have witnessed this possession and said that she was convinced her mother had been killed. She says that Carolyn was smashed to the ground over and over again, banging her head against the hard floor. After the spirit had quietened, Andrea said that her mother was unconscious for several minutes, before coming to and returning to her usual sweet self.
Astounded, Lorraine Warren declared that the evil spirit that had taken over Carolyn had been a long-dead witch and child murderer called Bathsheba Sherman. On hearing this, Carolyn contacted a local historian who had one hell of a tale to tell.
Bathsheba Sherman is the Most Evil of the Spirits in the Perron Family Haunting
Bathsheba Sherman was a very real woman, who lived in Harrisville, Rhode Island in the 19th century. Born in 1812 as Bathsheba Thayer, she was a renowned beauty who would grow up and marry Judson Sherman in 1844 when she was 32 years old. The pair had a child, a boy named Herbert.
Judson ran a successful business out of the now infamous farmhouse. It had been in the family for eight decades and over the years, there had been many strange and suspicious deaths on the land. Murder, hangings, drownings…
“Eight generations of one extended family lived and died in that house prior to our arrival,” says Andrea Perron, adding, “Some of them never left.” The Black Book of Burrillville, the town’s former public records book, reveals that over the course of its existence the property had been host to two suicides by hanging, one suicide by poison, the rape and murder of eleven-year-old Prudence Arnold by a farmhand, two drownings, and the passing of four men who froze to death, in addition to other tragic losses of life.
Bathsheba Had Quite the Reputation
Many rumours swirled around Bathsheba and her relation to Mary Eastey, who had been hanged as a witch during the Salem Witch Trials. People suspected Bathsheba of practising witchcraft herself. She was known to be a cruel mistress, beating her farmhands half to death on a regular basis and often starving them.
Legend has it that Bathsheba had been babysitting her neighbour’s son shortly before the birth of her own, when he mysteriously died. The coroner stated the cause of death was a small, thin implement that had been stabbed into the child’s skull. Although the women in the town blamed Bathsheba, the case never went to court and Bathsheba was spared a trial.
But one week after the birth of her own son, Bathsheba was caught in a heinous act by her dumbfounded husband. She was sacrificing Herbert to Satan by killing him with a sewing needle. The disturbed woman then climbed a tree and hanged herself. But not before announcing her love of the devil, and cursing the house and anyone who would live on the land after her.
Ghastly Paranormal Happenings Continue in the Perron Family Haunting
The Perrons said that after the seance where they made contact with this malevolent spirit, the strange occurrences ramped up. Bathsheba would take items from the house that were never seen again. The children were visited by a woman with a crooked neck at nighttime who told them she wanted Carolyn to kill them. The beds would shake violently in every room.
Carolyn reported that she would be alone in the house cleaning and would go back into a room she’d already finished to find neat piles of dirt on the floor.
Roger Perron had thrown the Warrens out of the house for good after the seance, stating that they had caused more harm than good. However, the paranormal pair visited the house one more time to check in on Carolyn.
Andrea Perron
“Whoever the spirit was, she perceived herself to be the mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position."
Roger Perron had thrown the Warrens out of the house for good after the seance, stating that they had caused more harm than good. However, the paranormal pair visited the house one more time to check in on Carolyn.
Ten Years of the Perron Family Haunting to Unravel
The Perron family suffered their haunting for ten years. They’d sunk every penny they had in the sprawling farmhouse and there wasn’t much scope for them to move straight out again.
However, Andrea Perron does go into more detail on the Perron family haunting in several interviews that she’s participated in. She says that not all of the ghosts on the property were malevolent and that they actually made friends with some of them.
Angela’s Unusual Take on the Perron Family Haunting
Angela says that growing up in that house fundamentally changed who she was and who she grew up to be. She now has a degree in English and has penned three books that cover all the events that took place in that house. But she also has a degree in philosophy, which she studied in an effort to shed some light on the supernatural things that she had experienced as a child.
According to Angela, her sister Nancy was so upset when Carolyn and Roger decided to sell the Arnold Estate, that she offered to stay on as a caretaker. One ghost, the spirit of a little boy called Oliver Richardson, introduced himself to April Perron. He had been about five or six when he died, which was about the same age that April was when the Perron family moved into that home. The disembodied soul of the little boy and the little girl who was very much alive became firm friends. John was the only ghost who told the family who he had been in life.
The Perron family were always respectful of the entities at the farmhouse, because they had been there first. And a lot of them had been there for a long time.
Angela Believes Conjuring Film Unfairly Vilified Bathsheba Sherman
When asked about Bathsheba, Angela is quick to come to her defence. There is no hard evidence that Bathsheba was guilty of killing children and her grave is in hallowed ground. While Angela concedes that she did see and hear Bathsheba, she believes that the ghost of the woman with the bent neck was from way before Bathsheba was even born. She claims that this evil entity had a thick, Scottish accent and that all of the spirits in the house were scared of her, including Bathsheba.
Angela also says that Lorraine Warren admitted years later, at the opening of The Conjuring, that she and Ed were out of their depth. Apparently, the moment the Warrens stepped over the threshold of the Arnold Estate to investigate the Perron family haunting, she was overcome with dread. Misnaming the entity as Bathsheba probably only served to enrage the spirit, and for that, Carolyn nearly died.
Mental Illness Strikes Again in this Haunting Story
When Angela was ten years old, she took the family dog, strangely named Bathsheba, for a walk. It was the late 60s and times were different. Even I remember wandering around on my own from about the age of eight years old and that was the 80s, so it’s not unusual that she was allowed to walk the dog unsupervised. The dog, however, overpowered her, running away at high speed and dragging the lead out of her hand. Bathsheba the dog ran into the road and was killed in front of Angela. The time that followed was very difficult on the young girls and she had a mental breakdown.
This was the catalyst for the Perron family upping sticks and moving to the Arnold Estate. Carolyn said she wanted her children to grow up away from busy roads, where they could safely play outside and enjoy themselves. Which is fair enough really. However, the fact that Angela has admitted to being mentally fragile from an early age leads me to wonder about how easily she could have been influenced. And how easily she could have influenced others, subconsciously or otherwise.
I have downloaded Angela’s first book to my Kindle, so I’ll be giving that a read to see if it gives me more of an idea of what went on at the Arnold Estate.
The New Owner of the Arnold Estate Has Some Scary Ghost Stories of her Own
The home of the Perron family haunting still exists. It is currently owned by the Heinzen family. And Madison Heinzen has quite a bit to say about it.
Currently, she has 1.4M followers on TikTok who are all dying to know what it’s like to live in the house from The Conjuring. And Madison does not disappoint. She talks about the spooky happenings that the family endures on a daily basis.
Her most recent experience, she actually saw a ghost. She said she was just sitting down to dinner one evening when she saw someone run past her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tail end of a skirt and a veil before the apparition disappeared. When she spoke to her parents about it, they told her that the spirit of a woman in a wedding dress has been seen by many people at the farmhouse over the years.
Madison’s parents are Cory and Jennifer, and they are paranormal investigators. It stands to reason that experts in the supernatural would want to own such a property. Corey has been interviewed by the Sun Journal and said that the family has heard footsteps and knocks, and that the doors often close or open by themselves. He admits that he has had a hard time when he’s been in the house alone.
Cory Heinzen
“I don’t have the feeling of anything evil. It’s very busy. You can tell there’s a lot of things going on."
Scaredy Cat’s Take
I actually really struggled to find much info online about the actual events that happened. Apart from the film, The Conjuring, which was so utterly ridiculous and hammy that it made me angry. And thus shed absolutely no light at all on what happened. I believe that lots of bad things have happened over the years at that farmhouse. And I can believe that it has an eerie feeling as a result.
Do I believe that the spirits of actual dead people roam the halls terrifying the living occupants? Obviously not. Would I stay there on my own? Obviously not.
Whether it’s just clever marketing, or a genuine interest in the spooky happenings, the Warrens always seem to turn up just as the media starts to take an interest. Either way, I have to reiterate – if someone is making money on the rumours of a place being haunted, they immediately discredit themselves. And the appearance of Ed and Lorraine discredits all of this entirely, as do the several media stories and rehashings of the tale. Too many people are making too much money out of nothing really happening for my liking.
In this case, as with all cases of family hauntings that involve nasty poltergeists, I think the family were primed by the previous owner, wound up by each other and ultimately did themselves no favours by listening to the money-grabbing Warrens.
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