All language subtitles for 1van helsing s0Famously Haunted Amityville - 2021e08.Deep Trouble.eng

- ?

- MAN: Oh my god, that's it, that's it.

Okay, so I'm gonna turn the camera around.

Ready?

There you go. There you go, kids.

- MALE NARRATOR: Once, it was just a quaint home

in a quiet town.

- This house would be one of the most desirable places to live

in all of Amityville.

- NARRATOR: But then, everything changed.

- Six people were just slaughtered in their sleep.

- Mother and father and four children.

- It was very, very frightening.

- NARRATOR: And that was just the beginning.

- And he said, "The devil made me do it."

- You've got the flies around the window.

You have the slime oozing from the walls.

Black substances that are coming up in the sinks and the toilets.

- It's like a page from a Stephen King novel.

- NARRATOR: Nearly five decades later,

America's greatest ghost story is back in the headlines.

- Breaking news in the true crime and horror community.

- The Amityville Horror killer died in prison at the age of 69.

- NARRATOR: Fueling a new generation to decipher

what really happened at 112 Ocean Avenue.

- You have the true crime. You have the paranormal.

You have the mystery.

- What is it that caused this? How did we get here?

- NARRATOR: This is "Famously Haunted: Amityville."

- ?

- I'm Beckie-Anne Galentine.

I'm a mortician during the day and a ghost hunter at night.

On social media, I am known as the girl

that goes to the spooky locations.

Paranormal, haunted locations, haunted overnights,

and just testing the limits of how far I can go with it.

I actually have the top post on TikTok for Amityville.

You know that saying, if your friends jumped off a bridge,

would you do it?

Well, my TikTok followers told me

to go the Amityville Horror house

where six people were murdered in 1974, and I did.

- NARRATOR: But the town of Amityville doesn't make finding

the iconic house easy.

- BECKIE-ANN: So, when I looked it up on Google Maps,

it is blurred out.

Not only is that house blurred out,

but several neighboring houses are.

They really don't want you to figure out what's going on here.

- When you arrive outside the house now,

the trademark windows have been removed.

They've done all they can to try to make it blend in

and not look like the Amityville house.

- "Meeting" the house for the first time

is like meeting a celebrity.

You feel like you've seen it.

It's a familiar face.

You feel, like, this pit in your stomach, like this is the house.

This is the cover from the movie.

This is the cover from the book.

This is the house that I saw

in a newspaper clipping from the '70s.

- NARRATOR: But this house holds terrible secrets.

- You have the true crime. You have the paranormal.

You have the mystery surrounding why it happened,

because nobody still knows.

There's so many questions still surrounding this case.

- That's the fascinating part about all of this.

The mystery just lives on. What happened?

- NARRATOR: One thing that's certain

is where the story begins.

The year is 1974, and the town is Amityville, New York.

- So this house with the flags is the house that I grew up in.

- NARRATOR: Back then, Geralyn Bozza

lives just a few doors down

from the infamous Amityville Horror house.

At that time, it's only known as the home of the DeFeo family.

- We were friendly with the DeFeo family because there was

a connection between my parents,

being that we were all from Brooklyn.

- RIC: You had the father, Big Ronnie.

The mother, Louise.

Then you had Dawn DeFeo, Allison DeFeo,

Marc DeFeo, and John Matthew.

Then you had the oldest child, Ronnie Jr.

His friends called him Butch.

- NARRATOR: The large Italian family

moves to the picturesque town from Brooklyn nine years earlier

and hangs the sign "High Hopes" to symbolize their new start.

- The DeFeos, compared to the people in Amityville,

especially the more upscale neighbors,

were a little rough around the edges.

Some might call them uncouth, because--

and I'm half Italian myself--

Italians are loud, boisterous.

Big Ronnie, as they called him,

was sort of like Archie Bunker on steroids.

He would yell at his wife.

There was one story that she was coming upstairs

with the laundry basket and he knocked her down the stairs.

- NARRATOR: Some believe it was Big Ronnie's resentment of

the Amityville house that triggered his blind rage.

- The house was purchased by Louise Brigante DeFeo's father,

Michael Brigante Sr.

Her father just absolutely adored her.

Big Ronnie, who was working for his father-in-law,

and was dependent upon his father-in-law for the mortgage,

I think there was probably that in-law friction.

- RIC: On the surface,

they looked like a successful family.

But as you peel back the layers, you find that the systemic abuse

from the father was so severe.

- NARRATOR: But Big Ronnie's most volatile relationship

is with his eldest son.

- MARVIN: Ronnie DeFeo, also known as Butch,

was a troubled young man.

At the age of 17, he was into heroin, LSD.

He drank. He was expelled from school.

His parents sent him to a psychiatrist.

It still didn't help.

He was troubled. He was volatile.

- LAURA: As far as Ronnie Sr.

and Butch, his son, went,

they had a very contentious relationship.

And that bothered the younger DeFeo siblings.

- Certainly the DeFeos were a dysfunctional family.

The situation between Big Ronnie and Little Ronnie's

just worsening and worsening over time.

- Sometimes this would end up as real fisticuffs, bloodletting.

- One time, Ronnie Sr. thought Butch was talking back.

So he grabbed his son and continued to beat on him

until he was bloody.

Of course, everyone's yelling at the father to stop.

- ALEXANDRA: So, there's a lot of psychological things

going on with that family.

A lot of negative, uh, things happening with them,

which invokes negativity.

You just can't see it, but it's there.

- NARRATOR: Then, on November 13, 1974,

the evil within the DeFeo family home spills into the public eye.

- The policeman was coming out the front door.

And I said, "Excuse me, is there something wrong?

My mother sent me down."

He said, "You need to go get your mother right now."

I--

[sobs] "They're all dead."

So I ran down the street.

It was terrible.

It was terrible.

- It's crazy, but we are here.

It's behind me. It's crazy.

Like, isn't it insane? [laughs]

- NARRATOR: It's 6:30 PM in Amityville, New York

on the night of November 13, 1974.

And what happens in this house

is about to change the town forever.

- LAURA: Ronnie DeFeo Jr. went down to Henry's Bar

and burst into the bar and says, help, help!

You know, somebody's-- something's wrong.

Somebody's killed my family.

- TIM: It didn't take long for an officer to respond.

There was actually an officer right down the street.

And as soon as he arrived,

the neighbors were all looking out their windows,

wondering what's going on.

- NARRATOR: Inside this beautiful waterfront home,

police comb through a horrific crime scene.

Ronald DeFeo Sr.

His wife, Louise.

Teenage daughters Dawn and Allison.

And sons Marc and John Mathew.

All shot and killed in their beds.

- Allison and Dawn's shootings

were particularly gory and gruesome.

Not only were they young women,

they were shot in the head so the wounds were big.

And that went through to the walls.

- Investigators do believe that John Matthew,

who was the youngest at nine, did live a little bit longer

after the gunshot.

They believed he was paralyzed, but he was--of course,

pronounced dead at the scene, the whole family was.

- Six people died.

And this was something--this was a crime that was unheard of.

- NARRATOR: Only 23-year-old Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo survives.

- Ronnie Defeo Jr. claimed that

he hadn't been home when this all went on.

He came home at about 6:30 on November 13.

Found his family all murdered in their beds.

Someone went through there

and systematically killed each and every one of them

in a most brutal fashion.

I can't imagine what it must've been like

to be one of those neighbors in this small community

and then to watch as

law enforcement is just converging on this house.

Uh, the media starts showing up. Flashbulbs going off.

Everybody angling to see what's going on.

And then suddenly a silence falls over the crowd

as the body bags start being pulled from the house.

And you can see in the archived photos

that some of those body bags were very small

because they contained very small children.

- GERALYN: Remember, Amityville was the type of place

where you didn't lock your doors.

So, you went from a very passive place to live

to a how could that happen.

I mean, it was just so huge.

I mean...a child--children. Why?

Being that we were friendly with the DeFeo family,

I can remember being afraid

that whoever killed them was coming for us next.

I can remember sleeping with my sister, I think,

for over a year.

- Who would wanna kill this family of six people,

a mother and father, and four children?

It was sensational news.

It really tweaked the imagination and the horror

and--and the sadness of everyone who lived in the area.

- NARRATOR: But as police investigate

the grisly crime scene,

the search for answers only leads to more questions.

- PATRICIA: There were no shell casings left behind.

And it seemed that nobody was awake or heard, which is, again,

a big part of the mystery. Why didn't anybody wake up?

Why did the neighbors not hear any of this stuff?

- One teenager in the neighborhood,

he was awakened by the sound

of the DeFeos' old English sheepdog, Shaggy,

barking at about 3:00, 3:15 in the morning.

But why had nobody heard any shots?

- To not hear a gun go off

six times of that caliber

when you were that close to this house

is--is not believable at all.

I do not understand how that happened.

You could stand in their--their front doorway

and throw a rock at their neighbor's house

and hit it through their window.

- NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the crowd of onlookers grows

outside the stately colonial.

- I think they were just very sweet, very religious people,

very family minded people.

- Have you ruled out robbery as a motive?

- We have ruled out no motive because we have no idea what

the motive is at this time.

- Amityville is a small, quiet community.

And any type of disruption like this is going to get

a lookie-loo standing outside the house.

- One of the basic ironies about the DeFeos moving

from an apartment in Brooklyn to upscale Amityville

is it was supposed to symbolize upward mobility,

better times for the family.

They have the sign out there.

Named their home "High Hopes."

And that all came crashing down.

- TIM: The rumors are gonna start flying pretty quickly.

And one of the rumors that really took hold was this

could have been a mob hit of some kind.

- RIC: The DeFeo family had connections to organized crime

on both sides, maternal and paternal.

So, the Colombo and Genovese families were connected, uh,

to the DeFeos.

- TIM: Louise DeFeo was part of the Brigante family,

that they were associated with the mafia in New York City.

- LAURA: Ronnie DeFeo Sr.,

he was working for his father-in-law,

Michael Brigante Sr., at the Buick dealership.

- RIC: The car dealership was a front for the mob.

Things happened there such as low-level crime,

like chopping cars, all the way up to money laundering.

Big Ronnie Sr. was responsible for keeping tabs of the ledgers

for the family business, if you will.

The true ledgers.

- LAURA: There were rumors that Big Ronnie,

that he was somehow skimming off the top

at the Buick dealership.

You look in the '70s, all the New York newspapers

were filled with mob killings.

The type of things that were ripped out of "The Godfather."

- You know, was it a mob hit? I don't know.

- [bell ringing]

- NARRATOR: But not everyone's convinced

the mob is responsible.

- MARVIN: There had been an unwritten law within

the families of not attacking children.

So that made it a little bizarre

the thought that it might have been a mob hit.

- TIM: For Amityville, it's not a place where a lot of crime

was happening in those days.

They probably had, you know, two police officers and a stop sign.

They had to call in outside police from Suffolk County

in order to help assist in this investigation because

if you've never even processed one murder, let alone six,

how are you gonna be able to handle something

of this magnitude on your own?

- Ronald is being safeguarded

by the Suffolk County Police at this time.

- Why safeguarded? - Why?

Because there's six members of the family dead

and we don't know why.

And he's the sole remaining member.

- TIM: When you consider that an entire family was taken out,

it only becomes logical to think

that the surviving member might be a target.

So, Ronnie was taken into protective custody just in case

it was a mob hit and that he might still be in danger.

- NARRATOR: When police question 23-year-old Butch DeFeo,

he echoes the mob theory.

- MARVIN: As police question him,

he suggested that his parents and his four siblings

were victims of a mob hitman.

- LAURA: He tried to claim that the infamous mobster Lou Fellini

did it, but he had an airtight alibi.

He wasn't even in the state at the time.

So, cross that one off the list.

- NARRATOR: Investigators are beginning to believe

the real suspect is staring them right in the face.

- Everyone pointing,

could it have been the only surviving son?

- LAURA: But what was the motive?

Why did he want to do this?

What the detectives seemed to come to terms with

as for a motive was money.

- NARRATOR: They soon discover Big Ronnie had a $200,000

life insurance policy.

- Besides this, there were talks about parents having

100,000 or $200,000 in cash in the house.

- NARRATOR: The kind of money Butch could use

to make a new life for himself

far away from the reputation he'd built in Amityville.

- Ronnie, he was a difficult kid growing up.

I think he got into a lot of bad things,

a lot of bad circles.

- To kind of deal with him being kicked out of school,

they offer him a job at the dealership in the family.

And he started working as a mechanic there.

- He had a job as a gofer.

He was an errand boy for his grandfather.

So he made some money,

plus his father would give him an allowance,

sometimes several hundred dollars a week.

He had a stereo system. He had guns in the house.

He had a car. He had a boat.

He had a lot of spending money.

And yet that wasn't enough for Butch.

- NARRATOR: Armed with this information,

investigators sit down with DeFeo again.

This time, the surviving son completely changes his story.

- Under intense questioning,

Ron finally confessed to the killings.

And he said, quote, "Once it started, I couldn't stop.

It was that fast."

- Ronnie was trying to say, oh, his memory was foggy.

He didn't remember anything.

But he told them, well, I dumped the rifle here.

I dumped my bloody clothes down the sewer drain.

That all turned out to be true,

because they found it exactly where he said he put it.

- TIM: Now the investigation turns its focus solely on him.

Ronnie is arrested for the murders.

- You couldn't think that Butch would've done that.

I guess it was an explosion

of whatever was going on in his mind.

I don't know what happened.

- LAURA: He had acknowledged that he had taken drugs,

had alcohol that night.

- NARRATOR: And the more investigators learn about

the DeFeo family dynamics,

the more they believe Ronnie was searching for his escape.

- LAURA: He wanted to be an alpha male.

He would fight with his brothers and sisters.

He had to share a bathroom with the brothers.

And he was saying his two brothers were little pigs

because they didn't clean up after themselves.

He didn't like his sisters' choice in music.

So there was tension building in the house.

- NARRATOR: Many believe it's this tension that led Butch

to finally snap.

- BECKIE-ANN: The night of the murders,

it was 3:15 in the morning.

And Butch was sitting in the basement.

And he had gone upstairs.

He used two shots to kill each of his parents.

And then he killed all of his siblings.

- NARRATOR: One year later,

Ronnie DeFeo's six-count murder trial

begins on October 14, 1975.

At first, he admits to the killings.

- WILLIAM: The closest Ronnie ever, uh,

explained as to why he did it, is because at that time,

he felt that they were conspiring against him.

- NARRATOR: But then, an even more terrifying story emerges.

- MARVIN: It came out that Ronnie heard voices

telling him to kill.

There was a--a shadowy figure following him through the house.

He said it was the devil in the house

that was at the root of the murders.

- LAURA: Ronnie Jr. was fueled by drugs.

And a lot of people who are involved in the paranormal

will tell you that in itself can be a deadly combination.

Once you start taking drugs, alcohol,

and you've got a sort of demented personality that can

then go full blown into opening the doors for...

demonic possession.

- Ronnie was taken over by the spirit

that had him do these horrible things.

Something, someone is taking over him and his body.

- PATRICIA: A part of me wants to believe that there is

some sort of entity telling somebody to do these things,

whether you call that evil or whatever you call it,

because we don't wanna believe that somebody's capable of

doing this to their whole family.

- NARRATOR: Soon, Butch's lawyer embraces his client's claims.

- LAURA: William Weber comes up with what was very unusual

and certainly very rare at the time:

the devil made me do it defense.

- NARRATOR: In other words, William Weber claims his client

is legally insane.

- Whenever I have a client who tells me something

that doesn't register as normal or sane,

um, one of the things I have to ask myself is,

is this person competent to aid in their own defense?

So the first thing you would wanna do--

or I would do, anyway--

is I would have my client evaluated by

a good expert.

- NARRATOR: Weber consults a psychiatrist to examine DeFeo.

He testifies Butch does in fact believe he heard voices

telling him to shoot his family.

- DANIEL: On the defense side,

you're trying to convince the jury that the person is insane

at the time of the crimes

and did not have control of themselves.

Weber, in direct examination of his client,

shows a picture of his deceased mother

lying there on the bed surrounded by blood and says,

hey, is this--is this your mom?

And DeFeo says, I've never seen that person in my life.

Weber repeats this with a picture of his father.

He denies knowing who that was.

From the prosecution's side, you show that whatever mental defect

the person is suffering from, it's not significant enough

to excuse the behavior.

He clearly thought out what he was doing shortly

after committing these murders.

He collected the shell casings, the rifle.

And then he disposed of them in the sewer system.

- NARRATOR: The trial lasts over a month.

But after just two days of deliberations,

the jury rejects DeFeo's devil defense.

- TIM: The evidence all pointed to the fact that Ronnie DeFeo

killed his family.

The guy who is not only guilty of this,

but is trying to weasel his way out of being convicted for it.

And it's no surprise that they found him guilty.

- NARRATOR: DeFeo is given six consecutive sentences

of 25 years to life.

Two weeks after Butch's conviction,

he begins his sentence in New York State's

Sullivan Correctional Facility.

- People thought that once Ronnie DeFeo was convicted

of those murders, the story would end.

They had no idea that that was only the actual beginning

of the Amityville case.

- BRYAN: The sheer evil that would have to be present for

a family member to kill six other family members,

it's unthinkable.

That could only be precipitated by evil.

- It has been debated many times on whether or not

this Amityville home is actually haunted.

- Many people believe that the spirits in this house

possessed him to do it.

- The strange thing is, all members of the family that

had been shot were found lying face down in their beds.

- MARVIN: I believe there still remain unanswered questions

about the murders and what really happened in that house

the night he killed his entire family.

Was there a shadowy force telling him to kill?

- PATRICIA: People are going to side one way or the other

whether or not this is one of the most intense cases of

demonic possession or if this is simply a person disturbed.

I think what initially happened in the house with the DeFeos

sparked some sort of...

presence that lingered in the house.

- NARRATOR: A presence that will

drive the next family to move in crazy.

- Y'all have probably heard of "Amityville Horror."

Did you know that it's a real case,

and this house right here is said to be one

of the most evil locations on earth?

- NARRATOR: Just weeks after Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo

is given six life sentences for murdering his entire family

inside their Amityville home,

a new family takes interest in the house.

- I described the house as "charming" the first time

I saw it, 'cuz it's what I thought of it.

- NARRATOR: 30-year-old Kathy Lutz

and her 29-year-old husband, George,

have no idea of the brutal murders that happened here

when they arrive 112 Ocean Avenue...

nor DeFeo's defense that demons made him do it.

- GEORGE: [unintelligible] saying,

"Kathy, do you believe this?"

And she said, "No, I don't believe this."

- NARRATOR: They're just looking for a fresh start

for their blended family:

five-year-old Missy, seven-year-old Chris,

and 10-year-old Daniel.

- TIM: They were looking for a place

that was bigger for their family now,

but also George could run his business from.

And this house was perfect for that.

Not only did it have all the space that they needed,

but it had a boathouse for George's boat.

It had storage space for his motorcycles.

- BECKIE-ANNE: When they come into this home, they're, like,

blown away by its beauty.

And they know there has to be a catch.

This is when the person showing the house says, you know,

this is the one where the murders had occurred.

And it wasn't a deal-breaker for them.

- TIM: They decided that getting a property like this

for the bargain price at the time of $80,000

was just something they couldn't pass up.

- NARRATOR: The Lutzes even pay an extra $400 for the remainder

of the DeFeos' abandoned furniture.

- LAURA: A lot of people don't realize this,

when the police finished with the crime scene

after the murders, there was still a lot of physical residue.

Spots of blood on the-- the walls, brain matter,

holes in the wall with the bullets.

In fact, the ammunition that Butch had,

there were boxes of it up in his closet that the Lutz boys found

and were playing with.

- [bell ringing]

- NARRATOR: But some believe the DeFeos' discarded things present

unforeseen evils for their new owners.

- If an inanimate object

happened to be in close proximity to a traumatic event

that was the catalyst for the evil

in the case of a murder like what happened there,

then it stands to reason that any object that was in the house

at the time that the murders took place could have absorbed

that same energy.

- BECKIE-ANNE: I know personally,

I wouldn't have bought any of that furniture,

especially the beds.

When something happens like that,

I don't see any reason why someone would wanna, you know,

continue to linger and use those beds,

especially for their children.

- PATRICIA: They didn't get rid of anything.

And that's not to put blame on them at all.

I mean, yes, I have moved into places

and bought the furniture in there,

but not where somebody was killed brutally in their sleep.

- NARRATOR: Given the home's bloody

and potentially demonic past,

Kathy Lutz decides to have a priest bless the house

just in case.

- BRYAN: A blessing would have been

a appropriate course of action.

Even somebody that is non-practicing,

if they grew up with the Catholic faith,

there's always going to be some of those old habits within them.

- NARRATOR: But this is no routine blessing.

Four years later, in 1979,

the priest finally reveals what happened in the house that day.

Only if he can remain anonymous.

- I was blessing, um, the sewing room.

It was cold. It was really cold in there.

And I thought, "Gee, this is peculiar."

Because it was a lovely day out and...

I--I was also sprinkling holy water.

And I heard a rather deep voice, uh, behind me saying, "Get out."

- NARRATOR: The startled priest abruptly finishes his blessing

and tells the Lutzes.

- "As long as nobody's sleeping in there, you're fine."

And then he rushed out the door,

which should've been a clue for them.

- NARRATOR: Days later, the priest discovers mysterious

blisters on his hands, like a stigmata.

- BRYAN: It's very common for victims of a malevolent attack,

spiritual attack, or paranormal attack

by some kind of potential demonic entity

to experience a mocking of Jesus' life, his reality.

- NARRATOR: Soon, the Lutzes begin encountering

strange events as well.

- Suddenly George was, uh, furiously cold all the time.

No matter what, he couldn't get warm.

And he was constantly building fires

even when the rest of the family

was shedding off layers because he had them sweating.

But he had this bone chill that he just couldn't seem to shake.

- PATRICIA: What's fascinating about George's cold chills is

he was the only one experiencing them.

From somebody who's experienced cold chills,

it's hard to describe. But it's a situation where

you feel like somebody brushed past you.

I mean, I'm getting chills just thinking about it.

When you're there and in that moment, you're like,

oh, this is--this is something. There's something here.

- NARRATOR: George's personality changes too.

He suffers unexplained bouts of anger, confusion,

and loss of appetite.

- As the phenomena started to progress and worsen over time,

George really started to notice

that it was affecting him directly,

including waking up every night at about 3:15 AM.

- NARRATOR: Around the time some believe

the DeFeo murders took place.

It's also the time some call the devil's hour.

- Jesus was said to have died on the cross at 3:00 PM.

And so the devil's hour being 3:00 AM

is sort of a contrast to that.

- NARRATOR: But it's not just odd behavior

haunting the new residents.

- When the Lutzes first moved into the house, naturally,

you know, it has tons of space

and lots of different rooms and areas to be explored.

But there were also some areas they weren't expecting to find.

- NARRATOR: Kathy Lutz discovers one such mysterious space

while moving a bookcase in the basement.

- KATHY: Much to my surprise, there was no wall behind it.

It was the entrance into this small,

brightly painted red room.

And I was really surprised and alarmed by the find.

- NARRATOR: Even the Lutzes' dog, Harry,

won't go near the strange void known as the Red Room.

- Animals can definitely sense when there's something not right

going on in the environment of something malevolent,

of something, you know, dark.

And Harry not wanting to go anywhere near the Red Room

is something that

we would expect to find in a legitimate case of demonic,

uh, involvement.

- NARRATOR: But Kathy's bizarre encounters don't end there.

She soon begins sensing the murdered

DeFeo family's presence.

- BECKIE-ANNE: Kathy was experiencing dreams of Louise,

Louise's body being exhumed,

the bodies lying on the floor in the same room

where the family was placed

before they were taken out by the medical examiners.

And I know that she had continuously had dreams

of her getting shot.

- [gun cocking]

- LAURA: Kathy also said that her aunt, who was a nun,

came into the house to visit one day.

And she left when she became violently ill.

So, a lot of things were piling up.

- NARRATOR: Then, Kathy's five-year-old daughter, Missy,

begins experiencing her own phenomena.

She claims to see the face of a red-eyed pig

in her bedroom window and names it Jody.

- If there was a demon in the Amityville house,

it's very likely that that was what was manifesting

as Jody the red-eyed pig, and was appearing before Missy.

It would be trying to gain her trust because

the more it has attention, the more power it will gain.

- BRYAN: Children do see demonic entities first,

before the adults are directly affected.

Children tend to be more sensitive and more willing

to experience it.

It would not be outside of the realm of possibility that some

malevolent force would seek out a child first because the child

would be more likely to see and interact with them.

- I think if I had seen a pig face in the window,

I would have run for the hills, absolutely.

I'm out of there.

- NARRATOR: But no one outside the home

has any idea what's happening.

- GERALYN: I was in high school when they were in the house.

And I used to walk back and forth

to the high school every day, you know, five days a week.

And I can't say I ever saw anything.

- TIM: As the phenomena worsens, you know,

the Lutz family's trying to tough it out,

and who can blame them?

You finally got your dream house.

What's a few ghosts?

- NARRATOR: But when the Lutzes try to take matters

into their own hands, it awakens an even darker force.

- Hey, everyone.

Um, so I'm an Instacart shopper on Long Island.

And I am often in the town of Amityville,

which is where the DeFeo family murders happened.

I view this house as, like,

one would view the Empire State Building.

Um, I just think it's a national landmark.

There it is, y'all. This is Ocean Avenue.

Right there, Amityville Horror house.

It's beautiful.

- NARRATOR: Within a week after

moving into their Amityville dream home,

the Lutz family begins facing a series of

terrifying and unexplained phenomena.

- STEPHANIE: The spectral pig with the glowing eyes,

disembodied voices, cold spots in the home,

I've never heard of anything like this.

- NARRATOR: Soon, the Lutzes begin to wonder if the house

is haunted by the DeFeo murders after all.

- For somebody to be sleeping on the same beds

and be in that same house

and really not cleanse that space, if you will,

I think that definitely has something to do with it.

- NARRATOR: Desperate for help, George and Kathy call

the local priest back for a second blessing,

starting with the mysterious red room

they recently discovered underneath

their basement stairs.

- TIM: He said no way was he coming back into their house.

And that's when he revealed to them for the first time that

when he had been there previously,

something unseen had smacked him,

and a voice told him to get out.

- If we can see it with our own eyes,

it lends credibility to the fact that it would have been

essential for them to get the help of the church

to be able to rectify it.

- NARRATOR: With no spiritual help on the way,

the Lutzes take matters into their own hands

and bless the house themselves.

But their actions only further enrage the demons haunting it.

- BECKIE-ANNE: When you're experiencing

a paranormal encounter, your eyes focus,

and you see something that you can't explain,

and then you need to assess, is this a danger to me?

- STEPHANIE: I think that you can stir up energy

if you don't know what you're doing,

or maybe that was the intention.

You know, to try to create something or have this energy

kind of come out of the woodwork.

- NARRATOR: Some believe the paranormal activity haunting

the Lutzes may be their own doing.

- George and Kathy practiced Transcendental Meditation,

which in the 1970s sometimes was a code word for they were

interested in the occult.

- ALEXANDRA: Of that time of the '70s,

it was kind of the thing to do.

I know, I grew up in it. I [unintelligible].

A lot of incense-burning and a lot of chanting.

But, if they were into parts of the occult

that are incantations of bad things,

it's definitely inviting somebody in that

you don't know who they are and where they come from, uh,

to create a negative energy.

And then things can happen that are really bad.

- BRYAN: You know, any kind of dabbling

with any kind of occult forces

is usually the recipe for disaster because very few people

are properly trained in how to handle these things.

- NARRATOR: After their blessing attempt,

the dark energy within 112 Ocean Avenue only intensifies.

Swarms of flies begin congregating in the same room

where the priest experienced

the mysterious slap in the face weeks earlier.

- That's usually the case

when you have the center of the haunting.

It's the place that nobody wants to go and the place

where spending too much time in there will become overwhelming.

- STEPHANIE: If that were happening to me right now,

I would have called somebody in to come and help me.

I would've tried to do anything.

But they kind of kept quiet on it.

- NARRATOR: But the flies are just the beginning of

the strange phenomena barraging the Lutzes.

- LAURA: The boys, who were sharing the same room, said--

and they absolutely swear to this to this day--

that they saw sort of like a--a black amorphous figure.

They felt like something like whooshed through them,

like a spirit.

- TIM: Kathy herself starts levitating over the bed.

And George sees this happening with his own eyes.

- LAURA: Kathy looked at herself in the mirror one morning

as she was washing her face.

And her face transformed into that of an old hag.

- My hair turned color. There was no true color.

It was a gray-white.

My face was severely wrinkled.

Ah, deep impressions coming down across the forehead.

My mouth was very tight, very drawn.

- You have a potential demonic presence.

You've got the flies around the window.

You have the slime oozing from the walls.

You have the black substances

that are coming up in the sinks and in the toilets.

This is absolutely terrifying.

- TIM: Whatever entities are there

had quite an unusual strength.

It would target the children.

And it would start to attack them in their rooms.

George tries to get out of bed to go and save them,

and he's paralyzed. He can't get up.

That's the amount of strength that was behind these hauntings.

- BRYAN: These kinds of things are things that we do see

when we go and investigate a case

and a person is experiencing what they think

is a demonic problem.

- NARRATOR: The same evil spirits

that haunted Butch DeFeo.

When the Lutzes stay, the dark forces grow even more powerful.

- TIM: George and Kathy describe coming down in

the middle of the night

and finding the sound of a marching band

going through their house.

Kathy, she finally had had enough.

And the time came for the Lutz family to get out of that house.

- NARRATOR: On January 14, 1976,

George and Kathy gather their kids and dog and race to escape.

- TIM: But whatever is in that house starts targeting them.

He's unable to pull out.

It's like whatever is there is keeping them on that land.

A young family that has invested everything they have

into their dream home suddenly, after just 28 days,

bolts from the property.

- They were genuinely terrified.

- NARRATOR: But the Lutzes will return to their haunted home.

This time, with reinforcements.

- Let's talk about the Amityville haunting.

On November 13, 1974, Ronnie DeFeo murdered

his two parents and four siblings.

A little over a year later,

Kathy and George Lutz moved into the home.

They would only end up staying in the home for 28 days.

They claim they had to leave the home

due to paranormal hauntings.

They claim some crazy shit in this case.

Furniture flying across the room, Kathy levitating,

green slime oozing from the walls, infestation of flies.

- MARVIN: George and Kathy Lutz fled in the darkness in panic.

They said the house was being possessed.

It was the occult. It was demonic.

There was slime oozing from the walls.

There were flies in the dead of winter.

They heard voices.

- LAURA: You couldn't have a--a more perfect storm

or confluence of events if you even drew a Venn diagram.

You have unseen forces, supernatural,

that have driven this couple out of their house

14 months after six people were violently murdered.

Of course that grabbed everybody's attention.

- NARRATOR: Soon, neighbors on Ocean Avenue realize

the Lutz family car has been missing for weeks.

Rumors begin circulating the family

had experienced strange behavior

and fled because they were afraid.

- MARVIN: The story filtered into our newsroom.

Laura DiDio, who was an intern at that time,

was ordered to go out to the house

to interview the Lutz family.

- LAURA: I spent five hours talking with them

and getting them to open up.

They were--they were scared.

- MARVIN: She came back.

She said their story is incredible.

And she talked them into allowing us

to come in with a crew.

I was hoping to get an exclusive interview with a ghost.

[chuckles] Oh, an intrepid reporter,

always looking for another interview.

- NARRATOR: The reporters contact two of America's

most renowned paranormal investigators for help,

Ed and Lorraine Warren.

- Ed and Lorraine Warren were

a paranormal power couple from Connecticut.

She had a gift that she could see things that other people

couldn't see and sense things

that other people couldn't sense.

He was a Catholic demonologist,

so they kind of meshed well together.

They really pushed the envelope.

They went to all of the biggest houses,

the scariest--things that you don't wanna find

under your bed at night, they were there.

- NARRATOR: With the Lutzes' permission,

the reporters and the Warrens meet at 112 Ocean Avenue

to determine if demonic forces within really have haunted both

the Lutz and DeFeo families.

- Lorraine said, "Before we go into the house,

"let's just take a minute to decompress, pray,

get yourself in the right frame of mind."

We went into the house with the crew.

And Lorraine didn't know which rooms belonged to who.

When she got to Ronnie DeFeo Jr.'s room, Butch,

she walked to the entryway, stood in the doorway,

took one step in, and immediately backed out and said,

"No, it's too oppressive here. I can't go into this room."

- NARRATOR: But Lorraine can't escape this feeling.

Even as her psychic reading continues

on the home's second floor.

- She walked in the master bedroom.

And she said, "Blood, blood, blood all over."

She sat down.

She was having a very physical reaction to this.

She got a migraine headache.

- STEPHANIE: Any type of place that has paranormal activity,

even if you're not looking for it

and you happen to stumble upon it,

those different things that I just described

are actually really common.

You know, especially if you're in a place

where six murders happened.

- I don't doubt for one second that they were encountering

real paranormal entities during these experiences.

- NARRATOR: Overcome, Lorraine abruptly ends their visit.

But not before DiDio and her crew have enough material for

an earth-shattering newscast.

- Then it really blew up.

I would get calls from 20-year-old kids.

Hey, can we go in there and spend the night?

If the murders and Ronnie DeFeo's trial

hadn't been taxing enough, now you've ladled on ghostbusters.

- People started to invade the...

the quaint little village that we have.

- LAURA: All we kept getting for the next couple of weeks is,

when is the next installment? When is the next installment?

From there on in, this took on a life of its own.

- The news director said,

"Okay, we gotta go back in and do more on this.

Follow up the story."

- NARRATOR: On March 6, 1976,

the news crew returns to the home with the Warrens.

They're joined by George and Kathy Lutz,

who haven't been back to the house

since they fled in the middle of the night two months earlier.

- LAURA: Unbeknownst to us, the Warrens had invited several of

their psychic and paranormal friends.

George Lutz had invited several other

paranormal investigating agencies to come in.

So there were about 20 people there.

- NARRATOR: But the Warrens aren't just looking

to conduct psychic readings.

This time, they're going to try to conjure the spirits.

- MAN: We're back.

And if you see it, there's the house.

That's it, that's it.

Now, notice how they've changed the, uh...

- WOMAN: The windows.

- MAN: The eye--ooh. The eye windows.

- WOMAN: They're not--

- MAN: They're not eye windows anymore.

- NARRATOR: Nearly a year and a half after Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo

murdered his entire family inside their Amityville home

and three months after the new residents, the Lutzes,

were chased away by a series of terrifying paranormal phenomena,

renowned paranormal investigators

Ed and Lorraine Warren

have returned to the Amityville home to try to

conjure the spirits haunting it.

- BECKIE-ANNE: They called the biggest names that they could,

the best experts, to help with the house.

And they truly were trying to figure out what was going on.

- MARVIN: I arrived, and I walked into the house,

and there were about 20 people sitting around this table, uh,

with a, uh, blessed candle, crucifix, and, uh, two psychics.

The best description of our reaction during that s�ance

was one word: we're mesmerized.

- I feel personally threatened.

- [pants]

It's something, it's--it's whatever's here.

[pants] Whatever is here.

And it's something that comes at you

and makes your heart speed up, that kind of thing.

- LAURA: So Lorraine was getting the perception

that whatever this was, this was a demonic force,

and it came from the bowels of the earth.

- MARVIN: She believed that the house had been possessed.

There was an occult nature in there.

At one point, Lorraine Warren said to me, "Marvin,

this is the closest to hell I ever wanna get."

- PATRICIA: Lorraine Warren's specifically saying that this is

the closest to hell that she'll ever get is fascinating,

considering all of the stuff that she has experienced.

- BECKIE-ANNE: When they held these s�ances,

I don't think they were just trying to prove it.

I think they were trying to stop whatever was happening.

- NARRATOR: And soon, something does happen--

to the TV crew's cameraman.

- LAURA: Steve gets to

the top of the second floor stair landing.

And all of a sudden, he turns around,

and I saw his face go ashen.

All the blood drained out.

And he--I could see, he breaks out into this sweat.

And his face is contorted with pain.

And he doubles over, clutching his chest,

and he said all of a sudden,

he just got severe heart palpitations.

And that had never happened to him before.

- If you're in a place where six murders had just happened

13 months or so before,

something like your heart pounding,

that could be something that you're just not familiar with

and you're expecting or anticipating the worst,

but can also be very common in any paranormal situation.

The energy is from spirits that are left behind.

- NARRATOR: Moments later, the Warrens' photographer captures

this haunting image.

- LAURA: It shows at the top of the stairs, in a doorway,

what seems to be a little boy

with very bright eyes lighting up and a plaid shirt.

- TIM: There are many people that feel that they actually

captured the spirit of John Matthew DeFeo,

who was the youngest of the DeFeo children murdered

that night, coming out of one of the side rooms.

There are others who say that it was actually

one of the investigators that was there that night

and was just captured in the IR light of the camera

and had this weird, ghostly reflection in his eyes.

But when you see the photos side by side

of the supposed ghost boy and John Matthew,

it's hard to really ignore the similarities.

- LAURA: I was not there when the picture was developed.

And I cannot vouch for its accuracy, veracity,

or authenticity. I don't know.

- STEPHANIE: It's easy in this day and age

to fake evidence like that.

Back then, it was harder to fake.

But could it have been possible that it was a ghost?

Absolutely.

- NARRATOR: Interest in the Amityville case

continues to build, sparking the curiosity of

legendary parapsychologist Hans Holzer,

who signs on to conduct his own investigation.

- My father, Dr. Hans Holzer, was one of the most known

American ghost hunters of our time.

In the case of the Amityville story,

you've got both true crime and the paranormal.

Amityville, to him, was kind of falling in that, you know,

what do we do with this?

- NARRATOR: Holzer takes the investigation back to its roots:

the DeFeo murders.

- Why would Ronnie act out in that way?

There's gotta be a reason why.

And that's really what he was trying to find out about.

- TIM: Hans Holzer utilized what he called the Holzer Method,

which would involve him bringing the equipment,

similar to what you see paranormal researchers

use on TV today.

But he would also bring along with him a trance medium.

- ALEXANDRA: If you're a deep trance medium,

essentially means that you are allowing your body

to be taken over to the said entity

that's in the environment at the time to speak through you.

And the medium of his choice then was Ethel Johnson-Meyers.

- NARRATOR: Once again, the Channel 5 news team joins

to document any paranormal activity.

- Holzer had planned to go to the house with Ethel,

and could I meet him there, and could I do research?

I said, "Sure."

- ALEXANDRA: So the way Dr. Holzer did his investigations

was he had his recorder and five different Polaroid cameras.

So when Ethel went into a trance, that tape was running.

And then he would speak into the microphone to Ethel,

to the spirit

[imitates Austrian accent] "Tell me who you are.

What is your name?"

- But Hans Holzer's video camera froze up.

And he says, "That's the first time

this has ever happened to me."

- Hans Holzer wanted physical proof of what was going on.

He certainly believed the trance mediums that he worked with.

But he knew that if he wanted to convince people

that the paranormal was real, you were gonna have to show them

that photograph or that piece of film or that audio recording.

- NARRATOR: Holzer's Polaroid cameras are working,

and in this photo, capture a presence in the house.

The bullet holes leftover from the DeFeo murders

in this undoctored photo.

- ALEXANDRA: There is glowing light

that you cannot account for.

And that was something that he would be very excited about.

Yeah, something is still here.

Somebody is forming that energy.

- NARRATOR: Holzer's not the only one sensing

a disturbance in the home.

His deep trance medium, Ethel Meyers,

also detects an unknown force.

- ALEXANDRA: With a deep trance medium,

they're going to use your vocal chords.

Your voice will change.

Your facial expressions will start to shift,

almost as if you have a makeup artist molding your face

to look like a character.

It's really quite scary.

- LAURA: What came through was the spirit

of a Native American chief.

- NARRATOR: Hans Holzer himself would later explain

Ethel's experience in an interview with Marvin Scott.

- On, uh, further investigation, I discovered that the house was

built on Indian burial ground.

And that aroused the Indian to a warpath

against anybody living in the house.

That's when the fun started.

- Holzer told me during an interview that he believed

it was possessed because there was a chief

who was rebellious of the house being there,

and this was his way of responding

to get the people out of the house.

This was the occult that was occurring at 112 Ocean Avenue.

- In my initial research back in early 1976,

I had gone to the Amityville Historical Society,

and I had seen that there were documents that there was,

in fact--the house had been built

on a Native American burial ground.

- NARRATOR: The house where Butch Defeo

murdered his entire family...

and later sent the Lutz family

running terrified into the night.

- [engine turns over]

- When people are slaughtered in their sleep

the way that the DeFeos were, and you move into the home

and try to have a happy life right afterward,

I think there's no question

that you're gonna run into some terrible energy.

You're gonna run into some paranormal activity.

- NARRATOR: Holzer's findings further fuel the publicity

engulfing the Amityville case...

but nothing like what's about to come next.

- The true story of the Amityville Horror house,

part two.

So the Lutz family moved in in December of 1975

and only stayed for a mere 28 days.

In that month, they experienced weird paranormal activity

such as eyes peering into the house from all the windows,

hearing unexplainable noises,

and even smelling really foul, bizarre odors.

- NARRATOR: In 1976, news of the Lutz family's strange encounters

within their recently abandoned Amityville home

makes headlines across the nation.

- STEPHANIE: Things such as green slime,

flies all gathering in one area in the house,

disembodied voices, cold spots in the home,

Kathy levitating out of bed.

- NARRATOR: That same year, George and Kathy Lutz connect

with author Jay Anson to share their terrifying story.

- They had sent him 45 hours

of taped conversations.

- I'm a journalist.

I try to investigate as best as I can.

I was able to put together a chronology of the events that

took place within that framework of 28 days.

I sincerely believe they took place.

- NARRATOR: The book is an instant bestseller,

capturing in chilling detail

the story of both the brutal DeFeo murders

and the subsequent hauntings experienced by the Lutzes.

- LAURA: People ate it up. And it takes off.

- Americans love a good ghost story.

And there's no better ghost story

than the one that comes out of Amityville.

- TIM: So in 1977, author Jay Anson adapts their story into

his novel, "The Amityville Horror."

And I saw the cover.

I saw the logo with the devil tail.

And then I saw the words "Based on a true story."

And that just captured my attention right then and there.

I became obsessed with this case.

- RIC: I got interested originally

in the Amityville story

by seeing my mother and sister's reaction

to Jay Anson's book.

And when I picked it up, the house with the eye-like windows

just kind of called to me. It fascinated me.

- NARRATOR: Almost overnight, the quiet village of Amityville

turns into an unwanted tourist attraction.

- I have to say from the time the murders happened,

the traffic on Ocean Avenue picked up unbelievably.

- NARRATOR: But the book is just the beginning.

In 1979, the motion picture "The Amityville Horror" is released.

- [flies buzzing]

- NARRATOR: The film grosses nearly $8 million

its first weekend--

the equivalent of $30 million today.

- BRYAN: "The Amityville Horror" was a classic horror film.

It still holds its own today.

Those little curved windows in the attic.

That stays in public consciousness.

It becomes an archetype.

- NARRATOR: Soon, a second wave of mania takes over the town.

- WOMAN: Now, you all came up from Queens

to try to look at the house. Why?

- I don't know. I haven't seen the movie yet.

I'm waiting to see the movie. Just, you know, beforehand.

- After that, when the movie came out,

then it stirred up stuff in the village

and it really became more of a nuisance,

or it did--it was a nuisance,

with people coming by all the time,

looking at the house and walking on the property.

- TIM: "The Amityville Horror" story

hit the American public consciousness

at just the right time for this to get a lot of play.

It was--in the years immediately following the release

of the book and the movie "The Exorcist."

And that kicked off an era

that we refer to as the Satanic Panic.

- LAURA: The movie comes out, and bam.

The legend is born, and it's in full swing.

People who were atheist, agnostics,

came out of that movie theater.

And the next thing you know,

people were sleeping with the lights on.

- PATRICIA: We have this fascinating paranormal story,

but also this murder trial where they try and use

demonic presence in court.

And it's something that's going to be debated forever.

- BECKIE-ANNE: I believe that something supernatural

occurred in that house.

Someone commented on one of my friend's videos and said,

"That was entirely a hoax."

Says who? Were you there?

Are you able to produce something that proves

one side or the other?

- TIM: All of these people

skeptical about the Lutzes' story,

with people calling them liars and hoaxers

and saying that they're just in this to make a buck, well,

the only thing they can do to really defend themselves

and to make people believe them is to take lie detector tests,

which they passed.

- NARRATOR: Suddenly, the Lutzes

begin making appearances on national TV.

- It was George that went on "The Merv Griffin Show"

and presented the ghost boy photo,

reigniting all the discussion and the debate,

whether or not there was actually a real haunting

that happened there.

- NARRATOR: Despite all the publicity,

there's one thing the Lutzes won't do.

- Every TV network, every primetime news magazine show,

they must've been throwing blank checks at the Lutzes

to get the footage of them

walking through that house again.

But they just refused to do it.

- NARRATOR: For the next 50 years,

the entertainment industry cashes in with countless books,

documentaries, and movies

about the DeFeo murders and Lutz encounters.

- I grew up learning about the Amityville murders because

this was actually my dad's first rated R film in theaters.

And to this day, he says it just scared the daylights out of him.

Here we are today with just about

20 Amityville Horror movies

just kind of snowballed after that book.

- The thing about the Amityville case

is because it is such an iconic visual,

that that house has become a marketing cash cow.

No matter how bad the movie is, people are gonna buy it.

- When I was 13 years old,

I went on my first date with a boy.

And his mother took us to see the Ryan Reynolds version of

"Amityville Horror."

I didn't know that it was a previous film.

I didn't know that it was real.

And then my parents were like,

that happened when we were younger,

and there was a huge film.

Then I started getting more involved with researching.

Like, how could this be real?

And then, you know, Googling "true story behind this movie".

And that's when I really understood it.

- If it's one thing about the American people,

it's that we love and hate a mystery.

- NARRATOR: But one man may know the answer to what

really happened to the DeFeo and Lutz families.

- MAN: Is this fact or fiction? - It's fiction. Absolutely.

- It's the anniversary of

"The Amityville Horror" movie from 1979.

So I figured why not visit the actual house itself,

but in a respectful manner.

- NARRATOR: The fascination with the hauntings

inside 112 Ocean Avenue continues today.

- We do get a lot of, uh, interest and tourists.

People coming in to look at the house and curiosity about it.

These hauntings and paranormal things

that just piques people's interest.

And it's just one of those human nature things.

But it's just not really fair for the people

that do live there,

for the intrusions they get on the property.

- TIM: It's become a place where it's almost like a pilgrimage.

You really, for the most part,

get people that are just curious and interested.

But even when we come here to make peace with Amityville,

Amityville might not be ready to make peace with us.

- GERALYN: It's not uncommon to be walking along the street,

and then seeing that car that's holding up traffic,

that's looking at the numbers on the houses,

and they're having a hard time finding that haunted house that

they think is haunted, and it's not.

There's been very happy families there.

- The feeling that's left in that house now

is what is left over from what happened in 1974.

It's left an imprint on the house,

this horrible stamp on it for the rest of history.

- NARRATOR: An imprint left by Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo when

he suddenly murdered his entire family in cold blood.

- STEPHANIE: Ronnie DeFeo said there is a demon there that

completely took over his body and made him all these things.

He heard voices.

- NARRATOR: But 21 years after failing to convince a jury that

the devil made him do it, DeFeo finally comes forward

to unburden himself with the truth.

In 1995, he says his demon defense was all a sham...

invented by his lawyer William Weber.

- Mr. Weber tells me, "Look.

"We got 'The Godfather' and 'The Exorcist'

"all in one here, Ronnie.

We're gonna make big, big money."

My lawyer told me what to tell a psychiatrist

so they would go along with everything.

- William Weber came up with the creative defense that there was

something supernatural involved in the house.

He had sold Butch DeFeo on the idea

that there was gonna be a book

and he would be famous, and there would be money.

It would be a relief if we could blame

the devil or demons or ghosts

simply because of the fact to know that your fellow

human being is capable of something so horrendous

is truly terrifying.

More so than any disembodied [unintelligible]

or giant Jody the pigs, or oozing walls.

- NARRATOR: Weber continues this story with the home's

next residents as well.

- WILLIAM: After the trial was over,

I was introduced to George and Kathy, uh, Lutz,

who were then living in the DeFeo residence.

And they had approached me with an idea that, uh,

there were people interested with big money, uh,

in developing the demonism aspect of the DeFeo murder.

- Bill Weber said the story grew over dinner with the Lutzes.

A matter of fact, he said it grew over a bottle of wine.

One bottle of wine? No, three bottles of wine!

And the story just grew and grew and grew.

- NARRATOR: The Lutzes themselves confirm

Weber's account to reporter Laura DiDio.

- LAURA: The Lutzes had taped a conversation with William Weber.

And they said, "Before we play this,

"we just want you to know we're not too proud of this at all.

We're very embarrassed."

And on the tape, I heard William Weber

was leading the charge,

which was we should be able to get several movies

and several books out of it, at least.

Which, again, going back to 1975, '76,

that's pretty good marketing.

He already had franchise in mind.

- NARRATOR: But not everyone reaps the reward.

- MARVIN: The Lutzes, of all the money that was made

on the films and the books,

they made very little out of this.

I think the total they ever saw, if the figure is correct,

something like $300,000.

But millions were made on the films and the books.

- PATRICIA: The defense lawyer, William Weber,

definitely took advantage of the time period

and the Satanic Panic going on. I think a lot of the stories

that we hear of this Amityville home

are a snowball effect, where we start off with

one thing spooky, and then you kind of add to that,

and then from there, it just keeps going, and going,

and it becomes something so much greater than it was meant to.

- BRYAN: It's kind of like the little telephone game you played

in--in grade school, you know?

You're always gonna have controversy,

people saying this was, uh...not authentic,

and other people saying, no, it really happened.

The truth is always in the middle.

- NARRATOR: And nothing is more shocking than the truth

DeFeo admits to next.

- I can honestly say that I'm not guilty.

- The Lutz family, they moved into the house

in December of 1975.

However, they only lived in the house for 28 days.

They started talking to the media about the fact

that the house was haunted.

And this is when people started suspecting

that they were making up the story for fame or notoriety.

- NARRATOR: After admitting his devil defense was a sham,

in 1995, Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo decides he can no longer

hold back his family's darkest secret.

He finally comes clean

what really happened inside their home that horrific night.

- RONNIE: My sister had come to a point in her life where

she wanted to be rebellious.

She wanted to get out of the house.

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

In that house, nobody could be free.

- You have to go a step back and to understand that

the DeFeo household was a ticking time bomb.

There was greed, drugs, organized crime involvement.

The family had a horrible amount of domestic abuse

from the father, Big Ronnie Sr.

- NARRATOR: According to Butch's account,

18-year-old Dawn DeFeo wanted out.

And on the night of November 13, 1974,

she was ready to kill for her freedom.

- According to Butch DeFeo, Dawn was pressing and pressing.

She's the one that brought the rifle down to Butch and said,

"We gotta do it. We gotta do it now.

If we don't do, we're never gonna be free."

- RONNIE: I got high.

And I was using a lot of heroin back then.

I had gone down the basement, had the TV on.

- NARRATOR: But a stoned Butch dismisses

his sister's ramblings.

- My mother and father apparently went to bed.

Everybody went to bed.

You gotta remember now, I'm high.

I'm still drunk.

And then I heard a roar.

I went upstairs, it was a bad smell.

At that time, I didn't realize what the smell was.

It was sulfur.

Went into my mother and father's room.

And I saw a hole in my father's back.

- NARRATOR: Beside Ronnie Sr., Butch's mother, Louise.

And the horror continues.

- RONNIE: I turned around,

and my sister's room was directly across.

And, uh, she had a hole in the side of her head,

and it was blood coming down.

- NARRATOR: 13-year-old Allison DeFeo.

- RONNIE: She had a pink shag rug.

I'll never forget that.

- NARRATOR: Next, Butch discovers 12-year-old Marc,

and the youngest member of the DeFeo family,

nine-year-old John Matthew.

- Both of my brothers' rooms, they were dead.

- NARRATOR: Then comes Butch's biggest shock.

His sister Dawn is still alive.

And she's armed with a rifle.

- RONNIE: I looked at her. She looked at me.

And we got into a wrestling match.

I took the rifle away from her. I shot her in the head.

- NARRATOR: Some of the forensics seem

to corroborate Butch's story.

- When you look at it,

there's evidence that there was gunpowder

on the front of Dawn's dress and on her hands.

- NARRATOR: But others believe Butch actively helped his sister

commit the murder before he turned the rifle on her.

- STEPHANIE: I have always maintained

there was a second shooter.

And I actually didn't realize that that was even a thing until

I looked into the actual files and found the evidence.

- RIC: Herman Race, the retired New York City detective

working for the defense,

uncovered that there was more than one gun used,

and there was accomplices involved that actually kept

the kids quiet during the murders.

Remember, even if you just look at one murder weapon,

a .35 Marlin is so loud that you can go deaf

from the firing of it.

And this is a small house.

- [gun cocking]

- It's incredible that the victims didn't hear any of

the shots over the 15-minute period.

- NARRATOR: But that's not all.

- RIC: Not all the bodies

that were found in bed were shot in bed.

So, the police knew from day one that the bodies were planted.

Um, or at least the parents were made to look like

they had been sleeping peacefully.

- I think that he staged the entire crime scene

and he cleaned it up himself before he did anything about it.

- I can honestly say that I'm not guilty of the, uh,

crime that I was found guilty of.

I'm guilty of one act, and the act was manslaughter,

not murder.

- RIC: Now, was Butch DeFeo completely innocent?

No, he was not innocent.

He had a hand in the murder of Dawn.

But he was adamant that he never planned or intended

the murder of the younger children.

- NARRATOR: But was Butch DeFeo telling the truth?

Was his sister Dawn both the main killer and the victim?

Or, was there truly a darker underlying force

at play within the home?

Something that drove Butch and the Lutz family to madness?

- The DeFeo murders are quite an interesting case because it is

going to forever pull people in different directions.

Whether or not this is one of the most intense cases of

demonic possession or if this is simply a person disturbed,

wanting to do these things.

- NARRATOR: And on March 12, 2021, the mystery only deepens.

- Breaking news. On March 12, 2021,

Ronald DeFeo Jr. died in prison at the age of 69.

So far, the cause of death is undetermined

until an autopsy is performed.

And if you don't know who he is, he's better known

as the Amityville Horror killer.

Yes, the one that all the movies are based off.

- NARRATOR: The cause of death is still unknown.

- PRISCILLA: Once I heard about the death

of Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr.,

I was like, I have to talk about this.

And I'm quite literally throwing makeup on my face

and trying to get a video out there on TikTok.

It's a huge death.

- DENNIS: When Ronnie DeFeo died,

people started coming again.

You get that traffic, and it just becomes more of a nuisance

than a positive thing for the village.

- NARRATOR: DeFeo's passing reignites a generation's

fascination with the legendary tale

and its haunting effects on not one, but two families.

- The desire to hear more about it is seemingly insatiable.

And that brings people out.

And we are now into third and fourth generation

Amityville aficionados.

- WOMAN: Somebody's still normal living in this crazy house.

- The story of Amityville is never going to end.

It has already withstood 50 years, several films,

multiple documentaries, multiple books,

podcasts, TikTokers, YouTubers.

I think there's always gonna be that interest.

- They claim that it's not haunted at all.

But I don't know.

I find that a little hard to believe here.

- To be clear, everybody who's lived in the home since

has never had anything paranormal happen to them.

So I don't know, pretty iffy to me.

- LAURA: People like to debate these things.

And now you have social media.

And you've got the digital world.

And this is the granddaddy of all ghost stories.

And when you're talking about the supernatural,

you either believe it or you don't believe it.

- BECKIE-ANNE: I believe that something supernatural

occurred in that house.

Do I think it started with the DeFeos?

I don't know where it happened,

but I do not think that the Lutz story

was completely fabricated.

- I think it's a great story, and I think it's a story that

will continue to be told from generation to generation.

It's a great topic up for debate.

- TIM: When the legend becomes fact, you print the legend.

And that's where we're at with the Amityville case,

that no matter how much fact we can decipher

from what really happened and what didn't,

the legend is always gonna be stronger.

- BECKIE-ANNE: People think I'm obsessed with this.

But I'm okay with it. I am obsessed with it.

- Ronald DeFeo Jr. has died in police custody.

- So far, the cause of death is undetermined

until an autopsy is performed.

- I am in Amityville right now.

Today is the anniversary of "The Amityville Horror".

- And this house right here is said to be

one of the most evil locations on earth.

- I just think it's a national landmark.

Right there. Amityville Horror house.

- The kids of the Lutz family said that the hauntings

were all too real.

- WOMAN: Please tell me you see that too.

- That's so freakin' crazy!

- If you're gonna try and put it all together,

take all these pieces and put 'em all together,

and try to make sense of it all together,

your head would explode.

- [giggles] - How do you end it?

- I don't know.