1986 Connecticut Haunting Case and Film Inspiration
208 Meriden Avenue, Southington, CT 06489
Age
Private residence — exterior view only from public street
Cost
Free
View from public street only. Do not approach, photograph current occupants, or attempt entry.
Access
Limited Access
Public sidewalk on Meriden Avenue
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1916 · Warren Paranormal Case · Film Source Material · Disputed Haunting Account
Allen and Carmen Snedeker, with three sons, a daughter, and two nieces, moved into a duplex at 208 Meriden Avenue in Southington in June 1986. The family chose the rental for its proximity to a hospital where their oldest son was being treated for cancer. The property had previously operated as a funeral home; basement spaces retained embalming-room infrastructure.
There is documented disagreement about whether the Snedekers knew the building's funeral-home history at the time they moved in. The landlord, Darrel Kern, stated publicly that the family was fully aware before signing the lease. The Snedekers said they discovered it after moving in.
Within weeks the Snedekers reported escalating phenomena, beginning with their eldest son's accounts of visions and figures in the basement and spreading to other family members. The family contacted paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who connected the case to the building's funeral-home use and conducted what they called a cleansing intervention. Author Ray Garton was engaged to write a book version of the family's account; In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting was published in 1992.
Garton later distanced himself from the accuracy of the book, stating in subsequent interviews that he had been encouraged by the Warrens to consolidate and dramatize inconsistent family accounts. The landlord, neighbors, and subsequent tenants of the duplex have all stated they did not experience the phenomena the Snedekers described.
The family stayed in the house for more than two years before relocating. The property remains a private residence. The 2009 Lionsgate film The Haunting in Connecticut, starring Virginia Madsen, dramatized the Snedeker family's account and brought the case to wider public attention.
Sources
The Snedeker family's reported phenomena, as catalogued in Ray Garton's 1992 In a Dark Place, included apparitions, full-body assaults attributed to malevolent entities, water in the kitchen sink that turned blood-red with a smell of decaying flesh, mop water that produced the same effect, and visions experienced by the eldest son. Ed and Lorraine Warren attributed the activity to the building's use as a funeral home and to alleged malpractice by former morticians.
Garton stated in later interviews and on podcasts that the Warrens encouraged him to combine inconsistent family accounts into a single dramatic narrative when the original accounts did not line up. Skeptical investigator Benjamin Radford concluded in a Live Science piece that there is essentially no independent evidence for any of the claimed events.
The property's landlord and several neighbors have stated publicly that no other tenant or visitor experienced the phenomena the Snedekers described. The case remains one of the most-contested entries in the Warren paranormal investigation file.
The 2009 film The Haunting in Connecticut, while marketed as based on the true story, was substantially fictionalized. The house remains a private residence and is not open for public investigation or tours.
Media Appearances
View the modest white duplex on Meriden Avenue from the public street. The house is a private residence currently lived in by an unrelated family; do not approach the porch or trespass on the property. The structure formerly operated as a funeral home before the Snedeker family rented it in 1986.
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