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Taken from this site.
This is a photograph that was taken the night of the paranormal investigation that was set up by a television station who invited many different mediums and psychics in hopes of catching something supernatural on camera. On the left, just above the bannister in the doorway, there is a boy's head who is speculated to be the spirit of the murdered John DeFeo. A red flag for this image is Confirmation Bias as this was taken in the home where the boy was murdered, the young girl who lived there said she had an invisible friend who played with her, and upon seeing this image later said that the boy looked like her playmate - with all of this information it is easy to play into what could already be believed about this home. A reason for belief for this photograph is Unexplained because there were apparently no children present at all during the investigation when the picture was taken and there is no logical explanation why there should be a child in the picture, leaving the mind open to draw its own conclusions. Though there are photographs available from the same roll of the images taken before and after this one, I do believe that this may have been altered in some way. It would have been hard to do since applications such as Photoshop did not exist back then but they did have other ways of tricking cameras.

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Answers to the reflective discussion questions.

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The Real Amityville Horror (Full Documentary)

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2005 Nobles Gate Production Narrated by Zoë Wanamaker Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

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The following is a short run-down of the events the way the Lutzes have said they occurred.

During the summer of 1975, George and Kathleen Lutz went to visit 112 Ocean Avenue, a beautiful three story Dutch Colonial set on the Amityville riverside.

"We looked at about 50 homes over the months that we decided to combine the households," says George in a 2005 interview. "When she (the realtor) showed it to us she said, 'I don't know if I should tell you now or after you've seen the house, but this was the house that the DeFeo murders took place in.' We kind of looked at each other like we weren't sure what she was talking about. And then she reminded us about Ronald DeFeo having killed his whole family -- it had been in the newspapers about a year before."

After taking time to discuss the matter over with their children, George and Kathy decided to purchase 112 Ocean Avenue, feeling they could live with it's tragic past. The Lutz family was set to move in on December 18, 1975.

Due to the property's grim reputation, a friend of George's suggests the house should be blessed by a Catholic priest. "I was a Methodist, so this was new and foreign to me at the time.", recalls George. "Father Ray showed up shortly after we were in the process of moving in. I waved, he waved, and he went on in the house and went about blessing it. When he was done, I tried to pay him but he wouldn't take money. He said, 'No, you don't charge for this, and you don't charge friends for this.' I thought that was a very kind thing to say, and then he said, 'You know, I felt something really strange in that one upstairs bedroom,' and he described the bedroom. And we said that's what we were going to use as a sewing room. We weren't going to use it as a bedroom. He said, 'That's good, as long as no one sleeps in there.' And that's all he said, and he left."

Strange occurrences began almost immediately. Cold spots were discovered in random spots throughout the house. Eerie vibes pervaded the atmosphere. Jolting sounds would wake the family during the night. The escalating chain of events took their toll on the Lutzes, resulting in drastic personality changes. George, who began to seclude himself from the family, obsessed over the fireplace that never seemed to warm him enough.

Kathy also began to undergo a series of unnerving events. On more than one occasion, she described being touched by an unseen person. And most dramatically, Kathy claims that after waking from a deep sleep, her face was that of an old hag that took hours to dissipate.

Even the Lutz children began to argue more than usual, resulting in terrible beatings from their parents. The youngest child, Missy, described speaking to "an angel" that was living in her room. This angel, Missy claims, was named 'Jodie'. Jodie was able to present itself as a "large pig" to Missy and change shape and form at will. George and Kathy claimed to have witnessed two red eyes peering in at them from the upstairs bedroom window. Missy believed it was Jodie wanting to come inside.

"I just didn't want to leave the house.", George says. "We would invite people over instead of going to see them. There came a point when we would invite people over to see whether we were crazy or not. Because when our friends sat in the kitchen, they could hear the people walking around upstairs after the kids had been put to bed. We'd all go up and find the kids fast asleep. There was no way it was the kids -- and when your friends confirm that for you, you almost want to break down and say out loud, 'I'm not crazy. They hear it too!' That is such an emotional moment when someone else confirms for you what you're hearing and that it's not just you hearing it -- it's not your imagination."

"Coming back to 112 Ocean Avenue, the families that I found had resided in that dwelling place appeared to have a calamity within each one.", recalls Kathy.

The final night the Lutz family spent in the house was, in George's words, "the reason not to stay there anymore."

"I was lying in bed and everyone was asleep, and Kathy lifts up off the bed and starts to slide away from the bed and away from me," Lutz said. "I feel something get in the bed with us. I'm unable to move, I hear the kids beds continually slamming up and down on the floor and being dragged. We heard these pigeons on the air conditioner top overhead from the master bathroom, and they're fluttering all night long and yet there are no pigeons there the next morning -- or any nest or anything like that. The lights flickered. We brought the dog up to stay right by the bedroom. We tied him right to the doorknob and he's up, going in circles, and throwing up all night.

The boys came down in the morning absolutely frightened. They were unable to get down to me, and I was unable to get up to them. Missy came in and just asked what was that all about? And Kathy had no memory of much of it. That day we spent trying to get a hold of Father Ray, and he said all the right words."

The Lutzes fled the house the following afternoon on January 14, 1976.

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The following is a short run-down of the events the way the Lutzes have said they occurred. During the summer of 1975, George and Kathleen Lutz went to visit 112 Ocean Avenue, a beautiful three story Dutch Colonial set on the Amityville riverside.

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This website is dedicated to the house, that is now famously known as the Amityville Horror house, and to the events that transpired there. The red flag Appeal to Authority is absolutely apparent on the site as there are multiple interviews with several different people and copies of case files on the events of the home, and the red flag Confirmation Bias is relevant as when reading the page for the hauntings there are no links or information about how or why the Amityville Haunting could be false, making it a site for people to find information that they already believe. Ideology, a reason for belief, is clear on the site as there are multiple mentions of religion, exorcising and cleansing of the home, and the idea that there was a demon in the home (demons are a religious belief). This website is missing information (how the Lutz family met with DeFeo's attorney who confirmed facts that only the police would know) and is missing any sort of credentials to show that it is an authoritative source on the subject.

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By Samantha Dean, working individually.

Background image from this site.

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This is a video documentary about the events that took place in the Amityville house, the DeFeo murders and Lutz family, and the media frenzy that followed it including interviews with Ronald DeFeo Jr, George Lutz, Lorraine Warren and more. An example of the red flag Confusion of Correlation with Causation would be when the Lutz family claims that one of their windows opens on its own due to a haunting, but a journalist proves that the window opens seemingly on its own when stepping on a loose floorboard that causes the improperly set counterweights for the window to open it; whereas another red flag, Confirmation Bias, is shown when the Lutz family takes advantage of the mystery surrounding the DeFeo murders and Ronald Jr claiming a black demon handed him the gun, so the family claims several paranormal events occur knowing that there is already a predisposition to the paranormal for the house. A reason for belief in the haunting of the Amityville house would be Agenticity due to many people assuming some invisible demonic or ghostly entities caused the events to unfold, along with the reason for belief Perception and Observation because when the book "The Amityville Horror: A True Story" is published with a picture the daughter drew of the demonic pig that looked into her window at night the neighbours of the Amityville house see the picture and say that it's clearly their cat which Ronald Jr would always call, "the pig," because it was fat. I feel this documentary actually does a decent job exploring both sides of the stories, though I do believe the motivation of the documentary is to exploit the very same media frenzy that it criticizes.

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AUTHOR WELCOME TO THE SITE

Ric Osuna is a professional writer, researcher, and filmmaker. He investigated the DeFeo murders and Amityville case for more than three years to uncover the shocking true story found in his book, The Night the DeFeos Died.

Murder in Amityville

A Night of Hell

On November 13, 1974, police received a report of a homicide at 112 Ocean Avenue, where they discovered six members of the DeFeo family - father, mother and four of their five children - shot and killed execution style. The surviving son, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr., was eventually charged and tried for the murder of his family and is currently serving six concurrent life sentences.

The DeFeo Trial

The Injustice that Followed

During the post-hearing conference, the attorney for the accused explained his investigator's findings-multiple killers, weapons, and accomplices were all present during the commission of the crime. With such an overwhelming amount of evidence, the attorney felt an adjournment was appropriate. It was denied.

The Amityville Horror

Capitalizing on a Tragedy

In 1977, a runaway bestseller titled The Amityville Horror, written by Jay Anson, took the nation by storm. The promotional copies sent out by the publisher, Prentice Hall, hailed it as "the non fiction Exorcist." The cover carried the subtitle of "A True Story".

The Defeos

The Family

Ronald Joseph "Big Ronnie" DeFeo, Sr. was born on November 16, 1930, to parents Rocco and Antoinette DeFeo. When he was younger, Big Ronnie was slender, handsome, and had a powerful gaze reminiscent of Rudolph Valentino's. With his suave looks, he was able to attract the attention of Louise Marie Brigante.

THE INVESTIGATION

Analysis of the Bloody Shoe

Three decades later, author Ric Osuna strips away the mystery surrounding one of the world's most notorious events and provides definitive answers to questions that have been left unanswered over the years about the case.

The story

The True Story of 112 Ocean Avenue

In a 2000 interview with The History Channel, Kathy Lutz claimed that a tragedy befell every family that lived in the DeFeo home. Moreover, Jay Anson's book suggests that the property is cursed because it had once belonged to John Ketcham, a suspected witch, who had fled Salem, Massachusetts before taking up residence in Amityville. But this was a blatant falsehood.

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The Night the Defeos Died, the story of the Amityville hoax

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Ric Osuna is a professional writer, researcher, and filmmaker. He investigated the DeFeo murders and Amityville case for more than three years to uncover the shocking true story found in his book, The Night the DeFeos Died.

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Taken from this site.
This is an image of the Amityville house taken the night when the DeFeo bodies were found after Ronald DeFeo Jr had run into a bar claiming that he had come home to find his family shot. A red flag associated with this event is Red Herring as Ronald DeFeo Jr used the claims of his family having mafia connections to attempt to distract the police from pointing the finger to him as a suspect. A reason for belief associated with this event would be Simplicity and/or Agenticity as it would be much simpler to believe that some supernatural being made Ronald DeFeo Jr kill his family rather than try to make sense of someone just murdering their entire family while they slept. There are many theories out there about what happened that night, the most recent being that the daughter Dawn DeFeo had murdered the family and Ronald Jr had murdered her when he saw what she had done, another being that Dawn and Ronald Jr had conspired to kill their family together with people assuming that she was the dark demon who handed him the gun; however, the evidence is still incomplete as there is no explanation as to how or why the family was able to sleep through several gun shots.

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This website was created and is maintained by Ric Osuna and is dedicated to disproving the paranormal events that are said to have taken place at the Amityville house with pages for the DeFeo murders, the Lutz haunting and other theories. Confirmation Bias is a red flag on this website, only giving one side of the story and not reporting the facts in an unbiased way, allowing for the readers to read only what they want to. Another red flag is Red Herring, with many of the "disproving" claims to be about an apparent Indian burial ground being the reason for any haunting rather than focusing on whether the hauntings actually occurred. A reason for belief on this website is Patternicity  from the writer of the website attempting to find meaning in seemingly innocent things to support conspiracy theories. Another reason for belief is Emotional Connection since the writer uses Ronald DeFeo Jr's account of what had happened as facts, appealing to the sense of frustration and loss rather than logic, rather than police records. Though I appreciate the skepticism apparent on the site, the motivation for all of the website is to promote the writer's book, The Night the DeFeos Died, which is mostly based on the word of Ronald DeFeo Jr. The writer is clearly biased in favour of the person whose story he used for his book. As much as I would like to take this source as credible, it is flawed with conspiracy theories and emotion coming through the writing.

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The Amityville Horror Truth Website examines various topics relating to the Amtiyville haunting.

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

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This is another documentary about the Amityville haunting, describing the events of the DeFeo murders, the Lutz events, and the events afterwards. A few red flags becoming glaringly obvious from this video: Red Herring, when the narrator begins discussing how little the Lutz family had to gain from "ruining their reputation" for telling their story and how they could not have made the story up to get out of their mortgage that they could not afford because they had not even made a mortgage payment yet, another Red Herring when discussing Daniel Lutz's recent revelations saying that he must not be lying because George Lutz had abused him so he would not corroborate the story unless it was true; Appeal to Authority when discussing the court transcript from Ronald DeFeo Jr's case and saying that a doctor saying they were mystified that the family was able to be murdered and not be woken by the gun shots; Mystical Energy when talking about George Lutz and his potential dabbling in the occult, letting some bad energy into the home to begin the events. Reasons for belief apparent in this video are Emotional Connection when talking about how little the Lutz family had, how it had affected them, and generally appealing to the viewer's sympathetic side to try to blur a feeling of sadness with logic; Unexplained when discussing how George and Kathy Lutz are now dead and therefore we will never know the real answers to what happened in the home, making the viewer believe that what happened has no real explanation and they are to come up with their own conclusion. This video is limited in that it is giving false information (the video states that the Lutz family put up the "High Hopes" sign in front of the house because they were hopeful about them home when it was really the DeFeos' sign), the video is biased in that the narrator continuously presents their opinions as facts (the Lutz family would never make up this type of story since it ruined their reputations), it is missing information (George and Kathy Lutz had met with Ronald DeFeo's attorney, Weber, and learned facts that they later used in their story), and the motivation of the video is to promote the new Amityville movie, Amityville: The Awakening.

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Post #10: Good Morning America Interview with George and Kathy Lutz

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Post #10: Good Morning America Interview with George and Kathy Lutz

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Amityville Horror - Good Morning America

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Taken from this site.
This is an image of the famous facade of the Amityville house which has since been altered. A red flag associated with this house is Confusion of Correlation with Causation - due to the events that have unfolded in it, people have now come to assume that the house is haunted and is the reason why horrific things have happened rather than just having unfortunate events occur within it. It just so happened that Ronald DeFeo Jr snapped and murdered his family in the home, and even if playing devil's advocate and saying that there really was a haunting there, it could have been due to the theory of George Lutz taking part in the occult. A reason for belief associated with the home would be Agenticity because it is a common belief that some invisible entity cause terrible things to happen in the home. The DeFeo murders are, in my opinion, rather straightforward; however, the haunting of the Lutz family has plenty of missing/incomplete information (such as why they did not call a plumber to discover why their toilets were turning black), the motivation is seemingly to make money off exploiting the rumours of the paranormal experiences that Ronald DeFeo Jr was claiming, and many people are biased in favour of believing the Lutz family because of how they play on the emotions of others, claiming that they had to leave their home with only the things on their back and never return.

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This is an archived version of George Lutz's Amityville Truth website, since the "official Amityville Horror website" is now taken down, which has articles, interviews, images, and more to support evidence that the Amityville Haunting did occur. A red flag on this website is clearly a type of Proof by Verbosity - though the information is not being spoken out loud the amount of information being given on the website is overwhelming, though not necessarily credible. Again, Confirmation Bias appears on this website as there is only one side to the story given - that the hauntings did occur and anyone who says otherwise should be dismissed. A reason for belief on this website is Agenticity, believing that something invisible and supernatural was able to cause all of the terrors that are being claimed to have happened. This website is obviously biased in favour of George Lutz's story and the motivation of the website was to try to validate his tales.

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This is an interview with George and Kathy Lutz, and actor James Brolin, on the Amityville haunting. Red flags are very apparent in this video, such as Red Herring when asked about why they did not call a plumber to investigate the problem with their toilets (the china of the bowl turning black) and they turn the subject to the colour of the water in the bowl, the changing colour of the china, and a slime-like substance on it to distract from the fact that they did not ask a plumber to come and figure it out; Appeal to Authority is relevant because they had the actor James Brolin, who played George Lutz in the Amityville Horror movie, saying that he believed the Lutz family's story and that he was scared of it. Reasons for belief in this video were Emotional Connection when George and Kathy were attempting to make viewers feel bad for them and believe them when talking about how much they loved that home and did not want to leave it; Simplicity is apparent when discussing the validity of their claims and they offer up very quickly that they had taken a polygraph test and passed, giving the audience an easy answer to believe (that they were correct and being truthful because they had passed a polygraph test); Agenticity is a very obvious reason for belief as the whole story of what happened is based on the belief that something supernatural, an invisible being was terrorizing the family. The motivation of this video is clearly to promote the Amityville Horror movie that was being released - a movie of which the Lutz family would get a percentage of the profit.