Janet Hodgson

Lore & Background

During the investigation, it was revealed that the entity claiming to be Bill Wilkins was only a pawn being manipulated by a true demon, the nun, who was seeking to break Janet's will. Lorraine Warren's abilities had been blocked by the nun, preventing her from grasping the truth of Janet's possession. The demon's name, Valak, was scratched into Lorraine's Bible during a trance. Ed and Lorraine return to the Hodgson residence to find Janet possessed, standing at a window ready to commit suicide. Ed grabs Janet but is close to falling. Lorraine addresses the demon by its name, gaining dominion over it and successfully condemning it back to Hell. Janet is freed of her possession, and Lorraine pulls her and Ed to safety.

In Their Own Story

The room was cold despite the radiator humming nearby. Janet sat on the edge of her bed, eyes wide but unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. Her mother called out softly, asking if she was alright, but the voice that answered was gravelly and low, vibrating with a power that didn't belong to a girl. The air grew heavy as books began to slide off shelves, tumbling to the floor one by one.

Reader's Guide

Janet Hodgson was a teenage girl living in Enfield, London, during the early nineteen seventies. Her family moved into a home that soon became plagued by unexplained noises and moving objects. As the disturbances grew more violent, Janet emerged as the focal point of the supernatural activity. She began exhibiting signs of possession, including speaking with a deep baritone voice and claiming to be a deceased man named Bill Wilkins. The Warrens arrived to investigate the claims made against her family. They determined that an entity was using Janet's body as a vessel to torment her mother and sisters. Throughout the haunting, she displayed physical feats such as levitating above her bed while remaining conscious yet controlled by the spirit. Her condition deteriorated under the strain of the entity's influence. Ultimately, Ed Warren performed a ritual to banish the spirit from Janet's body. The confrontation was intense, but the family survived the ordeal without permanent supernatural harm. In the aftermath, Janet returned to a semblance of normal life, though the trauma of the event remained with her. Her case remains one of the most documented instances of poltergeist activity in the Warrens' career files.

Did You Know?

• Janet is the second-oldest of four children in the Hodgson family.
• The Enfield poltergeist case took place from 1977 to 1979 in the London Borough of Enfield.
• Janet's possession involved speaking with the voice of an angry elderly man named Bill Wilkins, who previously lived and died in the house.
• The demon manipulating the haunting was named Valak, which Lorraine scratched into her Bible during a trance.
• Janet was freed from possession after Lorraine addressed the demon by its name, condemning it back to Hell.