Demon Murder Trial, Connecticut — Devil Made Me Do It
by Dawg
Under harsh Connecticut light, in the year of 1981,
a young man’s hands bore blood–the courtroom silence had just begun.
Arne Cheyenne Johnson, with sunken eyes, stands accused of slaughter,
a tragedy in Brookfield, a murder for which no mortal could barter.
It began months before, in the white clapboard house on Old Hawley Road,
where the Glatzel family trembled, their son David burdened by a spectral load.
The boy screamed of a shadow with red eyes, foul breath, skin so tight it shone–
an entity scratching his flesh, rattling beds, speaking in guttural tone.
Priests visited, Bibles open, holy water flicked through every room,
but the fear only grew heavier, a garden of dread in endless bloom.
Ed and Lorraine Warren arrived, claiming a demon’s mark–a curse passed down,
a pact, a promise, a darkness that wouldn’t drown.
On that bitter day, Arne’s mind a hive of screams,
he stabbed Alan Bono, his landlord, in a haze of fractured dreams.
No rage in the gesture, only a violence strange and precise–
witnesses claimed he’d spoken in tongues, his eyes lost, his manner cold as ice.
The trial drew a crowd–the first in American history to plead
that a man’s will was overrun, his soul broken, compelled by a demon’s need.
The judge refused the plea, but the lawyers pressed the tale,
paranormal experts filled the stand, while tabloid headlines wailed.
Every detail scrutinized–David’s fits, Arne’s blackouts, the Warrens’ haunted fame,
was it psychosis, religious frenzy, or was something darker to blame?
The verdict came: guilty of manslaughter, ten to twenty years decreed,
but no sentence could scrub the stain, no jailer unbind the creed.
Brookfield will not forget–the old-timers still shake their heads,
the house on Hawley Road still draws those hungry for the dead.
Was it murder, possession, or the unseen turning the wheel?
Even now, the files moulder in silence,
and somewhere, a child wakes from a scream.
Connecticut’s woods remember,
a trial where the devil was summoned,
and men could not draw the line.