The Devil Made Me Do It: Demonic Possession and Murder in a Small Town

There's an old parable, a scorpion ask a frog to carry him across a river and the frog refuses, who gets stung, and the scorpion laughs, "Well, if I sting you, we'll both drown. Not stupid." It makes sense, so the frog agrees. And halfway across the river, the scorpion stings him. As they both sink, the frog gasp, "Why?" and the scorpion says, "I couldn't help it. It's my nature." It's supposed to be a story about what's inevitable, but the scorpion still made a choice. He climbed on, and when the moment came, he chose to sting. We like to think evil is simple. Bad people do bad things, but what happens when someone commits murder and says, "It wasn't me. Something else made me do it." Do we believe him? Or do we decide that everyone's responsible for their own venom? I'm Harvey Gien, and this is Killer Stories. Brookfield, Connecticut is one of those small towns where the biggest headline in the paper is usually about the church bake sale or a new stop sign going up. Nothing too sensational. It's been around for nearly 200 years, and in all that time, nobody's ever been murdered here, not once, until February 16, 1981. Around 630 in the evening, police respond to a call at a dog kennel. When they arrive, they find a man on the floor in a pool of blood. His name is Alan Bono. He's 40 years old, and he's been stabbed multiple times. He's rushed to the hospital, but he doesn't make it. The police don't have to look far for their suspect. About two miles from the kennel, they find a 19-year-old sitting on the side of the road, wearing bloody clothes. His name is Arnie Cheyenne Johnson. He goes by Cheyenne. He tells police he blacked out. He doesn't remember a thing, but the police have enough evidence to arrest him and take him to jail, which would be the end of a fairly straightforward murder case, except one thing. Pretty soon, police hear things about demons and possession and forces beyond human control. Things that turn this quiet town into the host of the first demonic possession murder trial in American history. But before we get to the courtroom, we need to rewind, because this case doesn't start with Cheyenne. It starts with an 11-year-old boy and a demon that just wouldn't leave him alone. It's the summer of 1980. Cheyenne Johnson is 19 and newly engaged to a woman named Debbie Glatzel. Cheyenne had grown up as the kind of kid parents pointed to us. You got to be more like him, you know, an example. He played Little League Baseball. He sang in the church choir voice like an angel. Once he saved up all his earnings to buy his mother a used car. So she didn't have to walk to work anymore. Sweet kid, right? But he also has to grow up fast. And his mother gets sick. He drops out of high school to support his mom and younger siblings. Plus, Debbie has a child of her own. So by the time most kids his age are worrying about prom Cheyenne's already a stepfather. Cheyenne and Debbie have spent the summer searching for a home of their own. And they've just found this perfect little cottage with yellow walls and green shutters. It's right outside of Brookfield, close to Debbie's parents. It's everything they want. July 2nd is move-in day. And Debbie's mother, Judy, comes over to help. She brings her three other kids, including a living-year-old David. In one of the bedrooms, there's a water bed left behind by the old tenants. The other kids flop down on it, giggling, but David flat out refuses. He just stands there, staring at the mattress like it personally offended him. Debbie and Cheyenne don't think much of it. The rest of the day go smoothly. That evening, they all have dinner at Judy's house. David then reveals what really happened in that room with the water bed. Okay, let's talk for a second. What you're about to hear sounds impossible. The sessions, exorcism, and a demon hopping from one person to another like a game of supernatural hapotato. And look, I don't know what actually happened in that house. None of us do. Most of what we know comes from a book written by a couple of famous paranormal investigators. Does that make them expert witnesses or unreliable narrators? Well, that depends on what you believe about the world. If demons are real, then they're the people you'd want on the case. And if they're not, well, you see where I'm going with this. It's complicated. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you this story, the way it's been told for over 40 years by the people who lived through it. Sound good? Okay. Let's get back to the story. David's story. So David says that earlier that afternoon, he'd gone back in the room with the water bed alone. He was standing at the foot of the mattress when he felt two hands push him into the bed. He says that when he looked up, he saw an old man in a torn, flat shirt, white hair and a mustache translucent. The man pointed at David and whispered, beware. After that scary yet vague warning, the old guy vanished. David did a step foot in that room for the rest of the day. He tells Debbie and Cheyenne, you guys absolutely cannot move into that house. Now there are about a dozen ways to explain what happened to David in the room, you know, overactive imagination, stress from the day. That's pretty much what Debbie and Cheyenne say, but not Judy. She's been reading about the supernatural recently and she thinks what David's describing sounds exactly like a ghost. She also tells her daughter not to move in to a haunted house. Debbie and Cheyenne aren't convinced and they move in anyway. But if you watch horror movies, you know that ignoring the kid who sees dead people doesn't usually go well. David starts seeing this ghost grandpa all the time, even when he's not at Debbie and Cheyenne's house. Only now, the man's feet are bare. His skin looks dark and burned. It's possible David is just doubling down. Maybe he's just figured out that talking about the senile spirit gets him attention. But here's the thing. Debbie's behavior starts to go beyond telling ghost stories. It becomes a lot more dangerous. His family says that while he's sleeping, David twitches and thrashes as if trying to throw something off his body. He screams and swear sometimes he's found pulling at his neck like invisible hands are choking him. Even worse, David gets violent. He spits at his grandmother. He kicks her. Once he even tries to attack her with a knife, the entire family starts taking turns, sleeping during the day so that at night they can watch David and keep each other safe. Not from the ghost, from David. The glatzels are scared. They have no idea what's wrong with their kids. So they do what any reasonable family would do. They go to the doctor. The family physician examines David and doesn't find anything particularly out of the ordinary. He has a minor learning disability and appears to be emotionally disturbed, but that's not exactly news. The doctor doesn't have any explanation for why he's acting this way. Here's where the story could have gone in a very different direction. Maybe David could have gotten a second opinion. Or a psychiatric evaluation. Maybe the doctor. could have run more tests. But that's not what happened. Instead, Chudy, David's mother, makes a decision. If medicine doesn't have an answer, then maybe the problem is in medical, at all. Luckily, she's been studying the paranormal, as she knows just who to call. If you've seen the conjuring movies, you'll know the names Ed and Lorraine Warren. By 1980, they're a paranormal power couple. They're famous for investigating the Amityville Horror House, and they give lectures, write books, and investigate hauntings all over the East Coast. So basically, if you need ghostbusters, who are you going to call these people? When the Warren's visit the Glatzel's home, Ed interviews David while Lorraine watches. And according to Lorraine, who says she's clairvoyant, she sees some kind of misty form sitting next to David, and it's dark and negative. Later, David complains about invisible hands gripping his neck. Lorraine swears she sees actual red marks forming on his skin. That's when the Warren's make a pretty bold claim. David is possessed by a demon. Over the next few months, the Warren's keep coming back with notebooks and tape recorders, collecting notes and hoping to catch some supernatural action. The Glatzel say that the activity has escalated. Objects fall over, doors slam, crucifixes turn upside down. There's a rotting sulfuric smell that comes and goes. The family starts calling whatever supposedly inside David, the beast. And according to their account, there's a pattern to when it shows up, a ritual almost. First, David goes completely still. His head drops down to his chest. The room gets quiet. Then slowly his head starts to lift. And when it does, according to the family, everything about him changed. His face looks different. Older. His eyes are blank, staring like he's looking through you instead of at you. Sometimes he snarls. Sometimes he laughs. And when he speaks, the family swears. It's not his voice. Then the beast gets violent. One night, David launches himself at his brother, Alan, trying to claw at his face. It takes three family members to pull David off. And the whole time, according to Alan, David is laughing. Another time, Judy finds David in the kitchen, holding a knife. He's just standing there, staring at it, turning it over in his hands. When she asks him what he's doing, he doesn't answer. Doesn't even look at her. Later, when the episode passes and David comes back to himself, he has no memory of it. The family starts hiding knives and scissors terrified of what might happen during his next episode. By now, the warrants have warned the police department that there's a demonic presence in town. And I gotta say, I can't imagine what that folk call must have been like. Maybe like, okay, can you describe the suspect, please? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right. Demon is at 2M's or 1M, Carl. The warrants also contact the local church, St. Joseph's parish. They send several priests to examine David. And according to Lorraine, they find something astonishing. David appears to be possessed by not just one, but by 43 demons. The story goes that when the priests ask David to name all the demons, he does. All 43 of them. One by one. The priest says this case is above their pay grade. They're like, no, thanks. Uh, we're gonna bring the big shots. David is going to need something a little more intense. The only way to purge him of the beast is through an exorcism. Turns out even exorcisms have paperwork, right? The church has an approval process and it takes time. While they wait, priests are allowed to perform blessings and holy water rituals. And those rituals, they can get pretty wild. In some, David recites long passages from Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic poem about Adam and Eve, Temptation, and The Fall of Man. According to the family, he quotes the Bible too, entire passages in Latin. David has a learning disability and attend special reading classes. His vocabulary isn't strong, but somehow the warrants claim he's speaking languages. He doesn't know. And spouting out complex poems, he shouldn't understand. Let alone memorize. Now, I don't know about you, but that's where I start asking questions. Because there are really only two possibilities here. Either David is generally possessed and speaking in tongues or children are suggestible. And he's giving adults what they want to hear. The warrants claim they recorded hours of this. But most of that evidence has never been made public. And look, I want to be respectful along with my healthy dose of skepticism. I wasn't in the house. I don't know what the Glad Souls experience. Clearly, it was concerning enough to bring their living year old to the medical doctor and then the supernatural doctor. Even if I'm still not really sure what I believe about ghost and demons, I can sympathize with doing anything I can to help a loved one. So can Cheyenne. He hates watching his fiancee's little brother David go through all this. The rituals are pretty intense. When the priests pray over David, he screams and swears. His body twitches and jerks. It's a terrifying thing to watch an 11 year old experience. One night Cheyenne, the warrants and the Glad Souls are all watching as the priests perform another blessing. The warrants later recall this night and say the demonic voice coming from David is louder and more powerful than usual. Cheyenne is fed up with whatever is taking over the boy's body. So he starts screaming at it. Leave him alone. Take me instead. Lorraine later says the room went ice cold and she saw a dark cloud passed from David to Cheyenne. Was it really a demon? A shadow? A trick of the light in a room full of terrified people. Nobody can say for sure. But whatever changed that night, real or imagined, Cheyenne starts acting differently in the weeks that follow. And that deal he made, take me instead. Comes to missing children, murder victims, unsolved homicides, breaking news. These are the cases that demand answers. I'm Nancy Grace. On Crime Stories, we go inside the courtroom, speak with investigators and top experts. We hear from victims and their families and we bring you the latest on the cases that grip the nation and cases you may have never heard of. Please join us at Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. I saw was not a living man. New episodes every week starting October 1st. Hit follow, watch video on Spotify, YouTube, listen wherever you pod and tell me a ghost story. Do you often find yourself listening to things that are dark, eerie or macabre in order to relax? Then join me over on the As The Raven Dreams podcast. New episodes several times a week. All of them chock full of the true, strange and scary stories, certain, to help you sleep well. Available on Spotify or anywhere else you choose to listen to your podcasts. Okay, before we dive back in, quick reminder, everything I'm about to tell you comes from the people who lived it. Debbie, the warrants, the family, could anyone prove it? No, can we verify it now? Also no, but this is a story they tell. It's November, 1980, about a month after Cheyenne made a deal with the devil in David's room. David's doing better. He has fewer episodes, but Cheyenne, he's starting to unravel. As Debbie will later claim, at first, bit small things. She notices him spacing out more than usual. Who'll be sitting right next to her, but mentally, he's somewhere else entirely. His eyes look vacant. When she asks him, what's wrong? He snaps back like nothing happened, and he says, oh, he's just tired. But then, it gets worse. One day, Cheyenne walks over to the window and just stands there, staring out at nothing. Debbie calls his name. Once, twice, he doesn't respond. And then she hears, coming from the back of his throat, like an animal. When he finally turns around, he's back to normal. He doesn't remember doing it. Another time, they're sitting in church with Debbie's family. It's right in the middle of mass. It's quiet. And suddenly Cheyenne stands up and shouts, "Get me out of this effort, goddamn church!" I get it. I did not love going to church. We all wanted to get at a church-free card, you know? But usually you just have to fake a call off, you know? (laughing) I'm sorry, excuse me, sorry. I know, my God, I'm sorry. (laughing) But I mean, taking the Lord's name in vain during the service is a one-way ticket to getting banned from the church bake sales for life. By the end of 1980, Debbie and Cheyenne have fled the rental house, you know? The one with the water bed that started all of this trouble. It costs the money to break the lease, but their sanity is priceless. And then things start to look up. Debbie gets a job as a dog groomer at a kennel near her mom's house. And the gig comes with a great perk, a small apartment right there on the property. The landlord is also her new boss, Alan Bono. Within weeks, Alan, Debbie, and Cheyenne become close friends, really close. Cheyenne even starts calling in sick to his landscaping job to hang out with Alan. Debbie's glad Cheyenne's made a new friend, but it also tells her that moving out of the rental house hasn't fixed anything. It's unlike Cheyenne to blow off work like this. She's also still spacing out, staring out of a window. And then, on a cold February morning, something happens that makes all of those strange moments suddenly feel like a warning. Debbie's in the bedroom of their new apartment when she hears Cheyenne in the kitchen, talking to someone. She walks over to the kitchen to see who it is, but nobody else is there. And as she gets closer, she realizes that two voices are coming out of Cheyenne's mouth at the same time. One is his normal voice, the other is deeper, harsher, like something speaking through him. As she freezes in the doorway, just listening. And then when Cheyenne finally turns, and sees her standing there, both voices stop at once. This is February 16, 1981. By that evening, whatever's been building for months, finally breaks. On that day, Cheyenne calls in sick. Instead of staying home, he goes and visits Debbie and Alan at the kennel. He brings along his 15-year-old sister, Wanda, his 13-year-old sister, Janice, and Debbie's nine-year-old cousin, Mary. Apparently, Debbie's grooming a particularly ugly black poodle and the kids want to see it, which is actually kind of adorable when you think about it. And Alan doesn't mind the audience. In fact, he takes the whole group out to lunch at a local bar and this is where things go sideways. Alan orders wine, a lot of wine. He announces that he's planning to quit drinking the next weekend. So today, he's gonna get really drunk, which is the kind of logic that makes perfect sense when you're already a little drunk. Cheyenne and Debbie have a little wine, but not too much. And I mean, there are kids around, someone has to be the adult. When they get back to the kennel, Alan cranks up the stereo. He's belligerent now. Punching his fists into his palm and pacing and Debbie can feel trouble brewing. So she tries to herd everyone out, but Alan doesn't want that party to end. So he forces them all upstairs to his apartment right above the kennel. And that's when things get scary. According to Wanda, Alan is up there getting more and more aggressive. Debbie urges everyone to go back downstairs, but when they try to leave, Alan grabs a nine-year-old Mary by the arm and won't let her go. Debbie rushes over pleading with him to loosen his grip at some point. Cheyenne comes into the room and sees what's happening and yells at Alan until he finally releases Mary. But Cheyenne and Alan aren't done. They follow each other outside, still screaming. They stop on the front lawn face to face. Wanda holds onto her brother trying to pull him away. Debbie's begging them both to just stop and let it go. And then something very strange happens. Cheyenne freezes. Wanda can't get him to move at all. He's completely unresponsive, like he's turned to stone. Then as Wanda and Debbie tell it, he starts to grow like an animal. Debbie and Wanda sees something flash in the air, something shining metallic. And Cheyenne just blankly stares straight ahead. Then Alan falls backward. Blood is pulling around his body and Cheyenne walks away. When Debbie looks down, Cheyenne's pocket knife is lying on the grass beside Alan's body. Okay, let's just pause for a second here because I know exactly what you're thinking. Wait, what happened? A knife just appeared out of thin air and suddenly Alan is dead. Did I miss something? You didn't. That's genuinely how Debbie and Wanda statements are. The way both of them describe it, everything happened in this blur of motion and sound and then it was over. At least that's what they say at first. It isn't until Dave's leader when Wanda signs a police statement saying yes, she did see Cheyenne stab Alan. As for Debbie, her account stays pretty hazy. Maybe she really did think something supernatural possessed Cheyenne during the altercation or maybe she witnessed something so traumatic. Her brain couldn't process it in the moment. Okay, back to the scene of the crime. After Cheyenne takes off, someone in the neighborhood calls 911 and paramedics quickly arrive. Alan is rushed to a hospital but he doesn't make it. He dies from stab wounds an hour later. Meanwhile, police track down Cheyenne about two miles down the road from the kennel. He's in a day, he's taken into the station and charged with murder. His reaction to that is pretty normal. He falls asleep. When he wakes up, half an hour later, he tells police, he doesn't remember anything. His last memory is arguing with Alan at 6 p.m. Minutes before the stabbing, he says he can't remember. The day after Cheyenne's arrest, David tells his family. He had a vision. He says he saw the demon leave his body. and enter Cheyenne, that it was the beast who stabbed Ellen, not Cheyenne. The warrants back him up, they say they warned everyone this would happen, that Cheyenne invited the demon in and now it's taken over completely, Debbie believes him, her family believes it. When Cheyenne's lawyer, Martin Monella hears about this, he makes a decision that will change legal history. He's going to argue, demonic possession as a defense. Most of the time when people say the devil made me do it, they're blaming something harmless like eating an entire sleeve of orals or texting your ex at 2am, not that I've done that. You're not filming this, are you? But now, Martin Monella is going to use that as a legal defense. This becomes the first demonic possession defense in American legal history. There's no "not guilty" by reason of the devil inverting, no. The one similar case happened in England, in one, an arson suspect was acquitted on account of alleged possession, and in another, an accused rapist got his sentence reduced. Monella's strategy depends on getting the church to testify that David was possessed and passed a demon on to Cheyenne, but the church refuses to cooperate. The priest are ordered to stay quiet, some even transfer to different parishes. So basically, the church goes to them, just ironic, considering you guys. The church goes to them. You can laugh, it's okay, the cameras will catch it, so now it's going to laugh. Why don't I even try it? The trial begins on October 28, 1981, and by this point, the case is a complete media circus. Hotels are sold out, and reporters are interviewing the Warrens Daily. The courtroom is packed with people who want to see what the media has dubbed. The devil made me do it case. Even though Cheyenne never set those words himself. Unfortunately for Cheyenne, the judge refuses to hear Monella's possession argument. He doesn't think it can be used as a legal defense. He calls it "improvable" and confusing. Which to be fair, if he's not wrong, you can't exactly cross examine a demon, right? So the possession defense is out. Cheyenne has to pivot to self-defense, the story goes, Allen attacked a nine-year-old marry then came after Cheyenne. He only stabbed him to protect himself and his family. The prosecution's case is simple. Cheyenne was under the influence of something, but it wasn't a demon. It was alcohol. The bartender testifies that Cheyenne Allen had nearly 15 glasses of wine between them. This contradicts what Cheyenne and Debbie told police. Then a paramedic gets on the stand and says that he over her Debbie on the day of the murder saying to her father, "Daddy, he didn't mean to do it. You know how he gets when he's been drinking?" That tells the jury alcohol was involved in the murder. To them, that explanation is much easier to believe than a demonic possession. In November 24th, Cheyenne is convicted of first degree manslaughter. He sentenced to 10 to 20 years behind bars. He ends up only serving five and is released early for good behavior. While he's in prison, Cheyenne and Debbie get married. And for years, they both insist the warrants were right. The Cheyenne was possessed that the devil really did make him do it. In 2007, David's older brother Carl soothes the warrants, claiming they crafted a hoax for money and fame. He says the glatsoll suffered for years from the media attention, especially the children, especially David, eventually the lawsuit is dismissed. Years later, Carl comes forward with another theory. While sorting through his and David's parents belongings after their death, Carl finds a note from their mother that reads, "Well, the family had their medicine tonight and everything was good." Carl believes his mother had been drugging the family with an over-the-counter sleep aid by putting it in their food, which is a pretty intense accusation to make against his mom. But according to Carl, this medication can have long-lasting effects on people, mood swings, hallucinations. Carl suggests it's possible that David ingested enough of this stuff over the years to make him act possessed. But let's be clear, those kind of side effects are pretty rare in sleep aid medications. You know, hallucinations can happen, but only at really high levels. You're probably more likely to have dry mouth and blurred vision than seek ghost. And the sleep medication theory doesn't really explain what happened with Cheyenne. He doesn't live with a glatsoal family, so it's pretty unlikely he was being drugged. Well, Carl has an answer for that one too. He says he heard rumors Debbie was having an affair with Alan. The murder was a simple case of jealous rage. In 2023, David now, in his 50s, appears in the Netflix documentary The Devil on Trial. He still believes he was possessed, but also believes the warrants exploited his family for money. David and Carl aren't the only ones who've called the warrants "frauds." Throughout their careers, they've been accused of lying and faking their own powers for profit. But some allegations are even darker than fraud. In 2017, a woman named Judith Penny accused Ed of sexually abusing her when she lit with the warrants as a teenager in the 80s. No charges were ever filed. Ed denied the allegations until his death in 2006 and Lorraine supported her husband's innocence until she died in 2019. As for Cheyenne and Debbie, they maintain their version of the events until Debbie dies in 2021. Cheyenne still alive and living in Connecticut changes his tune. He now says he doesn't believe he was possessed. The story that defined his entire life, he walked it back. Which begs the question, did he ever believe it at all? Remember the scorpion from the beginning? When he stung the frog, he said, "I couldn't help it. It's my nature." Cheyenne Johnson stabbed Alim Bono to death. That's not in question, but when people asked why, all he could say was, "I blacked out. I don't remember." He didn't have a nature to point to, so everyone else answered for him. The Warren said, "Demons." The prosecutor said, "He was drunk." The media said, "The devil made me do it." Because when someone does something unthinkable, we need an explanation. We need it to make sense. But sometimes, maybe there is no why. Maybe there's just a 19-year-old who blacked out and woke up to find he'd killed someone. And maybe the scariest thing isn't that the devil made him do it. It's that we'll never know what did. Things for tuning in to Killer Stories, a Spotify podcast, new episodes release on Monday's. If you liked today's story and want to learn more, we drop some of our favorite sources in the episode description. Until next time, I'm Harvey G.N., stay safe up there. [BLANK_AUDIO]