“The Amityville Horror” true story: What really happened on Ocean Avenue?

0The 1979 film (L), the 2005 film (R), and the house itself in the middleCredit: American International/Courtesy Everett; Stan Wolfson/Newsday RM via Getty; Peter IovinoWarning: This article contains spoilers for The Amityville Horror book and films.

Most houses on Long Island aren’t immediately recognizable to passersby, but 112 Ocean Avenue is far from average.

The five-bedroom Dutch Colonial — its third-floor, quarter-round windows surveying the surroundings like watchful eyes — was the site of the grisly family murders of six members of the DeFeo family 52 years ago. Since then, the property has spawned a best-selling book, a now-classic horror film, and scads of sequels and remakes that have fascinated filmgoers (and true crime aficionados) for half a century.

However, the truth of 112 Ocean Avenue’s legacy is murky; for decades it has been tangled up in claims and denials, conflicting memories, and an unholy combination of facts, rumors, and embellishments.

Entertainment Weekly runs down the facts about what happened to the DeFeo family in November of 1974, as well as what became of the Lutz family, who bought the house in the aftermath of the murders and inspired a horror franchise.

In the early morning hours of the day in question, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr., then 23, shot and killed all six members of his family as they lay in their beds. He used a .35-caliber Marlin hunting rifle. The bodies of his parents, Ronald Sr. and Louise, both 43, were found face down in their beds, still in their pajamas, as were the bodies of DeFeo’s siblings: Dawn, 18; Allison, 13; Marc, 12; and John, 9. The DeFeo family had lived in the house — white shutters on the windows, a sign in the yard reading “High Hopes” — since 1965.

DeFeo claimed “the voices of the house” compelled him to commit the murders, but his insanity defense was not successful at trial. The prosecution argued that DeFeo was aware of the consequences of his actions, citing his extensive efforts to hide the evidence implicating him in the slayings.

A jury found DeFeo guilty of six counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to six consecutive terms of 25 years to life.

The 1974 tragedy was only the beginning for the house at 112 Ocean Avenue. It sat empty for 13 months following the DeFeo killings until George and Kathy Lutz purchased the property, including its swimming pool and boathouse, for $80,000 in December 1975.

“It was a dream come true,” George Lutz told ABC News in 2002.

That dream quickly evaporated. The couple, along with Kathy’s three children from a previous marriage, stayed in the house for just 28 days before fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, claiming to have experienced terrifying hauntings during their brief time under the gambrel roof.

That’s when the legend of the house in Amityville really started to grow.

Jay Anson’s 1977 best-selling book, The Amityville Horror, tells the allegedly true story of the Lutzes’ paranormal experiences in the house. The book was adapted into a hit film starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder as George and Kathy. It was the second-highest grossing film of 1979, outpacing the likes of Rocky II and Alien. That success spawned numerous additional books and films, including a 2005 remake starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George in the Brolin and Kidder roles.

Renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, famously played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in the Conjuring franchise, even got involved in the case, visiting the house in 1976 at the request of New York’s Channel 5 News.

“It was a very bad place,” Lorraine told EW in 2013. “I remember when I was there, and Ed said he was pushed to the floor as if a heavy blanket was pushed over him.”

The address was notorious in the late 1970s, with huge crowds of tourists turning up on Long Island to have a look at the famous Jack-O-Lantern windows. The crowds grew so big, they overran the street, leaving behind empty beer bottles and other trash and requiring overtime from the local police force to manage crowd control.

They certainly did, although those involved disagree on the level of embellishment.

The Lutzes insist they experienced a variety of paranormal phenomena in the house, including strange smells and sounds, inexplicable cold, slamming doors, moving furniture, and gelatinous substances on the carpet. George told ABC News that Kathy would sometimes appear to have the face, skin, and hair of an old woman, and that he once woke to see her levitating above the bed. In addition, George claimed that a priest brought in to bless the house was slapped by an unseen hand, and a voice warned him to get out.

Some of these events appear in the book and film versions of the story, although the details don’t always match.

A 1979 Washington Post article pointed out several inconsistencies from one account to another. Among the discrepancies is exactly what kind of goo plagued the Lutzes. In a 1977 Good Housekeeping article, it was “trickles of red” oozing from keyholes. In Anson’s book, it was greenish slime on the walls and stairs. In the 1979 movie, it was black drippings.

In a less trivial matter, there’s the question of whether a priest actually visited the home, as George Lutz always maintained. Father Ray Pecoraro, the priest purported to have performed the blessing, reportedly denied ever visiting the house — or being followed by supernatural malodors afterward. Finally, there’s the veracity of George’s claim that the house was built on the spot where the Shinnecock Indian Nation once housed their sick and dying. An Amityville Historical Society curator flatly denied this story.

Then there are the historical records. Claims about full moons and torrential rains in the book are not supported by the historical records, nor did neighbors at the time report similar weather events. (Then again, neighbors didn’t report hearing the gunshots that night in 1974, either.)

This lack of corroborating natural evidence calls into question George Lutz’s story about spotting the red-eyed demon pig, Jodie, in his daughter’s window on Dec. 25, 1975, at 3:15 a.m., the time of night when the DeFeo murders were believed to have been committed. There was no full moon on the date in question, per the World Almanac, nor was there snow on Jan. 1, 1976, when “Jodie” supposedly left hoofprints behind.

Even DeFeo’s defense attorney disputed the story. “I know this book’s a hoax,” William Weber said in 1979. “We created this horror story over many bottles of wine. I told George Lutz that Ronnie DeFeo used to call the neighbor’s cat a pig. George was a con artist; he improvised on that and in the book he sees a demon pig through a window.”

Although the Warrens’ involvement in the case was featured in Anson’s book, Lorraine told EW in 2013 that the film was heavily dramatized. “Oh, God, that was terrible,” she said. ”It was nothing you could put any credence to.”

George and Kathy Lutz always insisted the story was true. While George agreed that the 1979 film was loose with the facts, he and Kathy long maintained they did not fabricate their experiences. “All I know is what happened to me,” he said in 1979. “We’re tired of being called liars.”

The Lutzes’ son Danny participated in the 2013 documentary My Amityville Horror, in which he maintained that he experienced paranormal phenomena in the Amityville house and continued to bear the psychological scars of his time there.

Danny’s brother, Christopher Quaratino, has said that while none of the popular accounts of the haunting are completely accurate, they’re also not hoaxes. He says he did experience paranormal events while living at 112 Ocean Avenue. However, he describes his stepfather George as a showman who dabbled in the occult and exaggerated their experiences for profit.

Danny and Christopher’s sister, Melissa Lutz, has largely remained out of the public eye and has not publicly detailed her experiences in the house.

Ronald DeFeo died in prison on March 12, 2021, while receiving treatment for an illness at Albany Medical Center. He was 69. His cause of death has not been publicly released. The DeFeo killings were the subject of a 2012 documentary, Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders, in which filmmaker Ryan Katzenbach argued that the family was killed by more than one person.

George and Kathy Lutz divorced after moving out of Amityville. Kathy died in 2004 from emphysema, and George died of heart disease in 2006.

On the contrary, it’s still standing and has been occupied by several families since the Lutzes fled the property. None of the subsequent owners have reported any supernatural occurrences, although one did ask that the address be changed to 108 Ocean Avenue to deter curiosity-seekers. The house was last sold, according to Zillow, for $605,000 in 2017.

Tourists will be disappointed if they show up in Amityville today looking for those famous quarter-round windows, as one of the owners renovated the exterior to remove that distinctive feature. Even digital looky-loos are out of luck, as the house itself is blurred on Google Street View.

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In 2005, EW’s Whitney Pastorek took a trip to Amityville to explore the town for herself and found a chilly welcome. “The library’s ‘policy’ is to ‘stay out of it,’” she wrote. “The cops say, ‘Good luck with that’; and while thinking up excuses to ring the doorbell of the Dutch Colonial is fun (‘Can we come in for tea… and murder?’), you’d be wise not to.”

Pastorek did find one patron of a local bar who was willing to go on the record: “I don’t believe that spirits are here to hurt us,” said the man, who told Pastorek that he “dabbles” in parapsychology. “They’re just looking for a way out.”

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