Light out everybody. What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Lights Out podcast. I'm your host Josh. As always, I've got my brother and producer Joel here in the studio with me and today we are going to be covering The Haunting in Connecticut. If you've ever seen that movie before, Joel, have you seen that movie? Oh, yeah. I've actually seen it Like multiple times. It's super good, by the way. It really is. And the reviews on it aren't very good, which I I find interesting cuz I think it's one of the better uh
paranormal thriller movies out there. I found it pretty scary at the time when it came out. Oh, definitely. I was like, "Wow, this is this is pretty frightening stuff." And that movie is actually based on the Sneder family haunting, which is what we're covering today. And this is a truly wild story. And whether or not it's true, well, we'll leave that up to you. But before we get into today's episode, I wanted to remind everybody that we do still have some merch out there. If you haven't uh checked out the merch yet, what are you
doing? Go to mharmmerch.com right now and take a look and see if there's anything you might like because once we sell out of those items, they are not going to be coming back because we got some new stuff Planned here coming up in the next month or two. So yeah, if you want something, go and get it. Also, this episode is brought to you by Lamps Plus and Plushcare. And thank you guys so much for sponsoring the show. But let's go ahead and get into the Snetedker family haunting. So, our story begins in 1986 with
the Sneteder family, which the Sneder family consisted of Carmen Allen or known as Al Snetedker and their kids Jennifer, sons Alan Jr., Bradley and Philip. And in 1986, they were living in upstate New York. And they were your typical middle-ass family. You know, they were just living a very normal life. Nothing crazy or out of the ordinary had happened to them up until this point. So, you know, just your typical family dealing with uh a lot of uh different challenges that life often brings. And their oldest son, Philip, who was 13 years old, actually developed
a lump on his neck. And his mother, Carmen, took him to see a doctor one Friday afternoon. And at this time, the lump on his neck was about the size of a pee. And obviously, the doctor was pretty concerned about this. I mean, anytime you find a lump on your body, it's cause for concern for sure. And so, the doctor decided to order a biopsy uh for that following Monday to have it, you know, a piece of it taken and tested. And from the time that he went in on Friday till Monday, this lump that
Was P-sized grew to the size of a golf ball in a very short amount of time, which is pretty alarming if you ask me. But after the doctors did the biopsy, it basically told them that Philip had nonhodkins lymphoma, a type of cancer of the immune system, and he was basically given 6 months to live. His mother, Carmen, actually drove Philip 306 miles round trip to and from their home in New York to the University of Connecticut hospital for radiation therapy in order To treat the cancer. Because I mean with 6 months left to live,
they family was very very upset by this and they wanted to see if there was anything they could do. So they were willing to make the long drive in order to get Philip any form of treatment that might help make the cancer better. Unfortunately for the family though, Philip getting cancer took a huge toll on their finances and I mean they were already, you know, strapped for money and Al, Philip's Stepfather worked during the day pretty much every day in order to support the family and they actually had to hire a living babysitter in order
to watch the younger kids cuz I mean his mother was Carmen was busy driving Philip to the hospital for all his treatments and everything. And so they needed somebody to be home with the kids. And so it just made sense for them to, you know, bring in somebody to watch the younger kids. But obviously this is going to take a Major toll on their finances. And it got to a point where they really really didn't know what to do. Plus the car rides were very, very difficult for Philip. I mean, as you can imagine, being
a cancer patient, going 306 mi round trip to get your treatments is not going to be a fun ride at all. I mean, when you're going through chemo and radiation, you're going to be very sick, nauseous often. So, the last thing you want to do is be on a long, long car Ride for, you know, hours at a time. So, Carmen started to worry that, you know, maybe this was really, really going to be too hard on Philillip and could make it worse. And she was very worried that it would even kill him before the
cancer could. So, it quickly became clear to Carmen and Al that they probably needed to move closer to the hospital. But Carmen and Al knew it wouldn't be easy because Connecticut was expensive and they needed enough space for the two of Them and their four kids. I mean, six six people in a family, it's it's not like huge, but it's it's definitely bigger than I think the average size family uh in America is. So, you know, you need a good amount of bedrooms. you need a good amount of space in order to, you know, give
everybody enough space to be happy and, you know, function as a family. So, they hired a real estate company to help them find a place to rent. But one day, Carmen was driving Through neighborhoods near the hospital when she spotted a for rent sign outside of a large old colonial house. And so, she was like, "Okay, here's a here's a prospect." So, she decided to, you know, book a showing and take a look. This particular house was a duplex and it was built in 1916 and it's in a neighborhood that is now recognized by the
National Register as a historic neighborhood in Hartford County. The unit for rent was downstairs and it was large enough for All them to live comfortably and included the basement. So, the deal seemed too good to be true. And boy was it too good to be true. So, just to give you some perspective, this house, it's a white house. It looks like it's got three stories on it. And it looks like there's a either an attic or a third floor of some sort at the top there cuz there's some windows up there. But basically, I think
the way that they had the house laid out was, you know, they Had a separate front door for the second level for another tenant. And so the Sneture family was going to live on the main floor, but they also had the basement as well, which when Carmen originally went into the basement and looked at it, it was completely blocked when she initially toured the house. So she never got a chance to actually look inside of what what the basement situation was before they actually moved in. So she just was like, "You know What? This is
a great deal. This will get us closer to the hospital. It's got enough room for my family. Let's go ahead and make the move." So Carmen and Allan decide to move their family to this house. And the first thing that they decide to do is to renovate the basement. and at least get it to a point where the two oldest boys, Bradley and Philip, could actually stay down there and have, you know, all their stuff in their rooms down there. But when they Got into the house, it didn't take long for Allan to realize, oh
yeah, the basement was blocked. But eventually, he was able to get in. And he was definitely blown away by what he discovered. In the basement that was locked up, closed was multiple rooms with inbalming tables and mortuary equipment, including a chain and pulley casket lift used to bring corpses from the basement to the first floor. There was also a box of coffin handles and a Blood drainage pit. One wall was still covered in blood stains. What do you do as a parent when you go down and you're thinking, "All right, my boys are going to
have, you know, you're going to be on this other floor. It's going to be great." And you walk in and this is what you find. I think you regret moving in right away and and decide maybe I shouldn't put my boys down here because it's creepy for One, but you never know, man. You never know what could be lurking down there. And as as we know with the paranormal, these types of places are often hotbeds for spirit activity. During his search of the basement, he also discovered some other very disturbing things, including a drawer full
of photographs of corpses along with toe and head tags used to identify dead bodies and personal items that belong to the deceased. Plus, it didn't Take him long to find a small graveyard in the back of the house. The owner of the house, Daryl Kern of Kern Realy, bought it in the 1980s, and he confirmed to them that it used to be the Halahan funeral home, which was opened in 1936. So, there you go. That's why this house was a deal, cuz it was a former funeral home. And I don't know if Carmen's just not
familiar with what a funeral home looks like or, you know, maybe from, you know, moving from Upstate New York to Connecticut. They just aren't, you know, different architecture or whatever, but like there's literally doors to the morg on the side of the house. And I don't know if Carmen didn't see those or, you know, that didn't ring some bells. Like what is this house? Why is there all these separate doors? like and you would think that I mean I guess me personally even when I moved into this house that I'm in I did not ask
about the history or like You know who who was actually here before. I mean I knew who the previous owner was obviously but I didn't know the original owners of the house. So it's kind of interesting how we go through life and we moved into different places and that's like never something we really look into. I mean at least the average person doesn't. we don't look into the history or like what may have happened in this place. Like it' probably be scare pretty scary if we Went back and looked at especially like all the places
Joel and I lived throughout our life. Like Oh, I know, right? I bet there are some uh troubling histories in some of those places. So, cuz Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, "What the hell?" I mean, even in the last apartment that I lived in uh with Kendall, my wife, and we uh definitely had some spirit activity in there. And what about you, Joel? Have you experienced anything in any of the Places you've lived? So, I personally haven't experienced like paranormal activity other than at the Zack Baggins Museum, but in a place that I've lived in, probably
the sketchiest place was like a few years ago living out in an old like apartment building I think was built like in the early 1900s, you know, that one out in Bennett. And I was on like the ground floor and it was like super dark and creepy and just the architecture of the whole thing was just Seemed like a bad place. Definitely. I feel like some [ __ ] has definitely gone down in that place. Oh yeah, that place was uh Yeah, that was definitely sketchy. But do you remember that one house that we grew
up in that was all stucco and you know we were real young like just early grade school but we were in this entire neighborhood that no one no one else lived in. We're like the only family in that entire place. It was just crazy. It was creepy cuz we would Play outside all the time out on the streets. There's like no neighbor kids or anything. Kind of like a ghost town. I thought that was a creepy vibe over there. Don't you think it was? No, it was actually retired military housing and it was literally out
in the middle of nowhere and where we lived was actually a really teeny tiny town uh as it as it is. And so yeah, living in that I definitely remember being pretty creeped out especially at night when you Go outside or you be playing outside at night and just all these and the thing about it was it's with military housing every all of the houses are the same. So everything was just all the streets are aligned with the exact same unit. I mean it was basically like a mobile home. We basically lived in a mobile
home is what what the actual layout was. And so you'd be outside at night and it just be black windows everywhere. No like no lights except for our house. And so many times It just be like did I see something in that window? And I don't know. It was definitely creepy though. So for sure. And with the Snickers, it's like a lot of people are like, "Well, how did you not know you're moving into a funeral home? How did you not know that there was a morg in the basement? Why did you not ask? Like,
hey, I'm renting this unit. We get the basement, but what's actually in the [ __ ] basement before I move in? I Need to know this because my sons are going to be living in there. But I think, you know, the the way the story goes is that it's just the price was too good and they were kind of in a tough spot. So, they're like, you know what, we'll take it. So, they were willing to deal with this situation. And obviously, Carmen was just desperate to be as close as she they could to the
hospital and everything so her son could get treatment. So, I think the features of The house as well as the location and the price all fed into that decision. Yeah. And I mean, we all do, you know, do things that we don't necessarily want to or go to places or stay in places that we don't necessarily want to for other reasons. So, it it makes sense, honestly, why they did did move into this Halahan funeral home. And what was interesting is that when Carmen and Al talked with the neighbors, they said the Halahan family had
lived in the house For decades and were very lovely people and a few of the neighbors had actually been employed by the funeral home. In addition to holding memorial services, the Halahan family collected corpses from the morg and used the house's basement for inbalming and preparing the bodies for services and burial. The real estate agent as well as another neighbor claimed that they did tell Carmen about the fact that the house used to be a funeral home, but she I guess she denies It and or she just doesn't remember or something. According to the realer,
he had also told Carmen about other unusual things that had happened while the house was being renovated into apartments. One worker actually broke his leg and then another worker had a stroke and actually died. A third worker's tools disappeared while he was working in the house and reappeared later in his truck. So when Carmen, you know, after discovering this morg and, you know, thinking maybe we Shouldn't have moved here, maybe this was a bad idea and went back to the realtor to try and get out of the lease, the realtor's like, "No, sorry. Like I
told you all of these things before you moved in, so no, you know, I'm not going to like let you break your lease. I'm not going to give you back your deposit." Like you you knew what you were signing up for. And so the family was like, "Okay, well [ __ ] Now we're stuck. we we don't have the money to Move somewhere else. So, you know what? We're going to have to just make do. And that's exactly what they did is they continued the renovations in order to get the kids in the basement. But
during the renovations, Carmen was mopping the floor one day when the water in the bucket suddenly turned a deep red. And when she lifted the mop, it oozed like blood and it smelled terrible. She said the sight of it made her skin crawl. Apparently, Carmen asked one of the other workers that happened to be at the house doing some of the renovations what she was doing wrong. And apparently, this worker took one look at the blood red water and then left the house and never came back. Yeah, I would I would say so, too. I
mean, imagine like just mopping the floor of your house and all of a sudden you're you're pulling your mop out. It's dripping in blood. Yeah. Imagine how Confused, how shocked you would be and how creeped out. I mean, what do you even do in that situation? What do you even think? At first, I would think my eyes are playing tricks on me. But in this case, she was able to smell the blood. And that's crazy. Like something you would never see before. After the renovations finished up on June 30th, 1986, the Sneder family officially moved
into their new home. About a year later, Carmen invited their two nieces, Tammy And Kimberly Alvis, to move in with them as well. Al continued to commute to his job in New York, so he was away a lot. He was not at the home that often cuz I mean, yeah, he had to commute back to his job in New York uh because he had moved to Connecticut. And Philip and Bradley took over the basement in the space that used to be the casket display room and former inbalming room. That was their bedrooms. That is Definitely
definitely creepy, man. I think I'd rather take the couch upstairs. Seriously, sleep in an inbalming room. Yeah. Like, how could they get any sleep in a room knowing that there were dead people in there? Like, that's just super scary. And a lot of them at that. Before they moved in, Bradley remembered playing on the gurnies and the other leftover equipment from the funeral home. And while playing hideand seek, Bradley got onto the Gurnie without knowing what it was and was going to cover himself with a blanket. But before he could, Philip started spinning him around.
Later, Bradley said, "It did freak me out real bad, but I didn't want to run because of my older brother. You know, I had to look tough around my older brother. It was pretty creepy. It scared me pretty bad." And apparently as Bradley spun around, strange figures and faces flashed before his eyes and he yelled For Philip to stop. So this is a frightening thing to think about. Imagine if I was spinning Joel on a gurnie and in a former inbalming room and all of a sudden Joel starts screaming, "Stop! Stop!" and he's seeing creepy
figures and whatever else flashing in front of his eyes. That's pretty scary stuff. But after moving in and getting settled, it didn't take long for the strange things to start happening. For a while, Philip got the Worst of it, though. He started hearing disembodied voices and saw ghostly figures. And one of these voices called his name from the basement. He told his mother right away that they had to leave the house because it was haunted. But Carmen dismissed him, saying she didn't believe in ghosts. One of the figures Philip saw though was a small boy
wearing Superman pajamas and he would fly around the former coffin room in the basement. Philip and Bradley also Claimed they saw three black figures wearing trench coats in their room. Oh my god. That right there. That's enough. That's enough for me to say, you know what? [ __ ] this. I'm out. I'm out. I'll sleep outside in the yard. If I woke up and saw three figures in trench coats standing in my room, it's over. It's over, man. I'm giving up. I'm throwing the towel and I'm saying, Whoever you are, I'm getting the [ __
] out of here. You can have my room. Take take the room. Take the bed. I'll be in the yard because, dude, there's I don't know. There's something about dark figures in trench coats that's just so so freaky to me. I don't know why. On one particular occasion though, they woke up in the middle of the night to see these black figures wearing trench coats standing Near one of their toy robots. And apparently, while they were watching, all of a sudden, the toy robot flew across the room, slammed against the wall, and broke into pieces,
which really scared the boys, and they started screaming. Their dad, Al, ran downstairs to see what had happened. And when he looked at the boys and saw the broken toy, he knew something had really happened. Philip said he saw a figure with white hair and White eyes that was always in motion and wearing a pinstriped tuxedo. And this figure would come out at night and watch him sleep. Another figure was just a floating head with long hair, a scar down its face, and a hole for an eye. And Bradley found this to be the most
terrifying of them all. So based on this, they are clearly seeing apparitions of spirits most likely. And whether or not they're, you know, there to do harm or not, we don't Know. But it's definitely scaring them. I mean, they're already kids at that. And to have to live down there, sleep down there, and deal with all these apparitions was definitely getting to them to the point where they started leaving the lights on in the basement at all times, even while they slept. But their dad didn't want to pay for the extra money for the electricity.
So, like a savage, he took the light bulbs From the basement, leaving them in total darkness at night. Wow. How cruel, man. That's so [ __ ] up. I would never do that to my kids. I get like how much is how much money is a light bulb going to cost you? Not much. Yeah. So, to me, I'm like, uh, that's a little I don't know. Feel like that's a little dramatic to take the light bulbs from them. Like what happens if they need to get out in an emergency and they can't see [ __
] because there's no light? Doesn't really Make sense to me. But what's crazy is that even though their dad took the light bulbs out, the light fixtures would still flash on and off and would often times have this eerie afterglow to them. That's scary. That's That would scare me, too. If I had if all these lights in here had no bulbs in it and all of a sudden they would they've still had like emitting a glow from them. Yeah, that would tell me straight away that something's up. You know, there's Definitely some type of paranormal
activity happening here. On another occasion, Bradley woke up and apparently saw a sister Jennifer flicking the light switch in the basement and laughing before running back up the stairs. And when he followed her, he ran into his parents instead. and his parents told him that she was sleeping and hadn't even left her room. So, he was confused thinking he had heard or seen his sister and in fact there was nothing. There was Something completely unknown that was [ __ ] with the lights. But all of this very strange activity really had the boy scared, especially
Philip. I mean, he's already dealing with cancer and on top of this, he's got to live in a a morg basically uh that's haunted. And so it got to a point where Philip was literally begging his parents to let him stay at the hospital after his cancer treatments cuz he did not want to come home and deal with what was dwelling in The basement. And over time, Philip started to experience extreme mood swings. He would become withdrawn, depressed, and angry, which were traits that he never had before. He started wearing leather and writing dark poetry
about the dead, including some about necrophilia. He was fascinated by the occult. Carmen and Allan were taking him to see a psychiatrist and a religious counselor every week because they're like, "What is going on with Philip?" Tammy read some of his poems and told her aunt and uncle that something was going on. Philip's parents were very worried and they assumed he was hallucinating as a side effect of the cancer treatments. Really? You don't think it's maybe because he's living in a morg? Come on, man. Yeah, exactly. But when Carmen talked to Philip's oncologist about his
mood swings, his doctor said mood swings and changes in Personality, delusional thinking, and auditory and visual hallucinations weren't side effects of his treatment. Which only frustrated and confused Philip's parents even more. They're like, "What? What do you mean, doc? Like, isn't it's got to be the medication, right? It's got to be these treatments he's doing. It's got to have some type of effect on him. That's why he's doing all these really bizarre things." But the doctor's like, "Well, All my other patients are not doing these things, so I don't know what to tell you." And
unfortunately, after this, things only continued to escalate. Philip got angrier and angrier over time and started fighting with his siblings and cousins, and all of them started avoiding him as much as they could. Once Philip broke into the neighbor's house to steal his gun because he wanted to shoot his stepfather, Al. And during one intense episode, Philip attacked his Cousin Tammy and tried to rape her. His parents contacted the police and Philip was arrested and taken for a psych evaluation. And Philip admitted that he had molested his female cousins before. He said he would sneak
into the rooms at night to abuse them. He ended up staying in the hospital for 45 days and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And during his time away, his symptoms improved. He seemed more like his old self again. But as soon as He was sent home, he started experiencing the same things he had before. When Carmen left Philip at the hospital, he screamed, "Now they're going to come after you." And sure enough, Carmen and the other kids started experiencing strange and unexplainable things. Before I talk about these explainable things, I want to thank our sponsors for
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initially Bradley and Philip Experiencing the brunt of the paranormal activity at the home, that quickly changed as Carmen started noticing that items would disappear without a trace. For example, Carmen would set the table for dinner and when she turned around, they were gone. Food in the house would also rot within minutes. Someone would even bite into a fresh apple and then that very next bite would be mushy and rotted. Also, they started noticing that the temperature throughout the house Would change suddenly for no reason at all. And it wasn't long before the rest of the
family started seeing people or apparitions of people walking through the house who weren't really there and heard disembodied voices, footsteps, and other strange noises from all over the house. The smell of rotten meat and flesh often times filled the hallways. And according to Carmen, whatever was there, this entity or spirit would take on the voice of one Of the kids in order to lure her into a room. And when Carmen came into the room, she would see a dark force laughing at her. Other times, the voice was menacing, screaming profanity and insults at her. And
it didn't take long before things turned violent. Carmen was attacked one day while showering. An unseen force wrapped the shower curtain around her face and tried to smother her so she couldn't breathe. Luckily, Tammy came in when she heard the noise and Yanked the shower curtain away from her aunt. Carmen said she felt like something heavy had been pressing down on her and she couldn't move. If Tammy hadn't come in to rescue her, she believed she would have suffocated to death. And interesting enough, a similar incident happened to Al as well. The family started going
into the bathroom in pairs. No one wanted to be in a room alone, not even the bathroom. Carmen would often times see a thin figure with High cheekbones, long black hair, and vacant black eyes. She also saw the figure in the pinstriped tuxedo that had tormented her son, Philillip. The kids saw a blackeyed figure, too, as well as strange orbs floating through the air and the flickering lights that turned into people standing in front of them. Often times, Al and Carmen's bed vibrated, and they said it felt and sounded like it had a heartbeat. Often
times, they'd be laying in bed and an Invisible force would lift and yank the covers off of them. Visitors that would come to the house also claim to hear and feel this mysterious heartbeat coming from the bed. But if you didn't think this was weird enough, things would take a turn for the worse. And the invisible assaults became physical. I'm going to play you a little clip of Carmen and Al talking about the physical assaults that they underwent from these invisible forces. And it's truly Chilling. One night we were we were lying in bed. Carmen
had uh already had fallen asleep. Um I felt this strange sensation coming over my body. It started at my feet and and and and started climbing up through my body before I had a chance to reach over to Carmen to tell her something was wrong. I was froze. I couldn't move. And then I felt this stinging uh penetration in in my uh anal area and I I was trying to scream to cry out to Carmen to to help Me somehow and I couldn't move. Um, after after a while, I don't know how long, uh, it
it it had gone away, there was no more sensation, uh, I woke Carmen up and I said, Carmen, I I think I was just sodomized by this demon. This happened to me as well, Sally. It was a te a a tedious kind of pain that happened. It was horrible pain. It was so penetrating and so much pain. There was no pleasure in this. And when it would take me, sexually Assaulting me, it would laugh it with such pleasure. It enjoyed what it was doing to me. And I was so terrified I couldn't move. I could
It was the most crippling thing I've ever been through in my life. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. That's just downright scary. I mean, I couldn't even imagine having this happen to me, you know, in the middle of the night by an unseen force. like and they're they're saying that this was a demon. Like they believed that whatever this entity was, it was demonic in nature and it was clearly there to harm them. And I mean according to their experiences, that's exactly what happened. It harmed both Al and Carmen as well as Tammy, too.
So very, very dangerous. It's definitely really shocking to hear them like say that happened to them while they were there. And it's just crazy how they said they couldn't do anything about it. Like they couldn't speak, they Couldn't move. They're completely like trapped basically. And yeah, I mean I I can only imagine how helpless they felt during that. I mean, in the middle of the night, like to Yeah. to feel that kind of pain. And they also said that before these attacks would happen, they would oftent times hear ominous instrumental music from the 1930s. That's
God, that sounds like some out of a horror movie. Yeah. You know, like if you think of like 1930s music, I mean, For I mean, there's so many horror movies that use that that type of music, you know, to kind of make an ominous scene. It makes me think of the Insidious movie and that one scene of that little boy that when the wife was the only one home like seeing this little boy throughout her house while that music was playing, it's like tiptoe through the tulips. Yeah. I was like, "Shit, this is scary." Yeah.
Yeah, man. I mean, God, to have that happen to you In real life, that was a whole another thing. And it didn't take long for them to realize that when they heard the music, they knew something bad was about to happen. And most of the time, Al would actually get up, grab his gun, and start going through the house to see if anybody was there. Cuz I mean, what the hell is turning on this music? But I mean, he was also worried that he would end up shooting one of the kids if, you know, they
were just up and about or it Was one of them that happened to be, you know, turning music on or something like that. And according to the couple, after the music would come on, they would then hear light footsteps walking around their bed and then they would feel the sensation of an adult-sized man sitting on the bed. And it never attacked the couple together. When one was asleep, the other would be attacked and frozen by the force, unable to move. In one vicious attack, Tammy Went running and screaming through the house. As she ran down
the street, an invisible force continued to sodomize her. Carmen ran after her and saw the whole thing. In another incident, Tammy felt like there were hundreds of hands covering her body. Carmen saw clear outlines of hands underneath her niece's shirt, and the room was filled with wind and voices. After all this happened, they knew they were dealing with some type of demonic entity and so they Decided to call the church and they just told her to say the rosary. Tammy was wearing the rosary beads like a necklace and a black cloud engulfed the room and
the rosary actually levitated off her chest, broke away and then flew into the wall and broke into a million pieces. Carmen also said that she'd have psychic attacks where she would see blackness and then fall to the floor. And the family believed something was trying to overtake her or control her because During these attacks her hands got ice cold. Whatever had attacked her would also put her into a trance. And she would say that she could sense the figures around her and they all were very negative. She believed though that they were lost souls and
so she felt compassion for them. Really after they did all that, after they attacked you like that? No way. I don't know, man. But apparently everyone would gather together and around her to pray. And Eventually she would come out of the trance and explain what she had experienced. Here's a clip of Carmen explaining exactly what that trance had been like. This was one of the most terrifying events that happened in the house. I've drawn some sketches if I may. We had been outside just kidding around. The researchers were in the house, my husband, my niece.
And upon being going back to bed, I sat down and I was no longer in my room. I was in a Dark room. I don't know if you can catch this on camera. I was in complete darkness. I couldn't feel the temperature of my skin. I couldn't hear myself speak. I couldn't see anything but blackness. I knew I was no longer in my room. The entity opened up a hole and he started shouting obscinities at me. And when I began to pray the Our Father, he got worse. And he said, "There's no way you could
possibly believe what you've been taught as a child. I went Into this place. It was called Eithram, a desert road of hot tears. And I was taken down this road. These represent souls, lost souls. I could actually feel the emotion, the anger, the hurt, the desperation, the sadness. There were no positive emotions. They were all human negative emotions and they were palatable. They just went through my skin. I knew it. I felt such compassion for these souls. But I couldn't leave the road. I was warned against it. I was There for 8 hours. So after
all this was happening, the kids started sleeping together in the living room. And then the adults joined them. And when they were all together with the white light shining on them, the forces seemed to leave them alone. Carmen and Al believe that these evil entities would follow them if they left the house. So, the Sneder family lived this way for nearly two years. Two years they lived where they were like sleeping in the the Living room together. I mean, not the entire two years, but for a large part of this time, they were just putting
up with it. Cuz at this point, I think they had pretty much solidified in their minds that they were dealing with some type of demons. And so these demons were not going to leave them alone even if they left left the house. And I mean I would be like well did you try to leave the house? Did you see if they followed you? And they didn't. So I don't know You can make of that what you will. But eventually the family decided that they had had enough of dealing with this demonic entities in the house
and decided that they needed some serious help. So that's when they brought in the big guns, the renowned paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. I won't go into a ton of detail about Ed and Lorraine Warren cuz we've talked about him many times on the show. Uh we've covered a number of their Different cases, but uh basically a short background on Ed and Lorraine Warren. Ed is a self-taught demonologist and Lorraine was a clairvoyant medium and together they have claimed to have investigated over 10,000 paranormal cases including the highly publicized Amityville horror case among many
others. Ed and Lorraine Warren moved in and spent about 9 weeks living with the Sneter family in their home. They brought their nephew John Zapis and Grandson Chris McKennel, both psychic researchers, to help with the investigation. And it didn't take long for the warrants to come to the conclusion that the home was dealing with a serious possession. In fact, a nine out of 10, one of the most extreme cases they had ever dealt with. While living with the Sneters, the team experienced being pushed, slammed, slapped, and beaten by invisible forces. And they concluded that the
house was Not being haunted by ghosts or friendly spirits, but in fact, it was infested with demons. Lorraine believed that the demons had been released into the house decades earlier. Apparently, the funeral home employees had defiled the corpses that they were working on, engaging in acts of necrilia and necromancy, and had unleashed evil onto the house. It's important to note though, there are no police records of crimes like this happening at the funeral home. So, these Claims cannot be verified. So, now that they believe the house was in fact being possessed by these demons, the
Warren went to the Catholic Church to ask for an exorcism. And at first the church resisted, but the Warren encouraged Carmen and Al to go to the public to turn up the pressure on the church. Al was very hesitant at first, but eventually he agreed in order to try and get this issue resolved faster. So when they went to the media, they had no idea The media frenzy that was about to be unleashed. Once media caught wind of the story, it became national news very quickly. And it didn't take long for reporters to start visiting
the house and interviewing the family. Unfortunately though, the kids were bullied as a result of the reports that were coming out of the home and called crazy. They even lost friends and other parents wouldn't let their kids go to their house. I mean, it makes sense. You Know, this house and family are getting blasted all over the media and, you know, most people don't believe in this stuff or demons or anything like that. So, most people are like, "You guys are just insane. You know, stop making this [ __ ] up." And yeah, kids are,
you know, the poor Netker children who are innocent in all this are getting picked on and are having a tough time as a result of this case going public. And I think for me, I think part of this is Due to the Warrens. I don't think they would have ever gone to the public if the Warren hadn't told him to do so. And you know, was the Warren's intentions really there to help the family? Like, did did they not foresee that this was going to happen? or did they want the Snedrer family to go to
the media for their own benefit? You know, cuz they're attached to this now. So, obviously, they're going to be put into the the limelight and, you know, their names are Going to get out there. So, it's kind of a, you know, even though the Senkers are getting called crazy, it's kind of a win-win for them because now they're getting publicity from this as well. So, a lot of people question the Warren's motives and true intentions behind their paranormal investigations and whether or not they are legit or not. And I mean, I'm I'm still on the
fence with the Warren. I think there's a lot of things that are very interesting that they have Reported on and have seen and talked about, but then again, I have not seen enough proof to verify a lot of these claims that they make. So, you know, could they be telling the truth? They could be, but could they be blowing things out of, you know, proportion to make them more entertaining and more, you know, bring more fame to them, I guess, is really the right word. That's that's definitely a possibility as well. And it's unclear Whether
or not the church was giving the Sniter family like lots of push back, you know, for their exorcism or their house blessing and everything. So, I mean, maybe the Warren did kind of have a good approach or a good idea that, hey, they they know the system already, obviously. So, they're like, go this route. So, maybe that was beneficial for the Sniter family to getting that help that they were desperately looking for, right? Cuz I mean, the Snickers are Under the belief that their house is possessed by demons and that they are the demons are
attacking them. So, you know, they now have the Warrens come in that are validating what they believed was happening in their home. So, I get why they would want their help. And also, you know, Ed and Lauren Warren did have that connection to the church to get an exorcism uh scheduled. And that's in fact what happened. On September 6th, 1988, three priests and three deacons Performed the ritual. The identities of the priests and deacons have never been revealed as is the case with most if not all exorcisms. During the ritual, the house was filled with
an incredible force at the climax and everyone in the room prayed. The second they said, "Amen." The force was broken and a sense of calm came over the house. During the exorcism, the priest used religious relics, including a statue of Mary. And after it was all over, the hands of the Statue were broken clean off. One of the priests who has only been referred to as father A and Ed Warren claim the church had documented the exorcism. The local dascese had refused to confirm or deny this claim. But everyone believed that the ritual had been
successful and all the paranormal activity and demons had been driven out. And 6 days later, the Senak family moved to Tennessee and no dark forces or entities followed them. After the story got a ton Of publicity, they wanted to distance themselves from the house and from this case as much as possible, and they were actually very unhappy with how the Warren handled the publicity around it. Carmen believed Ed and Lorraine were using them to make money and increase their own fame. Well, there you go. I mean, that validates pretty much what I just said earlier.
It's also kind of interesting to me that after this exorcism was performed on the house and Apparently everything was cleansed and blessed and everything's good to go, demons are out that the sneticers are like, "All right, now's the time we're going to bail. We're going to leave town and get away from everything." Yet, we could have done that two years ago. Yeah. So, why they wait? You know, there's definitely some controversy with this case. Actually, there's quite a bit. Later on, Daryl Kern, who is the owner of the home and was renting it to This
Netker family, along with a few neighbors, agreed that the supposed haunting started when the family got behind on their rent and they moved out before the eviction proceedings began. Another neighbor said in an interview that she believed Alan Carmen had planned all along to fake the hoax in order to avoid paying rent. A woman named Sandy who lived in the upstairs apartment of the house claims she never experienced anything supernatural. I Think that's the biggest piece of evidence. If that's true, and again, there's no way to really verify any of this. But if Sandy's statement
is true, then that does really make me question all this activity and claims. And I must say, after watching the clips of Carmen and Al, did anybody else get the feeling that they were kind of acting and kind of just making [ __ ] a little bit? Because I just feel if, you know, if somebody goes through something as Traumatic as what they went through, you know, this this attack from this demon that was really horrific, that there would be a little they'd be a little bit more somber. you know, their body language. It It
almost looked like they were almost excited to talk about it, like they were like putting on a show a little bit. That's just me, but what do you think? Yeah, I definitely think they were putting on a show, too, because it did seem like it was kind of scripted And they had the answers already before they were being asked like what to say, what to paint the story. But as horrific of the experiences that they had, I would think they would have a really hard time getting that information back out. Like at least maybe a
tear or two or trembling or any any kind of like body language. I didn't see at all uh that it something like that actually happened to him. Yeah. And I feel like there probably would have been more Detail more detail around the actual sensations. like it was a very kind of generic description of what had happened to them. And I mean, yeah, maybe it's it's all real, but I don't know, maybe they're lying. What's also interesting is that Sandy actually worked for Daryl Kern at Kern Realy, and she even insists that they did tell the
Snetker family that the house had been a funeral home before they rented it. And at one point, Carmen complained to Sandy that she was Having trouble sleeping because of terrible nightmares. And when Sandy suggested she take some sleeping pills, apparently Carmen told her, "No, it is my father coming to haunt me. I'm calling the Warren." H if that statement is true, that's very, very suspicious. So, this hoax theory that we just put forward has been backed up by the experience of horror novelist Ray Garton. Ray was actually commissioned by the Warren and the Sneteders to
write a Non-fiction account of their experiences in the home called In a Dark Place, the story of a true haunting published in 1992. But when he went to interview the family and the Warren and everybody else about this haunting that they had just experienced, it was very difficult to get a straight story, almost impossible, in fact. He claimed their stories kept changing and each family member gave conflicting details. Nothing seemed to add up. And much later, Ray said that The Sneder family was going through serious issues at the time. He said Philip was an alcoholic
and drug addict who took LSD quite often. The Sneder family believed that most of this book was entirely made up. And Carmen claimed that they barely spoke to Ry and that Rey never even met with Philip and the family strongly refutes the alcoholism and drug accusations about their family. But all this did not stop Al and Carmen Snedeker and Ed and Lorraine Warren to Appear together on TV multiple times to talk about the haunting and the exorcism. During one appearance, Ed refused to talk about the ritual and lashed out when he was asked direct questions
about what had happened. Ed accused one of the neighbors who appeared on the show with them of being paid off and he threatened anyone who seemed to doubt him. Ed Warren seemed disinterested in establishing any credibility in this case. When Rey went To Ed to talk about the inconsistencies in this Netker's family stories, Ed allegedly said, quote, "Oh, they're crazy. All the people come to us are crazy. You think sane people would come to us?" Ed apparently told Ray to use whatever worked and make up the rest. He said, "Just make it up and make
it scary." People who knew Ed personally strongly deny this and insist he had devoted his life to studying the paranormal and would never risk his and Lorraine's reputations. But later on, much of the family stories were then mirrored in the 1980 horror movie, The Entity, which in that a female protagonist is assaulted by an unseen entity. And Carmen's description of her attack was very similar to the one in the movie. And when Carmen was asked on a TV appearance why the family didn't just move, Carmen explained that moving would be pointless since the demons would
follow them. H, that doesn't sound Totally logical and sane to me. But on another occasion, when asked the same question, she gave a different answer. She said that since only the kids experienced the haunting, her and Al didn't know that anything strange was going on, which is a major inconsistency in their family stories. Neighbors remained skeptical partly because the family seemed so happy. They were always laughing and joking with each other. They didn't look like they were going Through this demonic possession of their home. Apparently, one time a neighbor found the whole family out late
at night outside, saying they couldn't go back inside the house for whatever reason. But they didn't seem afraid. They seemed like they were perfectly happy, having a good old time outside. But despite all this, people outside the immediate family did experience strange things inside this house. One neighbor said she was stung by an invisible force as soon As she walked inside. And Al's sister reported some of the same strange things the family experienced. Several priests were involved in the case as well and they all reported feeling an abnormal pressure when entering the home. But even
after the Santa family got out of the house, they were still willing to come on TV and talk about their experiences, you know, with the warrants and everything. And they did that for many years. And I Think a lot of people would be like, you know, if this really happened to a family, why would they want to come on TV and keep talking about these horrible, horrible exper traumatic experiences that happened to them in that house? It is definitely a little questionable for sure. But fast forward to today, the Sneder children and their cousins are
all grown up now and they have children of their own. And they all maintain that the house they lived in as Children were haunted. Carmen and Al ended up getting divorced in 2005. Carmen apparently has since become a spiritual adviser and she plans to write a book based on the experiences of John Zafis, Ed and Lorraine Warren's nephew. And apparently he had a very very terrifying experience in the home. And we'll let John tell it himself. One evening in August, very hot outside. All the doors and windows were open. Uh Carmen, her husband and the
kids and Everybody had gone to sleep. And I was just jotting down some notes that evening and it got very cold. Now, we know in haunted locations our energy gets drawn. Why does that happen? Because the spirit needs that to be able to try and communicate and manifest. Well, I got up from the dining room table, went into this big grand hallway, and this foul smell came over me. Well, I looked up the staircase, and I seen something actually starting to form up There. It started to descend down the staircase, and it said, I don't
know if I heard it audibly. I to this day, I still don't know. It said, "Do you know what they did to us?" Wow, that's really a crazy experience. I can't imagine how scary that must have been at the time. But this is what's so weird about this case. So John Zafus apparently later compared the Sneder house to other cases he's worked on. And he said that the Sneder case was like dealing with Casper The friendly ghost. I don't know whether or not that's true or not. I don't have any way to verify that, but
that does seem to contradict everything he just said in that clip. So, cuz I mean in from that clip he makes it very clear that the reason why there is all of these negative spirits or demons or what have you in this house is because the funeral home, you know, whoever was working in this funeral home was actually, you know, not properly taking Care of these deceased people, but in fact violating them and doing who knows what creepy weird [ __ ] to them that was then enraging the spirits and hence creating the haunt. haunting.
So, at the end of the day, who really knows what actually happened inside this house? And again, you know, it went on to be, you know, multiple books. The Haunting in Connecticut, that film is based on this case. But what's very interesting is that Lorraine Warren claims that all the Documents related to the case were destroyed during a flood. So, we don't have any concrete information as far as I know, as far as out there. I know there's some pictures and some some information out there, but most of the documents with the exorcism and all
these other things that allegedly happened in the home are no longer around. So, at the end of the day, we may never know what had happened in this Connecticut home. But as far as Philip Goes, his cancer eventually went into remission and he ended up getting married and had four children. and he continued to live life and worked as a trucker so he could travel and see the country. But unfortunately, his cancer returned and he passed away on January 9th, 2012. He was 38 years old and he's buried in the Wilson Cemetery in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
But ever since the Senker family left the home, no one has experienced anything paranormal in The house, including the current occupants. And unfortunately because of, you know, the film and the Ed and Lorraine Warren, people still flock to their house to try to get a glimpse of it because they believe it is truly haunted or it was haunted at one time. And maybe the exorcism worked. I mean, we don't know. I mean, we can't prove whether or not exorcism actually does anything. I think most people would say it doesn't do [ __ ] You know,
there's There's nothing that actually happens with an exorcism, but according to Edorian Warren and the information that we have, the haunting allegedly stopped after the exorcism was performed by the church. But yet again, we just don't know cuz this could have been a completely madeup story and, you know, done for fame or money or whatever else they wanted. It completely blows my mind that the next tenants who leased the place didn't experience anything. Their Neighbor didn't experience anything. And after hearing this whole story, to me, I feel like there is an evil presence, an evil
energy inside this funeral home that's probably been there for a very long time. and Philillip being maybe that missing piece because, you know, he he has cancer. He's very vulnerable. He was having hallucinations like he was just kind of the target for for that evil energy to maybe unleash with and they were just missing that the whole Time. Yeah, that's a great point that, you know, he's like you said, vulnerable. I mean, he's close to death. I mean, he's about as close to death as you can get. So maybe they were feeding off of him
and the spirits were able to manifest in a more powerful way, in a more physical way than they were ever before. I mean, you know, often times we see in a lot of these paranormal cases, possessions uh of both people and buildings that Often times there's children involved and children for whatever reason have a very strong connection to the other side. And therefore, you know, if there is negative entities or spirits that are angry or enraged about how, you know, the end of their life was or what happened to them after death, I mean, if
a a spirit lingers and hangs around for a bit and I mean, they witnessed what was happening in this funeral home, I think there's absolutely a possibility That they were, you know, able to manifest in a way and they're angry and they want revenge and they want to make somebody pay for what they went through. So, I think that could definitely be a reason for why the family was attacked. And, you know, you have four kids in the house. I mean, I' I'd be curious to see what, you know, the family situations looked like for
the previous occupants before the Sneters as well as after. And, you know, obviously, I think a lot Of it does have to do specifically with the Snetker family. I think often times people think that, you know, oh well, if you know, the previous tenants or the previous occupants didn't experience anything and nobody experienced anything after, then obviously the Sneters are just making [ __ ] up. This is just all hoax. It's just, you know, case closed. Let's move on. But I think people failed to realize that we're dealing we're dealing with a a realm that
we don't Understand. We don't know hardly anything about. And what we do know is that there's something very real. There's a phenomena that's happening that's very real. These these activity, this paranormal activity does happen and we have evidence of that in so many cases. Maybe not in this case. You don't have concrete proof, but in so many other cases, strange things happen, voices, footsteps. I mean, you could there's the list goes on and on of all This paranormal activity that's observed. So I I think there is a possibility that the family did experience this and
uh completely and you know I think Ed and Lorraine Warren swooped in because they're like oh here's an opportunity for us to get our name on this this wild story and you know it's going to help benefit us and into the future and you know as they they've done with so many cases and and I'm not saying that there's a you know Mal intent there or they're trying to you know exploit people. I don't know. I don't know them personally, so I can't judge them. But at the end of the day, I just think that
there is a very real possibility they were dealing with some very angry spirits. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, it sounds like this funeral home was sketchy. There is some weird things happening there. And yeah, it's very possible that spirits could be very unhappy and just didn't Have the power, the strength, or whatever it is to actually do anything to affect the physical realm that we all exist in. And once Philillip was literally in the basement where they're dwelling, they're able to feed off of him and feed off of his fear
and and energy and boost themselves. And therefore, all this [ __ ] happens. And after they leave, it stops. It honestly makes complete sense when you look at it from that perspective. Yeah, very well Said. But at the end of the day, there is always a possibility that this is all for money, for fame, for, you know, to make a story, go public, and get publicity and whatnot. I I think it's the more unlikely scenario, but a lot of people do believe that a lot of these Edeline Warren cases are hoaxes and made up. But
I'll leave that up to you to decide. What do you think about this case? What do you think really happened? Let us know in the comments below. Also, Let us know on social media. Lights Outcast. If you're not following us on Twitter and Instagram, definitely go and do that right now cuz we put out updates about the show, uh, highlight clips, things like that. Um, it's also where you'll get your news first about what's coming down the pipeline for Lights Out. We got a lot of cool stuff planned for the rest of year and going
to take things bigger and better into next year. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this Episode of Lights Out Podcast. If you did, we'd really appreciate it if you subscribe to us on Apple Podcast. Follow us on Spotify. Make sure you're subscribed, you got that notification bell turned on for YouTube because YouTube is silly these days and a lot of times they won't even tell you when we post a new episode. So make sure you double check that. But until next time, lights out everybody. [Music]
