Original subtitles

DeFeo: My father was my best friend.

He was the best friend I ever had.

My mother and me -- we were very, very close.

Me and my two sisters -- we got along excellent.

My two younger brothers, Marc and John --

we were really a close family, you know?

It was a tragedy.

I lost my whole family.

Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

In November of 1974,

the quiet seaside town of Amityville, New York,

became known the world over for a crime so horrific,

it inspired a Hollywood horror franchise.

Six members of one family were murdered,

shot to death in their own home, lying in their own beds.

Only one family member lived to tell the story

of what happened that night at 112 Ocean Avenue.

This is part one of "The Amityville Horror."

Aronson: Amityville is an old town,

and it has tradition.

There was this very congenial feeling.

It sounds so cliché,

but it is like the quintessential small town.

The center of the town has the gazebo

where they have Fourth of July, Halloween,

and Christmas celebrations with carols.

And you're by the water, the Great South Bay.

When I was young, I used to spend my summers in Amityville.

It was named -- "Amicus" in Latin means "happy."

It's a happy place.

Uruburu: Amityville was just another town

until the murders happened.

It inspired one of the greatest horror stories of all time.

[ Gunfire ]

♪♪

[ Dog barking ]

Osuna: It was in the middle of the night,

pitch black at the DeFeo household --

112 Ocean Avenue.

[ Dog howling ]

Didio: The family's Old English Sheepdog, Shaggy,

was howling.

[ Howling continues ]

It's very odd

and quite chilling.

And that's the way the story began.

♪♪

Osuna: Ronald DeFeo Jr. --

his nickname was "Butch."

Butch DeFeo said that he had been trying to get in touch

with his family throughout the day,

and he went home, had to break a window to get in

'cause he had forgotten his house key.

It was dark in the house,

and he went right to his parents' room.

Jordan: When Ronnie entered his parents' room,

he made a horrific discovery.

Osuna: He found them lying in bed,

shot execution-style.

And he drove very fast down the street to Henry's Bar.

He opened the door and he was screaming, "Come on, help me!

Somebody shot my mother and father!"

Everyone ran out of the bar.

Osuna: It definitely broke

the sleepiness of Amityville --

something you just would never imagine in that quaint town.

A friend called 911, and the local Amityville police

were the first on the scene.

There, they found something even more unthinkable.

Berry-Dee: And the tragedy that unfolded that night

is absolutely shocking.

Spero: We heard it was maybe a double homicide,

but there was one or two local cops from Amityville

that tipped me that

"This thing is a lot worse

than you guys think it is."

I proceeded to check out the house,

and I found Mr. DeFeo Sr. and Mrs. DeFeo

laying in bed with gunshot wounds to the back.

I then checked the northeast bedroom,

and I found two young boys lying in separate beds

with gunshot wounds to the back.

Then I checked the southeast bedroom,

and I found a young girl with a gunshot wound

to the rear of her neck and head area.

I proceeded to the third floor of the house,

and on the east-side bedroom, found another young lady

with a gunshot wound to the head.

This was a multiple murder --

six bodies, six victims.

And then we found out it was the DeFeo family --

the father, the mother.

Dawn was 18,

Allison was 13,

Marc was 11,

and John, the youngest one, was 9.

His whole life was taken away.

Greguski: I had never seen anything this gruesome,

and I couldn't sleep for months.

♪♪

Jordan: The DeFeo family had moved from Brooklyn

to their stately Amityville home in 1965,

and many wondered, was it a burglary

or maybe a home invasion

that had been the motive for the murders?

Turner: You could tell they had money.

The house was a very, very nice house in a good neighborhood,

on the water, with a pool and a boat dock,

and there was a [Laughing] sign out front

that said, "High Hopes."

I remember saying to myself,

"Well, I guess their high hopes are gone."

Man: This bulletin from the WOR newsroom.

Six members of one family have been found shot to death

in their nightclothes in their expensive home

in Amityville, Long Island.

Martin: Six people in one family had been murdered.

That was quite astounding.

Not only were there six dead,

but they were all killed in their beds.

And there's no evidence of a struggle,

and everyone was sleeping peacefully.

All found in the same position, facedown.

And that was very unusual.

They were found by a 23-year-old son,

Man: Ronald DeFeo, who is believed to be

the only surviving member of the family.

Police investigating the case say they have no suspect,

no weapon, and no leads.

There was just a few of us that were gathered there.

Suffolk County -- they had the homicide unit,

and they had the police tape up.

Because the police were there,

some of the neighbors started showing up.

And the neighbors said, "What's going on?

What do you know?"

Martin: There we were on Ocean Avenue,

and there's a crowd on the other side of the street.

The scene was -- It was surreal.

Spero: And then the body bags started coming out.

There were two large body bags at first,

and then there was another one

and another one

and another one

and then the final one,

and the ones at the end --

they were the smaller body bags.

And then we looked at each other,

and we said, "Oh, my God."

Martin: We're just watching bodies come out

and cameras going off

and police and officials,

and the crowd is very quiet.

I've never seen a crowd that quiet.

Something big had gone down.

That was what was in the air.

Little did we know what was going to happen.

♪♪

The DeFeos had a reputation.

Dr. Cohen: You have a family with secrets --

criminal secrets, and there are also violent secrets.

♪♪

♪♪

Scott: The story broke of a family of six

slaughtered in Amityville, Long Island.

Six members of a suburban New York family

have been found shot to death in their beds.

Didio: It was all over the news because Amityville --

they had had maybe one murder in 100 years.

Gloria: I remember the phone rang,

and they said, "The DeFeos are all dead.

They were all murdered."

Killed were auto dealer Ronald DeFeo,

his wife, and four of their children.

They were all gone. They were all gone.

And there's only one surviving member of the family,

Ron Jr.

Ron Jr. said he came home to find his family dead.

Ronald DeFeo Sr., also known as "Big Ronnie,"

had grown up in Brooklyn, New York.

He had been a high-school athlete back in the day

when he caught the eye of the beautiful Louise Brigante.

Osuna: When "Big Ronnie," Ronald DeFeo Sr., met Louise,

it seemed like they had fallen in love pretty quick.

And Louise's parents, the Brigantes,

were not a fan of Big Ronnie.

He was crude, obnoxious, a braggart.

They didn't really see Louise with him.

Despite her parents' objections, Louise married Big Ronnie,

and the two settled into a life in a Brooklyn apartment.

Soon after, the couple welcomed a son, Ronald Jr.,

and two daughters, Dawn and Allison,

and another son, named Marc.

Before the birth of their last child,

John Matthew, the family moved out to Long Island

and their waterfront home in Amityville.

They had been living in Brooklyn,

and Louise Brigante-DeFeo was the apple of her father's eye.

He would do anything for his daughter.

Osuna: The Brigantes loved Louise very, very much,

and they wanted to make sure she was provided for,

so they actually bought the house in Amityville

for the DeFeos.

Uruburu: For me, the house was like something

out of a movie.

They lived on the canal, and they had a boathouse.

When you went in, they had these big rooms with high ceilings.

I felt like I was going back in time.

They were having these portraits painted of themselves

that were going to be hung on the staircase.

It's like this is some sort of a 19th-century Gilded Age family,

not knowing at all what the future was gonna be.

Gloria: The move to Amityville

was like a new start.

That's why they named the place High Hopes.

This was gonna be the beginning.

But who would kill this family, all of them, in cold blood?

Mellon: We have no suspect at this time.

We have no indication of the motive at this time.

♪♪

Gloria: It was, like, unreal.

It can't be true.

It can't be possible that this could happen.

They were just very sweet, very religious people,

very family-minded people.

Louise was a very sweet girl,

and all our children were similar ages.

We would take the bus and go to museums in New York

and just hang out with the kids and the husbands.

Louise was a typical Italian mother.

She cooked. She did what she had to do to take care of the house.

Ronnie was Big Ronnie.

He was the man of the house.

Little John Matt was 9 when he died,

and he was just your typical 9-year-old boy --

just a sweet kid.

Marc DeFeo -- he was into sports.

Anthony: Marc and I were in the same football league.

Our parents got close together watching the games.

Marc and I used to play in the driveway,

on the bicycles, and drive around

and just have fun and spend the night there.

There was nothing odd.

It was just a typical family.

I remember that the little girl, Allison, loved to do puzzles,

and in her room,

there was a puzzle that she had been working on.

Berry-Dee: Allison was a sweet girl.

People I met that knew her said she was a little angel.

There's not a bad word came out of her mouth.

But Dawn DeFeo -- she was more rebellious.

Uruburu: Dawn -- she was a year older than I was.

We first connected on CYO Softball.

We were in the softball league together.

She always had this nice smile. She was always friendly.

There were other girls who,

because they were older than you by a year,

they didn't really want to associate with you,

but she was never like that.

We were just 13-, 14-year-olds

having slumber parties and pool parties.

There was nothing out of the norm.

Didio: Against this wonderful setting,

you've got six bodies in body bags.

It was unthinkable.

And we said, "Well, there must be a gunman or gunmen."

Women, men, young, old -- who knows?

We had no clue.

Jordan: Authorities were baffled

at who would want this picture-perfect family killed,

but they were learning that appearances

can be very deceiving.

Dr. Cohen: On the face of it, this is a family

that is very good at keeping up appearances,

and they were living in bucolic Amityville.

But this is a family with secrets.

People we talk to seem to feel

that whatever was the motive for this crime,

it had something to do with the family.

The one surviving member of the family, Ronnie DeFeo Jr.,

says that his father had enemies.

Osuna: I remember the neighbors telling me

that Big Ronnie would boast how he had a gun,

how he had connections.

Uruburu: I mean, there was rumors

that he was in the Mafia -- like, that was a thing --

and because he had a lot of money

and he had big cars and things.

Big Ronnie DeFeo -- he was a strange guy.

Osuna: At one point, he thought he had ESP.

He would wake family up in the middle of the night,

family who lived by the water, saying, "You have to evacuate.

There's a tsunami coming. I feel it."

He really had delusions.

Gloria: And all of a sudden, religion came into his life.

He got this revelation.

He was one with St. Joseph, and he was a changed man.

Osuna: In front of the house,

there are a lot of Catholic statues.

There is a St. Joseph holding a Baby Jesus,

and Big Ronnie would come out,

and he would pray in front of that statue in his underwear.

He was strange. He told us one time

that he was at the crucifixion,

and what could we say?

"Ha ha! If you were there, you were there."

He was a big presence.

You know, he had a big personality,

and you were a little afraid of him.

He was a little scary 'cause his voice was a little loud.

And Big Ronnie's behavior was more than just odd

and off-putting.

It was reported that he was abusive

to his wife and children.

The DeFeos had a reputation.

Martin: The problem is that they don't get along sometimes.

There's dissension and there's conflict

within the DeFeo family.

Dr. Cohen: It was a very chaotic, tumultuous household.

Berry-Dee: Mr. DeFeo Sr. was jealous about his wife.

He thought she was having an affair with the man

who painted the family portraits.

He kind of wanted to be in control of Louise.

He wanted everyone just listen to him and do what he says.

There was a history of violence there.

Big Ronnie had a horrible sickness,

and it got worse and worse.

Springer: The old man used to beat her.

She's wearing sunglasses this big,

and you could see, you know, bruises

on her arms and legs.

Big Ronnie Sr. -- he was chauvinistic.

He had a temper.

And there are stories about

how Louise was coming up from the basement

and she was carrying a wash basket full of clothes.

Aronson: And he punched her right in the mouth,

and she tumbled down the stairs,

and he closed the door and said,

"Well, she's not gonna bother us

and we're not gonna have any more noise now."

And they sat down and finished dinner.

Dawn DeFeo had a problem, specifically with her father.

Osuna: Her relationship with her parents

towards the end of her life was very tumultuous.

Berry-Dee: She wanted to elope with some guy,

and this caused friction

because her parents didn't want her to leave.

DeFeo: My sister wanted to be free,

and you couldn't be free and be a DeFeo.

None of us -- we were all like a dog on a leash,

everybody in that house. Nobody could be free.

The place was a powder keg waiting to explode.

Something was bound to happen in that house.

If it wasn't for his anger, hate, and violence,

the DeFeos would still be alive.

♪♪

♪♪

Jordan: Authorities swarmed the quiet community

of Amityville, New York,

after the bodies of six members of the DeFeo family

were found by the sole survivor, the eldest son, Ronnie DeFeo Jr.

Giambra: It was 1974,

and Amityville was a nice, quaint little village

and was all over the news

that these six people had been murdered.

Martin: Ronnie DeFeo Jr. --

two brothers, two sisters of his,

mother, and father all gone.

DeFeo: I knew something bad was gonna happen

to my mother and father.

I didn't know when it was going to happen,

I didn't know who was gonna do it,

but I can say that I knew something was coming.

Scott: When the murders were uncovered,

Ron was pulled in and questioned,

and he said that this was a mob hit.

Genis: At first, Ronnie blamed the Mafia.

He said, "Yeah, you know, my dad was in the mob,

and they rubbed out the whole family."

Osuna: Folks in Amityville knew

Ronald DeFeo Sr.'s family --

they were connected to the mob.

My father was involved with big, big people in organized crime.

One of the people is Peter DeFeo, my uncle.

♪♪

Didio: One of Ronnie's uncles, Pete DeFeo,

was reputed to be a member

of the Genovese crime family,

and, again, putting this in the context of the times,

back in the mid-'70s,

early '80s in New York,

you had a lot of mob hits going on.

And there was speculation that Louise's family,

the Brigantes, also had ties to the Mafia.

Martin: This is the rumor,

and these rumors keep swirling around

that Ronnie's grandfather, Mr. Brigante,

was somehow tied to the mob.

Osuna: Michael Brigante Sr.

was connected to organized crime.

He owned a Buick car dealership.

They did dirty work for the mob.

Brigante Sr. employed his son-in-law,

Ronald Sr.

My father works for Mike Brigante Sr.,

who is my grandfather, my mother's father.

He owned a Buick agency, a Buick dealership.

My father was the boss of the service end of the dealership.

It was a legitimate business.

They didn't do anything wrong in the Buick dealership.

They took it outside.

Ronald Sr.

Was in charge of the ledgers for the dealership,

and we're talking the unofficial accounts,

where it showed all the monies, all the transactions,

all the dirty hands, and so forth.

He would often take those books home

and cook them up for the dealership.

Butch worked there, as well.

Dr. Cohen: And DeFeo would do work for the mob,

delivering money and delivering packages

and things like that.

DeFeo: I did whatever I had to do.

Whatever they told me to do, I did.

And I was paid money for doing it.

Didio: There had been some secret tape recordings --

you know, authorized wire taps --

by the RICO squad --

the racket boys, if you will --

that involved the Brigante Buick dealership.

Ronnie Jr. was the subject

of many of those conversations

between Michael Brigante Sr., his grandfather,

and his friends, associates, et cetera,

who talked about, very openly,

"Oh, my God, that kid," meaning Ronnie,

"he could hang us all with what he knows."

♪♪

There was also talk at the time

that Ronald DeFeo Sr.

had also been skimming some money off the side

from the Buick dealership.

Osuna: Ronald Sr. embezzled money from the mob.

At the time of the murders, in November of '74,

things were really going bad for Big Ronnie.

Brigante was thinking very heavily

of closing the dealership,

so that meant Big Ronnie had to do one big score.

He was trying to work with Butch

on embezzling as much money as possible.

Didio: Several weeks before the murders,

$20,000 bank deposit that Ronnie Jr.

and one of the other employees were supposed to be making

had suddenly disappeared.

Osuna: That would be a death sentence.

♪♪

Police immediately put Ron DeFeo in protective custody,

fearful if they got the whole family,

they would get him, as well.

They didn't really know if this was a mob hit or not,

and they weren't taking a chance.

♪♪

Man: Today police combed the DeFeos' handsome 3-story house

for clues.

Osuna: The rifle used in the murders --

it is so deafening. [ Gunshot ]

Why didn't somebody wake up? [ Gunshot ]

Which is another big mystery here.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome back to "Very Scary People".

The mystery about who committed the execution-style murders

of the DeFeo family --

mother, father, and four of their children --

consumed the town of Amityville.

Was it a robbery gone wrong?

Could it have been a mob hit

or a family vendetta?

♪♪

[ Gunshot ]

[ Gunshot ]

[ Gunshot ]

Man: They were shots that left six members of one family dead

in this charming Dutch colonial home.

And there's only one surviving member of the family.

Osuna: Ronald DeFeo Jr. -- his nickname was "Butch,"

and he was the oldest.

He was the firstborn.

He loved his mother very much,

and Louise -- from everything I've learned,

Butch was her pride and joy.

Symons: Ronnie was quiet, never said a whole lot.

He gave you the sense that he was a tough guy,

but never threatening, never violent.

Osuna: The police took Ronnie Jr.

into protective custody

and took him to the police headquarters

to provide his statement.

Man: Police have been questioning the son, Ronald,

and now say he is being "safeguarded."

DeFeo: I was scared!

My whole family is dead!

Turner: I remember talking to a cop,

and he told me that there was some speculation

that it was a mob hit.

Didio: Ronald DeFeo Jr.

was claiming that somebody was out to get the family.

There was talk of these killers coming from Brooklyn.

♪♪

But I immediately thought, "No, they wouldn't kill the kids."

Osuna: Organized crime did not condone the execution

of small children,

so that would've been a cardinal sin for them.

And there would be plenty of ways,

if they wanted to send a message,

to do that without killing those kids.

No. It doesn't stack up.

♪♪

Osuna: Police had continued on their investigation.

Man: Today police combed the DeFeos' handsome 3-story house

for clues while divers explored the backyard swimming pool

for the still unfound murder weapon.

Jordan: The day after the bodies were discovered,

the police were looking for anything and everything

that could point them in the right direction

for the suspect and the motive.

Dr. Cohen: The first thing you're gonna do

is look at the crime scene

and try to understand what occurred in the house

and what may have been the psychology of the perpetrator.

You have an entire family that was killed.

All the victims were found in bed.

And there's no evidence of a struggle.

Turner: The nature of the shootings

was shooting in the back in bed.

[ Gunshots ]

It had to be somebody who knew the house really well,

'cause they were on different floors,

in different rooms.

Dr. Cohen: Typically, if there's a home invasion,

there is some alarm raised in the house.

I think that that --

The fact that they were all in their beds

does raise the question

of whether it really was somebody who was known to them.

[ Gunshot ]

Jordan: The medical examiner determined

that all six victims had been killed

in the early morning hours of November 13th.

The time of death --

16 to 18 hours before they were discovered.

Didio: At the time of the murder,

somewhere between 3:00 a.m.

3:15, 3:30...

[ Dog howling ]

...the family's sheepdog was howling.

[ Howling continues ]

The teenage boy two doors away told investigators

he heard the dog howling,

which he thought was a little odd.

[ Howling continues ]

And the cause of death was gunshot wounds from a rifle.

According to the coroner,

it was a very high-powered,

.35-caliber Marlin rifle.

It was a cowboy gun. [ Gunshot ]

It is so deafening.

Turner: I remember thinking, "Geez.

Somebody had to walk around the house shooting people.

Why didn't somebody wake up?"

[ Gunshot ]

There were questions about whether the victims

had been drugged before they went to sleep.

Didio: But according to the coroner

and the autopsy reports, they were not drugged...

[ Gunshot ]

...which is another big mystery here.

Why didn't anybody hear anything?

♪♪

Scott: More intense questioning of Ron DeFeo.

DeFeo: Somebody else was in the house, ran out of the house.

It turns out that one person did hear the gunshots.

♪♪

[ Siren wailing, police radio chatter ]

♪♪

Uruburu: It was terrible.

Six people were shot dead in their bed.

♪♪

On the night of November 13, 1974,

all the bodies were found shot, all at point-blank range.

None of the family members was awakened

by the explosive burst of gunfire throughout the house.

Autopsies show that they had not been drugged.

Why didn't anyone hear a gunshot?

[ Gunshot ]

♪♪

Jordan: But it turns out that one person

did hear the gunshots.

Ronnie DeFeo Jr. now tells the police

that he was there at the house

when his family was killed.

Didio: So, Ronnie had been drinking that night.

He was watching TV down in the basement.

He had been taking drugs.

Scott: He told the police

that people broke into the house.

He was in the basement, and he heard muffled sounds.

DeFeo: Didn't sound like a gunshot.

Sounded like a backfire on a car, but muffled.

Somebody else was in the house, ran out of the house,

but I couldn't catch him when he ran out the front door.

♪♪

Dr. Cohen: When you're talking to someone

who has a very unstable account of what happened,

you want to go back again and again

to try and see how he's going to respond,

what his explanations are going to be,

and to also focus in on the discrepancies.

Scott: More intense questioning of Ron DeFeo,

and then another story that someone came into the house,

they pulled him along with them,

and they shot everyone while he was present.

[ Gunshot ]

DeFeo: I knew then I was set up.

I was gonna be the scapegoat for everybody.

Ronnie DeFeo Jr.

was not the most stable of individuals.

Uruburu: There was something odd about him.

He wasn't the warm, friendly older brother

who comes over and asks if you need help or anything.

He just was this loner, and not in a healthy way.

He quit school and didn't really work.

He drank a lot, hung out in the neighborhood bar.

Didio: He was known as sort of a troublemaker around the town.

He borrowed money from people, didn't pay it back,

and bullied people.

He was a heavy substance abuser

starting from the age of 15 or 16.

DeFeo: Every day, I would get high. I used heroin.

I was using a lot of heroin back then.

I was drinking, too, excessively --

scotch on the rocks.

Scott: His parents -- they took him to a psychiatrist

in hopes of calming him down.

That didn't work.

So his parents lavished him with gifts.

Didio: They did not spare the rod,

but they continued to spoil the child.

He had access to an allowance of several hundred dollars a week.

Aronson: Ronnie would walk around

with a couple thousand dollars in his pocket.

Scott: They bought him a $14,000 speedboat.

But that didn't settle Ron.

He was an angry young man.

He also had a stockpile

of several weapons in the house.

♪♪

Aronson: They have Ronnie in custody

just to talk about the murder,

and, very soon, they begin to wonder.

He threw out a lot of wild theories.

Dr. Cohen: He makes some unconvincing excuses,

but what is very significant

is he seems to be justifying the death of his family.

That does raise a lot of red flags.

He said that he discovered his mother had had an affair

and that he despised her for that.

He also told the police that his father

was making him work too hard.

He complained that his brothers

were little pigs in the bathroom.

Aronson: They say, "What do you think about your sister Dawn?"

"Dawn, that F'ing bitch" --

that's how he described her.

That's very striking for somebody to say that

when their family has just been murdered.

♪♪

Gloria: Louise used to tell me that Butchy was bad,

but I didn't know what she meant.

But she said, "No, Butchy is bad."

I think he had more troubles than we thought,

than they thought.

♪♪

♪♪

Symons: I first heard about this case,

about Ronnie DeFeo,

on the 11:00 news --

that his family had been murdered

and that Ronnie was being held in protective custody.

What about Ronald DeFeo, the son, the surviving son?

Ronald is being safeguarded

by the Suffolk County Police at this time.

Man: Investigators say, without explanation,

that they now feel young DeFeo was in the house

at the time of the murders,

but they're not yet considering him a suspect.

It came to my mind that he has to be a person of interest.

♪♪

Dr. Cohen: Talking about the death of his family,

there is such a lack of emotion,

and he also is so preoccupied with the justification

for the killings.

He describes the father as abusive,

he describes the mother as checked out.

Dawn -- he talks about her with clear hostility.

Allison, Marc, and John --

when he talks about them, it's very superficial.

There's very little sadness about their deaths,

which is what you usually hear when someone talks about someone

that they have real love for and that they're grieving for,

which, to me, makes it certainly within the realm of possibility

that he killed them.

Jordan: While searching the DeFeo home,

police find a box for a Marlin .35-caliber rifle,

along with boxes of Remington shells,

all of which belong to Ronnie DeFeo Jr.

And within the first 48 hours,

the focus had quickly shifted to him

as the chief suspect.

Osuna: They read him his Miranda rights,

and they officially told him that he was the suspect

of his family's murder.

♪♪

Now a suspect, police switch from interviewing Ronnie Jr.

to interrogating him.

Aronson: And different police talk to him,

and the head of homicide, Robert Dunn, is the first one,

and then Dennis Rafferty.

He was the detective who was an expert

at extracting confessions from people.

I just tried to warm up to him, really, to, uh --

talk to him, try to make him comfortable,

and proceeded to interrogate him.

Osuna: Several detectives took a turn on Butch,

and, finally, the key detectives

were able to get Butch to cooperate.

Jordan: Ronnie Jr. was vacillating

between telling the police

that he had no idea what happened to his family

and then switching his story to he was there

and the killers forced him to watch his family being killed.

Aronson: And here's Ronnie. He's saying other people did it,

taking him through his house,

room by room,

telling them other people did the shooting.

But the details he had were so precise.

And, finally, Rafferty says to him,

"You did it, Ronnie, didn't you?"

And Ronnie says, "Yes, I did it."

As far as I'm concerned, I got to them before they got to me.

♪♪

Gloria: Louise used to tell me that Butchy was bad,

but I didn't know what she meant.

But she said, "No, Butchy is bad."

I think he had more troubles than we thought,

than they thought.

Scott: At 17, he was into drugs --

LSD, heroin,

a fifth of scotch every day.

He was always at odds with his father, Ronald Sr.

Dr. Cohen: His father was a violent person,

and Ronald DeFeo was subject to a lot of abuse

starting at a very young age.

There's evidence that even as an infant,

as an 18-month-old,

his father would whack him on the head

to stop him from crying.

DeFeo: He's a violent man.

I got beat up since the day I was born.

I mean, I know they told me he took me out of a high chair

and he threw me because I took a bowl of spaghetti

and poured it over my head.

Since I was born, it never stopped.

Berry-Dee: You've got a very domineering father

and a mother that's caught in the middle of this mess.

Osuna: Butch started blaming his mother

for allowing his father to get out of control with the abuse.

He blamed her more than the sickness that his father had

because she allowed it to continue.

Children of an abusive father will often blame the mother

for not having protected them

or view her as an accomplice just by virtue of her passivity

and her denial of what's going on.

Jordan: After Ronnie Jr. became older,

his resentment against his mother grew,

and he began to fight back against his father.

Martin: There's fighting. Ronnie and his father fight,

and he gets crazy and he's got a horrible temper.

Didio: Ronnie Sr. and Ronnie Jr.

had a very contentious, bellicose relationship.

They were always at war.

They had fistfights that spilled out onto the front lawn.

And then Ronnie would take off in his car,

and his father would get in his car

and speed down the block following him.

Scott: At one point during a fight,

he pulled a 12-gauge shotgun out

and pointed it at his father's face and pulled the trigger.

[ Gun clicks ]

The rifle malfunctioned.

The last time I saw Butch and Big Ronnie,

they were fighting in the driveway, yelling at each other.

Big Ronnie was saying, "Get outta here!"

The relationship between Butch DeFeo and his father

was coming to a head.

He felt controlled by his father and terrorized by his father.

I didn't want their love.

I didn't want anything to do with them.

How much abuse did you think I was gonna take?

He was a ticking time bomb.

I had it with him, and it was coming.

This has got to stop.

Osuna: Anger and abuse and violence

and drug addiction and alcoholism --

it became a perfect storm that fed into the murders.

♪♪

[ Gunshot ]

♪♪

He said, "Yes, I did it. I killed them all."

You couldn't believe how it happened.

There were very strange things

associated with the DeFeo murders

that the coroner, the forensics people

could not understand.

Scott: Ron DeFeo said that he heard voices

telling him to kill, compelling him to shoot

one member of the family after another.

[ Gunshot ]

Martin: Before you know it,

people are talking about this house allegedly being haunted.

The story got bigger and more embellished

and more fantastical --

ghosts flying to levitating

to doors flying off hinges

to demons

to satanic forces.

I was there at midnight.

They started the séance.

It's like a black shadow that forms a hood,

and it moves.

"This is the closest to hell I ever want to get."

I'm the devil, I'm possessed,

I'm supposed to be vicious,

a madman, insane, hear voices.

That just makes your blood run cold.

The evil in the house was him.

♪♪

After Ron DeFeo Jr.'s shocking confession

that he was the murderer,

the mystery deepened.

Why would he kill his entire family?

There was no sign of a struggle.

Why didn't any of them fight back?

Why didn't anyone try to run away?

What was his motive --

greed, anger, or insanity?

What really happened that night

in part two of "The Amityville Horror."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.