Post by Brad-LaSpirits on Oct 16, 2007 9:42:37 GMT -5
Below is the actual transcript from the 911 call made from 112 Ocean Avenue on November 15th, 1974:
Operator: This is Suffolk County Police. May I help you?"
Man: "We have a shooting here. Uh, DeFeo."
Operator: "Sir, what is your name?"
Man: "Joey Yeswit."
Operator: "Can you spell that?"
Man: "Yeah. Y-E-S W I T."
Operator: "Y-E-S . .
Man: "Y-E-S-W-I-T."
Operator: ". . . W-I-T. Your phone number?"
Man: "I don't even know if it's here. There's, uh, I don't have a phone number here."
Operator: "Okay, where you calling from?"
Man: "It's in Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police, and it's right off, uh . . .Ocean Avenue in Amityville."
Operator: "Austin?"
Man: "Ocean Avenue. What the ... ?"
Operator: "Ocean ... Avenue? Offa where?"
Man: "It's right off Merrick Road. Ocean Avenue."
Operator: "Merrick Road. What's ... what's the problem, Sir?"
Man: "It's a shooting!"
Operator: "There's a shooting. Anybody hurt?"
Man: "Hah?"
Operator: "Anybody hurt?"
Man: "Yeah, it's uh, uh -- everybody's dead."
Operator: "Whattaya mean, everybody's dead?"
Man: "I don't know what happened. Kid come running in the bar. He says everybody in the family was killed, and we came down here."
Operator: "Hold on a second, Sir."
(Police Officer now takes over call)
Police Officer: "Hello."
Man: "Hello."
Police Officer: "What's your name?"
Man: "My name is Joe Yeswit."
Police Officer: "George Edwards?"
Man: "Joe Yeswit."
Police Officer: "How do you spell it?"
Man: "What? I just ... How many times do I have to tell you? Y-E-S-W-I-T."
Police Officer: "Where're you at?"
Man: "I'm on Ocean Avenue.
Police Officer: "What number?"
Man: "I don't have a number here. There's no number on the phone. "
Police Officer: "What number on the house?"
Man: "I don't even know that."
Police Officer: "Where're you at? Ocean Avenue and what?"
Man: "In Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police and have someone come down here. They know the family."
Police Officer: "Amityville."
Man: "Yeah, Amityville."
Police Officer: "Okay. Now, tell me what's wrong."
Man: "I don't know. Guy come running in the bar. Guy come running in the bar and said there -- his mother and father are shot. We ran down to his house and everybody in the house is shot. I don't know how long, you know. So, uh . . ."
Police Officer: "Uh, what's the add ... what's the address of the house?"
Man: "Uh, hold on. Let me go look up the number. All right. Hold on. One-twelve Ocean Avenue, Amityville."
Police Officer: "Is that Amityville or North Amityville?"
Man: "Amityville. Right on ... south of Merrick Road."
Police Officer: "Is it right in the village limits?"
Man: "It's in the village limits, yeah."
Police Officer: "Eh, okay, what's your phone number?"
Man: "I don't even have one. There's no number on the phone. "
Police Officer: "All right, where're you calling from? Public phone?"
Man: "No, I'm calling right from the house, because I don't see a number on the phone."
Police Officer: "You're at the house itself?"
Man: "Yeah."
Police Officer: "How many bodies are there?"
Man: "I think, uh, I don't know -- uh, I think they said four."
Police Officer: "There's four?"
Man: "Yeah."
Police Officer: "All right, you stay right there at the house, and I'll call the Amityville Village P.D.,
and they'll come down."
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR: A CASE STUDY
Thus the Amityville Horror gets its first spotlight in a tragic loss of life and dark family secrets. With that being said, we will now move on to the first exhibit in the study, The History of 112 Ocean Avenue and the DeFeo Murders.
Long before any whiteman ever set foot in what would later become Amityville, the Mantucket Indians and the Shinnecock tribes inhabited the area.
The Mantucket Indians believed in light and dark spirits and they had a strong folklore of such creatures, both good and bad.
For many years they lived, worked and died in the area now called Amityville.
The Indians also had a very strange practice that was core to their religious beliefs and how they handled "possessed" people in their tribe.
Possession at the time meant anyone with a mental illness, social disorder, mental retardation, certain sicknesses and anyone who betrayed the tribe or especially for enemies.
The practice involved taking the "possessed" person and lashing them, naked to a tree, at which point they would be left to die of exposure, dehydration and starvation. No one in the tribe was permitted to help them, tend to them or even acknowledge their presence.
Many people met their deaths this way and the plot of land on Ocean Avenue was used for just such a purpose. The Indians also believed that the area of and around Ocean Avenue was a "power spot" a place where the Earth's energies are wild and untamed, often thought to be a gateway to the Spirit Realm.
After these people died they were buried on the plot of land, face down, one hand down and palm up on their right side, the other bent up and on their head. The were buried face down to make them forever face the abode of the "Dark Brother" they were sent to join.
This method of burial also served another purpose.
To prevent the dead from reawakening and digging their way out of their graves. If they did awaken, they would only dig themselves deeper.
The Amityville Historical Society claims that the land was not ever used for a burial site, however the Mantucket tribes in recent years have come forward and admitted that yes, the area very well could have been a burial site at one time but the graves could now be submerged in the Amityville River due to the shifting of the water tables and that there was a high chance of this being the case.
To this day, no one has mounted any type of archaeological survey to confirm or deny this.
..From: "The Night the DeFeo's Died" by Rick Osuna...
John Ketcham: A Shadowy Figure:
In the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, we are introduced to a new facet of the legend, John Ketcham, a man supposedly exhiled from Salem during the Witch Trials for practicing witchcraft.
In the late 1600s, Amityville was part of Huntington Township. A check of the historical society located in Huntington, a town approximately 13 miles from Amityville, revealed that there were several John Ketchams in the area. Because records of this time period are sketchy at best, there was no clear proof that any Ketcham ever resided on or near the property.
There is no clear proof to state the contrary either.
The most definitive proof against any John Ketcham's being a witch came from the Ketcham family's own extensive research into their genealogy. After careful investigation, they have been able to determine there never was a witch named John Ketcham.
According to the legend, John Ketcham's body is buried on the north eastern corner of the property, where his cabin supposedly once stood where he continued to worship Satan until his death.
To this day, no search has been mounted for his body.
The Modern History of the Infamous House
According to deeds and information compiled by the Amityville Historical Society, the Ocean Avenue property had once been farmland belonging to the Irelands, one of Amityville's most prominent and influential families. On January 14, 1924, Annie Ireland sold the property to John and Catherine Moynahan.
The Moynahan's were living in the medium sized home that occupied the Ocean Avenue lot, and reportedly they also experienced paranormal activity, and it was one of the reasons the house was moved off of the property, and the Moynahan's continued to live there until their six member family grew too large and they needed a bigger home.
In 1925, Amityville builder Jesse Perdy constructed the large Dutch Colonial with its distinctive quarter-moon "eye" windows, that still stands there today. While their new home was being built, the Moynahans relocated to the old house down the street. When the house was finished, the family of six moved back in and once again enjoyed life by the Amityville Creek.
When John and Catherine Moynahan died, their daughter, Eileen Fitzgerald, moved in with her own family. She lived there until October 17, 1960, when John and Mary Riley bought the house. Because of marital problems, the Rileys divorced and sold the house to the DeFeos on June 28, 1965.
The DeFeos: A Troubled Family:
...from The Crime Library....
Ronald DeFeo, Sr., had attained a trophy-size piece of the American dream when he purchased the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, Ronald had worked hard in his father-in-law’s Brooklyn Buick dealership, and after many years began to reap rich benefits. Money was no longer a concern when he finally made the decision to leave the City and move to Long Island. The home he chose was a classic piece of Americana, two stories plus an attic, several rooms, and a boathouse on the Amityville River. There was plenty of room for him, his wife Louise; and four children. A signpost in the front yard read “High Hopes,” a testament to what the new home had symbolized for the DeFeos.
It was not to be.
Beneath the veneer of success and happiness, Ronald was a hot-tempered man, given to bouts of rage and violence. There were stormy fights between him and Louise, and he loomed before his children as a demanding authority figure. As the eldest child, Ronald, Jr., bore the brunt of his father’s temper and expectations. As a young boy, Ronald, Jr., or Butch as he would come to be called, was overweight and sullen, the victim of schoolyard taunts and unpopular with other children. His father encouraged him to stick up for himself, but while his advice pertained to the treatment of schoolyard bullies, it apparently did not apply to how young Ronald was treated at home. Ronald, Sr., had no tolerance for backtalk and disobedience, keeping his eldest son on a short leash, and refusing to let him stand up for himself the way he was commanded to at school.
At the trial a family member once remarked that prior to the move to 112 Ocean Avenue, he had been over at a family function and witnessed Ronald Sr strike Butch so hard across the face as to send him flying backward, hitting his head on the wall.
The DeFeo's would live at 112 Ocean Avenue for a little under 10 years.
As Butch matured into adolescence, he gained in size and strength, and was no longer a sitting duck for his father’s abuse. Shouting matches often degenerated into boxing matches, as father and son came to blows with little provocation. While Ronald, Sr. was not highly skilled in the art of interpersonal relations, he was astute enough to realize that his son’s bouts of temper and violent behavior were highly irregular, even in relation to his own. He and his wife arranged for their son to visit a psychiatrist, but to no avail as Butch simply employed a passive-aggressive stance with his therapist, and rejected any notion that he himself needed help.
In the absence of any other solution, the DeFeos employed a time-honored strategy for placating unruly children: they started buying Butch anything he wanted and giving him money. At the age of 14, his father presented him with a $14,000 speedboat to cruise the Amityville River. Whenever Butch wanted money, all he had to do was ask, and if he wasn’t in the mood to ask, he simply took it.
By the age of 17, Butch was forced to leave the parochial school he was attending. By this time he had begun using serious drugs such as heroin and LSD and had also started dabbling in petty thievery schemes. His violent behavior was becoming increasingly psychotic as well, and was not confined to outbursts within his home. One afternoon while out on a hunting trip with some friends, he pointed his loaded rifle at a member of their party, a young man he had known for years. He watched with a stony expression as the young man’s face turned white. He fled, and Butch calmly lowered his gun. When they caught up with their friend later that afternoon, Butch asked him why he had left so soon.
At the age of 18, Butch was given a job at his grandfather’s Buick dealership. By his own account it was a gravy job, where little was expected of him. Regardless of whether or not he showed up for work, he received a cash allowance from his father at the end of each week. This he used for his car (which his parents had also purchased), for alcohol, and for drugs such as speed and heroin. Altercations with his father were growing ever more frequent and correspondingly more violent.
In the weeks before the slayings, relations between Butch DeFeo and his father had reached the breaking point. Butch, apparently dissatisfied with the money he “earned” from his father, had devised a scheme to further defraud his family. Two weeks before the slayings, Butch was sent on an errand by one of the staff at the Buick dealership, given the responsibility of depositing $1,800 in cash and $20,000 in checks in the bank. Instead, Butch arranged to be “robbed” on his way to the bank by an acquaintance, with whom he later split the loot....
He was not prosecuted for the crime.
In the DeFeo home, things were degenerating fast. In fact, the violence and abuse has escalated to near epic proportions. One incident involved a family dinner, during which Louise DeFeo, Ronnie's mother, was downstairs doing laundry while upstairs, Dawn and Allison were fighting. Ronnie sat the kitchen table while his father was growing angrier by the second.
The argument escalated and Louise leaped into the fray demanding the stop fighting before going back to her laundry.
Finally, DeFeo Sr. snapped.
The children were still fighting and Louise was still trying to keep them quiet as she came up the stairs with a basket of clothes. Ronald DeFeo Sr had enough and jumped up from the table, met his wife at the basement door, and punched her square in the face. He watched she she rolled down the stairs and slammed the door, remarking " Now we will have some peace."
The fights continued, the violence escalated ever further, and DeFeo Sr turned to religion to try to quiet what he thought were demons and devils tearing his family apart. He filled the lawn with religious icons and statues.
When asked about this by his neighbors, he merely said " I've got a devil on my back".
Ronnie Jr often ran away from the house, only to be drug back by his father each time he did. Ronnie remarked that he felt better away from the house and each time it got harder to leave.
A few month's before the murders, something changed inside the house again, this time with a dark supernatural overtone. DeFeo Sr went so far as to go to a local rectory and request a priest to come to the house to exorcise what he thought was the Devil.
A priest was sent out and an exorcism was attempted. During the exorcism, violent psychokinetic activity disrupted the ritual and nearly tore apart the house itself. The rectory when questioned by the History Channel about this, declined to confirm or deny that an exorcism had been preformed.
As it turns out, this is standard Vatican procedure.
One evening, a fight broke out between Mr. and Mrs. DeFeo. In order to settle the matter, Butch grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun from his room, loaded a shell into the chamber, and charged downstairs to the scene of the altercation. Without hesitating or calling out to break up the fight, Butch pointed the barrel of the gun at his father’s face, yelling, “Leave that woman alone. I’m going to kill you, you fat fuck! This is it.”
Butch pulled the trigger, but the gun mysteriously did not go off. Ronald, Sr. froze in place and watched in grim amazement as his own son lowered the gun and simply walked out of the room with casual indifference to the fact that he had almost killed his father in cold blood. That fight was over, but Butch’s actions foreshadowed the violence he would soon unleash not only upon his father, but his entire family.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, November 14, 1974, stray house pets and the odd car were the only signs of life as families and neighbors slumbered. But hatred and savagery were brewing beneath the seeming calm at 112 Ocean Avenue. The entire DeFeo family had gone to bed, with the exception of Ronnie.
He sat in his room with the famous "eye windows" watching a black and white film called "Castle Keep", a war film during which the last fifteen minutes is nothing but pure carnage. At trial, Ronnie stated he could hear his family talking about him, whispering, planning against him, and below the whispering voices, he stated he could hear a deeper one, a stronger one, telling him what to do.
He claimed also that he had always heard the voices inside 112 Ocean Avenue.
Finally he could take it no more and he said that at that moment, a pair of black hands materialized and handed the Marlin 30.06 rifle.
Standing up and racking the slide, Ronnie stood up and went to his parents bedroom on the second floor.
He pushed open the bedroom door and waited at the foot of the bed and watched them sleep.
He then raised the rifle and opened fire at point blank range, killing his father instantly, the first of 8 fatal shots. The first shot tore into DeFeo Sr's back, destroying his kidney and exiting through his chest. Ronnie fired again, this time the bullet lodged in DeFeo's Sr's neck, burying itself in his spine.
Without hesitation, he turned the rifle on his mother, shooting her in the head. He fired again, this time the bullet shattered her ribcage and collapsed her right lung.
Ronnie moved on then, and went across the hall, to his brother's room, Mark and John.
Here is a good place to mention something rather odd...
A 30.06 rifle makes an extremely loud CRACK and there is no forensic evidence of a silencer nor was one every found. The cracking retort of the gun had to have echoed through the house, yet no one in the family woke up or tried to flee. The nieghbors, situated no more than 50 feet across from the house on either side do not report hearing the shots and only recall hearing Shaggy, the DeFeo's dog, howling and barking.
During the autopsies, no drugs were found in their bodies and there is no evidence that DeFeo Jr had an acomplice. These are the most puzzling aspects of the murders and which to this day have not been solved, despite a million conspiracy theories....
He entered the bedroom the two boys shared and stood between their two beds. Standing directly above his two helpless brothers, Ronnie fired one shot into each of the boys as they lay sleeping. The bullets tore through their small bodies, ravaging their internal organs, suffing out their lives instantly. Mark lay motionless, while John, whose spinal cord had been severed by his brother’s heartless attack, twitched spasmodically for a few moments after the shooting according to reports.
Not stopping, Ronnie moved on his sister's room, where Allison and Dawn lay, unaware that they were about to meet their end.
Ronnie came into the room and there is some evidence to suggest that Allison may have stirred awake at the last instant, at which point Ronnie put the rifle in her face and pulled the trigger.
He then turned to Dawn, the oldest girl and fired his last round point blank into her face, literally destroying and taking off half of her skull.
He had started at approximately 3:00 AM and the murders took only 15 minutes, with the last member of the family dying at 3:15 AM.
Having completed the task he had set out to do, he now turned his attention to cleaning himself up and establishing an alibi to throw the inevitable police investigation off the trail.
Ronnie calmly showered, trimmed his beard, and dressed in his jeans and work boots. He then collected his bloodied clothing and the rifle, wrapped them up in a pillowcase, and headed out to his car. He threw the evidence into the car, and took off into the pre-dawn hours before sunrise.
Ronnie drove from the suburbs into Brooklyn, and disposed of the pillowcase and its contents by casting them into a storm drain. He then returned to Long Island, and reported to work at his grandfather’s Buick dealership, business as usual. It was 6:00 a.m.
(Part 2-The Aftermath: Ronnie's Trial and Conviction and The Haunting: The Lutz's Story
Operator: This is Suffolk County Police. May I help you?"
Man: "We have a shooting here. Uh, DeFeo."
Operator: "Sir, what is your name?"
Man: "Joey Yeswit."
Operator: "Can you spell that?"
Man: "Yeah. Y-E-S W I T."
Operator: "Y-E-S . .
Man: "Y-E-S-W-I-T."
Operator: ". . . W-I-T. Your phone number?"
Man: "I don't even know if it's here. There's, uh, I don't have a phone number here."
Operator: "Okay, where you calling from?"
Man: "It's in Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police, and it's right off, uh . . .Ocean Avenue in Amityville."
Operator: "Austin?"
Man: "Ocean Avenue. What the ... ?"
Operator: "Ocean ... Avenue? Offa where?"
Man: "It's right off Merrick Road. Ocean Avenue."
Operator: "Merrick Road. What's ... what's the problem, Sir?"
Man: "It's a shooting!"
Operator: "There's a shooting. Anybody hurt?"
Man: "Hah?"
Operator: "Anybody hurt?"
Man: "Yeah, it's uh, uh -- everybody's dead."
Operator: "Whattaya mean, everybody's dead?"
Man: "I don't know what happened. Kid come running in the bar. He says everybody in the family was killed, and we came down here."
Operator: "Hold on a second, Sir."
(Police Officer now takes over call)
Police Officer: "Hello."
Man: "Hello."
Police Officer: "What's your name?"
Man: "My name is Joe Yeswit."
Police Officer: "George Edwards?"
Man: "Joe Yeswit."
Police Officer: "How do you spell it?"
Man: "What? I just ... How many times do I have to tell you? Y-E-S-W-I-T."
Police Officer: "Where're you at?"
Man: "I'm on Ocean Avenue.
Police Officer: "What number?"
Man: "I don't have a number here. There's no number on the phone. "
Police Officer: "What number on the house?"
Man: "I don't even know that."
Police Officer: "Where're you at? Ocean Avenue and what?"
Man: "In Amityville. Call up the Amityville Police and have someone come down here. They know the family."
Police Officer: "Amityville."
Man: "Yeah, Amityville."
Police Officer: "Okay. Now, tell me what's wrong."
Man: "I don't know. Guy come running in the bar. Guy come running in the bar and said there -- his mother and father are shot. We ran down to his house and everybody in the house is shot. I don't know how long, you know. So, uh . . ."
Police Officer: "Uh, what's the add ... what's the address of the house?"
Man: "Uh, hold on. Let me go look up the number. All right. Hold on. One-twelve Ocean Avenue, Amityville."
Police Officer: "Is that Amityville or North Amityville?"
Man: "Amityville. Right on ... south of Merrick Road."
Police Officer: "Is it right in the village limits?"
Man: "It's in the village limits, yeah."
Police Officer: "Eh, okay, what's your phone number?"
Man: "I don't even have one. There's no number on the phone. "
Police Officer: "All right, where're you calling from? Public phone?"
Man: "No, I'm calling right from the house, because I don't see a number on the phone."
Police Officer: "You're at the house itself?"
Man: "Yeah."
Police Officer: "How many bodies are there?"
Man: "I think, uh, I don't know -- uh, I think they said four."
Police Officer: "There's four?"
Man: "Yeah."
Police Officer: "All right, you stay right there at the house, and I'll call the Amityville Village P.D.,
and they'll come down."
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR: A CASE STUDY
Thus the Amityville Horror gets its first spotlight in a tragic loss of life and dark family secrets. With that being said, we will now move on to the first exhibit in the study, The History of 112 Ocean Avenue and the DeFeo Murders.
Long before any whiteman ever set foot in what would later become Amityville, the Mantucket Indians and the Shinnecock tribes inhabited the area.
The Mantucket Indians believed in light and dark spirits and they had a strong folklore of such creatures, both good and bad.
For many years they lived, worked and died in the area now called Amityville.
The Indians also had a very strange practice that was core to their religious beliefs and how they handled "possessed" people in their tribe.
Possession at the time meant anyone with a mental illness, social disorder, mental retardation, certain sicknesses and anyone who betrayed the tribe or especially for enemies.
The practice involved taking the "possessed" person and lashing them, naked to a tree, at which point they would be left to die of exposure, dehydration and starvation. No one in the tribe was permitted to help them, tend to them or even acknowledge their presence.
Many people met their deaths this way and the plot of land on Ocean Avenue was used for just such a purpose. The Indians also believed that the area of and around Ocean Avenue was a "power spot" a place where the Earth's energies are wild and untamed, often thought to be a gateway to the Spirit Realm.
After these people died they were buried on the plot of land, face down, one hand down and palm up on their right side, the other bent up and on their head. The were buried face down to make them forever face the abode of the "Dark Brother" they were sent to join.
This method of burial also served another purpose.
To prevent the dead from reawakening and digging their way out of their graves. If they did awaken, they would only dig themselves deeper.
The Amityville Historical Society claims that the land was not ever used for a burial site, however the Mantucket tribes in recent years have come forward and admitted that yes, the area very well could have been a burial site at one time but the graves could now be submerged in the Amityville River due to the shifting of the water tables and that there was a high chance of this being the case.
To this day, no one has mounted any type of archaeological survey to confirm or deny this.
..From: "The Night the DeFeo's Died" by Rick Osuna...
John Ketcham: A Shadowy Figure:
In the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, we are introduced to a new facet of the legend, John Ketcham, a man supposedly exhiled from Salem during the Witch Trials for practicing witchcraft.
In the late 1600s, Amityville was part of Huntington Township. A check of the historical society located in Huntington, a town approximately 13 miles from Amityville, revealed that there were several John Ketchams in the area. Because records of this time period are sketchy at best, there was no clear proof that any Ketcham ever resided on or near the property.
There is no clear proof to state the contrary either.
The most definitive proof against any John Ketcham's being a witch came from the Ketcham family's own extensive research into their genealogy. After careful investigation, they have been able to determine there never was a witch named John Ketcham.
According to the legend, John Ketcham's body is buried on the north eastern corner of the property, where his cabin supposedly once stood where he continued to worship Satan until his death.
To this day, no search has been mounted for his body.
The Modern History of the Infamous House
According to deeds and information compiled by the Amityville Historical Society, the Ocean Avenue property had once been farmland belonging to the Irelands, one of Amityville's most prominent and influential families. On January 14, 1924, Annie Ireland sold the property to John and Catherine Moynahan.
The Moynahan's were living in the medium sized home that occupied the Ocean Avenue lot, and reportedly they also experienced paranormal activity, and it was one of the reasons the house was moved off of the property, and the Moynahan's continued to live there until their six member family grew too large and they needed a bigger home.
In 1925, Amityville builder Jesse Perdy constructed the large Dutch Colonial with its distinctive quarter-moon "eye" windows, that still stands there today. While their new home was being built, the Moynahans relocated to the old house down the street. When the house was finished, the family of six moved back in and once again enjoyed life by the Amityville Creek.
When John and Catherine Moynahan died, their daughter, Eileen Fitzgerald, moved in with her own family. She lived there until October 17, 1960, when John and Mary Riley bought the house. Because of marital problems, the Rileys divorced and sold the house to the DeFeos on June 28, 1965.
The DeFeos: A Troubled Family:
...from The Crime Library....
Ronald DeFeo, Sr., had attained a trophy-size piece of the American dream when he purchased the house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. Having been born and raised in Brooklyn, Ronald had worked hard in his father-in-law’s Brooklyn Buick dealership, and after many years began to reap rich benefits. Money was no longer a concern when he finally made the decision to leave the City and move to Long Island. The home he chose was a classic piece of Americana, two stories plus an attic, several rooms, and a boathouse on the Amityville River. There was plenty of room for him, his wife Louise; and four children. A signpost in the front yard read “High Hopes,” a testament to what the new home had symbolized for the DeFeos.
It was not to be.
Beneath the veneer of success and happiness, Ronald was a hot-tempered man, given to bouts of rage and violence. There were stormy fights between him and Louise, and he loomed before his children as a demanding authority figure. As the eldest child, Ronald, Jr., bore the brunt of his father’s temper and expectations. As a young boy, Ronald, Jr., or Butch as he would come to be called, was overweight and sullen, the victim of schoolyard taunts and unpopular with other children. His father encouraged him to stick up for himself, but while his advice pertained to the treatment of schoolyard bullies, it apparently did not apply to how young Ronald was treated at home. Ronald, Sr., had no tolerance for backtalk and disobedience, keeping his eldest son on a short leash, and refusing to let him stand up for himself the way he was commanded to at school.
At the trial a family member once remarked that prior to the move to 112 Ocean Avenue, he had been over at a family function and witnessed Ronald Sr strike Butch so hard across the face as to send him flying backward, hitting his head on the wall.
The DeFeo's would live at 112 Ocean Avenue for a little under 10 years.
As Butch matured into adolescence, he gained in size and strength, and was no longer a sitting duck for his father’s abuse. Shouting matches often degenerated into boxing matches, as father and son came to blows with little provocation. While Ronald, Sr. was not highly skilled in the art of interpersonal relations, he was astute enough to realize that his son’s bouts of temper and violent behavior were highly irregular, even in relation to his own. He and his wife arranged for their son to visit a psychiatrist, but to no avail as Butch simply employed a passive-aggressive stance with his therapist, and rejected any notion that he himself needed help.
In the absence of any other solution, the DeFeos employed a time-honored strategy for placating unruly children: they started buying Butch anything he wanted and giving him money. At the age of 14, his father presented him with a $14,000 speedboat to cruise the Amityville River. Whenever Butch wanted money, all he had to do was ask, and if he wasn’t in the mood to ask, he simply took it.
By the age of 17, Butch was forced to leave the parochial school he was attending. By this time he had begun using serious drugs such as heroin and LSD and had also started dabbling in petty thievery schemes. His violent behavior was becoming increasingly psychotic as well, and was not confined to outbursts within his home. One afternoon while out on a hunting trip with some friends, he pointed his loaded rifle at a member of their party, a young man he had known for years. He watched with a stony expression as the young man’s face turned white. He fled, and Butch calmly lowered his gun. When they caught up with their friend later that afternoon, Butch asked him why he had left so soon.
At the age of 18, Butch was given a job at his grandfather’s Buick dealership. By his own account it was a gravy job, where little was expected of him. Regardless of whether or not he showed up for work, he received a cash allowance from his father at the end of each week. This he used for his car (which his parents had also purchased), for alcohol, and for drugs such as speed and heroin. Altercations with his father were growing ever more frequent and correspondingly more violent.
In the weeks before the slayings, relations between Butch DeFeo and his father had reached the breaking point. Butch, apparently dissatisfied with the money he “earned” from his father, had devised a scheme to further defraud his family. Two weeks before the slayings, Butch was sent on an errand by one of the staff at the Buick dealership, given the responsibility of depositing $1,800 in cash and $20,000 in checks in the bank. Instead, Butch arranged to be “robbed” on his way to the bank by an acquaintance, with whom he later split the loot....
He was not prosecuted for the crime.
In the DeFeo home, things were degenerating fast. In fact, the violence and abuse has escalated to near epic proportions. One incident involved a family dinner, during which Louise DeFeo, Ronnie's mother, was downstairs doing laundry while upstairs, Dawn and Allison were fighting. Ronnie sat the kitchen table while his father was growing angrier by the second.
The argument escalated and Louise leaped into the fray demanding the stop fighting before going back to her laundry.
Finally, DeFeo Sr. snapped.
The children were still fighting and Louise was still trying to keep them quiet as she came up the stairs with a basket of clothes. Ronald DeFeo Sr had enough and jumped up from the table, met his wife at the basement door, and punched her square in the face. He watched she she rolled down the stairs and slammed the door, remarking " Now we will have some peace."
The fights continued, the violence escalated ever further, and DeFeo Sr turned to religion to try to quiet what he thought were demons and devils tearing his family apart. He filled the lawn with religious icons and statues.
When asked about this by his neighbors, he merely said " I've got a devil on my back".
Ronnie Jr often ran away from the house, only to be drug back by his father each time he did. Ronnie remarked that he felt better away from the house and each time it got harder to leave.
A few month's before the murders, something changed inside the house again, this time with a dark supernatural overtone. DeFeo Sr went so far as to go to a local rectory and request a priest to come to the house to exorcise what he thought was the Devil.
A priest was sent out and an exorcism was attempted. During the exorcism, violent psychokinetic activity disrupted the ritual and nearly tore apart the house itself. The rectory when questioned by the History Channel about this, declined to confirm or deny that an exorcism had been preformed.
As it turns out, this is standard Vatican procedure.
One evening, a fight broke out between Mr. and Mrs. DeFeo. In order to settle the matter, Butch grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun from his room, loaded a shell into the chamber, and charged downstairs to the scene of the altercation. Without hesitating or calling out to break up the fight, Butch pointed the barrel of the gun at his father’s face, yelling, “Leave that woman alone. I’m going to kill you, you fat fuck! This is it.”
Butch pulled the trigger, but the gun mysteriously did not go off. Ronald, Sr. froze in place and watched in grim amazement as his own son lowered the gun and simply walked out of the room with casual indifference to the fact that he had almost killed his father in cold blood. That fight was over, but Butch’s actions foreshadowed the violence he would soon unleash not only upon his father, but his entire family.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, November 14, 1974, stray house pets and the odd car were the only signs of life as families and neighbors slumbered. But hatred and savagery were brewing beneath the seeming calm at 112 Ocean Avenue. The entire DeFeo family had gone to bed, with the exception of Ronnie.
He sat in his room with the famous "eye windows" watching a black and white film called "Castle Keep", a war film during which the last fifteen minutes is nothing but pure carnage. At trial, Ronnie stated he could hear his family talking about him, whispering, planning against him, and below the whispering voices, he stated he could hear a deeper one, a stronger one, telling him what to do.
He claimed also that he had always heard the voices inside 112 Ocean Avenue.
Finally he could take it no more and he said that at that moment, a pair of black hands materialized and handed the Marlin 30.06 rifle.
Standing up and racking the slide, Ronnie stood up and went to his parents bedroom on the second floor.
He pushed open the bedroom door and waited at the foot of the bed and watched them sleep.
He then raised the rifle and opened fire at point blank range, killing his father instantly, the first of 8 fatal shots. The first shot tore into DeFeo Sr's back, destroying his kidney and exiting through his chest. Ronnie fired again, this time the bullet lodged in DeFeo's Sr's neck, burying itself in his spine.
Without hesitation, he turned the rifle on his mother, shooting her in the head. He fired again, this time the bullet shattered her ribcage and collapsed her right lung.
Ronnie moved on then, and went across the hall, to his brother's room, Mark and John.
Here is a good place to mention something rather odd...
A 30.06 rifle makes an extremely loud CRACK and there is no forensic evidence of a silencer nor was one every found. The cracking retort of the gun had to have echoed through the house, yet no one in the family woke up or tried to flee. The nieghbors, situated no more than 50 feet across from the house on either side do not report hearing the shots and only recall hearing Shaggy, the DeFeo's dog, howling and barking.
During the autopsies, no drugs were found in their bodies and there is no evidence that DeFeo Jr had an acomplice. These are the most puzzling aspects of the murders and which to this day have not been solved, despite a million conspiracy theories....
He entered the bedroom the two boys shared and stood between their two beds. Standing directly above his two helpless brothers, Ronnie fired one shot into each of the boys as they lay sleeping. The bullets tore through their small bodies, ravaging their internal organs, suffing out their lives instantly. Mark lay motionless, while John, whose spinal cord had been severed by his brother’s heartless attack, twitched spasmodically for a few moments after the shooting according to reports.
Not stopping, Ronnie moved on his sister's room, where Allison and Dawn lay, unaware that they were about to meet their end.
Ronnie came into the room and there is some evidence to suggest that Allison may have stirred awake at the last instant, at which point Ronnie put the rifle in her face and pulled the trigger.
He then turned to Dawn, the oldest girl and fired his last round point blank into her face, literally destroying and taking off half of her skull.
He had started at approximately 3:00 AM and the murders took only 15 minutes, with the last member of the family dying at 3:15 AM.
Having completed the task he had set out to do, he now turned his attention to cleaning himself up and establishing an alibi to throw the inevitable police investigation off the trail.
Ronnie calmly showered, trimmed his beard, and dressed in his jeans and work boots. He then collected his bloodied clothing and the rifle, wrapped them up in a pillowcase, and headed out to his car. He threw the evidence into the car, and took off into the pre-dawn hours before sunrise.
Ronnie drove from the suburbs into Brooklyn, and disposed of the pillowcase and its contents by casting them into a storm drain. He then returned to Long Island, and reported to work at his grandfather’s Buick dealership, business as usual. It was 6:00 a.m.
(Part 2-The Aftermath: Ronnie's Trial and Conviction and The Haunting: The Lutz's Story
