The house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, is the site of one of the most well-known and popularized hauntings in America, if not the world. The hauntings started with a gruesome and shocking set of murders and ended with a terrorized family fleeing from their house after only twenty-eight days. The resulting commercialization of the Amityville haunting has ensured its firm place in the annals of paranormal lore.
The village of Amityville, New York, is located on Long Island. It was previously a popular tourist destination known for its large homes. The house at 112 Ocean Avenue, complete with a boathouse, was no exception. The community was shocked in 1974 when Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four siblings around 3:15 a.m. During his trial, DeFeo claimed that he heard the voices of his family plotting against him. He was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six concurrent sentences of twenty-five years to life.
There were some oddities in the murders. All victims were found face-down in their beds and showed no signs of struggle even though there were no traces of sedatives. This indicated that none of the victims heard the gunshots although the police concluded that no silencer had been used with the murder weapon. There were also no reports of gunshots from the neighbors.
The house was empty for thirteen months after the murders. George and Kathleen Lutz bought the house in July 1975. Kathleen had three children from a previous marriage and the couple had a dog. They each had owned their own homes when they married, but wanted a new place to start their lives together. Their real estate agent informed them about the DeFeo murders—which was the reason for a bargain price. The couple loved the house when they first saw it and, after consulting with their children, decided that the murders weren’t a concern to them.
A friend of George’s knew about the history of the house and convinced him to have the house blessed by a priest. After the priest blessed the house, he talked to George and noted that he had a strange feeling about one of the bedrooms. George told him that they were planning on using that room as a sewing room, and the priest said it was a good thing that no one would sleep in the room. Later, they learned the priest claimed to hear a voice that said, “Get out,” and also felt something slap him across the face.
The family moved into the house on December 18, 1975. The first night in the house went without incident, although George claimed that he had a difficult time getting warm. Subtle events started after that. George would awaken after hearing the front door slam shut. When he went to check, he would find the dog sound asleep in front of the door. George would also notice other noises, which he described as sounding like “a German marching band tuning up.” No one else in the house seemed to hear the noises. There were cold spots in the house, a typical occurrence in hauntings, and George noticed odd acoustics inside—a car would drive by outside and he couldn’t hear it. George found himself waking up between 3:00 and 3:30 a.m. every morning—the same time frame as when the murders occurred. He would then feel compelled to check on the children or the boathouse. Everyone in the family started sleeping on their stomachs, which was the position in which the DeFeos were all shot. Kathy discovered a closet-sized red room behind a bookcase in the basement that wasn’t on the plans for the house. It was odd in that foul odors emanated from it even though there weren’t any pipes or sewer lines nearby. Their dog, Harry, cowered when brought near the room.
The house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York became famous in the late 1970s with the publication of Jay Hanson’s book, The Amityville Horror, which spun tales of frightening paranormal activity at the residence. The book recalls the nightmarish experiences of former homeowners George and Kathy Lutz, pictured here while in London on a tour promoting the book. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The couple also experienced personal changes. Both of them withdrew from life. Kathy signed up for a continuing education class but never went while George stopped going to work. Kathy Lutz seemed to age in an unnatural way. This was verified by her mother. She would also feel as though she was being hugged when no one else was near her and would smell perfume. George lost a lot of weight during their brief stay in the house and started to have uncharacteristically violent thoughts. Kathy had nightmares about experiencing the shooting of Mrs. DeFeo. Their daughter, Missy, had an imaginary friend named Jodie. She described Jodie as an angel but Jodie would sometimes appear to her as a pig. George and Kathy both saw red beady eyes staring at them from the house at one point and saw cloven hoof prints that led into the river. The events became disturbing enough that the couple tried to bless the house on their own on two separate occasions.
The bizarre events accelerated in the house. George continued to feel the coldness in the house to the point that he became obsessed with keeping the fire going. The family took note of an odd figure in the soot of the fireplace that seemed to have part of its head blown away. The whole family started to notice odd sounds and footsteps in the house. To prove to themselves that they weren’t going crazy, the Lutzes would invite friends over, who would verify that they could also hear the sounds. The sewing room was plagued with flies even though it was winter. George would kill them only to have them return the following day.
The paranormal events became very active on the night of January 13, 1976. The children’s beds were rising up and slamming into the floor, and it sounded as if every window and door in the downstairs was being opened and slammed shut. George felt a presence get into bed with him and Kathy. He also claimed to have been prevented from getting out of bed during the events. They didn’t leave that night, but during the following morning, they called the priest who had blessed the house and he advised them to spend the night at Kathy’s mother’s house and get some sleep. When they left the house, George claimed, he saw a hooded figure that looked like the one in the fireplace soot. The Lutzes left most of their possessions in the house, which were later sold at auction.
Ghost Hunting
Sometimes resembling scenes from the Ghostbusters film franchise, modern ghost hunting often involves high-tech equipment and elaborate methodologies worthy of Drs. Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler. No longer limited to kids out looking for a good old-fashioned scream, trendy terror tourism has spawned a range of ghost tours and even the Syfy Network’s long-running reality series Ghost Hunters.
C. Fee
Whatever forces terrified them in the house followed them after they departed. Both George and Kathy claimed to have experienced levitation at her mother’s house. The children were plagued with nightmares and even Harry, the dog, seemed to be affected. After fleeing the house, they brought in a number of people, including priests and psychics, in an attempt to rid the house of the unseen forces, but were told that it wasn’t possible. They were also told that the forces at work weren’t of this earth.
Unfortunately for the Lutzes, the people they had hired to fix their house alerted the media and their story became public. They contracted author Jay Anson in an effort to share their side of the story. Anson based a book on thirty-five hours of recorded tapes the family had made to recount their time in the house. The book, The Amityville Horror: A True Story, was published in 1977 and has to date sold around ten million copies. Its popularity led to a movie starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder in 1979. The film was a commercial success and earned more than $86 million, although it didn’t fare well with the critics. There are inaccuracies and exaggerations in both the book and movie. Most notably, the red room—little more than a cubbyhole—was fictionalized into a demonic portal filled with blood. A relatively minor incident when the Lutzes found some green drops on the floor turned into a scene of the walls oozing green slime in the book and then became blood oozing from the walls in the movie.
Multiple works of fiction and nonfiction books followed. There were nine movies produced between 1982 and 2013 that capitalized on the Amityville name, although they bear no relation to the originally recorded experiences of the Lutzes. The remake of The Amityville Horror in 2005, which received marginally better reviews than the original, took more liberal license with the actual events. George Lutz called the movie “drivel” and pursued legal action against the filmmakers until the time of his death. Danny Lutz, one of the children, released a documentary in 2013 chronicling his experiences in the house.
The house gained such notoriety that a couple who bought it changed the address to discourage sightseers from finding the house. They were even forced to move out of the house for a short while due to incessant publicity. The house was sold again and the next owners took the additional step of replacing the attic’s signature quarter-moon windows with square windows. No family that has lived in the house since the Lutzes has reported any further incidents of paranormal activity.
James J. Heiney
See also Haunted Houses; LaLaurie House; McPike Mansion
Further Reading
Anson, Jay. 1977. The Amityville Horror. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Holzer, Hans. 1985. The Secret of Amityville. London: Macdonald.
Osuna, Ric. 2003. The Night the DeFeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders. Nevada: Noble Kai Media.
Amityville Hauntings—Primary Document
Pliny the Younger, an Ancient Haunted House Story (ca. 100 CE)
The Amityville haunting is a famous haunted house story, but the tradition of storytelling about haunted houses goes back thousands of years. An early example of this tradition can be found in Pliny the Younger’s Book 7, Letter 27. Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE) was an important Roman official under the emperor Trajan, and his observations about Roman politics and culture survive in a collection of several hundred letters. Many of the key motifs of the genre are present here in this ancient letter: a nighttime setting in a deserted house, the sound of rattling chains, and even a ghostly apparition.
There was in Athens a house, spacious and open, but with an infamous reputation, as if filled with pestilence. For in the dead of night, a noise like the clashing of iron could be heard. And if one listened carefully, it sounded like the rattling of chains. At first the noise seemed to be at a distance, but then it would approach, nearer, nearer, nearer. Suddenly a phantom would appear, an old man, pale and emaciated, with a long beard, and hair that appeared driven by the wind. The fetters on his feet and hands rattled as he moved them.
Any dwellers in the house passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. The nights without rest led them to a kind of madness, and as the horrors in their minds increased, onto a path toward death. Even in the daytime—when the phantom did not appear—the memory of the nightmare was so strong that it still passed before their eyes. The terror remained when the cause of it was gone.
Damned as uninhabitable, the house was at last deserted, left to the spectral monster. But in hope that some tenant might be found who was unaware of the malevolence within it, the house was posted for rent or sale.
It happened that a philosopher named Athenodorus came to Athens at that time. Reading the posted bill, he discovered the dwelling’s price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion, yet when he heard the whole story, he was not in the least put off. Indeed, he was eager to take the place. And did so immediately.
As evening drew near, Athenodorus had a couch prepared for him in the front section of the house. He asked for a light and his writing materials, then dismissed his retainers. To keep his mind from being distracted by vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he directed all his energy toward his writing.
For a time the night was silent. Then came the rattling of fetters. Athenodorus neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pen. Instead he closed his ears by concentrating on his work. But the noise increased and advanced closer till it seemed to be at the door, and at last in the very chamber. Athenodorus looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him, beckoning with one finger.
Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that the visitor should wait a little, and bent over his work. The ghost, however, shook the chains over the philosopher’s head, beckoning as before. Athenodorus now took up his lamp and followed. The ghost moved slowly, as if held back by his chains. Once it reached the courtyard, it suddenly vanished.
Athenodorus, now deserted, carefully marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he asked the magistrate to have the spot dug up. There they found—intertwined with chains—the bones that were all that remained of a body that had long lain in the ground. Carefully, the skeletal relics were collected and given proper burial, at public expense. The tortured ancient was at rest. And the house in Athens was haunted no more.
Source: Pliny the Younger. Book 7, Letter 27. ca. 100 AD. Available online at ArchaicWonder.tumblr.com. http://archaicwonder.tumblr.com/post/100859176733/an-ancient-ghost-story-by-pliny-the-younger.