AMITYVILLE

Opening

In the early hours of 13 November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr., 23, shot dead his parents and four younger brothers and sisters as they slept in the family's Dutch Colonial house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville, Long Island. He was convicted of six murders a year later.

In December 1975 George and Kathy Lutz bought the house and moved in with Kathy's three children. Twenty-eight days later they left, saying the house had driven them out. Their story became Jay Anson's bestselling 1977 book The Amityville Horror and a hit 1979 film. The murders are a court record. The haunting has been disputed almost from the start.

Timeline

13 November 1974The DeFeo family are shot with a rifle in their beds. Ronald DeFeo Jr. raises the alarm at a nearby bar, then confesses.

21 November 1975DeFeo is convicted of six counts of second-degree murder.

4 December 1975He is sentenced to six terms of 25 years to life.

18 December 1975The Lutzes move into the house, bought for $80,000, according to the book.

14 January 1976They leave, taking little with them. They later describe swarms of flies, cold spots, voices, green slime and a priest told to "get out".

14 to 16 February 1976Newsday first reports their story. Two days later the Lutzes hold a press conference, at the offices of DeFeo's former lawyers.

6 March 1976Ed and Lorraine Warren hold a night investigation in the empty house with a TV crew.

March 1977James and Barbara Cromarty buy the house for $55,000. They later sue the Lutzes, the author and the publisher over the stream of sightseers.

May 1977The Lutzes sue several parties, including William Weber.

13 September 1977Jay Anson's book is published.

1979The film opens, starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder. In June the Lutzes take a polygraph test arranged for television. That September, DeFeo's former lawyer, William Weber, tells People magazine that he and the Lutzes made up the story. Judge Jack B. Weinstein dismisses the Lutzes' case against Weber and others.

2002 to 2005George Lutz registers "The Amityville Horror" as a trademark. A remake of the film is released in 2005. Lutz sues its makers for libel and breach of contract in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying it shows him doing things he never did. How the suit ended has not been clearly reported; he dies the following year.

August 2010The house sells for $950,000.

2012The documentary My Amityville Horror follows Daniel Lutz, one of Kathy's sons, who still says the haunting was real.

12 March 2021Ronald DeFeo Jr. dies in prison.

Key figures

The DeFeo family were the victims: Ronald Sr. and Louise, and their children Dawn, Allison, Marc and John Matthew.

George and Kathy Lutz told the haunting story and stood by it until their deaths, Kathy in 2004 and George in 2006.

Jay Anson wrote the book from the Lutzes' taped recollections. William Weber, DeFeo's defence lawyer, had hoped a haunting could help his client's appeal. Father Ralph Pecoraro, the "Father Mancuso" of the book, later said he was slapped by an unseen force in the house.

Physical and documentary trail

The trail: the police investigation and trial record of the DeFeo murders; the Lutzes' purchase and departure; Anson's book; Weber's statements; the court record of the lawsuits; and the Warrens' photographs.

Still missing: any independent record of the haunting from the 28 days themselves. No police report shows the Lutzes calling for help, though the book and film suggest they did.

I know this book is a hoax. We created this horror story over many bottles of wine.

Things you might not know

• The next owners saw nothing. The Cromartys said nothing weird ever happened in the house, apart from people coming by because of the book and the film.
• There was no snow. The book describes cloven hoofprints in the snow on 1 January 1976. Weather records show there was no snow that day.
• The windows were changed. The two quarter-round attic windows that made the house look like a jack-o'-lantern were later replaced, and the address was changed from 112 to 108 Ocean Avenue to put off sightseers.
• The judge had views on the lawyers. Weinstein said there is a very serious ethical question when lawyers become literary agents.
• The press conference was at the killer's lawyers' office. In February 1976 the Lutzes told reporters their story at the offices of DeFeo's former legal team.
• The story was trademarked. George Lutz registered "The Amityville Horror" as a trademark in 2002.
• Kathy's son doubts it. Christopher Quaratino Lutz has said his stepfather exaggerated what happened to make money, though he also says some odd things did occur.
• Nobody heard the shots. No neighbour reported hearing a rifle fired six times in the night, which fed decades of theories about the murders too.

Competing explanations

A real haunting. The Lutzes never changed their story, passed a lie detector test arranged for a TV programme, and left a house they had just bought. The priest's account supports them. And Weber is not a neutral witness: he had offered the Lutzes a book deal of his own, they chose Jay Anson instead, and his "hoax" statement came in 1979 while he was countersuing them for about $2 million.

A story built for money. Weber's admission, the book deal under way while they were still in the house, the weather that doesn't match, the missing police reports, and owners afterwards who found nothing.

Something in between. A frightened family in a house where six people had just been murdered, under money pressure, whose real unease was turned into a much bigger story by the book.

Later life of the case

Amityville is the most famous haunted house in America and has spawned more than a dozen films. The house itself has been sold several times, including for $950,000 in 2010, and is a private home. Kathy's sons disagree to this day: Christopher doubts much of it, while Daniel insists it was real.

Finding

The DeFeo murders are fact, settled in court. The haunting is not: the main supporting evidence is the Lutzes' own account, and the strongest evidence against it comes from the lawyer who says he helped invent it and from details in the book that the records contradict.

What still will not resolve: what, if anything, the Lutz family actually experienced in those 28 days, before the story was written.