Paranormal Hoaxes:The Hoax in Amitwille

Diagram of the second floor of the Amityville home showing
where five of the six members of the family were found.

DeFeo's father and mother were both shot twice in the back. His younger sister was shot in the face. Apparently, she'd awakened at the sound of the gunshots and was looking down the barrel of the gun when she was shot. DeFeo then shot his brothers once in their backs. He then went up to his other sister's bedroom on the third floor and shot her in the back of the head.

DeFeo was convicted and sentenced to six consecutive 25-year-to-life prison terms.

At the time, everybody had thought that the horror was over with the murders.

But it wasn't.

George and Kathy Lutz

The abandoned Lutz home

The Amityville Horror hit the big screen in 1979 and was based on the book. It, too, claimed to be a "true story."

That's when the lawsuits started.

The family that had moved into the house after the Lutzes had left had experienced absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The only problem that they had experienced with living in the house was dealing with the number of tourists visiting the town to see the "horror house." They sued the Lutzes and the publishers. The case was settled out of court.

A second lawsuit exposed the real "horror" that had happened in Amityville.

Attorney William Weber, Ronald DeFeo's defense lawyer, was suing the Lutzes for stealing his ideas for the story.

Apparently the Lutzes had moved into the house, thinking that they could handle living where the murders happened. However, after a couple of days of moving in, the heating system in the house broke down, and after a few days, the family began having bad feelings about living there. They were nervous and left to stay at a relative's house to collect their thoughts. It was there that a family member told them that they could expand on their "bad feelings" and make it into a ghost story.

The family then met with William Weber to find out more about the history of the murders and the house.

At the time, Weber was also thinking of writing a book, not on ghosts, but about the murders. When the Lutzes met with him, they told him about the bad feelings that they were having in the house. Weber thought that their being nervous about living in the house after the murders would make a good afterwards section for his book. The three talked about the murders with Weber telling George and Kathy more and more information and showing them pictures of the house and the crime scene.

The Lutzes then went public. At first, Weber went along with their scheme since it was sticking very closely to the bad feelings that they had experienced. However, the Lutzes soon began making their experiences more and more exaggerated. Weber and Paul Hoffman, the group's original choice for an author, backed out of the mess.

Weber was still planning his book, but before it could be finished, the Lutzes had released their book.

Author Jay Anson had written the book from audio tapes that George and Kathy had given him. The tapes contained their accounts of the events that the Lutzes claimed happened to them. Anson then took the events on the tapes, rearranged them into a more interesting order, exaggerated some events, and added his own ideas here and there.

However, the Lutzes, even after the book came out, continued to change and rechange their story. Weber even saw a letter that had been written to Jay Anson, telling him to tell the Lutzes to get their story straight.

Weber's lawsuit against the Lutzes was settled out of court. The judge in the trial even said that with all of the discrepencies and exagerations in the story that the book was a lot of nonsense.

Dr. Stephen Kaplan was the first person to say that the case was a hoax. George had contacted him to ask him to investigate the house for the "psychic phenomena." A couple days later, George called Dr. Kaplan to call off the investigation, saying that there was too much publicity. Dr. Kaplan thought this was strange since the investigation was something that would help George. He also noted that the family had just held a press conference in William Weber's office, but they didn't want any publicity. Dr. Kaplan also got suspicious that the Lutzes were meeting with the lawyer who was defending the kid that had killed his family in the house the year before. His suspicions were confirmed when the "seances" held in the house were televised on public television. He also got to tour the house not long afterwards when he and two collegues arrived at the house and saw that the family was in the process of selling off everything in the house!

Another group of investigators from the American Society for Psychical Research stumbled upon a piece of evidence that really blew the whistle on the Lutzes. The investigators were interviewing the family. They'd gone over some of the incidents with the family to confirm that this happened and that happened. However, the investigators weren't convinced that the case was legitimate, since there wasn't much evidence to support it. They asked the family to show them a copy of their signatures. George and Kathy then showed the investigators a paper that had their signatures at the bottom. However, the couple hadn't thought that the investigators would get a good look at the paper. They did. It was a contract for a book and a movie.

1. Inside covers of paperback: "It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition. NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED."
   
   
   • This is wrong because Prentice Hall had edited the hard cover version sometime after the original printing. Bantam had used the final version of the hard cover which was different from the original.
   
   
   
2. Reporter Steve Bauman's quotes in the forward were inaccurate. As a result, Bauman and Marvin Scott sued the publishers for falsely quoting them.
   
   
3. "'...a power which actually lifted Mrs. Lutz off her feet toward a closet behind which was a room not noted on any blueprints.'"
   
   
   • If this is referring to the "red room" in the basement, Kathy wasn't lifted off her feet towards it according to the novel.
   
   
   
4. William Weber, Ronald DeFeo's attorney, was originally called a non-believer in the supernatural by newspapers when the family first went public. However, right after the Lutzes went public, he began trying to get DeFeo a new trial on the basis that he was "possessed" at the time of the murders. That's kind of a strong motion for a non-believer in the supernatural.
   
   
5. The Catholic Church was never involved. The priest (an alias was used in the book) was never in the house and had only counseled the family after they left the house because they were having trouble living where the murders had taken place.
   
   
6. The only contact that the police had with the Lutzes while they were living in the house was when George turned in his gun to the police claiming that he was having the urge to kill his family and was scared. However, he picked up the gun the following day, which seems kind of weird that he'd pick up his gun that soon if he was so scared.
   
   
7. The dates that the family moved into the house in the original printing didn't match up. There was a quote on the back cover of the book that said that the family bought the house on December 23 and moved in a few days later. The Forward in the book had them moving in on December 23. Chapter One had them moving in on December 18.
   
   
   • You would think that they'd be able to get the date that they moved into the house on to match throughout the book.
   
   
   
8. The Lutzes had bought the house during the summer of 1975, not that November, as the book and movie depict. They knew about the murders, but didn't know that the house was where it happened until the real estate agent told them. But they were so in love with the place that they went ahead and bought it.
   
   
9. The sign "High Hopes" on the lamppost at the end of the driveway never existed while the Lutzes lived there. They had apparently seen it in the pictures of the house that attorney William Weber had shown them. Apparently, relatives had taken it down after the murders.
   
   
10. Neighbors claimed that they've never drawn the blinds on their windows facing the Lutzes' house.
    
    
11. The quote from Ronald DeFeo was actually told to the Lutzes when they had met with Weber.
    
    
12. Ronald DeFeo did claim that he heard voices while living in the house. However, it is known that he heavily used drugs and alcohol.
    
    
13. Missy's bedroom is supposed to be "diagonally opposite their master bedroom."
    
    
    • Either this is wrong or the house diagram for the second floor is wrong.
    
    
    
14. According to the paperback, the priest's mother's house is in Nassau, and he was to head directly there after blessing the Lutzes' home. However, when he left the Lutzes, "he drove off to Queens." Later he was "on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens".
    
    
    • This is due to the changes made between some of the printings of the hardcover.
    
    
    
15. In the hardcover, the priest's car is a Chevy Vega, which makes it impossible for the hood to fly back against the windshield since a Vega's hood opens forward and away from the windshield. In the paperback, the car is a tan Ford. Apparently, an editor caught the error, and it was changed.
    
    
16. The time 3:15AM came into play from a news reporter who said that a neighbor of the DeFeos had heard the DeFeos' dog barking around 3:15AM. The coroner's report never pinpointed the time of the deaths at 3:15AM as the book and movie claim.
    
    
17. The first time George awakens at 3:15AM on the first night in the house, he "padded across the cold, uncarpeted floor of the hallway and into the sewing room".
    
    
    • The hallway was actually carpeted.
    
    
    
18. The boathouse door coming open can easily be explained as I've experienced some doors that will close but not latch completely. Since this is an outside door, the wind could have easily caused the poorly closed door to come open.
    
    
19. "...he considered what he had gotten himself into--a second marriage with three children, a new house with a big mortgage. The taxes in Amityville were three times higher than in Deer Park. Did he really need that new speedboat?"
    
    
    • Sounds like George is experiencing financial problems and is looking for any way (maybe even supernatural) to get some money.
    
    
    
20. George snaps at the kids for making too much noise, and Kathy is shocked by it.
    
    
    • He could very well just be stressed from the move and from just waking up.
    
    
    
21. George "had been a bear all day."
    
    
    • Again, he's probably just tired and stressed.
    
    
    
22. George kept complaining about the cold, and I would too since it's in the middle of December, the house is next to the river, it isn't well insulated, and the heating system had broken a couple days after they'd moved in.
    
    
23. "...the Lutz family began to go through a collective personality change."
    
    
    • They're in a new house and environment, and they're probably just needing time to adjust. After all, moving into a new home is a stressful time.
    
    
    
24. "The children bothered him too. Ever since the move, they seemed to have become brats, misbehaved monsters who wouldn't listen, unruly children who must be severely punished."
    
    
    • George is apparently stressed with his first time at being a father.
    
    
    
25. "She [Kathy] was tense from her stained relationship with George and from the efforts of trying to put her house in shape before Christmas."
    
    
    • What couple doesn't have problems at first, especially just after moving into a new home? Also, isn't Christmas always a busy time?
    
    
    
26. George and Kathy beat their kids "with a strap and a large, heavy wooden spoon."
    
    
    • Sounds like normal behavior for parents disciplining their kids. (NOTE: Coming from an abusive family, I don't see this as a good way to discipline kids.)
    
    
    
27. "The children had accidentally cracked a pain of glass in the playroom's half-moon window."
    
    
    • Dr. Kaplan had seen the windows not long after the family was gone. The original glass was still in the frames. Had any panes of class been fixed or replaced, it would have been very noticeable.
    
    
    
28. Kathy is touched in the kitchen.
    
    
    • She never tells anybody about it. Isn't it possible that she could have imagined it?
    
    
    
29. Black stains are discovered in the toilets.
    
    
    • This was taken from a picture of Weber's of a sink after the investigation into the murders had taken place. Apparently, an investigator had washed off fingerprint dust in the sink, and it had stained the basin.
    
    
    
30. Smells and odors are detected in the house.
    
    
    • Again, this comes from when Weber met with the Lutzes. At the trial, the smell/odor of the decaying bodies had often been mentioned.
    
    
    
31. The family finds a swarm of flies on one of the sewing room windows.
    
    
    • This, also, came from the meeting with Weber and the trial. It had been said that the body of the daughter in one of the third floor bedrooms was infested with maggots.
    
    
    
32. George and Kathy argue.
    
    
    • What couple doesn't?
    
    
    
33. The 250-pound front door is ripped off his hinges.
    
    
    • George later admitted in an interview that it was actually the screen door that had gotten ripped off by the wind.
    
    
    
34. Kathy finds all three kids sleeping on their stomachs. "'Later, when I thought about it,' Kathy says, 'That was the first time I could ever remember the children sleeping in that position--particularly all three on their stomachs at the same time. I even remember I was almost going to say something to George, that it was kind of strange.'"
    
    
    • Maybe it's just a coincidence that they were all on their stomachs when Kathy checked them?
    
    
    
35. As the locksmith leaves, George and Kathy decide not to tell him about the boathouse door because "they didn't want the news spreading around Amityville that again their was something funny going on at 112 Ocean Avenue."
    
    
    • Since when were there ever rumors going around the town that there was something weird about the place?
    
    
    
36. While on the phone with her mother, Kathy sees Missy go into the sewing room and hears her looking for something in the boxes. Kathy wonders what she's looking for.
    
    
    • Maybe she's looking for one of her toys that might still be packed away?
    
    
    
37. Kathy thought it was strange when Missy asked, "Do angels talk?" and when Missy (looking out a window) knew she was there.
    
    
    • Since when is a 5-year-old girl's asking about angels around Christmas unusual? Also, couldn't Missy have seen her mother's reflection in the window?
    
    
    
38. The two brothers get into a fight, and Kathy says that that had never happened before.
    
    
    • So now we are to assume that two brothers, ages 7 and 9, have never fought?
    
    
    
39. Kathy finds her crucifix hanging upside-down.
    
    
    • Kathy was on the third floor with Danny and Chris. She doesn't note if Missy had left her bedroom or if George had left the living room. That means that there were two people in the house who could have hung the crucifix upside-down.
    
    
    
40. "Father Mancuso" begins having visions of the house while he has a 104-degree fever.
    
    
    • He's more than likely having hallucinations brought on by the high fever.
    
    
    
41. The Lutzes begin to experience problems with their phones.
    
    
    • Never once did they try to contact the phone company to report the problems.
    
    
    
42. Sergeant Al Gionfriddo enters the story on December 24th.
    
    
    • Sergeant Al Gionfriddo doesn't exist.
    
    
    
43. After Kathy wakes up screaming, "She was shot in the head!" the book (as does the movie) mentions that only Mrs. DeFeo was shot in the head.
    
    
    • Mrs. DeFeo was not shot in the head.
    
    
    
44. George sees the pig in Missy's window while the property is lit up by the light of the full moon after he wakes up at 3:15 and checks the boathouse.
    
    
    • Weather reports have the moon only a quarter full and setting well before midnight.
    
    
    
45. George rushes into Missy's bedroom, and her little chair is rocking back and forth behind him.
    
    
    • Maybe the breeze of his running into the room moved it, or maybe he bumped it and didn't realize it.
    
    
    
46. "They had gone over some of the incidents each had witnessed, and now were trying to put together what was real and what they might have imagined."
    
    
    • It would seem as though they are trying to make people believe that they are now trying to think rationally rather than blame everything that had happened on the paranormal.
    
    
    
47. Jodie is then introduced.
    
    
    • Jodie was actually the neighbor's Siamese cat. It's eyes glowed red in the dark, and the neighbor said that she'd seen the cat over to the house numerous times and sitting on the window sills. The "pig" came from the Lutzes' meeting with Weber. Apparently, Ronald DeFeo had always referred to the cat as "that pig". This struck me as being very funny since in the movie after Kathy sees the eyes at the window, she tells George, "What I saw was not a cat!"
      
    • Also, there was a bad TV-movie that I saw once called Something Evil where a family buys a home in Pennsylvania that is inhabited by the devil. In one part of the movie, a pair of red eyes is caught on film, staring out from a window of the house. Since it was a 1972 movie, I have to wonder if this could have had an influence on the Lutzes' interpretation of the red eyes that they saw.
    
    
    
48. George develops a case of diarrhea.
    
    
    • Since when is diarrhea not a natural occurrence?
    
    
    
49. Kathy gets into an argument with the two boys, and "Danny and Chris never questioned her requests before this."
    
    
    • So, they're supposed to be obedient, perfect little angels who would never do anything wrong?
    
    
    
50. Kathy is again touched in the kitchen.
    
    
    • Did she tell anybody about it? Once again, no.
    
    
    
51. Jimmy's $1500 disappears when he leaves his raincoat in the kitchen and goes into the living room with George.
    
    
    • The book doesn't mention where Kathy or the kids are. If the family is hurting so badly for money that they'd make up a tale of the supernatural and make it into a book and a movie, who's to say they wouldn't steal money from their own relatives? Also, if the kids are behaving so badly after moving into the house, how do we know one of them didnÕ´ take it and hide it?
    
    
    
52. George gets sick during Communion just before Jimmy's wedding.
    
    
    • Since he's Jimmy's best man, maybe it's just George's nerves acting up or a coincidence. Plus, he had been sick not long before.
    
    
    
53. George and Kathy hadn't made love for nine days. George also hadn't shaved or showered in nine days.
    
    
    • Seems like a direct link between the two to me.
    
    
    
54. It's mentioned in the book that Mrs. DeFeo was having an affair before the murders. That, however, was just a rumor that had gone around the neighborhood and had afterwards been known to be false.
    
    
55. Bobby, a little boy from up the street, acted uncomfortable in the house.
    
    
    • And who wouldn't? He probably lived on the street at the time of the murders and maybe even knew one or more of the kids. Now that he's in the house, it's probably bringing back a lot of bad memories for him.
    
    
    
56. The "red room" is discovered.
    
    
    • It's actually a 2X3 foot access space for plumbing that the family had painted red.
    
    
    
57. In Chapter 10, "Sergeant Gionfriddo" tells "Father Mancuso" that Ronald DeFeo had drugged his family at dinner on the night he shot them.
    
    
    • This was speculation at the time of the murders and was later ruled out. Granted, we now know that there are some drugs that wouldn't have probably showed up in an autopsy at that time, but it was ruled out that the family had been drugged before the Lutzes' story came about
    
    
    
58. The bar that Ronald DeFeo had run into the night after he shot his family was called Henry's Bar, not The Witches' Brew.
    
    
59. "Gionfriddo" passed George as he was driving past The Witches' Brew and thought he'd seen Ronald DeFeo. The bartender also thought that George looked like DeFeo.
    
    
    • The only similarity between George and DeFeo is that they both have beards. Other than that, they don't look anything alike.
    
    
    
60. Kathy sees "movement" out of the corner of her right eye and is sure that she's seen the ceramic lion move a few inches closer toward her. She later feels "foolish about wanting to mention the lion" to George.
    
    
    • Didn't she say that she only saw movement and not what moved? How does she know it wasn't a curtain blowing or something? Apparently, she must have realized that it could have been her imagination since she doesn't say a word to George about it.
    
    
    
61. George then falls over the ceramic lion.
    
    
    • He and Kathy had been in the kitchen. Couldn't one of the kids have moved the lion to where George would trip over it?
    
    
    
62. "What disturbed Kathy was the clear imprint of teethmarks on his ankle!"
    
    
    • How could a ceramic lion "bite" somebody? ItÕ³ jaws canÕ´ move. It wouldnÕ´ have been able to turn it's head to even get to the ankle.
    
    
    
63. One of the shock absorbers on the rear of the van comes loose and falls off. "George was puzzled."
    
    
    • Sounds like George needs to do some maintenance to his van more often.
    
    
    
64. Kathy hears a window opening and closing in the sewing room. Rather than opening the door to the sewing room to find out what the noise is, she goes back to the master bedroom and hides in bed.
    
    
    • How do we know, since Kathy never opened the door, that it was really a window making the noise and not a tree branch or something?
    
    
    
65. George goes to Newsday and looks through the microfilm. He sees Ronald's picture and thinks "the bearded twenty-four-year-old face staring back at him from the picture could have been his own.
    
    
    • Again, George and DeFeo don't look alike.
    
    
    
66. Once again, "the Coroner's report...pinpointed the time of the DeFeos' deaths at about 3:15 in the morning."
    
    
67. One of the tires on the van almost comes off, and he can't find the jack handle.
    
    
    • Once again, bad maintenance. George considers vandalism, which would be another possibility.
    
    
    
68. George gets some history about the property from the Amityville Historical Society about the indians using the land for their insane and about a John Ketcham buying the land for witchcraft purposes.
    
    
    • The family never went to the Amityville Historical Society until January 25, 1976 (after they'd moved out). Also, the Historical Society doesn't have any information about that piece of land.
    
    
    
69. "George was beginning to choke with the pressures of mounting bills; for the house he had just taken on, and for the office, where he would shortly have a very serious payroll deficit. All the cash that he and Kathy had saved had gone toward the expense of the closing, and old fuel bill, and paying off the boats and motorcycles. And now the latest blow--the investigation of his books and tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service."
    
    
    • Sounds like more reasons for why the book was written.
    
    
    
70. "white figure that had burned itself into the soot against the rear bricks of the fireplace"
    
    
    • George and Kathy later admitted that it was just an ugly shape burned into the bricks and nothing more.
    
    
    
71. The windows on the second floor are all found open.
    
    
    • Keep in mind that these are the older style windows that have the counterweights in the frames. It's possible that if the windows were improperly latched then they could open by themselves. It's said that one of the sewing room windows was stuck open. Again, that's possible, too.
    
    
    
72. George and Kathy note that Missy's room is warm.
    
    
    • Of course, it is. None of the windows in that room are open.
    
    
    
73. Kathy had burst into Missy's room, and the little chair was rocking back and forth.
    
    
    • Couldn't it have been the breeze coming in from the hallway?
    
    
    
74. As Kathy begins to try to call "Father Mancuso" from the kitchen, she smells "a sweet odor of perfume".
    
    
    • Is one of the kids playing with their mother's perfume or is it something else that she just has never smelled before? If the house is served by gas, it could have been a gas leak.
    
    
    
75. "Maybe I'm getting paranoid about the whole thing, she thought to herself."
    
    
    • That could be a very logical explanation, especially if she is nervous about living where the murders took place.
    
    
    
76. A pair of red eyes are seen at the living room window.
    
    
    • It's the cat.
    
    
    
77. Hoof prints are found in the snow.
    
    
    • I'm sure it was probably their imaginations getting carried away since there are no pigs running around the neighborhood. They probably saw the cat's tracks and thought it was something else.
    
    
    
78. It was never said until the book came out that the overhead garage door had been ripped off it's frame. The newspaper articles only told of the garbage shed doors that had been nailed shut being found ripped open.
    
    
79. Kathy is embraced and passes out. She then wakes up on the bed.
    
    
    • It's possible that she might have had a dizzy spell and passed out. In the process, she could have fallen down on the bed.
    
    
    
80. "Father Mancuso" says a mass for the Lutzes, and when he returns to the Rectory, he found "a stupefying odor of human excrement pervading his rooms". In the hardcover, the smell spreads through the building, and the other priests are driven from their rooms and gather in the lobby of the school building across the yard. The pastor is extremely upset over the incident. In the paperback, "Father Mancuso" is simply afraid that the smell would spread through the Rectory and that the pastor would be upset. However, he then lights incense in his rooms and returns to the school building with the others.
    
    
    • Again, this is caused by the editing of the book after it's first release. However, it is funny how in the paperback Father Mancuso joins the other evacuated priests, even though there was no evacuation!
    
    
    
81. The police are called in to look around the house.
    
    
    • This is obviously wrong as the police were never called to the house as mentioned earlier.
    
    
    
82. George is starting up the basement stairs and stops to see where a smell is coming from. "From his position on the stairs, George had been able to see almost the entire cellar."
    
    
    • This is wrong since there are walls on both sides of the basement stairs. Had George stopped on the stairs, he'd only be able to see a portion of the basement at the bottom of the stairs.
    
    
    
83. In Chapter 15, the hardcover details the Pastor's explosion on "Father Mancuso." In the paperback, "Father Mancuso" explodes on the Pastor.
    
    
    • Again, this is due to editing during the original printings of the book.
    
    
    
84. The ceramic lion that George had taken up to the sewing room was found back in the living room.
    
    
    • Maybe one of the kids saw the lion in the sewing room, remembered that it was usually in the living room, and decided to take it back down there. The book doesn't even say where the kids are at the time of the incident.
    
    
    
85. George hears "marching music downstairs".
    
    
    • Nobody else in the house heard the music, and George couldn't find anything when he investigated, so it's possible that it was his imagination.
    
    
    
86. Kathy levitates two feet above the bed.
    
    
    • George later said in a radio interview that it was an exaggeration and that she'd actually been only two inches off the bed. Maybe she had arched her back or something in her sleep and it looked like she was levitating two inches off the bed.
    
    
    
87. George is out checking on Harry when he hears the marching band in the house. He gets inside, and all of the furniture was "pushed against the walls".
    
    
    • If George could hear it way out by the boathouse and nobody inside the house heard it, isn't it possible that it was his imagination again? And with the furniture being moved, where was the rest of the family? Or, couldn't George be hallucinating or having a dream? It also sounds like this could have been added for the purpose of trying to substantiate George's account of this "event". The family also admitted at their press conference that there had been no moving furniture.
    
    
    
88. Fathers Ryan and Nuncio are quick to rule out fraud and trickery since "'George and Kathleen Lutz seem to be normal, balanced individuals.'"
    
    
89. When George goes down to the basement to clear out the smell with a couple fans, he pulls the secret door open.
    
    
    • When the room was discovered, didn't they push the door open?
    
    
    
90. George doesn't hear the phone ringing in the kitchen.
    
    
    • Maybe he's just preoccupied with what he's doing in the basement and either doesn't hear it or does hear it but doesn't realize that it's the phone.
    
    
    
91. George also discovers a well in a basement when he loosens some of the dirt around the cement cap.
    
    
    • For one thing, there is no well in the basement. Also, I don't think anybody would cap off a well like that since somebody could be standing on the cap, the cap could come loose, and the person would fall in.
    
    
    
92. Harry, the dog, gets scared in Missy's room.
    
    
    • Maybe he just doesn't like that room, or he saw something (not necessarily supernatural) that nobody else saw or noticed.
    
    
    
93. Kathy levitates again and turns into a 90-year-old woman.
    
    
    • I wouldn't believe this levitation since the other one was so exaggerated. Also, how could Kathy possibly turn into a 90-year-old woman? Maybe George is just hallucinating? After all, it was late at night.
    
    
    
94. Kathy runs into the bathroom and sees lines on her face.
    
    
    • Maybe they were from the folds and wrinkles in the pillow? This is highly plausible since she just woke up, and the lines disappear after a while.
    
    
    
95. When Francine visits the house, she says that the house "'is built on a burial ground or something like that.'"
    
    
    • There are no burial grounds on the property.
    
    
    
96. The family never contacted parapsychologists until January 12 or 13, not January 6 as said in the book.
    
    
97. Carey, Jimmy's new wife, sees a little boy sitting on her bed at 3:15AM.
    
    
    • She just woke up and is in a strange house where six people were murdered a year before. I'm sure it's just her imagination or a dream.
    
    
    
98. George and Kathy hear a chorus of voices telling them to stop blessing the house.
    
    
    • Five other people in the house didn't hear it, and Kathy had covered her ears to block out the noise.
    
    
    
99. Green slime is found on the walls in the third floor hallway. Kathy blames the kids, but George would rather believe that it's supernatural.
    
    
    • Since this is George's first time at fathering, he's probably unaware as to what kind of things kids are capable of. The slime in the story went through a number of changes. When the Lutzes first went public, they said it was red coming out of keyholes. In the book, it was changed to green slime. After the book was released, the family said it was a black tar-like liquid that hardened so solid that it couldn't even be scraped off the walls. Of course, in the movie it was changed to blood.
    
    
    
100. George explodes and runs through the house opening windows and yelling at the spirits to get out.
     
     
     • Sounds to me like he's just stressed and relieving tension.
     
     
     
101. Kathy's in the bedroom, and before she gets out of bed to get the crucifix, she sees her reflection in the mirrors take on a life of its own.
     
     
     • This was the only incident where I have ever heard of somebody's reflection coming to life. That would be impossible.
     
     
     
102. George sees the flames in the fireplace "reaching out for him!"
     
     
     • Perhaps the fire rekindled and startled George? I know that I would be startled too if a fire that I thought was almost out suddenly came roaring back to life.
     
     
     
103. George finds the kids' bedroom windows wide open.
     
     
     • Maybe the kids opened them.
     
     
     
104. Kathy develops welts/burn marks on her body.
     
     
     • Since it's said that they looked like they were made with a fireplace poker, maybe they're inventing a supernatural cover up for spouse abuse? Maybe it's just a rash since it's gone later in the day.
     
     
     
105. Kathy sensed that somebody was watching her just before her mother yelled at her to close her bathrobe.
     
     
     • Maybe it was her mother standing in the doorway in shock that Kathy was just standing there like that.
     
     
     
106. Kathy has a dream about making love to somebody other than George.
     
     
     • It's a dream. What's so unusual about that?
     
     
     
107. Danny's hand gets caught in the window.
     
     
     • Originally when the family went public, the incident happened in the sewing room. It was an aluminum storm window. Both of Danny's hands got cut, and Kathy bandaged them there at home. In the book, Danny is in the master bedroom. It's the main/wooden window. Only Danny's right hand is under the window. It is smashed, not cut. And Danny is rushed to the hospital. The hospital has no records of the incident. George later said on an interview that the hand had only a slight cut and that they'd bandaged it at home. The movie moved the event back into the sewing room.
     
     
     
108. Every door and window in the house is busted open.
     
     
     • A window or door getting damaged isn't necessarily supernatural.
     
     
     
109. George nails boards across the sewing room door to keep it shut.
     
     
     • This door opened into the room as did the doors to the other rooms on that floor. Nailing boards across it from in the hallway would not keep it shut.
     
     
     
110. Harry gets nervous when George takes him around the house.
     
     
     • Maybe Harry just doesn't like the house.
     
     
     
111. George has a dream where he's yelling, "I'm coming apart!"
     
     
     • Maybe this is a dream brought on by the stress the family has been under?
     
     
     
112. Missy introduces George and Kathy to Jodie.
     
     
     • It's the neighbor's cat. Enough said.
     
     
     
113. Harry barks at something in the boathouse.
     
     
     • Maybe he saw or heard a rat or cat and is wanting to go after it.
     
     
     
114. After the glazier fixes the windows and leaves, the family "realized that maybe their imaginations were too fired up and they were panicking unnecessarily."
     
     
     • Sounds to me like they've just admitted that what's happened in the book so far might have been their overactive imaginations.
     
     
     
115. The marching band strikes up again, and surprisingly, Kathy and the kids don't hear it. George dozes off to sleep, starts speaking in different languages, and wakes up screaming, "It's in Chris's room!"
     
     
     • Sounds like the marching band was once again George's imagination. His talking in his sleep is nothing unusual. He might have just been mumbling something that sounded like another language other than English. The dream sounds like an ordinary nightmare.
     
     
     
116. Chris then claims that he went up to the third floor bathroom, looked through the floor, and saw George.
     
     
     • Sounds like a dream since he was the only one awake, a bathroom floor can't just disappear, and he couldn't have seen George in real life since the third floor bathroom isn't above the master bedroom at all.
     
     
     
117. When the family tries to leave, the van won't start.
     
     
     • Sounds like the classic horror story, doesn't it? Maybe the van was just flooded or something. Also, since it's January, maybe it just has a hard time starting up. With the shock absorber and tire incident earlier, this wouldn't be surprising.
       
     • Also, why is it that the family goes back into the house, the same house that they are so scared of that they are fleeing from? Why didn't they go over to a neighbor's house to borrow the phone or get help?
     
     
     
118. The thunderstorm that keeps the family from escaping never existed, according to area meteorologists.
     
     
119. Harry plays with the kids and irritates George "to the point where he cuffed the dog with a newspaper."
     
     
     • Sounds like George just got fed up with the dog's racket and did something to quiet him down.
     
     
     
120. George says that he'd removed the damaged lock on the playroom door, and when he tries to bless the house, the green slime is flowing out of it.
     
     
     • There is no lock hole on the playroom door where the slime could come out of.
     
     
     
121. George is afraid to go outside to check the van because he's afraid that the doors to the house will never open again.
     
     
     • Sounds like he's just a little paranoid, doesn't it? Even if the doors did lock behind him, wouldn't he have been able to break open a window to get his family out?
     
     
     
122. George goes to bed and sees Kathy get up. "George saw in the candlelight that her eyes were open, but he knew she was still asleep."
     
     
     • Sleepwalking is not paranormal. That's been a known fact for quite a few years now.
     
     
     
123. Harry throws up in the hallway.
     
     
     • Dogs occasionally get sick. He hadn't been out to go to the bathroom for a while, either. Maybe that was affecting him too, especially if he was housebroken.
     
     
     
124. George hears what sounds like the boys' beds sliding back and forth. He can't move. The dresser drawers begin to open and close. The voices and marching band start up. George can't scream or move. Doors throughout the house begin to slam back and forth. George sees Harry out in the hallway sleeping through the noise. "Either that dog is drugged, George thought, or I'm the one who's going mad!"
     
     
     • Well, the dog isn't drugged.
     
     
     
125. The storm returns. Jodie shows up on the bed. The next thing George knows is Danny and Chris standing next to the bed and waking him up. George thinks he must have passed out.
     
     
     • He probably never passed out but was sound asleep and having a nightmare until the two boys woke him. He had the classic signs of a nightmare: couldn't move, couldn't scream, etc.
     
     
     
126. George sees the hooded figure in white at the top of the third floor landing pointing at him.
     
     
     • Sounds like George's imagination could be running overtime again since he's the only one to see the figure.
     
     
     
127. As the family heads out to the van, they find the front door off its hinges again.
     
     
     • George, as mentioned before, had said in an interview that it was actually the screen door and not the wooden door.
     
     
     
128. Of course, the van starts this time, and the family escapes.
     
     
129. The book says that it was 7:00AM on January 14. The next chapter is dated January 15, and George tells "Father Mancuso" that they couldn't get out until that morning.
     
     
     • So now, they're saying that they moved out on January 14 and 15? Seems like somebody can't get their facts straight.
     
     
     
130. "'Please, please,' he ["Father Mancuso" to the spirits] whimpered, 'let me alone. I promise I won't talk to him again.'"
     
     
     • So a Catholic priest is now bargaining with the demon to save his own hide? I don't think so.
     
     
     
131. George sees him and Kathy levitating in a "dreamlike state".
     
     
     • Sounds to me like it was exactly that--a dream.
     
     
     
132. They run out of the bedroom to find "greenish-black slime" coming up the stairs towards them. "George now knew he had not been dreaming. It was all real. Whatever he had thought they had left forever back at 112 Ocean Avenue was following them--wherever the Lutzes fled."
     
     
     • Sounds like a lead into a sequel, doesn't it?
     
     
     
133. From the original version of the novel: "He [George] finds it difficult to leave his family alone for too long a spell."
     
     
     • Sounds like George is a little paranoid.
     
     
     
134. The book says that three seances were held in the house. However, only two are detailed.
     
     
135. From the Afterword: "I should point out, too, that when the Lutzes fled their home in early 1976, they had no thought of putting their experiences into book form."
     
     
     • They might not have thought about it right after they moved out, but it didn't take them long afterwards to think about it. After all, about a month later, they had a contract for a book and a movie drawn up.
     
     
     
136. "There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that they either imagined or fabricated these events."
     
     
     • After cutting out the police and Catholic Church's accounts which had been proven to have never happened, the only real witnesses to the events are George, Kathy, and their three kids (who would be very impressionable at their age by their parents).

The real Amityville house and property as it appeared in the mid-70s.

So, what are we left to believe of the Amityville stories?

There was a family killed in the house in 1974 by their oldest son. He was not possessed and did not hear what I would call "real" voices. The house is not abandoned. It is still standing (contrary to the movie Amityville 3-D), and a family is living there now. Nobody has experienced anything out of the ordinary, although according to Anson's story, anybody connected with the making of the books or movies were cursed.

Something that a lot of people have wondered is why Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his family.

The answer is simple: the money. During my first year in grad school, I read High Hopes: The Amityville Murders which details not only the murders, but the entire trial and background information that lead up to the murders. DeFeo had been spoiled by his family. They had given him money and a car, but he kept wanting more. He and a friend even went so far as to stage a phony holdup at his father's car dealership to steal some money from his family about a week before the murders. There had been numerous fights in the family as well, and a night or two before the murders, DeFeo and his father had gotten into a fist fight in the family's basement over the phony hold up. It is believed that this fight is what might have triggered the murders.

When DeFeo was going through interrogation, he kept changing his story from not hearing anything during the time his family was murdered to claiming that it was a Mafia hit to the older of his sisters helping him.

When he was arrested and put into jail, he kept boasting about how he was going to plead insanity and be released in a couple years. While a psychiatrist found that he had an antisocial personality disorder, DeFeo was found to be sane and responsible for his actions. People involved with the trial were also shocked when it was found that DeFeo had a list of people who he was going to get revenge on after he was "released", and DeFeo kept asking how much of his inheritance he was still entitled to.

Thankfully, Ronald Defeo Jr. is still in prison and was denied parole in 1999.

The house has gone through changes since the Lutzes left it. The house number of "112" has been changed. While the house is still standing, "112 Ocean Avenue" technically doesn't exist anymore. The house was repainted white with black shutters some time ago as well. Also, those "eyelike" windows are gone. They've been replaced with square windows in recent years, apparently to try to disguise the house from tourists.

One person who's written to me about my webpages was from the Amityville area. He said that he's been to the real house in Amityville. Unlike the movie, the house is on a small lot. Had anything like what the Lutzes described in the book actually occurred, neighbors would have noticed.

So anytime you read one of the books or watch one of the movies, you can enjoy the stories, but remember, that all they are is stories. Nothing more.

The supernatural does exist, but not in this case.

The Amityville house as it appears today.

• In the show, George and Kathy now say that each room had its own personality, which was something new that they'd never mentioned before.
  
  
• Kathy now describes the red room as being behind a bookcase that she moved in the basement. In the book, it was behind a wall that had shelves on it.
  
  
• Kathy also adds a new event regarding Missy in that she would be singing in her room, come out and stop singing, and then go back in the room and start singing right where she left off. While that would certainly sound peculiar, I have to wonder why that was never mentioned before.
  
  
• George also says that what he saw in Missy's window was a shape and that he didn't know what it was. He also says that the kids' beds were now levitated.
  
  
• Jay Anson changes his story and now says that he investigated the story and talked to the Lutzes.

• A friend of Jay Anson's was driving home after receiving a copy of the final draft of the book, which he put in his car's trunk. Driving down the road, he saw what he believed to be a large puddle ahead. It turned out to be a sinkhole. The car went into it. Of course, the front end goes down into the hole, raising the trunk above water, thus saving the book. Doesn't sound all that unusual does it?
  
  
• A woman and her children died when their house caught on fire. Earlier that day, she'd received a copy of the final draft from Anson. The book was spared in the fire. However, if you think about it, the incident isn't really unusual. House fires, sadly, occur every day. The fact that the book was spared can easily be explained as well if it was in a part of the home spared by the fire or inside something that would have protected it. On an episode of COPS, I once saw where a woman's minivan caught on fire on a freeway. The van was fully engulfed with her purse inside. Once the fire's out, the fire fighters begin pulling out the items from the van. Everything is charred, including her purse. She opens it up, and everything inside was untouched by the fire. Now, if the book had been found untouched in the middle of a room out in the open while everything around it was burned up, then I would be thinking that there was something unusual.
  
  
• A truck was delivering large pieces of lumber to the house in Tom's River, New Jersey, where the first movie was being filmed. On its way to the house, the truck lost its load, killing the people in the car behind it. This incident was also a tragedy, but car crashes are nothing unusual. I've known three people who were killed in car crashes. I've even seen a three-car crash in front of a neighbor's house. And loads falling off trucks are not unusual. My dad's a truck driver, and his trainer, when he first started, was on probation because he lost a large roll of steel off his truck. The reason it fell off was because he'd just gotten a divorce, was upset with his ex-wife, and didn't fully check to see if the load was securely fastened down. Seeing as how movies usually have a certain time frame that they're to be made in, it's possible that somebody was in a hurry and got careless when loading the truck.
  
  
• A photographer went to take pictures of Anson immediately after photographing the Amityville house. While he was in the authors home his car caught fire and billowed orange smoke. Car fires are nothing unusual.
  
  
• Anson's editor picked up a complete manuscript of the book at his office. His car caught fire, and he discovered that all the bolts on his engine had been loosened. Again, car fires are not unusual. As far as the bolts all being loosened, I'm chalking that up to urban legend.
  
  
• Anson himself suffered a heart attack, and his son and a friend were nearly killed in a car crash. Heart attacks are nothing out of the ordinary. Neither are car crashes.

Debra Robertson, a 31-year-old crackhead from the village of Amityville in Long Island, was found by police making the sign of the cross over the bodies of her six-year-old daughter Delvin King and five-year-old son Melvin King, who lay dead on a couch. Her infant son slept unharmed in a bedroom. Robertson had scalded the children by immersing them in boiling water. They could have been asphyxiated or drowned, but the cause of death was to be determined by autopsy. She said she had snapped because the apartment was possessed by demons.

The horror in the white-frame house at 505 Broadway bore eerie echoes of the 1974 slaughter, less than a mile away, of an Amityville family by a 23-year-old son who claimed phantoms ordered him to kill them. The murders became grist for a fictionalised bestseller called The Amityville Horror--A True Story, which was later turned into a film.

Back during the summer of 1996 when I was doing my research into the Amityville story, one of the places I looked into was the internet. At the time, the only sites on the Amityville subject that I was able to find were movie reviews. Since I'd just taught myself HTML, I put the information I'd dug up online, hoping to share it with others.

The response was tremendous. I was getting lots of e-mail from people all over the U.S. and other parts of the world.

However, with the positive responses came the bad.

Some people claimed that since I lived in Ohio and had never been to Amityville, then I had no right to say that what happened in Amityville was a hoax. Some believed that I was saying that the paranormal didn't exist. Others said that they'd had paranormal experiences, and, because of that, Amityville must have happened.

The negative mail kept escalating, and with everything that was going on in my life at the time, I was getting fed up with it.

In August of 1997, I took my Amityville pages down. Initially, I'd removed my e-mail link to try and weed out the negative e-mail that I'd received around that time. However, the negative mail continued, and for a couple weeks, I pulled these pages offline. During that time, I received several e-mail messages concerning the Amityville hoax. Most were very positive and sorry to see my pages gone. Others were negative. The last one of those from that time, however, motivated me to put the page back up. Here is the message I received:

TO: Kevin Wagner
Dear Kevin, if you are the person who wrote "The Hoax In Amityville," I wish to let you know that (although your presentation was excellent) you are completely off base. "Kathy Lutz" is my aunt, and I can remember visiting them in THAT house in Amityville. I don't know why people are bombarding them still today about those terrible things which happened there. Yes, I admit there are many flaws in the book - but most of the blame there lies completely on Anson, not them. I only want to assure you that there were MANY strange things which happened to my aunt and uncle in Amityville and in the following years after they left. I don't mean to be insultive, but Imean, YOU WEREN'T THERE! I was in that house several times both when they lived there and right after they left. (My dad went back to get some of their things for them-You should hear what happened to him!)But anyway, I appreciate that you removed your web page because Everyone now just wishes that NONE OF IT EVER WENT PUBLIC. If you want to contact me my e-mail is:
christopher.walker@usa.net
Thank you for your time. Goodbye.

I'm sure this person was really related to the Lutzes. I'm sure something really happened to his dad in the house, too.

When I read this e-mail, I realized that I'd done exactly what the people who were against the pages wanted me to do. That's when the pages went back up, and since then, I have had no thought of taking them down.

The e-mails have kept coming, and during the winter of early 1998, I got curious to see how many people were actually visiting my pages. I put a counter on the main page, and the number was much higher than I'd expected. It's since grown to over 80 hits a day on the main page alone!

I've also received some surprise e-mail messages. One of the people who found my pages and has kept in touch with me via e-mail since is Dr. Kaplan's wife, who supports my views and site.

So, what do I really think happened in Amityville?

For one thing, I don't believe the story released to the public was anywhere near 100% fact. The media doesn't always give us all sides to every story.

In late-March 2000, there was a fatal train-school bus crash on the Tennessee-Georgia state line. Every news story I heard on the crash emphasized that the crossing did not have any warning signals. Dan Rather even started the story on the CBS Evening News with "No warning lights! No warning gates!"

What the news media never mentioned was that when the bus driver was stopped at the crossing with the loading door open to hear for trains, she should have heard the train's horn, even if her visibility was obstructed by the trees. In that case, she should have kept the bus where it was and not attempted to cross the tracks. That was something else that the news media never mentioned. Even after it was discovered that the bus driver never even stopped at the crossing, news agencies kept emphasizing that the crossing didn't have any signals. One news channel even discussed whether or not school busses should be allowed to cross unprotected crossings.

It was as if they didn't want people to realize that the bus driver, no matter what, was to blame for the crash that killed three innocent kids. They instead seemed to want to feed into what many people think about crossing accidents, and that is that the railroad was to blame for not having signals at the crossing.

So, why does the media distort the truth like this? Sensationalism. That's what brings in the audiences and the money. If a story gets told to the press about somebody hearing ghostly noises in their house in the middle of the night, chances are that the story won't be released. Why? It's not exciting. People don't buy stories that they heard around the campfire when they were kids. They want fire and brimstone. Okay, maybe not that, but you get my point.

Anyways, I almost 100% believe that the Amityville case was a hoax. Like Dr. Kaplan, I believe there to be too many holes in the stories to take them as 100% fact.

So, why would the Lutzes make up a story like this?

I believe that they probably got in over their heads. From what I heard, business for George's company was slowing down. That meant that their income could have probably gone down as well. At the time they bought the house, they probably had good credit and everything. However, unforeseen problems, such as the broken heating system, probably cropped up. I'm living proof of unexpected problems with my getting laid off from work in February 1999.

I speculate that they soon realized that their bills could have started to amount to more than their income, especially with the unexpected expenses. I've been there.

Then, there was the stress of moving. Since August 1992, I've had to move once or twice a year, and I know how stressful it is.

Combine that with their knowing that six people had been murdered in that house just a year before in the very same bedrooms they were now sleeping in. The Lutzes even kept some of the DeFeos furniture, including, from what I've heard, bedframes! Imagine, if you will, sleeping in that house so soon after the murders, lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, and pondering what happened a year before. Imagine looking at that closed bedroom door thinking about how somebody a year before came through it with a rifle and killed a whole family in that house.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'd be nervous about living there so soon after the murders. I'd be paranoid that every creak of the house settling was somebody in the hallway.

I think they left to escape the bad feelings that they had about living in that house so soon after the murders. It was then that they got the idea to tell about the negative feelings they had. However, the media exaggerated those bad vibes into a huge ghost story. They lost control over the story.

However, I am open to the possibility that something could have happened to the Lutzes.

If something did happen, it would have more than likely been a poltergeist type of phenomena brought on by the stress of moving and the stress of living in the house so soon after the murders. I highly doubt it was a true haunting.

If that actually happened and the Lutzes told their story to the press, it's no wonder how the story got so blown out of proportion.

However, there are some things that I still wonder about:

1. What really happened to the Lutzes in the Amityville house?
2. Were they really comfortable living where the murders had happened so recently?
3. Why did they want to keep the furniture that had belonged to the murdered family?
4. How did they get associated with William Weber?
5. Why did George and Kathy backup the stories in interviews on TV when all of the contradictions in their story were already revealed?
6. Were they associated in any way with the books that followed the original that claim to also be true stories?
7. When their story was "sold", were there restrictions placed on what they were allowed to say when they talked about their experiences? (ie. If they were to say that the story released was bogus, then they would be sued or something.)

Of course, there are probably many more questions that will rise up as time goes on.

There was a 2-part TV documentary that aired on the History Channel on October 30th and 31st on the whole Amityville story.