[tense music]
Tonight, a mystery that's haunted the world
for almost 50 years,
one so terrifying, it spawned
a tidal wave of books, documentaries, and film.
♪ ♪
- They've endured what some of the family
have defined as a circus act of paranormal activity.
- They decide, right then and there,
"We are leaving," in the dead of night.
- Now we uncover the top theories
surrounding the most notorious house
in America.
- I don't think it was the murders
that scared them away.
I think it was something much more devilish.
- There are a couple of other things that indicate
that there is another accomplice on the loose.
- Can new testimony finally reveal the answer?
- Danny claimed that Georgia's interest in the occult
instigated the haunting.
♪ ♪
- Who or what is responsible for
"The Amityville Horror"?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
December 18, 1975.
Amityville, New York.
George and Kathy Lutz,
along with their three children,
Danny, Christopher, and Melissa,
move into their new home.
- It was a typical day by anybody's standards.
The weather was fine.
Uh, everything was seemingly normal.
Fishburne: But it's immediately clear
that the Lutz's new house is anything but normal.
- From the very first night of being in the house,
they start to experience knocks, chills.
So many things are happening.
Gusts of wind in a room that is sealed.
George even believes
that there is an invisible force
in this house.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: As the days pass,
patriarch George seems to be affected the most.
- George says he could never get warm.
He's building fires all the time.
He's not going into work.
♪ ♪
He stops bathing.
He's very disheveled and unkempt.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Soon, other members of the family
are impacted as well.
♪ ♪
- George's wife, Kathleen, comes down
with a mysterious illness.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: The crescendo of horrors continues to build
until one final night,
when it comes to an alarming peak.
- George reports a deafening sound
coming from the living room,
like a marching band at full volume
marching across the living room.
Windows are going up and down.
Doors are flying off the hinges.
When they go to check, there's nothing there.
♪ ♪
- You know, they've been living in this house
for 28 days,
and they've endured a onslaught,
and what some of the members of the family
have defined as a "circus act," of paranormal activity.
Fishburne: The Lutzes finally can't take it anymore,
and at 7:00 a.m. on January 14, 1976,
they flee.
- They packed just a couple of changes of clothes,
they grab the dog,
and literally leave or abscond in the van.
And that's it.
And they're at Kathy's mother's house,
and they said they will never,
never go back there again.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Why would this seemingly normal family
abandon their brand-new home
in the dead of winter?
[camera shutter snaps] What or who
are they running from?
♪ ♪
While dozens of theories
have risen over the years,
the first is based on an actual horrific event
that happened one year earlier.
♪ ♪
- Before the Lutzes purchased 112 Ocean Avenue,
the DeFeo family lived there.
The members of the DeFeo family are
Ronald DeFeo Sr. and his wife,
Louise Brigante DeFeo.
They are 42 and 43 years old.
They have five children:
Ronald DeFeo Jr.,
who is known to his friends and family
as "Butch",
his younger, 18-year-old sister, Dawn,
followed by Allison, who's 13.
And then the two youngest are
Marc, 12, and John, 9 at the time.
And they are a typical middle, upwardly mobile,
suburban family.
♪ ♪
- For the DeFeo children,
coming from a small apartment in Brooklyn,
moving to this lavish property had to be a dream come true.
Fishburne: But that dream comes to an abrupt end
on November 13, 1974.
♪ ♪
At 6:30 p.m., the crowd at Henry's Bar,
just a few blocks from the DeFeo home,
are enjoying their cocktails
when suddenly, Butch DeFeo, the eldest son,
bursts in.
- He's very frantic. He's very upset.
And he's telling everyone
that his mom and dad had been shot
and that he needs assistance.
Initially, the patrons don't believe him.
They think he's making it up.
They think it's kind of a sick joke.
But the more Butch goes on about that,
the more they believe that he, in fact,
is telling the truth.
A couple of his friends, Bobby, John, Joey,
and three other men decide to leave the bar,
go to Butch's house,
and see what's going on.
When the group gets to Butch's house,
there's some discussion about who's gonna go in.
There's some concern--"Hey, is there a suspect inside?"
What should they do?
Bobby takes the lead. He's going in.
He becomes the alpha dog in this group,
and he's gonna go in and find out what's going on.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: As the rest of the men come inside,
the house is eerily quiet.
The only sound is the barking
of the DeFeo family dog, Shaggy.
- As they move up the stairs onto the second floor,
they start to smell something.
It's a smell that they associate with death.
♪ ♪
Nothing else in life smells like death.
♪ ♪
Once you smell it,
you will always recognize it.
Fishburne: Bobby heads straight
to the master bedroom.
- Bobby goes inside, turns on the light.
And this is when he discovers the first two murders.
♪ ♪
- The father, Big Ronnie--
he's laying facedown.
He's been shot a couple of times.
And in the bed is Louise, the mother.
She's curled up in a fetal position,
and she's been shot a couple of times.
This is more than Bobby can handle,
to the point that two of the guys believe
that he needs to be taken away from this scene
and taken downstairs.
One of the men in the group, John Altieri--
he decides to stay on the second floor
and investigate further.
Fishburne: Further down the hall,
John Altieri stumbles upon
another horrific scene.
- When he goes in that bedroom,
he discovers Butch's two brothers.
♪ ♪
John, who's 9 years old--
he is found dead in bed,
soaked with blood.
In the same bedroom is his brother Marc,
who's 12 years old.
He, too, has been murdered in his bed.
♪ ♪
Altieri sees this--
this is too overwhelming for him as well--
leaves the bedroom.
He goes back downstairs.
Fishburne: The men have found four victims.
But the body count doesn't stop there.
In another room,
the two DeFeo daughters, Dawn and Allison,
are dead as well.
♪ ♪
- The police arrive at the scene,
and they start to interview the group.
♪ ♪
What these men find are six people,
all family related,
all murdered in their own home,
in their own bed.
Fishburne: As police begin to process the scene,
a prime suspect emerges.
- On the outside of the residence,
they find a Marlin rifle, .35 caliber.
This rifle is kind of unique.
One of the rifles that Annie Oakley used to use
in her competition.
They learn that Butch is a gun guy,
that he's a gun fanatic.
[rifle cocks]
In Butch's room, they find a box
of .35-caliber rifle ammunition.
Fishburne: Based on these discoveries,
Butch is brought in for interrogation.
- He eventually breaks down and admits
that he is responsible,
saying that once he started, he couldn't stop,
that he killed everyone in cold blood.
♪ ♪
[cell door clangs]
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Butch's trial begins
on October 14, 1975.
- And on its face,
it's a pretty straightforward case.
You have a confession, you have the murder weapon,
you have lots of pieces of physical evidence.
Butch goes through multiple lawyers
before he finally decides on William Weber.
William Weber and Butch decide on an insanity defense.
Butch states that he was hearing voices,
that he did these murders
based on the voices that he heard,
that these voices drove him insane,
and that's why he killed his family.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Butch also claims he was possessed.
- During the trial,
the prosecution brought out
that Butch is a heavy user of LSD and heroin.
LSD and heroin can both cause psychotic symptoms
in the using individual
during the time that they're in the body.
♪ ♪
While someone is under intoxication of LSD,
they can have psychotic symptoms
including, but not limited to,
feeling that they're possessed.
♪ ♪
If someone is possessed,
they may not know what they're doing,
much like a hypnotist
can get someone out of a crowd and hypnotize them,
and make them quack and walk like a duck,
and then, when they snap out of the hypnosis,
they don't remember what they did.
[crickets chirping]
- I find the insanity defense a little weak.
And I'm not the only one
that thought it was a little weak.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: The jury rejects the insanity argument.
And on December 4, 1975,
Butch DeFeo is sentenced
to 25 years to life.
♪ ♪
- Most people in Amityville and Long Island in general
thought that once Butch was put away,
that that was the end of the story...
[cell door clangs]
That the house would be wiped of its dark past...
♪ ♪
And that life would move on.
That was only the beginning.
Fishburne: 13 months after the murders,
and just two weeks after Butch's sentencing,
George and Kathleen Lutz buy the property.
- George and Kathy Lutz got it
for the bargain basement price of $80,000.
They also purchased a great deal of the furniture,
including the beds,
the living room furniture, you name it,
because the DeFeo family wanted no part of it.
Fishburne: But unfortunately,
new owners don't mark a fresh start
for the Amityville house.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: One month after they move
into their new Amityville home,
the Lutz family flees in terror.
♪ ♪
The question is why?
Some believe the property's dark past is to blame.
♪ ♪
But not everyone's convinced.
- I don't think it was the murders
that scared them away.
I think it was something much more devilish.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: According to the Lutz family's account,
from the moment they arrive at the Amityville house,
they face a host of terrifying events.
♪ ♪
As practicing Catholics, the Lutzes bring in a priest,
Father Ralph Pecoraro,
to bless the home before they move in.
♪ ♪
- The ritual in blessing
is going through every room of the house,
sprinkling holy water...
♪ ♪
And reciting prayers of peace throughout the house.
♪ ♪
When Father Pecoraro goes inside of the house,
everything is calm and peaceful.
♪ ♪
But when he enters the room
of John and Marc DeFeo,
he hears this voice say to him, "Get out."
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Pecoraro leaves the house as commanded,
but he doesn't say anything
about the ghostly voice he's just heard.
He doesn't tell the Lutzes what he heard
because he does not want them to think that he's crazy.
But he does tell them to not sleep in that room.
Fishburne: Soon after, the Lutzes begin
having their own strange encounters.
♪ ♪
- George starts this habit
of waking up at 3:15 a.m....
[clock ticking]
Every morning, 'cause he's not able to sleep.
3:15 is important, because this is the time
Butch DeFeo did these murders in the house.
[clock ticking]
The Lutzes didn't even know this.
They had to talk to the authorities
to piece together a time frame of what took place.
Fishburne: But it may be the Lutzes' daughter,
Melissa, who experiences
the most bizarre terror.
- Melissa, or Missy, as she was called
at that time--
she spends a lot of time in her room,
which is typical for any child of that age.
But when asked what she's doing,
she's talking to an imaginary friend.
This isn't your typical imaginary friend.
It's a red-eyed pig.
♪ ♪
It can supposedly change shape.
♪ ♪
Sometimes even as large as the house.
♪ ♪
And it apparently has a name, Jodie.
[camera shutter snaps]
Fishburne: And their troubles don't end there.
- They claim
that there is green slime
coming down from the ceilings and on the walls,
an infestation of flies
which doesn't seem to make any sense.
They see objects moving and breaking.
♪ ♪
- The Lutzes try to contact Father Pecoraro
to do a second blessing to cleanse the house.
♪ ♪
But every time they try to call him,
the phones shut off.
It's as if the house
won't let them contact Father Pecoraro.
♪ ♪
- I don't know how they survived
four hours in that house, let alone four weeks.
Regardless, they never spend another night
in their dream home,
which is now nothing but a nightmare.
[crickets chirping]
Fishburne: To the Lutzes, one thing is clear.
Evil lurks in their new house.
- Over the 140 years of parapsychology
and cyclical research,
we have looked at a lot of possible explanations
for what are called "hauntings."
These are repetitive experiences
that people have.
♪ ♪
The DeFeo murders are definitely,
to my mind, an environmental imprint.
In hauntings like the Lutz family situation,
they are picking up on an imprint
that is tied to that environment,
an event that happened that is completely negative,
which is killings of this family.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: When the Amityville hauntings
make national headlines,
it catches the attention
of two world-famous paranormal investigators.
- The Warrens are paranormal investigators
who'd done over 10,000 investigations.
Fishburne: But they aren't ready
for what lies ahead.
- When we went into the house that day,
we didn't realize
that it was diabolically infested.
And on a scale of one to ten,
I would have to say that Amityville was a ten.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: In January of 1976,
the Lutz family claims their house is haunted.
♪ ♪
But can they prove it?
- The Lutzes were not nutjobs.
They were very ordinary, suburban, middle-class people.
Back in the mid-'70s,
you couldn't just go online and look things up.
You actually had to have feet on the street,
dig for information, look for people face to face,
talk with the Lutzes, talk with the neighbors,
and then go into the house and see what was happening.
Fishburne: To help them gather evidence,
the Lutzes call on world-renowned
paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
♪ ♪
- The Warrens are paranormal investigators
who'd done over 10,000 investigations
for hauntings, poltergeists, exorcism--
this is what they do.
Fishburne: The real-life inspiration
for "The Conjuring" film franchise,
this husband and wife team make a name for themselves
in the late 1960s when they investigate a doll
supposedly possessed
by the spirit of a little girl.
♪ ♪
- Lorraine was psychic.
♪ ♪
She was a light trance medium.
She would go into a trance
to try and connect with the other side.
Ed was a self-styled demonologist.
He would guide Lorraine through her trances,
ask her questions,
generally run the investigation.
Fishburne: In February 1976,
Lorraine meets George Lutz at a local pizza parlor.
♪ ♪
George gives permission
for the Warrens to enter the house,
but he refuses to come along.
- George Lutz wouldn't even go to that home.
He said, "There's no way I'm going into the house."
And when I asked him,
at this restaurant where we met him--
I said, "Mr. Lutz,
what happened to you in that house?"
♪ ♪
He didn't say anything. He just looked at me.
He said, "You know."
♪ ♪
Fishburne: According to the Warrens,
although the property is empty,
they can tell they are not alone
from the moment they arrive.
♪ ♪
- Ed Warren is drawn to the cellar.
And down here is where he believes
that everything started.
♪ ♪
- This home is haunted.
I mean, they left behind everything:
everything to eat, everything to drink.
Within seconds, I could feel
what I can only describe
as being under a waterfall.
♪ ♪
Pressure pushing me down to the floor.
Then I could feel hundreds of pinpoints
of electricity hitting my body.
Fishburne: Ed leaves the basement
to check on Lorraine upstairs.
She also describes feeling
a powerful, unseen force.
- Going up the stairs,
I was going against a tremendous pressure.
It was the worst feeling.
Fishburne: In over their heads,
the two quickly flee.
- I knew right at that point what we were dealing with,
and I said to myself,
"I don't think I'll ever come back in this house again."
Fishburne: But despite their misgivings,
the Warrens don't give up.
♪ ♪
A few days later, they return to the house,
but this time, they bring backup
and cameras.
- There were five people from Channel 5:
myself, Marvin Scott, and the crew.
Two other reporters, the Warrens and their team,
which was about seven people.
Then there was another team of psychics
and investigators.
♪ ♪
So all in all,
I counted 21 people in the house that night.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: The Warrens and their team
spend hours investigating the house.
And it's not long before disturbing things
start happening.
- It moves.
And as it moves, it kind of--
it--it--it says, "I feel personally threatened."
- [panting]
It's a thing--
it's--it's whatever's here.
[gasps]
Whatever is here is--
- You're trying to harm them?
- It--yes.
- We had a cameraman, Steve Petropolis.
Steve was in his 40s, about 5'10",
a marathon runner.
So in other words, he was in good shape.
He starts up the stairs with his light meter
to take light readings,
and I'm standing at the bottom of the stairs
with the other members of the crew.
♪ ♪
He gets to the middle of the staircase,
and he turns around, and he says to me,
"Hey, there's a room
"at the left,
and it's--one wall is filled with mirrors.
♪ ♪
So he continues up the stairs.
He gets to the top of the landing,
and he turns around, and he looks at me strangely.
He says... "I don't know how I knew that."
And all of the sudden,
I can see the blood drain from his face,
he goes ashen,
and he doubles over, and he's clutching his chest.
And he's gagging.
He's trying to get words out but he can't,
so our sound man and our lighting man
run up the stairs to assist him down the stairs.
- One of the scientists
that had come up from Duke University--
he became so terrified in this home,
and the chair that he was sitting on
actually went right backwards with him in it.
They had a real hard time
just stabilizing him emotionally
in that home.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: The Warrens record their entire experience.
♪ ♪
- That night, the Warrens were accompanied
by Gene Campbell, their photographer,
who had what, for the time, was advanced
infrared equipment.
He's hoping to pick up something,
white noise, what have you.
So he sets up the camera.
He points it at that second-floor landing,
sets it, forgets it.
He takes many photos that night.
You know, well over a hundred.
Fishburne: Once the infrared photos are processed,
the team uncovers an unusual find.
♪ ♪
- This image on the one picture,
peeking out of a doorway,
looks like it's a young boy.
The eyes are sort of bright and glowing.
Fishburne: There are no children present
during the investigation.
[camera shutter snaps] So who or what
is the mysterious figure in the photograph?
♪ ♪
- It's what has come to be known
as the ghost boy photo.
And this has been the object of much curiosity
and much controversy.
People have said, and speculated,
"Oh, it's the youngest boy,
9-year-old John DeFeo. It's his ghost."
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Ed Warren, however,
thinks it's something different.
- Well, it is not the spirit of the young boy.
No, it is not the spirit of the young boy.
But it is a spirit of a diabolical nature
in that room,
that appears in that home to confuse the investigators.
Fishburne: The mysterious figure in the photo
remains unidentified.
But the Warrens agree that something
is terrorizing the property,
and they're now armed with proof.
- I always consider myself
an objective person
and not given to flights of imagination or fancy.
But at the same time...
there were many things that happened that night.
There were subtle signs
of what many paranormal investigators
classify as infestation,
and some not so subtle things.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: "Amityville Horror."
♪ ♪
The very name conjures fear.
While some believe the home's darkness
was brought on by the DeFeo family murders,
others chalk it up to paranormal activity.
But one member of the Lutz family,
who experienced the terrors firsthand,
thinks the source is much closer to him.
♪ ♪
Their move to Amityville in 1975
was supposed to mark a fresh start
for the blended Lutz family.
[camera shutter snaps] - Kathy had three children
from a previous marriage.
There was Daniel, Christopher, and Melissa.
At the time they lived in this house,
Daniel was nine, Christopher, seven,
and Melissa was five years old.
George was actually their stepfather.
These were very young, impressionable children,
certainly, uh, subject to the feelings
that were going on from the family.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Eldest son Daniel, stays silent for decades.
[camera shutter snaps]
Then, in 2009,
he finally speaks publicly
in a series of interviews.
♪ ♪
- Daniel Lutz reached out to me,
wanting to tell his story.
At the beginning, I was very skeptical.
But as soon I saw photographs,
right away, the likeness to Kathy Lutz
was so striking, I knew it was him.
♪ ♪
At that time,
I began conversations with Daniel Lutz
that really...
changed the paradigm of how I view
this entire case.
♪ ♪
- This is not something I enjoy discussing.
♪ ♪
I don't look forward to this [bleep].
♪ ♪
It's--it's not easy to tell somebody
how you got thrown up a staircase.
♪ ♪
It's not easy to tell somebody
that your bed was bouncing off the ceiling.
Once I start talking about it,
I become stuck with it.
- I felt strongly sitting with him...
♪ ♪
The passion, the anger
for living in the shadow of this story.
His story had been told by everyone else but him.
He felt that his voice had been silenced,
and so it was almost a cathartic process
to purge these demons of his past,
for him to have a say.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Daniel offers
a dramatically different potential reason
for the Amityville hauntings.
[camera shutter snaps]
- When you walked into George's house,
it wasn't inviting and welcoming.
If you read his, uh...
♪ ♪
Bookcase, you know, it--it would range
from satanic history, mind control type of books,
and hypnosis books.
This guy was into some pretty dark stuff.
And I walk over to my mother, and I said,
"You married this guy. You moved me to his house.
What the hell is he into?"
♪ ♪
Danny claimed that George's interest in the occult
instigated the haunting, that it was like
a magic trick that you couldn't shut off.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Was an evil spirit invited to Amityville
by George Lutz in a spell gone wrong?
♪ ♪
Daniel believes it was.
Danny claimed that he felt he was possessed,
and that the only way to get away from it
was to leave the family.
And so that's what he did.
And in a lot of ways,
I think Daniel was haunted by George,
and still is to this day.
♪ ♪
And at the end of the day,
something happened to his family
and to him in that house that forever shaped them.
Fishburne: Daniel's story isn't
the only firsthand account from the Lutz family.
Thirty years earlier,
his parents offer
a very different and very public version
of what happened in Amityville.
♪ ♪
- After the Lutzes move out,
they're telling people about the situation.
And they're not actively just trying
to tell people to get help,
they are actually telling people
to try to sell the story somehow,
to make some money, to make the money back
that they paid for their house.
♪ ♪
- The Lutzes paid out $80,000 with a large down payment
for this particular house.
George needed to recoup that loss.
You know, if it were me paying all that money,
I'd be really concerned
about how to provide for my family.
And one way to do that
would have been to try to sell the story somehow.
At the time, the media was very interested
in these kinds of stories.
They had covered "The Exorcist"
and looked for other types of cases like that.
And so George may have seen an opportunity.
So the Lutzes hire an attorney
who turns out to be William Weber,
who was the defense attorney for Butch DeFeo.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Weber agrees to help sell
the family's story
if they split the profits 50/50.
♪ ♪
George declines Weber's deal,
but Weber goes out and sells the story anyway.
- So William Weber sells two articles to publications
about the situation that George had described
and that they had worked up in their conversation.
George is enraged about this
because it was done without his permission.
So at that point, George is so upset
that he walks away from Weber.
As a consequence,
Weber files a lawsuit against the Lutzes.
They eventually settle out of court,
but the damage between the two of them
is irreparable.
Fishburne: The Lutzes ultimately move forward
on a book deal with author Jay Anson,
who agrees to a more reasonable partnership.
♪ ♪
In response, Weber makes a bold accusation.
♪ ♪
The Amityville hauntings are a hoax.
[camera shutter snaps]
- Once the story got very popular,
and the book sales were high,
William Weber started going out to the media
and actually disputing the facts of the case
as reported in the book.
Weber was totally willing to say
that everything was 100% true
until it turned out that he couldn't cash in.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: To counter his claims,
the Lutzes agree to a polygraph test.
♪ ♪
They pass.
♪ ♪
George, unless he was the Oracle of Delphi himself,
had no way of predicting that-- even if he was hatching
this grandmaster scheme-- that it would come to fruition.
♪ ♪
Are you really going to bet
your entire life savings on a ghost story?
"Well, some people might."
I never bought into that.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Whether it's a haunting,
a summoning, an elaborate hoax,
or the chilling aftermath of a family homicide,
for the next several years,
the Amityville case continues to puzzle the public.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: While many questions surround
New York's infamous Amityville house of horrors...
[camera shutter snaps] At least one
has long been assumed to be solved.
[camera shutter snaps] Who committed
the brutal murders that started it all?
♪ ♪
After a confession,
a conviction,
and a sentence of 25 years to life...
♪ ♪
It seems certain that Butch DeFeo
single-handedly killed his family in 1974.
♪ ♪
But in 2000, Butch DeFeo makes an astonishing claim.
♪ ♪
He didn't act alone.
Butch writes a letter from prison
on May 1, 2000,
with a shocking revelation.
♪ ♪
- Butch mentions that he didn't kill
his family by himself.
♪ ♪
He had help,
and it wasn't even his idea.
So this is interesting.
If there was another killer out there,
is that who was tormenting the Lutzes?
♪ ♪
Maybe it wasn't a haunting after all.
♪ ♪
At the time of the murders,
Butch is 23. Dawn is 18.
They're in the family basement with a few friends,
drinking and smoking.
This is an escape from their family,
especially their father.
Fishburne: Their father, "Big Ronnie,"
apparently lived up to his intimidating name.
♪ ♪
- This family was not a happy one.
For many years, Ronald Sr. in particular,
had inflicted domestic violence
against Ronald Jr., Louise, the other children.
There's been stories about how he had walked over
and punched Louise in the face,
that she fell down...
♪ ♪
And that he had just gone back to dinner
and said, "We can eat in peace now."
This type of... occurrence encapsulates
what life must have been like in that house
for these children.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: But despite Butch's struggles
with his father,
he claims it's his sister Dawn
that harbors the deepest resentment.
- She is 18 years old.
She has a boyfriend that lives in Florida
who happens to be 33 years old,
a great age difference.
"Big Ronnie" is very disapproving
of this relationship.
He belittles her. He berates her.
Per Butch, Dawn comes up with a plan,
and the plan is to murder their parents.
Dawn states that the other siblings
can be taken to the grandmother's house
in Brooklyn, and they can live there.
Mom and Dad will be out of the way,
kids will be taken care of,
and everybody will live happily ever after
if Mom and Dad are murdered.
♪ ♪
- Apparently it wasn't hard for Dawn to convince Butch,
because the plans were put in motion pretty quickly.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Butch says
he recruits two friends to help.
♪ ♪
- About 1:00 in the morning,
they sneak out of the basement
and go into the interior of the house.
♪ ♪
They then go upstairs
to the parents' bedroom.
Butch is arming himself with a--
with the .35-caliber Marlin rifle.
He makes no bones about that, that he has the rifle.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Lit only by a night light
in the second-floor bathroom,
the siblings open their parents' bedroom door,
and the massacre begins.
♪ ♪
- Butch goes into the bedroom...
[gunshots]
Fires the rifle twice into his father,
and then fires the rifle twice into his mother,
killing them both.
Fishburne: Butch then says he and his two friends
flee the Amityville house, leaving Dawn
and their three other siblings inside, alone.
- Butch relates that the plan was
merely to kill the parents.
It wasn't to kill the-- the brothers and sisters.
Fishburne: He says Dawn, however, goes rogue.
♪ ♪
- Butch returns inside the house.
♪ ♪
Dawn has done something horrible.
Butch says that she took it upon herself
to murder the other brothers and sisters.
♪ ♪
Dawn believes that these children
were a liability, certainly not an asset.
This infuriates Butch. He explodes.
This is more than he bargained for.
He didn't want his siblings killed.
He only wanted the parents killed.
They get into a violent argument.
And that argument turns into a struggle.
♪ ♪
- They struggle. He knocks her out
and then shoots her in the back of the head.
♪ ♪
- Now, whether Dawn was involved
in these murders or not
really has no influence
about what the Lutz family went through.
♪ ♪
The bottom line, six people got murdered there.
Whether Butch was the primary shooter
or Dawn was the shooter really makes no difference.
Fishburne: But what about the two other friends
he claims were there that night?
♪ ♪
Were they involved in the massacre?
♪ ♪
[cell door clangs]
Fishburne: Butch DeFeo's jailhouse confession
of an accomplice to his family's murder
throws a twist into the case
of the "Amityville Horror."
♪ ♪
- For 25 years, people believed
Butch was the lone gunman
in these multiple murders.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: In 2000, Butch reveals
his sister Dawn was the mastermind
behind the murders.
- We know that Butch kills Dawn,
so we know that it's not her
that's coming back and tormenting the Lutzes.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: However, according to Butch's
written affidavit,
there may be yet another unknown killer.
♪ ♪
- Butch mentions two friends
that he brought along as lookouts,
but as soon as there's gunfire,
they panic, they leave,
and he never mentioned them committing any violence.
Butch mentions something curious
in a letter.
"It was cold-blooded murder, period.
"No ghosts, no demons, just three people,
of which I was one."
♪ ♪
So he says there's three people.
We know there's two, Butch and Dawn,
but who is this mysterious third person?
♪ ♪
Butch never names this third person.
Nobody follows up. They chalk it up
to the ramblings of someone
who's been in prison 20 years,
maybe looking for a reduced sentence,
or somebody just looking for attention.
♪ ♪
Ronnie was running
through every possible scenario
he could in his mind
to deflect away from the fact
that he had committed these murders.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Butch dies in March of 2021,
taking any further details of a possible third killer
to his grave.
♪ ♪
But some are convinced that this is the key
to the Amityville hauntings.
♪ ♪
- Besides Butch's letter,
there are a couple of other things
that indicate that there is
another accomplice on the loose.
The first thing happens at the time of the trial.
Louise DeFeo's father
hires a private investigator
to look into the idea of there being
more than one killer.
♪ ♪
- The house is very big.
It's three stories.
The people that were murdered
were spread out throughout the house.
And so for someone to move around deliberately,
firing a rifle, which is very loud,
could seem very puzzling to people.
Why didn't somebody get up?
Why didn't they get out of bed?
Why didn't they flee? Why didn't they hide?
I can understand how some people
have difficulty believing
that this was a single suspect
killing all these folks.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: The private investigator
also presents evidence
that two guns may have been used in the murders.
- During the investigation,
there is physical evidence called powder burns.
And on Dawn's body, there were powder burns
that some experts believe
did not match what the murder weapon would be.
And that there were some theories
that there could very well be
a second murder weapon
based on the powder burn evidence
on Dawn's person.
Fishburne: But at the scene,
detectives only find Butch's .35-caliber Marlin...
♪ ♪
That is, until 2011,
when a Long Island dive team goes searching
in a canal near the Amityville house.
♪ ♪
- Divers are following up on a documentary
and the multiple killers theory.
They fish out an old revolver in the canal behind the house
that could easily have been dumped
by somebody fleeing the murder scene.
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Police try to collect evidence
from the handgun,
but time and the elements
have erased it.
The answer to who or what
lies behind the Amityville horrors
remains just out of reach.
- I think it's possible
that Butch and Dawn had help,
especially since no one else
was arrested in the case.
[gunshots]
And if that's true,
is that other person still out there?
Is that who was tormenting the Lutzes?
Will they be back for another haunting?
♪ ♪
Fishburne: Supernatural or not, one thing is certain:
the Amityville house has experienced
incredible tragedy.
And while this story has captivated
more than three generations,
none of the four families
who've owned the house after the Lutzes
have reported any paranormal activity...
♪ ♪
Yet.
♪ ♪
I'm Lawrence Fishburne.
Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."
♪ ♪