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Authors: Ralph Sarchie
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later that General MacArthur’s mother, well known for her extremely dictatorial personality, had ruled as lady of the house between the general’s marriages.
She also got a mental picture of someone else, a very angry African American man in a nineteenth-century Army uniform, strangely bare of military braid and emblems. This struck the major and his aides as improbable, since they knew of no black man at West Point during that era. The general, however, did some digging and discovered that an African American soldier was tried for murder at West Point around the turn of the century. Although he was acquitted, Lorraine felt sure that his anger and guilt over the trial was what made his ghost linger at West Point.
That was exciting stuff to me, but I was even more mesmerized by another of the Warrens’ cases, which took place in a Long Island suburb. Around Christmas of 1975, a young couple, George and Kathy Lutz, and their three small children, moved into a house they’d just bought. This house had a lurid history, since the oldest son of the previous owner had gotten up one night, grabbed his .35-caliber rifle, and slaughtered his mother, father, two brothers, and two sisters in their sleep. Within a month of moving in, the Lutzes fled their new home in abject terror, describing a savage supernatural assault that later became infamous as The Amityville Horror.
Although I would have been content to while away my time playing baseball and reading these hair-raising but incredibly fascinating books, when I got to the third year of high school, my dad told me I should think about what to do with my life, should I not become a pro ballplayer. I said, “That’s easy, I’ll become a cop.” My picture of what police work was all about came mainly from cop shows on TV: I imagined nonstop action as I saved lives, solved mysteries, and made one spectacular arrest after another. After my high school graduation, I enrolled in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, mainly to play baseball for the college. If the major leagues somehow decided they could live without me, I’d at least be learning about law enforcement. And since I’m now wearing a badge, not a baseball mitt, it’s not hard to guess how things ended up.
In 1984 my childhood interest in cop life turned into what I now call “the Job,” when I entered the New York City Police Academy. I quickly discovered real-life police work wasn’t anything like TV shows: It’s hours of boredom, riding around in a patrol car looking for trouble—and responding to radio runs—with spurts of pure adrenaline and stress when you suddenly get a 10–13 call (officer needs assistance), flip on the sirens, and speed to the crime. On the way, your body gets pumped for action, so you’re ready to charge through a blazing gun battle, if need be, and collar the perps. Half the time, however, the emergency is over when you get there, and it’s back to cruising the streets while your racing heartbeat slowly drops to normal.
A year later, as a twenty-three-year-old housing cop, I was overwhelmed by terror in broad daylight after reading The Haunted, a book about a family under diabolical seige. Here I was a police officer who’d faced down armed perps in public housing projects, and I was scared to death in my own bedroom imagining the living hell these people had endured. The book confirmed what I’ve known for years: These aren’t just stories. Not only do ghosts exist, but there are spirits that are pure evil, which I now refer to as demons or the demonic. I remember thinking that I’d never want any of this to happen to me and had absolutely no desire to get involved with investigating this stuff.
Initially attracted by the action-filled aspects of police work, I began rethinking my life after being shot in the line of duty in 1986. I was off-duty at the time, looking out the window of my mother’s apartment, when I saw a guy running down the street with a box under
She also got a mental picture of someone else, a very angry African American man in a nineteenth-century Army uniform, strangely bare of military braid and emblems. This struck the major and his aides as improbable, since they knew of no black man at West Point during that era. The general, however, did some digging and discovered that an African American soldier was tried for murder at West Point around the turn of the century. Although he was acquitted, Lorraine felt sure that his anger and guilt over the trial was what made his ghost linger at West Point.
That was exciting stuff to me, but I was even more mesmerized by another of the Warrens’ cases, which took place in a Long Island suburb. Around Christmas of 1975, a young couple, George and Kathy Lutz, and their three small children, moved into a house they’d just bought. This house had a lurid history, since the oldest son of the previous owner had gotten up one night, grabbed his .35-caliber rifle, and slaughtered his mother, father, two brothers, and two sisters in their sleep. Within a month of moving in, the Lutzes fled their new home in abject terror, describing a savage supernatural assault that later became infamous as The Amityville Horror.
Although I would have been content to while away my time playing baseball and reading these hair-raising but incredibly fascinating books, when I got to the third year of high school, my dad told me I should think about what to do with my life, should I not become a pro ballplayer. I said, “That’s easy, I’ll become a cop.” My picture of what police work was all about came mainly from cop shows on TV: I imagined nonstop action as I saved lives, solved mysteries, and made one spectacular arrest after another. After my high school graduation, I enrolled in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, mainly to play baseball for the college. If the major leagues somehow decided they could live without me, I’d at least be learning about law enforcement. And since I’m now wearing a badge, not a baseball mitt, it’s not hard to guess how things ended up.
In 1984 my childhood interest in cop life turned into what I now call “the Job,” when I entered the New York City Police Academy. I quickly discovered real-life police work wasn’t anything like TV shows: It’s hours of boredom, riding around in a patrol car looking for trouble—and responding to radio runs—with spurts of pure adrenaline and stress when you suddenly get a 10–13 call (officer needs assistance), flip on the sirens, and speed to the crime. On the way, your body gets pumped for action, so you’re ready to charge through a blazing gun battle, if need be, and collar the perps. Half the time, however, the emergency is over when you get there, and it’s back to cruising the streets while your racing heartbeat slowly drops to normal.
A year later, as a twenty-three-year-old housing cop, I was overwhelmed by terror in broad daylight after reading The Haunted, a book about a family under diabolical seige. Here I was a police officer who’d faced down armed perps in public housing projects, and I was scared to death in my own bedroom imagining the living hell these people had endured. The book confirmed what I’ve known for years: These aren’t just stories. Not only do ghosts exist, but there are spirits that are pure evil, which I now refer to as demons or the demonic. I remember thinking that I’d never want any of this to happen to me and had absolutely no desire to get involved with investigating this stuff.
Initially attracted by the action-filled aspects of police work, I began rethinking my life after being shot in the line of duty in 1986. I was off-duty at the time, looking out the window of my mother’s apartment, when I saw a guy running down the street with a box under
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