Jack and Janet Smurl became central figures in a high-profile haunting case in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, between 1974 and 1989. They alleged that a demonic presence inhabited their duplex home on Chase Street, leading to more than a decade of terror that eventually involved the Vatican and renowned paranormal investigators.
: Jack and Janet lived on one side with their four daughters (Dawn, Heather, and later twin daughters Sharon and Carin). Jack’s parents, John and Mary, occupied the other side of the double-block home. The Paranormal Phenomena
By the mid-1980s, however, the activity escalated from nuisance to terror. The Escalation of Violence jack and janet smurl
The haunting allegedly progressed from benign occurrences to extreme violence:
What set the Smurl case apart from standard folklore was the level of documentation. They didn't call ghost hunters; they called the and renowned investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Jack and Janet Smurl became central figures in
Eventually, the Smurls moved away, leaving the house on Chase Street behind in the late 1980s. They claimed the activity followed them, though with less intensity.
Yet, the Smurls refused to back down. Their tenacity turned them into unlikely celebrities. In 1991, their ordeal was immortalized in the made-for-TV movie The Haunted , cementing their place in the pantheon of American horror lore. Jack’s parents, John and Mary, occupied the other
Janet Smurl passed away in 2017, and Jack followed in 2021. They maintained the veracity of their story until their deaths. Whether one believes in the pig-faced demon or not, the legacy of Jack and Janet Smurl remains potent: a reminder that sometimes, the scariest place in the world is supposed to be the safest—your own home.
The Smurl haunting occurred at a unique moment in pop culture. The public was hungry for the supernatural, but the skepticism of the era was equally fierce. Local police found no evidence of wrongdoing, and skeptics pointed to the family’s financial struggles and the stresses of a multi-generational home as the root cause of the "haunting."
The movie depicted the family not as heroes, but as victims—ordinary people trapped in an extraordinary circumstance, grasping for help from a church that was hesitant to intervene with an official exorcism.