On October 14, 1975, the murder trial of Ronald DeFeo Jr. began.
Defoe was accused of killings his parents and four siblings in their
Amityville, New York home. The family’s house was later said to be haunted and
served as the inspiration for the Amityville Horror book and movies. On the
evening of November 13, 1974, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. entered an Amityville
bar and told people his parents had been shot inside their home. Several bar
patrons accompanied DeFeo back to his family’s home, at 112 Ocean Avenue, where
a man named Joe Yeswit called Suffolk Country police to report the crime. When
officers arrived, they found the bodies of Ronald DeFeo Sr., his wife Louise, and
their four children. The victims had been shot in their beds. Ronald DeFeo Jr.,
initially claimed the murders were a mob hit; however, by the next day he had confessed
that he committed the crimes.
Police investigators were at first puzzled by the fact that
all six victims appeared to have died in their sleep, without struggle, and
neighbors didn’t hear any gunshots, despite the fact that the rifle DeFeo used
didn’t have a silencer. When DeFeo’s trial began, his attorney argued for an
insanity defense; however, the jury did not believe this and he was found
guilty of six counts of second-degree murder and later sentenced to six
consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison. DeFeo, who gave
conflicting accounts of these events, later claimed his sister Dawn and two
other accomplices were involved in the murders. In December 1975, the DeFeo
house was sold to George Lutz, who moved in with his wife and three children. The
new owners resided in the house for 28 days, before they fled, claiming it was
haunted. Skeptics accused Lutz of concocting the story to make money, but he
maintained he was telling the truth. In 1977, Jay Anson published a novel
titled The Amityville Horror. The
book became a best-seller and inspired a 1979 movie of the same name, as well
as a 2005 remake.
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for CrimeMagazine.com
and is the author of Murder and Mayhem 52
Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949. The book can be purchased from
Amazon through the following link:
No comments:
Post a Comment