Zak Bagans’ Devil’s Rocking Chair: Is It Really Cursed?

The Devil’s Rocking Chair is one of the most talked-about artifacts ever to enter Zak Bagans’ Haunted Museum, and within weeks of its arrival, the exhibit housing it was shut down after a string of unexplained incidents involving staff, visitors, and even Bagans himself.

Is the chair really linked to a demonic case that once made its way into a Connecticut courtroom, or is there a more grounded explanation behind the panic it has caused? Here is everything that is actually documented about the chair, its history, and the strange events attributed to it.

Key Takeaways

What Is Zak Bagans’ Devil’s Rocking Chair?

The Devil’s Rocking Chair is an antique wooden rocking chair that Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans purchased in April 2019 for display at The Haunted Museum, his attraction in a historic downtown Las Vegas mansion. The chair is tied to the case of David Glatzel, a young boy who was seemingly possessed by a demon, and to the exorcism performed on him by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

According to the story surrounding the case, when the demon was driven out of David, it transferred into another person, Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who later stabbed and killed his landlord and claimed in court that he had been possessed at the time.

Bagans purchased the chair from Carl Glatzel, David’s brother, for around $67,000, and the chair was reportedly used as part of an exorcism ritual in the early 1980s and is said to be still stained by holy oil used during the rite.

Despite the chair’s strong association with the Warrens through the Glatzel case, it was never actually in the possession of Ed and Lorraine Warren. It was not part of their own occult museum in Connecticut — a detail that was later confirmed publicly by their son-in-law, as discussed further below.

The chair gained a wave of mainstream attention because the underlying case had just been adapted into a major horror film. It became known as the relic connected to the “Devil Made Me Do It” case, the storyline that would form the basis of The Conjuring 3.

Within a month of acquiring it, Bagans had it installed at The Haunted Museum, where it remains one of the attraction’s most discussed artifacts, housed directly beneath a staircase.

The “Devil in Connecticut” Case Behind the Chair

The story behind the chair predates Bagans’ ownership by nearly four decades. In testimony given by the Glatzel family, 12-year-old David Glatzel allegedly played host to a demon after a series of increasingly disturbing occurrences, prompting his exhausted and terrified family to bring in Ed and Lorraine Warren in a last-ditch effort to help the boy. The Warrens and the Glatzel family then had multiple priests petition the Catholic Church for a formal exorcism to be performed on David.

The family described David being beaten and choked by invisible hands, with red marks appearing on his neck afterward. At the same time, the boy began to growl, hiss, speak in unfamiliar voices, and recite passages from the Bible and Paradise Lost.

Family members reportedly stayed awake with David each night as he went through spasms and convulsions, and he was eventually subjected to three “lesser exorcisms” after receiving a diagnosis of multiple possession from the Warrens.

It is within this story that the rocking chair takes on its specific significance. According to accounts given to the press, both Lorraine Warren and David Glatzel claimed to see an entity referred to as “The Beast” sitting in the rocking chair, which it had supposedly claimed as its own, and the chair was said to shake violently and even levitate whenever the entity overtook the boy.

The Arne Cheyenne Johnson Trial: “The Devil Made Me Do It”

The case connected to the chair did not end with David Glatzel’s exorcism. On November 24, 1981, in Brookfield, Connecticut, Arne Cheyenne Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter for killing his landlord, Alan Bono, in what became known as the “Devil Made Me Do It” case — the first known court case in the United States in which a defense sought to prove innocence based on a claim of demonic possession.

Johnson’s defense lawyer argued that he had been possessed, but the presiding judge ruled that such a defense could never be proven and was, because of that, not viable in a court of law. In light of evidence that Bono had been intoxicated and upset before the killing, the defense shifted its plea to self-defense, and on that basis Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison but served only about five years before being released on good behavior.

The case went on to become a significant part of American pop culture, well beyond the courtroom. It inspired the 2006 TV prequel Where Demons Dwell, the 2021 film The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and the 2023 Netflix documentary The Devil on Trial.

In particular, Debbie Glatzel reportedly died of cancer in 2021, while Arne Cheyenne Johnson was reported to still be alive as of October 2023, having taken part in the 2023 documentary about the case.

How Zak Bagans Acquired the Chair

Bagans’ acquisition of the chair was tied to an important timing issue. He bought the chair just hours before the death of Lorraine Warren, who had been a central paranormal investigator throughout the chair’s history.

Bagans purchased it directly from Carl Glatzel, David’s brother, who had kept the chair in the family’s possession. According to reporting at the time, Carl Glatzel decided to sell the chair because it had been in his family’s possession since the 1950s and he was moving to a new home and did not want to take it with him.

Bagans described the purchase as significant specifically because of what else came with it. He stated that being able to buy everything a member of the Glatzel family had in connection to the case, including the Devil’s Rocking Chair, was “a major score” for him.

Even before the chair went on public display, Bagans claimed it was already causing disturbances inside the museum, including doors shutting and locking by themselves, tension among staff members near where the chair was stored, light switches turning off on their own, and nightmares experienced by the shipper who had transported the items from the Glatzel house.

What Happened When the Exhibit Opened

The chair’s exhibit opened at the end of April 2019, and the reactions from visitors were severe enough that Bagans closed it down — the first time he had ever shut down an exhibit at The Haunted Museum because of paranormal activity.

Bagans said six visitors all experienced the same disturbing, uncontrollable crying during the brief period the exhibit was open, and one guest also collapsed on the stairs directly above the chair. He noted that the chair is positioned directly underneath that staircase.

According to Bagans, the chair’s effects were not confined to the museum. He described an incident at his own home in which he and a friend felt an evil presence move between them while sitting in his living room, which caused his dog to growl; Bagans said he then began speaking strangely about God and Satan with his head down, while his friend started crying uncontrollably and ran out of the house.

A separate set of claims concerns physical harm tied to sitting in the chair itself. It has been claimed that some visitors saw “the beast” sitting in the chair, while others who sat in it experienced back pain so severe that they required surgery. It is claimed that one person required surgery after experiencing intense back pain following contact with the chair.

A skeptical review of the case for an investigative science publication detailed the specific incidents that were attributed to the chair at the time the exhibit was closed. The closure was blamed on four specific events: a small door opening on its own, a power cord being yanked out, and the crying and collapsing incidents involving visitors.

Is It Really Cursed?

Several details surrounding the chair’s reported history have been disputed or left unverified.

The claim that the chair came from the Warrens’ own museum was publicly refuted by Tony Spera, the spouse of the Warrens’ daughter Judy, who stated in a May 2019 social media post that the rocking chair had never been in Ed, Lorraine, or his own possession, that Carl Glatzel Jr. had owned it and sold it to Bagans, and that the family would not sell haunted or allegedly haunted artifacts.

The physical reactions reported by visitors also have documented, non-paranormal explanations. Fainting is medically defined as a sudden and temporary loss of consciousness, usually caused by a lack of oxygen reaching the brain.

Recognized triggers for fainting include severe emotional upset, fear, standing for a long period, suddenly standing up, coughing forcefully, and dehydration or fluid loss, with accompanying symptoms that can include falling, blurred vision, and confusion. More serious underlying conditions associated with fainting can include coronary artery disease, severe heart valve disease, and anemia or blood loss, particularly in older individuals.

Questions have also been raised about the timeline of the chair’s supposed paranormal effects. A skeptical investigator pointed out that if Carl Glatzel had owned the chair since the early 1980s — almost four decades before Bagans purchased it — there had been no public reports of paranormal activity associated with it during that period, only Glatzel’s own description of the chair as a family heirloom that had “mostly been avoided due to its bad juju”.

Devil’s Rocking Chair vs Other Famous Cursed Objects

Where the Devil’s Rocking Chair Stands Today

The chair has remained one of the signature attractions at The Haunted Museum since the controversy surrounding its initial exhibit.

The museum’s own description of the chair identifies it as the actual demonic throne that “The Beast” claimed as its own, tied to Ed and Lorraine Warren’s “The Devil Made Me Do It” case that inspired The Conjuring 3. The museum continues to be promoted as a destination featuring the artifact alongside other items such as pieces from Bagans’ “Demon House,” Dr. Kevorkian’s death van, and the Dybbuk Box.

In July 2024, Bagans shared footage of himself near the chair at the museum, indicating it has remained a fixture of the collection well after its original, headline-grabbing closure in 2019.

The Devil’s Rocking Chair sits at the intersection of a real, well-documented 1981 criminal trial and decades of paranormal lore that has grown around it. Whatever the true source of the reactions it has provoked, the chair’s connection to one of the only demonic-possession defenses ever argued in an American courtroom is what continues to draw visitors to see it for themselves.

Sources

• Brittle, Gerald. The Devil in Connecticut. Bantam Books, 1983.
• Wynne, Kelly. Zak Bagans Closes Devil’s Rocking Chair Exhibit After Museum Haunts, Chilling Encounter in His Home. Newsweek, 3 June 2019.
• Arne Cheyenne Johnson | Archives & Special Collections. Archived from the original on August 29, 2023. Retrieved June 30, 2026.
• Murphy, Alex (October 8, 2007). Brothers sue world famous psychic Lorraine Warren for false accusations in Devil book. Mass Media Distribution Newswire. Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2026.
• EI-Tawil S, EI-Tawil T. Lord Carnarvon’s death: the curse of aspergillosis? The Lancet, 362836.
• Vasovagal syncope. Mayo Clinic. February 15, 2025. Retrieved June 30, 2026.