Picture this – A sleepy Long Island town, a charming Dutch colonial 6-bedroom house, and a darkness so deep it’s become a legend. Today, we are stepping into one of the most infamous houses in American history – the Amityville Horror House on 112 Ocean Avenue, New York. It’s strange, it is mysterious and downright creepy!
A family was wiped out in their sleep by a brutal mass murder. A couple fleeing from unseen terrors and demonic hauntings. Once a picture-perfect slice of the American dream, now a tomb of a family. A story haunted us for decades and spawned countless books and movies. Was it a demonic force lurking in the walls, a twisted hoax for fame, or something even stranger? Is it a twisted lie spun for profit or a terrifying truth too horrifying to face? What really happened at the Amityville House?
Stick around as we peel back the layers of one of the most infamous houses of America, its chilling history, and the wild theories that keep the Amityville Horrors alive.
The Dark Past of Amityville House
The story begins in a quiet Long Island village where John and Catherine Moynahan built a home overlooking Ocean Avenue in the 1920s. It was not long before Ronald Sr. and Louise DeFeo shifted from a small apartment to this house, hoping for better living conditions for their growing family in 1965. Any guesses for the name of the house? I have already given a hint! They named it HIGH HOPES!! But hopes were far from high in reality; an evil was brooding inside those beautiful doors and windows!
It was a dream house for the DeFeo family. Ron and Louise made it home with their five kids – Ronald Jr., Dawn, Allison, Marc and John. It all seems so perfect until the ball drops. On November 13, 1974, at devil’s hour around 3:15 a.m., 23-year-old Ronald Jr. grabbed a .35 calibre rifle and shot his entire family while they slept. On a side note, he shot his parents, Ronald Sr. and Louise twice each. He was later nicknamed as Butch. Why are we not surprised?
Talking about the details of the murder, sorry MURDERS, they are chilling! All the bodies were found face down in their beds. With mass murder, one would expect others to hear the gunshots and come to each other’s rescue but it was startlingly there was no sign of struggle. Another alarming detail – no one seemed to wake up, despite the loud gunfire echoing through the house, as if the whole neighbourhood was on sleeping pills.
You would not expect a crazy person to confess they are crazy, likewise, Ronald Jr. initially denied everything. From now on let’s call Ronald Jr. Butch, that’s easier. Where were we? On confession! So Butch denied all allegations and blamed it all on a mob hitman. It took authorities hours of questioning to get under his skin and Butch finally broke and confessed to the murders. He was convicted of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. You must be very curious about his whereabouts right now. I’ll save you the trouble of burning the night oil and surfing the internet. Butch passed away in 2021 while serving for this unfortunate incident.
Who would want to live in the house of horrors after all this? Would it be too shallow to call this dreadful incident a blessing in disguise? At least for George and Kathy Lutz, it was exactly this! They bought the house at a steal price with the furniture. Another couple, three kids with their pet dog, shift at 112 Ocean Avenue, looking for a fresh start. Their joy was also short-lived as they fled the house in just 28 days! You would think the fleeing is spooky, but hear this – they also left everything behind! What transpired to this sudden exit? Well, the couple had a riveting story to tell! They claimed that the house was haunted!
Suddenly everyone wanted to hear their story, the frightening 28 days they spent in the Amityville house! Can you blame them? Imagine it has been decades and we are still enchanted. Soon happenings that have befallen the family were turned into a book, movie and several interviews. The book, the Amityville Horror by Jay Anson and a hit 1975 movie inspired by the account of the family became a cultural phenomenon.
A few snippets from what Lutz experienced were unsettling enough to run a chill down everyone’s spine. George Lutz described waking up at 3:15 almost every night, the same unholy time Ronald Jr. gunned down his entire family a year earlier. He did not wake up out of habit or because it was a sick coincidence, he claimed he woke up because he felt something heavy on his chest almost like an icy grip. The rooms of the house were almost always very cold no matter how often they would crank up the heat. He would often hear a band playing at night. One day he went downstairs to find a room painted in red, too small to fit no more than two people. It raised eyebrows, as it was not even included in the blueprints of the house. One night the family found the living room furniture moved in the corner as if someone made room for a dance party.
It was not just George, Kathy had several unnerving encounters too. She had nightmares! We all have them at some point but the worst we get is ghosts, this wasn’t the case with Kathy. In her nightmares, she was living the DeFeo murders. She had the first-row seats to the atrocities of a family getting shattered and butchered at the hands of their own son. She could feel the agony as if it was her own as if she was living it. She could smell the gunpowder, she could hear the muffled sounds and feel the weight of the rifle. Besides the nightmares, the same thing every day, she often saw herself aged decades in an instant in the mirror. She would look in the mirror and she could see her face sagging into a wrinkled hollow mask, her hands trembling and her hair gone or turned white.
George and Kathy had 3 kids, even they were not spared. The kids saw things that no child should ever see. They had two boys – Daniel and Christopher and a girl, Missy. Missy was five at that time and began talking to an imaginary pig-like creature that only she could see. What is frightening about having an imaginary friend? We have all played pretend. Her friend – Jodie had red blazing eyes! Her parents frequently found her giggling, talking and even getting scared all while pointing at the window, telling her parents Jodie was there. The boys would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. It was not because of the nightmares like their dad, but they felt an invisible force lift them, pinning them against the calling for agonizing seconds before dropping them back on their beds. I would not last in this house for a day, would you? Comment down below!
I completely forgot about the dog! His name was Harry, it was tough even for him. Animals cannot speak but I do believe they can sense things and pick up the energy of their surroundings. Harry would howl at empty corners of the house. One will argue the silly dog must be going through something, must be picking up his family’s terror but who knows what he was feeling or most importantly SEEING?
I wish I could tell you the atrociousness stopped at this! There was more. Picture a green slime oozing from the cracks and holes! The family was living through physical horrors, the things you cannot chalk up to your imagination. Green, gelatinous slime would ozz out of the keyhole, cracks and walls. It also left a rancid stench like rotting meat. The doors were getting unhinged on their own. They would slam shut with bone-rattling force, and mind you there was no wind crossing the house. There were also some biblical signs of evil, like one day Kathy opened a window and a swamp of black flies literally gagged her. It was not summer or spring, it was in the dead of winter, there are no flies in winter. They would clean them up but they kept coming back, angrier and bigger buzzing furiously.
You have invested in the house, the house is beautiful, and you’re not filthy rich enough to buy a new house in an economy that’s out there to make you jobless or homeless any minute but you’re also living with living horrors every day. How will you get out of this conundrum? What will you do next? You will call a priest! The family called a priest too! They had a breaking point and they called Father Ralph Pecoraro to bless the house. For the bibliophiles watching the video, in the book, his name was changed to Father Mancuso. He recounted that when he went to bless that house and sprinkled holy water in the upstairs room, he heard a voice roaring, telling him to GET OUT! More than this his hand was blistered, as if someone burned it. He concluded that the shadows of evil are lurking in the house, that the air thickens in the house and the temperature plummets. He never went back, as no one should.
After this, the house and the family were beyond saving. There was an unbearable smell, like living inside a sewage. The chairs would tip over more than once, random objects flew and knives were found scattered on the kitchen counter. The family heard heavy and deliberate footsteps coming from the rooms and stairs at all times, but there was no one. They never saw anyone. It felt like the house was coming alive, breathing, taking a step each day, one evil step to drive them to the edge of madness or death.
On January 14, 1976, the Lutzes finally escaped the house. Just 28 days after they moved in, they left, leaving their belongings behind. They left the furniture, their clothes, their photographs, everything that belonged to them. They ran like they were fleeing a monster that might follow.
What happened to this family was not just an overnight scary movie or a horror story you hear at bonfire night during camping. They were not scared for life, they were scared by the assault on the senses, something was coming alive and they witnessed the evil getting bigger than their hopes and beliefs.
Where there are ghost stories, there are theories too. This story is no different. Let’s get into certain theories as wild as the tale, cooked up over time, and comment down below which one sits with your appetite.
DEMONIC PRESENCE
First up, the explanation Lutzes swore by, that the house is possessed. They were not sure of the evil that crept into that house. Maybe it was the restless souls of DeFeos or maybe something older than that. Maybe something that drove Ronald Jr. to insanity. There were whispers of the land being an Indian burial ground on which the house was built. There were several rumours of murders and deaths around that area decades ago the area even developed. These deaths usually drifted in the direction of witchcraft and supernatural phenomena. Others point to John Ketcham, a 17th-century settler, who was accused of witchcraft because it was said he came from Salem originally and bought the demons with him. In addition to this, allegedly most of the people in that area had Salem ancestry.
The celebrated paranormal legends Ed and Lorraine Warren back the pesky encounters of the Lutz family. Yes, you heard it right, the couple from Conjuring. They lived with the family and even shared that they had taken a picture of a ghostly boy with glowing eyes. They said that Amityville is haunted by a demonic presence that is violent and intense. It eventually drove Ed and Lorraine away.
MASTERFUL HOAX
Not everyone believes in supernatural mumbo-jumbo. The book and the never-ending scary incidents created a ruckus. Some sceptics did not buy the ghost story. They say they smelled a con, cooked and marinated for cash. With the drowning economy, Lutze’s business was failing, and their lifeboat was their savings which they sunk into buying the house. So what do they do now? A conspiracy with none other than William Weber, Butch’s defence attorney. They fake the stories together. The stories led to a belief that Butch was not completely guilty. The cherry on the top was, the book deal and the movie deal! The book and the movie combined net them a fortune worth millions!
From this theory, it comes off like it all ended well and in favour of Lutzes. After the Lutzes many people lived in that house and they all had a hard time living there but it wasn’t the ghosts but the gawking tourists and curious gossip mongers. So where did the ghosts go? Were they done tormenting people after they became famous?
THE POWER OF MIND
After the whole debate, we should stop being so black and white about things and for once stick to the grey area. What say? So here is the middle ground, the best of both worlds.
Ever watched a movie or read a book so enthralling it sucks you into it? You start believing what it tells you and acting in a certain manner like the characters. They dig their claws deep into your feelings and temperament. Some people think the same happened with the Lutzes. Maybe nothing happened, they just believed it. Moving into a house where 6 people were murdered is not a child’s play, even after a steal deal on property. All this must have primed their imagination. The nightmares, the objects flying, the green slime, the thumping it all sounds a bit extensive. The poor kids must have picked up on their parents’ fear, making them imagine Jodie and shadows. A fearful mind gets twisted into imagining weird stuff.
Psychologists even have a name for it – it’s called Suggestion. Suggestion is defined as the ability to influence the thoughts, feelings, beliefs or behaviors of another person through words, gestures, images or other stimuli. In this case, it was trauma, it’s a hell of a drug! They expected a haunting and they started seeing one. The human mind runs wild if it’s given an opportunity, especially a scared mind.
SECRETS OF DeFeo MURDERS
Before you go, we have a wild card, a theory which suggests that the root of it all lies with Butch. When he first confessed to murders he blamed the murders on the voices in his head, he swore that the voices made him kill his family.
After a few years of this confession, a gun was found near the Amityville house which gave fuel to the accomplice theory. To add more fuel, Butch’s mother, Louise’s father had mob connections and Butch’s sister Dawn owned a pistol. His sister coming into the picture branches to another theory that maybe she was involved too and then Butch turned against her.
It’s a stretch but all this, made Lutzes guilty and they spun a full-blown story to amplify their uneasiness. Maybe this or maybe not! Who knows? At this point, the truth is whatever sits right with you.
Marvellous Verdict
Honestly, we get it if you’re torn too – a spooky tale and unshakeable hoax claim! It’s a devil and a deep blue sea kind of a situation. There is a lot on the plate – an unsolved murder mystery, restless spirits, a greedy grift, and a physiological spiral! What is it for you?
You have to give this story one thing, it has kept us hooked for more than 50 years now. It’s tragic, gives you chills but so many stories never let you leave, like putting a spell on you.
You must be wondering about the house and many of you will jump to Google now. Let me save you some time, this video has it all! The house has been sold, renovated and even got a new address to dodge head-scratching story enthusiasts. Its new address is 108 Ocean Avenue now. The house has been blurred on the maps for the privacy of the family, trust me even we tried searching, there’s nothing there!
The story is intriguing with never-ending debates, the horrors and the legend of Amityville live on in these debates and tales. The terror and tragedy collided at this twisted tale making it the story of decades. But now it’s yours – let us know about your theories and keep exploring the shadows!
