In its latest foray into true crime, Netflix documentary The Devil on Trial explores the only time “demonic possession” has been used as a defence in a U.S. murder trial.
The case, often referred to as the “Devil Made Me Do It” trial, surrounded the 1981 murder of Brookfield, Conn., landlord Alan Bono at the hands of his 19-year-old tenant Arne Cheyenne Johnson.
The Devil on Trial investigates how Johnson pleaded not guilty to the gruesome slaying; he claimed he was under the influence of Satan when he stabbed the 40-year-old more than 20 times with a five-inch pocket knife after they got into an argument.
The trial ended up being a media circus, as friends and family of Johnson backed up his shocking assertion, paranormal investigators came to his defence, and his lawyer pitched to the jury that the horrific crime was actually the work of the devil.
The backstory
Prior to the murder, Johnson was engaged to a young woman by the name of Debbie Glatzel. Glatzel’s family was struggling with a series of unexplained and ominous events that had happened over the past year to her younger brother, 11-year-old David Glatzel.
The first of the troubling events happened in July 1980, when David and Johnson were working together to clean up a rental property the Glatzel family was preparing to move into. David claimed that as he was helping, he encountered a “burnt”-looking old man who pushed him onto a waterbed and told him that if anyone moved in, he would harm them.
According to archived stories from People, David claimed for months that he continued to see the menacing old man, who would speak to him in Latin, threaten to harm his family and vow to take his soul. He also claimed the old man visited him in a dream and told him: “Beware.”
In the following days, the family reported that David would randomly recite Bible passages or lines from Paradise Lost, his body shaking from head to toe as if he was being attacked by an invisible force.
Bruises and scratches that couldn’t be explained began showing up on his body.
Increasingly concerned, David’s family began taking shifts watching over the boy at night. During the middle of the night, they said, he would sit up suddenly and rapidly perform sit-ups for half an hour at a time.
“He would kick, bite, spit, swear — terrible words,” his mother, Judy, told The New York Times in 1981.
The Glatzel family, devout Catholics, also reached out to their church, hoping a member of the clergy might be able to help.
They alleged that St. Joseph’s Catholic Church sent priests to examine David, but were unable to get to the bottom of David’s problems.
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Running out of options, they turned to demonic investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren — known for their probe into the infamous haunting in Amityville, Long Island, several years prior. The Warrens are also the paranormal-investigating couple featured in each movie of The Conjuring film series.
Speaking to People magazine, Lorraine said it was clear to them right off the bat that David was possessed.
“While Ed interviewed the boy, I saw a black, misty form next to him, which told me we were dealing with something of a negative nature,” she said of the first time they met David.
“Soon the child was complaining that invisible hands were choking him — and there were red marks on him. He said that he had the feeling of being hit.”
The Warrens told his family that they recorded “43 demons” in the boy, and according to People, performed three “lesser” exorcisms on David in October 1980. Lorraine claimed that priests oversaw the exorcisms and that David levitated during one of them.
Taunting the demon
During one of the so-called exorcisms, Johnson, growing desperate, tried to help matters by taunting David’s “demons” to enter him instead.
And, according to the family, it worked.
They said that soon after Johnson intervened, he began showing signs of being possessed. They pointed to the night that Johnson drove his car into a tree as proof — he told the family that a demon took control of his car that day and made it crash.
After the accident, unhurt from the crash, Johnson visited the well where the demon supposedly lived, and he recalled that this was the last “lucid” moment he had before the murder.
The Warrens claimed it was around this time that they called police to report the situation surrounding Johnson and the Glatzels, warning police that the situation was quickly becoming unsafe.
The devil made him do it
On Feb. 16, 1981, Johnson called in sick to work, but instead of staying home, he went to join his girlfriend at work — by this time she was employed at Bono’s kennel and the couple were living in one of Bono’s rental apartments.
Later that day, the trial heard, Bono took Johnson, Debbie and a couple of other workers out for lunch at a local pub. One of the co-workers told the Washington Post that Bono drank a lot of red wine with his meal.
“Next Saturday,” she recalled, “he was going to give up drinking next Saturday.”
When they all returned to Bono’s apartment later that day, Debbie went to buy Bono some pizza in an effort to sober him up. The court heard at the time that when Debbie returned, there was a palpable tension between Johnson and Bono, as the two fought over a broken television set.
Debbie convinced everyone to leave, but Johnson turned back to the apartment. Debbie put herself between Bono and Johnson at that point and the witness told the Washington Post it was at that point that “it just broke.”
“I can’t explain it,” she continued. “It just broke, that’s all.”
A flurry of activity followed, she said, and she recalled Johnson growling like an animal while something shiny flashed in the air. All of a sudden “it just stopped,” she said, and Johnson walked into some nearby woods, staring straight ahead.
Bono, at that point, collapsed to the ground, face-first.
Not far from him was the knife with the five-inch blade that Johnson always carried. There were “four or five tremendous wounds,” according to Johnson’s lawyer, including one that extended from the stomach to the base of the heart. He died a few hours later.
Johnson was found two miles down the road, taken to prison, and held under US$125,000 bail.
Bono’s murder would be the first homicide in Brookfield in 193 years.
The trial and aftermath
Johnson was charged with the murder and went to trial on Oct. 28, 1981. Media latched onto the case, spurred by the Warrens’ frequent lectures, book deals and media appearances.
Local hotels were sold out and the small courtroom was filled with observers every day.
Johnson’s lawyer, Martin Minnella, chose the tactic of pleading “not guilty by virtue of possession.’”
The judge, Robert Callahan, rejected Minnella’s plea and said that virtue of possession could never exist in a court of law. Instead, Minnella chose to tell the jury that Arne acted in self-defence against Alan Bono.
On Nov. 24, after 15 hours of deliberation, the jury returned a conviction of first-degree manslaughter. Johnson was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison. (Johnson was behind bars for just five years before being released.)
“He was an exemplary inmate,” chief of parole Hans Fjelman said at the time, according to The Associated Press. “His mental condition was carefully examined. They found no negative factors.″
While in prison, Johnson married Debbie, received a high-school degree, earned several other educational certificates and took a number of college courses. Johnson and Debbie stayed together and had two children, although they lived life largely under the radar. Debbie, it’s reported by Esquire, passed away recently.
The Warrens stuck to their story that the devil was involved in Bono’s murder.
“Possession doesn’t last 24 hours a day,” Ed told the Washington Post at the time. “It comes quickly and leaves quickly. Arne understands what happened to him. He now knows if something happens how to ward it off and he won’t be stupid enough to take on the devil again.”
Why this story sounds so familiar
The story of what supposedly unfolded for David, Johnson, Bono and the rest of the Glatzel family has inspired several fictionalized tales in film and television.
The case inspired the 2021 feature film The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — the third film in the Conjuring franchise.
Debbie was involved in the marketing of the Conjuring movie and her interview recounting the exorcism and murder was featured in the film’s featurette.
The Devil on Trial is the first time many of the subjects directly involved in the events tell their stories — including Johnson himself — and Netflix promises the documentary will “(spark) a new conversation about what happens when assumptions about reality are in direct conflict with strongly held beliefs.”
‘The Devil on Trial’ premieres on Netflix on Oct. 17.
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