The Amityville Hoax

• Author: admin
• Filed under: Hoax
• Date: Oct 4,2007

The formula is simple…faking ghosts equals big bucks. The year 1999 was dominated by hype over the surprise-hit movie, the Blair Witch Project. What made this movie so successful was not the psychological fear of being lost in the forest; it was the fact that most people went into the movie theater thinking that this movie was a real life documentary. Pretending that something is real to fool moviegoers and make a profit is not a new concept. In 1977 the world was flooded with controversy over the best selling book, the Amityville Horror. The book was released as nonfiction, with the true accounts of the Lutz families horrific 28 days spent inside a haunted house.

The story begins back in 1975 when George and Kathy Lutz bought the ominous house in Amityville, Long Island. They moved into the home with their three children only to end up fleeing in fear of their lives. Most people have seen the Amityville Horror movie, read the book, or heard something about the so-called demonic events that took place in the home. Ghosts, demons and even Satan himself were all supposedly involved in turning this once quiet neighborhood upside down. Despite all the information that has been discovered since then that points to a complete hoax there are still people that believe this is a 100% true story. The facts of this case however, tell a very different story. Let’s investigate…

The house purchased at $80,000, a cost of twice what they expected to pay. The IRS was investigating George Lutz. George’s business was not doing very well at the time and to top things off the house needed extensive work. The family had dug themselves into a huge hole of debt. Anyone throwing these facts out is missing the point of an objective paranormal investigation. Money is motive.

Now that the motive has been discovered let’s examine some of the events that occurred inside that home that were passed off as supernatural.

- That must be something evil.

- This is an old home that hasn’t been lived in for over a year and it’s less than 100 yards away from a lake. Wonder why it would smell?

- The ghosts gave him diarrhea.

- This is obviously the work of Satan.

- If that’s not proof of demonic activity then what is?

- Two brothers fighting…get out of town.

- Sure signs of a phantom.

- Would someone please call an exorcist for this family already!

There has been some fun poked at these events, but it’s to prove a point. Anyone with two cents worth of logic can see that these were average daily events that happen to thousands of people every single day. There is nothing supernatural about them.

The claims of blood on the walls, flies in the attic, loud noises, bad dreams and a priest coming to perform an exorcism are all false or explainable. No blood was discovered anywhere in the house, no flies were found, none of the neighbors ever heard or saw anything out of the ordinary at the home, and no exorcism was ever preformed inside the house.

Here’s the real story. Yes there was a particularly gruesome murder that took place in the house. On November 13, 1974, around 3 A.M. Ronald Defeo murdered his mother, father, two brothers and two sisters using a high-powered rifle. Defeo’s defense was that he heard the voice of God telling him to kill his family. He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to six consecutive 25-years-to-life prison terms. The house sat empty until the Lutz family purchased it along with all the Defeo furniture and possessions one year later. The Lutz family knew about the murders and thought that they could handle it. However, once living in the house, they quickly discovered that it was too much for them. They began having bad feelings about the house and why shouldn’t they. They were sleeping on Defeo’s own mattress - how creepy! Add to that the stress of a failing business, a huge mortgage payment, and problems with the home such as a broken heating system and a basement that floods and the Lutz family began looking for a quick “way out.” They first met with William Weber, Defeo’s defense attorney, to find out the details of the murders. Weber himself was writing a book about the murders and would later sue the Lutz family and the book publishers for stealing his idea. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

When the Lutz’s went public with their ghostly story it was a very simple tale of a haunted house. However, as the story began to draw more attention, the tales of demonic activity got larger and more exaggerated. At one point there was several different versions of the story begin told by the Lutz family. Jay Anson author of the Amityville Horror wrote a letter to the Lutz’s advising them to get their story straight. Anson had written the book based on audiotapes that the Lutz family had recorded detailing the events that supposedly occurred.

The Lutz family wanted paranormal investigators to come into the home but called it off at the last minute. They said that they did not want the added publicity. However, at the same time they were holding a press conference unveiling their story to the news media. That’s a kind of strange thing to do if you don’t want publicity. Not long after another group of paranormal investigators discovered why the Lutz’s did not want any investigators inside the house. They had just signed a huge book and movie deal that prohibited it.

Despite the Lutz’s claims the Catholic Church was never involved. The priest, whose name is an alias in the book, was never in the house at any time. He had counseled the family only after they left the house. The reports that the priest’s car hood flew up and smashed his windshield are also false. The priest drove a Chevy Vega. The hood on the Vega opens backwards, away from the windshield.

The neighbors said that they never closed the blinds that faced the Lutz’s house as reported by the Lutz’s, and that they never heard or saw anything strange during or after the time that the Lutz family lived in the home. If what the Lutz family claimed were actually happening the neighbors would have almost certainly noticed something. In fact none of the families that have lived in the Amityville house since have ever reported anything supernatural. One family sued the Lutz’s because of all the people coming to visit the “evil” house. The case was settled out of court.

It was written that Kathy Lutz woke up one night screaming, “She was shot in the head!” This is supposedly a reference to Mrs. DeFeo, but Mrs. DeFeo was not shot in the head. Her son Ronald shot her twice in the back. The Lutz’s also claimed that Bobby, a little neighbor boy from up the street, acted uncomfortable in the house. Of course he did, he lived in the neighborhood at the time of the DeFeo murders and knew the children who were killed there. It would be shocking if he didn’t feel uncomfortable being inside that house.

Kathy also saw a pair of red eyes at the living room window. It turned out to be the neighbor’s cat, but we are never told this. On the contrary, in the story Kathy yells out that it wasn’t a cat. They also said that hoof prints were found in the snow outside the window. These are actually paw prints made by the cat.

There are also the wild allegations made by George that the land the house was built on was an Indian burial ground or a place where the Indians tribe put their mentally insane. These stories are false. The house is not built on any kind of Indian burial ground.

The facts in this case are simple. Not one thing that the Lutz’s claim happened can be considered supernatural evidence. The family automatically considered each event that occurred in the house, no matter how common, to be supernatural and no one could suggest differently. No rational explanations were sot at the time even though everything had a reasonable explanation. The Lutz family had motive to create the story and when you take away the police and Catholic Church’s accounts, which have been since proven to have never happened, the only witnesses are George and Kathy Lutz.

In the afterword of the Amityville Horror it says, “I should point out, too, that when the Lutz’s fled their home in early 1976, they had no thought of putting their experiences into book form.” However, it should have also been noted it didn’t take them long to figure out that they could sell their story. They had a contract for a book drawn up less than a month after they fled the home.

Then when they needed publicity to help sell the story for the book world-renowned demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren were brought in to visit the home. Lorraine claims to be a clairvoyant and from the time the couple walked into the home they experience horrors beyond the imaginations. Their story is that Ed was choked and almost pushed down the cellar stairs by evil shadows. Lorraine had many clairvoyant visions of the ghosts in the house. Lorraine herself said that these ghosts would be too severe to ever dislodge, although no one else has ever experienced them inside the house.

Lets assume for a moment that Lorraine is clairvoyant. The house would not be void of bad memories. There were murders committed in the home. It would not be shocking for a clairvoyant to have all kinds of bad visions in that home, but that does not mean that demons or ghosts haunt the house. There are also conflicting statements about what happened to who while the Warrens were in the house. Then keep in mind that the Warrens made their living off sensationalized cases like Amityville and the Amityville case was a piggybank for anyone who wanted to play along.

What makes this story sad is the fact that even with all the evidence people still refuse to believe that this story is not supernatural. A recent Internet poll showed over 65% of the people asked believed the story. There is something about this story that makes people NEED to believe in it. When the creators of the Blair Witch Project came forward and told the public that their movie was all fake and the actors came out of hiding, there were still groups of people that refused to believe that it wasn’t a real story. There was talk about conspiracies and duplicate actors. The mass hysteria and “need” to believe in these types of stories despite the evidence shows that most people don’t want to be bothered with the facts, their minds are already made up and nothing will change them. The scariest part of the Amityville Horror might be how easy someone can be tricked into believing it.

Written by: Trent Brandon

Why should paranormal investigators continue to attack the Amityville case?
For the simple reason that it’s a hoax. It has set an unrealistic standard that all haunted houses are expected to follow to be considered creditable. If your haunted house doesn’t have millions of diseases flies in the attic, invisible entities in rocking chairs, blood oozing from the walls, ghosts that attack helpless priests, strange dreams filled of murder, scary red eyes peering through windows, and demons living in the basement, then it’s no good.

Update On The Amityville House: There have been several rumors spreading across the Internet about the house. One is that the town of Amityville secretly owns the house and that there is a conspiracy on what really happened there. Another is that the house mysteriously exploded, burned down or was torn down. They can’t seem to decide which, but the basis of the rumor is that the house is no longer standing. The truth is that the house is privately owned and the owners want nothing to do with the past stories. The rumors that the house is no longer there may have come from the fact that the house was remodeled and the tell tale attic “eyes” were replaced with plain square windows and a new siding.

Note: This article is being reposted from the old Zerotime.com website. This story was posted on Zerotime nearly seven years ago. It was a very popular story and brought out heated emotions on both sides of the case. Today, there are much better websites devoted entirely to the subject and detailing the extent of this hoax and those involved.