# House of Darkness - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 9/17/26

An episode of [The Best of Coast to Coast AM](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1206175991), 18 Sep 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/61c1535a-56bb-431a-ad6b-ae2b00350f5c/29d3ffd7-58b0-4538-a97f-b4c9009ec4c1/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=b95f0c24-c199-4939-b52c-ae2b00350f65

George Noory and author Andrea Perron discuss the true story of her childhood living in a haunted farmhouse from the 1700s that inspired the movie The Conjuring, the chilling events like her mother seeing the spirit of a woman with a broken neck, and how the famed demonologists Lorraine and Ed Warren began investigating the house. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
[0:05] Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast. George Norrie with you,
[0:07] Speaker 2: Andrea Perrin with us, author of the trilogy House of Darkness,
[0:11] Speaker 2: House of Light series. That's the true story behind The Conjuring,
[0:15] Speaker 2: a film that redefined, folks, the horror genre. She's the
[0:20] Speaker 2: eldest daughter of the Perrin family and is a public
[0:23] Speaker 2: speaker who has made frequent appearances at events that delve
[0:26] Speaker 2: into the realms of the paranormal, ghosts, and spirits. One
[0:30] Speaker 2: of her other recent books is called Being Paranormal, a Memoir. Andrea,
[0:34] Speaker 2: welcome back. How have you been?
[0:37] Speaker 3: I'm very well, George. How are you?
[0:40] Speaker 2: I am great. I missed the fact that I never
[0:42] Speaker 2: went to that house. Am I missing something?
[0:46] Speaker 3: Yes. Actually, what you are missing is an experience that
[0:52] Speaker 3: will most likely alter the way you think about everything
[0:56] Speaker 3: for the rest of your life.
[0:58] Speaker 2: When your family moved in there in 1971, how did
[1:02] Speaker 2: you feel about it when you first went there?
[1:06] Speaker 3: I loved it, and I felt like I was home.
[1:08] Speaker 3: And I didn't understand why, because we had never been
[1:12] Speaker 3: to that town before. And as we were driving through
[1:15] Speaker 3: the village of Harrisville on the way to the farm,
[1:18] Speaker 3: I was, I think, 11. And I leaned forward into
[1:23] Speaker 3: the front seat and I'm like, mom, have we ever
[1:25] Speaker 3: been here before? And she said, no. And I said, well,
[1:28] Speaker 3: then why do I recognize everything? You know, I told
[1:32] Speaker 3: her the theater was coming up over the bridge on
[1:34] Speaker 3: the right and the town hall was across the street and,
[1:37] Speaker 3: you know, the library. And she's like, we have never
[1:40] Speaker 3: been here. She had the day before. And she had
[1:43] Speaker 3: seen the farm and took all of our family resources,
[1:47] Speaker 3: wrote it into a check of earnest money and handed
[1:50] Speaker 3: it to the realtor and said, I want this house.
[1:53] Speaker 3: My husband will be home tomorrow.
[1:56] Speaker 2: And the house was built in what, like 1736 or
[1:58] Speaker 2: something like that? Yes, it was completed in 1736.
[2:00] Speaker 3: So technically it's. 40 years older than this country. It
[2:08] Speaker 3: was completed 40 years before the signing of the Declaration
[2:12] Speaker 3: of Independence. And it was from the Richardson family that
[2:18] Speaker 3: came over to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then came
[2:23] Speaker 3: down into Roger Williams' territory in the little tiny Rhode Island. Oh, George,
[2:28] Speaker 3: you would love it. It's such a beautiful place. And he.
[2:34] Speaker 3: Deeded this corner property between Connecticut and Massachusetts. And it
[2:42] Speaker 3: was kind of like the border of the three colonies.
[2:48] Speaker 3: And there was even a border skirmish and 60 acres
[2:52] Speaker 3: of the land was lost to Massachusetts. But so now
[2:58] Speaker 3: whoever owns the farm has to pay taxes in two states.
[3:02] Speaker 3: It's a remarkable place. It was 200 acres when we
[3:05] Speaker 3: bought it. It is now down to 10 acres. And
[3:09] Speaker 3: it is in the middle of a property owner dispute,
[3:12] Speaker 3: as most people in the paranormal know. Jason Hawes is
[3:17] Speaker 3: doing his very best from Ghost Hunters, doing his very
[3:21] Speaker 3: best to acquire the farmhouse at my request, because he's
[3:27] Speaker 3: the only person I trust with its legacy. and its
[3:30] Speaker 3: momentum forward so that people from all over the world
[3:33] Speaker 3: can enjoy it.
[3:35] Speaker 2: What compelled your mother and father to buy it in
[3:37] Speaker 2: the first place?
[3:39] Speaker 3: It was all on my mother. Absolutely, completely on her.
[3:44] Speaker 3: She's the one that found the farm. And my father
[3:48] Speaker 3: at first said, you know, Carolyn, how do we get
[3:51] Speaker 3: the check back? You know, I mean, she emptied the
[3:53] Speaker 3: family bank account, left enough money in it for bread
[3:57] Speaker 3: and milk. And it slapped $ 500 in earnest money down
[4:02] Speaker 3: on the property. And she said, Roger, come look at
[4:05] Speaker 3: the farm. If you don't want it, then the realtor
[4:08] Speaker 3: will give me the check back. And in Rhode Island,
[4:11] Speaker 3: you had three days to make these transactions legal or void.
[4:18] Speaker 3: And so she piled us all in the car and
[4:21] Speaker 3: we went up to the farm and we met the owner, Mr. Kenyon,
[4:25] Speaker 3: who fell in love with our family and had pockets
[4:28] Speaker 3: full of candy for our five little girls and just
[4:33] Speaker 3: welcomed us into his home. And we fell in love
[4:38] Speaker 3: with it. I fell in love with it immediately. My
[4:41] Speaker 3: father did immediately. He knew my mother was right. And
[4:46] Speaker 3: they moved mountains to be able to buy this 200-acre pre-American,
[4:53] Speaker 3: I mean, it's colonial-era farmhouse, authentic as it gets. It's
[4:57] Speaker 3: a piece of American history. It's not just one of
[4:59] Speaker 3: the most haunted houses in the country.
[5:03] Speaker 2: How soon, once you moved in there with your family,
[5:06] Speaker 2: did you begin to experience some of these strange things?
[5:11] Speaker 3: George, you and I have met each other a number
[5:14] Speaker 3: of times at the Starworks Symposium. You've looked into my eyes.
[5:17] Speaker 3: We've talked at length. And I am telling you as
[5:22] Speaker 3: your friend and as an honest person, within five minutes
[5:27] Speaker 3: of moving into the farm. Yes, sir. Were you scared? No,
[5:34] Speaker 3: actually not, actually. I'll tell you what scared me. What?
[5:41] Speaker 3: I'm in chemotherapy, and I went into anaphylactic shock a
[5:44] Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago. Now, that scared me.
[5:47] Speaker 2: That'll do it.
[5:48] Speaker 3: That'll do it. Yeah. No, the farmhouse did not. I
[5:53] Speaker 3: felt very much at home, very much at home, like
[5:57] Speaker 3: I had lived there before, that kind of at home.
[6:01] Speaker 3: Even though there was no ancestral or familial attachment to
[6:06] Speaker 3: our family, we were literally there. the first people that
[6:10] Speaker 3: moved into that farmhouse that did not have a family
[6:14] Speaker 3: connection going all the way back to the 1700s.
[6:19] Speaker 2: At what point did things really start getting bad though?
[6:24] Speaker 3: Oh gosh. Um, I would say in May of our
[6:27] Speaker 3: first year in May of 1971, I write about this
[6:32] Speaker 3: at length in, um, in my trilogy. Uh, my father, uh,
[6:38] Speaker 3: had no control over the house that he had moved
[6:41] Speaker 3: his family into. And my mother had an apparition appear
[6:46] Speaker 3: beside her bed. She tried and tried to wake him
[6:50] Speaker 3: and she could not. And she thought that he was
[6:53] Speaker 3: dead and she was next. Oh my God. This woman
[6:56] Speaker 3: just stood, hovered beside her and her head was off
[7:02] Speaker 3: of her neck. Clearly a broken neck, obviously. And, um, her, uh,
[7:09] Speaker 3: what was left of her features was gruesome. She had
[7:13] Speaker 3: sprigs of wild hair coming off of her skull, two
[7:17] Speaker 3: vacant hollow eyes and thin lips and jagged yellow teeth.
[7:24] Speaker 3: And when she smiled at my mother, my mom freaked
[7:27] Speaker 3: out and started backpedaling up against the backboard of the
[7:32] Speaker 3: bed and reached over and grabbed my father's hair. He
[7:36] Speaker 3: had ample thick, thick hair, And she grabbed it, and
[7:39] Speaker 3: she started jerking his head to wake him, and he
[7:43] Speaker 3: did not move. And she really did think that he
[7:46] Speaker 3: was dead. And the apparition's arm, which was nothing really
[7:52] Speaker 3: but rendered bone, came down on top of my mother's pillow.
[7:58] Speaker 3: And where it was standing, where this woman was standing,
[8:02] Speaker 3: had preempted part of my mother's dresser. So clearly... in
[8:08] Speaker 3: multiple dimensions at one time. My mother did not think
[8:13] Speaker 3: like that back then. There was no talk of dimensions
[8:17] Speaker 3: and the interacting realms. That was just not something that
[8:23] Speaker 3: people were really familiar with. All my mother knew is
[8:26] Speaker 3: that there was a dead woman standing behind her that
[8:28] Speaker 3: was trying desperately to get her attention. And when my
[8:32] Speaker 3: mother pushed my father to the point that he about
[8:37] Speaker 3: fell off the bed and she turned back around. She
[8:39] Speaker 3: wanted to see if she could see the apparition in
[8:42] Speaker 3: their dresser mirror. And she leaned up to look. And
[8:46] Speaker 3: when she turned back, the woman was gone. And our
[8:50] Speaker 3: clock stopped at 5.15 a.m. Every single time there was
[8:56] Speaker 3: a manifestation of energy in my parents' bedroom, the clock
[9:02] Speaker 3: on the outside wall of that room would stop. And
[9:06] Speaker 3: it was always at 5.15 a.m. That's where they got
[9:10] Speaker 3: the notion for the 307 in The Conjuring. That was
[9:16] Speaker 3: where they got that idea.
[9:17] Speaker 4: And I know you're going to want some after hearing this.
[9:19] Speaker 4: This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
[9:22] Speaker 4: Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. I understand that Malachi, who's eight,
[9:27] Speaker 4: almost nine years old now, was suffering with Not just
[9:30] Speaker 4: one or two warts, but I mean a significant outbreak
[9:33] Speaker 4: of warts all over his body. So significant it impacted
[9:35] Speaker 4: his ability to really function.
[9:38] Speaker 5: Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil to write.
[9:41] Speaker 5: It was Ty's book actually that got me thinking about it.
[9:44] Speaker 1: I'm not surprised.
[9:45] Speaker 3: It is an amazing immunomodulator.
[9:48] Speaker 1: And so I can see that it would work.
[9:50] Speaker 4: And so at what point did you see that there
[9:52] Speaker 4: was actually improvement? Is it really going to work?
[9:55] Speaker 5: Well look, we really started to notice it around 12 weeks.
[9:58] Speaker 5: You can see these things at getting smaller and smaller
[10:02] Speaker 5: and then going down to where they're just little red marks.
[10:05] Speaker 5: The whole thing's gone. And we're talking about one the
[10:08] Speaker 5: size of a walnut. I thought, no way that's going to.
[10:10] Speaker 3: Wow.
[10:11] Speaker 5: It's just been miraculous to see him get into a
[10:14] Speaker 5: pair of shoes.
[10:14] Speaker 3: Yes.
[10:16] Speaker 4: How wonderful.
[10:17] Speaker 5: It's great to see him so happy and confident.
[10:19] Speaker 4: Absolutely wonderful.
[10:21] Speaker 5: Our friends that have seen it, they're just blown away.
[10:23] Speaker 3: Ty, this is awesome.
[10:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, this is awesome.
[10:25] Speaker 2: Another amazing story.
[10:26] Speaker 4: Why?
[10:27] Speaker 2: We're talking about Carnivora. Call them to awaken your immune
[10:30] Speaker 2: system and protect yourself now.
[10:32] Speaker 1: Call 1-866-836-8735.
[10:32] Speaker 2: That's 1-866-836-8735. Or visit Carnivora.com.
[10:33] Speaker 1: C-A-R-N-I-V-O-R-A.
[10:34] Speaker 3: Carnivora.com.
[10:47] Speaker 2: At what point, Andrea, did the Warrens, the demonologists, Ed
[10:50] Speaker 2: and Lorraine Warren, get involved?
[10:53] Speaker 3: They showed up at our door the night before Halloween
[10:57] Speaker 3: in 1973. And the film makes it look like my
[11:02] Speaker 3: mother sought their guidance, but she had no idea who
[11:08] Speaker 3: they were. None of us did. And, you know, of course,
[11:11] Speaker 3: you live in New England, open your door, it's cold out,
[11:14] Speaker 3: let whoever's there in the house and offer them a
[11:17] Speaker 3: cup of coffee, which is exactly what she did. And,
[11:21] Speaker 3: you know, my dad wasn't home that night, but he
[11:25] Speaker 3: did meet them and wrote about them in his memoir,
[11:30] Speaker 3: Being Paranormal. And the reason it even inherited that title
[11:35] Speaker 3: is because he had to go through a transformation as well.
[11:39] Speaker 3: He had to understand that we were now living not
[11:43] Speaker 3: in a nice little eight-room Cape Cod in Cumberland, Rhode
[11:49] Speaker 3: Island anymore. You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. And it
[11:54] Speaker 3: took him a couple of years, George. It really did.
[11:57] Speaker 3: I don't know if he ever spoke with you about
[11:59] Speaker 3: it at Starworks, but he... He was afraid, and he
[12:04] Speaker 3: didn't want to admit that. You know how you men are.
[12:07] Speaker 3: You're very protective of your families, as you should be.
[12:13] Speaker 3: And he felt helpless and didn't know what to do.
[12:18] Speaker 3: And the more we told him things happening at the house,
[12:23] Speaker 3: the more skeptical and the more worried he became. When
[12:27] Speaker 3: things started really ramping up for my father, was when
[12:32] Speaker 3: the spirit that resided in our cellar started touching him.
[12:39] Speaker 3: And then there was no denying anymore that we were
[12:43] Speaker 3: living among the dead. And she would take her fingers
[12:47] Speaker 3: and just stroke the top of his shoulder blades when
[12:51] Speaker 3: he would go down to fix the cistern or whatever
[12:55] Speaker 3: was not working in the cellar. But the odd thing
[12:58] Speaker 3: is that we never had a breakdown of any system
[13:02] Speaker 3: that was set up in the cellar, the heater, anything,
[13:05] Speaker 3: unless dad was home. And then when the water would
[13:10] Speaker 3: suddenly stop working, he would have to go down to
[13:12] Speaker 3: the cellar to check it out. And that's when he
[13:15] Speaker 3: would be touched. And I am convinced that she finagled
[13:19] Speaker 3: with different mechanical devices in our cellars. So there was
[13:25] Speaker 3: one time he went down And there was a strange
[13:30] Speaker 3: looking piece of rubber, round rubber that ran a wheel
[13:34] Speaker 3: on something. I don't know. Everything in this house was archaic, George.
[13:38] Speaker 3: Everything was. But it was halfway down the cellar. It
[13:41] Speaker 3: was like 30 feet away. So he knew something was interfering. And,
[13:48] Speaker 3: you know, you are very well aware, as I know
[13:52] Speaker 3: you are an extremely well-educated man on this subject. They
[13:57] Speaker 3: can manipulate objects and energy. They can. And they can
[14:02] Speaker 3: communicate with us. And so, you know, the other side
[14:06] Speaker 3: isn't so far away. And sadly, I learned that in
[14:11] Speaker 3: 2017 with the death of my baby sister, April, and
[14:14] Speaker 3: my mom passed in 2024. And my father recently passed
[14:20] Speaker 3: three days before we were going to publish his memoir.
[14:23] Speaker 3: And I was so desperately sad at the loss of
[14:29] Speaker 3: my father and for his partner, Carlene. All three of us,
[14:34] Speaker 3: but predominantly her, did the lion. She did the lion's
[14:38] Speaker 3: share of the work on this book. He did an
[14:40] Speaker 3: awful lot of recording of his life story. And he
[14:44] Speaker 3: was very forthcoming about our years at the farm. I
[14:48] Speaker 3: was surprised. And I kind of functioned as a contributing
[14:52] Speaker 3: editor to the book. and would kind of catch him
[14:56] Speaker 3: on little things like, Dad, well, it kind of happened
[15:00] Speaker 3: this way, not that way. I mean, he was 90
[15:02] Speaker 3: years old. And I was sad that he would never
[15:07] Speaker 3: be able to sign his book that told his whole
[15:11] Speaker 3: life story and the story of his family and that
[15:13] Speaker 3: he would never get to hold it. And George, I
[15:16] Speaker 3: have to tell you this, and I won't name any names,
[15:19] Speaker 3: but I will tell you this. A A very good
[15:22] Speaker 3: friend of mine, the day I had my anaphylactic shock,
[15:26] Speaker 3: her gallbladder ruptured and she was laying on a hospital
[15:29] Speaker 3: table and decided to leave her body and walked into
[15:32] Speaker 3: a wall of parents. My mother, my father and my sister.
[15:38] Speaker 3: And she said when she came back and they got
[15:41] Speaker 3: her out of ICU and they got all the sepsis
[15:43] Speaker 3: out and everything was done, she called me and she said, Annie,
[15:47] Speaker 3: don't worry, dad's got the book. I am sure you've
[15:50] Speaker 3: come up one short on your hardbound edition. He was
[15:54] Speaker 3: holding the book. Now, I don't know if that was,
[16:00] Speaker 3: you know, fever. If that was, I don't think so.
[16:03] Speaker 3: This woman is as credible as it gets. And she said,
[16:09] Speaker 3: dad's got the book. Don't worry.
[16:10] Speaker 2: I love that. I'll tell you a story I haven't
[16:13] Speaker 2: told you yet. One of the stars of your Conjuring
[16:16] Speaker 2: movie in 2013 was Patrick Wilson, right?
[16:19] Speaker 3: Yes. Oh, lovely man. So sweet.
[16:24] Speaker 1: 1979.
[16:24] Speaker 2: I'm in St.
[16:25] Speaker 5: Louis.
[16:25] Speaker 2: I'm the television news director for an NBC station. And
[16:29] Speaker 2: my anchorman that we had just brought in was a
[16:32] Speaker 2: fellow by the name of John Wilson. And he would
[16:35] Speaker 2: bring his little kid in who was six years old
[16:38] Speaker 2: to show him around the newsroom and do the things. Well,
[16:42] Speaker 2: that little six-year-old was Patrick.
[16:45] Speaker 3: Wow.
[16:47] Speaker 2: What a small world, huh?
[16:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. How many billion of us? Well, I'll
[16:52] Speaker 3: tell you what's bizarre is that my mother's ancestry traces
[16:58] Speaker 3: back to Clan Buchanan in Scotland. And five years before
[17:04] Speaker 3: his death, my father fell madly in love with Carlene Harris.
[17:10] Speaker 3: He was in his late 80s. There's hope for all
[17:13] Speaker 3: of us yet. And And she is the light of
[17:19] Speaker 3: his life. And he brought her here to our home
[17:22] Speaker 3: in Georgia to meet my mother. And it turns out
[17:26] Speaker 3: that both of them can trace their family lineage back
[17:31] Speaker 3: to Clam Buchanan in Scotland. So my father's spouse and
[17:38] Speaker 3: partner in life turned out to be related to his wife.
[17:43] Speaker 2: How long did your family own the property?
[17:47] Speaker 3: For 10 years, well, roughly 10 years, my mother found
[17:53] Speaker 3: it in June of 1970. My parents closed on the
[17:59] Speaker 3: property in December of 1970, and my mother refused to
[18:03] Speaker 3: move her family over the Christmas holidays, so she told
[18:07] Speaker 3: us to keep the box as any of our gifts
[18:09] Speaker 3: came in, and we moved in January of 1971. And Mr. Kenyon,
[18:14] Speaker 3: at the end of the day, took my father by
[18:17] Speaker 3: the arm, and he said, Roger, for the sake of
[18:20] Speaker 3: your family, leave the lights on at night. And it
[18:24] Speaker 3: wasn't until months after we had moved in that people
[18:29] Speaker 3: in the neighborhood, kids on the bus would say, you know,
[18:31] Speaker 3: that house always had the lights on when the Kenyans
[18:34] Speaker 3: lived there all the time, all the time, all night long.
[18:37] Speaker 3: That was how Mr. Kenyon apparently held activity at bay
[18:43] Speaker 3: or could at least see what was coming. And, um,
[18:47] Speaker 3: So he warned my father of that. And my father,
[18:50] Speaker 3: of course, translated that in his pragmatic Virgo brain to,
[18:54] Speaker 3: this is a big house and, uh, one bathroom on
[18:58] Speaker 3: the bottom floor. So make sure you keep lights on.
[19:02] Speaker 3: So your kids don't tumble down the stairs at night,
[19:04] Speaker 3: you know, and that makes perfect sense. But it wasn't
[19:09] Speaker 3: long before we realized that we, uh, Had lots of company.
[19:14] Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
[19:17] Speaker 1: 1 a.m. Eastern and go to coasttocoastam.com for more.

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