Born on February 26, 1952, Arne Cheyenne Johnson holds a somewhat strange claim to fame. He was the first person in the United States to claim demonic possession as a defense in a criminal trial.
After being arrested for the murder of his landlord, Alan Bono, in 1981 Johnson claimed, “the Devil made him do it”. Unsurprisingly, his trial became a media sensation at the time and Johnson became a household name.
Amazingly, two famous paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, came to his defense, arguing at trial that Johnson truly was possessed. For decades this has left some wondering if Johnson was guilty or if the devil really made him do it.
The Murder
To an outsider, it would seem everything was going okay for Arne Johnson in early 1981. He was happily engaged to Debbie Glatzel, had just moved into a new home, and was working as a tree surgeon at Wright Tree Service. That outsider would be dead wrong.
On February 16, 1981, Johnson called in sick to work. Apparently playing hooky, he joined his sister, Wanda, his fiancé Debbie, and her 9-year-old cousin, Mary, at Debbie’s place of work. At the time Debbie worked at a kennel owned by Alan Bono, who just so happened to be the couple’s landlord.
Bono and Johnson were on friendly terms and Johnson would often drop in to visit the kennels. On this fateful day, Bono took the group to a local bar for lunch where he reportedly had too much to drink. After lunch, Debbie took Wanda and Mary for pizza, wanting to get them away from the intoxicated Bono, leaving the two men alone.
According to reports, when the girls returned a fight broke out between Johnson and Bono. This led to an agitated Bono grabbing the young Mary and refusing to let her go. While Wanda and Debbie fought to de-escalate the situation, Johnson pulled out a five-inch knife and began growling like an animal.
As Wanda tried to pull her brother away, Johnson stabbed Bono repeatedly and the man suffered four or five serious wounds to the chest, with one stretching from his stomach to his heart. Bono was rushed to hospital but died several hours later. Johnson was found 2 miles (3.2 km) from the site, arrested, and held at the Bridgeport Correctional Center.
Upon his arrest, he made the strange claim that the Devil had made him do it.
So, Did the Devil Make Him Do It?
Of course, Johnson wasn’t the first murderer to claim he wasn’t responsible for his actions, but he was the first (in America at least) to claim the Devil was. While it’s tempting to dismiss his claim as a desperate plea, as it turns out Johnson and those close to him had been plagued by strange goings on in the run-up to the murder.
According to Johnson and his lawyer, the events that led to the tragic murder had actually begun months before and were tied to Debbie’s 11-year-old brother, David. In the summer of 1980 David started acting strangely. In particular, he told Debbie and Johnson that a strange old man had been following him around and taunting him.
Since David was a pretty typical 11-year-old the couple thought he was playing tricks and was trying to get out of doing his chores, in other words, they didn’t believe him. But then things rapidly got worse and the two were forced to start taking him more seriously.
David claimed the encounters were becoming more frequent and more violent. The family had just moved into a new rental property and according to David, the old man wanted them to move out. If they didn’t, he’d start hurting the whole family, not just David.
The poor boy would wake up in tears, describing dreams of a “man with big black eyes, a thin face with animal features and jagged teeth, pointed ears, horns, and hoofs.” As David got worse and began showing signs of scratches and bruises the couple decided to turn to the church and called in a priest for help.
The priest’s blessing turned out to be ineffectual, so the couple turned to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. At the same time, the hauntings stepped up a notch.
The family could now hear sounds in the attic and David began having violent fits where he would bite and scratch those near him. During these seizures, he hissed, spat, and spoke in strange voices that quoted Paradise Lost and the Bible.
The Warrens visited the family repeatedly and oversaw three exorcisms during which they recorded that David levitated, cursed, and even stopped breathing. These exorcisms only made things worse, and the family even went as far as notifying the local police that things were getting dangerous.
According to the Warrens and Debbie, Arne Johnson became increasingly frustrated with what the demon was doing to the young boy. During one exorcism, against the Warrens’ advice, he taunted the entity, demanding it take him on instead and leave the boy alone.
The family, believing their new home was cursed, moved out and decided to rent one offered by Debbie’s boss, Bono. Johnson returned to the house one last time, determined to face the demon, which was said to live in a well at the back of the property.
According to Debbie, shortly afterward her brother recovered but Johnson began to exhibit his own strange behaviors, falling into strange trances where he would growl and hallucinate. A few short months later he stabbed Bono.
The Trial
Unfortunately for Johnson, there was little legal precedent for his plea. His lawyer, Martin Minnella, attempted to enter a plea of “not guilty by reason of demonic possession” but it was an uphill battle from the beginning.
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His plan was to bring in the Warrens alongside the priests who had been involved in the exorcisms to defend Johnson and verify his claims, but things didn’t go to plan. First, throughout the trial, the Warrens and Minnella were mocked by their peers and the media with both parties being described as profiteers of tragedy. The Warrens were simply dismissed as a kind of sideshow act.
Even worse, the church was less than helpful. It refused to confirm that four priests had been involved in any kind of exorcism at the house.
Instead, the Diocese of Bridgeport simply acknowledged that the priests had supported the young David through a challenging time. Clinical psychologists who had been brought in testified that David suffered from a learning disability, not demonic possession.
With no credible witnesses to vouch for Johnson, and even less evidence, the judge, Robert Callahan, decided to reject Johnson’s plea. He stated that the man’s defense was impossible to prove and that any testimony on the matter of possession was unscientific and therefore irrelevant.
Johnson was ultimately forced to change his plea to self-defense. On November 24, 1981, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to between 10 and 20 years in prison. He was out in five.
This wasn’t the end of the story, however. While Johnson was in jail a book about his case, The Devil in Connecticut was released, and a straight-to-TV film, The Demon Murder Case went into production. In more recent years, a big-budget adaptation, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has also been released, claiming to be based on the “true story.”
Johnson and Debbie married while he was in prison and to this day continue to argue his innocence. As Debbie puts it, the only thing he ever did wrong was to challenge the devil, a mistake that she believes led to his own possession and the murder of Bono.
Of course, others are less convinced and think a murderer got off lightly. Whether or not you believe him, one thing is true. The case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson makes for one heck of a creepy bedtime story.
Top Image: Arne Cheyenne Johnson claimed that possession by the Devil had led him to murder. Source: Fotokitas / Adobe Stock.
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