Around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, November 13,
1974 Ronald DeFeo Jr. took his .35
Marlin rifle and systematically murdered his entire family as they lay in their beds. Thus began the lengthy and often times convoluted piece of American History 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville,
Long Island now occupies.
The story of Amityville is familiar to most people who were around in the seventies and eighties in
America. The movie
The Amityville Horror has been scaring millions of people since its release July 27, 1979. This movie was an adaptation of a book by author
Jay Anson. He based his dramatic and often times totally inaccurate account on 35 hours of taped interviews with George and Kathy Lutz, who bought the house one year after the DeFeo
murders.
Since I would rather not cut and paste enormous chunks of text from the numerous websites carrying summations of all that happened, I'll offer mine, direct and to the point. A grand
debate has been raging for two decades now as to the truth of the movie and the book, and quite simply some things could possibly be true while others are patently inaccurate.
Truth and possibility:
- There has always been a lot of confusion as to whether or not the murders really happened and what kind of person Ronald DeFeo is/was. It is true that all the murders took place and it is true that Ronald DeFeo is still in jail for the crimes, serving six consecutive life sentences. It is also true that he said he heard voices telling him to do it, but his story became specific (and also began to include witches, demons, and Satan) after the book was published. The book included fabrications by Jay Anson stating that the house was built on an ancient Satanic altar and burial ground, which it was not.
- It is true that the Lutzes left their possessions behind when fleeing the house after living there for 28 days. Some aspects of their story have always been the same:
- They had a ceramic tiger which moved around the house apparently of its own volition and once, when George tripped over it, he found teeth marks on his ankle matching those of the tiger.
- George was always cold. Then again, the house was on the water.
- Kathy levitated off the bed twice at around 3:15 A.M., once at a height of two feet and once at a height of one foot. This latter levitation is also when she apparently "transformed into a ninety-year-old hag." While this may or may not be true, I haven't been able to find any variant on this story. Since so many occurences in the book and the movie were total lies, this is probably false, but the Lutzes have stuck by their story.
- There was a room in the basement that apparently was not in any plans for the house. They said the walls were "blood-red" and they saw the faces of demons inside it, and that perhaps it was a gateway to Hell. It was later discovered that this was simply a pipe access that had been bricked over in a renovation and (you guessed it) the walls had been painted red while the Lutzes were in residence, by the two young boys.
- The priest so prominently featured in the movie and the book, Father Pecoraro stated in an interview that he heard a voice say "GET OUT" and then felt a slap on the face while blessing the house.
- George was in serious financial trouble. This was a major component in sparking the investigations into the veracity of this story, considering that they had a signed book and movie deal which would make the Lutzes no small amount of cash.
False statements, lies, misconceptions
There are many more aspects of the Amityville story that have either been irrefutably proven as false or were later "corrected" by the Lutzes.
- "One of the Lutz children had his hand smashed in a window and had to be taken to the hospital." - No area hospital has any record of this ever happening. George and Kathy later admitted they had treated this injury at home.
- "The 250-pound front door and basement doors were both ripped from the hinges... from the inside of the house!" - Bullshit. George later 'remembered' that it was actually a screen door, and it happened during a winter storm.
- "Father Pecoraro had the flu... fever of 104 degrees...went blind... all shortly after blessing the cursed house." - None of this ever happened. He thought he heard a voice in the house, got freaked out and left, but that's it.
- Many many dates and meteorlogical happenings in the book were wrong.
- "...112 Ocean Avenue happened to be built on the site of an Indian Burial Ground / Indian Sanitarium / place where other families had been run off by evil spirits / where a Satanist High Priest had openly practiced and lived." - Town archivists in Amityville have shown every one of these claims to be false.
- "...The Lutzes never returned for their belongings." - When an investigator showed up at the house shortly after the Lutzes began talking to Jay Anson about their encounters, George and Kathy were there, selling off some of their belongings.
- "...movie couldn't be filmed at the house because the film crew was too frightened to enter..." - The movie couldn't be filmed there because the new owners of the house and the city wouldn't grant them filming rights.
- "The Amityville Horror - A True Story Of Horror - By Jay Anson" - Although the outside cover of the first edition claims it as non-fiction, the Library of Congress cataloging on the inside of the book gives the standard "This is a work of fiction." disclaimer.
For everything I've mentioned here there are fifteen things I've left out, but you get the general idea: Family moves into murder-scene house, gets some bad vibes (who wouldn't), gets into financial trouble and then - B-I-N-G-O - Book deals, movie deals, likeness rights, etc.
This summation will please the skeptic in all of us but it is important for me to say that I am an avid believer in supernatural phenom; I have experienced things personally that are ten times as freaky as anything in the movie, except maybe the walls bleeding. But there is a difference between literal hauntings and pure fabrication. In my estimation, considering that no other family that has lived in the house have complained of any problems or spiritual malevolence, I would have to say that Amityville's most famous house doesn't have any more psychic energy or spiritual vibrations than your average house that just happens to be 250 years old.
Research sources -
http://www.amityvillehorror.com/
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/7036/Amityville.html