It was a multiple murder within a family that shocked America. In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr drugged his parents, two brothers and two sisters and killed them one by one with a rifle. A year later, the house was bought by a newly married couple who then experienced a series of horrific incidents they attributed to demonic forces unleashed by the tragedy. A resulting book in 1977 – The Amityville Horror – was a bestseller, followed by a blockbuster movie in 1979.
But was the story true – or an elaborate hoax?
The 1974 DeFeo family murders
The scene that greeted mourners at a funeral parlour in Amityville, Long Island, New York state in late November 1974 took their breath away. Six slain members of the same family in open caskets, their heads laying on satin pillows, surrounded by flowers. They had been found dead in their spacious timber-framed house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville. The murder victims were Ronald Sr (aged 43), Louise (42), Dawn (18), Allison (13), Mark (11), and John (9).
Ronald Jr (1951-2021) admitted to the killing and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. The story would normally have ended there with lingering interest in what motivated the murderer to commit such a dreadful crime against his own family. But it’s what happened to the property on Ocean Avenue next that became the much bigger story. Because a year later it was bought by George and Kathy Lutz.
The Lutz duo had only recently got married. Kathy had three children from a previous marriage: Daniel (9), Christopher (7), and Melissa (5), plus a dog called Harry. It’s sometimes suggested that George and Kathy didn’t know about the earlier homicides when they made the purchase but that isn’t true. The real estate broker in charge of the sale made it clear that the bargain price for the very attractive property, built in the Dutch colonial style, was because of the ghoulish events the year before.
The Lutz family moves in – and the horror starts
George and Kathy moved in and very quickly, things started to go very wrong. Scars appeared on Kathy’s face and then disappeared. The house filled with a foul stench. Green slime oozed out of the walls. Furniture moved inexplicably. And as if that wasn’t unsettling enough, a faceless monster wandered into the children’s bedroom and then a giant pig with glowing red eyes appeared at the window. One newspaper later lampooned this incident, as pictured below.
After just a few weeks, the Lutz family moved out. The house was then visited by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who reported a demonic presence in the house and took a photo of a young phantom referred to as the Ghost Boy. Meanwhile the Lutz duo teamed up with a New York film maker, Jay Anson, to write a book about…..The Amityville Horror!
The book was a runaway success, leading to a movie in 1979 starring James Brolin and Rod Steiger. However, as the ordeal suffered by the Lutz’s became famous globally, questions arose about the veracity of the tale. Green slime, a faceless monster, disembodied voices, and a giant, menacing pig at the window. Was any of this true?
For example, the book said the Amityville Historical Society told the Lutz family that their new house was built on land previously used by the Shinnecock Indian tribe for the “sick, mad, and dying”. But they dared not not bury their dead in that place because it was “infested with demons”. However, the society denied ever having spoken to Lutz and pointed out that the Shinnecocks were based outside Amityville.
In 1979 it was reported that the entire story was invented by the Lutz’s after moving out of the house in collaboration with the lawyer, William Weber, who had defended Ronald DeFeo Jr during his murder trial. Over several bottles of wine, they came up with the whole thing and decided to write a work of fiction that they would present as non-fiction.
For Weber, he was keen to prove that his client had been mentally disturbed as a result of what he believed was a demonic presence at the house. The voices of restless souls urged him on to commit the murders. As for the Lutz couple, they simply wanted to make money. The reason they had left the house was because it had stretched them financially.
In the end, they wrote the book with Anson and Weber sued them. The disgruntled lawyer continued to poke holes in the Lutz version of events through the 1980s. Still, the book had sold eight million copies by mid-1979 when the movie was being made with actor James Brolin playing George Lutz. Brolin refused to take sides in the whole discussion over the veracity of the Amityville saga except to say that he doubted that George would have abandoned his home, leaving his belongings behind, and a small business, just to have a book published.
Whatever the truth, all those involved seemed to have their lives cut short. The Lutz’s died relatively young. Kathy Lutz died in 2004 aged 57 while George Lutz died in 2006 of a heart attack, aged 59. Jay Anson, the book’s lead author, died a year after publication in 1980, at just 58.
