What became of the real-life people involved in the true story of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Do It? Like the first two films, the third installment in the Conjuring Universe’s main series is based on one of the case files of the paranormal duo, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively.
One of the biggest incidents that the real Warrens took part in was the 1981 murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson. Johnson was accused of murdering Alan Bono, who was the owner of a dog kennel and his landlord. Reports said that Johnson stabbed Bono 22 times. Dubbed by the media as “The Devil Made Do It” case, the trail was a headline-grabbing fiasco at the time, due in large part to the unorthodox defense used for Johnson’s alleged crime. It was argued – with help from the Warrens – that Johnson had been possessed by a demon, and thus not responsible for his actions. The Warrens claimed that Johnson’s body was inhabited by a spirit that had previously taken hold of a boy named David Glatzel. Supposedly, Johnson aided in Glatzel’s exorcism and invited the demon into his own body to free the child from its influence.
The Conjuring 3 featured a fictionalized take on this event, which incorporated a new twist, that Johnson’s possession was the result of a curse put him on by a Satanist known as the Occultist (Eugenia Bondurant). Together, the Warrens got to the bottom of the mystery centered around the Occultist and destroyed the altar that maintained the curse over Johnson. So in the end, Johnson was freed from the curse and given a chance to stand trial for his crime. Here’s what came next for every real-life person associated with the “The Devil Made Me Do It” case in the movie.
Arne Cheyenne Johnson
At the trial, Johnson was charged with first-degree manslaughter and was given a 10 to 20-year prison sentence, which was considered to be a reduced charge in light of the fatal stabbing. While incarcerated, he married Debbie Glatzel (who was his girlfriend in the movie as well) in 1984 and furthered his education by receiving his high school diploma and taking college courses. In 1986, Johnson was released on parole for good behavior, having only served five years of his sentence. Reportedly, Johnson had been a model prisoner during his time there. Not much is known about what happened to Johnson after that, though Lorraine Warren has claimed in the past that he worked as a landscaper. Also, it seems that Johnson and Debbie remained married, and that both have continued to back up their original accounts of the David Glatzel exorcism and his own demonic possession.
Debbie Glatzel
As noted both above and in the movie’s credits, Debbie Glatzel didn’t give up on Johnson, and married him while he was still in prison. It was reported by the Associated Press back in 1986 that following his release from prison, Johnson returned to Brookfield, Connecticut (his hometown and the site of the Alan Bono killing), to live with Debbie’s family for an unspecified period of time. It's hard to say if they ever had children, or if they stayed in Brookfield. Decades later, Debbie shared her thoughts on the case in a paranormal documentary, and consulted in the making of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Do It. The movie’s director, Michael Chaves, has since revealed that Debbie died of cancer at some point before the film was able to hit theaters. Debbie and Arne Johnson were still married at the time of her death.
David Glatzel
Played by Julian Hilliard, David Glatzel was the eight-year-old child whose exorcism launched the movie’s story. As for his real-life counterpart, The Conjuring 3 took a few liberties with his portrayal. The real David was an 11-year-old boy, and instead of being possessed by one demonic entity, it was said that his body had been overrun by 41 other evil spirits. Sometime after the exorcism, David recovered from the trauma that he went through in the early 1980s, but what exactly he’s done in the last few decades isn’t known. He resurfaced in 2007, when he and his brother Carl (who wasn’t represented in The Conjuring 3) sued the Warrens over a book they had published about the exorcism and what happened with Arne Johnson. It would seem that David and the rest of the Glatzel family disagree with the notion that he was ever possessed as a child.
Ed & Lorraine Warren
The Conjuring 3 was the most recent case-file of the Warrens to be explored by the Conjuring Universe, but it was far from their last investigation. The couple, who had been looking into paranormal matters since the 1960s, stayed in the business for several more years before eventually retiring. Among the cases they looked into in the aftermath of “The Devil Made Me Do It” case with Arne Johnson was the haunting of the Snedeker and Smurl homes in 1986. In both situations, the Warrens were called in to investigate a house that was said to be haunted. While there, they came to the conclusion that the supernatural presence that had invested these homes were demonic entities. Their account of what happened in the Snedeker house was transformed into The Haunting in Connecticut movie, with both of the Warrens being involved in the writing process.
In The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, it was shown that Patrick Wilson’s Ed Warren suffered from heart problems aggravated by an encounter with the demon-possessed David Glatzel. There is at least some degree of truth to this, at least in terms of his failing health. Like Wilson’s take on the paranormal investigator, Ed had heart problems through his life, and experienced a heart attack in 2001. His heart finally gave out on him in 2006, at the age of 79. He was survived by Lorraine (to whom he had been married for 61 years). Ed wasn’t around when The Conjuring films were being made, but Lorraine did have meetings with The Conjuring director James Wan and the two stars when it was in development. The 92-year-old Lorraine Warren passed away in April 2019. Wan has claimed that the insight offered by her proved helpful in bringing the characters and their stories to life.