Family Learns Strange ‘Odor’ Detected In Their House Is Actually An Ominous Sign

The Lutz family had never dreamed of living in such a big house, let alone one with a heated swimming pool, a finished basement, and waterfront access. But there was something about the beautiful colonial home that seemed to call to them. So, they happily moved in... only to flee just 28 days later. And now, we may finally know what happened to the Lutzes when they braved life in the Amityville Horror house.

112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville

Once, the windows of 112 Ocean Avenue were an unusual shape — almost triangular. When the lights were on, they looked like eerie eyes peering down at the street below. And back in the ’70s, these windows captivated the nation. For good reason, too, as unspeakable horrors had occurred right behind them.

Ronald DeFeo, Jr.

Before the house skyrocketed to fame in the late ’70s, it was where the DeFeo family lived. But according to oldest son Ronald DeFeo Jr., it wasn’t a happy home. He claimed that his father had routinely abused him, and that the only way he could endure the torment was by drinking and doing drugs.

November 13, 1974

Then again, DeFeo Jr. wasn’t exactly known for his dependability. He reportedly had trouble holding down his job, and he grew increasingly violent towards his father. Given his erratic behavior, then, it wouldn’t have been that unusual when he didn’t come home on November 13, 1974.

He screamed bloody murder

What was unusual, though, was what happened the next morning. At 6:30 a.m., DeFeo Jr. burst through the doors of a bar — the one he’d only left a few hours earlier — and started screaming, well, bloody murder. “You got to help me! I think my mother and father are shot!” he apparently shouted. But he was leaving out some crucial details.

3:15 a.m.

At 3:15 a.m., DeFeo Jr. had returned home, grabbed his rifle, and murdered all six members of his family. Then, after he was arrested, he claimed that a mob hitman was the guilty party. But that was just one version of the story. As it turns out, DeFeo Jr. had other alibis up his sleeve.

Hearing evil voices

At one point, the murderer said, evil voices had forced him to kill his entire family. Ultimately, though, his insanity plea was disputed by a psychiatrist. And the prosecution claimed that DeFeo committed the murders simply because he wanted to — though this has also been disputed over the years. 

A house of horrors

Regardless of why DeFeo Jr. committed such atrocities, the public held on to one claim in particular: the evil voices. What if there really was an otherworldly presence in the home, something that had controlled DeFeo Jr.’s behavior? Soon, the Amityville home would become a house of horrors — both real and supernatural.

Back on the market

With DeFeo Jr. serving six sentences of 25 years to life, the house was also put on the market. Even given its grisly past, it was a real beauty. The three-story Dutch Colonial building was located right on the canal. It even had a boathouse. And because of the murders, the price was slashed to a mere $80,000.

George and Kathy Lutz

It was a great deal, and it caught the eye of couple George and Kathy Lutz. Despite its history, the house was spacious and in a great location. There were those unique windows, too. So, the Lutzes bought the home — only to run away from it a month later.

A terrible shock

According to the Lutzes, the paranormal activity began almost immediately upon them moving in. Though the house’s horrific history didn’t stop the couple from buying it, they did try to have the home blessed by a priest — “try” being the operative word. When the priest entered the sewing room, you see, he had a terrible shock.

“Get out!”

George later alleged that the priest was slapped by an invisible presence. He also claimed that a disembodied voice shouted to “get out” — which the priest did, and quickly. Before he left, though, he warned the Lutz family to never, ever go to sleep in that part of the house.

The house’s sinister history

Needless to say, the Lutzes didn’t exactly feel welcomed in their new home. As much as they tried to move on from the house’s history, it was hard to ignore the rumors of evil voices and random acts of violence. And soon after the family moved in, the activity began in earnest. Cabinets started shutting on their own. Weird noises could be heard. It was all too bizarre for words.

An unnatural cold

“There were sounds,” George Lutz said to ABC News in 2006. “The front door would slam shut in the middle of the night.” The temperature in the house was odd, too, despite the heater working normally. “I couldn’t get warm in the house for many days,” George added. An unnatural freezing cold settled in the home — one that no doubt left the family on edge.

The paranormal activity escalated

To make matters worse, the home would be filled with an awful stench at random moments. “There were... odors that came and went,” George described to ABC News. But soon enough, cold spots and bad smells became the least of the family’s worries. The doors went from being slammed to being completely ripped off their hinges.

Coincidence?

According to the Lutzes, a disgusting slimy substance would also leak from the keyholes and the walls. Most alarming, though, were the nights when George would jolt awake, look at the clock, and see that it was exactly 3:15 in the morning — pretty much the same time DeFeo Jr. had murdered his entire family in cold blood.

A sudden transformation

But this wasn’t the strangest occurrence in the Amityville home — or so George claimed, anyway. He alleged that he woke up one night to find that Kathy had taken on the appearance of an elderly woman. This actually happened on a few occasions, the Lutzes said.

Paralyzed

Then there was the time — according to George, at least — when his kids’ beds were violently “slamming up and down.” But after the dad rushed to the rescue, he found himself powerless. Somehow, he had been paralyzed by an unseen presence.

What’s fact and what’s fiction?

The Lutz family claimed to have experienced other paranormal phenomena, though the validity of these claims has become muddled over time. It’s said, for example, that George witnessed what appeared to be a pig with glowing red eyes watching through an upstairs window. But this may have been fabricated for pop culture’s sake.

Enough is enough

Then, of course, there’s the hair-raising photo of the alleged “ghost boy” terrorizing the Amityville home. Whatever’s true, though, it’s no surprise that the Lutz family eventually had enough. They were apparently so eager to leave the house, in fact, that they ditched their clothes, food, and furniture.

Was it haunted?

And when news of the Lutzes’ experiences first became public, people were enthralled. The home already had a horrible reputation as the scene of a grisly crime, and now DeFeo Jr.’s claims that evil voices had forced him to kill his family started to sound more believable. Was the Amityville house really haunted?

In search of an answer

The mysticism surrounding the house made it difficult to separate fact from fiction. 112 Ocean Avenue became one of the most famous locations in the U.S., and a news crew ultimately visited the home in hopes of finding answers.

Confirmed by psychics

During one visit about two months after the Lutz family left, psychics claimed that there was indeed a demonic presence in the home. This only made the house more famous — or infamous. Then the Lutzes told their story to Jay Anson, who wrote the hit book The Amityville Horror.

$300,000 later...

The success of the book and 1979 film based on their story made the Lutzes approximately $300,000 richer. But that cash was a double-edged sword. You see, when the public learned of the money the couple had made from the supposed haunting, doubts started to set in. George and Kathy insisted that they were telling the truth, however. They even went through a polygraph test to prove it.

The truth comes out

George and Kathy both ended up passing the test, but that didn’t stop people from digging into the couple’s past. And unsavory details about the Lutz family slowly but surely came to light. They were in deep debt when the Amityville house appeared on the market, and buying it at a price above their means hadn’t helped.

George tried to talk to the dead

Then there was George’s supposed obsession with the occult. According to his stepson Christopher Quaratino — who was seven years old at the time of the alleged haunting — George was fascinated by the supernatural, and he had tried to contact spirits and demons.

“Fingers should be pointed”

And yet Christopher claimed that the hauntings really did happen — just not in the way his stepfather and Hollywood would have you believe. “He points his finger at the house and says there’s something evil there,” Christopher told The Seattle Times of his stepfather. “Fingers should be pointed at what he had done... He’s a perpetrator and an instigator.”

A witness confirmed paranormal activity

Yes, Christopher maintained that the family really did have paranormal encounters in the Amityville house. But he insisted that this started because of George’s dabbling in the occult — not because of the home’s history. And the experiences they did have did not include slime, doors being wrenched off their hinges, or evil pig creatures.

The lawyer opens up

The Lutzes’ financial situation at the time of the “hauntings” couldn’t be denied, either. That all made some people think that George and Kathy had simply fabricated their story in order to make money. Even their lawyer admitted years later that some of the tales were lies.

Who to believe?

“We took real-life incidents and transposed them,” William Weber supposedly said back in 1988. All it took, he claimed, was a few bottles of wine and some creative thinking to get the story rolling. “In other words, it was a hoax,” he added. But until he passed away in 2006, George always insisted that he was telling the truth.

The real horror

And over the last 40 years, the Amityville house has switched hands quite a few times — perhaps more often than is typical for a home in such a prime location. It could be the property taxes scaring people away, though, and not ghostly little boys and evil voices.

The mystery remains

The house’s more recent owners have never reported any paranormal activity, but that may be in an effort to curb the publicity the area is still bombarded with to this day. Yet while the mysteries surrounding the house are just that — mysteries — we do know one thing.

The site of a tragedy

An entire family really was murdered within the house’s walls. And some say that an extremely traumatic event can leave an invisible residue, like a stain or persistent odor, behind. If this is true, then maybe there is something lurking behind those windows. After all, it has happened before — and been caught on tape.