A Little Debunking

This article in the San Francisco Chronicle might have done with some fact checking:

"This much is fact: The three-story, six-bedroom Dutch Colony-style house was at 112 Ocean Ave. in the village of Amityville on Long Island. At the end of the paved driveway was a small sign: "High Hopes." On Nov. 13, 1974, at 3: 15 a.m., 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot to death all the members of his family: his father, Ronald; his mother, Louise; his sisters Dawn and Allison; and his brothers, Mark and John. No one in the neighborhood ever reported hearing the rifle shots. Defeo claimed that he had heard voices urging him to commit the murders and that a "shadow ghost" had been beside him as he pulled the trigger. He was sentenced to life -- and remains in prison today. The next owners of the house -- George and Kathy Lutz and their three children - - moved in on Dec. 18, 1975. Oddly, George Lutz resembled DeFeo in the way that his hair, mustache and beard were shaped. The couple fled from the house 28 days later, leaving all their possessions behind."

No one heard rifle shots because it was 3am and the houses on that block aren't all that close together. Someone was shot in my neighborhood once. It was 2am, and I heard seven quick pops from what turned out to be an AK-47. The pops sounded like they might have been shots, but I wasn't sure until the next day when a KING 5 cameraman told me what all the police activity was about. If I'd been asleep, I doubt the shots would have stirred me.

DeFeo's story actually changed several times during the investigation. His first story had him awake between 2 and 4am, watching a movie on TV. He heard his brother in the bathroom around four. He showered and got ready for work. He arrived at his father's car dealership around 6am, unusally early for DeFeo, who never took work seriously. At noon, he left to fart around with his friends. They mall-walked and drank. During the day, DeFeo, or Butch as he was known, called home several times, expressing worry about what happened to his family. That evening, Butch ran into a bar, screaming that his family had been killed. He told police that a mob-connected family associate named Falini might have committed the crime sometime during the afternoon in furtherance of theft.

This story unravelled quickly. Butch had successfully disposed of the murder weapon and shell casings by depositing them in a storm drain, but the shipping box for the .35 Marlin rifle was still in his room. Also, the police quickly realized that because the entire family died in their beds still wearing their bed clothes, it was unlikely that Butch's story of a late-morning or afternoon killing was true.

Butch quickly changed his story, claiming that Falini and another man whom Butch couldn't describe woke him up at 3am and took him from room to room and made him watch them shoot his family. After Falini left, Butch disposed of the rifle and shell casings. This story had a some obvious problems. Why would the killers leave Butch alive? Why would the killers bother taking him from room to room instead of shooting him along with the others? Why would people intent on mass murder arrive at the house unarmed? How did they know Butch DeFeo owned a weapon? And, even more problematic: why would Butch Defeo, having just witnessed the murder of his family and having just been left alone, do the killers the favor of concealing the rifle and shell casings?

Butch's final story, that voices told him to kill, was part of an unsuccessful insanity defense--unsuccessful largely because of DeFeo's poor acting ability. This had been a problem for him before.

Butch DeFeo and his father had long had a violent relationship, and Butch had threatened to kill the old man several times. Butch, in his early twenties, lived off an allowance his father gave him. (His father also bought him a car and a speedboat.) He didn't feel he was getting enough, however, so he concocted a scheme to augment his bank account. He was sometimes trusted with depositing the money from his father's dealership in the bank. A couple of weeks before the murders, Butch was handed $21,000 in cash and checks for deposit. Butch arranged to have a friend pretend to rob him, then they spent the next couple of hours divvying up the proceeds. Neither the cops nor Butch's father bought the story. After all, why would a man who'd been mugged and lost thousands of dollars wait two hours to call the police? Butch's father confronted Butch with the story. Butch's response was almost boilerplate in the family, "I'm gonna kill you."

And so he did. No ghosts or goblins. No hokey gates to hell or flying pigs. All we have here is a greedy, psychopathic young man who murdered his family for the money.

As for the Lutzs, well, guess how scared they were of this supposedly evil house. Three days after George Lutz abandoned the house from hell, he returned to hold a garage sale on the property. Several families have lived in the house in the thirty years since the murders. None of them have suffered from anything worse than having idiot tourists banging on their door in search of demons. Lutz's story has turned out to be utter balderdash, though it's still good for a sweeps week ratings goose for "20/20" or "History's Mysteries". While the Lutzs may have been creeped out by living in the murder house, the real scare came in the form of bills. They'd overextended themselves buying the huge Dutch Colonial. The heating system worked poorly and needed to be replaced. (This explains the cold spots they reported.) And New York State property taxes had forced others to sell the property over the years. Essentially, the Lutzs gave the house back to the bank.

You can read all about the DeFeo crime here.

You can read about the Amityville Horror Hoax here.