Many houses rhyme with horror, but one in particular comes to mind, and we can even see the two croissant windows. Paula talks to us about the history of pop culture in Amityville.

The Address We Can’t Forget

This address has been popularized in movie culture since 1979. Countless movies have been filmed about the incident, and books have been written about its story. This is one address that all crime fans will remember for eternity. It’s similar to how everyone connects to 221B Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes.

I have seen a few movies based on the Amityville incident but did not realize how many films had been released around the fateful night of November 13th, 1974.  

Want to take a stab at how many films have been released? The answer is a whopping twenty-seven films. The first one was filmed in 1979, and the most recent one was filmed in 2017.

I can safely assume that the majority of us all have seen at least a minimum of one of the twenty-seven films about the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville. However, how many of you know the truth about the real story in this house on November 13th, 1974?

The Crime That Made Amityville Who She Is

When the DeFeo family bought the Amityville house, it seemed like the perfect family home. The house had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a swimming pool, and a boathouse. 

It fitted the family of seven nicely and even had a sign outside their house that read ‘high hopes.’ It looked like a normal, beautiful Dutch colonial three-storied house.

On the inside, though, it was a different story as the house was viewed as the cause of what drove one of the DeFeo sons, Ronald, crazy into a murderous killing rage. 

Ronald killed his parents and his siblings while they slept in their beds on November 13th, 1974. He was sentenced to six sentences of twenty-five to life and died in prison in 2021. But what caused Ronald to kill his family? A family he has always professed that he loved and never meant to harm? 

What Is The Story Behind The Murderous Rage?

The amount of evidence stacked against Ronald DeFeo was huge. The crime looked like a premeditated act. 

However, Ronald claimed that he had heard voices telling him to kill his family and that as he did it, it was like someone else had been occupying his body. It was reported that after he had killed his family with the rifle, Ronald took a shower, cleaned himself up, and trimmed his beard as if it were just another ordinary regular day. 

After this, he put his bloody clothes and the rifle in a pillowcase and discarded them down a drain to get rid of the evidence. During the rest of the day, Ronald spent time hanging out with his girlfriend Sherry and then got high on heroin and alcohol with his mates before returning home, where he feigned horror at the site inside the house.

When Ronald was convicted at his trial, his defence was pleading insanity, supported by psychiatrist Daniel Schwartz. During his trial, Ronald claimed that he had been possessed by Satan and acted in self-defence as his family plotted to kill him.  

On the prosecution side, they had based their facts on scientific medical information. Rather than saying he was possessed by the devil, they went with a more logical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder mixed with his regular intake of drugs and alcohol. At the time of the trial, nothing indicated any demonic possessions or strange occurrences. Just a deranged son.

But What Of The House After The Murdering Spree?

Nothing strange, but that was until another couple bought the Amityville House five months later. It would be their story that would cause the world to have doubts. Maybe the house had a demonic spirit, and Ronald wasn’t making it up.

George and Kathleen Lutz bought the Amityville House in 1977. Five years after the killings, they had planned to make it their family home. They probably got it for a bargain price, too. No one wanted to live in a house where a murder, let alone six murders, happened.

Their living at the house was short-lived. The family moved out twenty-eight days after moving in and even left most of their belongings. They felt an evil spirit in the house, and strange things had happened from hearing voices and seeing things. 

They first noticed oddities when they had a friend, Father Ray, come and bless the house. During his visit, he felt something and heard a male voice telling him to ‘get out.’ After the incident, he was said to have developed a high fever and blisters.

What Happened To The Lutz Family

The Lutz’s last resort was hiring the infamous Ed and Lorraine Warren, who agreed that there was an evil demonic spirit by the bottom of the stairs. This was where the Lutz’s had said they had noticed a greenish-black slime.  

The Lutz’s story, which contained forty-five hours of tape, was the basis for Jay Anson‘s book The Amityville Horror, which started the mass pop culture around the house.

Was this another case of the Snedeker family, also known as A Haunting in Connecticut? Wanting to get their fifteen minutes of fame? After the Lutz moved out, another family bought the house in 1976 and didn’t report any anomalies or oddities. 

Then, the third owner, James Cromarty, who bought the house in 1977, lived there for ten years with his wife, Barbara. He claimed they, too, never felt anything paranormal happening and moved out eventually. 

Fanatic people who had seen the movie and treated their house as a haunted tourist attraction were coming around. I’m surprised they lasted ten years, as I don’t know if I would want to be known as ‘the couple who live in the Amityville Murder House.’  

 Fact or Fiction, you decide.

 Paula