Paramedic Recalls His Experience at Haunted Connecticut House

'I wanted out as quickly as I could,' former paramedic says of 'Haunting in Connecticut' home

For the record, Joe Krupa is not the superstitious type. A Delaware County sheriff’s deputy, the former Star Press photographer has spent much of his life as a public-safety worker, including time as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic back in his home state of Connecticut.

Nor is he particularly religious.

So when you talk to him about the recent horror movie The Haunting in Connecticut, a film featuring demon-possession, but also one that’s billed as being based on “a true story,” you expect a doubtful reaction from a man who would never compromise his credibility.

Which you get, mostly. Still, there was something about that house…

“I just know that when I was in that house, I wanted out as quickly as I could,” recalled Krupa, whose ambulance, back in 1986, was dispatched to the Southington, Conn., dwelling upon which the 2009 movie and a 2002 television documentary were based.

What’s more, he and his partner were sent there to take a 15-year-old boy, the very kid whose possession is the basis of the film and the broadcast, to a psychiatric hospital.

Though that was years ago, Krupa’s memories of the day remain clear. After all, he had grown up near the house, which he had known as a funeral home, so he was surprised to find himself sent to what was now just a rental property, especially for that unusual assignment.

Stepping inside, the surprise continued. “It was just strange,” he recalled. “Things just seemed out of place.”

As you might guess, the experience as he lived it was not the same as that portrayed in the film, or even the television documentary. The ambulance run came in the middle of the day, for example, and not in the middle of your standard “dark and stormy night.”

What’s more, the teenager didn’t fit our common notions of demon possession, at least not as detailed in that classic horror flick, The Exorcist.

“He wasn’t violent or belligerent,” the deputy recalled. “He just didn’t want to go.”

Once the kid was in the ambulance, however, Krupa read the comments a doctor had noted on a medical chart. The youngster had heard noises in the house. Voices, too. And unseen forces had assaulted him.

While the boy was the main target of this activity, however, the rest of the family had reportedly experienced it, too. Krupa recalled wondering, was this kid really nuts? Or were the parents blaming the kid for what had happened?

“We weren’t getting a clear story,” he said.

About a year later, Krupa was surprised to read a National Enquirer story regarding the house, the family and the haunting. That paper’s reputation for lurid reporting notwithstanding, it was mostly a low-key, factual piece.

Furthermore, Krupa learned that two well-known ghost hunters - Edward and Lorraine Warren, who had earlier played a key role in examining the house featured in the book and movie The Amityville Horror - were also called to this one.

At one point, Krupa added, a priest performed an exorcism there and, during the process, a tree on the property toppled onto some electrical lines, cutting off power to downtown. He experienced the power failure, and was surprised when a buddy explained what had caused it.

“I said, ‘You’re kidding,’” he recalled, laughing.

Looking back on the experience now, what does he think?

“I dunno,” he said. “I think it’s interesting. Somebody’s making some good money here.”

He added that, while the television documentary played it loose with some facts, he figures the movie does so to a far greater degree. “I assume it’s way over the top,” he said.

Still, despite that, he knows how he felt when he was inside that house.

Not scared, exactly.

“I was on edge, I’d say,” Krupa noted. “It wasn’t a rational kind of thing. Maybe a sense of danger. “

Call it a sixth sense.

“There are things we can’t explain,” he said.

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