In the Defense of the Devil

He was stabbed 20 times with a pocketknife. 20 frenzied stabs he never saw coming from his 19-year-old baby faced friend. Gasping for air, eyes wide in shock, Alan crumpled to the ground bleeding profusely. He died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

It would be an unremarkable case; it was obvious how Alan Bono was murdered. Yes, it would have been unremarkable if it had not been for the choice of defense the murderer’s lawyer entered into with the court. Not Guilty by reason of Demonic Possession.

As his attorney would say, shortly before the trial for the stabbing murder of Alan, “The courts have dealt with the existence of God,”. “Now they’re going to have to deal with the existence of the Devil.”

Located in the rolling hills of Connecticut just 43 miles west of New York, Brookfield is a charming little town, even at its peak it was home to just 16,500 residents. Like many towns on the eastern coast of the United States, Brookfield gained recognition as a town by the construction of a Church Meeting house in 1757 and was named in honor of its first settled minister, Reverend Thomas Brooks.

And it is here where Debbie Glatzel and Arne Cheyenne Johnson lived in the early 1980s. Debbie Glatzel was beautiful brunette working as a dog groomer at a local kennel while Arne was described as a pleasant good natured young man with shaggy blonde hair and a rather precarious smile. Arne and Debbie were recently engaged to be married and looking for a home to begin their life together in when Debbie’s boss offered to rent a small home on the outskirts of town but he warned the couple it needed some work. The property had been neglected by the previous tenants and had been vacant for some time. He had trouble keeping the place rented so he saw the offer as mutually beneficial. Excited to have a spacious place of their own the couple got to work. Debbie solicited the help of her young brother David to help clear the property.

When the trio arrived at the property, 11-Year-Old David began to do what curious little boys do, explored. He roamed the hall and peeked in rooms and once he was finished inside, David ventured to explore the property outside, it was then he came upon an abandoned well. It was deteriorating on the damp, chilly edge of the property line that met with the woods. He walked slowly and cautiously the well, sensing its eeriness but unable to refuse its mysterious appeal. As he neared, he sensed a presence, then he was shoved to the ground. He looked around confused, he thought he was an alone until he saw an old man who spoke to him. As soon as the shock released David’s paralyzed body, he ran.

In the days following the encounter David began exhibiting strange behavior. David, he recounted his experience near the well to his parents. He said an old man with big black eyes, a thin face, jagged teeth, pointed ears, horns and hoofs. told him that they better not move into the property or else great harm would befall them all. He began having nightmares, scratches and bruises appeared mysteriously over his body. He was being tortured by an invisible force.

Until the incident David was not known to be troubled, or a liar. He did not watch Horror movies; his imagination was no less wild than any other average young boy. David’s parents were deeply disturbed by the rapid deterioration they were witnessing in their son. Without knowing quite what to do they summoned a priest who agreed to perform a series of exorcisms.

I think it is important to pause the story here for a brief discussion about possessions, exorcisms and canonical law. Today, the process for receiving the sacramental rite of exorcism is a multi-step process beginning with an evaluation of a local priest. The requests are taking seriously but adhere to the adage that when one hears hoof steps they should think, horse, not zebra. The priest will evaluate the situation bio-psycho-socially to rule out mental, social, and environmental factors. If the phenomena are not explained by extenuating factors then the priest may escalate and request permission to perform the exorcism from the Bishop. However, in 1980, Canonical law did not impose the same restrictions on exorcisms that it does today.

After the release of the movie the Exorcist, exorcisms were glamourized in television, movies and print. They were sensationalized and aligned with the public’s growing obsession with a sweeping phenomenon known today as Satanic Panic. Pope John Paul II, a culturally astute reformer of canon law and church doctrine recognized the sacred rite was being exploited in Hollywood and throughout the world to gain publicity, drawing negative attention to church practices and opening the church up to some serious legal liabilities. In 1983, canon law was amended to tighten restrictions and include stricter qualification criteria for true exorcisms to be performed and even stricter rules regarding what members of the clergy would be granted permission to perform them. He did this by reforming canonical law, the governing law of the Catholic religion and its doctrine. Canonical law is treated like any secular law, there are courts, lawyers and relies on written rules and edict issues by the Pope. Finally, it is important to recognize that there are many types of exorcisms and many are performed, unnoticed during regular liturgical functions like a Sunday mass or during a baptism. It is during this liturgical events Satan is repudiated and exorcised from the congregation. As a Catholic, I can always say I have been experienced thousands of exorcisms through the course of my life and if you are Catholic, chances are, so have you. Other exorcisms do not exorcise a demon from a person but rather an object or a place such as a home.

The exorcism was conducted over the course of three days, whereby a priest, the family and two renown demonologists were present. Ed and Lorraine Warren were Connecticut born and bred. Both practicing Catholics the couple had gained notoriety for other highly publicized demonic possessions and hauntings including the hauntings that inspired films including conjuring series, the Amityville horror and a haunting in Connecticut.

On the final day of the exorcism Arne taunted the demon possessing David, he dared the entity to possesses him, to take on someone his own size feeling it his duty and responsibility to be the protector of the young boy for his fiancée’s sake and prove his courage and loyalty to her. As the exorcism concluded David seemed to slowly return to health. The boy was exhausted but deemed by the priest as relieved of his spiritual affliction. But the days that followed would take a dark turn Arne.

Demonic possessions do not occur randomly or arbitrarily. Unlike the possession of an object or a home, for a person to become possessed, rather it be by demonic OR angelic forces, it is necessary for the afflicted to have granted the entity permission to possess their person at some point. In Arne’s case, when he taunted the demon and dared it to possess him in exchange for leaving David alone, he gave the demon express permission to gain control over his body, mind and soul. Whether Arne was fully aware of this will always be unknown but as both a Catholic and practicing psychic I feel it is my duty to warn you to never do this, not even in jest. Consent is not always given as directly to a demon as it was in Arne’s case, oftentimes there is a process by which a demon cleverly elicits the permission from its victim, a process that is described in depth by the Warren’s in any number of their books or publications but is not a theory exclusive to the Warren’s franchise. The process entails 3 major stages. The first stage is known as infestation, this is otherwise known as a malevolent haunting. The second stage is oppression, where a member or members of the household begin to feel hopeless, angry, and scared. The demonic entity uses this stage to make the victim pliant until it can elicit the permission it requires to take control over their body. That is where the third and final stage reaches its full realization, possession. For David, he was likely terrified and mentally submitted to the demon in hopes it would leave him alone. A demon is under no obligation to tell the truth; therefore it will often use lies and manipulative tactics to gain control over its victims.

Almost immediately after the exorcism of David, Arne began to feel strange. He was angry, he was losing large swaths of time and finding himself saying and doing things against his will. While driving home from work one day Arne lost control of his vehicle and ran into a light pole. His car was totaled but he walked away from the accident unharmed. After the accident, matters only seemed to get worse. A few days later, Arne visited the property of his soon to be home, he went out back to the old well where David encountered the old man just a week prior. Arne felt irresistibly drawn to it. As he drew near a foreboding sense of dread washed over him but he was unable to prevent himself from peering down the opening of well into the black abyss, it was then, as Arne later recounts, the face of a demon appeared and locked eyes with Arne. He took off running from the property utterly terrified at what he had just seen.

Matters hardly seemed to improve for Arne, he was listless and losing touch with reality. His temper seemed to control him, his memory seemed to elude him, and he felt increasingly out of touch with everyone around him. It was not unusual for Arne to call off from his job working for a local arborist and go meet Debbie Glatzel at the dog kennel for lunch. On February 16th, 1981 he did just that, when he arrived Debbie Glatzel’s boss, Alan Bono offered to take the couple to lunch at a local pub along with Debbie Glatzel’s 9-year-old cousin Mary. During lunch, Alan began to drink until he became quite drunk. Now there are mixed reports as to whether Arne was drinking as well an also as to what happened next, but the following is the most common account of events.

After leaving the pub, the group returned to the kennel. Wanda, Debbie’s sister who was also present recounted that there was some tension in the group. Particularly between Arne and Alan, something ignited between the two of them and fight broke out. Arne began to growl and hiss at Alan, Debbie tried to usher Wanda and Mary out of the room but Alan, for some reason unknown grabbed little Mary causing Arne to lunge at Alan with a pocketknife. He stabbed Alan repeatedly until he fell to the floor after receiving a fatal blow to his heart. Then Arne fled the horrific scene leaving behind Debbie, Wanda and Mary. He was later discovered walking aimlessly about 1.5 miles from the scene of the murder.

In every criminal charge it is incumbent on the prosecution to establish a means to satisfy some key elements.

There are three basic elements of a crime, actus reus or criminal act which is generally defined as an unlawful bodily movement, the second is mens rea which means to have a guilty mind, otherwise known as the element of criminal intent and lastly concurrence, the common law doctrine that requires that criminal action and criminal intent come together concurrently to create harm or the potential circumstances for it. Nestled under the element of actus reus is the requirement of voluntariness, for a person to be held criminally liable, it must be assumed the person acted voluntarily and was in control of their own faculties when the crime took place or must be easily traceable to and a result of a voluntary action. If a defense can successfully disprove the presence of criminal intent or somehow separate it from the criminal act, they are well on their way to reducing or eliminating their client’s criminal culpability. All legal defenses aim to dissolve the relationship between these elements and there are a limited number of acceptable defenses that seek to cast doubt over the requirement of voluntariness. Insanity pleas are common, hypnosis may be another but in 1981, after Arne Cheyenne Johnson was indicted on a first degree murder charge his lawyer, and a group of demonologists and clergy would attempt to introduce a new defense, not guilty by reason of demonic possession.

Arne’s defense lawyer Martin Minnella immediately got to work posturing to get the court to accept the groundbreaking defense. He called in Demonic Possession expert witnesses, asked to examine Alan Bono’s clothing and photographs taken of Alan’s body, he cited the absence of tears in his clothing as evidence of a demonic presence. It was not the first time that demonic possession had been cited as an extenuating factor for murder though, just the first time it would be entered into the court as the defense on record. A few years earlier, a serial killer, known in the media as Son of Sam insisted that his neighbor’s dog, Minnella instructed him to murder random people and that the dog was possessed by the devil. However, in his case his lawyers did not attempt to enter this as a part of their defense but rather used this fact to support a defense of insanity. For Minnella, Arne’s lead attorney the insanity defense seemed to be the obvious choice but not the right one though many of his peers and those in the media assumed that his planned defense of demonic possession would just play a minor role in a traditional insanity plea. But as it turns out Minnella was quite serious about his plans to pin the murder of Alan Bono on Satan himself. In a public statement Minnella said that he will prove that demons exist and plans to bring into evidence tapes of the exorcism Arne participated in and to question priests and demonology experts. A court reporter present for the trial recounts some of the exchanges between Minnella and the presiding Judge, Judge Robert Callahan. An excerpt from the 1981 article reads

"Somewhere on the road to pinning a murder rap on Satan, Martin Minnella got waylaid,"

At the start of the trial, Callahan said he refused to hear Minnella's planned arguments about the devil's work.

"I'm not going to allow the defense of demon possession, period," he said. Although Minnella tried to have Callahan disqualified from the case, Callahan did not budge.

"While admitting he's not sure whether demon possession is possible, Callahan said … he knows it's not a legal defense and considers evidence of it irrelevant, unprovable, and needlessly confusing to a jury,"

In the end, Minnella would not be given the opportunity to argue the defense of legally recognized demonic possession. But despite repeated warnings from the judge Minnella still attempted to put four priests on the stand but Judge Callahan would not allow it. Ed Warren, the demonologist present throughout the exorcism and the subsequent trial was permitted to take the stand but only in the capacity of a character witness in defense of Arne.

If Minnella’s defense was even remotely successful, meaning he was able to have the defense permitted by the court it would have legally legitimized demonic possessions and opened up American Criminal defense law to a litany legal questions that blur the line between church and state. Judge Callahan recognized the implication of permitting even the slightest impression of such a defense into his courtroom leaving the rest of us with nothing more than some entertaining thought exercises.

Arne Cheyenne Johnson was ultimately convicted of a lesser charge than that of his original indictment, First Degree Manslaughter, after Minnella’s original defense plans failed he opted for a more rational self-defense argument. Arne served 5 years out of his 10-20-year sentence during which time he married Debbie, earned his GED and several educational certificates, and was described by prison staff as a model inmate. David Glatzel, Debbie’s younger brother, continued to experience paranormal events, and reportedly never be the same.