Amityville: Inside the Case that Rattled a Seasoned Paranormal Investigator

"Evil. It’s the personification of evil," Lorraine Warren told CNN in 2005 when she was asked what it was like to go into the so-called Amityville Horror House back in 1976.

Lorraine and her husband, Ed Warren, founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952 and started a paranormal investigations operation that continued for more than 50 years and spanned across the globe. Several of those cases went on to spawn horror movies such as "The Conjuring," "Annabelle," and "The Amityville Horror" — all of which were based on true stories.

The Real Amityville Horror

The horror in Amityville, Long Island began just before Thanksgiving in 1974. The home at 112 Ocean Avenue was occupied by the DeFeo family. The oldest son, Ronald, was 23 when he shot and killed both his parents and his four younger siblings. He admitted to the killings at his trial in 1975, but his defense attorneys said DeFeo was insane at the time of the murders and killed his family at the direction of the voices in his head.

Ultimately, DeFeo was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to six life sentences in November 1975. He died in prison in March 2021 at the age of 69.

The house remained unoccupied between the murders and December 1975 when George and Kathy Lutz purchased the home and moved in with their young children.

28 Days of Terror

The Lutz family said they had a priest bless the home before they moved in that winter, but they still found themselves tormented from the time they arrived. In 2002, George told ABC News that the front door would slam in the middle of the night, and that an unseen force held him to the bed while he was forced to listen to his children’s beds slam up and down on the floor. The entity in the house transformed his wife into an old woman and made her levitate, he said.

Following the levitation incident, just four weeks after moving in, the Lutz family fled the property, leaving behind everything but the clothes on their backs.

The Warren Investigation

Five months after the Lutz family left, Ed and Lorraine arrived at the home to conduct an investigation into what had tormented the family. According to the Warrens’ case files, Ed was physically pushed to the ground and Lorraine felt a deep sense of something demonic in the home and was overcome with visions of the DeFeo family bodies laying on the floor. The Warrens also captured a photo of a demon child standing in the home’s basement.

They determined there were demonic forces at work in the home. The Lutz family ultimately sold the property and moved to California.

According to the New York Post, the house has had four more owners since the Lutzes left, and there have been no further reports of paranormal activity.

The case also spawned dozens of movies based on the Warrens’ investigation.