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Much like its movie counterpart, the Amityville house is located along the waterfront and features its own boat dock. In 1979, the film-adaptation of The Amityville Horror was released, it became the highest-grossing independent film of all time, holding the record until 1990. This was followed by many sequels and other movies that had no connection to the original movie other than its reference to the town of Amityville. A lot of controversies surrounded the DeFeo murders, the police investigation concluded that a suppressor had not been fitted to the rifle, this lead to speculation that someone should have been woken by the gunshots.
The real story behind the infamous Amityville Horror house
Their claims included green slime seeping down the walls, windows spontaneously shattering, a ghost boy peering out of a doorway (allegedly captured in an infrared photo) and Mrs. Lutz levitating above the bed. In 1986, DeFeo claimed his sister Dawn killed their father and then their distraught mother killed all of his siblings before he killed his mother. The bulk of Osuna’s book provides a wealth of documentation and data that at the very least casts doubt over the rigor with which the trial was conducted and how the evidence was treated. For example, in the crime scene photos, which are reproduced in the book, blood stains can be seen in places that do not add up with the story that the DeFeo’s were all killed in their beds, which serves to support Osuna’s version of events.
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Hauntings of the Lutz Family
By December of 1978, the constant barrage of visitors proved to be too much for the family, who decided to move out and put the house on the market for $100,000. By the time The Amityville Horror starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder hit theaters in July of 1979, the Cromartys had yet to find any serious buyers. Meanwhile, the new wave of curiosity sparked by the movie was affecting the entire community. When Jim and Barbara Cromarty bought the house for $55,000 in April of 1977, they were unaware that a book would soon be published about it. By November, the Cromartys had been bombarded by so many unwanted visitors, they decided to change the address of the house.
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Listen to this week's episode of our haunted house podcast, Dark House, for exclusive ghost stories and insights into the home's twisted history. In the early morning hours of November 13, 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were found murdered inside their home. Ron Sr. and Louise had each been shot twice, while four of their children—Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John—had each been shot once. Their bodies were discovered the following evening by the only surviving family member, Ronald Jr., who was eventually found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder.
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On the day of the murders, Lizzie claimed she’d come in from the barn and found her father’s body – but it wasn’t long before her stories started to change. She and the servant had been the only ones home at the time that her stepmother, Abby, was killed in a bedroom. Andrew was killed in the first floor sitting room after returning from work. Much of the paranormal happenings that allegedly took place in the real life Amityville house were reported by the Lutz family. George and Kathy Lutz purchased the home, dirt cheap, less than a year after the horrific murders took place.
The house has been on the market four different times since the murders. It was last listed in June 2016 and sold in March 2017 for $605,000, according to property records. On Nov. 13, 1974, DeFeo — who was 23 at the time — shot and killed his parents, Ronald and Louise DeFeo, both 43, and his two brothers and two sisters, ranging in age from 9 to 18. Ultimately, the appeal of the Amityville house and its related New Jersey home seems largely rooted in the purportedly exaggerated book and its Hollywood adaptations. To this day, horror fans truly convinced by the hauntings still visit, hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghost.
Movie #2 That Made the Amityville Horror: The Exorcist (
In 1979, a movie by the same name was released to the delight of horror fans, some of whom actively sought out the real Amityville Horror House in search of paranormal activity. Though it’s clear that DeFeo had many issues with his father, it baffled many that he would go after the rest of his family members — especially his youngest siblings. And considering the fact that DeFeo would change his story multiple times in prison, he shed very little light on the haunting mystery. A scary movie about a haunted house that forced a family to flee after just a month, this film has inspired many people to seek out the real Long Island home behind the eerie tale. But often lost in the shuffle is the brutal crime that supposedly made the house “haunted” — the Amityville Murders. In an interview with Newsday the following year, the Cromartys revealed just how bad the situation had gotten, saying that because so many “visitors” came late at night, they were barely sleeping.
The Troubled Home Life Of The DeFeo Family
It was last listed on the market in 2016 for $605,000 and sold in 2017 (via New York Post). In March of 2021, Ronald Defeo Jr. died in prison at the age of 69 (per Rolling Stone). And just a couple of years later in 1977, author Jay Anson published a novel titled The Amityville Horror, based on the Lutz family’s claims of paranormal activity happening in the home.
When DeFeo went on trial, his lawyer built a case that he was an “insane” man who became a killer because of the demonic voices in his head. And about a year after the slaughter, a new family moved into the home where the murders took place. DeFeo initially claimed to the police that the murders had likely been a mob hit, and his act was apparently so convincing that he was taken to a local station for protection. But it didn’t take long for cracks to form in his story, and by the next day, he had already confessed to killing his family himself. The real-life horror story began on November 13, 1974, when a 23-year-old man named Ronald DeFeo Jr. fatally shot his parents and his four younger siblings while they were asleep in their home in Amityville, New York.
The prosecutor and the police admitted on several occasions that the crime would have required three people, and another independent investigation by retired police detective Herman Race reached the same conclusion. However, media interest in the case and personal and political ambitions of those on the side of the law prescribed swift justice, even if that meant presenting inconsistent official versions of what took place. Though DeFeo claimed to have drugged his family’s dinner, experts noted that a long time had passed between the meal and the family’s deaths.
Between her varying answers and detectives’ discovery that Lizzie had tried to purchase a poisonous acid before the murders, she was arrested the week after the murder and spent nine months in jail. The press went wild, and Lizzie garnered both significant support and opposition. Ultimately, however, she was acquitted – and lived until 1927, when she and her sister died within months of each other and were buried next to their father.
There have been question marks over DeFeo’s guilt from the moment he was arrested, given that the authorities at the time were convinced the crime had to have been carried out by more than one person. “I think that Dawn was involved and simply saying so makes me sad, because we are talking about a girl ready to do anything to get out of the house and escape from her parents,” Osuna says via email. The author, among other arguments, points to the affidavit signed in 1974 by Dawn’s boyfriend, with whom she wanted to move to Florida despite the disapproval of her parents. He also holds up as evidence a supposedly comic song written by Dawn some time earlier, The night the DeFeos died – also the title of his book – in which she fantasized about the murder of her family.
Around 3am on November 13, 1974, 23-year-old Ron DeFeo Jr walked with a rifle through his home in Amityville, a coastal village on Long Island. Then he shot his entire family in their sleep, killing his parents and four siblings. The case caused a media frenzy; DeFeo claimed he heard voices but changed his story several times and was eventually convicted and given six sentences of 25 years to life. The DeFeo murders inspired the supernatural haunting story that led to the The Amityville Horror book in 1977 and movie in 1979.
Beginning in 2011, there was a resurgence of low-budget direct-to-video independent films based on or loosely inspired by the Amityville events. He practiced black magic in a cottage that was once on the property before the Dutch Colonial house in 1924. Ketchum was buried on the property, and his remains continue there to this day. When the Warrens were called in to investigate three weeks after the Lutz family left, several occurrences happened to Ed and Lorraine. Reports from the investigation by Ed and Lorraine Warren are documented as a demonic presence using the home to get to the families that had lived there. Although he was shot, his father managed to struggle to his feet to attempt a counterattack.
After the DeFeo’s, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the property and then moved out in 28 days. Their stay was so short that they did not even make a payment on the $60,000 mortgage they had on the house. On August 30, 1976, the Lutz family returned the house to Columbia Savings and Loan.
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