“The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the fourth in the horror film series, does not come out until next year, but a new saga is unfolding on the house that inspired the franchise.
Jason Hawes, star and producer of the SyFy television series “Ghost Hunters,” and his daughter, Satori Hawes, who used to work at Rhode Island’s “The Conjuring” house, have accused the house’s owner, Jacqueline Nuñez, of sending them accusatory and threatening text messages, according to an incident report to the West Greenwich Police Department in Rhode Island on Aug. 6.
Nuñez, in the meantime, is prompting concern on social media, as people react to alarming posts that go beyond the discussion of the house’s supposed paranormal activity.
Nuñez, a Boston real estate developer, bought “The Conjuring” house — also known as the Burrillville farmhouse — in 2022. She purchased the home with the stipulation from the house’s previous owner that whoever owns it cannot live in it year-round “because the energy is so powerful,” Nuñez told The Boston Globe that year.
Jason Hawes and his “Ghost Hunters” crew went to the house in a 2005 episode of the show after former owner Norma Sutcliffe said she and her husband noticed furniture in the house vibrated.
“Well, this is an interesting house,” Hawes said in the episode. “It’s a really old home, well over 250 years old. It just gives off a creepy feeling when you’re in there.”
On July 24, Nuñez began texting Jason Hawes after she posted surveillance footage on social media of a man at the house at around 2:30 a.m., according to the West Greenwich police report. Hawes told police Nuñez claimed on social media that the man in the video “looked like Jason Hawes.”
A post showing this footage was seen on “The Conjuring” house’s Facebook page before the account was taken down. However, this post did not name Hawes.
“We really are divinely protected and so are all of our well-intentioned visitors,” the Facebook post’s caption read, according to the report. ”This is the third time I’ve posted these videos. Some hijacker of our [”The Conjuring” house] account has deleted most of my posts and I will find out who they are. How can evidence of paranormal activity be so threatening that they need to do anything to prevent people from seeing it?”
Hawes told police that the video was “proven not to be of him, and that the male on the camera footage was a guest of ‘The Conjuring’ house that left in a red Toyota Tacoma,” the report read.
Hawes told police that the texts were unprovoked. In an Aug. 3 Facebook post, Hawes wrote, “Let’s just be clear. I have not spoken, texted, called, emailed or even seen this lady in more than six months.”
He alerted police to the text messages and Facebook post “to cover myself and protect my family,” according to Rhode Island television station WPRI 12.
“Some of these text messages were just extremely vile,” Hawes told the news station. “She claimed I was there trying to do an assassination plot.”
According to the incident report, Nuñez told Hawes she knew of an “assassination attempt on me,” and said, “I will never be defeated or destroyed by any f***ing paranormal person, now or at any time in the future.”
Towards the end of the report, Officer Jason Larivee wrote that he left Nuñez a voicemail message asking her to call him back.
Hawes told WPRI’s reporters in their Aug. 15 story that while he has legal representation, Nuñez has “backed off from those threats with me.”
“But she’s still doing it with other people,” he claimed.
However, on Aug. 16, he posted on Facebook that Nuñez has found other ways to contact him despite being blocked and is emailing his children.
“No one should go to this property #BoycottConjuringHouse,” the post concluded.
In a comment to that post, Hawes wrote that Nuñez’s actions are not “paranormal-related,” but are “choices of lifestyle.”
“These are issues that have been going on for quite a while and have just been getting worse and worse over time due to her choices,” he wrote in the comment.
Facebook followers are concerned
Others on social media have also been concerned about Nuñez based on numerous recent Facebook posts by her on “The Conjuring” house’s official Facebook page — including posts stating she is the princess of Saudi Arabia and that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, has “incited hate on his page” towards Nuñez.
“I know that many of you do not understand why I am making various posts,” she wrote on Aug. 18. “I am part of an International Team that is doing a special mission that triggered events, when I bought [’The Conjuring’ house]. It will be a great thing, once completed.”
Some of those Facebook posts received hundreds of comments.
“Making excuses for her behavior is NOT helping anyone, especially her,” one commenter wrote. “She is not possessed. Evil entities are not influencing her. It’s called accountability for one’s actions, that is it.”
While commenters criticized Nuñez’s actions, some have voiced their support for Hawes.
“I’m so sorry you’re experiencing this especially from someone you were there to help,” one person wrote. “Honestly as a medium, this feels more like a stunt for attention than a possession or haunting. I know the house clearly has a history but she’s looking for attention. Praying for you and especially your family.”
“The Conjuring” house’s Facebook page has since been deactivated.
Nuñez told WPRI in a statement that she was “not speaking” until after she filed a complaint with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York. She is asking for an investigation into “evidence of hate crimes and abusive attacks against me and ‘The Conjuring’ house.”
She also filed complaints to officials in Burrillville and to the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, WPRI wrote. Nuñez added that these agencies have not confirmed if investigations were underway, but she hopes “they are or intend to.”
MassLive has reached out to Jason Hawes and Nuñez.
Former employees speak out
Satori Hawes, Jason Hawes’ daughter, worked at “The Conjuring” house up until May. She told WPRI that “The Conjuring” house is a “beautiful, haunted property” but that she is also having issues with Nuñez.
“It’s not this evil dark place that some people made it out to seem,” Satori Hawes said.
Hawes and her fiancé, Cody DesBiens’, problems stem from thousands of dollars they said they put into renovating a barn. The couple had set up the barn next to the house to be a paranormal museum when there was a fire in December 2023, they told WPRI. They filled the building with their own furniture, equipment and paranormal artifacts.
Crews battle an overnight fire at a barn on the property of The Conjuring House in Burrillville, Rhode Island on Monday, Dec. 4.Pascoag Fire Department on Facebook
DesBiens said Nuñez promised to pay them back through her insurance but the couple said she has not. She told the news station in a statement that she spent $450,000 renovating the barn, but did not receive enough money to cover what was inside.
The couple “did not contribute one dime towards any of that renovation,” Nuñez said. She later said that the fire was likely caused by “improperly disposed materials spontaneously combusting inside a trash bag left in the barn.” She later blamed the couple for having a role in the fire, according to WPRI.
In December 2023, she said it wasn’t arson and “was an accident.” The fire, she said, was started by “improperly disposed materials spontaneously combusting inside a trash bag left in the barn.”
Another employee has also spoken out after he claims he was fired due to stealing allegations from an 1880s spirit.
In July, Nuñez fired Brian Dansereau and claimed the spirit of a former “The Conjuring” house owner in the 1880s said Dansereau stole about $3,000, Dansereau said to WPRI.
“She said, ‘John Arnold told me you’ve been stealing money out of the cash box for the past two months,’” Dansereau said in an interview with the news station. “I literally stopped and I had to correct her like, ‘John Arnold, one of the original owners?’”
Danseraeu started working at the house in 2021 and became its first full-time employee in May 2024, according to a GoFundMe he set up.
While he believes in the paranormal, Dansereau told WPRI that he’s never heard of a spirit going after someone in that way “at any haunted venue, let alone the Conjuring House.”
He filed a complaint at the end of July seeking unpaid wages to the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, WPRI reported. Dansereau estimated that Nuñez owes him $9,000 for uncompensated work.
For Dansereau, the job was “horrible,” leaving him with anxiety and sleepless nights, he said.
“This was going to be my sunset job,” he told WPRI. “In all my career, I’ve never been accused of stealing.”
Nuñez told the news station that her financial books back up her allegation and that she does not owe Dansereau any money. She added that she planned to file a complaint with local officials that claim he slandered her on videos shared to YouTube.
The GoFundMe — which has raised almost $8,000 as of Aug. 27 — was set up in July to pay for a heart condition and Dansereau claims Nuñez only wrote him checks and “never came through with health insurance …”
“… As it stands, I cannot go through unemployment as she never did the right thing by me with my full-time position and clearly she still owes me five weeks of pay which she assured she is not paying,” Dansereau wrote.
Satori Hawes and DesBiens told the news station they were stunned that Nuñez fired Dansereau over the theft accusation. If there are cameras throughout the house, where is the proof to back Nuñez’s claim, Satori Hawes asked.
“I don’t think any accusations of stealing are true in any way,” Satori Hawes told WPRI. “[Dansereau] is one of the most dependable, kind and honest people you will ever meet.”
