The Amityville Horror - Scare or scam?

Just over a year after Ronald DeFeo had slaughtered six members of his family, newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz moved into 112 Ocean Avenue with her three young children.
They had been warned about the house's horrific history before they sunk their life savings into it, but decided that a $80,000 seafront suburban sanctuary was too good to pass up. They even kept a lot of the DeFeo's furniture.
Within days their dream home became a nightmare as the "possessed" seafront property became a battleground between the Lutz family and their unwanted house guests.
Speaking after the event the Lutzes claim that they were subjected to eerie sightings, screams in the middle of the night and even physical encounters with spirits.
The chain of events began when Father Pecararo, a family friend, went to bless the house as they unpacked their belongings.
While in the former bedroom of the two youngest DeFeo victim's the Catholic priest heard a croaking, disembodied voice tell him to "Get Out" and hurried from the room.
The next morning he telephoned Kathy to warn her to stay out of her sewing room, but the phonecall was cut dead and the priest suffered burning on his hands similar to stigmata.
Soon the haunting became more disturbing.
The house became infested with flies in the middle of winter, locks and doors began to swing from their hinges, green slime ran down the walls of the hallway, and a crucifix in one of the bedrooms began to rotate and give off a strong smell.
Each member of the family began to experience strange sensations.
Kathy had vivid nightmares about the DeFeo murders, and could feel herself being embraced in the middle of the night by a spirit.
George began to wake at 3.15am, the exact time of the shootings, and walk down to the boathouse.
The children would sleep on their bellies, the way each of the DeFeo victims had been discovered.
Missy, the couple's youngest daughter, befriended an imaginary demonic pig like creature called Jodie, which was seen at one of the bedroom windows by George on one of his nightly trips to the boathouse.
Even the dog became spooked, as Kathy discovered a mysterious "red room" behind a wall in the basement which did not feature in the building's design plans and frightened their dog, convincing the family to call in help.
Finally George became convinced that he resembled Ronald DeFeo Jr and saw his wife age to a 90-year-old toothless crone before his eyes.
The family, fearing for their lives, fled the house just 28 days after moving in.
They met with William Weber, Ronald Defeo Jr's defence attorney and recounted their experience, before turning to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren to verify their story.
When the Warren's secret footage of the house showed a ghostly child in the entrance to an upstairs bedroom the world stood aghast, and the Lutzes were persuaded by a publisher to sell their story.
Jay Anson's The Amityville Horror became one of the biggest selling non-fiction books of 1977, and two years later became a huge movie hit for James Brolin and Rod Steiger.
But should that book have been sitting on the fiction shelves all along.

George and Kathy Lutz were initially shy about talking to the media following their horrifying experience.
After their initial meeting with Weber they chose not to pursue a working relationship with him or with "vampirologist" and parapsychologist Dr Stephen Kaplan.
Instead they called in Ed and Lorraine Warren, a couple with a track record of investigating haunted houses, who confirmed through a series of seances, psychic encounters and video recording that the house was "the most haunted" they had ever encountered.
Ed experienced a strange presence in the cellar, Lorraine felt evil all around her, and both had to be convinced to go back to the house by George and Kathy Lutz.
A local news crew were on hand to cover the investigation, and the story quickly spread about George and Kathy's terrifying ordeal.
After signing their book deal and telling the story to documentary film-maker Jay Anson, the couple received almost $4 million in exchange for the rights to the tale.
Their story began to be challenged by first Weber, who claimed he had discussed the idea of making money out of the tale over a couple of bottles of wine with the Lutzes when they first approached him, and later by Kaplan, who claimed the entire hoax was based on lies and false accounts of life inside 112 Ocean Avenue.
Weber says he was the one who came up with many of the scenarios in the movie and the book, and has settled a claim out of court with George Lutz over his role in the story.
Kaplan spent 20 years investigating the case, but his book The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, was not released until after he suffered a fatal heart attack.
The Lutzes are now dead too, but they went to their graves maintaining that their story was the truth, and that, allowing for a little artistic licence, they really did suffer a horror haunting in Amityville.

- The Lutz family never once called the police during their 28 day ordeal.

- The Cromarty family who purchased 112 Ocean Avenue after the Lutzes lived there for a decade with no paranormal experiences whatsoever.

- It is alleged by neighbours that George Lutz returned to the house for a garage sale the day after fleeing in terror.

- George Lutz had taken out a hefty mortgage, which was fully paid off by the profits from the horror story. They made at least $4 million from the ensuing book deal and movie franchise.

- Weber has "confessed" to concocting the story with the Lutzes over a couple of bottles of wine.

- Claims that the possession was caused by a nearby ancient Indian burial ground have been dismissed by native American historians.

- The house had been totally abandoned when the Warrens went to investigate, the Lutz family had literally fled in the night.

- The priest who blessed the house has given evidence under oath that a disembodies voice did tell him to "get out" as he spread holy water and that he felt a slap in the face when he stood in the sewing room.

- A photograph showing a boy in a room doorway wearing pyjamas similar to Marc DeFeo has never been fully explained.

- Both George and Kathy Lutz have passed a lie detector test about their experiences at the Amityville horror house.

- Kaplan and Weber were both embittered by not getting a share of the profits from the story, so were left with little option but to decry it as a hoax.

- There was no guarantee that the story would become the global phenomenon that it has. Risking his life savings on abandoning the house was not a standard business strategy, George Lutz could not have known he would make millions.

We will probably never know how much of the Amityville story is true and how much was sexed up for the book and movie which followed. It seems clear that something unusual happened in that house, and that its tragic past had a deep effect on the Lutz family. The fact that others have lived there since with no worries suggests whatever this "possession" was, it is long gone now. An ocean view property for $800,000 may just be a steal in today's market - but then again, that's what George and Kathy Lutz thought.