Thousands of people run to the small town of Amityville Long Island each year searching for ghosts and demons that may or may not be there. What do you think?
How about a little history.
In 19974 The Defeo’s moved into the house at 122 Ocean Ave. Ronald Sr. was an angry man, often found in fits of rage and violence. He and his wife Louise often fought and he was a threatening figure to his children. As the oldest child, Ronald (Butch) often bore the brunt of his father’s expectations and ill-temper. He was an overweight, sullen boy that was often picked on at school. His father constantly told him to stand up for himself but he could not against his abuse at home. Ronald Sr. had no room for backtalk or disobedience.
As Butch grew older, he grew larger and stronger and was no longer tolerant of his father’s abuse. Their shouting matches turned into physical battles. Ronald Sr. began to realize that his son’s temper and violent behavior were not normal. He and Louise arranged for Butch to visit a psychiatrist but it did no good. Butch claimed there was nothing wrong with him and refused to work with the counselor. The DeFeo’s began buying Butch whatever he wanted to placate him. At the age of 14, his father gave him a $14000 speedboat. When he was 18, he wanted to settle an argument between his parents so he grabbed a 12 gage shotgun and shot at his father. When it did not go off, Butch walked off like nothing happened.
At the age of 17 he was kicked out of his parochial school that he had been attending because of drug use. His outbursts became more psychotic. The altercations with his father grew more frequent and more dangerous.
A few weeks before the murders he claimed he was robbed while taking money to the bank from his grandfather’s car dealership. He did not have a plausible story for the police and his father “knew” he wasn’t robbed. The police asked Butch on the Friday before the murders to come look at mug shots to identify the robbers. He agreed then backed out at the last minute. His father questioned him about it and the two began shouting at one another. Butch ran to his car and left before the fight became violent.
Wednesday, November 14th Butch took out a .35 caliber marlin rifle from the storage space where he kept several weapons, and silently went toward his parents room. Without hesitation he shot his father three times. He then shot his mother twice when she was awoken from her husband’s murder.
He then walked to his brother’s, John and Mark’s, room and shot them both once. He then went to his sister’s, Dawn and Allison’s, room. Allison awoke and looked at Butch. He then proceeded to shoot her in the face, he then proceeded to shoot Dawn in the face as well. In a matter of 15 minutes Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr had murdered his entire family.
He then calmly showered, trimmed his beard, and dressed in jeans and work boots. He then collected his bloody clothing and the rifle, wrapped them up in a pillowcase, and headed out to his car. In the minutes before sunrise, Butch drove into Brooklyn, and disposed of the pillowcase and its contents by tossing them into a storm drain. He then returned to Long Island, and reported to work at his grandfather's Buick dealership.
From work, Butch called home several times and when his father failed to show up, he acted bored with nothing to do and left around noon. He called his girlfriend, Sherry Klein, and told her that he had left work early and planned to come over. On the way to Amityville, he ran into his friend, Bobby Kelske, and stopped to talk. After that, Butch went to Sherry's house and casually mentioned that he had tried to call home several times but there had been no answer. He tried again in her presence just to show her what he meant. Acting puzzled, but unworried, he and Sherry spent the afternoon shopping and then met up with Bobby Kelske later at a local bar. He was now feigning concern about being unable to reach anyone at home and he told all that would listen that he planned to go there and to see what was going on. He returned a few minutes later in a state of apparent agitation. "Bob, you gotta help me," he told his friend, "Someone shot my mother and father!"
Within ten minutes of them calling the police Officer Kenneth Geguski was first on the scene. . As he arrived, he found a group of men gathered on the DeFeo's front lawn. Butch was now sobbing uncontrollably. The officer went inside and then called the headquarters from the kitchen. Butch was now at the kitchen table, still crying. As he listened to Geguski's call about his murdered parents and brothers, he told the officer that he also had two sisters. Geguski put the receiver down and hurried back upstairs. By this time another village patrolman had arrived, officer Edwin Tyndall. The two of them found Dawn and Allison's room together. There was too much blood for them to even guess what kind of gun had killed the DeFeo's. Suffolk County detective Gaspar Randazzo was the first to question Butch, the massacre's sole survivor. Butch claimed that the family might have been killed by a notorious mafia hit man who had long had a grudge against his family. Detective Gerard Gozaloff joined in the questioning and was suggested that if the murders were indeed linked to organized crime, that Butch might still be a target. Any further questioning should take place at police headquarters. It was here that they were joined by a third detective, Joseph Napolitano.
It was also here that Butch gave police his written statement. He claimed to have been home the night before, and that he stayed up until 2:00 a.m. watching television. At 4:00 a.m., he reported walking past the upstairs bathroom and claimed to have heard the toilet flush. Since he couldn't go back to sleep, he decided to head to work early. He described the rest of his day, leaving work early, visiting with Sherry and Bobby, drinking, and trying to reach his family by telephone.
After Butch submitted his signed statement, the detectives continued to question him about his family, about his suggestion that a hit man, Louis Falini, might be the killer. Butch explained that Falini had lived with them for a period of time, and that he had helped Butch and his father carve out a hiding space in the basement where Ronald, Sr., kept a stash of gems and cash. The argument with Falini had stemmed from an incident where Falini criticized some work Butch had done at the auto dealership. Around 3:00 a.m. the detectives had finished their questioning, and Butch went to sleep on a cot in a back filing room. He gave every appearance of being a cooperative witness, and so far the detectives had no reason to hold him under suspicion.
That soon began to change as investigators continued examining the evidence. Butch had been stupid enough to leave boxes of Marlin .35-caliber ammunition in his room, which detectives learned matched the murder weapon and subsequent questioning of Bobby Kelske led to the discovery that Butch was a gun fanatic, and that he had recently staged the robbery of the receipts from the Buick dealership.
The detectives began to seriously consider the possibility that Butch had been playing them, that he may be their suspect, that he at least knew much more about the killings than what he had told them so far. At 8:45 a.m., Detective George Harrison shook Butch awake. When roused, he asked if the detectives had found the "killer" yet but Harrison had not come with news of Falini - he was there to read Butch his rights. DeFeo protested that he had been cooperative all along and he went so far as to waive his right to counsel, all to prove that he was an innocent witness with nothing to hide.
By this time, Gozaloff and Napolitano were exhausted. Two other officers, Lt. Robert Dunn, and Detective Dennis Rafferty took over. Rafferty re-read Butch his rights, and proceeded to question him about the prior two days. Rafferty focused on the time of the murders. Butch had written in his statement that he was up as early as 4:00 a.m., and that he heard his brother in the bathroom at that time. Rafferty continued to press Butch until he was able to pry him away from his earlier version of when the crime took place (Butch claimed that it had been after he had gone to work), establishing that the crime actually took place between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m.
Butch's story began to crumble. Dunn and Rafferty hammered at the discrepancies in Butch's version of events and what the evidence led police to believe actually happened. Butch was physically linked to the scene once the time of the murders was established. At first, Butch tried desperately to make the best out of a deteriorating situation, trying to make the detectives believe that while he had indeed been present in the home during the murders, he had only been in each bedroom after the murders had taken place. But Rafferty continued on, telling Butch about the ammunition that had been found in his room.
More desperate then ever, Butch continued to lie. He claimed that he had been awakened at 3:30 a.m. and that Louis Falini had been there with a gun to his head. He had forced Butch to accompany him as he went from room to room and killed the DeFeo family. The police let Butch keep talking, and he eventually implicated himself as he described how he gathered and then discarded evidence from the crime scene. They let him keep talking, shouting more questions at him and then finally one of them asked him if it had really happened that way?
"No," Butch finally confessed. "It all started so fast. Once I started, I just couldn't stop. It went so fast."
October 14th 1975 Butch proceedings started for the murders of his family. On Friday, November 21, 1975, Ronald DeFeo, Jr., was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder. Two weeks later, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on all six counts.How the Hoax began:
On December 18th 1975 George and Kathy Lutz along with Kathy’s three children moved into the house. The Lutz’s claimed from the moment they moved into the house they experienced an array of paranormal activity. They believed that the Demon that drove Butch to murder his family was not in his head but in the house. They claim an unseen force ripped doors from hinges and slammed cabinets closed, noxious green slime oozed from the ceilings, a biblical-scale swarm of insects attacked the family, and a demonic face with glowing red eyes peered into their house at night, leaving cloven hoofed footprints in the morning snow.
A priest was called to bless the house, he was apparently driven out with painful blisters on his hands, and was told by a demonic voice to “get out.” A local TV show did a segment on the house and brought along several ghost hunters and psychics. They all agreed that there was a demonic spirit in the house, and an exorcism would be needed to stop the activity. The Lutzes left the house and sold their story.
Many people doubted the events in the house. New stories came out that the land the house was built on belonged to Indians and there were vengeful sprits still lurking.
Rick Moran, a researcher, compiled a list of more than a hundred factual errors and discrepancies from the “true story” and the truth. Moran interviewed the Priest that came to the house and he said “he never saw anything in the house.” The tribe mentioned was not from the Amityville area, they were located about 70 miles away.
Joe Nickell, an author, visited the house and also found numerous holes in the story as well. The Lutzes could not have found the demonic hoof prints in the snow when they said they did, because the weather records showed there had been no snowfall to leave prints in. The book detailed extensive damage to the home’s doors and hardware, but upon inspection the original locks, doorknobs, and hinges were actually untouched. The book and film show police being called to the house, but, Nickell writes, “During the 28 day ‘siege’ that drove (the lutz family) from the house, they never called the police.”
Over and over, both big and small details were refuted by eyewitnesses, investigators, and forensic evidence. The Lutzes are still sticking to their stories and making thousands of dollars from the book and film rights. Butch DeFeo’s lawyer, William Weber, admitted that he, along with the Lutzes, “created this horror story over many bottles of wine.” They simply made up the horrific experiences they had claimed happened to them in the house, and the rest was further embellished by Jay Anson for his book. Weber had planned to use the haunting to gain a new trial for his client. George Lutz still claims the reports are true, but offers no evidence to back it up.
Jim and Barbara Cromarty, who later moved into the house, also maintained that it was not haunted. Because of the problems they had experienced with the curiosity-seekers, they sued the hardcover and paperback publishers of the "Amityville Horror", as well as Jay Anson and George and Kathy Lutz. They stated that the entire case had been a put-on from the beginning and it had "blighted their lives". The suit was later settled with the new occupants for an undisclosed amount. There have been several occupants since this happened. We ask that you don't go looking for it – the current owners don't want you to find it. Previous owners, none of whom said they experienced anything spooky or supernatural, have remodeled it so that the signature quarter-moon windows are no longer there. They have also changed the house numbers to thwart annoying curiosity seekers, so the infamous address no longer exists.
If you think about it, the murders make for a great horror story. Who doesn’t like a good ghost story? Am I saying the Defeo’s aren’t roaming around that house to this day, no. I would put money on the table that there is an awful lot of paranormal activity going on in that house. Of course there is the chance that it could be a “dead” house. The moral of this, is the books and films are completely fabricated.
Books and Videos made about the story:
Books The Amityvlle Horror 1977 by Jan Anson
The Amityville Horror Part II 1982 by John G. Jones
Films The Amityville Horror 1979 based on the novel
Amityville II: The Possession 1982
Amityville 3-D 1983
Bloodbath at the House of Death 1984 spoof on the 1979 The Amityville Horror
Amityville 4 1989
The Amityville Curse 1990
Amityville: It’s about time 1992
Amityville: A New Generation 1993
Amityville Dollhouse 1996
The Amityville Horror 2005 remake of the 1979 Original film
