Super Happy Fun-Time!

The Amityville Horror.

It must be Halloween (almost!) because once again I’ve had to prove to some younger, impressionable library patrons that this is a hoax, a well-known urban legend, that in fact, this is an admitted hoax. So, since I can easily direct kids to my blog, I’m just going to outline the whole argument here.

First off, there were some real victims that the book starts with. The DeFeo family was a real family that was slaughtered. The only living member of the family, the eldest son, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison, where he sits to this day. The house is also a real house. Having spent my summers in Long Island at my grandmothers house as a teenager, I’ve been there. There are people living there now. A quiet family for whom life is undisturbed by paranormal thumpings, bumpings, and demonic pigs. The house looks different now, the “eye windows” are gone, replaced with very attractive shuttered square windows. And you should realize that the lots are not widely spaced. Sure, the house is quite nice, but it’s also very close to the neighbors’. You can’t look at the house and imagine all the screaming and terror going on without the neighbors seeing/hearing something.

A year after the murders the Lutz family moved in to the house and claimed that they suffered from a house possessed. But really, have you read the book? Because there are some major facts and events presented there that are so easy to refute. At the time a television crew did a piece on the house with "ghost hunters" and “psychics”. They all decided that there was a demonic spirit in the house and that it had to be exorcised. The Lutzs collaborated with the author Jay Anson on the book. And, as William Peter Blatty did when he promoted The Exorcist, Anson vouched for the truthfulness of his fantastic tale: "There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that [the Lutzes] either imagined or fabricated these events." Now, really, The Exorcist a true story? Speaking of The Exorcist, it’s no stretch of the imagination to think that perhaps Blatty’s book served as inspiration – keep in mind that it was published very shortly before all of this supposedly happened. Anson did manage to squeeze in several quasi-factoids into the book like the “vengeful native American spirits” that unfortunately didn’t actually live in that area. But you know, maybe they were visiting?

So, just a few points of the many that I choose to dispute:

First off, you need to know that William Weber, lawyer for Ronald DeFeo, Jr., admitted in 1979 that he and the Lutzes had concocted the whole story of the haunting. The story was related to Weber's defense in court. Can you believe it didn’t work? What do you have to do to get a guy off on a murder charge? (I re-read that line and thought perhaps I should make it clear that it’s sarcastic, but then realized that many of you know me and can probably imagine all the eye-rolling I’m doing as I’m typing this) Btw, he was again denied parole in 1999.

Original doors and windows that were supposedly blown out and destroyed were in surprisingly good condition. In fact, they looked completely untouched – as documented in several pictures. Maybe there’s a ghost carpenter on the premises?

In the book the Lutzs claimed to have called the police. Yet, police records show that they were never called – those ghosts, who knew they had a knack for paperwork?

Descriptions of alleged psychic events did not match either the method or details of the actual murders. And all the red-faced psychics and ghost hunters involved that didn’t have an answer when it was pointed out to them that one of the orchestrators of the hoax admitted it was made up. Ooops! And the hoofprints that surrounded the house in the snow were impossible, since weather records show that there was no snow at the time. And you know those weather geeks…what an anal bunch.

Remember the priest that was swarmed with flies and heard the disembodied voice telling him to get out? That very Father Pecoraro later stated that he never saw anything in the house.

And now, I know there are a few of you that will say, “Wait a minute! What about the fact that everyone involved in the house has died of the Amityville curse?” Well, ok, let’s examine that then (I love these imagined conversations), because you know, people die. It happens. I fail to see the significance in heart attacks, stroke, and death from old age that spans over 20 years as a curse. And you know, isn’t funny that it’s always the people who were kind of associated that died under “mysterious circumstances”? That the “Lutzs” themselves are still walking around with warm bodies kind of argues against a curse.

Really, there is far more reliable evidence that this story is complete fiction. Read the book and come to your own conclusion (HAH! Managed to get a reading plug in there!!). The fact that this alleged mystery is untrue shouldn’t allow you to get upset, just frees you up to direct your energies elsewhere.

Let the arguments begin.

Because you know, I bet the furniture was just as haunted, and the appliances as well; imagine, the Amityville Toaster! Btw, the only reason I'm able to sit at home and type all of this out is because I've taken the day off!! YAAYAAY!!! See, I and two friends have our birthdays right around the same time (September and October) and so rather than get stuff for each other we just go out and do something together and enjoy our time together. So, today we're doing a birthday lunch at Burdick's. It will be nice! And then tonight I have a Girl Scout thing so I'm going out to dinner with someone from Girl Scouts and that will be fun. So for my birthday (Saturday) I'm starting a few days early and completely screwing off.

I love this place: The Institute of Official Cheer

Did you know that a Candian Warship seized a tanker in....wait, Candada has a warship? (btw, I love Canada - it knows I'm just teasing)

Anyway, I'm off to get ready to leave the house. Tchuss!