Sandra Taylor
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posted 09-26-2005 09:50 PM
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GHOSTS OF THE PRAIRIE
History & Hauntings of America
Amityville:
Horror or Hoax?
A Look at this Classic Case
by Troy Taylor
There seems to be little doubt that one of the most famous American hauntings to ever be documented occurred in the quiet town of Amityville, New York, a peaceful enclave on Long Island’s south shore. There stands no other case from the latter part of the 20th Century that so captured the imagination of the general public... and no other case that filled us with such fear.
I was barely a teenager when the sensational book by Jay Anson, “The Amityville Horror”, was released. I will never forget snatching up a copy from a local bookstore, only to read it and then re-read it again. Could such things really happen? Could ghosts destroy a family the way that evil spirits did George and Kathy Lutz? Could a ghost force someone to kill, as demonic entities caused Ronald DeFeo to murder his entire family?
And most terrifying of all.... could the American public be so easily deceived into believing the events chronicled in the book were actually real? The answer to that question is a resounding “yes” as is proven by the fact that many people still believe in the veracity of “The Amityville Horror”, one of the greatest paranormal hoaxes of all time!
But how did it all begin? How could we all be fooled so easily? And what events led up to the release of the book? To answer those inquiries, we have to go back to November 1974 and understand the true events that occurred in the house on Ocean Avenue.
The horrific carnage that prefaced the story of the “Amityville Horror” began one dark fall night in 1974. The DeFeos, Ronald Sr. and Louise, their two young sons, Mark and John, and two daughters, Dawn and Allison, were sleeping peacefully in their comfortable, three-story, Dutch Colonial home in Amityville. The silence of the house was shattered when Ronald DeFeo murdered his parents and his siblings with a high-powered rifle. One by one, he killed each of them as they slept, although strangely, the sound of the gunshots never awakened the other family members.
Ronald DeFeo Jr.
DeFeo blamed the massacre on the malevolent force of an evil spirit that was present in the house. He stated that the creature began speaking to him and controlled him while he committed the murders. Not surprisingly, he pleaded insanity at his trial. The prosecutor countered the plea by stating that DeFeo was not crazy at all, but merely trying to cash in on his parent’s substantial life insurance polices. Again though, we are left with an unanswered question.. how could DeFeo have thought that he would get away with the murders and in turn, collect on the insurance policies?
Regardless, the jury ignored DeFeo’s claims and found him guilty of six counts of first-degree murder. State Supreme Court Justice Thomas M. Stark sentenced him to 150 years in prison.
The tragedy in Amityville made grim local news but few outside of New York ever heard about the house until some time later. The horrendous events that followed began on December 18, 1975, when a young couple named George and Kathy Lutz bought the house on Ocean Avenue for $80,000. Just a week before Christmas, they moved into their new “dream home” with Kathy’s three children from a previous marriage. They would later claim that the “dream home” soon became a nightmare!
Almost from the moment that they moved into the house, the Lutz family would insist they noticed an unearthly presence in the place. They began to hear mysterious noises that they could not account for. Locked windows and doors would inexplicably open and close, as if by invisible hands. George Lutz, a sturdy former Marine, claimed to be plagued by the sound of a phantom brass band that would march back and forth through the house. When a Catholic priest entered the house, after agreeing to exorcize it, an eerie, disembodied voice told him to “get out”.
After the aborted exorcism, the events began to intensify. The thumping and scratching sounds grew worse, a devilish creature was seen outside the windows at night, George Lutz was seemingly “possessed” by an evil spirit and green slime even oozed from the walls and ceiling. The family was further terrified by ghostly apparitions of hooded figures, clouds of flies that appeared from nowhere, cold chills, personality changes, sickly odors, objects moving about on their own, the repeated disconnection of their telephone service and communication between the youngest Lutz child and a devilish pig that she called “Jodie”. Kathy Lutz reported that she was often beaten and scratched by unseen hands and that one night, she was literally levitated up off the bed.
George and Kathy Lutz
The family managed to hold out for 28 days before they gathered up their possessions and fled from the house. According to their story, they left so quickly that they didn’t take their furniture or many of their other possessions with them. The demonic spirits, they said, had driven them from their home!
And then, things started to get really scary....
In February 1976, not long after the Lutz family left the house, local residents were stunned to see New York Channel 5’s news team doing a life news feed from the house on Ocean Avenue. The news crew filmed a seance that was being conducted and a dramatic investigation of the place conducted by Ed and Lorraine Warren, two of America’ most famous “demonologists”. The Amityville house would soon become the center of a three-ring circus!
For those not familiar with the Warrens, Lorraine claims to be a clairvoyant and a trance medium who is said to have the uncanny ability to contact the spirit world. On the other hand, her husband Ed, purports to be an expert on hauntings and exorcism. From the 1950’s through the 1980’s, the Warrens, who are based in Connecticut, were recognized as authorities when it came to ghosts and demons. While they are still active today, their methods have been replaced by more scientific standards of investigation. Regardless, in 1976, their stamp of approval on the events reported at Amityville caught the attention of a nation.
The Warrens went to the house for the first time in February and while supposedly George Lutz refused to accompany them, he did loan them a key. The Warrens stated that they found old newspapers around the house and that the refrigerator was still stocked with food. It was obvious to them, they said, that the Lutz family had left in a hurry. The Warrens brought two other psychics with them to the house to conduct their seance. They later reported that they “sensed” an “unearthly presence” in the house and Ed Warren also claimed to experience heart palpitations that he blamed on the occult forces. The house was haunted, they said, by the angry spirits of Indians who had once inhabited the area and by “inhuman spirits”. The story was that the Shinnecock Indians had used that very parcel of land as a place where sick and insane members of the tribe were isolated until they died. They did not bury the dead there however because they supposedly believed the land was “infested with demons”.
For God's Sake... what was Rod Steiger thinking??
Not long after, the George and Kathy Lutz teamed up with a writer named Jay Anson and together, they authored what would become a best-selling book called “The Amityville Horror”. The book would then go on to spawn a bad movie and a number (of even worse sequels) and not surprisingly, the Warrens were hired by producer Dino de Laurentis and the production company to serve as consultants about the supernatural occurrences portrayed in the film. They also made the rounds of the talk show circuit, discussing the horrifying events in Amityville.
The “Amityville Horror” grew from news reports and newspaper articles to books, magazines and television. The story would become internationally known and around the world, people recognized the name of Amityville. Most amazing was the fact that this terrifying story was absolutely true... or so it read in bold print on the cover of the phenomenally selling book. But not everyone was convinced, even in paranormal circles. In fact, a few of them smelled something bad in Amityville!
One of those was a paranormal investigator from New York named Dr. Stephen Kaplan. George Lutz had approached him in early 1976 about conducting an investigation of the house on Ocean Avenue. At that time, Kaplan was the executive director of the Parapsychology Institute of America, based on Long Island. He received a phone call from Lutz on February 16 and wanted the society to investigate the house for supernatural activity. He asked about a fee for the group’s services and Kaplan told him that they did not charge for the investigation but that “if the story is a hoax...the public will know”. A few days later, Lutz called and cancelled the investigation. He claimed that he and his wife did not want any publicity about the house. This may have been why the Channel 5 news story came as such a surprise to Kaplan and his colleagues a few days later!
As the story of the “Amityville Horror” was becoming an international sensation, Kaplan was at work collecting evidence and materials about the house and the claims made by the Lutz family, Jay Anson, the Warrens and the media. Although convinced of the validity of the paranormal and supernatural activity, Kaplan was not convinced of the truth behind the Amityville case. While it was possible that a haunting could have occurred at the house, especially in light of the violent events that had taken place there, there was something not quite right about the accounts of the Lutz’s. After some initial investigation, Kaplan became sure that a hoax was being perpetrated on the public and such a hoax could prove to be damaging for legitimate paranormal cases in the future. With that in mind, he became determined to show that the entire story was a farce.
Little did he know that he would face an uphill battle, not only against the Warrens, but against the general public as well. By this time, the Warrens had become too firmly entrenched to back out of the case. They continued to resolutely support the Lutz claims of the house being haunted, or possessed, by evil forces. They began their own campaign to try and discredit Stephen Kaplan, especially after his untimely death a number of years later. To this day, in spite of confessions and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Warrens still maintain that the house was haunted.
The general public had been so force-fed the story by the media, that Kaplan’s evidence against the house being haunted seemed to fall on deaf ears. Thanks to the fact that the truth was not as glamorous or as dramatic as the original story, the new story was scarcely reported and was barely noticed at first. In fact, Kaplan’s diaries of the investigations were turned into a book that did not get published for many years after the events took place. The problem remained that the public loved the story and the house on Ocean Avenue became a Long Island landmark. People traveled from all over the country to drive past and stare at it. Tourists made it their first stop on Long Island and locals soon began calling the sightseers the “Amityville Horribles”. The trouble with curiosity seekers and complaints from locals were so bad in the late 1970’s that they drove one Amityville police chief into early retirement!
Kaplan had discovered that the “Amityville Horror” was pure invention. In 1979, a lawyer named William Weber confessed to his part in the hoax during a paranormal radio show hosted by author Joel Martin. Weber had been the lawyer for convicted killer Ronald DeFeo and he admitted that he and George Lutz had concocted the story of the haunting over a few bottles of wine. Weber’s motive was to get a new trial for DeFeo, using a “Devil made him do it” defense. According to Weber, Lutz merely wanted to get out from under a mortgage that he couldn’t afford. His business was in trouble and he needed a scheme to bail him out.
Kaplan found ample proof, outside of the glaring confession, that the story was a hoax. He gained access to the house on many occasions and found that the so-called “Red Room”, where the book claimed occult ceremonies took place, was nothing more than a small pipe well that gave access to them if they needed to be repaired. No “demonic face” had ever appeared on the bricks inside of the fireplace. He also noted that the original front door of the house (blown off its hinges in the book) was still in place and intact. In addition, he found a writer for the local newspaper that had also been suspicious of the story. After some searching, the columnist discovered that the Lutz’s had returned the day after “fleeing” from the house to hold a garage sale. He also charged that during their “28-day nightmare” that never once called the police for assistance, something that would have been commonly done under the circumstances. The list of things that did not happen in the house went on and on and to Kaplan (and to most everyone who listened to his rational arguments), the evidence for an “Amityville Hoax” was overwhelming.
Jim and Barbara Cromarty, who later moved into the house, also maintained that it was not haunted. Because of the problems they had experienced with the curiosity-seekers, they sued the hardcover and paperback publishers of the “Amityville Horror”, as well as Jay Anson and George and Kathy Lutz. They stated that the entire case had been a put-on from the beginning and it had “blighted their lives”. The suit was later settled with the new occupants for an undisclosed amount.
This, along with the publication of “The Amityville Horror Conspiracy” by Stephen Kaplan, should have put an end to the case, but it did not. In fact, more than two decades later, people still often question the facts behind the case and the real events that may, or may not, have occurred in Amityville. Today, most researchers concede that the story was mostly, if not entirely, fabricated. To the general public though, the truth remains much more of a shadowy thing and some theorists who believe that there are still things about the story that do not add up will point to a string of tragedies that surround the case.
- Paul Hoffman, the writer who penned the original story for newspapers and for “Good Housekeeping” magazine, died a few years after the story broke under mysterious circumstances.
- Jay Anson, author of the best-selling book, made a fortune from the story but died shortly after he received his first million dollar advance for his next book. That book, an occult novel entitled “666“, was a failure.
- Demonologist Ed Warren, suffered a heart attack a few years after his initial investigations of Amityville. He maintained the illness was caused by the house.
- David Cromarty, the son of the house’s new owners, died an early, tragic death. He used the bedroom that had once belonged to Ronald DeFeo for several years.
- Dr. Stephen Kaplan, who took on the hoaxers, almost died from a major heart attack in 1976 and then passed away several years later. His death was untimely and cut short a distinguished career. He would not live to see his book on the case published.
Some would say that the house “got them” but others would admit that these events are nothing more than strange coincidences that have been arranged to look like something they most likely are not. To this author, they are a perfect example of this entire case as a whole... a blending of fact with fiction in an attempt to titillate and terrify the American public.
Sources:
The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson (1977)
The Amityville Horror Conspiracy by Dr. Stephen Kaplan (1995)
ESP, Hauntings and Poltergeists by Loyd Auerbach (1986)
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley (2000)
True Tales of the Unknown: Beyond Reality by Sharon Jarvis (1991)
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts by Daniel Cohen (1984)
(C) Copyright 2001 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
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