Take Me: The Real Devil Made Me Do It Murder Case

0:00 [MUSIC] Flip Wilson got huge laughs on NBC with the line The Devil made me do it. In 1981, a lawyer in Connecticut tried to bring that same line into a murder case, with Ed and Lorraine Warren. His client was a 19 year old who had once dared a demon to take him. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Flip Wilson had a character named Geraldine on his NBC Variety show in the early 70s.

1:00 Flip played her in a wig and a dress and her big line was The Devil made me do it. People said it to get a laugh. Up in Brookfield, Connecticut, the Glotsville family spent the summer of 1980 dealing with their little boy, David, who was having these episodes that alarmed his family so much that some of the Glotsville's decided something had gotten inside of him. Ed and Lorraine Warren got involved. You know Ed and Lorraine even if their names don't necessarily ring a bell because they're the couple, the conjuring movies were built around. And back then, they made a living giving lectures on the paranormal. They agreed with the relatives who said that it was a demon inside of David.

1:41 David's brother, Caro, said that for years, Ed and Lorraine took the kids problems and turned them into a supernatural story that they could then sell. David's big sister, Debbie, had a fiance named Arnie Cheyenne Johnson. Arnie was 19 and he worked for a tree surgeon. He and Debbie had been together for a long time and he took part in some of the religious rights that the family would call exorcisms. During each one of them, the way the family tells it, Arnie challenged whatever was in David to leave that boy alone and then come into him. His lawyer says the words Arnie used were "take me." Brookfield was turning into a town that you would move to and then commute to New York from and it grew by a third during the 1970s.

2:25 Debbie groomed dogs at a kennel there and the man who ran it was Alan Bono. Alan was 40. He was pretty new in town. Alan also rented Debbie and Arnie the apartment on the kennel property. Debbie's paycheck and the couple's rent both ran through Alan and on top of that, he and Arnie were friends. Debbie said later that she and Alan had been in a relationship at one point and that it was over. Carl has talked about rumors of an affair. When you go looking for Alan himself, what's out there is pretty thin. Nobody I could find has published where he grew up or why he picked Brookfield and no obituary turns up anywhere in the coverage of this case, even with all the movies and TV made about it since.

3:07 Arnie said he felt sick on the morning of February 16, 1981, so he called out of work. He and Debbie picked up his younger sisters, including Janice, who was 13. A nine-year-old girl named Mary was also with them too. At some point that day, the whole group ended up with Alan at a place with the name of Mug and Munch. And Arnie and Alan drank pretty much the entire time that they were there. After that, they all went back to the kennel. What started the fight depends on who you ask. One account says Alan made an obscene remark. Debbie's version was that Alan was drunk and grabbed Mary and wouldn't let go of her. And then Arnie stepped in.

3:47 Arnie stabbed Alan with his own folding knife around 6.30 that evening. The blade was about 5 inches long. An EMT who arrived in the scene later testified to four wounds. Alan was alive when help got there. He then later died from those wounds. Debbie was calling for help when the officer arrived and she told him that Alan had been stabbed. The EMT told the jury later that Debbie was hysterical and said Arnie didn't mean to do it. Arnie was gone by then, he bounced and there are two stories about where you'd have found him. An officer testified that he found him that same night at a bar called Hackney's. Arnie remembers sitting on a bench somewhere totally worn out.

4:28 Police found the knife at the kennel. Later news stories called it Brookfield's first murder in 193 years. Arnie obviously got charged with murder within a few days and his lawyer, Martin Manella, went to the press with a possession story with Ed and Lorraine backing the whole thing up. This was the start of what turned into the Satanic panic. A book called Michelle Remembers had been a bestseller of the year before and TV news and talk shows were running more and more stuff about the occult. A demon murder case out of Connecticut fit right into that. The story went international. Pick up a newspaper in early 1981 and you'd see Geraldine's line sitting on top of the homicide story because the paper started calling it the devil made me do it case.

5:13 And that's what everyone still calls it. Martin, the attorney, told Fox News in 2023 that all Arnie has ever told him is that he blacked out and he couldn't remember anything. Martin said the possession part came from the priests and from Ed and Lorraine. He also told a Connecticut paper in 2021 that he still stands by the possession claim. The police chief called it an ordinary homicide that came out of anger and an argument. He got frustrated watching the worldwide attention land squarely on Brookfield because of a demon. When his officers had evidence, a knife and witnesses that you could put on a stand. The New York Times was pointing out by March that Ed and Lorraine lectured on the paranormal for a living and they might make money off of this. That same month a grand jury of 18 people indicted Arnie for murder. The trial started in Danbury that October. On the first day during jury selection, the judge threw out the possession defense. He said whether demons exist was a religious question and he was staying out of it. His ruling was that nobody could prove possession to a jury of regular people like you and me in any reliable or scientific way. And that testimony about it would probably confuse jurors. Martin asked the judge to step off the case. The judge said no.

6:32 Martin kept trying to bring the devil back into the case outside the jury's hearing and the judge kept shutting it down. With the demon gone, Martin went with self-defense. The state's attorney told the jury that this was about drinking and a jealous young man. Then the barmaid from the Mug and Munch took the stand and said that Arnie and Alan had been drinking heavily for about three hours. A toxicologist testified that Alan's blood alcohol content at the hospital came back at 0.33. Arnie's sample got taken more than four hours after Alan died and it read 0.03. And the expert said Arnie was probably higher when it happened. Now you've got Janice, the 13-year-old telling the jury that she saw her brother kick and punch Debbie that same day. The head of the state crime lab testified and that was Dr. Henry Lee, the same forensic scientist that you might know from the OJ Simpson trial.

7:26 And he said blood on the hair and on Arnie's knife were similar to Alan's types. That's what they did before DNA. They do blood typing. Ed and Lorraine never took the stand. The jury deliberated over three days. They came back on November 24th and convicted Arnie of first degree manslaughter. A few days later, the judge gave Arnie 10-20 years and told him that he'd shown little remorse. Martin said he'd appeal and bring the devil back into it. And later legal write-ups say the appeal never even got filed. Arnie got his high school diploma while he was locked up. And in January of 1984, he married Debbie inside the prison. He made parole in January 1986 about a month early.

8:09 He'd served almost five years and the state's chief of parole called him an exemplary inmate. Friends told the AP the plan was for him to live with Debbie's parents in Brookfield and to work as a landscaper. While Arnie was inside, a book called The Devil in Connecticut came out in 1983. At same year, NBC aired a TV movie called The Demon Murder Case. And you've got a young Kevin Bacon playing the Arnie character and Andy Griffith, Sheriff Andy from Mayberry, playing the demonologist based on Ed Warren. Carl and David sued over the book and said its possession story was false. David has also said publicly that he believed he was possessed. Then in 2021, Warner Brothers put out the conjuring, The Devil made me do it, which you may have seen. That's Geraldine's line from a variety show, now the title of a big Hollywood horror movie. Both movies gave Alan a different name.

9:06 In the 1983 one, he's Philip Bruso. The 2021 movie calls him Bruno. Debbie died in 2021 and she and Arnie were still married at the time. Arnie is now in his 60s and mostly stays out of sight. He sat down for the 2023 Netflix documentary The Devil on Trial and the guy who once told The Demon Take Me talked about how much his faith means to him and he said he isn't possessed anymore. He also maintains that he blocked out and does not remember stabbing Alan. Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, Bingeable True Crime. Hello, I'm Joe, I'm the host, and if you happen to be listening to this on the day that it comes out, want to tell you be safe and have a happy Halloween. If not, you're listening to this some other time, then happy Saturday to you.

10:01 Or whatever day it happens to be. Here's an email, subject, music memories. I was having lunch with some friends the other day and we were talking about how some songs make you instantly remember something that happened during the time that you were listening to that song in the past. It was a fun conversation and since I don't technically know you, but I listen to your podcast so much that I feel like I do, I'd like to hear yours. What's your take on it? Is there a song that when you hear it, it instantly makes you think of something from another time. Some memory. Marcus and Hagerstown Maryland. Marcus, thank you for listening and thank you so much for taking the time to send the email and absolutely yes. There's a song that every single time I hear it, it gives me, I don't want to make light of PTSD, but it feels almost traumatic for me because I remember something that I absolutely hated. Anytime I hear "sail" by A. Wall Nation, I think of the time that I thought I was going to be a crossfitter. I thought that CrossFit was something that I needed to do. That was what was missing from my life. So I signed up for CrossFit and this was probably like the third class and you know they start to kind of slow, but since I had a background and working out, I was athletic in my previous life.

11:14 I wasn't new to the gym is what I'm saying. So they did the advanced fast track for me. So the last day of this fast track class, we were doing it and I felt, I was doing it, I was working out so hard that I felt nauseous. I was trying to do these like lunge walks. It was toward the end of it. I'm trying to do these lunge walks and I can barely even tell you my name. I couldn't breathe. I was light-headed, it just sweat running in my eyes and in that moment I thought if I don't lay down right now, I'm going to throw up all over this floor. So I did. I lay down and the floor was cold so that seemed to help and the floor was absolutely dirt disgusting by the way. But I was in such bad shape that I did not even care. My eyes are closed, I'm breathing hard and the guy from the CrossFit place comes over and he goes, "Hey Joe, you okay?" and I just gave him like a thumbs up. Meaning, thumbs up, I'm not going to die probably. And he starts clapping his hands and trying to do like the pet move thing, "Alright, let's finish strong, let's finish." And I said, "If I stand up right now, I'm going to throw up all over your floor." And he goes, "Okay, stay down. Stay right there." So I never finished the workout. When I was able to get up, I did, went to the bathroom, turned on the sink and put cold water all over my head till it cooled me off, went down the road, bought two giant bottles of Gatorade and drank them both. And then I was sore for like the next week. But during that last part where I felt like I could be about to die, maybe, maybe not, sailed by Aewol Nation was blasting so

12:48 loud and I was close to the speaker when I was laying there on the floor. So anytime I hear that song it instantly takes me back to that moment and I hated it in my bed there. I didn't mean to launch into a whole personal story but it helps to share it maybe. You guys are my therapy. Alright, if you're a new listener to 10 Minute Murder, welcome. I don't always share my trauma at the end of these episodes. But do me one huge favor if you're a new listener. Subscribe wherever you're listening to 10 Minute Murder right now. If you're subscribed, go to 10minutemurder.com. You'll find all kinds of things there including links to where you can follow the show on social media. Do that next. And if you're already doing that, the last step is to tell your friends and your family about 10 Minute Murder and rated five stars wherever that's possible. If you do all of that and you listen to more episodes, that will make you an OG listener and OG listeners are who I depend on to make this show keep going and keep it what it is. You're supplying me with topics to cover here on the podcast.

13:47 Including the one that you heard today was one that someone said, "Hey, you should do this when on Halloween." And so that's what I'm doing. And that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder. See you next time.