The real Amityville house and property as it appeared in the mid-70s.

      So, what are we left to believe of the Amityville stories?

      There was a family killed in the house in 1974 by their oldest son. He was not possessed and did not hear what I would call "real" voices. The house is not abandoned. It is still standing (contrary to the movie Amityville 3-D), and a family is living there now. Nobody has experienced anything out of the ordinary, although according to Anson's story, anybody connected with the making of the books or movies were cursed.

      Something that a lot of people have wondered is why Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family.

      The answer is simple: the money. During my first year in grad school, I read High Hopes: The Amityville Murders which details not only the murders, but the entire trial and background information that lead up to the murders. DeFeo had been spoiled by his family. They had given him money and a car, but he kept wanting more. He and a friend even went so far as to stage a phony holdup at his father's car dealership to steal some money from his family about a week before the murders. There had been numerous fights in the family as well, and a night or two before the murders, DeFeo and his father had gotten into a fist fight in the family's basement over the phony hold up. It is believed that this fight is what might have triggered the murders.

      When DeFeo was going through interrogation, he kept changing his story from not hearing anything during the time his family was murdered to claiming that it was a Mafia hit to the older of his sisters helping him.

      When he was arrested and put into jail, he kept boasting about how he was going to plead insanity and be released in a couple years. While a psychiatrist found that he had an antisocial personality disorder, DeFeo was found to be sane and responsible for his actions. People involved with the trial were also shocked when it was found that DeFeo had a list of people who he was going to get revenge on after he was "released", and DeFeo kept asking how much of his inheritance he was still entitled to.

      Thankfully, Ronald Defeo Jr. is still in prison and was denied parole in 1999.

      The house has gone through changes since the Lutzes left it. The house number of "112" has been changed. While the house is still standing, "112 Ocean Avenue" technically doesn't exist anymore. The house was repainted white with black shutters some time ago as well. Also, those "eyelike" windows are gone. They've been replaced with square windows in recent years, apparently to try to disguise the house from tourists.

      One person who's written to me about my webpages was from the Amityville area. He said that he's been to the real house in Amityville. Unlike the movie, the house is on a small lot. Had anything like what the Lutzes described in the book actually occurred, neighbors would have noticed.

      So anytime you read one of the books or watch one of the movies, you can enjoy the stories, but remember, that all they are is stories. Nothing more.

      The supernatural does exist, but not in this case.


Part VII

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