The story of 112 Ocean Avenue

Almost as soon as Ronald Defeo and his family had moved into the three storey Dutch colonial house strange things had happened.

Ronald’s son, Ronald Defeo Jnr had ran away from the house three times and three times he had been brought back. The third time he pleaded with his father to let him go. He just knew he was going to kill his family one-day but nobody would listen.

With things such as unexplained noises now becoming a regular occurrence, Defeo’s father had taken to placing statues of catholic saints all around the house. He even went as far as to place them in the garden. All the plants died.

The Defeo’s residency of 112 Ocean Avenue Amityville came to an abrupt and tragic end in the early hours of November 13th 1974. At 3:15am Ronald Defeo Jnr went from room to room and methodically killed his entire family. Eight shots were fired from his .35 calibre marlin rifle. His father, mother, two brothers and two sisters were all found lying face down in their beds. Amazingly it seemed that none of them had heard the gunshots. Nor had any of the surrounding neighbours.

Forty hours after the tragedy Defeo confessed to the killings. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to six consecutive terms of 25 years each. A total of 150 years in prison. He remains in Greenhaven Correctional Facility where he is currently serving his sentence.

Although he knows he committed the murders Defeo still maintains he doesn’t know why. The only explanation he could give at the time was he saw a pair of hands draped in black that reached out to him and passed him the rifle. He also heard a voice, which said to him ‘kill’.

It would seem whoever, or whatever had instructed Ronald Jnr to carry out the murders had decided to stay after the unfortunate departure of the Defeo’s.

George and Kathy Lutz were newlyweds looking for a new home. They were living separately. Their plan was to sell both their houses and use the money to buy a home big enough for the both of them and Kathy’s three children. Kathy’s house sold first so she and the children moved in with George. That summer they saw over 50 potential properties with no luck. Then the estate agent told them about 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville.

George Lutz would be the first to tell you that some of the events in the book and indeed the movie ‘The Amityville Horror’ aren’t factual. In October 2003 he appeared in front of a paranormal convention at Penn State University. Here George related what happened in and around the family’s 28-day residency at 112 Ocean Avenue.

George says after telling them of the house’s availability they were also made aware of its ‘past history’.

"The realtor eventually told us what had happened in the house... that six family members had been murdered there and asked us if that made a difference, if we were still interested in looking at the home. The kids didn't seem to have any reservations about whether to at least look at the house, and so we went through it. Afterwards, we had quite a discussion as a family a couple of different times, about whether or not we should still consider buying the house".

The Lutzs agreed to at least look around the property.

"As soon As Kathy had walked into the house, she had a smile on her face that just beamed. That hadn't happened in all the previous homes we looked at... I knew from the look on her face, that this was to be our dream home."

The $100,000 home included 4,000 square feet of property, a boathouse and a garage. It also had a heated swimming pool in the back garden and a full basement. The Lutzs made a $80,000 offer which was accepted. So they put down a $20,000 payment and arranged to move into their ‘dream home’. In December 1975 the ‘nightmare’ began almost as soon as they moved in. As George began unpacking Father Ralph Pecararo came up the driveway.

"When I told a friend of mine what home we were buying, he made me promise that I would get the house blessed. I didn't know what that was at the time, I was a non-practicing Methodist". “ I asked Kathy what a house blessing was... she was Catholic, and so she explained it to me. We agreed that we would do that, and the only priest I knew was Father Ralph Pecararo".

Father Pecararo wasn’t normally the type who would perform a house blessing for just anybody. Father Pecararo had handled George’s first marriage annulment and had become a friend of the family. So as a favour for a friend he agreed to come over and bless the house. After exchanging pleasantries Pecararo left George and entered the house to perform the blessing.

"While performing the house blessing, a number of abnormal things occurred that he did not tell us about. Later, as he was leaving he told us simply that he was uncomfortable about one particular room, on the second floor. It was a room that we planned on using as a sewing room, and not a bedroom".

Father Pecararo was happy the Lutzs were not going to use the room as a bedroom. He told the Lutzs he had ‘felt something strange in there’, although Father Pescararo never discussed the actual events of the blessing with them. The priest’s testimony only later came to light after Jay Anson interviewed him for his book ‘The Amityville Horror’.

Some people insist the priest never experienced anything. That he never actually blessed the house. That he never even existed. Father Ralph Pescararo did exist. As their story broke the Lutzs did their utmost to protect his identity, but eventually his name was leaked to the public. Unfortunately causing him many problems in following his profession.

Also on the day of the move another incident occurred. George had tied ‘Harry’, the family dog, up in the backyard while he unpacked. George went to check on Harry and discovered he had tried to jump the fence and hung himself. Luckily the dog survived the ordeal.

The Lutzs began to settle into their new home and in keeping with it’s past history, strange things began to occur.

"If we hadn't had the house blessed, I don't know how things would have turned out - or what may have happened. Until there was a threat like that of some kind perceived by whatever was there... the events in the house were all very subtle. "The house was very patient... it was willing to wait"

Amongst the things the Lutzs experienced were:
Swarms of houseflies in the sewing room.
Toilet bowls turning black.
Repulsive odours around the house.
Strange jelly-like substances leaking from the walls.


There weren’t only strange things happening with the building. The family were being personally affected too:

George would wake suddenly at 3:15am each morning wth an uncontrollable urge to check the boathouse. The same time Ronald Defeo had set about the murder of his family when he had lived in the house.

George would go days without bathing. He was also getting sick and losing a lot of weight.

Kathy began having nightmares.

Even the children were changing. Constantly arguing and fighting with each other.

Footsteps and other noises were now being heard around the house. On one occasion George heard the front door slamming. When he went to check what it was he found Harry the dog sleeping on the front porch. He had been oblivious to the slamming or the cause of it.

"In the middle of night, you would hear the front door slam... it was a very distinctive sound". "It was the only door in the house that made that type of sound, I knew what I had just heard ".

George heard another noise that he could not explain. Upon reaching the first floor to investigate the noise, he found the rug rolled back and furniture moved around.

"It sounded like a clock radio that was tuned slightly off station, or a marching band that was tuning up. An unorganised musical sound, coming from downstairs. At first I thought it was indeed a radio that may have gone off... ".

The Lutzs weren’t the only ones to hear such noises. Guests that came over would often hear them too. One such guest explained how he had lived in a house where he had experienced similar noises as a child. He remembered his parents had opened the windows and gone around the house saying the Lord’s Prayer to try and stop the noises.

The Lutzs decided to give it a try. They opened one window in each room of the house and went from room to room together reciting the Lord’s Prayer. From out of nowhere voices screamed at them ‘Will You Please Stop!’. George searched the house for speakers, thinking it may have been someone playing a sick joke. He found nothing.

Apparitions were also manifesting in the house. Shadows were seen moving around. The Lutzs saw things peering thru the windows at them at night. Kathy would be in the kitchen and even feel a presence embrace her from behind.

It was around this time they also noticed their daughter Missy had begun interacting with an imaginary friend called Jodie.

"Our daughter came to Kathy one day and asked her if angels talked, and started talking about her imaginary friend. Missy had someone that she spoke of, and she called this... entity, or thing…person... 'Jodie'. At the time, we thought that it was just an imaginary friend". George continued, "You know, it's a pretty funny thought to have kids with imaginary friends. It's not so funny when the 'imaginary friends' have things that they are trying to influence upon your children". "Missy had a friend, she called him 'Jodie'. Jodie had the ability to change form, and for Missy, she thought it was a good thing. We also did too, having an imaginary friend like that, until Jodie said, 'Your going to live here forever'. That was too strange a thing to come from a four or five year old kid".

The incidents escalated in occurrence and became more unnerving. After seeing eyes staring in thru the living room window again George raced out to apprehend the culprit. All he found was hoof prints in the snow. Kathy also had an unsettling encounter with ‘the eyes’. She saw them staring in at her thru Missy’s bedroom window and hurled a chair towards them. As the chair broke the window Kathy heard what sounded like a pig squealing in the night air outside.

After a 28-day ordeal the Lutzs decided enough was enough and they fled 112 Ocean Avenue.

"The last night in the house, we knew that there was a terrible, terrific storm going on outside. Later, people checked the weather reports for the area, and say that there was no such storm. I don't really care what the weatherman said. For us…there was a storm raging that night”.

As the family managed to grab a few things in their haste to get away that night the temperature in the house fluctuated from icy cold to extremely hot. The noises became more intense and the interior walls ‘groaned’ and seemed to shift around.

As George was leaving he encountered a hooded figure on the second floor landing. The figure stood motionless pointing directly at him.

On the night of the interview at Penn State University in October 2004 George Lutz refused to give specific details about the events surrounding their escape from the house. George’s only comment was:

"There are stories about this that have never been told. They may never be told".

In the autumn of 1976, following the Lutzs vacating the Amityville house, Ronald Defeo Jnr’s attorneys approached parapsychologist Hans Holzer. They asked him to work with them as far as the supernatural aspects of the case were concerned. The Lutzs had moved away and their story had yet to break in either film or book form, 112 Ocean Avenue was now empty. The bank however, who were now in charge of the property were reluctant to allow a visit. William Weber and Bernard Burton, attorneys in charge of the Defeo case, finally persuaded them.

On January 13th 1977 the investigation took place. Weber and Burton accompanied Hans Holzer. Also with him were Laura Didio, a Channel 5 researcher and Ethel Johnson Meyer, his friend and trance medium. They entered the building and Meyer and Holzer went from room to room getting acquainted with the house. It had been 15 months since the Defeo killings and the house was empty and devoid of furniture. Hans Holzer described it as ‘ curiously bland’. Whilst filming the proceedings his camera stopped for no apparent reason. Try as he might to get it working again the camera remained ‘dead’.

Although unaware of the location she was to visit and its history Ethel Meyer was able to gather a lot of information during the investigation. As far as she knew it was just another routine investigation as Holzer and she had carried out many times before. She had no previous knowledge of the ‘Amityville House’ other then what her psychic senses told her.

According to her psychic senses the troubled history of the house and the land it was built on went even further back the Defeos occupancy. Meyer said the spirits of both an Indian Chief and what she described as a ‘slung jaw’ Indian were present in the house.The house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. Both Indians are apparently from the Swanee tribe. Indicating it is their burial ground the house was built on. The spirits of the Indians were apparently not happy.

Long before the present building was erected a farm stood on the land. A farmhouse was built close to the long forgotten burial ground. A young boy dug up a skull from the burial ground and made a ‘toy’ from it. The skull was that of the ‘slung jaw’ Indian. This incident seems to have been the trigger for the unrest amongst the Indian spirits. The ‘slung jaw’ Indian began to take over spirit sensitive people and cause them to commit ‘foul deeds’. Indeed the young boy himself who discovered the skull seems to have succumbed to this according to Meyer.

‘The boy was vulnerable too. He was chopped up.’

Meyer then sensed the tragic events that unfolded on the 13th November 1974 it would seem.

‘I hear pistol shots’. ’Four people have been killed here. A family’.

Meyer said a young man had committed the murders and it was the ‘slung jaw’ Indian that had overtaken him. When asked by Holzer if the young man was doing the killing under the influence of anyone else Meyer answered.

‘Yes, yes, yes…they think he’s crazy the one who did it…he was taken over’.

Holzer then asked Meyer if the individual who committed the acts would realise that he was taken over. Meyer replied.

‘I do not believe he would know this. No…the best we can do is simply say he was the right hand of the fury…of past fury’.

She concluded he killed his family ‘Absolutely under the influence of a ghost’. Meyer then stated that the (Defeo) victims come back to the house in visitation, wandering around and sobbing. She also stated that after the first individual being taken over (Defeo), there was a second instance.

‘…a second one but not like the first’.

Meyer said this involved a man and a woman.

‘I would say they must have felt the depression and heard screams and sounds’.

It seems like Meyer had also sensed the events following the Lutzs occupancy. The investigation concluded with Meyer stating the only way to save 112 Ocean Avenue and end the ‘Amityville Horror’ is to put the Indians to rest.

At the Penn State University Convention in 2004 George Lutz himself showed some slides of photos taken from later investigations at the Amityville house. Amongst the images were:

Misty faces peering thru windows from both inside and outside the home.
The ghostly figure of a young boy stood on the second floor landing.
An entity manifesting out of a wall, peering down at investigators.


After the slides were done George was asked why he felt it important to inform people of what had occurred at the Amityville house. He replied:

"You see... you may never go through this. But in your lifetime, as this kind of thing gets talked about more and more, and as we learn more... it's likely in one-way or another that you will hear of this kind of thing. This stuff happens... it happens everyday, there are people in this room tonight that can tell you all kinds of stories about things locally, that happen right here". "It's my prayer that everyone in this room never go through such a thing. But if you know someone that does, the hardest thing for those people is the loss of being able to communicate with anyone else about it. Not being able to find anyone that can intelligently help them. It's not talked about, it's not understood.... and when it happens to you, you become an alien to everyone else".

This article had been kindly supplied by Jason Day, and is as such © Jason Day.
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