Imagine this. You just bought a new home for your family. The price was unbelievable, but real, and you quickly move in. But things are not all rainbows and unicorns. You start seeing and hearing things. The air suddenly smells strange, and when a priest comes over, a voice shouts, “Get out!” Less than four weeks later, you have no choice but to abandon your new home, and all your possessions, never to return again. The story of the Amityville House is one many of us have heard. We’ve seen the movies, read the books, discussed the likelihood of whether it’s real or not. One thing we can say for certain, is that the house the Lutz family moved into, did not come without its own history.
The Amityville house, located at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville New York, was originally owned by the DeFeo family, consisting of two parents, Louise and Ronald DeFeo Sr, and five children, Ronald “Butch” Jr (23), Dawn (18), Allison (13), Marc (12), and John Matthew (9).
The DeFeo children lived monetarily comfortable lives, though money didn’t make the house a happy one. Ronald Sr was domineering and abusive, with a fire-hot temper. Louise was more like a wallflower, there but not involved. It was really no surprise that Butch grew up a troubled young man. He was overweight, and his classmates were ruthless, taunting him endlessly.
He turned to drugs and alcohol to cope. He lashed out at people, both verbally and physically. It has been said that he even threatened his father with a gun. Fortunately, when he fired his 12 gauge shotgun at his father, the weapon malfunctioned.
He was taken to a psychiatrists, but Butch didn’t like the visits, and he insisted he didn’t need help. Hoping to more-or-less buy their son some better behavior, his parents gave him a weekly stipend along with gifts (they purchased him a $14,000 speedboat). But that tactic didn’t work out as they had hoped, and by age 17, Butch was addicted to LSD and heroin. He was even expelled from school for his violent outbursts.
Butch was given a job at the family-owned auto dealership, but he didn’t often show up for work. He took all the money he made, and was given as part of his stipend, and spent it on his car (gifted to him by his parents), guns, alcohol, and drugs. Believing he wasn’t being paid enough, he planned a “mock robbery” with a friend, to steal $20,000 from the dealership. Money he was trusted to take to the bank. When he was questioned, he flew off the handle, refusing to comply with police. When his father questioned him regarding his lack of cooperation, he threatened to kill his father.
On November 13, 1974, something had finally snapped. He went to work, but left around noon. He met up with some friends at a local bar. He called home multiple times, but no one ever answered the phone. He was increasingly vocal about it, complaining to anyone who would listen.
Around 6pm, Butch called a friend. Someone had broken into his home and shot his family. Concerned, friends flocked to his home. The DeFeo family was all dead. Each member lay in their beds, positioned on their stomachs. They had each been shot with a .35 caliber rifle.
Police were called out, and that’s when things began to look a little strange. Butch told police that he had been at work until noon, then left and went to the bar. But what struck them as odd, was that there was no indication of a struggle. The home was in good shape, and the bodies of his family were devoid of any defensive wounds. Autopsy showed no drugs were in their systems either.
Police questioned neighbors, yet none of them reported hearing any gunshots. In fact, all they heard was the DeFeo family dog, barking all night.
When questioned again about his alibi, Butch changed his story, something he ended up doing multiple times throughout the investigation. He claimed his sister Dawn killed their father, and then their distraught mother killed all the children, leaving Butch to kill his mother. He said a local mob hitman, Louis Falini, who held a grudge against the DeFeo family over some work they had done for him at the dealership, killed his family. He said he left for work early, then went to the bar, and only later discovered his family was dead. The police put him in protective custody while they searched for a suspect.
But something else didn’t quite add up. Upon searching the house, police found an empty box for a recently purchased .35 caliber Marlin gun in Butch’s room. They began to realize that the murder had been carried out early that morning; the family was all still dressed in their pajamas. This meant Butch had been home during the murders. He changed his story again, claiming that Falini came to his house, put a gun to his head and, along with an accomplice, dragged him from room to room as they murdered his family.
The questioning continued, and he finally confessed. He had murdered his entire family, all by himself. “Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast.”
Early in the morning, on November 13, 1974, Butch took a .35 caliber Marlin rifle and entered his parents’ bedroom. He shot them both in their beds while they slept. He went to his brothers’ bedroom and shot both of them in their beds. Then he went to his sister’s bedrooms and shot both of them point-blank.
It all took only 15 minutes, and then he showered, dressed for work, collected his bloody clothes and the murder weapon and stuffed them in a pillowcase. He dumped them in a storm drain on his way to work at 6am.
At work, he called home, pretending not to know why his father hadn’t shown up for work. Around noon, he grew bored, so he left and spent the day with friends. He continued trying to call home, but he couldn’t reach anyone. He went home, and around 6pm, with mock surprise, called and told a friend that his family had been shot.
Ronald stood trial on October 14, 1975, pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. His attorney, William Weber reported that Ronald had been hearing voices – voices that told him to kill his family. The prosecution had a psychiatrist testify, claiming that Ronald suffered from antisocial personality disorder. This made him aware of his actions, motivated by a self-centered attitude.
The jury, hearing all sides, convicted Ronald on six counts of second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to 25 concurrent sentences of 25 years to life.
Two short months later, the house was sold at a much reduced price of $80,000, to the Lutz family. George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, moved into the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York.
Strange things began to happen. George Lutz suddenly began to wake up every morning at 3:15am – the time it is believed that Butch DeFeo had carried out his murders. They would see a green slimy substance ooze out of the walls and through keyholes. Areas of the home would suddenly, and with no explanation, get very cold, and there were strange smells too.
They called a priest to come out and bless the house. The priest heard a voice scream, “Get out!” after which he told the Lutz’s to never sleep in a particular room in the house.
The paranormal activity continued. Their daughter, Missy, began speaking with what they originally believed to be an imaginary friend named Jodie. George and his son Daniel reported seeing a pig-like creature with red eyes staring down at them from a window. Doors would open and close, and there was even a report of a knife being knocked down in the kitchen where no one could have touched it.
One night, George woke up to find his wife, Kathy, levitating off of their bed. He later found his sons, Daniel and Christopher, levitating together in their beds.
It wasn’t even four weeks later, when George and Kathy packed up their kids with meager supplies and left the home, never to return again. We may never know what happened on that final night in the house, the Lutz’s have refused to talk about it.
George and Kathy took lie detector tests to prove they hadn’t lied about their experience. They both passed.
20 days after the Lutz family fled, Paranormal investigators Ed & Lorraine Warren were contacted by news reporter, Marvin Scott. Together, Ed and Lorraine investigated the home with a team of reporters, investigators, and parapsychologists. During their time in the home, Ed was physically pushed to the floor while using some religious provocation in the basement. Lorraine was overwhelmed by the sense of a demonic presence. She was overwhelmed with a psychic impression of the DeFeo families bodies lying along the floor, covered in white sheets. They captured a photo of what appeared to be a young boy peering down from the second floor.
The experiences encountered by the Warrens were the basis for the movie The Conjuring.
The Lutz’s were quickly contacted by a book editor at Prentice Hall, who introduced them to Jay Anson, a writer who had published several “behind the scenes” and “making of” books.” The Lutz’s gave Anson around 45 hours of tape recorded recollections of their experiences, which he then used for the basis of his book, The Amityville Horror, published in 1977. That book has since sold more than 11 million copies.
The book, The Amityville Horror was then adapted into a movie, which was released in 1979, starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder. At the time of its release, the movie was the most successful independent movie in history, grossing more than $86 million in US box office revenue, and millions more in video sales, etc. In 2005, the movie was remade, starring Ryan Renolds, and made much more.
In the early 80’s, the Lutz’s met author John G. Jones. Jones agreed to tell the continuing story of what happened to the Lutz family after they left the Amityville house. The book, Amityville Horror II was published in 1983, and within a week was on the New York Times bestseller list.
Years later, while appealing his sentence and seeking a new trial, Butch DeFeo claimed that his attorney, William Weber, had ideas of movie contracts, rather than defense strategy, on his mind. He claimed that Weber pushed the insanity defense because it would make the story more attractive for possible book and movie contracts. “William Weber gave me no choice. He told me I had to do this. He told me there would be a lot of money from book rights and a movie. He would have me out in a couple of years and I would come into all that money.”
He claims “The whole thing was a con, except for the crime.” Butch says that it was his 18 year old sister, Dawn, who had killed the family, and he had to kill her.
The case went before the State Supreme Court. Butch had a new court-appointed lawyer, Gerald L. Lotto, who questioned Weber about the claims being made. Weber said he had only met the Lutz family after they moved out of the Amityville house. He claimed the couple was interested “in developing the demonism aspect of the case,” and they had devised the story over several bottles of wine.
He reported that he told the Lutz family about a cat that belonged to one of the neighbors, and tended to visit at one of the windows. He said the cat became the red-eyed pig in the Lutz story. He told the couple of Ronald Sr, and how he had once struck his wife as she carried a plate of spaghetti. She fell down the stairs and the spaghetti sauce splashed over the walls. He said the Lutz’s turned the sauce into the green slime that oozed from the walls. “We took real-life incidents and transposed them,” Weber said on “A Current Affair,” a TV show, in May 1988. A recording of the show was played in the courtroom. “In other words, it was a hoax.”
In an interview, Butch maintained that Weber had promised him fame and freedom if he plead insanity. “He said it would be ‘The Godfather’ and the ‘Exodus,’ I mean ‘The Exorcist,’ all in one. I said ‘I got enough problems already.’”
It’s worth mentioning that the Lutz family did not get rich from the books and movies. While they did receive some royalties, the money disappeared fast.
The Lutz family had to sell their home, and took a great loss on it. The new owners, however, have openly claimed that they have not experienced any paranormal activity of any sort. George and Kathy explain that the force they had encountered inside the home followed them, troubling them wherever they went.
In a 2013 interview for the documentary “My Amityville Horror,” Daniel Lutz discusses the abuse he suffered at the hands of his step-father – George Lutz. George had allegedly dabbled in Satanism. He has also claimed that he was possessed by a spirit, like Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist. “This is not something I asked for. I’ve been running away from it, and it finally caught up with me.” One thing remains – Daniel maintains the accounts given by his parents.
Christopher Lutz continues to insist that he did experience the paranormal, even admitting to having seen a presence “as definite as a shadow” in the shape of a man that moved toward him and then dissipated.
Kathleen Lutz died in 2004 of emphysema, and George died in 2006 of heart disease. The couple had divorced in 1980. Butch DeFeo remains incarcerated.
The Amityville house has since been renovated. The “evil” windows were replaced, the facade was altered. They even got their address changed to keep spectators at bay. (It has been claimed that the new address is 108 Ocean Avenue, but we can neither confirm nor deny this information.)
Now that you’ve read about Amityville, we have to ask, have you heard of the Villisca Murder House?
