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Post #9: The Real Amityville Horror (VIDEO)

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Post #9: The Real Amityville Horror (VIDEO)

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This video is a documentary style video which goes in depth details about the house on ocean drive. This documentary covers everything from the DeFeo murders and how the murders occurred, to the events that soon followed involving the Lutz family. It talks about the paranormal energy inside the house, as well as the Lutz’s families accounts while they were in the house. Some of these things include the father, George, waking up every day at 3:25, which is the time the murders are said to have occurred. The red flags incorporated into this video are Mystical Energy and Confirmation Bias. The reason for for Mystical energy is due to the fact that the Lutz family was being haunted consecutively for a month, which caused problems between many. The reason for confirmation Bias is due to the fact that they believed they were crazy for all of these things that were happening to them, which then in turn lead them to become crazy themselves. The reason for Belief is simplicity, due to the fact that it was easier to assume they were actually just going crazy, as opposed to being haunted.

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The Real Amityville Horror (Full Documentary)

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Post #8: Amityville-The Haunting (VIDEO)

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Post #8: Amityville-The Haunting (VIDEO)

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In this video, The Amityville Hauting is being taken apart piece by piece to try to get an understanding of what happened there. This video is apart of “Histories Mysteries” and this video in particular talks about the events of what happened with Defeo and his family. This video has interviews with George and Kathy Lutz, as well as, Ed and Loraine Warren. Ed and Loraine are American paranormal experts and have studied numerous famous haunting cases. One of the red flags present in this video is mystical energy. mystical Engery is proven in this video through the interviews with the Lutz family, afte ron living in the house for a month before leaving due to paranormal hauntings. The reason for belief involved in this video is the reason of unexplained. No one can explain why these hauntings have occurred other then the simple fact that the Defeo murders occurred in the same house.

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This image shows the Lutz family together, assumedly at their home in Amityville. The Red Flag, Perception and Observation, is present because the Lutz family experienced negativity in their lives when they lived in the Amityville House; this could have been due to how they perceived their new house after finding out about the murders of the DeFeo's. The Red Flag, Confusion of Correlation with Causation, was also present because the Lutz family believed that the murders of the DeFeo's caused a negative energy to surround and possess the Amityville house. The reason for belief, Unexplained, is present because the family could not explain the energy that they felt from living in the house and it was scary to them since it was affecting their lives so drastically. The reason for belief, Emotional Connection, is present because the Lutz had a family similar to the DeFeo's; this could have lead them to believe they were being targeted by the negative energy in a way.

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Post #6: About The Murderer - Ronald Defeo Jr. (ARTICLE)

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Post #6: About The Murderer - Ronald Defeo Jr. (ARTICLE)

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This article explains the life of the murderer, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. and how it could have influenced the murders. The reason for belief, Patternicity, is shown here because there is a pattern throughout his childhood of him being mistreated and ridiculed; any kid who gets bullied day in and day out by his own family and peers is bound to snap eventually. The red flag, Confusion of Correlation with Causation, is present because he was spoiled by his parents and paid a good wage although he was expected to do very little; just because someone is spoiled does not mean they start getting addicted to drugs and eventually kills their entire family. The red flag, Mystical Energy, is present because DeFeo claims that once he started, he “just couldn’t stop”; a lot more than being on heroin would cause something like this to happen, and this statement made people believe that there was a sinister presence in the house or within DeFeo himself.

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Synopsis

Despite having a comfortable childhood in Amityville, New York, Ronald DeFeo grew up emotionally troubled. In 1974, he murdered his entire family as they slept. The murders were popularized in several novels and films, including The Amityville Horror: A True Story.

Troubled Youth

Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr. was born on September 26, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York. DeFeo was the oldest of five children born to Ronald and Louise DeFeo, a successful car salesman and his wife. Ronald Sr. worked at his father-in-law's Brooklyn Buick dealership and provided the family with a comfortable, upper-middle-class lifestyle. But he also served as a domineering authority figure and engaged in hot-tempered fights with his wife and children. The most frequent target of abuse was their eldest child, Butch, of whom much was expected. It only got worse at school, where the overweight and brooding boy was the victim of relentless taunting from his classmates.

As Butch matured, he began lashing out physically against his father, as well as his few friends. His concerned family took him to a psychiatrist, but the visits didn't sit well with Butch, who denied that he needed help. The trips to the doctor stopped, and in their place the DeFeos used the incentive of cash and presents-including a $14,000 speedboat-in the hopes that the gifts would placate their troubled son. But the new tactic only made the problems worse; by the age of 17, Butch had become an LSD and heroin user and was expelled from school for his violent outbursts.

In spite of his academic setbacks, the DeFeos continued to reward their son. At the age of 18, Butch received a prized position at his grandfather's car dealership, with little to no expectations. He also earned a weekly stipend from his father, regardless of his attendance or job performance at work. Butch funneled this salary into his new car-another present from his parents-as well as guns, alcohol and drugs.

Conflicts With His Father

Butch DeFeo's strange behavior seemed only to increase with time. He threatened a friend with a rifle during a hunting trip then, later that day, acted as if nothing happened. He also attempted to shoot his father with a 12-gauge shotgun during a fight between his parents. Butch pulled the trigger at point-blank range, but the gun malfunctioned. His surprised father ended the argument, but was left stunned by the confrontation. The incident foreshadowed the more violent events to come.

In 1974, Butch, feeling irritated by what he believed a meager salary, plotted methods for embezzling money from the car dealership. In late October, the dealership entrusted DeFeo with the responsibility of depositing more than $20,000 to the bank. Butch planned a mock robbery with a friend, agreeing to split the money evenly with his accomplice. The plan went off without a hitch until police came to the dealership to question DeFeo. Instead of calmly answering the officers' questions, Butch exploded into rage. When police, suspicious that Butch was lying, asked him to come in to the station to check out mug shots of possible suspects, he refused to comply. Ronald Sr. began to suspect that his son had committed the robbery. But when he questioned his son about his lack of cooperation with police, Butch threatened to kill his father.

Murder of the DeFeo Family

In the early morning hours of November 13, 1974, Butch DeFeo acted on his threat. Using a .35-caliber Marlin rifle from his secret gun stash, he entered his parents' bedroom and shot them both while they slept. He then entered his brothers' bedroom, shooting them both in their beds. He ended by shooting his sisters, point-blank, in their bedrooms. All the murders took place within 15 minutes. Butch then showered, dressed for work, and collected his bloody clothing and the murder weapon in a pillowcase. He dumped the evidence in a storm drain on the way to work at the dealership at 6 a.m.

Upon arriving to work, Butch called home, pretending not to know why his father hadn't shown up for work. Saying he was bored around noon, he left work and spent the day with friends. He attempted to secure an alibi by telling each of the people he visited that he couldn't seem to reach anyone at home. At 6 p.m., he called a friend in mock surprise, saying that someone had broken into the house and shot his family.

Investigation

Friends came to the home and contacted authorities. When a Suffolk County detective questioned DeFeo about who could be a suspect in these murders, he told them he believed mafia hit man Louis Falini may have been responsible. Butch cited an old grudge between the made man and the DeFeo family over some work Butch did for him at the dealership. He then told police he had been up late watching TV and, unable to sleep, left for work early. He said he believed his family was alive when he left for work, then told them of his whereabouts for the rest of that day. Police placed Butch in protective custody as they searched for a suspect.

After police more carefully searched the DeFeo house, however, Butch's testimony began to crumble. Finding an empty box for a recently purchased .35-caliber Marlin gun in Butch's room gave authorities pause. As the timeline came together, it seemed more realistic that the murders had happened early in the morning-the family had all still been wearing their pajamas, so it couldn't have happened earlier in the day-placing Butch at home at the time of the homicides.

When authorities questioned Butch about the new evidence, he began changing his story. He said that Falini had appeared at the house early that morning, and put a revolver to DeFeo's head. He then said Falini and an accomplice dragged Butch from room to room as they murdered his family. As the story unraveled, police extracted a confession from DeFeo. He finally broke down. "Once I started, I just couldn't stop," he said. "It went so fast."

Trial and Imprisonment

DeFeo's trial began on October 14, 1975, nearly a year from the date of the murders. DeFeo's defense attorney, William Weber, attempted an insanity plea for Butch, and the murder suspect told jurors that he heard voices that told him to kill his family. The psychiatrist for the defense, Dr. Daniel Schwartz, supported the claim, saying that DeFeo was neurotic and suffered from dissociative disorder. But the psychiatrist for the prosecution, Dr. Harold Zolan, proved that DeFeo suffered from antisocial personality disorder. The illness made him the defendant aware of his actions, but motivated by a self-centered attitude.

Jurors agreed with the assessment, and on November 21, 1975, they found DeFeo guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, and sent to Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, New York. His appeals to the parole board have all been turned down.

After his imprisonment, several novels and films appeared about the slayings. The first of them, entitled The Amityville Horror: A True Story, was published in September of 1977. The account followed the Lutz family, who lived in the DeFeo house after the murders. The story detailed the allegedly true stories of poltergeists that terrorized the Lutz family. A movie based on the book, called The Amityville Horror was released to popular appeal in 1979. Subsequent remakes and sequels to this film include the most recent 2005 film remake produced by Michael Bay, and a factual account of the DeFeo tragedy in the book Mentally Ill In Amityville (2008) by Will Savive.

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Despite having a comfortable childhood in Amityville, New York, Ronald DeFeo grew up emotionally troubled. In 1974, he murdered his entire family as they slept. The murders were popularized in several novels and films, including The Amityville Horror: A True Story. Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr. was born on September 26, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York.

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Post #11: Reflective Question Responses (WORD DOCUMENT)

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Post #11: Reflective Question Responses (WORD DOCUMENT)

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Post #10: What Was in the Window?(VIDEO)

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Post #10: What Was in the Window?(VIDEO)

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This video follows The Amityville Haunting, and the events that occurred during the time of the murders, and after. Loraine Warren, an expert paranormal researcher, stated “ The Amityville Affected our personal lives more than any case we’ve ever worked on”. This video talks about the movie franchise that has come from these murders and it is estimated that the first Amitycille Horror movie grossed about $86,000,000. This video Goes on to talk about different skeptics side of what they believe is true or not, as it is said that the Lutz family had gotten into major financial issues. The red flag that are present in this video is is confirmation bias on the idea that possible skeptics didn’t look at all the key information, they just picked information they saw was false information and used that to form their opinion. The reason for belief which shows up alot  in these videos is the unexplained. I strongly believe that emotional connection is present in this video as well. These hauntings had a strain on the Lutz family, and tried to break apart the family dynamic.

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The Real Amityville Horror: Unveiling the Terror Behind the Fiction | Documentary

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Post #2: The Amityville Haunting (ARTICLE)

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Post #2: The Amityville Haunting (ARTICLE)

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This article describes the Lutz family's experience in the Amityville Horror House after the murders committed by Ronald Defeo Jr and how there was a strong presence that caused them to move out after only a month. The red flag Confirmation Bias is present in this article because the Lutz family believed what they believed; as in, they believed there was a dark energy in the house that was caused from the murders of the DeFeo family. The red flag Mystical Energy is also present because the Lutz family had been run out of their home after one month by a "negative energy" that had an evil presence. The reason for belief, Perception and Observation, are present because each person is different and experiences different feelings differently; the Lutz family's perception was that spirits were involved because something negative had happened in the house that caused a negative energy. The other reason for belief, the Unexplained, is present because the energy that the Lutz felt in the Amityville house could not be explained by anything other than the "fact" that it was because of the DeFeo murders.

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HISTORY DOES NOT RECORD what a bunch of Long Island newspaper reporters thought they would hear on February 13, 1976, as they were hustled into a modest, book-lined attorney's office in the village of Patchogue, New York. In that room, that morning, the press would be introduced for the first time-but certainly not the last-to George and Kathleen Lutz, two relative newlyweds of indeterminate employment who had, very suddenly, left their dream house in Amityville the month before. Rumors had been floating through this sleepy area on the south shore of Long Island that the Lutzes had left because the house was haunted. George and Kathy Lutz, in their mid-thirties, looked like a normal couple, at least normal for the '70s: he had lots of pin-straight light-brown hair and a full beard, she had a blonde feathered haircut that framed a round, sweet face. In the press conference, George did more of the talking. He took the tone of someone who had been forced, reluctantly and after long consideration, to come forward with his story. He said he didn't want to get into details. But yes, he said, a "very strong force" had driven his family from the house. He wanted, too, to correct some facts. No, his family had not seen "human shapes" and "flying objects" in their home. No, they had not heard "wailing sounds" and seen "moving couches." But yes, they had left the house after only owning it for a month, with just three changes of clothes apiece, "because of our concern for our own personal safety as a family." And that was about all he was willing to share for the present time. The reporters tried to press Lutz for more details, but he would not be specific, as the Newsday writer reported with evident frustration. "[Lutz] did say he would not spend another night in the house if asked to do so by researchers, but he also said he is not planning to sell the house right now," the reporter wrote. Within a day of the press conference, the lawn of this house, a Dutch Colonial perched on a waterway at 112 Ocean Avenue, was full of people who had decided to come investigate matters themselves. They came mostly from neighboring towns in Long Island. They parked along the street. Some were accompanied by their children. "I'm interested in unexplained... phenomena," said a father who'd brought his 12-year-old son. "I was here the other night with my other son, and we watched the electric meter for a while-and I swear it slowed down... of course, it could have been the refrigerator."

One would like to believe that journalists have enough common sense not to believe in ghosts. But in the 1970s, American culture was awash in superstition. It was a time rather like our own, filled with economic and political instability. The Lutz family's press conference took place 18 months after Watergate had forced Richard Nixon to resign the presidency and the onslaught of upsetting news had led everyone to question conventional facts and truth. It was unclear whether the stable laws of the universe still held. Anger and fear were everywhere, and often enough, they bloomed into outright delusions. Couple that with the remnants of the New Age philosophies of the 1960s, shake in a little bit of good old American folklore, and you got something like what the Lutz family's story would eventually be: The Amityville Horror, a story that would inspire several books and more than half a dozen films, spanning from the 1979 original blockbuster starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder, to the rather poorly-reviewed, middling effort released just this past October 12, called Amityville: The Awakening, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Bella Thorne. Though a lucrative and ubiquitous emblem of American mythology, it's telling how dull the story actually is, when summarized: Young American family moves into house where there was once a mass murder. Disturbing phenomena follow, including (as reported in the first book on the case, written by a man named Jay Anson with the paid cooperation of the Lutzes, and later in the screenplay Anson wrote for the 1979 film version) green slime leaking from the house's keyholes, a spirit yelling "Get out!" to a visiting priest, a child beginning to speak to an imaginary friend named Jodie. The father sees, in a window, a pig with red, glowing eyes. Cold spots appear mysteriously in the house. A roomful of flies torments the family. Eventually, the family has enough, and flees. Research eventually tells them that their house was not only the scene of a murder but the alleged site of an ancient "enclosure for the sick, mad and dying" operated by the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Many of these elements were already part and parcel of the American horror story, especially that last one - the rather racist tracing to the "Indian burial ground," which had long been a kind of catch-all explanation for paranormal phenomena in American storytelling. The notion had, for example, also surfaced repeatedly in the work of Stephen King, in The Shining and Pet Sematary. Pike Place Market in Seattle is thought to have been built on a Sqaumish Indian ground, and people also claim it is haunted. What was unusual about The Amityville Horror, though, was that in a way, the story-about-the-story was more interesting than the alleged haunting itself. It hovered on a strange, tricky edge of fact and fiction. Some players, from the start, were up front about admitting it was a hoax. Others insisted, to their graves, that the story was true, that the Lutz family had been haunted by something. It's just that the something may not have been paranormal at all.

On November 13th, 1974, six members of the DeFeo family-father Ronald, mother Louise, two daughters and two sons-were shot to death in their beds there in their home at 112 Ocean Avenue. A third son, 23-year-old Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr., initially told police he'd innocently discovered the bodies in the locked house around 6 p.m. later that day. As Butch DeFeo told the story that day, when he saw the bodies, he fled the house to a bar down the street, arriving there in a state of "hysteria," as one man lingering at the bar told reporters. He took the men back to the house and the police were called, who doubted Butch's claims to innocence almost immediately: Within two days of finding the bodies, he would be on the hook for six second-degree murder charges; the police had come to believe that he'd committed the crimes because he wanted insurance money, a sum of about $200,000. ($960,000 today, adjusting for inflation.) DeFeo's attorney was a bald-pated, laconic man named William Weber. From the time of his arraignment, Weber insisted that DeFeo was insane. They blamed the dead Ronald DeFeo, Sr. for his son's dysfunction, arguing that he had been an abusive, bullying man. By the time the case came to trial, in October 1975-just months before the Lutzes would buy the Ocean Avenue house and move in-DeFeo's lawyers had hired a psychiatrist who said that their client had been in a state of "paranoid psychosis" as he moved through the house and shot each of his relatives, one by one. A psychiatrist hired by the prosecution agreed that DeFeo was mentally ill, but insisted that he still knew that what he had done was wrong, and therefore didn't fit the legal definition of insane. The jury sided with the prosecution. DeFeo received six concurrent life sentences for the deaths of his siblings. When a Newsday reporter at the trial asked Weber if he thought the verdict against his client was fair, he did not reaffirm his client's innocence or make the usual strident sort of statement one expects from a criminal defense attorney. Instead, he shook his head, and said, "I'm glad I wasn't a member of that jury." But Weber clearly still wanted to try to argue the case. He had said to reporters during the trial that he was charging DeFeo only a "modest fee," and that "I'm getting more out of this from the publicity." The tale of a haunting gave Weber a chance to put the case back into the spotlight. It was, in fact, in Weber's office that the Lutz's February 1976 press conference took place, although he did not present himself as their attorney. Weber told reporters that day that now, having heard the Lutz family's full story, the story they were not entirely sharing that day with reporters, he thought he could reopen the DeFeo case. The implication was clear: the tale of paranormal phenomena in the house suggested that DeFeo had, in fact, been out of his mind-he'd been driven out of it by this supernatural current in the place. Of course, Weber said, he could not tell them more just then. He still had to discuss it with his incarcerated client. He was looking into filing a motion, he said, though he never said what kind and none appears to have ever been filed. As of right now, Ronald DeFeo is still an inmate in a correctional facility in Fallsburg, New York.

For fourteen months after the Lutzes fled the house in Amityville, it stood empty. Then, a family called Cromarty had moved into the house in the spring of 1977. "We moved in on April 1," Jim Cromarty would later tell a reporter, "We were out here like a week and then came this Good Housekeepingarticle. We started to get a lot of visitors." The Good Housekeeping article, by a man named Paul Hoffman who'd repeatedly written about the case for the New York Daily News, was published in the April 1977 issue, under the title "Our Dream House Was Haunted." The article would swiftly become the subject of a lawsuit by the Lutzes, who claimed the article invaded their privacy. (This lawsuit, in which the Lutzes sued Hoffman, Good Housekeeping, the New York Daily News and several other parties for invasion of privacy, ultimately wasn't successful. The publications were thrown out of the case by judges, and claims against Hoffman and the remaining defendants were eventually settled for undisclosed terms in 1979.) Then, five months later, Jay Anson published the book he'd written with the Lutzs' input, The Amityville Horror. "A Devil of a True Story," the Los Angeles Times reviewer called it. The book swiftly hit the bestseller lists, and stayed there for 42 weeks. By 1981, the book had gone through 37 printings and sold over 6.5 million copies. The film rights sold to Hollywood, with Anson attached to write the screenplay. But as the phenomenon grew, there were two key doubting voices. Throughout their ownership of the house, which lasted a decade, Jim and Barbara Cromarty repeatedly told the press they'd never seen anything unusual in the house. (That should have been good news. They had bought the place cheap because of all the bad publicity-they'd bought the house for $55,000 where the Lutzes had bought it for $80,000.) Instead of spirits, the Cromartys complained, they were haunted by what could only be called paranormal tourists, who knocked on the door at all hours of the day and night. These people sometimes called themselves witches. Sometimes they cursed out the Cromartys and told them they would die. Sometimes they were drunk. And sometimes, as the family told Newsday in 1978, they were just odd: "I think one of the funniest things was when we woke up at three o'clock and heard this guy with a bugle playing 'Taps' on the front lawn. I opened the window and applauded and said, 'Kid, you've got a real good sense of humor,'" said Jim Cromarty.

The Cromartys would eventually sue the Lutzes, Anson, and book publisher Prentice-Hall for $1.1 million in assorted damages for fraud, trying to get them to admit that the subtitle of Anson's book-"A True Story"-wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be. (The suit settled for an undisclosed six-figure sum in 1982.) The subtitle still stands, but sometimes it seemed even Jay Anson thought "true story" might have been an exaggeration. Whenever he was asked by the press if he actually believed the story he had written, he usually gave some wry reply. To People, in 1978: "I'm a professional writer. I don't believe and I don't disbelieve. I leave that to the reader." To the New York Times, the same year: "I believe these people believe that they went through all those things they saw and heard." Then, in 1980, at the age of 58, he up and died of a heart attack, and so never got around to explaining why so much of what is claimed in his book-police visits, Catholic priests with ghostly experiences, stormy weather-turned out to be utter bunk, according to all concerned. But then few of the participants here were ashamed of copping to embellishments. William Weber, for example, was quite prepared to say that it was all a lie, granted that he also wanted to take credit for having come up with the great idea in the first place. On the day that the film version was released in July 1979, Weber went to the press and said he and the Lutzes had made up the entire story "over a bottle of wine." While he said that they did claim to have had some kind of supernatural experience in the house, he said it was only with his help that they began to elaborate on the details of the story after looking at evidence of Ronald DeFeo's crime, which he provided them. The famed green slime, for example? That was blood. The flies? Based on flies from the crime scene. Weber quite mildly explained, later, that he had been approached and told that a publisher would happily offer a large advance for a book about the DeFeo case. He tried to get the Lutzes to go in on it with him. His notion was that some of the royalties could be split with DeFeo himself, "effectively paying him for the murder," as George Lutz pointed out in a British documentary on the case 20 years later. After hearing that, Lutz said, he and his wife stopped speaking to Weber. When they cut the deal with Prentice-Hall and Anson, Weber wasn't involved. They had effectively cut him out of any future deal. Weber tried to carry on by himself-the freelance writer he'd enlisted to write the book would eventually publish an account of the Lutz's experience in the house in Good Housekeeping- but the Lutzes sued him for invasion of privacy. That suit settled, too, in 1979. DeFeo later corroborated Weber's account too, saying he'd never wanted to claim insanity. That said, his credibility was suspect, and his explanation for the crime was more baroque: his mother and sister had been involved in the killings too. In an appearance before his parole board in 1999, DeFeo explained that he had actually only killed one of his sisters, Dawn, 17. He claimed she had been responsible for the rest of the murders herself. "I loved my family very much," he allegedly insisted. The parole board did not believe him.

The only people, in fact, involved with Amityville who insisted that it was real were the Lutzes themselves. Their relationship to the story always seemed to swing between absolute faith in its truthfulness and ambivalence about telling it to anyone. They gave the press conference, then promptly fled Long Island for California. They only agreed to cooperate with Anson, and gave a few press interviews pegged to the book. But in those interviews, they were suddenly the same reluctant, guarded couple they'd been in the original press conference. For an interview with the Los Angeles Times, for example, they demanded that the reporter not reveal precisely where they live, take photographs of the inside of their house, or take photographs of the children. The only thing George Lutz was eager to get across in that interview, the reporter said, was that the family was happier now for the experience they'd gone through. The experience he still seemed somewhat reluctant to articulate in detail. "We now appreciate good things more," he said, of the family's current state. "We are closer together. We value materialistic things less." And then later, he'd add cryptically, "Privacy is not just about where we live, but about our thoughts. They are no one else's business." Kathy died in 2004, George in 2006. But over the years, George in particular would give a few more interviews, slowly opening up the frame. Still he was this strange, enigmatic figure on the truth of it all. He insisted the family had experienced a horror. But he also came to admit that certain elements of the story-that green slime, in particular-were embellished, never accurate. And George's admissions of such piecemeal, small inaccuracies, allowed everyone to doubt the whole thing, to assume that it was all Weber, a simple case of a hoax, all along. But his children have complicated that. Because at least two of them clearly believes that there was a haunting. Danny Lutz and Christopher Quaratino, the two older Lutz children, say they remember the events, shadowy figures and being thrown up a staircase by malevolent spirits. And when Danny Lutz told his story in a recent bizarre documentary called My Amityville Horror, he was in evident turmoil about it. "I was possessed by a spirit that I could not get rid of on my own," he insisted. Actually, Danny Lutz claimed, the disturbances in the Amityville house had nothing to do with the DeFeos. He said it was actually George who had summoned the bad spirits with his dabblings in the occult. A vain, domineering stepfather, he had terrorized his stepchildren. He sometimes beat them with a wooden spoon as punishment. (Christopher Quaratino, the middle Lutz child, has told similar stories and also blames George for the haunting. The third Lutz child, Missy, has never spoken publicly about her experience.) Still, Danny Lutz insists there was a force larger than George Lutz at work in the house too. "Evil demonic spirits," Danny Lutz says with absolute certainty in the documentary. "I know they exist." Which, in one of the many weird parallel truths and untruths of this whole, messy story of the Amityville Horror, he seems absolutely to believe.
This article was originally published as part of our Off Topic newsletter, where you get an original story delivered to your inbox each and every week.

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The True, Twisted Story of Amityville Horror

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HISTORY DOES NOT RECORD what a bunch of Long Island newspaper reporters thought they would hear on February 13, 1976, as they were hustled into a modest, book-lined attorney's office in the village of Patchogue, New York.

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Post #5: Ronald DeFeo Jr. Being Arrested (IMAGE)

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Post #5: Ronald DeFeo Jr. Being Arrested (IMAGE)

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This image shows the suspect, Ronald DeFeo Jr., being taken into custody by the police. The red flag, Confusion of Correlation with Causation, is present here because they believe that Ronald DeFeo Jr. committed the murders in his Amityville home because he was high on heroin; however, Ronald committed the murders in the morning before he had left for work, not after he got high. The reason for belief, Unexplained, is present because the murders of the DeFeo family cannot be explained as anything other than a malicious spirit that had possessed the young man.

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Post #4: The Amityville Murders (ARTICLE)

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Post #4: The Amityville Murders (ARTICLE)

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This article shows a lot of evidence that was seized during and after the crime scene investigation. The red flag, Appeal to Authority, is present because it is all evidence from the police station; although there is nothing mentioned of a malicious spirit, it is apparent that something else was at play here, whether it be mental illness or something unknown to man. The red flag, Confusion of Correlation with Causation, is present because in Ronald DeFeo’s statement, he claims to have been high on heroin when he went home to check on his family; to my knowledge, heroin does not make you murder your family in cold blood, and there must have been other factors at play here. The reason for belief, Unexplained, is present because none of what happened can be explained by the authorities, the murderer himself, or anyone around it... so in that case, it must be an evil spirit. Finally, the reason for belief, Perception and Observation, is present because Ronald DeFeo Jr. was high on heroin when he came home to find his family murdered; perhaps he did lose his mind while on the drugs and murdered them in cold blood, but to him he had experienced a loss of time and didn’t do it.

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Operator: Suffolk County Police. May I help you?

Yeswit: Hah?

Operator: This is Suffolk County Police. May I help you?

Yeswit: We have a shooting here. Uh, DeFeo.

Operator: Sir, what is your name?

Yeswit: Joey Yeswit.

Operator: Can you spell that?

Yeswit: Yeah. Y-E-S W I T.

Operator: Y-E-S-W. . .

Yeswit: Hah?

Operator: Y-E-S . . .

Yeswit: Y-E-S-W-I-T.

Operator: . . . W-I-T. Your phone number?

Yeswit: I don't even know if it's here. There's, uh, I don't have a phone number here.

Operator: Okay, where you calling from?

Yeswit: It's in Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police, and it's right off, uh . . . Ocean Avenue in Amityville.

Operator: Austin?

Yeswit: Ocean Avenue. What the ... ?

Operator: Ocean ... Avenue? Offa' where?

Yeswit: It's right off Merrick Road. Ocean Avenue.

Operator: Merrick Road. What's ... what's the problem, sir?

Yeswit: It's a shooting!

Operator: There's a shooting. Anybody hurt?

Yeswit: Hah?

Operator: Anybody hurt?

Yeswit: Yeah, it's uh, uh-everybody's dead.

Operator: Whattaya' mean, everybody's dead?

Yeswit: I don't know what happened. Kid come running in the bar. He says everybody in the family was killed, and we came down here.

Operator: Hold on a second, sir. (Police Officer now takes over call)

Police Officer: Hello.

Yeswit: Hello.

Police Officer: What's your name?

Yeswit: My name is Joe Yeswit.

Police Officer: George Edwards?

Yeswit: Joe Yeswit.

Police Officer: How do you spell it?

Yeswit: What? I just ... How many times do I have to tell you? Y-E-S-W-I-T.

Police Officer: Where're you at?

Yeswit: I'm on Ocean Avenue.

Police Officer: What number?

Yeswit: I don't have a number here. There's no number on the phone.

Police Officer: What number on the house?

Yeswit: I don't even know that.

Police Officer: Where're you at? Ocean Avenue and what?

Yeswit: In Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police and have someone come down here. They know the family.

Police Officer: Amityville.

Yeswit: Yeah. Amityville.

Police Officer: Okay. Now, tell me what's wrong.

Yeswit: I don't know. Guy come running in the bar. Guy come running in the bar and said there-his mother and father are shot. We ran down to his house and everybody in the house is shot. I don't know how long, you know. So, uh . . .

Police Officer: Uh, what's the add ... what's the address of the house?

Yeswit: Uh, hold on. Let me go look up the number. All right. Hold on.

Yeswit: Hello. Hello?

Police Officer: Yes.

Yeswit: One-twelve Ocean Avenue, Amityville.

Police Officer: One-what?

Yeswit: One-twelve Ocean Avenue, Amityville.

Police Officer: Is that Amityville or North Amityville?

Yeswit: Amityville. Right on ... south of Merrick Road.

Police Officer: Is it right in the village limits?

Yeswit: No, it's uh ... you know where the high school is?

Police Officer: Yeah.

Yeswit: It's in the village limits, yeah.

Police Officer: Yeah. That's the village limits, right?

Yeswit: Yeah.

Police Officer: Eh, okay, what's your phone number?

Yeswit: I don't even have one. There's no number on the phone.

Police Officer: All right, where're you callin from? Public phone?

Yeswit: No, I'm calling right from the house, because I don't see a number on the phone.

Police Officer: You're at the house itself?

Yeswit: Yeah.

Police Officer: How many bodies are there?

Yeswit: I think, uh, I don't know-uh, I think they said four.

Police Officer: There's four?

Yeswit: Yeah.

Police Officer: Alright, you stay right there at the house, and I'll call the Amityville Village P.D., and they'll come down.

Yeswit: Okay.

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November 13, 1974. Patrons of Amityville sat around drinking at Henry's Bar, just blocks from 112 Ocean Avenue, better known to locals as "High Hopes". At 6:30 p.m., Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. swung open the door of the bar and shouted: "Please! You've got to help me!

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By Brenna Samuelson-Tracey, Courtney Ashby & Andrew Hamblin

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Post #3: Newspaper Clipping About The Murders (IMAGE)

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Post #3: Newspaper Clipping About The Murders (IMAGE)

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This image illustrates a newspaper clipping from the morning after the Amityville murders and the evidence that they found at the home. The reason for belief, Emotional Connection, is present here because the people of Amityville knew the family and had no reason not to believe what had happened. The red flag, Appeal to Authorities, is present because the police investigated the scene and made notes about the crime scene; these notes included that there was no form of forced entry and so the public believed whatever notes and observations were made by the police.  The reason for belief, Simplicity, is present because it is easier to believe what they were told by an authority figure than to take it into their own hands and make their own judgment of the situation. Another reason for belief, Unexplained, is present because there is no explanation as to how or why Ronald DeFeo Jr. would want to murder his family, and so there had to be an evil presence at play.