Inside haunted Amityville Horror home where notorious killer Ronald DeFeo Jr shot entire family in gruesome gun rampage

RON DeFeo Jr, 23, stalked the halls of his Amityville family home in the early hours of the morning, with a gun in his hand.

One by one, he stepped through the doorway of his parents' and four siblings' bedrooms and pulled the trigger.

Jim and Barbara Cromarty moved into the Amityville Horror house in 1977, three years after the gruesome murders.

The Cromarty's slept in the bedrooms where six people had their lives taken suddenly. It was where the family died, where Ron DeFeo Jr entered with a .35 caliber rifle before executing his family.

It is the place DeFeo ran from, screaming for help before admitting to committing the atrocities himself.

No one could have foreseen what would happen in the years to come when the house was stripped of its previous identity.

A FAMILY DESTROYED

At 3:15am on November 13, 1974, DeFeo’s family slept soundly in their beds before he attacked.

He reportedly ran to the town pub screaming at his parents – Ron Sr., 43, and Louise, 43 – and four siblings – Dawn, 18, Allison, 13, Marc, 12, and John Matthew, 9 – were shot and accompanied the police to the crime scene.

What they saw was a grisly murder with all six family members positioned on their stomachs in bed, clearly dead.

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WHAT’S THE TRUTH?

At first, DeFeo claimed Louis Faline, a mob hitman, forced him to watch him kill his family before admitting to the gruesome murders himself.

DeFeo changed his story many times over the last 44 years, and the truth has been buried beneath layers of confusion.

His story ranges from claims that a voice in his head told him to do it, to claiming his family was devising a plot against him.

Meanwhile, authorities speculated DeFeo did it for his father’s insurance policy after his immediate query to access the policy following his family’s deaths.

Yet another question remained, how did no one hear the gunshots? The gun didn't have a silencer on it but the family dog barking was the only sound in the otherwise silent neighborhood.

HIS INSANITY SURVIVES THE TIMES

Less than one year after the murders took place, a couple moved into the house with their two children.

The house sold for only $80,000 but according to George and Kathleen Lutz, the price tag was not worth it.

They lasted only 28 days before running from the premises, leaving their belongings behind.

The Lutzes claimed a demonic force inside the house plagued them with green slime oozing from the walls, a spirit knocked down a knife in the kitchen, Kathleen and their sons Daniel and Christopher levitated in their beds, and George awoke at 3:15 every morning, the exact time the murders took place.

What happened next was a shocking story that took hold and turned into a book and numerous films, portraying a hauntingly beautiful house with a terrible story to tell.

Author Jay Anson took an immediate interest in the story and interviewed the Lutz family that contributed to the bestselling book, The Amityville Horror.

The book was published in 1977, a mere three years after DeFeo ran to the bar on that fateful night, pleading for help.

Only one year before Anson’s death on March 12, 1980, he interviewed with Writers Digest and said, “I have no idea whether the book is true or not. But I’m sure that the Lutzes believe what they told me to be true.”

REBUILDING AND MOVING ON

The Amityville house has had three owners since the Lutzes abandoned the property – the name of the current owner is unknown.

But it was the second family who moved into the house in 1977 who decided the house needed a change of identity.

Tourists flocked to the house wanting to catch a glimpse of the so-called haunted piece of real estate in the lead-up to the release of The Amityville Horror film in 1979.

It was at that point, to deter tourists, James and Barbara Cromarty changed the address to 108 Ocean Avenue.

Although the ruse didn’t work, the Cromarty’s said they never witnessed a single demonic event in the decade they lived in the Amityville house.

No matter the truth, whether the house was in fact, haunted, or whether DeFeo indeed heard demonic spirits telling him to kill his family, the house is now as infamous as the murderer who stalked its' halls.

DeFeo died March 12, 2021, at 64 years old after being transferred to the Albany Medical Center by the Sullivan Correctional Facility where he was serving six life sentences.

While his death leaves questions behind; one thing is for sure. What happened in the lead-up to his attack on his family will forever remain a mystery.

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