The Smurl Haunting

West Pittston is a small, tidy town on the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania’s coal country. In the 1970s, it was the kind of place where people knew their neighbors, went to Mass on Sunday, and lived in the same houses their parents had lived in.

Jack and Janet Smurl were exactly that kind of couple. Jack was a former Marine who worked as an upholsterer. Janet was a homemaker. Both were devout Catholics. In 1973, they bought a modest two-family duplex on Chase Street together with Jack’s parents, John and Mary Smurl. The older couple lived on one side of the house; Jack and Janet lived on the other with their young daughters.

It was, by every account, an ordinary, happy, slightly crowded family home.

Over the next fourteen years, it would become the most notorious haunted house in Pennsylvania.

Small Things

It started, the Smurls said, with little things in 1974. A mysterious stain appeared on the carpet that wouldn’t come out. Newly installed plumbing leaked again and again, even after it was repaired. The family’s new television burst into flames. Deep scratches appeared in the sinks and bathtub. Their daughter’s toys moved around.

The family wrote it off as bad luck, or old-house problems. They had more children — the Smurls eventually had four daughters — and went on with their lives.

But by the mid-1980s, they said, the occurrences had grown more frequent, and much darker.

Escalation

According to the account the family later gave in a book about the haunting, the Smurls began to experience things they could not explain. Foul odors filled rooms without any source. They heard footsteps on the stairs when no one was there, and the sound of someone breathing in empty rooms. Lights turned on and off. Drawers opened and slammed shut. Heavy objects were thrown. The family dog was picked up and hurled across the room.

They described seeing dark, shapeless figures. They said they heard pig-like grunting noises in the walls. Jack said he was attacked by an unseen force that left him bruised. Janet said she was lifted off the bed. Jack’s parents, on the other side of the duplex, said they heard terrible arguments and obscene language coming from Jack and Janet’s side of the house — when Jack and Janet weren’t home.

The family said the attacks were especially directed at Jack, and that some of them were violent and humiliating. They believed they were being tormented by a demon.

The Warrens

In 1986, desperate, the Smurls contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators who had become famous for the Amityville case and others.

The Warrens came to West Pittston. After investigating, they declared that the house was infested not only with spirits, but with a demon — and that the demon was the cause of the most violent attacks. They brought in a priest who was willing to perform prayers and blessings in the house. The Smurls said the blessings seemed to work for a time, but then the activity returned.

The Smurls also turned to their own church. The Catholic Diocese of Scranton investigated but did not authorize an exorcism. Officials expressed skepticism about the family’s claims. They also expressed concern about the involvement of the Warrens and the publicity surrounding the case.

The Circus

In August 1986, the Smurls went public with their story. They gave interviews to newspapers and appeared on national television. The story spread across the country.

Within days, Chase Street was overrun. Crowds of curious onlookers gathered outside the house, sometimes hundreds at a time. They parked along the street, trampled lawns, peered in windows and shouted at the family. Neighbors were furious. Some of them said they had never seen or heard anything unusual. Others said they had.

A national skeptics’ organization offered to investigate the house. The Smurls declined, saying they didn’t trust outsiders who had already decided they were lying. Skeptics pointed out that the Smurls’ account was dramatic, unverifiable, and grew more elaborate over time. Some suggested psychological explanations, or that the family was exaggerating for publicity or profit. The Smurls denied it fiercely.

In 1986, a writer named Robert Curran published The Haunted: One Family’s Nightmare, written with the Smurls and with an introduction by the Warrens. In 1991, the book was made into a television movie.

Leaving

In 1988, the Smurls sold the house on Chase Street and moved to another town. They said that, even after they moved, they continued to experience some strange occurrences for a time. But eventually, they said, the haunting faded.

The new owners of the duplex said that they experienced nothing unusual at all. Neither did the owners after them.

What Happened in West Pittston?

There are a few ways to read the story of the Smurls.

You can believe them, as many people do: that a devout, ordinary family was tormented for over a decade by a malevolent force in their home, and that the publicity they brought on themselves was a desperate cry for help.

You can see it as a story of a family under enormous strain — a crowded house, a growing family, money troubles, illness, and two generations living on top of each other — that found an explanation for their misery in the supernatural.

Or you can see it, as skeptics do, as a case in which the involvement of famous paranormal investigators, the media and a book deal turned a family’s unexplained experiences into a sensational story.

Whatever happened, I find it telling that the strangest part of the Smurl haunting was what happened once they went public. A quiet street in a small Pennsylvania town turned into a carnival. Neighbors turned against neighbors. A family’s private terror, real or imagined, became a spectacle.

Some hauntings are about what’s inside a house. This one, in the end, was also about what gathered outside it.