Where Is the Smurl Family Now? What Happened to ‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’ Subjects

The Smurl family is at the center of The Conjuring: Last Rites.

The Smurls led a normal, quiet life in their West Pittston, Pa., duplex for over a decade until strange occurrences began.

The horror franchise’s latest release follows Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) as they take on a demon that terrorizes patriarch Jack Smurl (Elliot Cowan) and his wife Janet Smurl (Rebecca Calder), while also targeting their four daughters: Heather (Kila Lord Cassidy), Dawn (Beau Gadsdon), Shannon (Molly Cartwright) and Carin (Tilly Walker).

The case became the last that the Warrens would take on together.

So what happened to the family who inspired The Conjuring: Last Rites? Here’s everything to know about the Smurls’ experiences and where they are today, three decades after their lives were changed forever.

What is the story of Jack and Janet Smurl?

Jack and Janet moved into their house in West Pittston, Pa., in October 1973, and told Lorraine in an interview that they began experiencing paranormal activity in the home in 1985.

Janet told Lorraine the first occurrence was the night of their daughter Heather’s confirmation on April 9, 1985. Janet, Shannon and Heather were in the kitchen, and Janet was pinning the collar onto Heather’s confirmation robe when a ceiling light, which was affixed to the ceiling with two chains and several eye hooks into a beam, crashed down onto the kitchen table without warning.

“It was very frightening because it was unexpected and it wasn’t like a light that had broken naturally,” Janet recalled. “It didn’t tip, it didn’t sway — it just came crashing down. It gouged Shannon in the forehead and left a mark on the refrigerator.”

Subsequently, Janet claimed, the family heard and witnessed other unexplained activity, including doors opening, closing and unlocking by themselves and lights turning on and off. In particular, the accordion-style closet door in Jack and Janet’s bedroom opened and shut rapidly on its own. They also stated hearing loud banging and pounding in threes, and items going missing.

According to the 2020 documentary Devil’s Road: The True Story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, Jack and Janet claimed that their bed shook and they saw a black shadow lurking around their bedroom. In another instance, Janet was reportedly yanked out of bed and on a different night, the couple levitated “as high as the ceiling,” Ed recalled.

The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported that the family also experienced foul odors and heard pig grunts in the home. The occurrences grew more aggressive over time, with the Smurls’ 75-pound German shepherd getting slammed into a wall and Jack getting attacked while praying.

Jack also claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the spirit, which Ed later deemed a succubus, on several occasions.

How did Ed and Lorraine Warren get involved in the Smurl haunting?

Jack and Janet initially sought help from their local Catholic Church.

“We went to our local priest and said, ‘Father, there’s something very strange going on here,’ ” Janet recalled on Larry King Live. “So he came over, he blessed the home and said, ‘There’s no one here who can help you.’ ”

They then reached out to the Warrens by phone for assistance. The Warrens attempted to vanquish the succubus with prayer, crosses, holy water and a police officer with them for protection.

Ed claimed that the demon attacked him and “threw [him] back 10 feet” and was too strong for them to defeat on their own. They approached the Catholic Church again for help, but were denied once more. Ed took to the media to appeal to the church and asked for “two or three priests” to exorcise the demon.

“You can not even imagine what has gone on in this home,” Lorraine said in a press conference.

Lorraine determined that there were four spirits haunting the Smurl house: three human spirits and one demon.

The public pressure succeeded, and the Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who would later become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 — assigned an exorcist to the Smurl case. According to Ed, the exorcist went to the Smurls’ home and performed an exorcism on the property, and the home was “clear” ever since.

What happened to the Smurl family’s house?

The Smurl family’s house is still standing in West Pittston.

According to The Citizens’ Voice, the Smurls moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1988. Richard Bridle purchased the property and initially had difficulty renting it out due to its notoriety, he told UPI.

“It’s hurting me as far as renting the property. There is a stigma attached to the house,” Bridle explained, adding that he thought the haunting claims were “ridiculous.”

Debra Owens, who moved into the West Pittston property in 1988, told the Times Leader that she never experienced anything unusual in the house, and a man who lived on the other side of the duplex home also said he had no strange occurrences while residing there.

Where is the Smurl family now?

The patriarch of the family, Jack, led a quiet life after becoming a reluctant media sensation from the hauntings, working for the Topps Chewing Gum company in Duryea, Pa., for over 30 years and remaining active in his local church. He died at age 75 on June 22, 2017, per an obituary.

His daughter Carin told the Citizens’ Voice, “It was so quick. We didn’t expect it because he had been doing so well. He told my mom … one of his biggest regrets was that he wasn’t going to make it to their 50th anniversary.”

Janet Smurl lives in Laporte, Pa.

As for the couple’s daughters, Heather and Dawn live private lives. Heather is a mom of two adult children, and today, she’s a teacher in Wilkes-Barre. Dawn also raised her son Mark Glowinski II in Wilkes-Barre, and he has gone on to play as an offensive linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, New York Giants and Indianapolis Colts, WVIA News reported.

Similarly, Shannon has a life outside of the public eye — working in health, per her LinkedIn — but she revealed on X that she’s still interested in the paranormal and ghost hunting.

Carin, also a professional in the social work field, maintained that they did not fabricate the haunting.

“That we did it for fame or money is the most ridiculous statement ever. We were a normal family with normal lives that went through a tragedy and prevailed by staying strong and faithful,” she told Citizens’ Voice in 2016. “It’s everyone else that blew it up into a nightmare. We battled the demons inside and the public outside. They made it worse.”

Carin added, “We never made money from the book or movie. Who would want to go through all that media and public bashing?”

She is also a part-time paranormal investigator, an endeavor she pursued because of what she endured as a child.

“The reason I have been involved in paranormal investigating is so no one has to go through what we did,” she said. “In me they get judge-free, discreet, legitimate, honest, professional help and counseling. No one going through tragedy should be treated like we were.”