Episode #14: The Amityville Horror

The story of the Amityville Horror is multi-faceted. Not only was it turned into a book and several movies, but it is one of the most famous cases that the paranormal research due, Ed and Lorraine Warren, ever covered.

Most of you have probably read the book, or at least seen the movie or one of its many remakes and sequels, but this version is usually presented as fiction, a fantastical horror story that could potentially scare the shit out of everyone, but the fiction is actually based on a true story, at least at its core. It all started with the actions of Ronnie DeFeo Jr.

Psychic Lorraine Warren talks about the real Amityville Horror!

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Transcript

The story of the Amityville Horror is multi-faceted. Not only was it turned into a book and several movies, but it is one of the most famous cases that the paranormal research due, Ed and Lorraine Warren, ever covered.

Most of you have probably read the book, or at least seen the movie or one of its many remakes and sequels, but this version is usually presented as fiction, a fantastical horror story that could potentially scare the shit out of everyone, but the fiction is actually based on a true story, at least at its core. It all started with the actions of Ronnie DeFeo Jr.

Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. resided in the infamous house at 112 Ocean Avenue in the Long Island town of Amityville with his father Ronald DeFeo Sr. his mother Louise DeFeo, and his four siblings Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John Matthew. But on the evening of November 13th 1974 all of that changed.

Around 6:30 PM that night, a 23 year old DeFeo Jr. entered Henry’s Bar in Amityville Long Island and declared, “You got to help me! I think my mother and father were shot!”  DeFeo and a small group of people then made their way to the Ocean Avenue house, which was fairly close to the local bar, and discovered that DeFeo’s parents were indeed dead, inside the house. One person in the group, a friend of DeFeo’s named Joe Yeswit proceeded to make an emergency call to the Suffolk County Police Department. When the police arrived, a subsequent search of the house found that the other six members of the DeFeo family were all dead in their beds. All of the victims had been shot with a .35 caliber lever action Marlin 336C rifle around the hour of 3 AM of that day.

Ronald Sr. and Louise had both been shot twice, while the children had all been killed with a single shot. Physical evidence at the crime scene suggested that Louise and her daughter Allison were both awake at the time of their deaths. According to the Suffolk County police, the victims were all found face down in their beds. Later, all six were buried nearby in the Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale. 

Ronnie, the eldest son of the family, was the only surviving member of this gruesome mass murder. He was taken into the local police station for his own protections after suggesting to the officers on the scene that the killings had been carried out by a mob hit man, Louis Falini. 

However, after interviewing DeFeo Jr. some serious inconsistencies in his version of the events were exposed. Falini, the alleged hitman had an alibi; he was out of state at the time of the killings. Eventually DeFeo Jr. confessed to carrying out the killings himself, telling detectives, “Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast.” He even admitted that he had taken a bath, redressed, and even detailed where he had discarded rather crucial evidence of the crime in the form of blood-stained clothes and the Martin rifle with its cartridges, all before going to work as usual. 

DeFeo eventually went to trial on October 14th of 1975 with a defense of Insanity. DeFeo claimed that he killed his family in self-defense because he heard their voices plotting against him. This insanity plea was even supported by the psychiatrist for the defense, Daniel Schwartz. Conversely, the psychiatrist for the prosecution, Dr. Harold Zolan, maintained that, although DeFeo Jr. was a user of heroin and LSD, he had an antisocial personality disorder and was perfectly aware of his actions at the time of the crime. On November 21st of 1975, Ronnie DeFeo Jr. was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in the town of Fallsburg, New York.

There were quite a few strange controversies surrounding the murders that had people questioning the reality of the case. 

All six victims were found face down in their own beds with absolutely no signs of a struggle. The police investigation concluded that the rifle used in the murders had not been fitted with a sound suppressor and there was evidence of sedatives having been administered to the victims, explaining why there was no evidence of a defensive reaction from them; DeFeo Jr. also admitted during his interrogation that he had indeed drugged his family. But the autopsy reports on the bodies indicated otherwise, the coroner, Dr. Adelman, stated that “We did extensive toxicology, not only on the blood and urine, but on all the organs that we removed and it turned up zero, that there wasn’t anything in their body.”  

Neighbors also reported that they never heard any gunshots being fired around the time of the murders and those that were awake, simply heard the family’s sheep dog, Shaggy, barking.

Even though it was known that DeFeo Jr. had a rather volatile relationship with his father, the motive for the killings remains unclear. It was mentioned that he did ask the police what he had to do in order to collect his father’s life insurance, which prompted the prosecution to suggest that his motive may have been to collect on the life insurance policies of his parents…but why kill all of his siblings too?

And even after his conviction, DeFeo gave several varying accounts as to how the killings were actually carried out, claiming that his sister Dawn actually killed their father, and then their mother, in a distraught state, killed all of his siblings with a .38 caliber Smith & Weston revolver, but DeFeo himself killed his mother. He went on further to say that he took the blame for the murders because he was afraid to say anything negative about his mother to her father, Michael Brigante Sr., and his father’s uncle, out of fear that they would kill him. His father’s uncle was Peter DeFeo, a caporegime, or captain, and high ranking member, in the Genovese crime family. In the same interview, DeFeo Jr. also asserted that he was married to a woman named Geraldine Gates at the time of the murders, whom he was living with in New Jersey, and that his mother had phoned him and asked him to return to the house in Amityville to break up a fight between his father and Dawn. He says that he subsequently drove to Amityville with Geraldine’s brother, Richard Romondoe, who was with him at the time of the murders and could verify his story entirely.

In 1990, some 15 years later, DeFeo Jr. filed a 440 motion which was a proceeding to have his conviction vacated. He now claimed that Dawn and an unknown assailant, who fled the house before he could get a good look at him, killed their parents and Dawn subsequently killed their siblings. He now claimed that the only person he had actually killed was Dawn and that it had been an accident as they struggled over the rifle. He still claimed, however, that he was married to Geraldine and that her brother was with him at the time of the murders. An affidavit was then submitted to the court and it was asserted that Geraldine’s brother could not be located to testify in person. Evidence was then submitted by the Sufolk County District Attorney’s Office suggesting that Richard Romondoe didn’t actually exist and that Geraldine Gates was living in upstate New York and married to someone else at the time of the murders. Geraldine did not testify at this hearing because the authorities had already confronted her about the false claims and in 1992 they were able to secure a statement from her, under oath, where she admitted that Romondoe was a fictitious person and that she did not actually marry DeFeo until 1989 in anticipation of the filing of the 440 motion.

The motion was denied by Judge Stark, writing, “I find the testimony of the defendant overall to be false and fabricated. His testimony that during the fall of 1974 he was married and lived with his wife and child at Long Branch, New Jersey is incredible and not worthy of belief. He produced no corroborating evidence in this regard…another reason for my disbelief of the defendant’s testimony is demonstrated by consideration of several portions of the trial testimony…he signed a lengthy written statement describing in detail his activities…in this statement he said that he lived with his family at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville and that he worked for his father…that he usually went to and from work with his father; that he was ill and stayed home from work on November 12th 1974; that he was on probation for having stolen and outboard engine and had an appointment to see his probation officer in Amityville that very afternoon…defendant’s girlfriend, Mindy Weiss, testified that she began dating the defendant in June of 1974, and was with him frequently that summer and fall.” Stark further declared, “Defendant’s testimony that he did not shoot and kill the members of his family is likewise incredible and not worthy of belief.”

In late 2000, DeFeo met with Ric Osuna, the author of The Night the DeFeos Died, which was published in 2002. Osuna claimed that they spoke for about six hours, though DeFeo denied giving Osuna any information that he could use in his book, claiming that the immediately left the interview and didn’t speak to the author about anything substantive. But according to Osuna, DeFeo claimed that he had committed the murders with his sister Dawn and two friends, Augie Degenero and Bobby Kelske, “out of desperation” because his parents had plotted to kill him. Allegedly, DeFeo claimed that after a furious row with his father, he and his sister had planned to kill their parents and that Dawn murdered the children in order to eliminate any witnesses. He said that he was enraged upon discovering his sister’s actions and knocked her unconscious on to her bed before he shot her in the head. Police did find traces of unburned gunpowder on Dawn’s nightgown, which DeFeo proponents allege is proof that she discharged a firearm. However, ballistics expert, Alfred Della Pena, testified at trial that she was in the proximity to the muzzle of the weapon when it was discharged and not that she had actually fired a weapon. This was proven to be true several times and the medical examiner also found nothing to indicate that Dawn had even been in a struggle, the bullet wound being the only fresh mark on her body.

Despite everything that was claimed by DeFeo over the years, his constant conflicting accounts and stories, his only real consistency was his claim that the entirety of the murders was his sister, Dawn’s, fault. She always had a hand in it no matter the story and it really has me wonder why? Was she just a scapegoat for him, or is something missing here? Despite all of that, it is very clear that Ronnie DeFeo Jr. was guilty of the murders, full stop. Where does the terrifying paranormal aspect come into play involving these horrific murders? This was the original event that started the ball rolling in what we now know as the Amityville Horror but how did it get to the point of the infamous story of book and cinematic fame?

In December of 1975, a little more than a year after the grisly murders occurred, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house on 112 Ocean Avenue with their three children. After just 28 days of living in the home, the Lutzes fled the house, never to look back, claiming that they were plagued by paranormal phenomena while living there. The book, The Amityville Horror, by author Jay Anson, is purported to be based on the paranormal experiences of the Lutz family while living in the house.

According to the book, the Lutz’s purchased the house for a bargain price of $80,000 not long after they were married in July of 1975. Kathy had three children from a previous marriage: 9 year old Daniel, 7 year old Christopher, and 5 year old Melissa, also known as Missy, along with their dog Harry. During the first inspection of the house, the real estate broker told them of the DeFeo murders and asked if that would affect their decision on purchasing the house, but they discussed the matter and decided it wasn’t a deal breaker. The entire family moved in on December 19th of 1975 with much of the DeFeo’s furniture still in the house because it was included for an extra $400 as part of the sale. 

A friend of George Lutz had learned about the history of the house and suggested having it blessed, although George, a non-practicing Methodist, had no idea what this would entail, but Kathy, a non-practicing Catholic, was able to explain the process. George got into contact with a Catholic priest that he was acquainted with named Father Ray, who agreed to conduct the house blessing. (In Anson’s book, the real-life priest Father Ralph J. Pecoraro was referred to as Father Manusco for privacy reasons.)

Father Manusco was a lawyer, judge of the Catholic Court, and psychotherapist who lived at the local Sacred Heart Rectory. He arrived to perform his blessing while the Lutz couple was still unpacking their belongings on the afternoon of December 19th 1975 and entered the home to carry out his rites. Supposedly, when he flicked the first bit of holy water and began to pray, he heard a very masculine voice that demanded him to “get out”. (How often we hear those two words on a paranormal investigation…) 

For whatever reason, the priest did not mention this bit of information to either George or Kathy. However, on December 24th, Father Manusco called George Lutz and advised him to stay out of the second floor room where he had heard the mysterious voice, which just so happened to be the former bedroom of Marc and John Matthew DeFeo that Kathy had planned to use as a sewing room, but allegedly the call was cut short by static. Following his visit to the house, Father Mancuso allegedly developed a high fever and blisters on his hands similar to the stigmata of Christ.

George and Kathy didn’t seem to experience anything unusual in the house at first, but talking about their experiences subsequently, they reported that it was as if they “were each living in a different house.”

Without giving too much detail away about the book and the movies (for those who haven’t laid eyes on them) it was stated that George Lutz had a history of dabbling in the occult and actively tried to summon spirits. George claimed that he would wake up at 3:15 am every morning which was around the time that DeFeo had carried out the murders in the house. The whole family supposedly claimed to smell strange odors, see green slime oozing out of the walls and keyholes and experienced cold spots in certain areas of the house. Other alleged paranormal activity took the form of a nearby garage door opening and closing on its own, an invisible spirit knocking a knife down in the kitchen, a pig-like creature with red eyes staring down at George and his son Daniel from a window, George waking up to his wife Kathy levitating off their bed, and sons Daniel and Christopher also levitating together in their beds, cloven hoof prints in the snow, and even claims that the paranormal events followed them to Kathy’s mother’s house when they stayed with her temporarily due to the phenomena. In a later documentary titled My Amityville Horror, released in 2013, Daniel Lutz even claimed that both he and his step-father George were both possessed and George demonstrated telekinetic abilities and strongly suggested that George’s dabbling in the occult may have initiated the demonic events.

Demonic.

Now it’s more than just a haunting in a home where atrocious murders had been committed. The story kept growing and evolving based on a fictitious book and the unverifiable claims of the family. The Lutzes didn’t even work directly with Anson on the book, but instead submitted about 45 hours’ worth of tape-recorded recollections to him which were then used as the basis of the book.

But criticism and controversy surrounded the authenticity of the book and its contents. A lot of the Lutzes claims were challenged and debunked, yet George Lutz maintained that the events in the book were “mostly true” and many a paranormal investigator, psychic, demonologist, and others had investigated the house to try and get any credible evidence to their claims. One such team was that of the famous couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren. 

On the night of March 6th, 1976, the couple investigated the house together with a crew from the television station Channel 5 New York and reporter Michael Linder of WNEW-FM. Lorraine stated in a later interview for the Travel Channel’s Shock Docs that “The very first night that Ed and I went into that home I was fearful, but I didn’t know what I was fearful of.” During the course of the investigation, Gene Campbell took a series of infrared time-lapse photographs, with one image allegedly showing a “demonic boy” with glowing red eyes who was standing at the foot of the staircase. Lorraine, who was a psychic medium, stated that she took with her a holy relic and asked clergy of many faiths to join her in spirit in the home to protect her and her husband. She spoke of an experience, stating, “As I was going up the stairs, I reached the point where it felt as if a force of water was coming against my chest, almost like a waterfall. It was the worst feeling. I stopped on the landing and held tight to the relic that was in my hand and asked for strength and direction in going forward. It felt ominous to me.”

In a 2005 interview, when asked if she said that this was the most evil she had encountered in one place, Lorraine stated, “The house itself…the case, not the house, I should say…the case itself has affected our personal lives more than any other case we’ve worked on in fifty-four years of research. And that’s a lot of places. My husband is a religious demonologist. My husband is not well. We’ve been involved in very bad hauntings, and very bad diabolical cases. We’ve been involved with levitations. And blood coming from someone’s eyes. All sorts of bad things. But that case followed us right into our home. The very first night we came back from the house…first of all, Ed and I both came under attack the first time we went into the house. And that’s very unusual. At that time, we were only involved in the research part of it.” “…prior to going in the call came in about this case. When that call came in, I just had a very odd feeling.  I wasn’t comfortable, I don’t have an answer. Why would that case be different than any other case? Yet, I felt personally threatened by it. To the extent that I contacted the clergy and asked if they’d go in spirit with me.”

The interview goes on with Lorraine detailing why it is so important to research cases to know what you are going into and what you are dealing with. She makes mention that DeFeo was a very vulnerable man who had been heavy into drugs, occult practices, and hated his father, all of which were ingredients that could invite evil into the home instead of inviting God (both she and her husband were devoutly religious). When asked what was the most misunderstood interpretation of what the couple does, Lorraine responded, “That’s a very good question. Maybe that we respect the areas of science. But, scientists have never gotten closure on a case. They can measure the point of the object, but we want to go in and bring closure. So we look at the phenomenon from a religious standpoint. This is why my husband is a religious demonologist. We’re Roman Catholics. Every family we go into is not necessarily catholic. We have worked with Baptist ministers, who have been beautiful and very, very helpful. We have worked with Rabbis, we’ve worked with Muslims, we’ve worked with Anglicans, we’ve worked with all faiths. The important thing is bringing closure. You cannot bring closure unless it’s fully documented. That takes a great deal of time. Father Pecoraro never went into that house to do an exorcism. He met with my husband and I, and the Lutz family, at Kathy Lutz’s home, on St. Joseph’s Day. And he prayed St. Joseph’s prayer for us. I carried a relic of Padre Pio into that home. And in one room of the house, Padre Pio appeared.” “…He appeared to me. In spirit. We didn’t know this when we met with Father Pecoraro, but Father Pecoraro is the judge of the church. He has a doctorate in our faith. He was a learned man. A very learned man. So, he stood to give us the Lord's Prayer. He looked directly at me. And nobody knew about the Padre Pio relic but me. I carried the relic. My husband knew, that was about all. But Pecoraro said to me, "Who do you think brought you out of that house?" I thought I was back in Catholic school. I said, "God, I guess, Father." He said, "Padre Pio, right?" And I said, "How do you know?" That was my question to him. His answer was, "Padre Pio told me so." We didn't have our proof sheets back then. And it was about a week later that our photographer, that was shooting throughout the house, called and said to Ed, "I'd like to show you something that's in one of these pictures, because I don't understand it." You know what the proof sheets look like. They're little tiny pictures. I looked at them and said, "You're going to have to blow those up. I can't tell by that." We blew them up, and we looked at the pictures of him. Padre Pio. Soon after that, I think it was our first tour date, because we were starting tour again during second semester at the University of Dayton. And it got bad press. Because they said we showed a picture of a man that looked like a Priest. So, we pulled it. Ed said, "Honey, until we can document that that's really him, I'm not going to use it." So, I said, "That's alright..."

I won’t retell the entirety of the interview because it is a tad long, but I will link it in the show notes so you all can read it in full and post a picture of what I assume is the “demonic boy” on the Facebook post and Instagram. I couldn’t find any evidence of the Padre Pio picture, however.

As you can see from what I’ve told you, there was a lot of confusion and discrepancies surrounding the Amityville Horror and its origin story. If you believe in the paranormal and its tropes, the house actually being haunted doesn’t seem that far-fetched since there was a fairly high number of violent deaths. But the alleged experiences of the Lutzes points to more “demonic” activity and not just your average haunting. If that’s the case, was this infernal activity due to the speculation that Georgie Lutz liked to “dabble in the occult” and summon spirits, or was it Ronnie’s energy and the talks of him having a possible connection to the occult as well; maybe it’s both. Obviously, being a part of the occult or simply having a fascination with it doesn’t invite the demons in, it’s all about how you approach it and who you are as a person. DeFeo was obviously a deeply disturbed man, whether it was mental illness, drugs, or something else. That sort of energy can be prime sustenance for demonic energies to take up residence within a place such as a house or even a person. There was speculation that Ronnie was in fact “possessed” at the time of the murders, but since he passed away earlier this year, we’ll never know for sure. His stories were constantly changing and to me that is a tell from someone who is incredibly guilty, but was his hand guided by an unseen force?

From what Lorraine Warren and her husband detailed, it seemed that there was indeed some sort of negative entity or entities in the home, but had they always been there or were they a product of the people that resided in the home? No such activity or evidence has been reported since then and the house on 112 Ocean Avenue has seen its fair share of residents over the years. But, to play devil’s advocate, many a paranormal team have visited the property in Amityville, even though the address was changed to sort of prevent this sort of thing, and some claim that the paranormal activity is indeed real.

Honestly, we’ll probably never know the exact truth, but it’s a story that continues to entertain the masses on many levels to this day.

What do you think?