Case file · Haunting
The Snedeker house, Southington
The Snedeker family rented a former funeral home in Southington, Connecticut, in 1986 and said it was violently haunted. The story became the book 'In a Dark Place' and the film 'The Haunting in Connecticut'.
1986 CE · 41.60, -72.88 · status: disputed
The account
The Warrens investigated and the family appeared on television.
The sceptical view
Ray Garton, who wrote the book, later said the family's accounts were inconsistent and that he was told to make the story scarier; later residents reported nothing.
The researched reading
A haunting known mainly through a book and film whose author disowned its accuracy. Stress, suggestion and commercial embellishment explain the story.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 28% | A family under stress (a son with cancer and treatments, financial strain) in a former funeral home was primed to experience the house as hostile; shared belief reinforced it. |
| Undetermined | 23% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A cultural story | 20% | The Warrens framed the house in demonic terms, and the film turned it into a franchise story with invented details. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 15% | The book’s author, Ray Garton, said the family’s accounts were inconsistent and that Ed Warren told him to make the story scarier; the case was marketed as a book and TV special. Later residents reported nothing. |
| Something in the surroundings | 9% | Old houses produce noises, drafts and smells that frightened residents read as presences. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | There is no independent evidence of anything paranormal. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural phenomenon fits the reported attacks. |
Official position: No official investigation; the popular account is that of the Warrens and the film.