The DeFeo family were murdered inside their Amityville home in 1974. What happened to them formed a 'cottage industry' horror franchise
Six members of the DeFeo family were found dead inside their Amityville home in November 1974.
When the DeFeo family went to bed for a final time on November 12, 1974, their deaths would form a new chapter of American folklore.
They had lived in their family home in Amityville, New York, for almost a decade.
The home — built in the 1920s — included a swimming pool, a boat house, and a statue of St Joseph and baby Jesus in the front yard.
The two big windows set into the side of the home at 112 Ocean Avenue seemed to stare down at onlookers.
Inside, Ronald DeFeo Sr and his wife Louise slept in the master bedroom on the second floor.
Down the hall were their younger sons, 12-year-old Marc and nine-year-old John.
The DeFeo family called 112 Ocean Avenue home for almost a decade.
Marc had suffered a serious injury during the football season just gone, and needed crutches and a wheelchair, which sat beside his bed.
In another room, the walls of 13-year-old Allison DeFeo's bedroom were plastered with a pattern of pink and yellow flowers, with a little TV set balanced on the dresser by the bed.
Upstairs the room belonging to her older sister, 18-year-old Dawn, a toy monkey sat on the chair in the corner, near the window overlooking the backyard.
The sign by the front path read "High Hopes".
It would go on to become one of the most well-known "haunted" houses in the United States.
A multi-million-dollar movie franchise, books, podcasts, documentaries and more would follow in the five decades to come.
But that night in 1974, there were only six members of a sleeping family, eight gunshots, and one howling dog.
'Everybody in the house is shot'
The terrible incident unfolding inside the DeFeo home would go unknown by the outside world until the following night.
Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr, the family's oldest son, ran into a bar about 800 metres from the house, telling friends inside he had found his parents dead.
The 23-year-old led them back. One, Joey Yeswit, called the Suffolk County Police to report the incident.
"Call up the Amityville Police and have someone come down here. They know the family," he told them, according to transcripts of the 911 call.
"Guy come running in the bar and said … his mother and father are shot. We ran down to his house and everybody in the house is shot."
Ronald Sr, Louise, Marc, John, Allison and Dawn were all found lying in their beds, face down, tucked under the covers.
Each had been shot dead.
A 12-year-old neighbour said she had woken up at 3am by the sound of the family dog.
Butch DeFeo said he had gone to the home just after 6pm on Wednesday and found his parents' bodies before alerting the bar patrons.
Police testified in court that when first arrested Butch DeFeo claimed "the mob killed his family", alleging links to organised crime.
The DeFeo family, according to reporting at the time, had been linked to the Vito Genovese crime family.
One of the units called in to investigate initially was the Suffolk County Organized Crime Control Bureau.
But only hours later, Butch DeFeo would be charged with murdering his family.
The 'tight-knit' family and the 'deteriorating' relationships
Reporting at the time did not paint a positive picture of Butch DeFeo in contrast to his "otherwise tight-knit" family.
Jack Altshul, reporting on the case for Newsday's Nassau edition in the days following the arrest, described Butch DeFeo as "a drug user" who showed little remorse.
Ronald "Butuch" DeFeo, seen in 1974.
"If Ronnie DeFeo is indeed the murderer, what chain of circumstances could have provided the rationale for destroying his entire family?" Mr Altshul wrote.
"Is it to be found in his background, dotted with evidence that he was already on a course of wasting his own life?"
Butch DeFeo was questioned for more than 30 hours by police.
At trial, according to reports at the time, witnesses testified to a "deteriorating relationship" between Butch DeFeo and his parents.
A nine-year-old boy told the court he had witnessed a fistfight between Butch DeFeo and his father in the days before the killings.
Butch DeFeo's legal team argued he had been interrogated for "30 straight hours without sleep or food" before making his confession.
They claimed Butch DeFeo was suffering a mental break and was not competent when the killings occurred.
His lawyer, William Weber, told media the killings were "an act of insanity".
"The only proper sentence in this case is that he be confined for life in a mental institution, but the court cannot impose that sentence," he said.
"I would urge some mercy for him because now he is an animal, but in 10 or 15 years he may be rehabilitated and possibly make a contribution to society."
In November 1975 he was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison.
What really happened inside 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville?
The case would prove to be one of the longest murder trials in Suffolk County. In many ways, it never ended.
Some, including author and researcher Ric Osuna, have devoted much of their life to researching and documenting every aspect of the murders in an attempt to uncover exactly what happened that November night.
"When I was six years old, my mum and sister were reading the paperback version of The Amityville Horror," he told the ABC.
"And I remember the house with the windows and the demonic font, and I was like, 'Wow, this house looks like it's looking at me.'
"I [started the website] just to do something historical and something that interests me, but I had no idea it would lead me to meet the Lutzes, the DeFeos' surviving relatives."
As part of his research, Mr Osuna interviewed both Butch DeFeo and his wife, Geraldine DeFeo.
On one occasion, he said, he even paid a former court reporter for physical copies of trial transcripts and court documents out of his own pocket.
"It really boils down to the father being very abusive and the children, Butch DeFeo and his sister [Dawn], wanting out," he said.
"The story that Butch told me was that his sister was the instigator of the murders.
"I did interview her then-boyfriend and he [said], 'She would have gone to Florida to be with me, even if the devil was driving the car. She would have done anything to get out of the house.'
"What I can say is that I did a lot of research and, you know, Butch DeFeo was a known liar when I wrote my book.
"Anything that went into my book had to have some type of reference note, whether it was a legal document, statement, something."
He added alleged police corruption, incompetence and potential outside involvement might also have muddied the waters when it came to understanding what happened.
"The true story to me, I think it shows the gravity of human evil," he said.
An affidavit given by Dawn's then-boyfriend, William Davidson, also referenced abuse in the family.
However, other neighbours and friends of the family at the time reported that the family were normal, churchgoing, good people.
Their funeral — all six caskets in a neat row — was attended by more than 1,000 people.
In a 1999 parole hearing, DeFeo again testified that he remembered having "gotten into an altercation" with Dawn before killing her.
"I was down in the basement with my friend," he said.
"I heard a noise but I didn't know what the noise was … I didn't know that it was a gunshot.
"When I came up to see what it was … the bedroom door was open and my sister's bed was right there and I saw her head and there was a lot of blood.
"There was a pink and white shag rug on the floor. It was Allison.
"The next bedroom had my brothers. I didn't even go in there. I ran up the stairs and [Dawn said], 'Oh my God, Butch, you are not supposed to be here.'"
He added there were "serious family problems" in the house, and that both he and Dawn had wanted to "get out of there".
"I mean, we were like animals," he said.
"We were like dogs on leashes. We were always beat up and abused by my father. I am not making excuses."
The Lutz family and the Amityville 'haunting'
As Butch DeFeo began his multiple life sentences in a New York prison, another chapter of the horror story in Amityville was about to unfold.
George and Kathy Lutz.
In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved into 112 Ocean Avenue with their three children.
Having stood empty for more than a year, they got the three-storey house for a bargain price of $US80,000 ($123,729), or $725,967 in today's currency.
Shortly after they moved in, they claimed, strange things began to happen.
George Lutz, he said, woke up at 3:15am every night. Doors were ripped off their hinges, flies appeared in closed rooms, and their youngest child found a new imaginary friend, a demonic pig she called Jodie.
Four weeks later, they abandoned the house, telling media they were too frightened to return.
Their story was picked up by author Jay Anson, and it was published as The Amityville Horror in 1977.
The book has gone on to sell millions of copies and inspired multiple sequels and films.
Among them is the 1979 movie The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin, which became one of the highest-grossing independent films and one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time, according to Forbes magazine.
A remake in 2005, starring Ryan Reynolds, made more than $US167 million worldwide.
Multiple lawsuits plagued the Lutz family following the book.
Butch DeFeo's lawyer, William Weber, wrote in People magazine in 1979 that he, George Lutz and Kathy Lutz had orchestrated the horror story "over many bottles of wine".
Various owners who have lived in the house have reported no supernatural activity.
The franchise, now made up of more than 30 films, has come to represent a kind of "double-edged sword" for those interested in the 1974 murders.
"To be honest with you, nobody would even care today, sadly, if it wasn't for The Amityville Horror," Mr Osuna said.
"It's kind of a double-edged sword, right? It keeps the story alive, but at the end of the day, if [the franchise] didn't build upon the DeFeo murders, the case would have slipped into obscurity long ago.
"[But] six people had to die for it and … I want to make sure people understand that any time you watch an Amityville Horror franchise movie, you're ignoring the fact that six human beings died.
"It's not a haunted house. It was the scene of tragic, tragic, grizzly murders.
"When you start peeling through all the information, it's nothing to do with the supernatural. It's more a sad case of humanity, a lack of humanity."
'No matter how you approach the case, six human beings died'
Butch DeFeo died in prison on March 12, 2021, aged 69 years old.
Both Kathy and George Lutz passed away during the early 2000s.
The final instalment in the Amityville film series to appear in theatres, 2017's Amityville: The Awakening, made just $US742 domestically.
112 Ocean Avenue has been sold four different times in the years since the DeFeo murders — most recently it sold for $US605,000 in 2017.
What happened inside the house in the early hours of November 13 may never be entirely clear.
But decades on, the DeFeo family case has found its resurgence in the true crime sphere, capturing a new audience via podcasts and YouTube videos.
"No matter how you approach the case, six human beings died," Mr Osuna said.
"Three of them were children. It may have been 50 years ago, but [they] died and these children didn't get to live their life.
"It's a horrific, horrific crime.
"The second thing I would hope to take away is that there is no doubt that abuse played a hand in this.
"Abuse is something that needs to be reported … The big takeaway nowadays is, if you see it, report it.
"That would have saved that entire family."
By：ABC(责任编辑：admin)
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