The official website will go live on October 31, 2010.

The terrifying events recounted in the book and subsequent film, The Amityville Horror, were not the whole story. For 35 years, the complete picture was kept from the public and the one person who was never allowed to speak has finally been given a voice.

Daniel Lutz, the eldest son of George and Kathleen Lutz, infamous former owners of the house in Amityville, will set the record straight about the 28 life-altering days he spent at 112 Ocean Avenue. Was the Amityville house truly haunted? If so, what really happened? Why have none of the Lutz children been vocal about their experiences until now?

My Amityville Horror will include a personal look at Lutz’s own life; a first-hand account of the terrifying events that occurred to his entire family; his reflections on how his parents dealt with the exposure and the media-frenzy that befell them; and, how both experiences have affected his life since.

This Fall, the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” started its 23rd season, continuing its run as the longest-running program on the FOX network. One of its creators was Michael Linder, an Emmy Award-winning TV producer and investigative journalist with roots as a radio broadcaster. Back in the mid-1970s, Mike was working at New York radio station WQIV, but was fired (along with most of the on-air staff) when the station switched formats from rock to classical music.

By early 1976, Mike landed a job as the news reporter for rival radio station WNEW. Around this time, stories began circulating about a supposedly haunted house in an upscale community on Long Island, the scene of a grisly family murder the previous year. Through a friend of his (the TV news director for Channel 5, which was associated with WNEW), Mike heard of an upcoming seance to be held at the home. It was to be Mike’s first assignment for his new station.

“I had done some paranormal research in the past,” Mike explains, recalling a previous paranormal experience he had in 1969. “I was living in suburban Cleveland. I remember being at a Ouija board seance with a group of friends in a house that they believed to be haunted. That seance produced a narrative that came out of the Ouija board that channeled a 19-yearold kid who drowned on the lake in the 1860’s with his dad, trying to rescue people on a boat that was in trouble in a storm. They were fishermen. They lived on the edge of Lake Erie. And when we asked things like, ‘What kind of fish did you fish?’

L-A-K-E-T-R-O-U-T.

“Well there are no lake trout around Lake Erie anymore, but the local historical society said in the late 1800’s there were. So there was some historic corroboration and stuff that came out of that. It was a really interesting evening. Couldn’t debunk it. Had some historical accuracy to it. And I reported that story on the radio.

“I had also interviewed and studied people who had gotten very serious into paranormal research,” Mike continued, “So I had gone in there [Amityville] with an open mind, thinking,

‘Okay, I know this terrain, I’ve studied exorcisms and ghosts and know about putting salt in the corners of the rooms, all that kind of stuff,’ and I went in there thinking, ‘Well maybe there is something going on.’”

It was dark by the time Mike arrived at the Amityville house — around 6pm on that cold March evening. A man answered the door holding a candelabra. Behind him the interior of the house was pitch black. The man explained that they were keeping the lights and electrical equipment off so as not to disturb the vibrations.

Mike seemed to be the first to arrive. Handing over the candelabra, the man suggested that Mike take a look around the house as he waited there, by the door, for the others.

“I took the candelabra and started walking up the stairs, thinking this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever been involved in. Here I am, walking up the stairs of this haunted house with this candelabra in my hand. It’s all dark. What the hell is going on here? I got to tell you, the anxiety that I felt walking in the house, going up the stairs with the candlesticks and being in this haunted house with the lights off, 30 seconds in — it’s unsettling. Suddenly it’s the haunted house at Disneyland.”

Acting as the news reporter for a rock ‘n’ roll radio station, Mike often integrated a lot of music into his reports. “The song that popped into my head as I was going up the stairs was ‘The End’ by the Doors, which Jim Morrison sings, ‘The killer awoke before daybreak, he visited his mother’s room, he visited his father’s room.’ This was running through my head as I walked around the house, poking into doors and windows, just looking around at the various rooms.

“It was creepy in a way you realize that, I guess, Lutz bought the house fully-furnished, and so a lot of that furniture and whatever appliances, and that goofy lion statue and all of that must have been the DeFeo’s stuff. And so to realize that the house was pretty much intact, and that the Lutz family hadn’t lived there all that long. It was almost an unspoiled crime scene, but it had been cleaned up — new mattresses brought in. I’ve been in other crime scene homes where there was some physical evidence that mass murders had gone down — stained ballroom floors, that kind of thing — but no traces of any of it [here].”

As the house started to fill-up with other reporters, investigators and psychics, the lights were quickly turned back on. “As we were walking around the house, people were talking about cold spots, hot spots — I didn’t see it. It’s an old house, it was March, it was cold.”

Another topic of discussion was the DeFeo murders, which had occurred in that house just over a year ago. “The story that was going around that night was that [Ronnie DeFeo] had laced the family meal with barbiturates,” Mike remembered, not then aware of the coroner’s report which stated that no traces of any drugs were found in the victims’ bodies.

“I really tried to get into the spirit of the moment and the vibe, but the place just seemed so damn ordinary. Everything was just so ordinary. Just did not kick up anything whatsoever. The place was haunted by its interior decorator. The moose head, that lion statue — I could never get a fix on what kind of personality had driven what was going on in that house. Who would stick that moose head up — where is that coming from? Was that Lutz? Was that the DeFeos? And that was the unsettling thing about it. You go into somebody’s house and you can get a sense of their logic — what kind of people they are. You couldn’t in that house, because there was just so much whacko junk all over the place. Disorganized.

“I mean structurally and architecturally, its a nice house. The staircase is really grand, and when you walk in the front door and see that in front of you, and these rooms — the dining room coming off one side, the living room coming off the other — its a very nice place. The Sunroom is stuck off to the side. It was built with the best of intentions — really junked up by the time we got there. … The oddball furniture and the things just kind of stuck around. The whole thing looked like it was furnished by the Salvation Army.

“And sure, a family with kids, things are going to get sloppy; but there was really no overriding sense of personality about the family who lived there. Why would there be all this weird furniture, brik-a-brak all over the place? It didn’t make sense. If they were just going to walk out with the clothes on their backs one day on the advice of the Roman Catholic Church, then maybe they were just scattered to begin with.”

With that point in mind, Mike conducted what he refers to as the ‘Toothbrush Test.’ “That is, if people are going to leave, and they’re going away for the night, or they’re going away on a trip, they’re going to take their toothbrushes with them. So I checked all of the medicine cabinets in all the bathrooms, and the toothbrushes and toothpastes were all there. They had, indeed, just walked out of the house.

“And in fact they had asked would we please empty the food out of the kitchen refrigerator, because there was lettuce and tomatoes and veggies and stuff in there that would spoil — and so at the request of the Lutz family we emptied out the perishables from the refrigerator.”

Among the various observers and psychic investigators present that night were demonologists Ed & Lorraine Warren and local TV newsanchor Marvin Scott and his crew, who were there with cub reporter Laura DiDio, filming a report for the Channel 5 news. “Marvin played it low-key. He and his cameraman and sound guy, they all just shot what was happening, stayed out of it, didn’t try to sully the environment by asking questions or being an annoying presence in the story.

“Everyone walked around the house, exploring. I remember the camera guy setting up, doing the infrared photography. There was some guy who identified himself as a paranormal researcher affiliated with Duke  University. [He and his friend] kept very quiet and to themselves,” Mike explained, most likely referring to Jerry Solfvin and George Kekoris from the Psychical Research Foundation.

The main event for the evening was the seance. “I remember when we sat down at the dining room table for the seance, and holding hands, and these people would sway back and forth and start moaning and carrying-on — and doing this kind of free-association stuff, where one of them started saying, ‘Oh, I feel the presence, it’s an amorphous demon, it’s purple, it has no shape.’ This was also when they started claiming that they were picking up vibrations from the Indian burial ground and stuff. That was the first I had heard of that. And they also claimed that they were picking up vibrations from someone who had committed suicide in the house earlier.

“In the middle of all of this, suddenly there’s a knock on the door. BANG-BANG-BANG! And of course everyone shot up. We all jumped up from the dining room table and ran to the front door. Cameras were rolling, and still cameras were there. We flung the door open, and…

We flung the door open, and it’s this 16-year-old kid in a tuxedo with a corsage box in his hand looking for his dance date. He came to the wrong house. And suddenly he’s standing there, and here’s around 15 of these absolute lunatics and a TV camera focused on him, thinking ‘What the hell?’”

The lost prom date who disrupted the seance was soon on his way, but he was not the only distraction that night. “A little bit later there was some tapping on one of the windows in the dining room. And these were two boys — little kids who lived next door whose parents have had it with the notoriety that this place was getting now — and they were shouting, ‘Hey Ronnie, you wanna come out and play ‘ghost’?‘”

The seance continued. “You know, it was hard to take it seriously, sitting around that table, all of these psychics joining hands and swaying and moaning and carrying on. It was far too ‘comic book’. I expected to hear knockings and trumpets blowing and all of that stuff from the 1920’s happening all over again. They were simply just giddy, goofy, over the top wailers and moaners who just dredged up all of these fictional tales of death in the house. Indian burials, suicides in the house, this purple and black demonic force that was an incarnate force — they claimed that it was just this ball of negative energy that they could visualize as just pulsing — the beating heart of the house. Of course, nothing that you could put your finger on.

“And how they got there,” Mike continued, referring to the various psychics, “I never did figure that out — nor the relationship between DeFeo’s attorney and these psychics … or whether Marvin Scott had brought them in, or who. That was one part of the picture I still don’t know about.”

I asked Mike for his impressions of the others who were there that night. “From what I can remember of [the Warrens], they seemed like showbiz psychics — that what they were really all about was a nightclub act. Having dealt years earlier, like I said, with people who were serious about paranormal research — and that was everything from people who were trying to locate ghosts, people who were doing exorcisms, people who could clean homes of negative spirits, people who were trying to resuscitate ancient Egyptian magic rituals, yogas, Buddhists who were looking to identify reincarnated llamas in children who were being born, that whole thing — I’ve worked that world, but I had never really come across anyone as ’showbiz goofy’ as the Warrens. They struck me as not being psychic researchers, but more of a nightclub act.

“The cameraguy who had the apoplectic attack — I think it was just the net effect of the ’show business’ — the kind of cheap theatrics that these psychics were pulling off. He became short of breath, and that could have been anything from having gone up and down the stairs to simply the anxiety of what the psychics were kicking up. Whether it was brought on by that, or whether he simply had a cardio condition that acted up, I don’t know. But he was winded. He did sit down. Of course the psychics leveraged that into all kinds of paranormal theories. But it could have been the moment, it could have been physiological, it could have been an arterial condition in his aorta. [But it] did, indeed, happen.”

Hearing confirmation of that incident involving the cameraman, I next asked Mike about another oft-mentioned happening from that night — the taking of the infamous “ghostie boy” photograph.

“Yeah, I saw the photo. But there was no evidence that evening of anything that would have suggested that something like that would materialize. There was nothing the least bit spooky. Once you got familiar with the house — once you had been in it for 5 or 6 hours — the net effect was that it became far less scary the more you learned about it. Rooms full of flies? Never. Never.”

“No curses following you over the next few days,” I asked in jest.

MICHAEL LINDER: No, nothing. Nothing.

QUESTION: One of the claims made by the Warrens was that Alex Tanous, one of the other psychic investigators there that night, supposedly levitated 2 feet above the ground as he arrived at the front door. And I’m guessing by your laughter that you didn’t hear anything about that, right?

MICHAEL LINDER: No, no.

QUESTION: Okay. Just had to ask.

I asked Mike that question because, according to George Lutz, the Warrens claimed to have a tape recording of Alex Tanous recalling this very incident. I have never heard the tape, myself, (and I don’t know if George is just taking the Warrens at their word or not) but I would imagine that an incident like that surely would have been talked about that evening amongst the gathered investigators. After all, from what Mike described, the evening seemed to be a very informal gathering of people who mostly just wandered around the house looking at things and chatting with each other about the murders and what they knew about the haunting. “A psychic sleepover” as some have later described it.

“I remember there were people camping out in sleeping bags and everything. I do remember that. I also remember that I hadn’t planned to stay, but I just figured ‘what the hell,’ you know, ‘this is a good stunt, I’m in for it.’ So I just went up and claimed the master bedroom and crawled in and just kinda laid there and tried to open myself up to it — play back the crime — think of what had just happened with the seance that night and all of these researchers of all of these different stripes, from the really serious Duke team to nightclub psychics.”

Mike describes his night alone, recording part of his radio report from the master bedroom. “I laid in the bed and recorded on my cassette recorder a monologue about how I remembered growing up in Illinois as a little kid, home alone on a Saturday night watching Shock Theater on TV and being so afraid of being alone — and here I was in a haunted house, and I didn’t feel any kind of threat. The sheets smelled like Tide. It was all just so comforting. The line was ‘Saturday Night at the swinging singles ghost bar, and I’m going to be sleeping alone.‘”

When Mike gave me that “it was all so comforting” line, it triggered recollections of how the Lutzes described themselves as being “charmed” by the house, where they felt like they never wanted to leave. I remembered what George said about how he’d spend less and less time at the office, and how Kathy normally loved Christmas shopping, but did very little of it that year. Instead of going out, they would invite friends over to the house, and despite Kathy’s strong desire to mend some of the DeFeo’s furniture, she would skip out of the re-upholstery classes she signed-up for.

Naturally this all sounds like a normal newlywed couple enjoying their lovely new dream house, but George said it went much further than that. It was almost as if they were under a spell. In fact, when the haunting became overt and the family felt threatened, George blames this overriding feeling for causing them to perhaps stay longer than they did. When they phoned Father Ray the next day, his advice was for them to leave the house and stay at a motel or with a relative until they got the situation sorted out. That simple idea just wasn’t on George or Kathy’s radar — the realization that they could simply walk out the door and spend the night elsewhere.

Of course Mike isn’t saying that he was possessed by the house, and I don’t mean to infer that he was. Still, I couldn’t help but make that connection just then.

“I slept in the master bed that night,” Mike continues. “About half the people — Marvin Scott, the TV crew — all but a few bailed out. I can’t remember exactly how many spent the entire night, but I did. It was just a one-night event from probably 5 or 6 in the evening until 8 or 9 the next morning. I got up, drove back to Manhattan. There were still a couple of people hanging around who had spent the whole night in the house.”

Reportedly, a 2nd seance took place around 3am in the sewing room. “I have no idea what the other people did all night long. When I got up there were still some bleary-eyed people walking around the house, probing it. I just got in my car and drove back to Manhattan. I had my tape, and I had gotten a good night’s sleep. I had no weird dreams, I had no nightmares, I had no fitful sleep. I got a great night’s sleep.”

In the Epilogue of The Amityville Horror, Jay Anson writes briefly about this March 6th investigation, noting: “Observer Mike Linder of WNEW-FM stated that he had felt a sudden numbness, a kind of cold sensation.”

“I never said that,” Mike attests. “That was completely fictionalized. Completely made up.”

Mike insisted that he gave the story of the haunting a fair shot. “I did not go in there as a skeptic. I went in looking for it. … I had also interviewed and studied people who had gotten very serious into paranormal research, and that was when I was intrigued by these guys who said they were there from Duke — these two guys who said that the carnival circus atmosphere was not conducive to doing any kind of serious research. That was exactly the story.”

In fact, Mike may have faced a much scarier situation in 1990 when, as producer for The Jesse Jackson Show, he met with Saddam Hussein on the eve of the first Gulf War.

“We had three meetings, actually. I was up in my hotel room at the Al Rasheed. It was about ten o’clock at night. I got a call from the manager saying, ‘Mr Linder you have to come down to the lobby.’ I did, and there were two Iraqi soldiers in cammo, each carrying an AK47, and they spoke no English, whatsoever. They flanked me and each of them took me by an arm and walked me outside the hotel without saying a word — put me in the back of a car, and we drove off into the Baghdad night at high speeds. They had blue license plates, and when cops would see this car coming they would stop all traffic and wave them through intersections.

“We drove around town madly for about 40 minutes; whipped into an underground parking lot of a building that turned out to be one of Saddam’s palaces — was brought up in an elevator, through a metal detector, and there was Saddam and Jesse Jackson and my crew. We had all been rounded up and brought separately in bizarre routes to where Saddam was at that particular moment.

“I was wearing this kind of khaki shirt and pants — kind of quasi-military — and Jesse’s wearing a shirt and tie. I have to apologize. We’re in a Louis XIV classical palace room, and everyone’s suited up except me. Jesse said, ‘Mr Linder, who I don’t think knew was going to be here tonight.’ And Saddam walks over and checks out my clothes and feels my shirt. He says, ‘Oh, I like dressing like what Mr Linder, here, does.’ He kind of patted me on the shoulder. Saddam was very nice and very cordial to me. That was far weirder [than being in the Amityville house].

“In fact, I’ll tell you the revelation — I haven’t seen this come up. Before we turned in for the night, a bunch of us started digging around in Lutzes’ desk, and looking at papers and files that he had. What we found were…”

“In fact, I’ll tell you the revelation — I haven’t seen this come up. Before we turned in for the night, a bunch of us started digging around in Lutzes’ desk, and looking at papers and files that he had. What we found were copies of a bunch of letters that he had sent to various publishing companies offering to move out of the house in exchange for a book deal. He was pitching this stuff.

“I believe there were some two-way correspondence, but the story that I reported was ‘maybe there is a demon here, and maybe this purple, undulating, amorphous blob of evil is cunning enough not to resort to mass murder every time — maybe all it took to corrupt the Lutzes’ souls was a book and movie deal in six figures. And the demon is sitting back, waiting for the next family to move in.’ And I closed it off with ‘from the not-so-haunted house in Amityville, Long Island, Michael Linder, WNEW-FM News.’

“And I played that on the radio Monday morning to a huge reaction from the city. It was unbelievable. And in the months that followed every sign in the town that said ‘Amityville’ on it was stolen by souvenir hunters. This town of Amityville was just absolutely flummoxed by this. By the time the movie came out and everything, and the notoriety, you couldn’t have anything that said ‘Amityville’ on it, because souvenir hunters would come and rip the signs out.”

Unfortunately, Michael’s taped copy of his Amityville Horror report was lost a few years back during a flood at his storage facility in his current hometown of Southern California.

“The main thing that was on my tape, and that was in my report, was pretty much the story I’ve been telling you, about the neighbor kids tapping on the window and yelling out to Ronnie; the kid at the door; the actual seance, itself — all of these things were the points that I covered in the story — but especially that thing about digging through the Lutzes’ desk and finding those letters, and that they had been pitching moving out of the house in exchange for a publishing deal before they left the house. They had left that paperwork behind in their desk.”

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QUESTION: Can you recall approximately how many book companies they were corresponding with?

MICHAEL LINDER: I think there were 2 or 3 letters like that.

QUESTION: 2 or 3?

MICHAEL LINDER: Yeah, to the best of my recollection. But they were pitching it. Yeah.

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This was certainly news to me, and this dramatic hoax evidence apparently seems to have escaped the scrutiny of Steve Kaplan, Rick Moran and Ric Osuna as well.

“My cynical surmise on all of this — and there’s no way I can prove it — is simply that the Lutzes picked up this house with the idea that they could turn it around into an intellectual property; and that DiDio came in as kind of a 3rd party who could engineer the myth of the house, build it up, bring in TV, start this talk about ‘was Ronnie possessed by demonic spirits the night of the murders,’ let’s bring in psychics and see what gets produced. All the while giving the Lutzes plausible deniability. Yet the letters in the desk, demonstrating that they were actually pitching the whole thing, was their undoing. And they played it as ‘yeah, we went to the church, we tried to figure out what to do, we were so worried by all of this.’

“But I really believe that they were using DiDio as their cat’s paw to hype the house, to build interest in it and to whip up the literary possibilities. Evidently it worked. They got what they wanted.”

During the course of the interview, I tried to remain as neutral as I could, not wanting to influence Mike’s recollections. As we neared the end, however, I did try to run some things by him, as the news of the discovery of letters between the Lutzes and publishing companies seemed alien and unfamiliar to me, and I was curious about his reactions towards the claims made by the Lutzes in later years.

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QUESTION: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. There is some oddness about it, though. I mean for one, how much money did they think they could make with a book about a haunted house? And two, they gave the house back to the bank instead of reselling it, so right away they’re losing however much they lost — $60,000 or whatever it was.

I haven’t confirmed this, but they claimed that they kept making payments on the house up until June or July; but again, that’s just coming from George, I haven’t been able to confirm that at all. And it just opens up all these questions — there seems to be questions everywhere you look — on both sides. When you think of it as a hoax, you run into questions; and then when you think of it as a true story, you run into questions. It seems like there’s no easy answers.

MICHAEL LINDER: Everybody was thinking book & movie deal at the time. John Parsons, who was then News Director at WNEW, which it was known as then, was thinking of, and actually urged me to write a screenplay treatment for it. He was thinking “book and movie deal.” Lots of people were thinking “book & movie deal” at the time. In New York City the literary possibilities of what was going on in that house, especially after what had happened that night in March, ‘76, you know, a lot of people were connecting those dots and thinking in terms of literary properties at that time.

QUESTION: And William Weber, too. He was trying to get a book deal. I don’t know about a movie deal, but he was trying to get a book deal done, too. Trying to write his own book. In fact trying to write it in collaboration with Ronnie DeFeo, where Ronnie would get profits from the book. That was before the Son of Sam law and everything.

MICHAEL LINDER: Yeah, nothing like grisly death as a great profit center. I should talk. [laughter]

QUESTION: Yeah, then again, you run into questions like “Why would he leave behind those book contracts that you guys found if he was…”

MICHAEL LINDER: Yeah, that was really sloppiness.

QUESTION: Yeah. And also it seems like someone would “be in the know.” I mean to get the involvement of the priest, you risk him blowing the whistle if he said “no” and if they went with someone else, then he might blow the whistle and say, “Hey, the Lutzes approached me with the same deal, and I said ‘no’.”

MICHAEL LINDER: You know, you guys have dug into that angle more than I did, but my impression going in that night was that the priest had simply said to the Lutzes, “Well, you know, if it bothers you, move.”

QUESTION: Well George did say that. Yeah. George said that’s basically how it went down. The family was just in a frame of mind where that just didn’t occur to them — and again they said that was something that they experienced in the house, this weird feeling that they never wanted to leave. It just didn’t occur to them to — at least for a night — go get a motel room or something else. And George said that’s exactly what the priest said — just get out of the house…

MICHAEL LINDER: I always thought it was more of a casual thing that the priest would say, like, “Okay, if it bothers you, move.” And that becomes “advised to leave on the advice of the Roman Catholic Church.”

QUESTION: Ah, yeah — I see what you’re saying.

MICHAEL LINDER: The shading of it. You can take a simple comment of, “You know, if its creeping you out, go somewhere else, you know.” Fine. Common sense advice. Suddenly that becomes like a papal mandate of “Evil! Evil! Beware! Get out!” Well I’m not sure it went down that way.

QUESTION: Yeah. I can see your side, and to play Devil’s Advocate, there’s also the question of how much of that came from the Lutzes and how much of that came from Jay Anson writing the novel. There are things that Jay Anson put in the book that the Lutzes flat-out said never happened.

MICHAEL LINDER: Oh yeah, he was totally over the top, too — to make it play. That’s the real phenomenon of the Amityville house, that everybody who went in there simply layered their own fantasies on top of a grisly murder — and what you’re left with is a bizzaro wedding cake of a property that’s just got so many layers of icing and doo dads stuck on it that it becomes bigger than life.

QUESTION: It takes on a life of its own. … In 1979, when the movie was just about to come out, and the book was such a hit, that’s when Weber sued the Lutzes, saying that they walked away from his book deal — and that’s when Weber first started claiming that it was all made up, that he made up the story with the Lutzes, which seems odd because there is a contradiction — there’s a few contradictions there with Weber making it up with them. Then the case was settled out of court. The judge got mad at Weber for being more of a literary agent than a lawyer. So they settled out of court. I don’t know how much it was for, but according to a personal letter that Weber sent to Ronnie DeFeo, he claimed it was a very small amount.

MICHAEL LINDER: Who made the most money out of all this?

QUESTION: I think the makers of the original movie. Although, you know, with inflation… No, I think still the original movie. The original movie made a ton at the box office. You can go to those sites where they adjust the profits for inflation, and I think even adjusted for inflation, the original did better than even this 2005 remake. So the movie studio and Jay Anson, if you want to be specific. Jay Anson also had a cut of the movie. I don’t know how much — I don’t know what kind of percentage deal he had, but Jay Anson made a ton of money off the book and the movie.

The Lutzes claim they didn’t make a lot. Offhand I forget exactly how much they said they claimed, but it was under a million — and that was up til the 2000’s — for the deal they had.

MICHAEL LINDER: Did you ever suss out exactly how bright a guy you think George Lutz really was under it all?

QUESTION: I met George Lutz during the last year of his life.

[At this point the tape ends and this portion of the interview is lost as I switched cassettes]

QUESTION: I get an overall sense that something did happen. Whether stuff was embellished — that’s tougher to get a sense of. But it really does seem to me that something happened to frighten them.

And I don’t know. The whole family kinda turned their back on the public in the early 80s — I’m sure due to being fed up with being in the spotlight and being called liars and things like that. And then they came forward again — at least George did — in 1999 when the History’s Mysteries crew came around and wanted to interview him. And from the stories I’ve heard, he was very timid at first and then got more and more into it. Then he started going to various Amityville websites and he started answering people’s questions, and he started being really, really open — going around and giving talks about it and things like that. And you kinda think, if it was a money-making venture, you wonder, “Well what’s in it for George these days?”

One of the projects that George wanted to do in the 70s was to publish a book called The Amityville Horror Picture Book, which would have photos of the house and the investigation you attended. For one reason or another that book didn’t get published in the 70s — and during this last decade, when he was open again to discussing the case, he resurrected the picture book project. It was kind of a pet project for him. He had a couple of his friends working on it.

On one occasion, in 2004, I told him, “George, you guys really got to get crackin’ because if you want to put this picture book out, the thing to do is to take advantage of all this publicity that the remake is creating.” And he kinda shot me down. He said, “No, that’s not my intent. I’m not doing this for money. Its a labor of love. I want to take my time.”

And I even told him, “Well, its not even a money thing, but you gotta figure that if you want to get a publisher, the publisher is going to be more interested in doing your book if they think the public is interested.”

So, I don’t know. There’s little things like that…

MICHAEL LINDER: That’s why I think he may not have been the brightest guy in the world, and why he may have left those letters behind. And I think you may be right as well that maybe they did get scared. I mean, what if you lived in a mass-murder crime scene for a few months, you know? What does that really do to you? When your entire environment is the scene of gruesome family death; children being killed. That’s gotta be unsettling.

Maybe he realized, “we can’t live here — we’re not going to be able to unload this thing — maybe our way out is to pull off a book and whatever.” You know, if I sound as if though he went in there with the forethought to do it, I’m not so sure — and especially based on what I’m hearing from you now in terms of how he really didn’t have the sense to sink a new book idea with a feature film release, you know, just out of marketing practicality.

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And this is where our interview ended. Still, something didn’t seem to jibe with this discovery of the letters in George’s desk. How could this striking hoax evidence be missed by Kaplan, Moran and Osuna? Why wasn’t it shown to Marvin Scott and his news crew? How could George carelessly leave virtual proof of a hoax behind like that? Who else saw these letters, and why did no one else seem to blow the whistle (let alone the various book publishers contacted by the Lutzes) And how could this all remain forgotten for over 30 years?

Then I remembered something that George had once said in an interview. Thanks to our recent transcription project, I was able to find the statement George made pretty quickly, which came from his appearance on the Lou Gentile Show in 2002: “By the time Ed and Lorraine went into the house on the 2nd time, there was a contract that had been delivered to our house. It had Weber and his partners, Mars and Burton, wanted to do a book deal and a movie deal and use our story as part of that.”

Could this contract have been delivered to the Amityville house instead of Kathy’s mother’s house? Discovered by the Warrens (or others) and left on a table or something? Perhaps this might be what Mike saw — the contract that Weber had written-up?

I sent Mike a copy of that Weber contract, asking if it looked familiar and asking a few other follow-up questions. His response:

“I don’t recall the document you attached, though it’s possible it may have been among the papers. Those we saw were in a file drawer in a desk, I believe on the main floor. Would that be the living room? I have no idea whether Marvin saw them or not, or what time of the night they were discovered. It’s my recollection that the papers we saw were letters rather than contracts, but I’m fuzzy on the point. The others who were looking at them were definitely not the psychics. I remember them as being letters from publishers passing on the Lutz’ offer, not a contract deal. Had I seen the document you attached, I’m pretty sure I would have reported it.”

So there you have it. Make of it what you will. Another Amityville interview to add to the pile. With every answer we get regarding the Amityville case, we only seem burdened with more questions in return. Two steps forward, one step back.

Article Sections
FATE Steps In (or “In It”) • You’re Digging in the Wrong Graveyard, My Friend
Rick’s Truth is Truthier Than Yours • George Lutz and Ronnie DeFeo: BFF? • The Lost Founders

“…the “true story” of the Amityville saga has been embellished with half-truths and self-serving twists and turns.”—Rick Moran, “Amityville Revisited,” Fortean Times, 2004

Rick Moran knows what he’s talking about. Not only was he one of the first to research The Amityville Horror case, but he is a master at embellishing stories with half-truths and self-serving twists and turns. Moran proudly labels himself a journalist with the integrity to seek out corroboration in an effort to get an unbiased story – and yet when it comes to the Amityville case, he spits in the face of accepted evidence, his sources seem dubious at best, and some of his claims seem downright laughable.

Earlier this year, Rick Moran gave an interview to White Noise Paranormal Radio, an Internet-based radio program. I’ve read his previous articles on The Amityville Horror case, so I thought I knew what to expect; but as it turned out, the statements I heard Moran give were way more outlandish that what appeared in print. One ridiculous statement after another. I felt compelled to phone-in.

Though the radio hosts let me argue my points with Rick for a fair amount of time, we never really got anywhere. Rick has been playing this game for quite some time, and he knows how to stall, ignore and switch topics on people. Still, I transcribed the interview for my website and included my arguments against Moran as endnotes (click here to read).

So who is Rick Moran, and why are his claims outlandish? Let’s start by examining a summary of Moran’s involvement with The Amityville Horror case, which appears on his ASUP website (which, by the way, is a direct copy of his 2004 Fortean Times article).

In 1977, Rick Moran and his colleagues at the Association for the Study of Unexplained Phenomena (ASUP) were given a draft of Jay Anson’s then-unreleased book The Amityville Horror, the story of the Lutz family who claimed their lovely Long Island home (the scene of a recent grisly mass-murder) was haunted. Moran was given this book by Peter Jordan, a field reporter for the Psychical Research Foundation (PRF) loosely connected with Duke University. Jordan and his PRF colleagues were very upset that Anson’s book seemed to be using their organization to falsely give credence to the Lutzes’ claims of a haunting, when in reality the investigation the PRF did on the house was inconclusive.

From the summary Moran gives us, it seems evident that Anson’s book was looked upon as being a wild pack of lies before any member of the ASUP bothered to crack it open. Here they were being presented with a book that lied about their friends and colleagues at the PRF. Surely such a book – which felt it necessary to use false information to support its case – would be suspect. Given this, I believe Moran and his team dove into Anson’s book not in the spirit of fairly investigating its claims, but rather with the intention of finding as much fault with it as humanly possible.

Moran and his fellow investigators wasted no time in listing all the various incidents of paranormal activity contained in The Amityville Horror. Out of 103 paranormal incidents, the ASUP claimed to have found 83 that were proven false. In a book with 207 pages, that works out to one false claim for every 2.5 pages! Could there really be that much lying going on?

We might never know. As luck would have it, Moran’s only copy of this master list was lost in a fire. That’s unfortunate – it would have been interesting to examine. Moran claims this list had been published, but out of the 200+ related articles my colleagues and I have collected, we haven’t seen any proof of that – and honestly, its unlikely anyone would print such a long list in full. A few articles make reference to this list, but provide little, if any, details.

Donna Cromarty: Yes, I am the second cousin to James Cromarty. I can only render opinion here as it has been some time since 1978. However, I believe the home came on the market for a very low price so, it was a deal. My cousin grew up in the same neighborhood. He bought the home prior to the book coming out and to any “controversy” ever coming up. If you will check the closing date and when the book came out you will see this is fact.

AF: How many times were you in the home while the Cromarty family lived there?

DC: One time for my class project. However, my grandpa Jerry (James’ Uncle) was in there many times for family events. He reported wonderful parties in a beautiful home.

AF: What was the family like at the time?

DC: I would say they were warm and loving, but under stress from all the human activity outside of the house 24/7 taunting them non-stop. The human beings were the real HORROR! People would not leave the family alone. There was one story of a little old woman throwing rocks at a window and cursing the family out when they came to the door. This is the real truth no one considers!

AF: Did the Cromarty family ever say anything to you or anyone else that might indicate an evil presence within the house?

DC: Nope! The only evil was OUTSIDE the house in the form of crazy human beings obsessed with ghosts, throwing rocks at the house, ringing door bells, and harassing my family due to the movie. When I was in the home there was nothing evil in there.

AF: Tell us about the school project you did that focused on the Amityville story.

DC: It has been 30 years since I did this project so, I will try and recall what I can. I did this report for Mr O’Neill’s Massapequa High School class in fall of 1978. I went to the home with my best friend Jamie. She still lives on Long Island. She was from another school district. We were not working on the project together as some reports have misstated. She came along with me for moral support as I was nervous going into the home due to the deaths, not because I feared any evil presence. Jamie and I went to a Pentecostal church together. I was then and am now a Born Again Christian. I believe evil does exist, but we have power and authority over it in the name of Christ. There was nothing evil in there at all. It was simply a beautiful home with a tragic history. I interviewed my cousin and his wife as we went room to room. My cousin identified all the falsehoods point by point. There was indeed growling when I played the tape back during the class presentation. I was not aware it existed until the presentation. I had all to do to keep from laughing as it was funny to me. The kids in the class were scared, BUT it was due to the family poodle dogs. The growling played nicely into my report and earned me an A plus. It was like a mini Hitchcock production. Sometimes humans fear the unknown more than the known!

AF: There have been different articles written over the years that claim the audio that you recorded that day contained a growling noise every time the word “hoax” was mentioned. Is this true?

DC: No. This is a lie. I never said any such thing. The growling was caused by 2 poodles owned by my cousin. They growled at us.

AF: After hearing all the horror stories about the house, were you hesitant to even go there?

DC: I did not hear stories, I saw the movie. I was born and raised in Amityville until age 12. The inaccuracies in the film made me upset that my home town was being vilified by Hollywood. Amityville is a wonderful place… especially down by the bay where the home is. I am a Born Again Christian and I do not fear evil so, I was never hesitant. However, the thought of a innocent family perishing there was unnerving. I could not stand the fact that children died there at the hands of their own brother. The brother was the ONLY evil in that house and he was in jail. How could anyone not think about those kids?

AF: Do you know why the Cromarty family decided to leave after ten years of living in Amityville?

DC: Let me ask you this, why should anyone care if someone sells their home after 10 years? People simply move on or scale down. My cousin is up there in age now. People sell their homes every day. I think 10 years in the home says it all!

AF: Why do you believe the Amityville story continues to live on to this day?

DC: The answer to this question lies in anthropological study of human behavior. Why is it some people still believe in the Bermuda Triangle or the curse of the Pharaohs? People distrust science because they don’t understand it. There are people who want to believe in ghosts, so that is what they are going to believe NO MATTER WHAT is said or proved to be false. The real tragedy is that people forget the innocent people who died there. The only horror that existed in that home was created by Ronald DeFeo who took the lives of his own family. People should focus more on what causes humans to become so evil that they kill their own. That is where the true focus on human behavior should be studied… not some Hollywood story whose main purpose is to sell tickets and earn millions. People should try placing responsibility on human beings who commit evil deeds rather than on ghosts. It would be a much better world if everyone would be held accountable for their deeds.

Hans Holzer: I read the case in the papers and then later was contacted.

AF: Can you tell us your first impressions of the house when you arrived?

HH: I don’t get impressions as I am not a medium. My job was to investigate the facts.

AF: Tell us a little bit about Ethel Johnson Myers and how she was affected by this case?

HH: Ethel immediately picked up on an Indian Chief and his grievances. She said there was a tomb nearby the house and it was disturbed.

AF: While investigating the house, is it true bullet holes from the DeFeo murders remained in the house?

HH: I cannot disclose to much more as I am currently dealing with people in England on my never seen project in January. But, my new book really gathers up all the information well and with integrity to the case and those involved.

AF: What if any paranormal activity did you find during your investigation?

HH: None as it wasn’t a haunted house. The land was the problem.

AF: How did you first become involved with Ronald DeFeo Jr.? Did he contact you?

HH: As an investigator, I spoke with many witnesses and that led me to two visits in prison with Ronald.

AF: What were your impressions of Ronald DeFeo Jr when you first met him?

HH: I felt he was psychic and open enough to have been taken over, which he was.

AF: Do you believe Mr. DeFeo committed the murders single handedly on November 13th, 1974?

HH: Yes.

AF: How can you explain the fact that there have been no reports of supernatural occurrences at the home today?

HH: Because it was never haunted to begin with. And after time passes, things change and dissipate. You would have to go back again and do another walk through with a good medium.

AF: Why do you think the popularity of this case continues to grow, after over 30 years?

HH: In 1903, another house stood there as the land was always the issue. Not the house. People think it was a haunted house but there were no ghosts. It sits a top of a tomb and that’s all there’s too it.

AF: Do you believe this case is cursed in some way?

HH: My new book is out called “Murder in Amityville: Fact or Fiction” by Barnes and Noble. This can answer many of these and more questions.

Amityville Files: What was it like growing up with Hans Holzer as a father? Was there ever any ghost stories told at bedtime?

Alexandra Holzer: Thank God I was able to publish “Growing Up Haunted” because that answers that question right there! Both my parents contributed to growing up in a vortex of paranormal atmospheric activity that one can only deem as normal for them. No ghost stories at bedtime, rather at the time when my father entertained his famous guests. That’s when those stories crept out and I had a hard time turning off my light, and so demanded a huge night light to be placed in my room and in several spots I might add.

AF: What was your first experience with the paranormal?

AH: My first unconscience experience is also explained in the new book but it took place in Austria, when a ghost caught me before landing to my impending doom. Consciencely, I was about eight and went to day camp. My camp counselor happened to be a friend of my fathers’ named Carla. She was a medium but I hadn’t known that. On the bus back, I described her entire house to her and colors that I couldn’t have possibly known. For me, it was a game. For her, a sign that I had indeed inherited my father’s gift.

AF: Your father has investigated hundreds of different haunted locations, growing up did he ever let you “tag along” to any of these haunts, and if so what was your favorite?

AH: My father began in the early 60s with an on flux of cases so by the time I came along in 71, three years before the Amity case, I would be too young to be included. It is only now that he and I discuss his past work and will take years to digest, and for myself to go out and see for my own eyes. I can’t say what would be a favorite haunt as I think hauntings are sad.

AF: Is there one specific spot on this planet that you truly feel can be labeled as “The Most Haunted Place on Earth?”

AH: Nope. Europe of course being the oldest part of the world, would seem to me logically to harbor the most haunted places and most concentrated energies. But, I’m a Global Ghost Gal and feel the entire planet has cases everywhere and you would have to collect a lot of data and compare notes to get that answer. Hopefully, we would all still be here by the time that happened. Would make for an intriguing documentary feature though.

AF: Is there any haunted location that you’re just dying (no pun intended) to get in to?

AH: Amity of course, that’s if it is still having issues and actually the places my dad once visited. To be a part of what he was a part of is history in the making for me in the paranormal field. I am attracted to castles so it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if an offer came up to visit one, that I would not say no.

AF: What is your take on all the ghostly orb photographs circling the Internet - orbs or dust?

AH: Many are both. You can tell the difference and with the technologies of digital cameras, film processing and witnesses it really is a no brainer. What I think some people may have an issue with, is if an orb is a sprit or just energy surrounding that place or person in that moment. You can always have a good transmedium with you to help decipher if indeed, if the orb is a spirit and has something to say. The dust, well rain being a huge culprit and wind but there really is a big difference. You just have to be educated on the terms, facts and be open-minded to the unexplainable.

AF: Alexandra, what are you personal thoughts and feelings on the Amityville case?

AH: It disturbs me. All the books my father has written and the private tapes and conversations that sit in my old home bother me. I sometimes feel as if it all should be buried along with those pour souls that lost their lives that fatal day. Many places are bad and bad things happen. Amity is no different, it just became a film and one that was done well for it’s time. That’s what we call a cult classic and sticks with you generation after generation. I wouldn’t put too much stock in just one case and when it’s glamorized, it takes on a whole new meaning and life force.

AF: What about the murders? Do you feel Ronnie may have been under the influence of possession at the time of the murders?

AH: The murders were an act of a cold blooded soulless man who very well could have been under the control of a pissed off Indian Chief and his helpers. It’s so hard to tell because it was thirty years ago and a re-visit of the utmost respect and privacy should happen in-order to feel it again, if still there. Ronnie could have been possessed, but again I am conflicted that maybe he lost it and took it out on his family, but why I don’t’ know. Not every misguided youth turns on their family in such a horrific way. I wasn’t there that day and often wonder what lingers in and around the property.

AF: Do you think everyone is vulnerable to possession, or do you feel you have to be willing to let a demon or paranormal entity inhabit your body?

AH: I think everyone is vulnerable to anything bad in life, it’s just a question of when it occurs. You can’t escape bad moments because we all have them, famous or not, rich or poor. But, what I do believe in which my father and I don’t agree here, is demonic entities that surround negative people and places feeding on that festering energy.
There are coo coo birds out there as with anything in life, that would take this to the opposite extreme and that is where I stop and turn away. I am just one person on a small planet surrounded by a galaxy of larger and older stars and suns with perhaps other life forms. Who am I to say possession doesn’t exist and that it’s always based on a medical disorder. I tend to think it can be both.

AF: Do you believe the Lutzes story is 100% true, or do you feel there may have been some embellishment to their story?

AH: I spoke with Director Daniel Farrands who had worked with my father back in 2000 on an Amity Documentary. He was very close to these people and there was a lot that went down between threats of lawsuits and character defamation, all the way up to infringement on rights to the whole case. I truly believe this case needs to be closed out of respect to the families involved. To see if the area and property is still harboring entities would be deemed a re-visit, and a different investigation which is normal and done everyday in every town. So, for documentation and perhaps new evidence or there lack of on this piece of land, would be the new story and just like many other stories of reported paranormal activity in an area. That’s how I would handle it and leave the rest at the door.

AF: If you could tell the current owner of the Amityville house one thing, what would that be?

AH: I respect your privacy and home. Unfortunately, owning a famous plot doesn’t exactly help the situation when trying to obtain that privacy and home. Personally, given my back story and kind natured way and love for life, would only want to re-visit with a new perspective, new information and light on the world of the paranormal and areas that can be active. As my father before me, he was one of the very few who gave respect to all those involved, and never looking for money or fame..I can attest to this because I am helping him now. I would hope that I would be allowed to do a revisit not for fame or notoriety, but rather for closure and peace.

Nineteen years later, Kaplan published The Amityville Horror Conspiracy. Written in a diary format, it covers the years 1974 - 1979, and not only gives us a glimpse into Kaplan’s world, but shows us how, little by little, the stories of the murder and haunting in Amityville were first revealed to the public, and how that charming Long Island home soon became notorious, with its jack-o-lantern windows giving children nightmares the world over.

Of course the main point of the book was for Kaplan to explain his condemnation of the Lutzes’ story. We read how the Lutzes were immediately viewed with suspicion by Kaplan, and how his blood seemed to boil with each step of the Lutzes’ story gaining in popularity. Indeed, Kaplan paints himself much as a modern-day Chicken Little, running around trying to inform a misdirected world that there are no ghosts in Amityville. But regardless of his efforts, the Lutzes’ ghost story is turned into a book (which quickly becomes a best-seller), then a paperback (which starts smashing sales records), and finally an immensely popular motion picture in 1979, which is the year this book stops, almost as if throwing its hands up in defeat.

While I found Kaplan’s book very interesting, and sometimes fascinating (highly recommended to those with a deep interest in The Amityville Horror saga), it fails to provide any solid evidence of the haunting being a hoax, let alone some sort of conspiracy. Kaplan does offer a few good points to suggest something may be amiss (such as George’s conversations with famed Wiccan Ray Buckland and Bill Weber’s claim that he helped the Lutzes “invent” the ghost story) but overall, most of Kaplan’s suspicions seem warrantless. Despite his best efforts, Kaplan tends to lose credibility fairly early-on when tries to build a case against the Lutzes by nitpicking over discrepancies found from one newspaper article to the next (treating every fact as if it came verbatim from the Lutzes). Lutz is even suspected of being a secret acquaintance of murderer Ronald DeFeo Jr, due to the fact that he referred to DeFeo as “Ronnie” (something Kaplan does himself, starting on page 32, as does Joel Martin & Bill Weber).

Kaplan’s treatment of the newspaper accounts is especially troubling because there are various instances where Kaplan points out how he, himself, has been misquoted or misrepresented by reporters; and yet he turns a blind eye at the possibility that the Lutzes are receiving the same treatment.

Along those same lines, Kaplan objects at the dishonesty of Prentice-Hall categorizing Jay Anson’s book The Amityville Horror as a non-fiction title. Fair enough, as Anson did include bits of fiction in his account; but how about the cover of Kaplan’s book? The cover of The Amityville Horror Conspiracy claims to be “the dramatic true story of an incredible twenty year investigation” — but it is not. It tells the story of Kaplan’s life between the years of 1974 to 1979 and his investigation during 4 of those 6 years. If any subsequent research was done by Kaplan after 1979, it is not included in this book.

Its just one of many seemingly-hypocritical tidbits discovered in this book. When Kaplan refers to Ronald DeFeo Jr as “Ronnie,” that’s okay; but when George Lutz does it, that draws suspicion. When newspaper articles are inaccurate regarding Kaplan, that is the fault of the reporter; but when the articles are regarding the haunting, Kaplan blames any discrepancy on the Lutzes. And when the cover of Kaplan’s book carries an untrue byline, that’s fine; but not fine when it is done on Jay Anson’s book.

Kaplan really goes all over the map in this book and seems to contradict himself again and again. One such example is with his general theories of the haunting being untrue. In some instances Kaplan seems to suggest that the Lutzes were involved with Bill Weber (DeFeo’s defense attorney) in concocting the fake haunting as a possible means of securing a new trial for the mass murderer. At other times Kaplan suggests that the Lutzes misinterpreted the events — that they were merely dreams or hallucinations.

But if the Lutzes had dreamt or hallucinated the events, then their story wouldn’t be a hoax. That would mean they really did think these paranormal events were happening, but were mistaken. And that is quite different from them making the whole story up out of thin air in an attempt to either make money or to help Bill Weber get his client charged with a lesser crime. Kaplan doesn’t seem to care whether the Lutzes were hallucinating or whether they outright lied, his main goal is to somehow show the haunting wasn’t real — like an outlaw sheriff attempting to put a man behind bars, no matter what trumped-up charge does the trick. The ends justify the means.

Unethical? Lets look at how Kaplan addresses the question of ethics in these two short excerpts from The Amityville Horror Conspiracy. The first is from the Feb 18, 1976 entry on page 26:

I was also called by a network TV news program in Manhattan. They wanted me to go on the air to talk about the “haunted house.” I told them I had not yet investigated the house, and therefore it would not be ethical to discuss it.

So far, so good — but look what happens the following day — Feb 19, 1976:

To end my involvement in the case once and for all, I called the Long Island Press and told them the investigation was off, elaborating on my suspicions of a set-up to reporter Thomas Condon.

In the space of one day Kaplan breaks his own code of ethics by discussing a case he had not investigated — and more than discuss it, Kaplan condemns it as a hoax! All without any investigation being conducted.

But why didn’t Kaplan investigate the house in February of 1976 as originally planned? Why was that investigation suddenly cancelled? Some claim Lutz got cold feet after being warned how Kaplan would expose any possible evidence of a hoax to the public. Others claim that it was George who cancelled after he discovered Kaplan’s credentials didn’t check out. So, what’s the truth?

In this book, Kaplan gives his side of the story, explaining that George didn’t want media attention and asked him not to speak to the press. Soon afterwards, Kaplan sees that George & Kathy held a press conference — so when a newspaper reporter calls later that evening, Kaplan feels it must now be okay to mention his upcoming investigation of the Amityville house.

The next day, Kaplan tells us about an angry phone call from George Lutz, asking why he spoke to the press. Kaplan mentions the Lutzes’ press conference, and George explains they only did that to clear up inaccurate reporting done on the matter. George ends the call by postponing the upcoming investigation until the press interest had died down. After that phone call, Kaplan discusses the matter with the people who were to handle the investigation. They discuss their various suspicions of the case, and decide that if and when George decided to reschedule the investigation, they would decline. Kaplan then picks up the phone — the very same night that George postponed the investigation — and phones a local reporter, telling him how he feels the Amityville haunting is all one big hoax.

So there you have it, straight from Stephen Kaplan, himself — the investigation was not cancelled by George Lutz, it was cancelled by Kaplan. Therefore the theory that the Lutzes were worried of being exposed by Kaplan simply doesn’t hold water.

So what does this all mean? Was the haunting real after all?

No one can prove a haunting is real in an age where science has yet to determine whether ghosts even exist. The Lutzes’ story can’t be authenticated. If it was a hoax, then there may be hope of uncovering that, but unfortunately this book consists of mere theories and speculation with no hard evidence to back it up. As the years go on, the mystery behind The Amityville Horror is likely to outlive you and I.

Roxanne Kaplan: When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by mysteries and ghost stories. I would read the Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton stories, and when I ordered from the school book club (Scholastic?) I would always order books like “Stranger Than Fiction” or anything that told about supposedly true paranormal phenomena. When my friends and I put on a back yard carnival, we would always include a make-shift “haunted house”, where kids had to stick their hands into bowls of “guts” (mushy spaghetti) or “eyeballs” (peeled grapes). I even had a little game we played outside at twilight called “Attention All Spooks”. Then, as a teenager I discovered the old TV gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows” and I was hooked! During the run of “Dark Shadows” I talked my Mom into signing me up for the “Universe Book Club”, where I would order books about ESP, ghosts, UFO’s, aliens, tarot, astrology, out-of-body experiences…..the list goes on and on. At the age of 20, I attended one of Stephen’s lectures, and the rest as they say, is history.

AF: Have you ever had a ghostly encounter of your own? What was it like? Was it what you expected?

RK: My first strange encounter was as a teenager, and it involved a Ouija board. I told my Mom about someone who had talked to me on the board and given her initials, and I described the person to her in detail. My Mom told me that I had described my Great Aunt Lydie, who had died 2 months before I was born. Aunt Lydie continued to tell me things about my family for several years, a lot of it unverifiable but some of it quite accurate. My other experiences were after I met Stephen and joined the Parapsychology Institute of America (PIA) as a researcher. On one occasion I only heard the “ghost’s” footsteps coming up the stairs from a deserted basement in a house where we were having a séance to contact a woman who had been murdered there. During another case, I actually saw an apparition, which looked like a misty blob that was roughly in the shape of a human head and shoulders.

AF: How did you and Stephen first meet?

RK: During the summer of 1974 I was moping around my house trying to recover from the breakup with my first love the previous December. My Dad saw an article in a local paper about a free lecture being given at the PIA on strange phenomena. Knowing my interest in the topic, he showed it to me, hoping to get me out of the house and interested in something again. I was amazed to discover that Long Island even HAD such an organization, and I reserved a spot at the lecture immediately. The lecturer was Dr. Stephen Kaplan, who was conducting a whole series of free summer lectures that year. The PIA turned out to be located in the office adjoining his home. Stephen was in a failing marriage at the time and had 2 small children. I attended the summer lectures, then signed up for a class he was teaching that fall at an adult education program. In October, Stephen opened the PIA to new members and I became a researcher and Corresponding Secretary. I turned 21 that same month; I was the baby of the group. We all had such great times researching the unknown and trying to help people to solve their paranormal mysteries. In 1977 after Stephen was legally separated from his wife (and eventually divorced after several grueling years of court battles), we began dating, and in 1982 we were married.

AF: Tell us a little about Stephen’s background, and how he first began investigating the paranormal.

RK: Stephen was born and raised in a middle class Jewish family in the Bronx, NY City. His Dad was a Tool-and-Die maker, a limo driver for Mayor Beame, and held various other jobs when he was able to work, having been disabled while in the service. His Mom was a homemaker and doted over Stephen, his twin sister Rochelle, and his older brother Warren. The kids loved to go to the movies, where you could pay a dollar or so and watch movies all day long; Stephen’s favorites included ones about werewolves, Dracula, mysteries and comedies. Stephen had a severe visual impairment as a child, and was often told by school officials that he should give up his dream of college and learn a trade. That just made him more determined to succeed, and he certainly proved them wrong! Stephen earned a BA and an MA from City College of NY, another Masters degree from State University at Stony Brook, and a non-traditional PhD from Pacific College of CA. (Although there has been much criticism of this last degree, it is very similar to degrees that are now available from colleges such as Empire State College, which is now accepted as a part of the NY State University system. Back in the 70’s, it was quite a revolutionary idea, and Stephen took a lot of flak for it from people such as the Warrens, but he enjoyed being a pioneer in the field of alternative education.) Stephen majored in Education, minored in Sociology, and also took many classes in Anthropology. He became a teacher for the NY City Board of Ed, specializing in language skills, remedial reading and ESL (English as a Second Language). His interest in Anthropology led him to study primitive societies, which in turn led him to wonder about strange rituals and practices in our own society. The 60’s were a hotbed of interest in all kinds of strange phenomena, and it was then that his interest and his research first began.

AF: George Lutz claimed that the reason he canceled Stephen’s investigation was because Stephen went to the press. Do you believe that was Mr. Lutz’s real reason, or do you think he felt intimidated by the fact that Stephen would expose him, if Stephen found out that the story was fake?

RK: George’s story was told in the press BEFORE Stephen became involved. after several articles were printed about the Lutzes, several papers, knowing that Stephen had the only local paranormal research group, called him to ask his opinion on the case. Stephen was quoted as saying something like “…they should leave it to the experts to investigate.” George Lutz read the quote and called Stephen to ask him to investigate his house. The PIA made plans to do so, and when Stephen was next interviewed, he mentioned that our group had been asked by Lutz to investigate. Stephen also told Lutz from the beginning that although there would be no charge, we were a public service group and would reveal our findings to the public whether we found legitimate phenomena or fraud. George called several days later to cancel, saying he wanted no publicity, but then called in Channel 5 News, the Warrens, and a whole circus of people who paraded through the house on the evening news. There is no doubt in my mind that George only wanted people who would substantiate his claims. If he cared so much about avoiding the press, then he never would have held those initial press conferences and he certainly wouldn’t have allowed Channel 5 into the house. What he did want to avoid was anyone DISAGREEING with him in the press.

AF: Were you at first skeptical or did you believe what the Lutzes were initially saying?

RK: I was skeptical, not because I didn’t believe in strange phenomena but because they had TOO MANY all in one house! And that was only the beginning; their list of phenomena continued to grow longer and longer as each article, and eventually each book, came out. -There are many people out there today that say that Stephen was not qualified to investigate the house. What do you have to say about that? I strongly disagree. Who decides who is “qualified”? There wasn’t then, nor is there now, any certification required to be a parapsychologist or a “ghost hunter”. You could hang out a shingle tomorrow and start your own research group. As long as you are not attempting to give medical attention or psychotherapy to clients, you are breaking no laws. In 1976, Stephen had more experience investigating strange phenomena then almost anyone in the country, with the possible exceptions of the Psychical Research Foundation at Duke University and maybe the Association for Psychical Research in Manhattan. And neither of those 2 groups was willing to go public with any findings regarding Amityville.

AF: Tell us about the first time you entered the ‘Horror House.’ What were you expecting? Were you nervous, or did the house seem like a fairly comfortable place to live?

RK: I was expecting to be nervous about being in a house where 6 people had been murdered, but I was surprised to find that the Cromartys had made their home such a comfortable place to be that I was able to relax. That’s not to say that I didn’t think about the sad fate of the DeFeo family; I did. But I never sensed any evil presence, or any other kind of presence, there at all.

AF: Explain why Stephen spent so much time trying to debunk the Warrens’ claims.

RK: Stephen spent so much time trying to debunk the Warrens because they are dangerous people. They prey on people who are scared or lonely, and this is how they make their living. We never charged people more than minimal travel fees, and Stephen earned his living from teaching for a NYC public school. Stephen hated that the Warrens passed off fiction as fact and made the whole field of parapsychology look bad by association. We also had personal contact with families who had been told by the Warrens to abandon their homes because there were demons or evil spirits there, when all it was were spirits of deceased family members who were trying to get a message to their loved ones. Those poor people suffered being homeless needlessly because of the Warrens’ bad advice, as well as suffering financially from paying their fees.

AF: Tell us about the Halloween party that you and Stephen attended at the ‘horror house.’

RK: That was the best party I have ever been to. The costumes were hilarious, the guests were interesting and having a great time, and I felt happy that the house and its occupants had been able to cast off the sadness from the murders. Stephen and I had recently completed the “Weight Watchers” program and were looking our best, and I even had a minor celebrity tell me that I looked like Linda Ronstadt. I know, big deal, but remember, I was only 26 and a shy girl from Long Island!

AF: You’ve been one of the few to actually step (or crouch) down into the ‘red room.’ Explain what the room is, and what your reactions was the first time you saw it.

RK: I was amazed to find that the “room” was in fact not a room at all. It was merely a small space behind a shelf under the basement staircase that would allow access to the pipes in a plumbing emergency. The cinder block walls and the cement floor had been painted with red paint, but it was peeling off from the humidity. We picked up a couple of “samples” of the paint chips as souvenirs but I have no idea what we eventually did with them. I got no strange feelings while squatting there with Stephen to pose for snapshots.

AF: You have taken several photos inside the ‘horror house’. Has anything ‘strange’ ever happened to you or to any of the photos you have taken?

RK: No, nothing strange happened with any of the Amityville photos. I did, however, once take a photo in Poe Cottage in the Bronx of a ghostly figure sitting in Edgar Allen Poe’s old rocking chair. I thought I was only taking a picture of the empty chair, so imagine my surprise when the photo was developed and appeared to show a faint image of Poe sitting in the chair! -You have been invited to the house on numerous occasions, ever way into the 80’s. Did it seem at all possible that the house may have been ‘haunted?’ Anything is possible, but I never experienced anything out of the ordinary there, other than the strange tourists who pass by and harass the owners.

AF: What are your thoughts about Butch DeFeo and the killings?

RK: It was a tragic story, and I feel bad that the surviving family members had to suffer further from the sensational stories being told about their loved ones. It is one of the reasons why Stephen and I felt so strongly about exposing the hoax. As for Butch DeFeo, I was fascinated by Ric Osuna’s book on the subject. I doubt that the whole story of the murders will ever be known by anyone but Butch himself. -Do you believe the latest version he has told of the slayings? Which version? He has told so many that I have no reason to believe that he would reveal the whole truth now.

AF: Have any of the owners of the house ever thanked you for trying to expose a hoax?

RK: I believe that the Cromartys may have thanked us once, back in the 70’s. They were the only owners we ever dealt with. What meant more to Stephen and I was when we were thanked by the father and brother of the late Louisa DeFeo, for respecting the memory of the slain family.

AF: What is the biggest flaw in the whole Amityville story?

RK: That’s a tough question because there are many, but maybe the biggest flaw would be the fact that every family to live there after the Lutzes experienced no paranormal phenomena. If the house and the grounds are such an evil location, then why has the house been able to be used as a normal home for so many years?

AF: After almost thirty years of books, movies, and documentaries have come and gone. Are your thoughts towards this case still the same?

RK: Yes, I have not changed my mind over the years. What amazes me is that the story continues to be such a legend all these years later.

AF: What is it about the Amityville case that makes it live on?

RK: Many things: the way it started as a horrific murder case, the continual media attention it received, the nostalgia of people like yourself who became fascinated while they were small children, the fascination with all things gothic or otherworldly. These are just guesses on my part. I am frankly amazed that it does live on, and that some people seem to have embraced it almost like a religion. The “fans” are scarier to me than the actual case.

AF: Stephen spent a major part of his life working on “The Amityville Horror Conspiracy”. He tragically died just weeks before the book’s release. From knowing him, and his work, tell us how proud he was to have finally accomplished what he did?

RK: He couldn’t have been prouder. He considered “The Amityville Horror Conspiracy” his major life’s work. It took us 10 years to get it published. I have made next to nothing, financially, on the book because of distributors that went bankrupt, but I don’t care because we never did it for the money. Stephen and I just wanted to tell the public our story of what really went down.

AF: If you could tell the public one thing, what would that be?

RK: Just read the transcript of William Weber’s interview with Joel Martin that we included in our book, and you will see how obvious it is that Lutz and Weber constructed the story with the motives of making money and getting a new trial for DeFeo on a “devil made me do it” defense. Judge Jack Weinstein made it official when he called it a hoax during the court case between Weber and the Lutzes in the late 70’s. Unfortunately, the average person had no access to that information and so could continue to believe the hype put out there by the Lutzes and the media.

“The house overflows with happiness. Not even the tourists and hecklers who are passing by quite often outside now (prevented from getting too close by security) can spoil the mood of celebration and good times inside. Any aura of tragedy that may have been left over from the DeFeo murders has been purged forever by the love that is felt for this house by its owners and their friends. The Lutzes’ stories of horror have been exposed for what they are in the media and in Federal Court. This house is not a horror. This house is a home.” - Stephen Kaplan, Ph.D.