Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 31: The True Story Behind "Amityvillle Horror"
23 Plays6 years ago
Somehow this episode only got uploaded to YouTube so we are releasing it here now! Surprise!
If you want to watch the video version of this podcast head over to www.youtube.com/girlygore
If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Sinister Sisters Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
What's up your nose? You'll notice that we're wearing the same exact outfits from last week. And that's because it's only two minutes later for us. Yes, this is part two. Yes, part two.
Amityville Horror History
00:00:19
Speaker
We're here with the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Felicia. I'm Lauren. We're best friends. And we talk about scary movies. And today, we're talking about the history behind Amy Deville Horror. If you didn't see our last episode, we talked about the history behind The Conjuring. Yes. And so, yes, apparently it's Ghost Month here. It's Ghost Month, at least for two episodes. Yeah, for two episodes.
00:00:39
Speaker
So I'm, I feel like this is maybe the most famous haunted house. I would say 100%. I don't know. I can't think of another one. I know. Did you know that it was on Long Island? Yes. I actually have a subscriber that lives in Amityville. Oh my God. Well, we're moving there. It's only 30 miles outside of New York. All right. We'll move there. There we go. Um, but this, uh,
Ronald DeFeo Jr.'s Crime
00:01:00
Speaker
okay. So it sort of started on November 13, 1974.
00:01:06
Speaker
This house was the scene of a mass murder. So it was by 23-year-old Ronald J. DeFeo Jr. 23-year-old. Yeah.
00:01:15
Speaker
We'll get there. Okay. You're confused. I'm confused. But so he murdered his entire family while they were asleep, which included his parents and his four siblings. Oh God, so rude. The story that most media books, movies, everything else focus on documentaries. I haven't watched a ton of the documentaries. I watched one and it's very interesting. And now I want to look into more because I feel like they're sort of spun in different ways. Oh, but anyway, so most of that media focuses on the Lutz family.
00:01:44
Speaker
who purchased the house 13 months later. Yes, okay. I'm with you, correct. But I'm gonna talk about the DeFeo's a little bit because it's very interesting. Yeah, please. So DeFeo entered a bar in Amityville and declared, you gotta help me, I think my mother and father are shot. So a group of people came back with him from the bar, found his family dead, called the police, two of his sisters, so the people that were dead. So the shooter. Shooter goes to the bar and says, help, my family is dead. People come with him.
00:02:15
Speaker
And then we begin. Uh, so two of his sister, his two sisters were 18, 13, and his two little brothers were 12 and nine. Very, very sad. So all the victims had been shot with a rifle around three in the morning. The parents each shot twice and the children each single shots. Somehow it was like creepy that it was also like that exact. Um, so because of the Italian last name,
00:02:41
Speaker
People, which I didn't even really think about DeFeo as being Italian. Me either. Whatever. I should know. But people thought it might be a mob-related murder. Whoa. But that was quickly proven untrue. DeFeo claimed that he killed his family in self-defense because he heard their voices plotting against him. Oh no, is that a schizophrenic or something? I guess. But he pled insanity, but the judge ruled that he was aware of his actions at the time. Oh no.
00:03:08
Speaker
and sentenced him to six concurrent sentences of 25 years to life. Is he alive? Yes. He's currently in prison. Wow. And, but none of, I mean, all of his appeals have been denied, so hopefully dying in prison. Yeah. So some spooky facts about this murder, about these murders.
The Lutz Family's Paranormal Experience
00:03:27
Speaker
So all six victims were found face down in their beds with no sign of struggle.
00:03:32
Speaker
Even though those who would have Yeah, it's really good. That's what I that's one of my like I can't figure out how this would have happened without a second killer because it's like as soon as you shoot the first two people Everyone else would have heard yeah and tried to escape or hide or but there's no evidence of like a sound Suppressor on the rifle no evidence of like sedatives being administered. Oh, I guess that would be a good theory, but I guess not true But I guess they didn't find other bodies
00:04:00
Speaker
No neighbors heard gunshots. I know. Only one neighbor heard the family dog barking, but no gunshots. So what does he say about it? The shooter? Nothing? Nothing. Seemingly. Does he say he doesn't, he didn't do it? I mean, I don't know how the judge didn't say like, oh, oh, should pause. So I don't know is the answer, but I feel like the judge would look into it, but apparently not.
00:04:26
Speaker
So originally they thought there might be the possibility of like one more than one shooter Which is the only way that I can make sense in my head. Yeah, so there's a theory that
00:04:37
Speaker
Do I get to this later? I'm also like how many kids were in each room? Yeah. I don't know. I have weird questions. It's weird. The other thing is like there's really like no one really had a motive that they could find for him. He supposedly had like a volatile relationship with his father. Okay. But like and there's like some stuff about like maybe the father was abusive to the mother. He was very close with his mother.
00:05:01
Speaker
So we also like apparently asked the police on the scene of the crime, like how to get life insurance for these murder, for these deaths. Okay. Don't do that.
00:05:14
Speaker
Since his conviction, DeFeo has given several varying accounts on the killings, which I think is so interesting. In a 1986 interview for Newsday, he claimed his sister Dawn killed her father and their distraught mother killed all of his siblings before he killed his mother.
00:05:34
Speaker
So like, Don shoots the father. When did we struggle? When did we stuff everywhere? Blood everywhere? It doesn't make sense. All of it doesn't make sense. The poor nanny cams. But he didn't want to tell this story in court because he didn't want his mother's father or his mother's brother
00:05:54
Speaker
to kill him which also doesn't really make sense like if you're going to jail like you say the truth yeah but anyway and then also in this interview oh this is good too also in this interview he claimed he was married to a woman named Geraldine Gates who was living in New Jersey and that his mother called him and said like you got to come home and then he came home to break up the fight between his father and Dawn
00:06:18
Speaker
I don't know. Seems like a mentally ill person. Yeah. So there's like, like Geraldine Gates said they weren't married at the time. Like there's a lot of shenanigans that I won't go into. And then in 1990, so that interview was 1986. And then in 1990, he told a version where Don shot the whole family before he killed Don.
00:06:38
Speaker
This is a great mix for me because I love true crime and paranormal when you're really giving me both. This is a lot of true crime. I love it. But I think the theory I like the best is that him and Dawn went in together, said we're gonna kill everyone for some reason. And get life insurance or something. Get life insurance and then right at the end he turns on Dawn. That's the only way that I can make it sense because it's like his sister.
00:07:01
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry, for a second I thought Dawn was the fake wife. But then I'm like, I don't know why he would want to carry her and put her back in bed. Yeah, that's really weird. It really freaks me out that they were all in their beds. Are there privacy photos? Probably. We don't need to look right now. I'll look weird. You can look on your own time.
00:07:17
Speaker
So needless to say, the Lutz family, who is, you know, most of the Amityville stuff is based on, they purchased the home at a drastically reduced price. Classic. If the house is too good to be true, the house is too good to be true. Leave.
00:07:35
Speaker
but they only lasted in the house 28 days before leaving it. And they knew about everything beforehand. I also haven't seen the Amityville Whore in so long that this is going to feel really new to me. It's great. It was many, many years. Very seventies. Um, so some of the supernatural claims that they say they experienced. So George is the, uh, I think he's the stepfather actually, which is somehow like makes it more interesting.
00:08:00
Speaker
Is he a stepfather? I don't know. Then I'm like, why is he the stepfather? I don't know. I might have just made that up. But he says he woke up at 3.15am every morning, which is the time of the murders. The house was plagued by swarms of flies. Classic. Even though it was winter at the time.
00:08:21
Speaker
Uh, George discovered a small hidden room behind shelving in the basement. The walls were red and it did not appear in the blueprints of the house. It became known as the red room. Remember that? Um, but the dog wouldn't go near it and it's creepy. I don't know. It's creepy. I don't really know why that has anything to do with anything because like none of the murders happened there. But maybe, I mean, I don't know how old the house was. Maybe something else previously before the first family. And then DeFeo was influenced by that.
00:08:50
Speaker
The family claimed to smell strange odors. There was supposedly green slime oozing out of the walls and keyholes. I know they took that out of any movie version. Oh, there was actually something about that in the Conjuring one where it said the parent family said there was this like yellow slime stuff that would like be on the wall and then disappear into the wall. That feels like crazy to me. Green slime? I'm like imagining Nickelodeon slime to be clear.
00:09:20
Speaker
They also experienced cold spots in certain areas of the house. A priest came to bless the house at some point, and he allegedly heard a voice scream, get out, unclear. Did he listen? Well, so there are times that this priest says he never was in the house, that he only was on a phone call with the family, and that he never actually was there, and then there are times that he says he was there.
00:09:47
Speaker
Things were so poorly recorded in the 70s. So poorly recorded. The five-year-old daughter developed an imaginary friend named Jodie. I remember this from the movie. Yeah. Who was a demonic pig-like creature with glowing red eyes. My worst nightmare? Yep. George supposedly saw Jodie through a window, like behind Missy. He looked up at the window and saw Jodie behind her. And then when he came upstairs... Hello? Toby.
00:10:15
Speaker
When he came upstairs, Missy was asleep in bed and obviously Jodi was not there. Creepy. Oh, but the rocking chair was rocking back and forth. That's not a movie. Yes. I think that's not a movie. And then this is the other thing. I'm like, what? George would hear what sounded like a marching band tuning up.
00:10:34
Speaker
downstairs and then when he would go downstairs the noise would cease. Seems unrelated. I'm like why throw that in? If you're making stuff up like why throw that in? While in bed Kathy the mom received red welts on her chest and levitated out of bed.
00:10:51
Speaker
locked doors and windows in the house were damaged by an unseen forest. Can you imagine waking up and you're floating above your bed? No. And then you fall down and you're just like, how do you explain to yourself what happened? I don't know. I think anything where like you are touched is way too creepy. Scary. Um, so all those things. Oh, this is actually the scariest thing to me.
00:11:14
Speaker
None of them were supposedly stomach sleepers and they all began to sleep on their stomachs, which is where the position that the victims all died in, which is creepy to me. And then the classic, a 12-inch crucifix hung in the living room, revolved until it was upside down and gave off a sour smell. Sour smell. That's what I can't get behind. I'm interested in the hauntings. I don't want any sour smells.
00:11:37
Speaker
You would like a ghost that smelled normal? Just no smell. Not interested in the smells. That would be fine for me. Anything can smell to me. Lauren can't smell. If you haven't heard that before this podcast, no sense of smell. So here's where we get into the fascinating part for Lauren. Where none of this is real. So Lauren thinks.
Debunking and Media Influence
00:11:57
Speaker
So DeFeo, Ronald DeFeo from the first story, his attorney William Weber claims that George and Kathy Lutz approached him about an idea for a book and said, he says, we created this horror story over many bottles of wine. It is a hoax. He has since brought a lawsuit against the Lutzes for taking the story that they kind of made together to a different publishing partner.
00:12:21
Speaker
and they settled out of court for $17,500. No, this is the biggest bond I've ever had in my whole life. I mean, who knows? Who knows? But the lawyer said this. The lawyer. The family is not saying, the family's like, you're crazy. No, this family's saying, you're crazy. It's fascinating. But then the other thing is that one of the sons made a documentary where he says he's been plagued by all this stuff that happened and that he felt it was real and still has. I want to see that firsthand account. Yeah, you should watch it.
00:12:52
Speaker
So some, uh, what is this? What's published? Oh yeah. So the first book that was published was the Amityville horror, which was published in 1977 by Jay Anson. And it's the basis for the film in 1979 and onward. So it was in 1979. That seems really fast. Yeah. This happened in 74. Yeah. That seems like a pretty fast turnaround for Hollywood. Right.
00:13:18
Speaker
They were like, this is a great story. So the book claims that the Shinnecock Indians resided in Amityville, and they were nowhere near there. All the Indians on Long Island were part of a different nation. That's so Stephen King, like something spooky Indian burial ground? Literally, Indian burial ground. But a lot of places say that this is like the first time that that was used, but I don't know if that's true. Oh, interesting. Maybe. I don't know.
00:13:41
Speaker
I don't know but it was a different Indian tribe that was there. It also the book claims that this address was an Indian sanitarium where the mad and dying would be left exposed to the elements to die and there's no record of that.
00:13:58
Speaker
And actually, like, apparently Native Americans are, like, known for taking care of their sick and dying. That sounds like the opposite of Native Americans. Right? They guys are like, no, we take care of each other and are good people. Yeah. It seems like a super, like, white person thing to do. Exactly. Like, one of these... This is a sanitarium. Wherever I was looking at this said that, like, European settlers taught Native Americans, like, how to take care of their sick and dying. So, like, no. It's the worst. There was no sanitarium. The worst. Um, and then...
00:14:27
Speaker
Another one of the claims is that a witch named John Ketchum, it's like too many things. Indian burial ground and witches. Seems like a lot for Long Island. But so his name was John Ketchum, he escaped from Salem during the witch trials and built his house on the Emmettville House. He did come from Ipswich, Massachusetts, not the same as Salem, but settled in Ipswich, I don't know.
00:14:52
Speaker
but settled in Huntington Township on Long Island, which is a full 10 miles away from Amityville. Oh, okay. And the Ketchum family has no info that John was a witch. So that's sort of my telling of this. I feel like, I don't know. I don't know. It seems a little crazy. What was the, so the
00:15:17
Speaker
The family lives in Afterwords. They found the red room. The Lusses. Was anyone, wasn't it that dad was like targeted or no? It doesn't seem like it. It seems like the movie made that stretch. Okay. Okay. That's what I was curious about. It seems much more like stuff was just happening. Okay. Yeah. And they made it much more like, cause you don't get the vibe, like from the research I did, at least you don't get the vibe that like he was being told to kill them. That's what I thought I remembered from the movie. Me too. That it was like, I thought I remembered the dad with the shotgun. Right.
00:15:47
Speaker
right i really haven't seen them being so and trying to like recreate what yeah that's what i thought was like i know but it doesn't seem like that's just like hollywood i guess so yeah i should look i should look into more hey no one said uh best shiba was a witch except for like random people in the towns yeah that's why i'm like i don't think anything like this talks about george yeah no yeah i yeah i think i think it's also like
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, Hollywood's just got to make the plot work. Yeah. And I think it's sort of like, I don't know, it kind of reminds me of The Shining too, where it's like remembering what had happened and feeling like you have to carry that out. But that really didn't happen. It's crazy to me that they only lasted 28 days though. That also feels like a little... It's also interesting that they only lasted 28 days and the parent family lasted 10 years.
00:16:40
Speaker
yeah it's like i would be a 28 dayer for sure but then i'm also like if they were just in it to make money like why i don't know i guess they found out about the murders and i'm like this would be a great move i also am like if the son is like in his adult life made a documentary being like this really messed me up he wants money
00:17:03
Speaker
Oh, I was going to say the opposite. I was going to say like, I was going to say he's gotten to this point in his life. He needs a little money. He's like, remember that cool thing that happened to me? I'm going to remember, you know, everything that my parents told me they lied about. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Maybe, maybe. And it's funny cause it's like sort of the opposite with the parent family where they were just like, right. It's like,
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, it was really crazy and horrible sometimes and also kind of nice sometimes and we don't really want to talk about it all the time. Right. And it's like, okay. That sounds like, I mean, I don't know, but like, seemingly there are so many, like George Lutz talks a lot. Oh, really? At least in the documentaries I've watched, he talks a lot.
00:17:46
Speaker
like too much. The crazy thing is that it was like such a, I really didn't cover this, but like the documentary that I watched talked about like what a media sensation it was. Like so Ed and Lorraine Warren obviously got involved. There also was like apparently a seance with like a bunch of reporters and Ed and Lorraine Warren after this all, after they left. That's the bugs about the Warrens. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
It's like, cause it does come up that they were just like, they just wanted fame and money. And so that's, they just faked everything.
00:18:17
Speaker
But then part of me wants to be like but so like I want to believe that like they were really do-gooders trying to help people But then it's like stuff like that or it's like if you're gonna have a stance with the reporters you're putting on a show Well, that's what there's one woman in the interview in the documentary. That's like it was a terrible idea There were like 30 people it's like an awful place to try to have a say on it's like no one experienced anything So there were just too many people. Yeah, and she said like she herself this reporter was like
00:18:43
Speaker
you know, somebody would be like, ooh, do you feel that cold spot? And she'd be like, no. So. Well, that's another thing too. It's like if, um, if they were putting on a show, wouldn't they have put on a show for all those reporters? And if no one felt anything, maybe they weren't putting on a show. But it's like the family doesn't feel like they were involved at that point, which is weird. Oh, I mean the Warrens. Oh yeah. The Warrens. Sorry. The Warrens putting on a show. I don't know. I don't know. I know. It's hard to know. It's hard to know, but I don't know. And now it's like, I don't,
00:19:14
Speaker
Not gonna, I don't know. I haven't done enough research, but I don't think anyone has experienced anything since.
00:19:20
Speaker
or if they have, it's been way underplayed. We should do a drive-by of the house someday. Oh, we're so close. I thought about it. Yeah, it's so close to us. I wonder who lives there now. I know. I wonder if they're also a paranormal enthusiast. They've got to be, right? Because I feel like that happens now, or it's early. Well, I'm sure it goes up in price now, the house. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's super haunted, and they're just moving to this super haunted house. Yeah. I don't know. But it is interesting to think about.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah. But it's good. I feel like the other thing about the movies that I always forget is no one died.
00:19:51
Speaker
after. That is a good point. Right? Which is true of the conjuring, too. Yeah, the family all lives. They just experience all these things. Which also makes me be like, hmm. Just trying to get that money, honey. I don't know. I don't know. But this is fun for me. I don't know. Let us know if you like this format of talking about the real stories behind movies. Yes. Behind horror movies. We like it. We like it. But let us know if you do. Or if you have requests for us to do episodes on specific movies that have
00:20:20
Speaker
some real life inspiration. But I guess that's it. I think that's it. Our pasta's here, so we're going to eat it. We're going to eat that pasta. All right. Have some sweet sweet nightmares and have an ice cream. Bye.