Free Republic

On the tragic evening of November 13, 1974, a young man shoots and kills his entire family with a 35-caliber Marlin rifle as his parents, two brothers and two sisters apparently sleep. The gruesome murder of the DeFeo family shakes up the sleepy Long Island town of Amityville—and leads to decades of horror storytelling. Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. told people that night at an Amityville bar that his parents had been shot inside his home, an upscale dwelling with a statue of the Virgin Mary and a sign declaring "High Hopes" in front. Several bar patrons accompanied him back to...

Ronald DeFeo Jr., who shot and killed his mother, father, two sisters and two brothers inside their Amityville home in 1974, a case that inspired the book and movie versions of "The Amityville Horror," has died while serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for the murders, New York State officials said. DeFeo, who was serving his sentence at Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate Fallsburg, died Friday at age 69, officials confirmed. Officials said DeFeo was transferred to Albany Medical Center and was pronounced dead on March 12 at 6:35 p.m. An official cause of death will be determined by the Albany...

The Long Island home that served as the inspiration for the book “The Amityville Horror” and the subsequent films of the same name is being bought. […] Before gaining fame with the release of the original movie in 1979, the house was where 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his parents and four younger siblings in 1974. …

Hans Holzer, whose investigations into the paranormal took him to haunted houses all over the world, most notably the Long Island house that inspired “The Amityville Horror,” died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89. The death was confirmed by his daughter Alexandra Holzer. Mr. Holzer — who wrote more than 140 books on ghosts, the afterlife, witchcraft, extraterrestrial beings and other phenomena associated with the realm he called “the other side” — carried out his most famous investigation with the medium Ethel Johnson-Meyers in 1977. Together they roamed the house in Amityville, in which a young...