Amityville Horror House

In 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered six family members at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville. The Lutz family moved in a year later and claimed 28 days of supernatural terror, but DeFeo's own attorney later admitted he and the Lutzes invented the haunting over bottles of wine. Every owner since has reported nothing unusual.

Ronald DeFeo Jr.'s defense attorney admitted he helped invent the haunting. That single fact makes the Amityville Horror House one of the strangest entries in American ghost lore, because the story stuck anyway. Millions of people know the house. Dozens of movies carry its name. And the real crime underneath all of it is horrifying enough without any supernatural help.

On November 13, 1974, around 3:00 a.m., DeFeo shot six members of his own family as they slept in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. His parents, Ronald Sr. and Louise, both 43. His siblings Dawn (18), Allison (13), Marc (12), and John Matthew (9). All found face-down. All killed with a .35 caliber Marlin lever-action rifle. DeFeo walked into Henry's Bar later that evening and told patrons, "You got to help me! I think my mother and father are shot!"

The jury convicted him on six counts of second-degree murder in November 1975. He got six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. Over the following decades, DeFeo changed his story at least three times, once blaming his sister Dawn, once claiming an unknown assailant helped. He died in 2021 at Albany Medical Center, age 69.

The haunting part came next. In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house with their three kids and a dog. They got it cheap. Twenty-eight days later, they fled without taking their belongings. Their claims were specific and wild: green slime bubbling from keyholes, swarms of flies in an upstairs bedroom, a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes that their five-year-old daughter Missy called "Jodie." George said he saw Jodie standing behind Missy at her bedroom window. A small room in the basement, the "Red Room," supposedly radiated evil. Kathy maintained the fly swarms on Good Morning America in 1979.

Author Jay Anson turned the Lutz family's account into The Amityville Horror: A True Story in 1977. It sold over 10 million copies. The 1979 movie grossed $86 million. The franchise eventually spawned more than 30 films.

Then the story fell apart. DeFeo's lawyer, William Weber, told People magazine in 1979 that he and the Lutzes "created this horror story over many bottles of wine," hoping to get DeFeo a new trial on a possession defense. Researchers Rick Moran and Peter Jordan debunked the cloven hoof prints in the snow claim. The Shinnecock burial ground story, central to the book's mythology, was denied by local Native authorities. The Lutzes never called the police once during their 28-day ordeal. Neighbors noticed nothing unusual.

Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the house twenty days after the Lutzes left, brought in by Channel 5 reporter Marvin Scott. They set up a time-lapse camera on the second floor and produced the famous "Amityville Ghost Boy" photograph, a small figure with glowing white eyes peeking from a doorway. Skeptics believe it was a team member kneeling, with the infrared camera creating the eye glow. Lorraine described psychic impressions of the DeFeo bodies laid out under white sheets. Ed claimed he was physically pushed in the basement.

Here is what makes Amityville interesting: the house survived all of it. The Cromartys bought it in 1977 and lived there happily for a decade. Jim Cromarty told reporters directly: "The Lutzes say that every family had bad things happen to them. It happens to be a fact that only one family had a tragedy happen to them in this house." The O'Neils renovated extensively after 1987. Brian Wilson bought it in 1997 for about $310,000. Every subsequent owner has reported zero problems. The address was changed from 112 to 108 Ocean Avenue to deter tourists. The iconic quarter-moon "eye" windows were replaced with ordinary square ones. The house sold again in 2017 for $605,000.

The most honest take on Amityville is that two stories collided. The real one is a mass murder so disturbing that all six victims were found face-down in their beds, killed in their sleep by someone they trusted. The fake one involved a lawyer, a desperate family, and a lot of wine. The fake one became a publishing empire. The real one got buried under it.