The Amityville Hoax
Published in September 1977, The Amityville Horror, by American author Jay Anson, tells the story of the Lutz family and the ghostly experiences they encountered after moving into 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY. This controversial book is based solely on the family’s claims and has been the subject of lawsuits challenging its veracity. Many still say it was a hoax. With the controversy surrounding the authenticity of The Conjuring, let’s dissect Amityville and give you the skinny on why you “shouldn’t be afraid of no ghost.” — Regardless of what Ed and Lorraine Warren say.
Is The Amityville Horror Based A True Story?
While the real-life main characters in The Amityville Horror, George and Kathy Lutz, maintained until their deaths that all the hauntings happened, there is a vast compendium of information against these claims.
Hauntings of The Amityville Horror House
George and Kathy Lutz wanted to start anew when they purchased a Dutch-colonial-style home at 112 Ocean Avenue in December 1975. The same house that Robert Defeo Jr. had murdered six members of his family in only a year prior.
When they first inspected the property, the real estate broker informed them about the DeFeo murders. It didn’t bother them. However, what they got with the cheap price of $80,000 was the nightmare of a lifetime. According to the book, this is what happened during those terrifying times.
Doors and windows would open and close themselves, and objects would move around the house, which was still filled with the DeFeo family furniture. Unexplainable noises, including banging, footsteps, and voices, came with green slime oozing from the walls and a terrible stench. George began to experience dreams and visions, including one in which he saw himself holding a shotgun and aiming it at his family. Kathy started to see an apparition of a demonic pig-like creature with glowing eyes.
The family sought help from various sources, including a local priest who blessed the house. During the ceremony, Father Mancuso, as he was named in the book, heard a masculine voice telling him to “get out.” Later, he developed putrid blisters on his hands that resembled the revered Catholic stigmata.
George began to feel a sense of evil in the house, and his behavior became increasingly erratic. He would wake up at 3:15 a.m., the time of the DeFeo murders, and experience physical discomfort. It was as if the terrors trapped inside the house were happening again.
Why Did Ronald DeFeo Jr. Murder His Family?
Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the house with a TV crew that year. They captured a shocking photo of a little boy with glowing eyes in the house’s darkness. Lorraine later claimed the case haunted her the most throughout her career. What was so terrifying here that it scarred one of history’s most famous paranormal experts?
Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. was responsible for the murders of his entire family on November 13, 1974. His parents, two brothers, and two sisters were found dead in their beds with gunshot wounds. At the start of it all, he reported the murders himself, spinning yarn to the cops that a mafia hitman had broken into the house and murdered his family. When that didn’t pan out, he went and backtracked, confessing in court that he killed his family in self-defense after hearing “demonic voices.”
The defense, backed by the consultation of a psychiatrist, called for an insanity plea. However, the prosecution stated that although DeFeo had an antisocial disorder, he was an LSD and heroin user and was fully aware of his actions at the time of the attack.
DeFeo was tried and convicted of six counts of second-degree murder in November 1975. He was serving six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York until his recent death at age 69 on March 12, 2021.
The trial was a national media sensation. Less than a year after it ended, The Amityville Horror was fast-tracked into the publishing world. It became a monumental success, following the footsteps of horror classic The Exorcist. In 1979, The Amityville Horror officially hit the big screen.
The Accuracy of The Amityville Horror
After only 28 days inside the home, the Lutz family abandoned all their possessions and fled to Kathy’s mother’s. The house was later sold to another family, who reported no unexplained activity.
However, the family maintained that the house was haunted and that they had experienced terrifying events that defied explanation. They submitted about 45 hours of tape-recorded recollections to Jay Anson. The Amityville Horror became a bestseller, estimated to have sold around 10 million copies, and the inspiration for a successful film adaptation. But did it happen?
The story contains many contradictions, leading skeptics to question its authenticity over the years. For example, investigators have debunked some of the claims made in the book, such as the discovery of cloven hoof prints in the snow. Researchers Rick Moran and Peter Jordan rejected the claim of cloven hoof prints in the snow on January 1, 1976. Their investigation revealed that there had been no snowfall at that time.
The character Father Manusco’s role in the story, which was based on a man named Father Percoraro, has also been given considerable attention. During the lawsuit that followed in the late 1970s, Father Pecoraro stated in an affidavit that his only contact with the Lutzes concerning the matter had been by telephone.
The book and movie show police being alerted to the house. But, Joe Nickell, the author of Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings, writes, “During the 28-day ‘siege’ that drove the Lutz family from the house, they never once called the police.” Neighbors reported nothing unusual while the Lutzes lived there.
The Amityville Horror Cover-Up
If these hauntings were as terrifying as the Lutz family and Anson claim, then why would they lie? A lawsuit filed by the Lutz family in May 1977 over several newspaper articles revealed a layer of greed seething behind the scenes.
The suit was filed against Defeo Jr.’s lawyer, William Weber, The New York Sunday News, the Hearst Company, Good Housekeeping Magazine, two clairvoyants involved in the house investigation, and Paul Hoffman, a writer working on the hauntings. They sought $4.5 million in relief for mental distress, misappropriation of names for trade purposes, and invasion of privacy—all before the book was even released! Interestingly, their lawsuit returned with a counterclaim by Hoffman, Weber, and clairvoyant Bernard Burton, claiming fraud and a breach of contract. So the question is, what contract?!
The charges against the media company and its affiliates were eventually thrown out, and the rest of the case was passed on to Judge Jack B. Weinstein. Regarding the Weinstein trial, he stated, “Based on what I have heard, it appears to me that to a large extent, the book is a work of fiction, relying in a large part upon the suggestions of Mr. Weber.” He eventually dismissed the Lutz family’s case on September 10th, 1979, but allowed the defendant’s countercase to continue. It was settled out of court shortly after.
On September 17th, 1979, Weber was quoted in People magazine as saying, “I know this book is a hoax. We created this horror story over many bottles of wine.” It was a farce all along, a scheme concocted by lawyers, authors, paranormal experts, and the victims of a supposed haunting. One that went on to gross over $80 million when the first film was released in 1979, and 10 million books sold.
Is The Amityville Horror House Still Haunted?
George and Kathy Lutz maintained that events in the book were “mostly true.” In June 1979, they both underwent a polygraph test by two of the top polygraph experts in the United States. Their results came back positive; they were not lying.
But despite this test of their statements and the faith of the American public, the hauntings have still been denounced as a hoax. In 2001, Geraldine Defeo, Robert Defeo Jr.’s wife, reopened the Lutz v. Weber case. She discovered that Father Pecoraro denounced the hauntings as false during the 1979 trial.
Furthermore, in 2002, the Diocese of Rockville Center wrote a letter “maintaining that the hauntings were false.” All in all, it seems it was a ploy to capitalize on the horrific murders committed by Robert “Butch” Defeo Jr., created by a greedy lawyer and enterprising couple.
The debate about the accuracy of The Amityville Horror continues. Since the Lutz family left in 1976, the various owners of the house have publicly reported no problems while living there. James Cromarty, who bought the house in 1977 and lived there with his wife Barbara for ten years, commented: “Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the book and the movie.” But the mystery lives on, and many still believe in the hauntings of the Amityville Horror.
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Sources:
Son Accused in Killing of L.I. Family – Daily News 15 Nov 1974, Fri · Page 3.
A Remorseless Defoe Confesses to Killing 6 – Newsday (Nassau Edition) 16 Nov 1974, Sat · Page 5.
A Convicts Tale – Newsday (Suffolk Edition) 19 Mar 1986, Wed · Page 128
Amityville Horror House is up for Sale – The Boston Globe, 23 Jun 2016, Thu · Page C2
