The Hoax of That House of Horror - Essay Example

The Hoax of that House of Horror: The Amityville Horror Revealed Whether or not we have known someone who has been slain, feared being murdered, or perhaps even momentarily contemplated murder ourselves during a fit of anger, we realize that the risk that we will kill or be killed does exist. But viewing mass murder is different; it seems so bizarre, so vast a crime, that it's out of our frame of reference, and thus seems out of the question. Some would even think that a demonic force might have had possessed a person and pushed him or her to do such a heinous crime. By maintaining this viewpoint, we can distance ourselves from the harshness and horror of mass murder, and remain as fascinated yet uncomprehending spectators. This though gives us the chills of the horror, even facts would prove later that the things that might have happened are untrue. If one morning we were to awake to learn that our neighbor had shot his wife in a rage, we would consider it tragic. But to learn that a son had wiped out the entire family next door would be inconceivable. This is just how it seemed to the residents of Amityville, New York when Robert DeFeo, Jr. shot his mother, father, and four siblings in their home. Later the house became the setting for a series of macabre motion pictures about the Amityville horror. The horror was real enough, but the movie plots were pure fiction. On November 13, 1974, the police received a report of a homicide at 112 Ocean Avenue, where they discovered six members of the DeFeo family - father, mother and four of their five children - shot and killed execution style. The surviving son, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr., was eventually charged and tried for the murder of his family and is currently serving six concurrent life sentences. Some theorized that Ronald DeFeo Jr. was a sociopath turned killer. Others reasoned that Ronald DeFeo Jr. had to be possessed by the devil or insane in order to shoot and kill the slumbering family he adored. On December 18, 1975, the Lutz family moved into that same house in Amityville, New York state. Twenty-eight days later they fled for their lives. During their four weeks in the Long Island house, they claimed demonic forces drove them to the brink of insanity. Their paranormal experiences included a 7-foot ghost that appeared in the hallway, swarms of flies in the dead of winter and a satanic pig that floated outside their windows. The father, George Lutz, 59, recounted that they experienced something they would wish on no one. He said that thing "had the ability to affect the lives of all it came into contact with. It was intelligent and powerful." Their horrible experiences were turned into a bestselling book and a blockbusting movie, with a 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror, this time starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George. But the real story behind the most famous haunted house in history is even more incredible - a tale of mass murder, million-dollar lawsuits, Mafia hitmen and even a Siamese cat called Evinrude. After the police discovered Ronald was a violent heroin addict and gun enthusiast who stood to gain $200,000 in life assurance, he was soon put in prison. A month after he was jailed for life, newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz and her three young children moved in. "As soon as Kathy walked into the house, she had a smile on her face that just beamed," says George. "I knew from the look on her face that this was to be our dream home." Although they could barely afford it, the 14-room house's tragic history meant it was on the market at the bargain price of $80,000. Despite their later claims, neighbors remember the Lutzes as a happy family who never mentioned anything abnormal. But soon after moving out, George began claiming they'd been targeted by supernatural forces. An early news article of his first press conference reported, "There were no flying objects nor were there wailing noises or moving couches". But there were, according to Lutz, psychic phenomena he could not describe that persuaded him and his family to move out suddenly "because of concern for our own personal safety" (Amityville Horror Truth Website). After a lucrative book deal was struck, their story quickly transformed into something far more sinister. Gone were the intangible psychic phenomena, now the Lutzes claimed their home was struck by ghostly apparitions, green slime that oozed from the walls, the sound of footsteps in the dead of night, and disembodied voices telling them to flee. Most terrifying of all was Jodie, a sinister flying pig who had befriended the Lutzes' five-year-old daughter, Missy. "We thought it was just an imaginary friend," says George, "until Jodie said, "You're going to live here forever". At times it was little bigger than a teddy bear and other times bigger than the house." George Lutz explained in October 1979 on the TV show "In Search Of,"which he served as a consultant and participant for the show. One night while coming back from the boathouse, Anson had George Lutz witnessing Jodie standing behind his stepdaughter in her bedroom. Kathy Lutz's introduction to her daughter's friend was just as disturbing. On a separate evening, she was startled to see two red eyes peering in through the darkness from the window. Although Anson's version was dramatic, Hollywood's adaptation was simply unbelievable. The Jay Anson's book The Amityville Horror (1977) reported that the malevolent forces caused significant property damage to the house, such as the front door being ripped off its hinges, windows being smashed, banisters being torn from their fittings, damage to the garage door, and water damage from hurricane-force winds, which local meteorological stations had no record of. One person not buying the story was Dr Stephen Kaplan of the Parapsychology Institute of America. He spent 20 years investigating the Lutzes' story and concluded it was a hoax from start to finish. He claimed the couple made it up because they couldn't afford their mortgage. They have always denied the claim. In Kaplan's book entitled The Amityville Horror Conspiracy (1995) he said: "What was conjured up by the Lutzes should only be classified as science fiction. The haunting of Amityville lies more in the falsehoods that were fabricated by the hoaxsters than in any ghosts." In Douglas Lynott's article about the Amityville Horror (2005), Dr. Kaplan's doubts about the veracity of the Lutz haunting were confirmed a year-and-a-half later, when he received a copy of The Amityville Horror. Reading it from cover to cover, he swiftly came to the conclusion that George had indeed done his witchcraft and demonology homework - the account was packed with every sort of ghost, ghoul, poltergeist, and demon, all of which employed every trick in the book to terrorize the Lutz family, but could not scare them into leaving for an entire month. The inconsistencies and fabrications Dr. Kaplan found include: The complete exaggeration of the role a priest friend played in the whole drama. In the book, a priest character named Fr. Mancuso is terrorized by a demon while trying to bless the new home. He is then stalked by the specter back to the rectory, where he is afflicted with boils, bleeding palms (a la stigmata), a fever, and the pervasive scent of excrement. In real life, a priest did bless the house, and did have some concern about the possibility of a haunting. Both the real priest and rectory were unharmed by any such demon. Henry's Bar, the scene of Butch's shocking revelation, is referred to as the "Witches Brew." An imaginary police sergeant named "Gionfriddo" mentions that the police discovered the murders because Butch told the bartender, a depiction of events that doesn't even come close to how they really occurred. The supernatural phenomena that the Lutz's describe witnessing is too wide-ranging, which is to say that no one home could possibly hold enough demons, spooks, etc. to cause everything they say happened to them. For instance, George claims that a porcelain lion leapt from a corner of the living room and "bit" him on the ankle; George saw a ghostly vision of Ronnie DeFeo, Jr.'s head floating in the cellar; George and his wife Kathy believe they saw the burned impression of a demonic, hooded figure on their fireplace; Kathy levitated above their bed; Kathy looked in the mirror and saw a decrepit elderly woman looking back; the toilets backed up with black smelly ooze, and the walls of the house were covered with slime; George and Kathy looked out the living room window and saw a floating pig with glowing red eyes. Even the jailed murderer Butch DeFeo believed that the Lutz's stories were concocted with the help of William Weber, Butch's defense attorney in 1975, a handwritten letter written by Butch stated: "Amityville was a hoax that Weber and the Lutzes started. Yes, to make money. It started as my trial was in progress" (The Amityville Horror Truth Website). To this day, DeFeo is in a New York prison, awaiting his next parole hearing. His attempts to sell eerie paintings of the house via his website have prompted outrage from friends of the family he slaughtered. They say the DeFeos should now be allowed to rest in peace. Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror (1977) sold more than three million copies and was turned into a major motion picture that grossed more than $80 million dollars. The family happily went on a nationwide tour to promote the book as their "true story." Nevertheless, questions remained about the validity of their claims. Although George Lutz proclaimed his story to be true, William Weber argued the story and Anson's book were not. In the September 17, 1979 issue of People magazine, Weber admitted that he knew Anson's book was a hoax and that they created this horror story over many bottles of wine. Whether the "haunted house" stories that the Lutz family recounted were fabricated, the real horror was the mass murder that occurred. It is just a shame that some family and a lawyer used their horrible deaths to lie about their experiences and sensationalize everything just to earn profits. Works Cited Anson, Jay. The Amityville Horror. Prentice-Hall, Inc.: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1977. Kaplan, Stephen, Ph.D. The Amityville Horror Conspiracy. Belfry Books: Laceyville, PA, 1995. Lynott, Douglas B. The Real Amityville Horror. Acquired online November 30, 2005 at http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/amityville. The Amityville Truth Website. Acquired online November 30, 2005 at www.amityvillehorrortruth.com Read More