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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out at patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Amityville, Long Island is a quaint little town. Not much happens. Everybody knows each other by name. The perfect place to raise a family.
On November 13th, 1974, police sirens pierce the quietness. Startled neighbors scramble to the home of their friends. They watch in horror as police pull one body bag, then another, and another, and another, and there's still more. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 75, The Amityville Horror.
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Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a positive rating with a review or telling friends and family who love true crime about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's story. On November 13th, 1974, the events in Amityville, Long Island inspired a multi-million dollar horror movie franchise known as the Amityville Horror.
Many of us have watched at least a couple of the 16 movies in the series, but not many remember the details surrounding the murders that started it all. The DeFeo family was your typical all-American family. Ronald Joseph DeFeo Sr., who went by Big Ronnie, was born in 1930 to parents Rocco and Antoinette DeFeo.
As a teenager, he met the love of his life and future wife, Luis Brigante. Luis Brigante had dreams of becoming a supermodel, but when she met Ronald DeFeo, she knew she wanted to marry him. The only people not too happy about their relationship were Luis's parents, Michael and Angela Brigante.
They thought he was crude, loud, and bragged too much. But there wasn't anything they could do. Because shortly after Ronald DeFeo met Luis Brigante, they were married. Following the marriage, Luis's parents cut all ties with their daughter. They wanted nothing to do with her or her relationship with Ronald. They disapproved of the man their daughter married.
But that all changed on September 26, 1951, when Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr. was born. The couple's first son adopted the nickname Butch. After Ronald Jr. was born, Luisa's parents, the Brigantes, decided to put their disapproval of Ronald Sr. aside and be a part of their grandson's life.
The Brigantes even gifted their daughter and son-in-law a brand new home to live in in Amityville, Long Island. A huge, beautiful oceanfront house located at 112 Ocean Avenue. The Brigantes wanted to ensure their daughter was well taken care of.
After Ronald Jr. was born, the DeFeos welcomed four more children. First was Dawn. Next was another girl, Allison, followed by two boys, Mark and John Andrew. With a total of five children between Ronald Sr. and Luis DeFeo, their family was now complete.
Those who knew the DeFeos remembered them as just your typical family. Their house in Amityville was the ideal place to raise a family. Amityville was safe, situated right near the water. It was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody. The DeFeo kids had lots of friends in the neighborhood. The kids would do sports together, participate in school activities. The youngest DeFeo, John Matthew, was the sweet one.
His older brother, Mark, was the athletic one. Allison was brilliant and enjoyed puzzles. The oldest, Dawn, was the rebellious one in the family. A typical teenager girl looking to push boundaries in life. But things aren't always as they seem. The DeFeo family had secrets. Big Ronnie was known to have enemies and ties to the Mafia.
Rumors floated around the neighborhood that he was in the mafia, and that's why he had all his money. Big Ronnie was a big guy with a big, loud voice. Not only were there rumors swirling around that Big Ronnie was involved in the mafia, but there were rumors that he was abusive towards his wife, Louise, and their kids. He was described as being jealous of anything his wife did.
Although there was an immense amount of rumors about the DeFeo family, nobody could have anticipated what would happen to them. Around 6.30 p.m. on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr., a.k.a. Butch, ran into Henry's Tavern, a dive bar on the corner of Merrick Road and Ocean Avenue in Amityville.
Butch runs into the bar crying out for help. He's yelling, you've got to help me. I think my mother and father are shot. One of Butch's friends, Bobby, at the bar asks him if he's sure they've been shot. Maybe they're just asleep. Butch, who has fallen to the ground crying, begs his friend to come help. Butch begs Bobby and a couple of other patrons at the bar to follow him back to his parents' house on Ocean Avenue.
As Butch and the four bar patrons pull up to the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, it's completely silent, except for the barking of Shaggy, the DeFeo's dog. Shaggy, who's been tied up outside the back door of the kitchen, is frantically barking and whining. The five men, including Butch, made their way inside of the home. It was dark and quiet.
Bobby, who had been to the house many times over the years, knew exactly where the master bedroom was. After crossing the dark living room, the men made their way up the stairs to the second floor. When Bobby reaches the master bedroom, he hits the light switch.
He sees 43-year-old Ronald DeFeo Sr., Big Ronnie, and his wife, 43-year-old Luis DeFeo, lying face down in their bed. But they weren't asleep. They had both been shot in the back. Next to Big Ronnie and Luis's bedroom was the shared bedroom of 12-year-old Mark DeFeo and 9-year-old John DeFeo.
Just like their parents, Mark and John had also been shot dead in their beds. After Mark and John, it was 18-year-old Dawn and 13-year-old Allison DeFeo. Dawn and Allison were also found lying face down in their beds, shot and killed. Amityville police are dispatched to the home after Butch and the bar patrons call 911.
The police know they're responding to a shooting at the DeFeo's home, but they had no idea what they were about to walk into. As police and paramedics arrive at the home, a small crowd of neighbors and reporters begin to crowd the streets. People want to know what's going on with the DeFeo's. After several hours, a body bag is brought out of the home. Then another, and another, and another, and another.
and then a smaller body bag, and then another smaller one. The coroner brought out six body bags from the home. Ronald DeFeo Sr., Luis, Dawn, Allison, Mark, and John Andrew were all shot and killed inside their beds.
The only surviving member of the DeFeo family was Ronald DeFeo Jr. Butch, the person to discover the bodies. The police immediately questioned Butch about what happened that night. Being the only surviving family member, the police need to find out everything he knows and what happened when he discovered the bodies.
So Butch tells Amityville police he hadn't heard from his family all day, which was unusual. He said he went over to the home to check on his family, but he couldn't get inside. He'd forgotten his keys. That's when he decided to break a window on the house's first floor. Once inside, he discovered his entire family killed.
He ran out of the house and down the street to the bar, got his friend Bobby, three other men, and went back to the house. That's when they called 911 for the police. The entire DeFeo family dead. Introducing the brand new hit podcast, The Forgiven. The Forgiven podcast retells Bible scandals in a more modern setting, focusing on forgiveness in a cancel culture.
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Who would want to kill this entire family? The police didn't have any suspects or leads, and they had absolutely no idea who would want to do this. During the police's initial investigation, they didn't find any evidence of a break-in or a robbery.
Besides the broken window that Butch used to get inside his parents' home, there wasn't any evidence of a break-in. It was like whoever did this just simply walked through the front door. There also wasn't any evidence that the murders occurred from a robbery gone wrong.
In the master bedroom where Big Ronnie and Luis were found, the police, well, they saw some of Luis's jewelry just lying in plain view, suggesting to investigators that money or jewelry might not be the motive. Immediately after the coroner brought the body bags out of the home, investigators took Butch to the police station. Butch starts to tell investigators that the mob probably killed his family.
He tells investigators that his father, Big Ronnie, was a member of the Mafia. He specifically mentions his uncle, Pete DeFeo. Pete DeFeo was allegedly a member of the Genevieve crime family, one of the five families that dominated organized crime in New Jersey and New York. There were also rumors that Louisa's family, the Brigantes, also had ties to the Mafia.
Michael Brigante Sr. had ties to organized crime. He owned a Buick dealership that did some dirty work for the mob. Big Ronnie also did some work at this car dealership. He was the guy in charge of the dealership's financial accounts. The accounts that showed all of the money coming in and out of the dealership.
And Big Ronnie was known to sometimes take these financial reports home with him and change some of the numbers around. There were also rumors that Big Ronnie may have been skimming money off the top of the car dealership's accounts in order to pay off his own debts, which, if true, would absolutely be a death sentence if the mob found out.
The police promptly put Butch in police protective custody. The only credible lead in the DeFeo murders was some type of mob hit. So the police needed to protect Butch, the only surviving family member, until they could solve the case. If this was a mob hit, which mob was responsible? Butch gave the police a name of a Brooklyn mobster who may be responsible.
At face value, this theory seems credible based on how someone killed the DeFeos. They were all shot execution style, one bullet to the back, a typical mob-style hit, right? But something about the murders didn't make sense for it to be a mob hit. And that was the children.
It's practically an unwritten mob code that you don't kill children. You don't do that. Sure, you'll kill Big Ronnie, maybe his wife, Louise, in some sort of mob hit, but you don't kill small children. The day after the murders, the police continue their investigation, trying to gather any information that could point them in the right direction. First, they examine the bodies.
The medical examiner determined that all six victims were killed sometime during the early morning hours of November 13th. Based on the body's lividity and rigor mortis, he anticipated they were killed sometime between 16 and 18 hours before they were discovered.
Now this timeline matches up with a neighbor's account that he heard the DeFeo's sheepdog, Shaggy, barking and whining sometime around 3, 3.15, 3.30 in the morning on November 13th, something that the neighbor thought was unusual. He had never heard Shaggy bark like that before.
And the cause of death for all six victims were gunshot wounds from a rifle. They were all shot point-blank range. The gunshot wounds came from a high-caliber rifle, which is an unusual type of weapon to be used in a murder like this. High-caliber rifles are incredibly loud when they're fired. You would imagine that after the first shots were fired, the rest of the family would have heard something.
These facts suggest that whoever did this maybe drugged the family before shooting them or before they went to sleep. Except the medical examiner didn't find any drugs in their system. So why didn't anyone wake up in the house? Well, it turns out someone did actually hear the gunshots that night. Ronnie Jr., Butch.
Yes, Ronnie changed his story about the night someone killed his family. He's now saying he was inside the home when someone came in and shot his entire family. According to Butch, he was downstairs in the basement drinking, watching TV. He said he'd been taking some drugs that night while in the basement, someone broke into the home. He then heard, quote, muffled gunshots.
To him, he thought it was just a car backfiring in the neighborhood. After he heard the muffled noises, he ran up the stairs, but the intruders were gone. As the police continue to question Butch, they start to uncover who Butch really is. The police learn he quit school and has never been able to hold down a job.
He's been enjoying drugs beginning at the age of 17, drinks heavily, drinking about a fifth of scotch every single day. He also has a stockpile of guns inside of the home. And what especially struck the police officers as odd, while Butch was in protective custody, he never said one nice thing about his murdered family.
While Butch is in protective custody, investigators continue their search of the DeFeo's home. A search turned up a box of a .35 caliber lever-action Marlin .336C rifle, the same type of weapon used in the murders, a gun belonging to Butch. Within 48 hours of the murders, Butch was arrested for murdering his entire family.
Initially, he stuck to his story that he was inside the basement and he had absolutely nothing to do with his family's murder. But after only a few hours of police questioning, he cracked. He killed them. After Butch confessed to the murders, nobody could understand the motive. What could drive a 23-year-old man to decide to shoot and kill his entire family?
Why weren't there any signs of a struggle? Why didn't anyone in the family try to run away when the shooting began? And why were they all found lying face down in their beds? Butch's arrest raised more questions and more questions. In the weeks and months leading up to the murders, Butch became a ticking time bomb for violence. His drug and alcohol use was through the roof.
The relationship between him and his father took a turn for the worse. Butch thought his father overworked him. He believed his father was abusive towards him and his mom, further angering Butch. Neighbors of the DeFeos recalled hearing and watching Butch physically fight with Big Ronnie out in the house's front yard on more than one occasion.
On the night of November 13th, 1974, Butch had had enough. He was an enraged young man who decided to take his anger out on his entire family. At 3.15 a.m., the family's dog, Shaggy, starts to whine and howl in the backyard. The entire DeFeo family lay asleep inside the house.
Butch grabs his .35 caliber Marlin rifle and goes upstairs. He knew that Big Ronnie, his father, was his biggest threat. He needs to take him out first. He walks into the master bedroom and fires two shots into his father, killing him almost instantly. As his mom starts to wake up from the noise, he fires a single shot at Louise, dead.
After killing his parents, he walks across the hall and walks into the bedroom of his two little brothers, Mark and John Andrew. He fires one shot into both brothers. Before exiting the room, he stands in the doorway to watch his poor little brothers die. Butch then walks into Allison's room. He points his rifle right into her innocent face and fires once, dead.
The police ask Butch if anyone in the home woke up during all of this. Butch tells police that Dawn, his 18-year-old younger sister, actually woke up. She walked down to the second floor from her bedroom and asked her brother if everything was okay. Butch told her, yes, of course, everything's fine. Then, after Dawn walked back upstairs to her bedroom on the third floor, Butch followed her.
waited for her to get back into the bed, and then he shot her dead. After the murders, Butch sat in the house for a while and thought about what to do next. He showered, packed up his bloody clothes, and put them in a suitcase. He had the presence of mind to go into each bedroom and pick up the spent shell casings from the rifle.
He got inside of his car and drove out to Brooklyn, where he dropped the suitcase with his bloody clothes in a storm drain. He then drove down to the South Bay and dumped the rifle. Then he went to work at the car dealership his grandfather owned. But after a couple hours at work that day, he told his boss he wasn't feeling well, so he left early.
Once he left work early, he stopped by a friend's house to pick up some heroin and alcohol. After getting high, he decided it was time to go back to his parents' house. He had almost convinced himself that what happened earlier that day never happened. But when he got there, he realized he didn't have his key. He decides to go through the back window and inside of the home.
Completely high on drugs and alcohol, he sees his family all dead in their beds. And that's when he runs down the street to the bar. To confirm his story, Butch led the police to the storm drain as well as the bay where everything was recovered. Leading up to the criminal trial, Butch's first defense attorney wanted him to use an insanity defense. But Butch refused. He didn't think he was crazy.
By the time the case got to trial, however, he was now on his third defense attorney. He had fired the first one who wanted to use that insanity defense, and then he had physically assaulted the second one. The trial lasted three weeks, and during the last week, Butch took the stand in his own defense. On the stand, he didn't look like someone capable of murdering his entire family in cold blood.
In front of the jury, he looked like a young, completely normal, 20-something young man. But on the stand, when the prosecution asked him if he shot and killed his family, he said yes. He sat there and said, I killed them before they could kill me. Now, this wasn't a trial about whether or not Butch killed his family. It was about finding out why he did it.
Many people took the stand and testified about Butch's childhood. They talked about the fighting they saw between him and his father, Big Ronnie. Prosecutors even offered up a few theories about Butch's motive behind the murders. At first, they said Butch was trying to steal money and jewelry from his parents on the night of the murders. But while trying to steal from them, they woke up, and that's when he decided he needed to shoot and kill them.
but no money or jewelry was missing from the bedroom. The prosecutors also said that life insurance was a possible motive. Luis and Big Ronnie had a $200,000 life insurance policy to which Butch was the sole beneficiary. The defense's strategy was simple, insanity. Even though Butch was against an insanity defense at first, he eventually came around to the idea.
An insanity defense was going to be his best shot, but an insanity defense has a high legal burden to prove. You can't just walk into court and say, I'm crazy and therefore can't be held responsible for my actions. Far more often than not, defense attorneys can't prove that their clients meet the legal standard for insanity. And Butch's case is no different.
His defense attorney couldn't prove insanity, and the jury found Butch guilty, and he was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, a life sentence for each member of the DeFeo family. One year after the DeFeo family was murdered, Butch was starting his new life in prison. On the outside, a new family was moving into the Amityville home at 112 Ocean Avenue.
Luis DeFeo's parents, the Brigantes, sold the home to the Lutz family in 1975. When George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the home, few changes were made. All the furniture and most of the decor that belonged to the DeFeos was still inside the home. Even the beds, they were still there.
This home was a dream home for the Lutz family. It was everything they ever wanted in a home. But only 28 days after moving in, the Lutz family moved out. George and Kathy Lutz said that the house was haunted. Evil spirits or the devil possessed the home. They reported seeing black and green slime coming out of the walls.
They would wake up in the middle of the night to their bedroom filled with flies. One morning, Kathy said she got up, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and saw herself as an old woman instead of the 20-something-year-old woman she actually was. George, while he could never get warm, he was constantly freezing whenever he was inside the home.
When the Lutz family came out with this idea that the home was haunted, people thought they were crazy, especially those that don't believe in the devil or they don't believe in evil spirits. But George and Kathy Lutz were incredibly convincing about what they experienced inside the home. Even people who didn't believe in those evil spirits started to believe.
Right after Kathy and George Lutz moved out, a group of demonologists and psychics organized a meeting at the house around midnight on March 6, 1976. They wanted to find out that if the Lutz were actually right. According to the paranormal investigators, the house, well, the house is haunted.
When word spread that demonologists and psychics believed that an evil spirit lived in one of the bedrooms inside of the home, Butch's defense attorney quickly reacted. His defense attorney saw this as a golden opportunity to try and get Butch an appeal. An appeal based on that, quote, the devil made me do it.
that Butch was possessed by the devil when he decided to shoot and kill his entire family that night. Unfortunately for Butch, as well as his defense attorney, this move didn't work. His appeal for a devil possession defense was immediately shot down. There are several strange things about the DeFeo family murders that nobody has ever been able to explain, not even the forensics.
How come not one single person woke up? The murders were committed on three separate floors of the home. How could the family sleep through the sounds of a high-power rifle going off? Maybe they were experiencing some sort of mental or physical paralysis that made them unable to cry out for help or run outside. And maybe
Why was every single one of the DeFeo family found lying face down in their beds? And of course, there's the biggest mystery of this entire story. Why? Why did Ronnie DeFeo Jr., a.k.a. Butch, decide to murder his family? Ronnie DeFeo Jr. just recently died in prison on March 12, 2021. He was 69 years old.
Since the murders of the DeFeo family, there have been 16 movies made about the case. The first Amityville horror movie came out in 1979, and the most recent one was released in 2017. The movies are loosely based on the actual murders themselves. The movies rather focus on demons, evil spirits, and a haunted house.
Whether paranormal activity exists in the home, we'll never know. But what we know for sure is that evil did exist in the home, and his name was Ronnie DeFeo Jr. To share your thoughts on the Amityville horror and the murders of the DeFeo family, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales. Let me know what you think about the case.
Also, to check out photos from the case, be sure to head to our website, ForensicTales.com. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us. You can also help support the show through Patreon.
Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please, join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. ♪
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