WHAT'S THE STORY WITH THE AMITYVILLE HORROR 

Thirty years ago, a multiple murder took place on the south shore of Long Island. Despite the gallons of ink, acres of newsprint and miles of film and video tape consumed in various attempts to tell the ‘true story’ of these murders, the facts have remained elusive. The ASUP, as lead investigators into the book, even before it was published, has taken a lot of heat over this story and was branded as non-believers and debunkers by folks ilk Ed and Lorraine Warren.

It all came back to me recently when, in the course of an otherwise inane conversation, a colleague suddenly asked: “Do you remember a book called The Amityville Horror?” He had no idea of my earlier involvement in the case and he quickly brought me up to date on the latest TV documentary. When I told him that I was one of the first to debunk the ‘Horror’ claims, he looked at me in disbelief.

The original murders took place on the night of 13 November 1974, when six members of the Defeo family died by gunshot in their home at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, Long Island. Ronald DeFeo Jr. was jailed for the murder of his father Ronald, mother Louise and four siblings (two brothers and two sisters). On 18 December, George and Kathy Lutz bought the house for $80,000 and subsequently declared that supernatural phenomena including demonic eye, voices, oozing slime and plagues of flies had driven them from their dream home. To this day some folks believe the Amityville story to be gospel truth; years after William Webber, the DeFeo lawyer, swore in an affidavit that he had conspired with them to create their story.

I first wrote about Amityville just months after the release of Jay Anson’s now-famous account, The Amityville Horror in 1977.  It was the sub-title -  A True Story – that first attracted my attention and I set out to prove that Jay’s elaborate telling of the story was recognized for what it was: a well written work of fiction, a novel, climaxing with the fictitious experiences of the Lutz family in the DeFeo home.

I was contacted by Peter Jordan, a field volunteer with the Psychical Research Foundation (PRF), then based on the campus of Duke University.  He had a proof copy of the forthcoming Anson book and was upset because the book seemed to be using the involvement of a PRF researcher in the case to give credence to the claim that demonic forces haunted the property.

I had worked with Jordan previously, while reporting for CBS, and found him to be a sober individual, not easily led to flights of fancy about otherworldly activity. He added that another researcher, whom he knew professionally and who wasn’t the sort to elaborate based on one short visit to the house had been consistently quoted out of context about the real and imagined happenings in that house.

I had also worked with Jordan in his capacity as an officer of the Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomenon (ASUP) in which he had gained a reputation for even-handed research into so-called ‘unexplained’ activities.  My volunteer position with ASUP involved the clear and objective reporting of
the group’s findings, which had gained the respect of several PRF staffers.

Armed with the advance copy of Anson’s book, I listed its ‘facts’ and then began the painstaking process of confirming or refuting each one.  With the assistance of ASUP volunteers, as well as friends at the Police Departments of Amityville, Suffolk County and NY City, the nuts and bolts of the book
began to rattle.

Among the list of more than 100 factual errors were simple things like doors that opened into a hall and not a room (as Anson reported). It was clear that Jay Anson was never in the house and was working solely from crime scene photos and the personal recollections of the Lutz family and William Webber, Ronnie ‘Butch’ DeFeo’s attorney.

A good portion of the book purports to be historical but tying in the activities of Long Island’s Indians and early residents to the otherworldly phenomena was a far shot. Experts told me that the tribe mentioned was not from the Amityville area (actually from the eastern tip of Long Island, 70 miles away) and that the settlers mentioned were never local residents either. Anson’s tactic was clear - when strapped for good material for a book, pad it with quasi-factoids.

One of the most absurd claims in the book centered on the terrifying ‘Red Room’, a cubbyhole in the basement that was painted red. It was not so much a room as a hollow space behind moveable shelving in a basement pantry and certainly not big enough for a person to stand in. It was actually used by some of the DeFeo offspring as a ‘stash’, said their friends; it was a place to hide things they didn’t want their parents to find, like marijuana and several tools associated with a youthful experiment in witchcraft. Hardly an
actual gateway to Hell as described.

The older DeFeo kids were actively experimenting with drugs. Dawn DeFeo was involved in teen witchcraft with several friends, meeting both in her family’s basement in Amityville and in Brooklyn, where most of her close friends lived. There was nothing unusual here; just bored kids, smoking pot, playing rock music and experimenting with books on the craft from the local library as evidenced by the personal accounts of Dawn’s friends after the murders and the local library circulation records.

The first of three articles I did on Amityville was published by Fate Magazine in May 1978 and co-authored with Peter Jordan.  I was inundated with calls to discuss the book, often opposite Jay Anson, on radio and TV (so often, in fact, that we became friends off the air). These appearances usually followed the same form: Anson talked about the book; I challenged his right to call it a true story, based on my investigation; and Anson rebutting, saying that, as a journalist, I had the responsibility to corroborate every fact, whereas he was a writer, whose constraints were limited to presenting information supplied to him, often by a just single source, as true.

Anson often said that he was aware of the possible harm done to the reputation of the PRF researcher quoted in his book, but stood by the fact that he had it on good authority that what was written was true.  Did he believe it?  No! He didn’t believe in anything ‘paranormal’ but that didn’t stop him from writing the book. But why was the book written at all? Anson was open about his need for money: he was not a young man and he earnestly wanted to pen a best seller. The motives of the Lutz family – which we’ll examine in a moment – centre on why they wanted the house in the first place. For attorney Bill Webber, the story was a possible defence for his convicted client.

Despite claims to the contrary, George Lutz knew Ronnie DeFeo Jr. long before the murders. He also knew about Butch’s claims to be involved in the underworld as Butch often boasted about his family ties to ‘The Family’ of Brooklyn crime bosses. One story suggests that Ron DeFeo Sr. had been involved in drug trafficking off the Great South Bay and that the house on Ocean Avenue had a hidden vault filled with cash. Did George Lutz hope to find this ‘bank’ and become fabulously rich? That was one of the rumours that came out of the original debunking of the book.

When Lutz bought the house he did not have sufficient income to meet the mortgage payments; in fact I was amazed any bank would give him a mortgage at all given the employment prospects in Amityville at the time. The house was a liability. Jim Cromarty, who owned the house after the Lutzes often complained that his life was made miserable by the endless stream of sightseers in cars passing the house and fans who would come to the door at every hour of the day and night, asking for admittance. Cromarty, owner of a speedway in Suffolk County, would also say that he would sell the house for any reasonable offer, but what deterred buyers the most were the extremely high property taxes, both county and local. The question remained: how and why did George Lutz buy into this veritable money pit?

In time, after the sensational aspects of the case had died away, I was able to talk with some of the officers involved in the original investigation about the real events behind the legend. One of these was Suffolk County police officer, Michael Shaner who grew up in Amityville, who revealed something that changed my perspective on the DeFeo case.  He told me that prior to the murders, a car was constantly in the area, within view of the house. It displayed ‘US Department of Health’ parking permit and always had one occupant.  Another source within the NYC Drug Taskforce, Jim Sutton, explained that the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) vehicles often used this identity in their surveillance operations.

I had several friends at the DEA offices on Manhattan’s West 57th Street and one of them promised to confirm whether the DeFeo house was under surveillance at the time of the murders. A week later, a man called, identifying himself as the DEA operative who had been watching the DeFeo home. He said that DeFeo Sr. was indeed suspected of involvement in an elaborate scheme to bring wholesale drugs into the US from ships traveling into New York City region, on a route just south of Long Island. DeFeo’s boat would, reportedly, leave the boathouse adjacent to the main house and go out into the canal and Great South Bay to rendezvous with an ocean-going ship. After packages were transferred to DeFeo’s craft, it would return home and inside the boathouse the packages could be transferred to a car or truck, away from prying eyes, and taken out of Amityville. If this sounds like some racket from the Prohibition era, it’s no surprise – the method was an old favourite of smugglers for centuries.

I was told that the original order to watch the house came after one of the kids in the house told the tale to friends; eventually this reached the ears of the DEA field office. No one watching the house ever saw the alleged trafficking. In fact, the case was later dropped entirely and, according to my sources, while both Butch and his father talked a great game, neither had any real ties to the Brooklyn mob, as they had boasted. With the DeFeo-drug link scotched, one of the possible reasons Lutz may have wanted the house was dead in the water.

However, my informant did have something else to share.  He said that on the night of the murders he was parked on a side street, facing the house, and heard the muffled roar and saw the muzzle flash from the murder weapon as the killer walked from room to room on the second floor of the house. He added that slightly after the fact, Dawn DeFeo left the house, dressed in a long nightgown and a winter ‘snorkel’ jacket, with what looked like a rifle in hand. She drove out of the driveway in the direction of a finger
of land occupied by other homes. She returned a few minutes later, without the rifle and re-entered the house. This same agent said that he saw Butch leave the house the next morning. Twenty-four hours later, another man came to the house and within minutes, the area was swarming with police. Not wanting to compromise an ongoing investigation, the operative did not identify himself or give an accounting to the county officers at the scene.

What really happened inside the house that night is as easy to read as the morning newspaper, if you have access to the records involved and if you really want to know.  First, is the fact that everyone in the house, except for Dawn DeFeo, was shot with a rifle.  Dawn, by contrast, was the only one who had gunpowder residue on the shoulder of her nightgown.  That, forensic experts will tell you, would suggest she fired the rifle. Butch’s shirt from that night was taken into custody and had no residue whatever. The most recent contention that the murders were the act of Dawn, Butch and two of their friends is another Amityville myth. It would have been impossible for anyone else to have been in the house that night, not only because of the lack of forensic evidence but also because of the DEA operative’s report.

More important is DeFeo’s first statement to the police. He told officers he had not killed anyone, except Dawn; she was killed with his handgun, which was never retrieved. Dawn had gone from room to room, he said, killing her parents and siblings, while he was seated in the living room, watching the movie Castle Keep on TV; he admitted to officers that he was high on drugs and unable to move and was unaware of the murders until sometime later.

While he was in custody Butch’s grandfather came to see him, alone. Shouts were heard and Butch sported some facial wounds. Grandpa DeFeo was heard screaming that he did not want the family disgraced publicly and that Butch was to confess to the crimes … all of them. This was good news for both the police and District Attorney, and neither pursued original admissions. Why tie a dead girl to the crimes when you have a confession to the contrary?

Grandpa DeFeo’s concerns were well placed. Investigators told of two other factors  that significantly shape the case. Firstly, there was signs that Dawn had had intercourse that night, and secondly, when divers recovered the rifle from the water off the point at Great South Bay, it was both loaded and cocked.  Butch told the original officers that he had thrown his own handgun into the canal behind the house, but police divers did not find it; they were looking for a rifle, not a black revolver in the canal mud.

It was well-known that Butch had a preoccupation with guns. He was not only proficient with them, he was fastidious about safe handling. DeFeo friends agree that he handled weapons like a range officer in a police academy so it is unlikely that he would carry or throw a loaded and cocked weapon into the water. Dawn on the other hand, knew little about guns and, if acting alone, could have thrown the rifle into the water at the end of Ocean Avenue, unaware of the danger of it inadvertently firing. Besides, the DEA operative saw her leave the house once on the night of the murder, with the rifle in hand.

If there were no other visitors to the house that evening, who was Dawn’s lover? The most likely answer comes from one of Dawn’s old Brooklyn friends, who told NYPD investigators that Butch was very protective of his younger sister.  He would check up on her when she her friends and disliked Dawn’s boyfriend, who had recently moved to Florida, once threatening to kill him if he continued to pursue his sister.  The friend said that Butch’s protectiveness went far beyond that of a big brother, seeming more like that of a jealous lover. She also said that she had thought more than once that Butch and Dawn were involved intimately but Dawn had never admitted to it.

There is also the matter of the motivation for the murders. Why the older DeFeo children would want to take the life of Ronald Sr. is simple enough - he was a brute who tortured his children at whim - and killing Mom was an unfortunate consequence of the murder of Dad. But why shoot the other kids?  Even though some sources say otherwise, one of the two boys murdered that night, showed signs of attempting to flee. Marc DeFeo, 12 years old, was found half out of his bed, probably failing to escape because he was in a cast from a football accident and unable to reach his crutches leaning against a nearby wall. Contrary to some accounts, none of the murdered children were drugged; only Dawn had drugs in her system and then not enough to render her incapacitated.

One of Dawn’s friends, speaking off the record at the time, alluded to a conversation with Dawn, who suggested that if her parent were gone, she and Butch would take up those positions in the family. She even suggested that if an armed gunman came into the house, they would do nothing to protect their parents. We will probably never know why the happy picture of Butch and Dawn playing parents to a houseful of siblings would turn into mass murder?  

The fact that both Butch and Dawn were high at the time goes a long way to explain the reasoning here. It was suggested that having done the deed and disposed of the rifle, Dawn at some point led Ronnie to her third floor bedroom where Butch killed her with his handgun - one bullet to the face, which entered her brain. Butch, by his own testimony returned to the first floor after shooting Dawn, watched TV and later that morning changed his clothes and went out to score some drugs and get drunk. Butch never spoke of his sibling’s fate.

Frankly, I feel that Jay Anson should have done more homework; the truth is even more shocking than the fiction he wrote. I don’t blame Jay, all he wanted was a best-seller so that he could retire to Majorca – he certainly accomplished the former but died before moving into his dream home on the coast of Spain. Jay’s information came in large part from Butch’s attorney, William Webber, who we surmise, decided a good ghost story could somehow aid his drug-reliant client.

When George Lutz, Cathy and children move into the Amityville house, apparently Cathy knew nothing about any of George’s deals. As far as she was concerned, they were simply moving the family into a nice house with a dark past.  I believe that Cathy is one of those individuals who is sensitive; not necessarily a clairvoyant, but still receptive to her environment.  I think she picked up on something in the house, much the way Father Ralph Pecoraro reportedly did.  

Father Pecoraro – whom Peter Jordan interviewed several times and I once - never said he saw anything in the house; however, he felt it was a very dark, possibly evil place, feelings that seemed to be telling him to “get out” immediately. He later recanted those claims, saying that he never went in the house at all, adding that when Cathy Lutz told him they were moving into the DeFeo house, he said he would say a mass for their happiness in their new home. Either way, Fr. Pecoraro never claimed to have seen or heard anything in the house; nevertheless, he was quoted by Anson as saying that a loud voice and a demonic presence ordered him from the home.  That is what is called artistic license, Jay Anson later told me. Pecoraro - like the story of haunted Indian spirits and devil worshiping settlers served only to stretch a short story into a full-length book. As for Cathy, once George was involved, she went along with it, possibly believing that there was something villainous about the property. The later observations in Anson’s book - of demonic pigs and glowing eyes - were partially her doing, suggested in fact by her little girl, who as an adult today remembers drawing the picture of Jodie the Pig and giving it to her mother while in Amityville. Anson admitted that the ‘green slime’ came from his interpretation of the crime scene photos, where finger print powder reflected
the flash from a camera in a shining green glow.

And the hoards of flies? Well, it was a bloody crime scene and blood draws flies and a lot of blood draws a lot of flies, especially when they are captive in a sealed house with the thermostat set on high. The story originally came from a cleaning woman who, after the investigation, was sent back into the house to clean up; she told William Webber, who passed it on to Anson. The Amityville house may well have been haunted after the murders, not by demons from hell, but rather by the awful events of 1974. Most researchers agree that the infamous ‘image in the fireplace’ – where scorch marks from a past fire sketched out a pointy-headed ghost - was not really scary. But every researcher who was in the house when I was present, was struck by its atmosphere and could tell me in which rooms the slaughter had taken place as though they were steeped in utter sorrow. Long before anyone suspected the intimacy between Butch and Dawn, one psychic told me about them being involved in an incestuous affair. The house, it seems, was filled with pain and depression. In my view, if Cathy Lutz claims to have detected such impressions, she may be telling the truth, if she was in any way sensitive.

Since then “true story”  of the Amityville saga has been embellished with half-truths and self serving twists and turns. If all the people who claim to have been in the house had actually been there, the rental agents of Amityville could have made a fortune.  

Joel Martin

To my knowledge, Joel Martin from WBAB radio was the first at the house - on the night following the police notification of the murders to the media.   Two PRF researchers also visited the house sometime after the Lutz’s departed, as was Stephen Kaplan - then known as a ‘vampirologist’ - from the State University at Stonybrook, along with several of his friends. Finally, Peter Jordan and myself, and other members of the PRF and ASUP team were in the house more than once.

By the time the Cromarty family bought the house, that was to the best of my knowledge, the full list of visitors. Of course many, many more had viewed the outside of the house, or passed by on the road, but none were never given permission to enter the property; many went on to tell their own version of the terrible events there and they are more outrageous than anything Jay Anson ever produced.

Today, Butch DeFeo is still in a state prison, although he was married some time ago while behind bars. He has not commented on the case for years.  Bill Webber still lives on Long Island and continues to talk about his most famous case. Jay Anson died on 12 March 1980 in California. Peter Jordan continues his research in parapsychology and holds a Master’s degree; while Joel Martin has continued his career in broadcasting and written several books on clairvoyance. Fr. Ralph Pecoraro died shortly after the Amityville book was published.

Dr. Steve Kaplan also died some time ago, after writing his own book on the subject of Amityville; unfortunately he didn’t live to see it was published in 1995. A good deal of nonsense has been written about Dr. Kaplan. I knew the man and had verified his credentials in the field of education, which is
how he actually made his living. He would often pull people’s legs - especially in the field of vampire research - but he was neither a fool, nor a devil worshiper and he did his legitimate research meticulously.  
Of course, Rick Moran is a journalist who writes about things that go bump in the night, as well as stories on Public Safety issues, Archaeology and American History and is the coordinator for the Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomenon in Texas.


FURTHER READING
Jay Anson: The Amityville Horror: A True Story (1977)
Stephen Kaplan & Roxanne Salch Kaplan: The Amityville Horror Conspiracy
(1995).
Rick Moran & Peter Jordan: ‘The Amityville Horror hoax’, Fate Magazine,
(May 1978)
Rick Moran: Amityville Revisited, Fortean Times Magazine, London.
Joe Nickell: Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings (1995).
Ric Osuna: The Night the DeFeos Died: Reinvetigating the Amityville
Murders (2002).