American Murder Houses

by Steve Lehto

  Amityville is one of those names that has taken on a secondary meaning very different from the original. Most Americans, hearing the name of the village in New York State, immediately think of the 1979 film The Amityville Horror, starring James Brolin, Margot Kidder, and Rod Steiger. The movie was based on a bestselling 1977 book of the same name by Jay Anson, which told the story of the Lutz family, driven out of a haunted house. The book’s subtitle claimed it was A True Story. Much of the story is actually fiction, but the house is real.

  While the killing of six family members is a horrific event, the DeFeo murders would be elevated to something different altogether. The slayings would be the genesis of a ghostly controversy swirling around the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, which the DeFeos had bought in 1965. Ronald DeFeo Sr. sold Buicks for a living. He and his wife, Louise, had five children: two daughters, Dawn and Allison, and three sons, Ronald Jr., Marc, and John Matthew.

  Ronald Sr. gave Butch a cushy job at his car dealership, one where he got paid even when he didn’t show up for work. The other workers didn’t mind when Butch skipped work, though, because he didn’t accomplish much when he was there. Over time, Butch’s relationship with his father deteriorated. The two argued, and one night Butch leveled a loaded shotgun at Ronald Sr. while trying to make a point. Ronald believed that Butch was not only lazy but also a thief. Their biggest fight started when Butch stole more than $20,000 from the dealership, money he was supposed to deposit at the bank. Butch took the money and told people he had been robbed but no one believed him. Butch used the money he stole to buy drugs. Shortly after that, Ronald Sr. and Butch had another ugly argument; the exchange ended with Butch yelling at his father, “You fat prick, I’ll kill you.”

  Butch told the police he was afraid the murders were a mob hit, and he even gave them the name of a man he believed might have been the killer. Soon, however, Butch’s story fell apart. The “mobster’s” alibi checked out. Worse for Butch, the gun he had used to shoot his family was a .35-caliber Marlin hunting rifle and although he had thrown it away, its box was still in his bedroom when the police searched the house. Forensic experts had identified the murder weapon as a fairly uncommon .35-caliber hunting rifle. Eventually, Butch admitted he killed his family.

  On October 14, 1975, Butch’s trial began. The prosecution noted that Butch was a user of LSD and heroin but argued that he understood his actions when he killed his family. He certainly wasn’t insane. After the killings, he had not only confessed but also led the police to the murder weapon, which was positively linked to the crimes.

  The defense, not having much to work with in the face of such overwhelming evidence, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. When he took the stand in his own defense, DeFeo attempted to convince the jury that he was, indeed, insane by acting insane on the witness stand. DeFeo claimed that he had heard the victims’ voices in his head, plotting against him. His attorney held up a photograph of DeFeo’s mother—whom he had shot and killed as she lay in bed—and asked DeFeo to identify her for the jury. He angrily responded, “I told you before and I’ll say it again. I never saw this person before in my life. I don’t know who this person is.” When shown a photograph of his father he answered, “Did I kill him? I killed them all. Yes, sir. I killed them all in self-defense.” Later, he testified, “I am God.”

  The jury didn’t buy any of it, finding him guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to six concurrent sentences of twenty-five years to life. Although the mass murder made headlines at the time, it probably would have faded from memory if an imaginative couple hadn’t bought the former DeFeo house shortly after.

  A little over a year after the murders, new owners moved into the DeFeo house, having paid $80,000 for it. On December 18, 1975, the Lutz family began what would be a short but infamous stay in the house. George Lutz, his wife, Kathleen, and three children had been told by their real estate agent of the DeFeo murders but had decided to purchase the house anyway. Just twenty-eight days after moving in, the Lutzes vacated the house.

  They claimed they had been driven out by all manner of paranormal activity that had taken place in the house. They said the walls oozed a mysterious slime, voices told them to get out, and huge swarms of insects materialized out of nowhere, in the dead of winter. A ghostly pig with glowing eyes appeared and talked to one of their children. They named the pig “Jodie.” A priest who had come to bless the house at the move-in later supposedly told the Lutzes that he had been warned by a voice to get out of the house but hadn’t bothered to tell them about it.

  It was January 14, 1976, when the Lutzes fled the house and sent movers back to retrieve their furniture. In March 1977, Jim and Barbara Cromarty bought the house from the Lutzes for $55,000 and moved in. They experienced no paranormal activity and said that they found no evidence of slime, ghostly pigs with glow-in-the-dark eyes, or any of the damage the Lutzes had claimed had been caused by supernatural entities.

  A writer named Jay Anson met the Lutzes and agreed to write a book about their experience in the DeFeo murder house. In September 1977, The Amityville Horror: A True Story was published. The book recounted the bizarre story of the Lutzes being driven from the DeFeo house. The book went on to sell more than ten million copies and was twice adapted for films that spawned numerous sequels. Dozens of books and television shows have been based on some aspect of the story.

  The book that started it all, The Amityville Horror: A True Story, listed the Lutzes as co-authors. Its introduction also stated that the Lutzes had “cut off all communication with the media, feeling that too much was being overstated and exaggerated.” Of course, the book thrust the Lutzes into the spotlight in a manner unlike anything that had happened to them before the book was published, and they were soon doing the talk show circuit, telling interviewers about their brush with ghosts and supernatural slime. It is hard to imagine any part of their story being more overstated or exaggerated than their own telling of it.

  In later years, various skeptics would comb through the book and note many discrepancies between the story and the known facts or events that could be double-checked. For example, the Lutzes claimed to have called the police during their hauntings; the police had no records of any calls. The priest who was said to have witnessed evil doings at the house denied having seen any such thing. He said he had never heard the voice telling him to “get out!” and he had never told the Lutzes that he had. And to cap it off, William Weber, the attorney who had represented Butch DeFeo in his murder trial, told People magazine that the entire story was a fabrication. “I know this book’s a hoax. We created this horror story over many bottles of wine.” Weber said he had introduced the Lutzes to the writer who would turn their story into a bestseller. There are still believers out there, some of whom are convinced that Weber is only disavowing the story because he wasn’t cut in on the profits from the story. There is at least one book debunking the story: The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, by Stephen Kaplan.

  Meanwhile, the Cromartys—who had bought the house from the Lutzes—had to deal with the attention paid to the house by people who had read the book or seen the movie. “Nothing weird ever happened, except for people coming by because of the book and the movie,” James Cromarty later said. After living in the house for a decade, the Cromartys sold the house to Peter and Jeanne O’Neill, who also lived in the house for ten years. Jeanne said, “I loved it. It was a beautiful home.” When the O’Neills sold it in 1997, they got $310,000 for it.

  What confuses some visitors to the house is that it does not look like the one in the film. The Amityville Horror filmmakers used a house a hundred miles away in Toms River, New Jersey, to shoot their film, and that house has its own problems. The house sits at 100 Terrace Avenue, at the corner of Terrace and Lowell. In 2012, its owner was renting it and the tenants claimed the house was haunted. They sued their landlord to break the lease, and the landlord filed a countersuit against the tenants. He argued that unfounded “haunted
house” claims amounted to defamation and would devalue the property. The renters appeared on Good Morning America to explain how the house that played the role of a haunted house in a movie was, itself, also haunted now. The producers of The People’s Court offered to let the litigants appear on their show to settle the dispute in the most appropriate fashion: in front of a television audience. The parties agreed to appear. After hearing evidence that included tape recordings made by the tenants, the court ruled in favor of the landlord. The house that played the role of the Amityville Horror house in the movies was not actually haunted and the tenants had to pay their rent.

  Regardless of the Lutz claims, the Amityville house once owned by the DeFeo family was the site of a gruesome mass murder. The DeFeo house is described as Dutch Colonial revival and was built in 1927. It has five bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a detached garage. It is about 3,600 square feet and sits sideways on a quarter-acre lot with one boundary being the Amityville River. The address has been changed in an attempt to discourage people from looking for the house. Major portions of the exterior of the house have also been remodeled. In 2010, it was reportedly sold for $950,000. A recent property listing called the house “legendary” but did not mention its murderous past. The house is privately owned.

  *Steven R. Weisman, “Accused in Family’s Murder, DeFeo Implicated in $19,000 Theft,” New York Times, November 17, 1974.

  America’s Worst Family Mass Murderer

  JAMES RUPPERT

  1975

  635 Minor Avenue

  Hamilton, Ohio 45015

  On Easter Sunday, 1975, forty-one-year-old James Ruppert was hungover and still in bed when his brother, sister-in-law, and their eight children arrived at the tiny house he shared with his mother, Charity, in Hamilton, Ohio. James and his brother were polar opposites; while James was unemployed and a loner, his older brother, Leonard, had a career and a large, happy family. When the children came in for lunch, James dragged himself out of bed. Seeming unaware of the holiday festivities, James told his brother he was going to do a little target shooting and brought out three handguns and a rifle.

  James Ruppert’s vehicle at the time was an old Volkswagen and he had recently been having engine problems with it. While many people would have thought the difficulties resulted from a lack of maintenance on an old vehicle, James had told a psychiatrist that he believed his older brother had been secretly sabotaging the vehicle when he wasn’t around. He couldn’t prove it and he had never seen Leonard harming the car, but he was certain of it. James Ruppert blamed his brother for most of the problems he encountered in his life. When Ruppert came into the kitchen, his brother Leonard asked him about the VW, “How’s your Volkswagen, Jimmie?”

  James Ruppert snapped. He responded to the question by shooting his brother. He then shot his mother and sister-in-law. He shot a nephew and two nieces in the kitchen as well, before going into the living room and shooting the other five children, a niece and four nephews. All eleven died of gunshot wounds. The children ranged in age from four to seventeen.

  The shooting lasted only five minutes. In all, Ruppert fired more than thirty shots. He then changed his clothing and stayed in the house for three hours before calling the police. “There’s been a shooting here,” he was reported to have said. When asked to clarify he simply said, “There are bodies in the house.” He then went and sat by the front door, waiting for police officers to arrive.

  Ruppert’s brief spree was the worst American mass murder to involve a single family. At barely one thousand square feet, Charity’s house is perhaps the smallest to make the list of infamous American murder houses. The cramped quarters may have even fueled some of the friction between mother and son.

  James Ruppert was born in 1934 and had a troubled life. His father died when he was twelve and he had an older brother with whom he always felt competitive. While his brother, Leonard, found a good job working at General Electric, Ruppert never attained success. He briefly studied drafting in college but dropped out after struggling with grades. He also had trouble with women. Meanwhile, Leonard married Ruppert’s ex-girlfriend and fathered eight children, certainly another source of the resentment he felt toward him.

  Ruppert had trouble keeping jobs and drank to excess. When unemployed, he divided his time between his mother’s house and local bars. Ruppert’s behavior began to get more eccentric over time. In 1965, a woman who worked at the local library called the police regarding a threatening phone call she had received. She recognized the caller as Ruppert because he often spent time at the library. When the police questioned him, Ruppert admitted he had made the call. The police already knew of Ruppert. He had a collection of guns and was often down at the local river, firing them off. He hadn’t hurt anyone or broken any laws yet, however. He had merely appeared on their radar, so to speak. With respect to the incident with the phone call to the library worker, law enforcement suggested he seek mental help but declined to prosecute him.

  During his questioning after the library incident, Ruppert had told the police he believed he was being watched by the FBI and that his mother and brother were somehow in league with the authorities. To the police, Ruppert appeared paranoid but not terribly dangerous. Hamilton was home to more than sixty thousand people and the police had more important crimes to deal with than prank phone calls. Ruppert was seen by psychiatrists. He told them that he was being followed by the police. Local, county, state, they were all involved in watching him, he told the doctor. They were following him and keeping tabs on him, just like the FBI. The psychiatrists continued talking to him but also concluded that he was not a threat. He was not hospitalized or medicated. It seems that Ruppert was one of those people that everyone thought was a little nuts. But was he dangerous?

  In 1975, his mother finally had enough. She had been charging him rent to stay in the home and he had fallen behind in his payments. She told James she was going to kick him out of the house unless he got caught up on the rent. Unemployed and already in debt to his brother, a depressed Ruppert saw no way to come up with the money his mother wanted. He went to a local gun dealer and asked about buying a gun silencer. The man told him that they were illegal and Ruppert would have to go elsewhere to find one. Ruppert then went down to a local river and engaged in one of his favorite pastimes, a little target practice with one of his handguns. Several people saw him firing his .357 at the river’s edge on that Easter weekend. That Saturday was Ruppert’s forty-first birthday.

  Ruppert spent the evening of his birthday drinking at a local bar and complaining about life to anyone who would listen. The bartender was a woman Ruppert often spoke to, one of few women he had much interaction with. While drinking, Ruppert said something about having a problem that needed to be “taken care of.” He mentioned his mother threatening to evict him and then he left. He came back a little while later and the bartender asked him if he had just taken care of his problem. Ruppert told her, “No, not yet.” He continued drinking there until the bar closed. The next day was when he killed his entire family.

  When the police arrived at the house with the eleven murder victims, Ruppert was cooperative and calm. Investigators inspected the scene and were shocked. Each victim had been shot twice: once through the body and then a “kill” shot through the head or heart. The police chief, prosecutor, and coroner all surveyed the scene. There was so much blood that one investigator later said that he had to be careful not to let it drip on him as he walked through the basement; the blood was seeping through the floorboards.

  The police chief told the press: “This kind of murder usually has as its motive something like sex, or greed, or jealousy. We can find none of those things here.” Upon viewing the facts of the case, most people eventually came to believe that jealousy was a factor, jealousy felt by a man with mental problems.

  Although he had called the police and made no effort to run, Ruppert was not cooperative with the prosecution once charges were filed. He faced eleven counts
of murder; his defense attorneys claimed he was insane. He awaited trial, held on a $200,000 bond. The prosecution presented the theory that Ruppert was not insane; they said he had planned the killings and turned himself in to the police specifically so he could plead insanity. Since the entire family was dead, Ruppert stood to inherit from the estates of his mother, his brother, and even the nieces and nephews. And, under Ohio law, he could inherit all of that and $300,000 of life insurance proceeds if he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Ruppert’s financial problems would finally be solved if he could pull it off. The prosecutors would pitch this theory to the jury: Ruppert’s motive was financial, pure and simple.

  Under Ohio law, Ruppert had the choice of facing a jury or a panel of three judges. While a jury had to rule unanimously, it would take only two of the three judges to vote and reach a verdict. The judges still seemed like a safer bet on a case so sure to be emotionally charged. After all, he had killed eight children, one of whom was only four years old. He opted for the judges. Three Butler County Common Pleas judges heard the evidence and arguments regarding Ruppert’s shooting rampage. His trial ended on July 3, 1975, when two of the three judges ruled that he was guilty of all eleven counts of aggravated murder and sentenced him to eleven consecutive terms of life in prison.