While Connecticut’s Ed and Lorraine Warren are most well known for their investigation into the supposedly “haunted” “Annabelle” doll that inspired the “The Conjuring” franchise, the Connecticut husband-wife duo tackled other strange happenings over the years.
Many of the Warrens cases have been adapted into films like “Annabelle” and “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” but not all of them have found their way to the silver screen. Those cases involve a man in England whose animalistic behavior earned him a “werewolf” moniker and an alleged “haunting” at the West Point military academy in New York.
Here are three lesser known paranormal investigations by Ed and Lorraine Warren:
‘The Southend Werewolf’
After watching a TV program that highlighted alleged supernatural occurrences, the Warrens became aware of Bill Ramsey, a man who was called “The Southend Werewolf” after he reportedly fought with police officers in Southend-on-Sea in England using animalistic behavior, Ed Warren recounted during an episode of the couple’s TV program, “Seekers of the Supernatural.”
Believing Ramsey to be possessed by a demon, the Warrens reached out to him and convinced him to fly to the Nutmeg State and come to the Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe to receive an exorcism conducted by Bishop Robert McKenna, according to a 2019 article by the Hollywood Reporter.
Photos taken by John Cleave during the exorcism on July 28, 1989, show Ramsey with a grimacing expression with his hands held out in front of his face. However, a photo taken after the exorcism shows a smiling Ramsey shaking hands with McKenna.
Alleged ‘haunting’ at West Point
In 1972, the husband-wife duo visited the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York to investigate former Superintendent Lt. Gen. William A. Knowlton’s house, known as Quarters 100, according to a 2019 article on the United States Army’s website. Knowlton and his wife reported that a wallet, which belonged to another occupant of the house, mysteriously found its way between them in bed.
According to the website, as Lorraine Warren explored the rooms of the house, she described feeling the spirit of a woman and a man named Greer. Lorraine Warren said that Greer was a tall and slender man in a gray uniform who communicated that he felt a “deep burden” of “guilt and sadness” for committing murder. She also believed that Greer was responsible for moving objects around the house, the U.S. Army’s site details.
Knowlton reportedly asked West Point’s librarian to search the academy’s archives to see if there was any evidence to support Lorraine Warren’s claim. The librarian found information about several men who came through the academy with the name Greer; however, they said the one that most closely fit Lorraine Warren’s description was a Buffalo soldier-turned-criminal, by the name Lawrence Greer.
Greer escaped from confinement at Fort Leavenworth in June of 1931 but was apprehended near Albany, New York, Chief of United States Military Academy Archives Stanley Tozeski said in the article on the U.S. Army’s website. Tozeski said that Greer was sentenced to two and a half years of hard labor, but the sentence was disapproved after he was found to be insane at the time of the trial.
The Borley Rectory in England
The Warrens traveled across the globe to investigate the Borley Rectory in Essex, England, during the 1970s. According to the University of Maryland’s Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation Collection, the rectory, first built in 1862, gained a “haunted” reputation due to reports of several paranormal phenomena, including moving objects, mysterious knocking and apparitions. The original rectory was damaged in a fire in 1939 and demolished in 1944, which further fueled speculation that it was haunted.
There are several legends tied to the rectory, including lore about nuns buried on site, according to the Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation Collection’s website.
The Warrens photographed the church when they documented their experience, according to the New England Society of Paranormal Research, which is led by the Warrens’ son-in-law, Tony Spera. Ed Warren took a photo that appeared to look like a monk reading through a book, while Lorraine Warren experienced a black mass that moved past her with “undeniable evil energy,” the society added. A brick from the rectory taken during their investigation is displayed within the Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe.
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