The star of the hit paranormal TV series “Ghost Hunters” claims the woman who owns the notorious house that inspired “The Conjuring” has been harassing him for weeks — bizarrely accusing him of being part of a plot to have her assassinated.
Jason Hawes filed a police report against Jacqueline Nuñez with Rhode Island’s West Greenwich Police Department last week after he claims he’s recently received several threatening messages from the homeowner, WPRI reported.
“Some of these text messages were just extremely vile,” Hawes told the outlet. “She claimed I was there trying to do an assassination plot.”
“I wanted to take this to the police department just to cover myself and protect my family,” he added.
Nuñez owns the storied Burrillville farmhouse, also known as the Old Arnold Estate. The 19th-century farmhouse is the real-life haunted house that inspired the 2013 horror film “The Conjuring” — and has a dark history of murder, rape and suicide. It’s said to be haunted by the spirit of Bathsheba Sherman, who lived there in the 1800s.
Hawes, whose daughter worked at the creepy house for nearly two years, said Nuñez had been messaging him last month after making claims he had trespassed on the property.
Nuñez posted surveillance video from the home on social media showing what appeared to be a man leaving the property in a truck, according to a police report obtained by the outlet.
She wrote that the man “looked like Jason Hawes!” — although Hawes says it’s been disproved it’s not him. Then he started receiving her threatening messages.
“You will someday be prosecuted for your slander and numerous murder attempts on my life,” one message to Hawes read.
“I am told that you know of the assassination attempt on me,” she texted him, according to the police report. “I will never be defeated or destroyed by any [expletive] paranormal person, now or at any time in the future.”
Nuñez told WPRI Friday she will not comment until she files a federal complaint to investigate “evidence of hate crimes and abusive attacks against me and The Conjuring House.”
She said she has already filed complaints to officials in Burrillville, as well as the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, and other state and federal agencies. She has not received any confirmation that her complaints are under investigation.
Nuñez, a Boston real-estate developer, purchased the creepy wooden home in 2022 for $1.52 million, or 27% above the asking price. She was one of more than 10 offers on the property — and one of the prospective owners interviewed by the sellers who promised a number of requirements, including not living in the home for the buyer’s own safety.
“This is a very personal purchase for me,” Nuñez said after the purchase. “When it hit the market, I thought, ‘This is a property that enables people to speak to the dead.’”
Just last month, Brian Dansereau, a former employee at the property, filed a complaint with the state of Rhode Island seeking $9,000 in unpaid wages.
Dansereau was fired suddenly earlier this year after Nuñez claimed the spirit of the home’s 19th-century owner, John Arnold, claimed he’d been stealing.
“It does not matter whether you believe in the paranormal or not,” Nuñez said in a statement last month. “I and every person is entitled to experiences that bring understanding and meaning to our lives, including being informed or warned about wicked actors and actions.”
Dansereau, like Hawes, claims Nuñez has been harassing him online and via text message.
“I hope you get ruined, arrested and prosecuted for the rest of your life,” Nuñez said in a text reviewed by WPRI.
In a separate incident last year, former employees Cody Desbiens and Hawes’ daughter, Santori Hawes, also claimed they lost thousands of dollars in personal items during a barn fire on the property in December.
The couple said Nuñez initially told them they’d be reimbursed, but then refused.
“In the back of our mind, we knew that we weren’t going to get that money,” said Santori Hawes.
