The Lutzes (George, the father, Kathy, the mother, Kathy's three children from a previous marriage: Daniel-9, Chris-7, and Missy-5, and their guard dog Harry ) moved into 112 Ocean Avenue on December 18, 1975. They left twenty-eight days later... in terror. And I do mean LEFT- they didn't even bother to bring a change of clothes. They have absolutely refused to ever go back.

Of course, it wasn't all that bad at first. The Lutzes knew of the bad history of the house, but it didn't bother them. The broker had told them about the DeFeo murder when she first showed them the house. She was willing to be honest because she couldn't believe that anyone would want to live there, so she might as well. But to her surprise, the Lutzes were. It didn't bother the Lutz family that a previous tenant, Ronald DeFeo, had murdered his parents and four siblings in their sleep. They weren't "superstitious" people, they said. No bad luck would follow them.

Of course, the spacious accomodations, including the three story house, a boathouse, and a garage for the whopping price of $80,000 also helped. It was an offer the Lutzes couldn't refuse, and they were moved in as soon as possible, hopefully to be settled before Christmas. It only took a very short while for them to start going through some changes...

The whole family, it seemed, started going through a collective personality change. George became apathetic, preferring to sit in front of the fire instead of continuing with fixing up the house or getting things back together at his office. He methodically fed logs into the fireplace to warm the house, which had taken on an unexplained chill even though the thermostat read 75 degrees or above most of the time. Kathy became cranky and irritable, and together the parents beat their children for the first time ever in that house. The children had apparently become rowdy and disrespectful, making too much racket all the time for their parents' liking. Also, the two boys fought each other, which they had never done before. Missy started talking to "Jodie," whom Kathy assumed was just an imaginary friend. Missy was the only one who could see Jodie. Jodie told her that he was an angel, and her friend, although he took the form of a pig with red eyes when he was visible.

Then things started to get really weird. Certain rooms seemed to be worse than others. The sewing room on the second floor was especially bad. Many people got a very bad feeling when approaching it, and Kathy's sister, a former nun, even refused to go into it. There was also the mysterious appearance of a large number of flies in the room, clinging to a particular window, in the dead of winter, on Long Island. Kathy's bathroom once had an overpowering stench appear in it very suddenly, with no explainable cause. It was described as being like that of human excrement. Another smell seemed to appear out of nowhere in the house- that of a cheap perfume. It was usually associated with Kathy, and sometimes Kathy would feel a touch on her like that of a comforting woman. Sometimes the touch turned into a frightening embrace, and Kathy learned to dread the smell of the cheap cologne.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing phenomena is this- many of the Lutzes started sleeping on their stomachs, often all at the same time, although they rarely did it before they moved into the house. The DeFeos were all found in the same position, on their stomachs, after they had been shot in the back (or in the head in the case of Louise DeFeo) in their sleep.

Pretty soon, George came across some pretty interesting information about the site on which his house was built. He was trying to find out what a secret room hidden behind the wall of a basement closet in the house was for. (it was a pretty creepy place... small, maybe about the size of a small bathroom, all painted red, The Shinnecocks (a Native American group) had used that site as a place to abandon sick, old, or insane persons to let them die of exposure. A settler from long ago named John Catchum (or Ketcham) practiced witchcraft or devil worship almost on the exact site of the house. And then of course the DeFeo murder had happened in the house.

Also quite disturbing was the plight of a priest, Father Mancuso, who had tried to help the family out. He had come to bless the house, and as he started applying the holy water he heard a male voice say "GET OUT" although no one was present (at least physically). As he was driving back to his rectory, he experienced unexplained car troubles on the highway. His hood flew open and one of the doors was flung open due to the impact. Fortuately, the car stalled before he could hit anything, and he called a fellow priest to help him out. Strangely enough, the priest that helped Father Mancuso also experienced car troubles soon after. Needless to say, he got quite a bad feeling about the house and felt that the family might be in a less than ideal situation. Every time he and George Lutz would try to talk on the phone about the house, they would both be cut off by static. And the more the priest tried to warn the Lutz family, the worse he began to feel. He caught the flu a number of times, always with a high fever, and eventually broke out in painful blisters on his hands. Whatever was lurking in the house was powerful enough to act over long distances.

The attacks became more and more powerful and more and more frequent. George was waking up every night at exactly 3:15 AM, the reported time that the DeFeo murder had taken place. One night, as the Lutzes were getting ready for bed, Kathy saw a pair of red eyes staring at her from outside. When the adults went to investigate, they found the tracks of a large pig in the snow (Jodie?). Windows would be broken and doors torn almost off their hinges during storms, when the neighbors' houses suffered no damage. George saw Kathy levitate off the bed while she was asleep a number of times. Harry seemed to fall asleep even before it was dark, although before the family moved to Amityville he would be awake long into the night to be on guard.

Finally, the Lutzes decided to leave. They packed the family into the van without taking anything, but the van wouldn't start, and a fierce storm started outside. The thing inhabiting the house wouldn't let them leave yet. That night was the worst. The house was cold as ice, and the boys' beds started scraping along the floor all on their own. George became paralyzed, and Kathy seemed to be in a trance. Something with sharp hooves got onto the bed with George and started to walk all over him. Then the boys burst into their parents' room (Missy was in the bed with her parents) and screamed that a monster was in their room trying to get them. It wasn't a figment of the boys' imaginations; George could see it too- a figure dressed all in white, almost demonic, pointing at them. This time, the Lutzes ran and were able to leave. The van started and George peeled out as fast as he could, taking nothing but his family, never to return.