As far as haunted houses go, the one at Ocean Avenue 112, Long Island, famously known as the Amityville Horror house, sets the bar really high.
Like all good haunted houses, this one starts with a very real tragedy.
Before the Haunting
Ronald DeFeo Jr. was a regular guy until the night of November 13th, 1974. In cold blood, he murdered his mother, father and four siblings aged 18, 13, 12 and 9.
They were shot with a high powered rifle while lying on their stomachs, at around 3:15a.m. After committing this horrible crime, Ronald removed the evidence and left for work while his family decomposed in their beds.
He finally called the police at 6:30pm, claiming his family had been murdered by a mobster.
It didn’t take long however, for the police to point out inconsistencies in his stories.
Ronald finally admitted to murdering his entire household while they were asleep saying that, "Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast."
He claimed to have heard voices telling him he had to kill his family in self-defence as they were planning to murder him. At some point, he implicated his younger sister Dawn as the mastermind of the homicide.
Old interviews have friends of the family saying that the DeFeos were abusive toward their children. If this were true, it would have most assuredly created a host of psychological problems in Ronald and his younger siblings, the least of which would have been deep resentment and anger.
There were even rumours that Ronald and Dawn were having an incestuous relationship and that it was Dawn whom shot her siblings with Ronald killing her in anger. However, evidence showed Dawn had no participation in the heinous act and there were zero hard facts to substantiate the rumours of their taboo relationship.
During the trial, Dr. Harold Zolan whom was appointed psychiatrist for the prosecution testified that Ronald was an abuser of LSD and heroin and suffered from antisocial personality disorder.
Ronald was eventually convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment. This is a sentence he is still carrying out today. For all intents and purposes, that would have been the end of a very horrific story but it was not to be.
The tale may have started with Ronald DeFeo but it certainly did not end with him.
In December 1975, a mere 13 months after the murders, George and Kathy Lutz moved into the house with Kathy’s three children (George was the stepfather) with full knowledge of the tragic event.
The house was a steal at $80,000 and for an additional $400, they acquired all of the existing furniture of the DeFeos, including the beds they were murdered on.
Suffice to say, the Lutzes lives would never be the same again.
To read the full story, go to: http://www.propertyguru.com.sg/lifestyle/article/4/haunted-houses-amityville-horror
Image: Still from the movie The Amityville Horror. (Source: Daily Mail)
This article was contributed by Christopher Chitty, Senior Content Producer, PropertyGuru.
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