Sunday, April 28, 2024

The True Story of The Amityville Horror

amityville horror house

Floral rugs, leather sofas, a chandelier, and a piano are just some of the items that will be up for sale at the famous house at 108 Ocean Ave. on Saturday, as WCBS 880's Sophia Hall reports. For those who want to call the space their home, an open house will take place on Sunday. The original film spurred the franchise and led to eight sequels that grossed a total of $370 million and even launched Johnny Depp's career.

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amityville horror house

A murder in which six members of the same family were all shot dead while they lay sleeping. The true Amityville horror, skeptics say, is the all-too-real murder of a family at the hands of a son. The only absolute truth is that the Amityville home has had multiple owners since the Lutzs left. Most recently, it was sold in 2010 and 2016, and in all that time there have been no repeat complaints from subsequent owners about hauntings, evil possessions, or anything else even remotely nefarious. Weber told the Lutzes that a neighbor's cat would peer into the DeFeos' window at night.

The Chilling Aftermath Of The Amityville Murders

And it's violent, but not nearly as violent as that year's blood-soaked The Wild Bunch. Castle Keep, a surrealist war film starring Burt Lancaster and Peter Falk, came and went fairly quickly in the summer of 1969. It was a box-office flop, and was quickly overshadowed by director Sidney Pollack's next feature, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? You'll spot an Amityville flag that astronaut Kevin Kreger brought to space and back. And you'll even find remnants of a building that George Washington once visited.

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Jay Anson's 1977 book The Amityville Horror was based on these reported events and served as the foundation for the 1979 film of the same name, which was remade in 2005. The book became a bestseller, while the film grew into a classic — and legions of horror aficionados flocked to town. He later claimed that there were voices in his head urging him to kill, and some believe to this day that he was indeed hearing evil spirits that resided within the so-called Amityville Horror house at 112 Ocean Avenue. 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. Fewer than 10 films make up the legit “Amityville Horror” canon, and even that number is up for debate.

The True Story of The Amityville Horror

After the Lutz family left the Amityville Horror House, several owners came and went from the property. However, there were no reports of any problems, except for unexpected visitors stopping by over the allure of the story. Presently, the residence remains a private home, with the current owners maintaining a level of privacy and choosing to distance themselves from its haunted past. Its influence on popular culture, including books, movies and documentaries, has forever ensured its place in the annals of horror lore. The Lutz family’s accounts of supernatural events within the Amityville Horror House sparked skepticism and accusations of a hoax.

Instead, much of their money came from Louise’s father, Michael Brigante, who purchased the family’s home for them, allowing them to move out of their small Brooklyn apartment. Brigante later gave his son-in-law about $50,000 to have the family portraits painted. This is something that we have seen at other murder properties, such as Cielo Drive, where the Mason Murders took place. The owners of the Amityville Horror House have had to put up with tourists, ghost hunters, and all sorts of other folks trying to find the property.

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Today, the former DeFeo house, which has changed ownership several times, remains famous. Horror fans frequently drive by the three-story home, which has had its the iconic quarter-circle windows—which looked like a pair of eyes—changed to make it less recognizable. "Our critics are people who've never been in the house, just people who read a book," Lutz told The Washington Post in 1979. Weber claimed that several of these details were spun into the book and the movie. Soon after the Lutzes abandoned the house, they met with William Weber, the lawyer who represented Ronald DeFeo, the convicted killer.

Amityville 3-D also refers to the massacre in Amityville II as the "DeFeo murders", despite the renaming of the family to Montelli for that film. Butch DeFeo was not the first person or the last to view the horrific loss of six human lives as a business opportunity. His lawyer, William Weber, in desperation due to being repeatedly denied access to evidence, in a scheme worthy of the series Better Call Saul, took part in the organization of the infamous demonic haunting plot at the house in Amityville. According to Geraldine, Weber hoped to use it in Butch DeFeo’s favor during the trial.

Trial and conviction

When he flicked the first holy water and began to pray, he heard a masculine voice demand that he "get out". When leaving the house, Father Mancuso did not mention this incident to either George or Kathy. Following his visit to the house, Father Mancuso allegedly developed a high fever and blisters on his hands similar to stigmata. Talking about their experiences subsequently, they reported that it was as if they "were each living in a different house".

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. The discovery of a bullet with a different caliber from the Marlin rifle Butch discarded after the massacre in the marital bedroom is also highlighted by Osuna. However, it is in Osuna’s chronicling of anomalies during the trial that the Amityville Case starts to deal with paranormal phenomena.

Meanwhile, the purportedly paranormal occurrences that happened here have spawned a slew of books and films like The Amityville Horror, which have kept tourists flocking to the house ever since. The home — its original address was 112 Ocean Ave. but was changed to 108 to deter tourists — was purchased by George and Kathy Lutz one year after the murders. But they ditched the property after only one month due to reported paranormal activity, which inspired a 1977 book and 1979 movie. Ronald DeFeo Jr., the notorious killer at the “Amityville Horror” house — a dwelling whose mystique continues to fascinate the public in the wake of a subsequent book and film franchise — died in prison Friday at 69. For example, DeFeo maintained that he had been at work all morning and with friends all afternoon — therefore, he couldn’t have killed his family. But police quickly determined that the bodies had been shot sometime in the early morning, well before DeFeo would have gone to work.

According to their story, the family began experiencing paranormal activity on their first day in the house. The family reached their breaking point on January 14, 1976, less than a month after moving in, and fled the home leaving all their belongings behind. Following a paranormal investigation conducted that March, the Lutzes returned the house to the bank and moved to California. Despite a Newsday report debunking a majority of their story, The Amityville Horror sparked a public fascination with the home that persists to this day. 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.

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