What Happened to the Amityville House After the Horrifying DeFeo Family Murders?Nicole Briese,
From left: The Amityville house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, N.Y., on March 31, 2005; George Lutz and Kathleen ‘Kathy’ Lutz pose in London during a press tour for their book ‘The Amityville Horror’ on Jan. 11, 1979Credit: Paul Hawthorne/Getty; Hulton Archive/GettyThe house on New York’s Long Island was the site of six murders in 1974
In November 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered six family members at his parents’ house in Amityville, N.Y.
George and Kathleen “Kathy” Lutz moved into the home in December 1975 but fled within a month due to alleged paranormal activity
A 1977 novel and 1979 movie that spawned a franchise made the Amityville house infamous
The Amityville house strikes fear far beyond Long Island.
One of the most infamous houses not just in the United States but in the world, the home at 108 Ocean Ave. in Amityville, N.Y., has a gruesome backstory and a deeply contested paranormal history.
The five-bedroom Dutch Colonial home was built in the 1920s and originally listed at 112 Ocean Ave., per House Beautiful. The estate, where six murders took place in November 1974, first gained notoriety as the subject of Jay Anson’s 1977 novel The Amityville Horror.
Anson’s book is centered on a series of strange occurrences that reportedly took place in 1975 that caused its inhabitants, George and Kathleen “Kathy” Lutz, to flee their new residence just 28 days after moving in.
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, depicted in The Conjuring universe, investigated the house in 1976 and confirmed its haunting in the 2000 documentary Amityville: Horror or Hoax.
“This was no ordinary haunted house. On a scale of one to 10, this was a 10,” Ed said.
Its legend grew after the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin and the late Margot Kidder. The screen adaptation, based on Anson’s book, spawned an extensive franchise, including the Ryan Reynolds-led 2005 remake.
From what happened after the alleged hauntings to who owns it today, here’s everything to know about the Amityville house.
What happened in the Amityville house?
The Amityville house from 2005’s ‘The Amityville Horror’Credit: Moviestore/Re/Rex USA
The Amityville House was a normal family home until 1965, when Ron and Louise DeFeo moved in with their four children, with another on the way. On Nov. 13, 1974, the couple’s 23-year-old son Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. shot his parents and his four siblings — Dawn, Allison, Marc and John Matthew — to death at what he claimed was the command of “voices.”
“Once I started, I just couldn’t stop,” he reportedly said.
Ronald Jr. was later convicted of all the murders and sentenced to six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life in prison, per A&E.
The house would go on to become more infamous for the events that occurred following the family’s murder. George and Kathy bought the home and moved in with their three children one year after the DeFeo killings.
The Lutzes claimed to have experienced a host of paranormal activity during their time in the house, including levitation, temporary paralysis and seeing demonic presences in the home.
In October 2002, George told ABC News that the movie scene in which a priest visits the home and a voice tells him to “get out” was real. He claimed that Father Ray Pecoraro, who blessed the house on the day the family moved in, felt an unseen hand slap him, and the priest later presented with flu-like symptoms and had bleeding hands.
Was The Amityville Horror true?
Convicted killer Ronald DeFeo Jr. appears in court on June 24, 1992, during a hearing seeking a new trial on charges that he murdered his family in Amityville, N.Y., on Nov. 13, 1974Credit: John Cornell/Newsday RM via Getty
The validity of the events chronicled in both the book and its subsequent film has been debated over the years.
George addressed the doubt surrounding his family’s story in a 1977 interview with PEOPLE, saying, “If we had tried to perpetrate some kind of hoax, I think we would have been much surer of when and how things happened, because we would have been inventing them.”
In September 1979, he suggested that those who didn’t believe him weren’t close enough to the case, telling The Washington Post, “Our critics are people who’ve never been in the house, just people who read a book. No one who was ever in the house, who investigated it, ever called it a hoax. No one with any credentials who was personally involved ever called it a hoax.”
Ronald Jr.’s defense lawyer William E. Weber claimed in a 1979 interview with PEOPLE that he and George planned the book’s plot together.
“I know this book’s a hoax,” he said. “We created this horror story over many bottles of wine.”
According to Weber, he also gave George the idea for the demon pig that was featured in the book.
“I told George Lutz that Ronnie DeFeo used to call the neighbor’s cat a pig,” he said.
Kidder, who played Kathy in the 1979 film, also denied the hype.
“I suppose I believe in the possibility of many things, but I think pigs snorting in windows is taking it a bit far,” she said.
George, however, doubled down on his claims in a 2002 ABC News interview, saying there were strange sounds and “odors in the house that came and went,” and the “front door would slam shut in the middle of the night.”
“I couldn’t get warm in the house for many days,” he told the outlet, noting that they kept the fireplace on constantly.
The former Amityville house owner also claimed he was awoken every night at 3:15 a.m., the approximate time Ronald Jr. is said to have killed his family, and that he saw his wife levitate and move across the bed and, at times, saw her transform into an old woman.
The couple’s children, however, had mixed beliefs about their parents’ claims.
Their son Daniel Lutz told the New York Post in November 2012, “My brother and myself shared a levitation experience in our beds. We both woke up, and our headboards and footboards were smashing each other and banging off the ceiling.”
Meanwhile, George’s stepson Christopher Quaratino admitted in a May 2005 interview with The Seattle Times that though he did remember seeing a shadowy figure approach him and his bedroom window banging open and shut, most of the events shown in the book and films, including the dripping green slime and doors ripping from their hinges, were stretched to the point of fiction.
Quaratino said he didn’t believe the hauntings to be a hoax, but rather that George’s interest in “everything paranormal” helped “call up spirits.”
“He points his finger at the house and says there’s something evil there,” Quaratino told the newspaper. “Fingers should be pointed at what he had done. … He’s a perpetrator and an instigator.”
Kathy and George divorced in 1988, and Kathy died in August 2004, while George died in May 2006, per the New York Post. Convicted killer Ronald Jr. died while serving his prison sentence in March 2021 at the age of 69.
How is the Amityville house related to The Conjuring series?
The ‘Conjuring’ house in Harrisville, R.I., on Oct. 14, 2020Credit: Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty
The Conjuring series is based on some of the most famous investigations by paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine throughout their careers.
While the Amityville house isn’t a focus of the movies, 1979’s The Amityville Horror is widely considered Conjuring-adjacent.
The Warrens investigated the Amityville home in 1976 — five years after visiting the Perron family house, the subject of the first Conjuring film — and The Conjuring 2 opens with the Warrens holding a séance at the residence.
“If you gave me one billion dollars, I wouldn’t go in that house again,” Lorraine has said of the Amityville house, claiming that she levitated inside it. “Terrible. Horrible. Horrible place.”
In addition to the 2013 original and 2016 sequel in the Conjuring universe, eight other canon films across different timelines complete the franchise, including the latest installments The Conjuring: Last Rites(2025), Annabelle Comes Home (2019) and The Nun 2(2023).
Who has lived in the Amityville house?
Kathy Lutz and George Lutz are photographed surrounded by newspaper articles detailing the murders on Nov. 13, 1974Credit: Tony Korody/Sygma/Sygma via Getty
According to House Beautiful, the three-story Amityville house was built for John and Catherine Moynahan in the 1920s.
In October 1960, the couple’s daughter sold the home to John and Mary Riley. They lived there for five years without incident before selling the property in June 1965 to Ron and Louise, who moved from a small apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., and ultimately met their demise at the residence at the hands of their son.
One year after the DeFeos were killed in 1974, the house was purchased for $80,000 by George and Kathy, who moved in on Dec. 18, 1975, and fled just 28 days later. The Lutzes turned the house over to the bank and moved to California.
The residence was then bought by Jim and Barbara Cromarty in April 1977 for $55,000, shortly before the book they were unaware of was published. In November 1977, they changed the home’s address to deter visitors, but that did little to help, and by the end of 1978, they had moved out and put the house up for sale for $100,000.
No buyers were on the horizon, however, and the 1979 film only made things worse — the Cromartys were unable to sell the property early on and eventually moved back in, remaining there until 1987, per House Beautiful.
The home’s next buyers, Peter and Jeanne O’Neill, paid a reported $325,000 for the place. Over the next 10 years, they remodeled, swapping the house’s infamous eye windows for a square shape and filling in the in-ground pool.
In 1997, Brian Wilson purchased the house for $310,000. According to the outlet, he made further changes to the property, adding a second sunroom to the back of the home and upgrading the boathouse.
The U.K.’s The Telegraph reported that the house was listed for $1.15 million in 2010. Wilson ultimately sold it to Caroline and David D’Antonio that September for $950,000.
The house went up for sale again for $850,000 in 2016. It remained on the market until March 2017, when a couple bought it for $605,000, per the New York Post.
Is the Amityville house still haunted?
George Lutz and Kathy LutzCredit: Tony Korody/Sygma/Sygma via Getty
While Fran Walters, a long-time neighbor of the Amityville house, told the New York Post in November 2024 that she doesn’t “discount the possibility” that the home is haunted, its former owners have denied experiencing any unusual activity.
Barbara, who moved into the house with her husband Jim in 1977, told PEOPLE that “everything was a hoax.”
Jim expressed a similar sentiment in May 2010, telling Newsday,“Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the book and the movie.”
The newspaper also spoke to Jeanne, who lived in the house from 1987 to 1997, who said, “I loved it. It was a beautiful home.”
Its current owners have not publicly commented on the space.
Per House Beautiful, the Lutzes were the only owners to report paranormal activity at the property.
Can you visit the Amityville house?
Frank Burger of Farmingdale, N.Y., takes a photo of the home at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville, N.Y., as a group of curious onlookers gathers on Feb. 15, 1976Credit: David L. Pokress/Newsday RM via Getty
As the Amityville house is a private residence, public visitors aren’t welcome at the property, which was changed from its original address to deter fans from seeking it out.
However, hundreds of horror buffs were able to get a glimpse of the property in 2010 when the home was opened up for a moving sale.
According to Newsday, the upper floors of the home, where the DeFeo family was killed, were open during the sale, though the basement and other areas were blocked off.
Source: Crime
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