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Episode: Episode 610: The Amityville Horror Conspiracy

Episode 610: The Amityville Horror Conspiracy

Author: Morbid Network | Wondery
Duration: 01:39:47

Episode Shownotes

On December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz moved their family into their new house on Ocean Avenue in Amityville, NY, where, just one year earlier, Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered all six members of his family. Twenty-eight days later, the Lutz family fled the home, leaving behind all their

belongings and vowing never to return again. According to the Lutzes, their time in the house on Ocean Avenue was a nightmare of psychic attacks and demonic activity that put them in fear for their lives.The supposed experience of the Lutz family served as the basis for the iconic haunted house story, The Amityville Horror, and the countless films adapted from or inspired by the original novel. However, unlike most other stories of paranormal experiences, The Amityville Horror became a phenomenon that influenced everything from Ronald DeFeo’s criminal defense to the American public’s belief in the supernatural. Yet for all their talk of it being a genuine story of demonic activity, in the years since the publication of The Amityville Horror, a large body of evidence from skeptical evaluations to court records and interview transcripts suggest that America’s most notorious haunted house might not have been quite so haunted after all.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!!ReferencesAnsen, Jay. 1978. The Amityville Horror. New York, NY: Bantam Books.Bartholomew, Robert, and Joe Nickell. 2016. "The Amityville Hoax at 40." Skeptic Magazine 8-12.Carter, A.J. 1976. "DeFeo house: legal twist." Newsday, February 17: 3.Drehsler, Alex, and Jim Scovel. 1977. "Fact or fiction." Newsday, November 17: 188.Gelder, Lawrence Van. 1977. "A real-life horror story." New York Times, October 9: L12.Lutz v. Hoffman et al. 1979. 77-032D-T (Southern District of California ).Nickell, Joe. 2003. "Amityville: The Horror of it All." Skeptical Inquirer 13-14.Nickell, Joe. 2009. "The questionable research of Hans Holzer, dean of ghost hunters (1920-2009)." Skeptical Inquirer 5-6.Schemo, Diane Jean. 1992. "'Amityville' prisoner says movie money tained defense." New York Times, June 25: B6.Snider, Jane. 1977. "New owners call house beautiful, not haunted ." Newsday, May 13: 23.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_04
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

00:00:08 Speaker_01
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

00:00:14 Speaker_00
Kill List is a true story of how I ended up in a race against time to warn those whose lives were in danger. Follow Kill List wherever you get your podcasts.

00:00:23 Speaker_00
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00:00:33 Speaker_04
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is a sickly movie.

00:00:53 Speaker_03
This is a We Both Have COVID recording. Morbid. This episode brought to you by the Rona. This episode brought to you by germs. Yeah, so we just came off of my little mini book tour and we came home with a present. And the present was death. COVID.

00:01:16 Speaker_03
Yeah, so this is, we're recording in two separate places, which we haven't done in a long, long, long, long time.

00:01:23 Speaker_04
It's giving like pandemic 2020 days. Yeah. When I like lived with Drew. Well, I lived with you for a little bit.

00:01:29 Speaker_03
Yeah.

00:01:29 Speaker_04
But then I went to live with Drew and we had to Zoomination record. I'm working on my home office, but it's not quite done yet.

00:01:37 Speaker_03
You know, we do what we can do here. We just. We weren't going to not give you this episode. Are you kidding me? Fuck that.

00:01:45 Speaker_04
Never would we say no episode. We did wait a day. That accent was good. Sorry.

00:01:53 Speaker_03
That was good. How dare you not acknowledge that? That was really good. But we did wait a day to record it. We were going to record it yesterday, but yesterday I literally was not among the living.

00:02:05 Speaker_04
Yeah, my COVID's not bad. Like I came up positive and I was like, wow, that's weird. I feel like pretty fine.

00:02:10 Speaker_03
Yeah, you're the asymptomatic bitch.

00:02:13 Speaker_04
I've never had COVID asymptomatic, so that's cool.

00:02:15 Speaker_03
It's weird. It's weird to have an asymptomatic.

00:02:18 Speaker_04
Yeah, because I feel fine, but I'm not allowed to go anywhere.

00:02:22 Speaker_03
Yeah.

00:02:22 Speaker_04
You, on the other hand, Elena FaceTimed me yesterday, and I'm usually one to make people feel better. I think I, Mikey, it was me, Mikey, and Elena FaceTiming, and I audibly gasped when she answered. She went, oh my gosh.

00:02:38 Speaker_03
I've never seen you look so sick. I was the sickest I've ever been yesterday. I feel still terrible today, but I feel much better than I did yesterday.

00:02:48 Speaker_04
You look a million times better. When I opened the Zoom, I said, there she is. Thank God, that's the sister I know. It was scary shit we were working with yesterday.

00:02:59 Speaker_03
It was real rough. Yeah, but it's okay. But you know what? Here we are. I'm rallying. I'm in a place called space. Yeah.

00:03:08 Speaker_03
So what we what we're doing for you today is we did so I covered the DeFeo murders last time, which were horrific and terrible and tragic.

00:03:19 Speaker_03
And we gave you a little bit of the how, you know, his lawyer, William Weber, there was claiming that there was voices that were telling him to do it in the house. It's a little sneaky peeky into what was to come.

00:03:33 Speaker_03
William Weber really, he's really the mastermind behind the at least the nugget that made this happen. And today we're going to cover the Amityville horror conspiracy. Oh, man.

00:03:46 Speaker_03
It's a conspiracy because for a long, long time, it was considered true, like completely true. I grew up thinking this was like real, real as fuck. And the thing is, I think there's truths in there, but it has been exaggerated to such a degree.

00:04:07 Speaker_03
Like they didn't just go into this thinking like, let's make a crazy horror story and we'll pass it off as true. They took it into such a place that I was like, how would you ever think no one would question some of these things?

00:04:23 Speaker_04
The bleeding walls is where they lost me. Even as a young youth, I was like, I've never seen that.

00:04:29 Speaker_03
Yeah. And it's like, and what's crazier is I think we covered a case. It was like a case. Of course I can't recall where it was. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.

00:04:39 Speaker_04
The house bled. It's literally called the bleeding house. My dad sent it to me. I think it was a Patreon episode.

00:04:45 Speaker_03
Yeah. We're going to, then you know what? Maybe we'll revive it again because.

00:04:49 Speaker_04
We should.

00:04:50 Speaker_03
It's a very interesting one because that one I kind of believe.

00:04:54 Speaker_04
That actually, okay, so I said they lost me with the bleeding walls because Amityville did, but I completely believed this other couple with the bleeding walls. Because their walls were, I think they were bleeding less intensely. Yeah, I think so.

00:05:05 Speaker_04
It's all about the level of blood with which you get.

00:05:09 Speaker_03
There's a few things in this story that you just say, you took it too far. You took it too far. And in the end, we'll see what happens here. And we'll see the possible reasons for this going the way it went. But again, exactly.

00:05:24 Speaker_03
But again, I think that given what happened in this house, There's got to be something going on in there, for sure. Yeah, I'm sure there's like leftover residual bad energy. So let's start off in 1975, shall we? I love the 70s, so we fucking shall.

00:05:44 Speaker_03
Let's go. Newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz started looking for a home for themselves in Kathy's three kids from a previous marriage. Lovely. She had Daniel, who was nine years old, Christopher, seven years old, and Melissa, five years old.

00:06:00 Speaker_03
Little youths, little youths, little babies.

00:06:03 Speaker_03
George needed to stay in the Long Island area because he was the owner of a Long Island surveying company, so really that was the only criteria that was like non-negotiable was that they needed to stay in the area. Okay.

00:06:15 Speaker_03
Other than that, they really, other things they had on the list of like things they were really looking for was they really wanted to be on the water and they also needed the house to fall into their budget of $30,000 to $50,000.

00:06:28 Speaker_03
Was that a lot for back then? Yeah, like well it wasn't a lot, but it was house money back then, you know? Like that was, right now we look at that and we go, holy shit. I'm like, I don't even think you could buy like a used vehicle for that.

00:06:43 Speaker_03
No, probably not now, but in 1975 you could definitely buy a house. Get a nice waterfront property. Could you conceivably get the Amityville house? No. Yeah, no. Which is interesting. So, and again, remember that's their budget.

00:06:59 Speaker_03
$30,000 to $50,000 was where they had to stay. So by the time they decided to check out the little town of Amityville, George and Kathy had actually already seen about 60 or so homes in their price range. Damn.

00:07:11 Speaker_05
Yeah. You guys got to pick one.

00:07:14 Speaker_03
Yeah, I say this all the time because I have one of my children has my husband's inability to make a decision where they get like paralysis about deciding about things. And I always tell her, I'm like, you could look forever for the right thing.

00:07:30 Speaker_03
And you'll never find it. You'll never, because you'll always be thinking that there's something else out there that's better than this one thing that you chose. You got to make a decision and you got to stand strong in your decision.

00:07:40 Speaker_04
It's like wedding dress shopping. Once you find the one, stop looking. Stop looking. That's your best advice that you gave me.

00:07:46 Speaker_03
Yeah, because you'll always keep thinking there's something just a little bit better that you haven't seen yet.

00:07:51 Speaker_04
And if you have that mindset, you're going to just keep finding that something better, and then you're just going to drive yourself insane.

00:07:56 Speaker_03
Yeah, and you'll never be happy with what you choose.

00:07:58 Speaker_04
So it seems like that's what happened to George and Kath here.

00:08:01 Speaker_03
Yeah, I'm like, you guys got to stop. But none of these other homes were really singing to them enough for them to even consider putting in an offer. So they hadn't even put in an offer.

00:08:11 Speaker_03
Because of this, George really didn't have high hopes, wink wink, nudge nudge, because they had that sign out there that said high hopes. He didn't really have high hopes when he called the Conklin Realty office in Massapequa Park

00:08:29 Speaker_03
But the realtor on the other end of the line, Edith Evans, told George that, you know what, you're in luck because a new house just came on the market. And it is a little outside of your price range, but it really meets your other needs.

00:08:43 Speaker_03
And I think you should at least look at it. Now interesting that it's out of their price range because it seems like that was one of their like main things was they were not coming out of that budget. They really couldn't.

00:08:55 Speaker_05
Yeah.

00:08:56 Speaker_03
So like why even look at this one if it's outside of your price range? Oh sometimes it's just fun. But it's not, because you can't afford it. So it's like you're just looking at something. It's really terrible, but also fun.

00:09:07 Speaker_03
Yeah, but it's like you can't have it. So the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, does that address sound familiar from last episode? It did seem to meet the Lutz's needs, and then some, really. It was an old Dutch colonial.

00:09:23 Speaker_03
It had a massive yard, an enclosed porch with a wet bar. It had a heated swimming pool. Oh, motherfucker. right? It had more than enough room for the kids and it was on the water and even had a dock and a boathouse.

00:09:38 Speaker_03
Damn, I didn't realize it had a boathouse too. Oh yeah, the DeFeos were very, very wealthy. I guess so. Now, of course, as Edith Evans had already warned them, it was out of their price range at $80,000. Remember, Their budget is between $30 and $50.

00:09:55 Speaker_03
It's like more than double their price range. Yeah, I was like, why even bother looking at this? Yeah, that's not a great real estate agent. No, that's way outside of your price range.

00:10:06 Speaker_03
But there was no denying that it was an absolutely beautiful property and exactly what they were looking for when they set out to buy a house. So they had to consider it. All right.

00:10:16 Speaker_03
When Edith told George the price over the phone, they expected to find it, you know,

00:10:21 Speaker_03
in badly need of repair, to be honest, or have some other expensive defect, because although that was way out of their price range, it was much lower than what that house was worth. It sounds like it. Yeah, when they saw it, they were like, What?

00:10:35 Speaker_03
Like this is $80,000. It's fucking massive. It's got a boathouse. It's got all the shit.

00:10:40 Speaker_04
That's when you ask who died here.

00:10:43 Speaker_03
Exactly. Exactly. And he was even coming furnished. Wow. Oh, that's when you absolutely ask who died there. Because what's even crazier is it had been on the market for nearly a year and no one had put in offers on it.

00:10:58 Speaker_03
Okay, that's when... No, I'm just kidding. No, that's when you say... There's many red flags being thrown up here.

00:11:05 Speaker_04
It's like the TikTok guy running around with the giant red flags.

00:11:09 Speaker_03
Yes. If it seems too good to be true, it might be too good to be true.

00:11:14 Speaker_03
So when George asked about, you know, the relatively low asking price and, you know, the lack of interest for about a year on this thing, the realtor, you know what, she didn't, I got to give it to her, she didn't bother to dance around the reality of the situation.

00:11:28 Speaker_03
She wasn't like, well, you know, she was like, yeah. So in November of this year, 24, or of last year, excuse me, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr.

00:11:38 Speaker_03
had snapped one night when room by room shooting and killing all six members of his family with a .35 caliber rifle, including small children.

00:11:46 Speaker_05
Yeah.

00:11:48 Speaker_03
She was like, so that's why.

00:11:49 Speaker_04
I would have ran for the fucking hills.

00:11:52 Speaker_03
I would have gone, okay, well, we're looking at house number 62 today. Yeah, you know what?

00:11:56 Speaker_03
And she even let them know that at the trial, DeFeo's lawyer said that the young man was insane when he committed the murders and for months that he had been hearing voices in the house telling him to kill.

00:12:09 Speaker_03
And, you know, there was all the tales in the town, like, you know, everybody had their own little, like, myths and legends about the house, now that the house is what made them do it.

00:12:18 Speaker_03
Everyone in New York, and perhaps even the entire country at this point, had heard of the murders, so she was like, this, you know, this is the house. You're gonna hear about it. You definitely know the house.

00:12:30 Speaker_03
She actually, she was like, it was actually strange to her that they didn't recognize the house, because it was everywhere. And if you guys remember, the original Amityville house has those very iconic windows that look like eyes.

00:12:46 Speaker_03
They're not there anymore. The new owners have since taken them out so that it will not be as recognizable, which good for them. But yeah, she was like, you know, it's like very iconic looking house.

00:12:57 Speaker_03
I'm actually surprised that you've never seen this and that you didn't know what you were walking into, to be quite honest.

00:13:03 Speaker_03
And what's even wilder is if either of the Lutzes had been paying close attention when they walked through the house, they would have noticed there was a scarring in bullet holes that remained from the murders.

00:13:17 Speaker_04
Are you serious?

00:13:18 Speaker_03
Yeah. Fuck that. There was even some faint chalk outlines from the ongoing investigation into the murders still in the house. Yeah.

00:13:30 Speaker_04
You gotta run. And meanwhile, they're like, where do we sign?

00:13:33 Speaker_03
Yeah, like, that's it. So to Edith's complete surprise, George and Kathy insisted the Holmes' recent tragic and gruesome events, quote, weren't something that would bother them when it came to choosing a house. Which, like, OK.

00:13:49 Speaker_04
I'm like, so what does bother you? What's on your note? What's on your call list?

00:13:53 Speaker_03
What's your like boundary line? Non-negotiables. Do you have them? And here's the thing. I can understand like the new owners of this house, like the owners now.

00:14:03 Speaker_03
yeah you know so much time has gone by that's the thing i can understand there's a little bit of distance you know like it's it's history history has happened in that house it's tragic awful history but yes it's history

00:14:18 Speaker_03
But to do it within like the same year, I feel like that's like, I don't know, I feel like the energy, because you and I have said it, walking into, you know, the S.K.

00:14:27 Speaker_03
Pierce mansion and especially walking into the Lizzie Borden house, the Lizzie Borden house has an energy you can't describe. And that was how long ago? Hundreds of years ago at this point.

00:14:36 Speaker_04
hundreds yeah so it's like i don't understand how this house within that year didn't have the most dark and heavy energy i'm sure it did and i feel like it had to do you think like obviously we're gonna get there and in the story where it kind of comes out that they were big fakers do you think they were looking for something like this and they they knew about the amityville horror

00:14:59 Speaker_03
I don't even think they were looking. I think it was just a happy accident that they were able to, and I think once they, I think they knew when they went into this house what it was. Okay.

00:15:10 Speaker_03
Like, I don't think they were, they were ignorant to the fact that this was the DeFeo house.

00:15:14 Speaker_03
yeah I just like with all the news coverage and everything and having been so soon yeah and they were in New York I just don't buy it yeah they're in New York I mean come on yeah that's the thing I mean maybe I'm wrong maybe they didn't know but they definitely rolled with it that's for sure I can't say it's something I would do no but I'm huge on energy so

00:15:35 Speaker_03
Yeah. Now, they told Edith, you know, it's not a problem. They said neither of them were particularly religious. They weren't really believers in the paranormal.

00:15:44 Speaker_03
So the murders, while very tragic and upsetting, they just said it was kind of just historical fact at this point. It was like historical fact within the year.

00:15:53 Speaker_06
Yeah.

00:15:54 Speaker_03
Despite being astronomically outside of their budget, they couldn't deny that the house was a bargain for what it was. And it was exactly what they were looking for.

00:16:03 Speaker_03
So George and Kathy put in an offer at the asking price, plus they added an additional $400 for the furniture. Wow. I know, which was accepted by the seller.

00:16:14 Speaker_03
And on December 13, just weeks after Ronald DeFeo was convicted for the murder of his entire family in that house, George, Kathy, and the kids moved into the Amityville house, setting into motion a chain of events that would forever change not only the Lutzes' lives, but the entire town of Amityville,

00:16:33 Speaker_03
even today.

00:16:33 Speaker_04
I know they're probably like, fuck off.

00:16:37 Speaker_03
Yeah, Amityville is literally like, fuck you Lutzes.

00:16:39 Speaker_04
Because like we said, it's like a really nice area. It is.

00:16:42 Speaker_03
It's like a quiet coastal town. Yeah, it's a little seaside town. Like very cute, very sweet, very very cutesy cutesy. And this was not part of that vibe.

00:16:55 Speaker_03
Now, as George, Kathy, and a small collection of friends were unloading the trailer and moving things into the house, the couple's priest, Reverend Ralph Pecoraro, arrived to bless the house.

00:17:07 Speaker_04
Even though they said they weren't religious?

00:17:09 Speaker_03
Thank you. Because so neither George nor Kathy considered themselves particularly religious. They did attend church on a fairly regular basis, and the Reverend, according to them, had been helpful to them when they were getting married.

00:17:24 Speaker_03
He had been part of their whole marriage process, which to me... Is religious. If you have a priest on call, like your priest on call, you are somewhat religious.

00:17:41 Speaker_03
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but I'm like, I don't have a priest on call, and I consider myself not religious. Same. But I feel like if you've got a priest, there's a little nugget of religion in there.

00:17:52 Speaker_04
If you have one, if you have a priest on call, if a priest helped you throughout your wedding process and then a priest is coming to bless your house that you just bought.

00:17:59 Speaker_03
Yeah. Wake up, baby.

00:18:00 Speaker_04
You're religious. You're religious. And that's fine. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. Like, do you.

00:18:06 Speaker_03
It's just weird to say you're not when you very clearly are. That's part of the strangeness of the Lutzes and it gets even stranger when it comes to this priest. I bet, I bet. Yeah.

00:18:19 Speaker_03
So, you know, of course they said they were going to have their priest, even though they're not religious, come bless their new home. Like, why wouldn't they?

00:18:27 Speaker_06
Yeah, totally.

00:18:27 Speaker_03
And, you know, according to them, Reverend Pecoraro was more than happy to bless their new home. But when the day finally came,

00:18:36 Speaker_03
According to all the reports, he couldn't shake this feeling of just like yuckiness, like unease that had been with him since he'd woken up that morning.

00:18:44 Speaker_04
Well, yeah, you know that you're going to a house where a family was just brutalized. I mean, that'll do it.

00:18:49 Speaker_03
Like I would wake up feeling a little funky as well. The same. He said the feeling stuck with him through his lunch appointment with friends, but he was still there when he, you know, when they pulled in the driveway, he arrived.

00:19:01 Speaker_03
He just decided, you know, I'm going to go and I'm going to do it. So he knocked on the front door. They let him in.

00:19:07 Speaker_03
He went room to room conducting the blessing ritual, which included like, you know, flicking holy water around and, you know, uttering prayers kind of thing. Like everything we've seen of like somebody blessing something, you know. Sure.

00:19:20 Speaker_03
The ritual was one he'd conducted a billion times for parishioners over the years. Like, this is a very normal thing that people do. So he'd done it a ton of times. It was almost like muscle memory at this point, you know what I mean?

00:19:32 Speaker_03
It's a very, he knows how to do it. He's got a lot of experience. But he said this time was different because when he entered one of the rooms upstairs, which he later learned was John and Mark DeFeo's room, the one they shared together.

00:19:45 Speaker_03
he flicked the holy water, started saying the prayer, and all of a sudden from behind him, he heard a deep voice of a man clearly say, get out. I would leave.

00:19:57 Speaker_04
Yeah, I mean, I think that's very thing.

00:20:01 Speaker_03
Yeah, I think that's, I mean, this person is telling you get out. I think it's time to get out. Bye. I would leave. You don't need to ask me twice. You don't need to say it twice. So

00:20:12 Speaker_03
It startled him, so he whirled around, not knowing what to expect, but no one was there. So he was like, oh. So he left that room immediately and quickly finished blessing the other rooms of the house, because he was there to do a job.

00:20:24 Speaker_03
So he's like, I'm going to finish it. And he's like, and obviously this house needs the blessing, because that just happened. So then he all but ran downstairs towards the door. And George and Kathy thanked him for coming.

00:20:37 Speaker_03
And they were like, oh, do you want to stay for dinner? But he was like, no, thank you. I have other plans by. And he just left. The priest said, fuck that. He said, absolutely not. Good luck.

00:20:46 Speaker_03
So as they walked out to the car, the Reverend mentioned that he'd recently learned the house had been where the notorious DeFeo murders happened. And to his surprise, he said, George just said, yeah, like we knew it when we bought the house.

00:20:59 Speaker_03
Like, it's fine. He's like, that's why we figured it was such a bargain. So it worked out for us. And he was like,

00:21:07 Speaker_03
oh he said two thumbs up yeah that's totally fine we knew that so they just kind of chatted for a bit about the tragedy before pecoraro got in his car and left without telling them what had just happened in the bedroom upstairs so he didn't say it to him you gotta tell people when that shit kind of happens you gotta let him know you know just for good measure

00:21:27 Speaker_03
Now according to George and Kathy Lutz, things started happening almost immediately after they moved into the house and had it blessed.

00:21:35 Speaker_05
Okay.

00:21:35 Speaker_03
On November 19th, or excuse me, December 19th, George was woken up at 3.15 in the morning by a very loud knocking at the front door.

00:21:44 Speaker_05
Ew.

00:21:45 Speaker_03
So he was like, why the fuck is someone at our house in the middle of the night? And why are they knocking like that? And he sat there and kind of listened for a minute. And then he was like, wait, it's not coming from the front door.

00:21:56 Speaker_03
But he said it was coming from somewhere off to his left in the bedroom, like he couldn't figure it out, like somewhere else in the house. So he got out of bed and he started investigating the rooms on the second floor.

00:22:07 Speaker_03
And he assumed one of the kids was up like making noise or something. But he checked and all the kids were asleep.

00:22:14 Speaker_03
So he had just entered the sewing room, which was across from the main bedroom, which was this room, the sewing room was John and Mark DeFeo's bedroom. And he said as he was in there looking around, something outside on the lawn caught his eye.

00:22:32 Speaker_03
So from the window upstairs, George could see that something was moving outside by the boathouse. He said it looked like a person, but like also not a person. It was vaguely the shape of a man, but he couldn't tell any features. He was pretty far away.

00:22:46 Speaker_03
So he called out of the window, hey, who's there? No, call the police. And the commotion caught the attention of Harry, the family's dog, who started trailing the shadow through the yard because he was like, I'm going to fuck you up.

00:23:00 Speaker_06
Yeah.

00:23:00 Speaker_03
So George, George called out again and this time instructed Harry, go get him. But the dog was on a leash, like it was tied up, so he couldn't get as far as the figure was.

00:23:12 Speaker_03
So George went downstairs to investigate further, but after a few minutes he was like, I can't find it. Whatever it was is gone. So he tried to go back to sleep, but he honestly couldn't go back to sleep.

00:23:23 Speaker_03
He was just laying in bed worrying about whether he made a mistake buying this house, essentially.

00:23:38 Speaker_04
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00:23:50 Speaker_04
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00:24:03 Speaker_04
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00:26:02 Speaker_04
Thank you Zbiotics for sponsoring this episode and our good times. I would call the police and have them like check out the area. Thank you.

00:26:15 Speaker_03
You're welcome. This is literally when I always have issues here. At this point, I'm calling the National Guard and being like, there's a shadow figure outside of my, but like, fuck that. I'm never going back to sleep. Yeah.

00:26:26 Speaker_04
It's not happening. When that whole thing happened where it was like three or four o'clock in the morning and it was like the middle of a blizzard and I talk about it on Assembly Safe Ad if you guys listen to the ads.

00:26:36 Speaker_04
I got like a knock on the door between like three or four in the morning and it happened like consecutively until like 6 a.m. I called the fucking police. Hell yeah. And they checked out the area and they found nothing but footprints.

00:26:46 Speaker_04
How fucking terrifying is that? I hate that so much. I bought a SimpliSafe the very next day, baby. Hell yeah, fuck that shit. But yeah, like why would you not call someone?

00:26:55 Speaker_03
That's the thing, like you're not, and this is, I mean, it's 1975, so I was gonna be like, get a fucking security system. I don't know how badass they were back then, so.

00:27:03 Speaker_04
I mean, at least it's something. I mean, you have a dog.

00:27:05 Speaker_03
Did they even have them back then? At least you have a dog. Dogs will fuck people up. That's true. Especially when he was able to say, go get him, and Harry was off to business, you know. To be able to be in a place of sickum boy, I'm obsessed. Oh, yeah.

00:27:19 Speaker_03
It's the best. We already have Sid and Blanche on like, they're the sweetest pups. And then when we say, get it, they'll fuck you up. They'll get it. They're bigums. It's a nice feeling. They were going to fuck up a coyote the other night.

00:27:38 Speaker_03
I was like, don't do that. Come back in. Yeah, no, we don't need that. No, we made them come back in because we're like, do not attack a coyote. But they had zero fear. They were like, fuck that.

00:27:49 Speaker_04
That's their family. They're looking out for you.

00:27:52 Speaker_03
Those are my bitches right there, literally. Quite literally, yep. Quite literally. But when he said he just like went back upstairs and tried to go back to sleep, I was like, no.

00:28:02 Speaker_04
Also, how do you go back to sleep after that? Like, I don't know.

00:28:07 Speaker_03
And he didn't. I mean, he was definitely up all night. But it's like, you have three kids in the house. There's no way I could sleep after that. Yeah, no.

00:28:13 Speaker_03
So in the days after that, there was obvious tension that started forming in the house that Kathy couldn't explain. She said from the moment she had introduced George to her kids, because he's their stepfather, they had all gotten along very well.

00:28:28 Speaker_03
They loved him. He loved them. Since they got married, they had on their own volition started calling him dad. It was a good fit. But ever since they moved into the house, George's appreciation for the children, we'll say, had been wearing thin.

00:28:48 Speaker_03
And he'd started losing his temper with them a lot. And he'd never, ever done this before, according to Kathy. Had he lived with children before?

00:28:58 Speaker_03
he had I guess they had been together a lot like you know they had he had never lost his temper like or shown an inclination that he would lose his temper I'm like them neither did some of my stepdads until we lived with them that's so awful but well and he started referring to them as brats

00:29:16 Speaker_03
to her, which he never did. Like he never did that. I'd square the fuck up. Oh, that's that's the thing. So and then he called them misbehaved monsters who wouldn't listen. He called them unruly children who much must be severely punished. Oh, baby.

00:29:34 Speaker_03
Baby, when I tell you this man would be in fucking orbit at this point, I'd be like, get the fuck out of my family. Get the fuck out of my house. Yeah.

00:29:44 Speaker_04
I'd be like, you can go live with the shadow man. Bye.

00:29:47 Speaker_03
Yeah. You go live in the boathouse, sir. Like, see you later. Yeah. No, your kids come first. Yeah. Like, fuck that. You know that talking shit about your kids? Yeah. No.

00:29:57 Speaker_03
You know the sound it's Christopher Walken on TikTok when he says, you're talking to my guy all wrong. Do it again, I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron. That's you. That's my energy.

00:30:08 Speaker_03
So when it comes to the kids, you're talking to my guy all wrong. Now, again, though, they recognize that this was a big change in behavior. So much, it wasn't like a change like, oh, I guess he's just getting used to living with kids.

00:30:23 Speaker_03
It was like, who is this man? Like, unrecognizable. Yeah, an unrecognizable man. Even George started to notice a change in everyone's personality, especially his.

00:30:33 Speaker_03
And author Jay Anson, who wrote a book on this subject that we'll link in the show notes, he said it was not a big thing, just little bits and pieces here and there.

00:30:42 Speaker_03
So it was like, it was a big change in his personality, but it was like it would come in small bits. You know, like it wasn't an overall change. It would suddenly like start rolling out.

00:30:52 Speaker_03
Yeah Like there was that big it was like big chunks of changes I should say like a big change in his personality with the kids. So that happens all at once Okay, but nothing nothing really else. So he's still the same George other than that

00:31:05 Speaker_03
But then a few days later, he was always very meticulous when it came to his hygiene. He was a very clean man. He kept himself together. We respect that. But he stopped. Yeah.

00:31:15 Speaker_03
But then a few days later, not only is he being shitty about the kids, but now he's being shitty about the kids and irritable. And he's also not shaving or showering every day. And he would go days without going into his work, like his office.

00:31:28 Speaker_04
He's irritable, he smells bad, and he's getting lazy.

00:31:32 Speaker_03
Yes. That's no bueno. Get out of here. So before they moved in, George had planned to move his office into the house. But now that they were all moved in and unpacked, he just abandoned that plan. He just wasn't doing anything.

00:31:43 Speaker_05
Okay.

00:31:44 Speaker_03
Now George wasn't the only one experiencing strange shit in the house or like you know a change. Kathy was also starting to experience things but she was starting to see and feel things that were like off-putting.

00:31:59 Speaker_03
Now a few days before Christmas Kathy was standing in the kitchen writing out a list of gifts that they still needed to buy for people when she felt someone or something according to her come up from behind and embrace her.

00:32:12 Speaker_04
Okay, I'm not mad at it.

00:32:14 Speaker_03
Now, she wasn't startled. She said she weirdly felt comforted by the presence. Huh. And she said it seemed to reach out and take her hand very gently and gave it a soft pat like her mother used to do when she was young. Oh, wow.

00:32:29 Speaker_03
So that's kind of beautiful. I know, I'm like, was that like, you know, the mom? Maybe. Was that Mrs. DeFeo?

00:32:39 Speaker_04
Or don't some people, I don't want to get there before you do, but don't some people think that there's a portal?

00:32:46 Speaker_03
Oh yeah.

00:32:46 Speaker_04
So maybe her mom passed through or something?

00:32:49 Speaker_03
Yeah, there you go. Who knows? So the illusion though was broken by the sound of Chris calling from the other room, screaming for his mom to come upstairs.

00:33:00 Speaker_03
So the boys were in the upstairs bathroom looking down at the toilet bowl and Kathy looked in and saw that the bowl was entirely black.

00:33:08 Speaker_05
Ew.

00:33:09 Speaker_03
Like it had been painted black.

00:33:11 Speaker_05
Okay.

00:33:12 Speaker_03
Almost. Like that's how black it was. So she flushed the toilet several times, but it stayed.

00:33:17 Speaker_05
Ew.

00:33:18 Speaker_03
So she was like, I'm confused about this because I just scrubbed the bathroom a few days earlier. Everything was spotless. The toilet did not look like this. She was like, what the fuck?

00:33:27 Speaker_03
From down the hall, Kathy could hear her other son, Danny, yelling for her to come quick to the other bathroom. Danny was in the bathroom off of his parents' bedroom to get cleaning supplies to try to help clean that toilet bowl.

00:33:40 Speaker_03
But when he went inside, he saw that that one was completely black, too, and it was emitting a foul odor.

00:33:46 Speaker_04
Maybe you got a septic problem.

00:33:47 Speaker_03
That's what I'm saying. So the stench was so bad that it forced them out into the hall and they started yelling for George, who noticed the smell as soon as he got to the second floor landing. It was that bad. Gross.

00:33:59 Speaker_03
So they ran from room to room opening all the windows. But when Kathy got into the sewing room, which again was John and Mark DeFeo's bedroom, she was stunned to find that both the windows were covered with black house flies.

00:34:13 Speaker_04
I would vomit.

00:34:14 Speaker_03
And it wasn't like a few flies. It was like covered. Ew. Now, it's not crazy for a New England home to have problems with flies. Yeah. Like, we all can confirm that. We all get flies.

00:34:27 Speaker_03
Even if you're the cleanest house in the world during the summer, you're gonna get flies. But not that many.

00:34:33 Speaker_04
Not to like cover all your windows.

00:34:35 Speaker_03
Well, and also, remember, this is the dead of winter. Oh, right, this is December, right? You shouldn't be having a problem with flies. They're pretty dormant in the winter. And like, dead. Yeah, like, and dead. And like, not alive. Yeah.

00:34:51 Speaker_03
So things escalated from there. Within a few days, five-year-old Melissa began frequently mentioning that she had a new friend named Jody. And Kathy asked her daughter one afternoon, is that one of your new dolls? And she said, no, Jody's a pig.

00:35:07 Speaker_03
He's my friend. No one can see him but me.

00:35:11 Speaker_04
the way my entire body just got covered in goosebumps. That's when you throw the whole kid away. You say, you know what? You are such a little sweetheart, but we have two others who are also pretty great, so I gotta give you the boot, babe.

00:35:23 Speaker_03
You know what? You've ran out your welcome here. So one evening, as George was putting Melissa to bed, she started talking about Jodi. And George was like, oh, okay, where did your friend go? And she said, he'll be right back.

00:35:37 Speaker_03
He had to go outside for a minute. So like Kathy, George was assuming that Jodi, you know, was Melissa's new imaginary friend, which is an alarming for kids to create, especially at that age.

00:35:49 Speaker_03
And they'll get very like serious about their imaginary friends. They'll tell you where they are, what they're doing. Like you're sitting on my new friend, you know, like that kind of thing.

00:35:59 Speaker_04
Luke Skywalker back in the day.

00:36:01 Speaker_03
My boy. Yeah, your boy, exactly. Naughty Martha. I had naughty Martha who did all the things that I did. That you did not do. But that's, so it's like, it's weird and alarming when it happens, but also not because you're like, this is a kid thing.

00:36:17 Speaker_04
It's a very normal stage of development.

00:36:19 Speaker_03
Yeah. So at this point, George and Kathy are both thinking that Jodi's a new pig friend that she's got. Sure. But that night, after he tucked her into bed, Melissa all of a sudden said, there he is, Daddy, and pointed towards the window.

00:36:32 Speaker_03
And he was like, oh, OK. So he's like, I'm going to look. So when he turns to look, he said he saw two fiery red eyes staring at him through the second floor window. Bye. Bye. And she said, that's Jody. He wants to come in.

00:36:48 Speaker_03
I'd say he has to sleep outside tonight, unfortunately. Yeah, he has to sleep outside forever. Eternity. That's just weird. Yeah, he's a pig. He likes it out there. Yeah. And she was not afraid of Jodi. That's the thing. Like there was no fear.

00:37:03 Speaker_03
She was excited. Well, kids learn to be afraid. There's Jodi.

00:37:06 Speaker_04
That's the thing.

00:37:07 Speaker_03
Yeah. There's my boy Jodi. Yeah. My little pig friend. He wants to come in. Let my guy in.

00:37:13 Speaker_04
Let's go.

00:37:14 Speaker_03
Let my guy in. You're talking to my guy all wrong. So he was like, okay, no. So he was like, I'm going to say goodnight. He'll find his way in, I guess. Bye.

00:37:24 Speaker_03
So over the course of their time in the house, the attacks on the Lutzes, you know, went from unseen forces. And then all of a sudden, and that you can almost like believe that there was energy.

00:37:39 Speaker_03
there was energy that maybe they were hearing things, maybe you could see something out of the corner of your eye, like that kind of thing. If they had just stuck with that, I would have been like, probably. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent.

00:37:49 Speaker_03
Like I probably would have believed that. Yes. But then it started, and even this, it like the ephemeral stuff, like going from like smelling foul odors kind of thing. Like I, even that I can get.

00:37:59 Speaker_04
I believe in that because I feel like there's like science behind that.

00:38:02 Speaker_03
Yeah, and it's like, you can even go with the infestation of flies and the disembodied voices, that kind of stuff. You're like, I believe that that could have probably happened. And then it started getting physically assaultive.

00:38:16 Speaker_03
And this is where I'm out. This is where I get. And it's not because I don't believe that you can be physically assaulted. In the way that they were. Okay. I don't know though.

00:38:28 Speaker_04
So I don't know a lot about the ways that they were physically assaulted. I know like the big things in the case, like the bleeding walls and the flies and the priest and all that.

00:38:36 Speaker_04
I told I agree with you I believe you could be physically assaulted but I'm interested to hear how they were.

00:38:43 Speaker_03
So one evening everyone's asleep and they claim to have been woken up by knocking sounds that quickly escalated to the point that it was so crazy that the windows cracked and the doors were blown off the hinges. Okay.

00:38:59 Speaker_04
Unless it's a hurricane. I don't know if I believe you.

00:39:02 Speaker_03
Yeah, like Lutz's you really had me going for a minute there. You lost me here.

00:39:10 Speaker_04
It's the windows cracking.

00:39:12 Speaker_03
I would believe that a door got blown open because like I've seen that shit. Oh, no, it didn't get blown open. It got blown off the hinges.

00:39:20 Speaker_04
Oh, sorry. Bye. No.

00:39:21 Speaker_03
Yeah. Like, oh, you tell me a door got blown open? For sure. Yes. Absolutely. Off the hinges. Blown off the hinges? No hurricane in sight? No. Nah. Yeah. So also, so that happened. And then

00:39:38 Speaker_03
even though George is slowly sinking into becoming a feral human being at this point, he's also finding himself constantly freezing in the house, like could not get warm, and he would spend hours every day just sitting in front of the fire trying to get warm.

00:39:54 Speaker_04
I don't like that at all.

00:39:56 Speaker_03
Yeah, so This next one is the one where I say, well, if the door is blown off the hinges and the windows cracking didn't make you go, huh, then I feel like this one probably should. Okay, let's go, girls.

00:40:10 Speaker_03
So, one night in January, when they were sleeping, Kathy and George, you know, were suddenly woken up because Kathy was lifted off the bed by an unseen force, and George watched her be carried off into the direction

00:40:27 Speaker_03
she can't even get through it she said she said i'm not there i'm just picturing watching john be like bye oh no that's silly that's silly goo shit i just can't so she got carried off in the direction of the closet in the closet they had not found a use for this closet apparently yet

00:40:57 Speaker_03
It's a closet in there, I don't know you should use it as a closet put your shoes in there, I guess So, oh, I'm crying. Um, so I don't know what happened here. Apparently she's got it. She got

00:41:12 Speaker_03
carried off to the closet and the next day, so apparently they dropped her and she was fine. The next day, George went over to investigate said closet because his wife was carried off into the wild blue yonder over there.

00:41:28 Speaker_03
So he was like, I should see what's going on over there.

00:41:31 Speaker_04
I love that there's no additional detail of that night. She got carried over to the closet and then the next morning he went to check it out. I'm like, what about the in-between time? Did she get up off the floor? Did you help her?

00:41:43 Speaker_04
Did you stay the night there? Did she get picked up again? They did. Was she yelling? I need so much more detail. They stayed the night there. Was she scared? Was she crying? I would cry probably. I would cry.

00:41:55 Speaker_04
Did you just go back into your bed after that and you're like, whoa, that was crazy. What a ride. Hello?

00:42:01 Speaker_06
I'm crying.

00:42:04 Speaker_04
I was watching Scooby-Doo last night and that is giving major Scooby-Doo vibes.

00:42:11 Speaker_03
All I want to hear is them pulling the mask off of somebody in the closet. You meddling kids. Or just when they run really quickly. I want to hear that with the vision of Kathy being pulled away.

00:42:25 Speaker_03
That for some reason the vision of that just like sent me. No that's good. I could not stop laughing. That's good shit.

00:42:31 Speaker_03
And he goes and investigates the closet and he found that just beyond it was a hidden room that didn't appear on any of the plans or blueprints that he'd seen when he'd went to the Amityville Historical Society. I would be over the moon.

00:42:46 Speaker_03
I'd be psyched. You have a hidden room. How fucking fun is that? I'm out here trying to convince John to add a hidden room onto our house. I think you should. Yeah, I want one. And it could be a speakeasy. It's my dream. That's my dream.

00:43:00 Speaker_03
I'm like, I'm an adult.

00:43:02 Speaker_04
Yes.

00:43:03 Speaker_03
I should have a hidden room. Hello, I need more room for activities. That's one of my goals in life is to have a hidden room. Do it like behind your bookshelf.

00:43:11 Speaker_03
right like you pull a book and a door opens and then it's just like a room i don't even know what that room is for they do that shit on like weird like home shows all the time i think you should do it i want to so we're going to convince john of that oh yeah i'll be over soon

00:43:27 Speaker_03
So I'm like, so what was the like reason for all this? So like she got carried over to that closet. Was that like the demons or the ghosties just being like, guys, check it out. You have a cool hidden room back here.

00:43:37 Speaker_04
Let me tell you, if I was a ghost living in that house, I'd be like, um, you haven't discovered this yet. Check this out. Do something. There's so much you could do with this. so much room for activities.

00:43:49 Speaker_03
But do you do you carry the wife over there in the middle of the night?

00:43:52 Speaker_04
Now I do. Now that I have that idea and I'm bringing it to the afterlife with me. Yeah because I mean you are gonna get somebody's attention that way. I mean it'd probably be like way more clunky than this experience sounds because I'm not like

00:44:05 Speaker_03
i'm not like a power lifter yeah you know but maybe you will be yeah oh maybe i'll get that skill i i just feel like hop on piggyback on over to this hidden room yeah here we go i just want to show you something real quick yeah so that happened but throughout their ordeal the lutz's kept quiet about what was happening in the house they weren't telling people i wouldn't i'd be on the national news that's what i'm saying they didn't want the you know reputation of crazy people you know these weird people just moved into the neighborhood and now they're creating a hoax shenanigans got it

00:44:35 Speaker_03
But to be honest, just letting you know, if you have weird shit happening in your house, and we live in the same neighborhood, and you want to tell me... Tell me everything. Tell me, because I'm not. You're going to be awesome to me.

00:44:46 Speaker_04
Come and knock on our door.

00:44:48 Speaker_03
We've been waiting for you.

00:44:49 Speaker_04
Tell me your weird shit.

00:44:52 Speaker_03
So a few weeks after moving in they turned to the Amityville Historical Society in the hope that they could maybe provide them some information about the house or the lake because they know about the DeFeo thing obviously but they were like you know what did anything else happen here which I was also like

00:45:09 Speaker_03
Do you need anything else? I don't know. Like I feel like that'll do it in my opinion. Yeah. So it took a few days, but eventually someone from the society got back to them.

00:45:19 Speaker_03
And what they said was that apparently the house, it seemed, sat on land once used by the Shinnecock tribe. and it was used as, quote, an enclosure for the sick, mad and the dying. Oh.

00:45:33 Speaker_03
The society member noted that while they may have used it as like kind of like a holding place area, the Shinnecox didn't use the area as a burial ground.

00:45:44 Speaker_03
They didn't use that area as a burial ground because, quote, they believed it to be infested with demons.

00:45:50 Speaker_04
Fantastic.

00:45:52 Speaker_03
Now this is something, this would give me pause.

00:45:55 Speaker_04
Is there, do you know if that's been like backed up, if that's like the truth? We'll get there. Good question.

00:46:06 Speaker_03
So further legends, because of course you're not just going to get this one thing. There's lots of chitchat about this land, about the house, there's all kinds of stuff. So further legends told of the Lutz's property once being home to John Ketchum.

00:46:22 Speaker_03
who was a former member of Salem, Massachusetts, who'd been forced out of the state for practicing witchcraft. Well, shit. Ketchum relocated to Long Island and set up a residence allegedly just a few hundred feet from where the Lutzes now lived.

00:46:38 Speaker_03
And supposedly, he continued practicing witchcraft and devil worship. Okay. So we all collectively can say, that's bullshit. Not real. Yeah. There is no, there's no nothing to say that this is the truth.

00:46:55 Speaker_03
He did have to leave Salem, Massachusetts for a lot. There is like things about him going to Long Island. Uh, but what we do know is that he was not, um, doing devil worship and all that shit.

00:47:07 Speaker_03
And, uh, there's also like, according to some of the accounts, John Ketchum was buried somewhere on the Northeast corner of the Lutz's property. There's nothing to indicate that at all. Okay. Uh,

00:47:20 Speaker_03
The discovery of this information was obviously scary to the Lutzes, but it didn't really help them, nor didn't help them. It just kind of explained maybe everything that was going on, like maybe the land itself is evil, which would make more sense.

00:47:34 Speaker_03
Yeah. So the Lutzes' terrifying ordeal finally came to a head. on January 13th, 1976. So this was not a long period of time.

00:47:43 Speaker_04
No, not at all.

00:47:44 Speaker_03
Because remember, they moved in towards the end of December. By this point, the attacks were constant.

00:47:49 Speaker_03
They ranged from disembodied voices to being pushed by unseen hands, to finally what we all know, according to them, seeing blood oozing from the walls.

00:48:01 Speaker_03
hearing the sound of, and one of my favorites was they would hear the sounds of what they described as a full marching band in the living room.

00:48:08 Speaker_05
I forgot about that one.

00:48:10 Speaker_03
Marching band. That's a good one. It's a good one. And after discussing the matter at length, George and Kathy decided it would be in everyone's best interest if they got the fuck out of the house, maybe just for a while, maybe for good.

00:48:22 Speaker_03
I love that they were like, we're not sure. Yeah, they were like, you know what? So they made arrangements to stay with Kathy's mother in near Babylon, New York. So they were like, you know what? We'll stay with Kathy's mom, see what we can do.

00:48:34 Speaker_03
Oh, so my portal theory is wrong because her mom's alive. Yeah, she is. So that morning, Kathy and George packed the kids and Harry into their van and prepared to leave. But George started to turn the key to the ignition and the van stalled. Oh no.

00:48:52 Speaker_03
So he got out and opened the hood, hoping he could fix whatever was stopping them from leaving. And as he stood in front of the car, leaning under the hood, a big gust of wind forced the hood down and he barely managed to avoid being hit by it.

00:49:06 Speaker_03
That's crazy. That's crazy. So just moments later thunder sounded in the near distance and the wind picked up to hurricane speed. Shut the fuck up, no it didn't. Which forced them out of the car and back into the house just as the power went out.

00:49:21 Speaker_03
A wild series of events. So, despite the 20 degree temperature and rain and sleet battering the house, inside it was nearly 90 degrees and felt as though it was getting hotter by the second.

00:49:35 Speaker_03
The storm ended a few hours later, but it was still, the power was off for the rest of the day. And at 6 p.m. the next day, George went down to check the boiler, which was off.

00:49:45 Speaker_03
And when he came back upstairs, he saw what appeared to be a dark-colored blob working its way towards the living room and towards Kathy and the children. And I was like, don't worry, that's just my sleep paralysis demon. He's fine. He just hangs out.

00:49:59 Speaker_03
Don't worry about it. But several hours later, it was clear that they wouldn't be able to leave the house until the next morning.

00:50:06 Speaker_03
So Kathy and George put the kids to bed and yeah, but they put the kids to bed in their bed and they fell asleep on chairs in the bedroom. Okay. So they were all in the same bed. I get that.

00:50:18 Speaker_03
Now, a short time later, the heat in the house broke dramatically and the temperature just started to plummet.

00:50:25 Speaker_03
now somehow even with all that was going on inside and outside the house they all managed to fall asleep in that room no incorrect at 3 15 a.m same time he had woken up before george was woken up again by the sound of a full marching band in the living room downstairs what's like what do they think the marching band story is that's what i wonder because i'm like where are they from who does that go back to yeah

00:50:53 Speaker_03
like a marching band yeah i don't know about that but this time the noise was accompanied by a bunch of unintelligible voices like they couldn't tell what they were talking about but just voices okay it was a whole it's like the victrola party at the smedeker house bitch i love a victrola party yeah victrola parties everywhere that's but this one's like worse i guess so

00:51:21 Speaker_03
And honestly, for the first time, things got a little worse here because George could hear the band, or whatever it was, start to climb the stairs towards the bedroom. He said, parties in here. I said, oh no.

00:51:43 Speaker_00
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00:53:45 Speaker_03
Now the sound of the band signaled what would be the worst and ultimately final assault on the Lutz family in that house. Uh-oh. Because moments later lightning started flashing in the bedroom, the bed frame started shaking. Wait, wait.

00:54:00 Speaker_03
You passed that like it was nothing.

00:54:03 Speaker_04
lightning flashed inside the bedroom?

00:54:06 Speaker_03
Well lightning didn't hit in the bedroom it like flashed in the bed like the bedrooms like outside of the bedroom lightnings flashing.

00:54:13 Speaker_04
I thought you meant lightning was happening inside the room and I said you can't just graze past that.

00:54:18 Speaker_03
You can't just walk past that. We gotta talk about that for a minute. I wouldn't have been shocked if they said that happened. We'll know me. By this point, everyone was awake, but George found that he couldn't move.

00:54:30 Speaker_03
He was having sleep paralysis and could feel what he thought were hooves stepping all over him. Nay. Nay.

00:54:39 Speaker_04
That's my only response. Nay, nay.

00:54:41 Speaker_03
Nay. He said they were walking across his body to get to his family.

00:54:45 Speaker_05
Okay.

00:54:46 Speaker_03
And soon the whole house was shaking like it was going to come down around them. I mean, that probably would be good. Honestly, see you later. So it took all the strength he had, but George finally managed to break his paralysis, getting himself up.

00:54:59 Speaker_03
He grabbed his children and Kathy. They ran towards the door. But when they got to the landing, George heard Danny cry out that there was something in his room. And he told George, it's a monster. He doesn't have any face.

00:55:12 Speaker_04
I'd say that's fine because we're leaving anyway.

00:55:15 Speaker_03
I'd be like, that's cool. Leave him be. Now, when he looked up, George saw an enormous hooded figure dressed in white standing near the stairs. The thing pointed at them. And George knew this was it. He had to get his family out. This is the last second.

00:55:31 Speaker_03
He had to get everyone out or they were going to die. What if he just wanted to have a dance off?

00:55:37 Speaker_04
And he was just like, your turn, your family. Let's see what you got. Do you have a whole marching band behind you? I don't think so. I think he was trying to see what their step team was all about.

00:55:48 Speaker_03
Yeah. He was trying to see if they had what it took to be America's next top dancer. Yeah, he was like, step up, Lutz family. I think that's what was happening. And you know what?

00:56:00 Speaker_03
That's why no one ever had a problem with this house again because they were like winners and they just like left. They were like, all right, we're the winners. That's the thing.

00:56:09 Speaker_03
So he ran his family down the stairs, managed to rip open the door, push the kids out, then Kathy, Harry, and himself. And once they were all in the van, he jammed the key in the ignition and the engine turned over. He was able to start the ignition.

00:56:24 Speaker_04
So they just wanted to have one last party.

00:56:26 Speaker_03
Yeah, they were like, stay another night. You didn't tell us you were leaving. So he flies out of there, tore down the driveway onto Ocean Avenue. Ocean Avenue where I used to sit and talk with you. I can't believe it's the first time we did that.

00:56:43 Speaker_04
i know i can't that's really that's sad that's my first concert oh i loved that song yellow card forever so they were finally free of the house whatever had happened in there and they would never go back there again yeah i wouldn't either they wouldn't even go back there when they were investigating they refused to well it's for the plot i was gonna say it's for the plot like i wouldn't go back either so if that if all of that actually did happen to me yeah where we know it didn't just add to the story like and then we never stepped foot back in the scary house

00:57:13 Speaker_03
So just a few weeks after fleeing their home, George and Kathy were at a party.

00:57:21 Speaker_04
I took a sip of my drink at the worst time because you almost just got a straight up spit take. They were just at a party. I'm sorry and maybe this is just me. I don't even have kids yet.

00:57:33 Speaker_04
If my kids were almost demonically possessed and like taken away from me by demons, I don't think I'd be hitting up a party like weeks later and leaving them with anyone.

00:57:44 Speaker_03
I don't think my kids would ever let me leave them alone. And I wouldn't leave them. Like not alone. I mean like even with like a babysitter like they would my kids would just want to be with me 24-7. Yeah and and vice versa.

00:57:57 Speaker_03
Because like I know me as a kid if that happened to me I'd be like you're never leaving my side mom and dad. Literally never. We're sleeping in the same room forever like The fuck are you celebrating? I mean, getting out of there, I guess.

00:58:08 Speaker_06
Like, what's going on?

00:58:09 Speaker_03
Well, they were at a party in Amityville where they happened to meet William Weber, the lawyer of recently convicted killer Ronald DeFeo. Shut the fuck up. Now... Weber was a local so it is entirely possible that this was a purely coincidental meeting.

00:58:25 Speaker_03
Yeah maybe. It's strange that they met but like it's it's not that strange because like they did all in the same community. And like we said it is a smaller community. Exactly.

00:58:34 Speaker_03
So Weber had always maintained that DeFeo was mentally ill and he had been hearing command hallucinations in the weeks leading up to the murder of his family.

00:58:42 Speaker_03
So when George and Kathy mentioned where they had been living and the cost for them leaving that house, he was so interested. Because remember, he's also in the middle of trying to get appeals for his clients.

00:58:54 Speaker_03
So this was a delicious little nugget of information for him. With DeFeo's conviction less than two months behind them, Weber had already started planning the appeals. Of course. So he said, demonic infestation? What? Tell me everything.

00:59:09 Speaker_03
Paranormal attack? Tell me it all. He said, have a seat. Exactly, so in mid-February, Weber actually organized a press conference for himself and the Lutzes. Shut up.

00:59:20 Speaker_03
Yup, and during that press conference, he announced, based on certain facts relayed to us by George and Kathy Lutz and certain physical evidence brought to our attention, we are considering a motion for a new trial.

00:59:33 Speaker_03
So Weber didn't provide any details there. He just strongly indicated that the very strong force that had driven the Lutzes out of the house could have been to blame for motivating DiFeo to kill.

00:59:45 Speaker_05
Okay.

00:59:46 Speaker_03
That's fucked up. It's like, you're literally blaming a house for this guy just being a piece of shit.

00:59:52 Speaker_04
Yeah, no, I don't like that. And I don't like that the Lutzes were like, yeah, let us help you do that.

00:59:57 Speaker_03
Let's do this. Now, contrary to what they would later claim, George and Kathy Lutz minimized the extent of their supposed paranormal experience, denying having seen human shapes, flying objects, and hearing any wailing noises or, you know, whatever.

01:00:13 Speaker_03
In fact, the most George would say was that they experienced psychic phenomenon that he could not describe that persuaded him and his family to suddenly move out because of concern for our personal safety as a family. Okay.

01:00:27 Speaker_03
Now on advice from their new legal counsel, William Weber, neither George nor Kathy would elaborate on the details. So they very much downplayed it for the press at first. They made it vague to make people more interested.

01:00:39 Speaker_04
Exactly.

01:00:40 Speaker_03
Now the press conference gathered a lot of attention from the New York media and generated a lot of rumors about the Lutzes and their supposedly haunted house.

01:00:48 Speaker_04
Of course.

01:00:49 Speaker_03
this kind of helped them.

01:00:51 Speaker_04
Well, it's like when somebody puts up, like back in the day when people would put up a Facebook status like, in the worst mood, don't ask me why.

01:00:58 Speaker_03
Yes. Then everybody asks why. Everyone's theorizing what it's about. Yes.

01:01:01 Speaker_03
Now, it obviously was not very often around town that a seemingly reasonable couple was holding a press conference to announce they'd experienced psychic phenomenon to such an extent that they'd been forced out of their new home.

01:01:14 Speaker_04
Wouldn't it be sick if that actually did happen more often? I know, I'd be so interested about that. Yeah, you could like hold town meetings and shit.

01:01:20 Speaker_03
Yeah, now among those who took interest in their story was a local news channel, Channel 5, who wanted to do an investigative story on the house and the Lutzes' experience.

01:01:30 Speaker_03
George agreed to allow the news channel to enter the house, but he said he and his family would not be joining the investigation. I bet.

01:01:37 Speaker_03
A few weeks later, the news team arranged to film the investigation at the Lutz's house, and it was going to be led by a notorious husband and wife psychic investigative team.

01:01:48 Speaker_04
Ed and Lorraine Warren.

01:01:51 Speaker_03
I was going to guess Ned and Maureen. Oh, close. Yeah, our friends Ed and Lorraine had their fingers all up in here. This is one of the ones they're most well-known for, actually.

01:02:03 Speaker_03
On the night of the investigation, the Warrens arrived at the house with a number of other individuals from their inner circle. That included a lot of psychics that would help with the seance.

01:02:13 Speaker_03
As they moved from room to room, Lorraine used her, you know, abilities to try to sense the presence of any evil entities that dwelled in the house, which I was like, I don't really think we need Lorraine's abilities to see that.

01:02:27 Speaker_02
I think we can look at history.

01:02:29 Speaker_03
Yeah. Almost immediately, Lorraine stated that she felt the presence of a negative entity right from the bowels of the earth. Wow. And she said, this is the entity that was threatening you and likely convinced DeFeo to kill his family.

01:02:46 Speaker_03
which I was like, Lorraine, shut the fuck up. Are you really sitting here trying to take away the fact that Ronald DeFeo Jr. is a piece of shit who murdered his entire family because he's a piece of shit? A piece of shit.

01:03:02 Speaker_04
A piece of shit. That's the thing, it's just like, When they go to like the Snedeker house and they go to like these other houses, like sure, it's kind of fun, I get it, like spooky, you're just living your life, I love ghost hunting, I get it.

01:03:16 Speaker_04
Absolutely. When it involves a murder, like directly. A mass family annihilation. Like multiple children died in their own homes while they were maybe sleeping. step away from that. Don't touch that.

01:03:30 Speaker_03
And don't be sitting here trying to say that Ronald DeFeo Jr. only did it because this demon from this house convinced him to. Like don't take the responsibility off of him.

01:03:43 Speaker_04
It's also just kind of stupid. I mean it's just stupid to claim that when the history is very clear of like they had a bad relationship. He and his family didn't have a great relationship.

01:03:53 Speaker_03
And he was not completely in his right mind all the time. No, exactly. Like on the day of the murder he wasn't. Yeah, he had shown that he could be violent.

01:04:03 Speaker_03
He had shown that he, you know, I mean he sounds like he had grown up in an environment that kind of helped with that violence. And it's like, we just, to take the, I just don't like the taking responsibility off of him here.

01:04:18 Speaker_03
And doing it to kind of further your own fucking agenda, which is exactly what she was doing.

01:04:24 Speaker_03
And that's why people think, that's why Ed and Lorraine have the black mark on them that they do, because this kind of shit, like you want to do fun ghosty ghosty shit, but sure, go right ahead. This kind of stuff just rubs me the wrong fucking way.

01:04:39 Speaker_03
You just don't touch that. And it shows that they're scammers. It shows that they will go to the ends of the earth to push their own shit.

01:04:49 Speaker_04
And it's like, what are you trying to do? Get this guy off for murder? That's the other problem.

01:04:55 Speaker_03
is that this just happened, Lorraine. It's not like you're doing this now. Yeah, it's not like you're doing this now in like 2024 when the guy's dead and it's all over. Even that would annoy me because it would be taking responsibility off of him.

01:05:10 Speaker_03
But you're doing it within the first year that he has been convicted and that it happened and that he is in the appeals process where they are using the idea that he was mentally ill or insane or that there was some unseen force in the house making him do it.

01:05:23 Speaker_03
It's just not cool. No. So during one of the several seances conducted in the house that night, one of the psychics accompanying the Warrens claimed to, quote, feel personally threatened by a shadow being.

01:05:36 Speaker_03
And the entire team concluded a demonic spirit possessed the house, and they recommended an exorcism. Of course. And did they contact the archdiocese? Of course they do. They always contact the archdiocese, except they don't.

01:05:52 Speaker_03
So the couple also took a bunch of time-lapse photos at various points around the house. And in one of the photos taken at the base of the stairs, it is a creepy photo. It's a very famous photo. I don't even know if I've seen it.

01:06:05 Speaker_03
There appears to be a child who can clearly be seen standing in the doorway leading to an adjacent room. I hate that.

01:06:11 Speaker_03
The Warrens claimed that this was evidence of paranormal activity and claimed the photo captured the ghost of John DeFeo, who was the youngest one. whose spirit, they believe, was still trapped in the house. Oh, fuck. It's a scary photo.

01:06:24 Speaker_03
That's horrifying. I think it's a hard one to figure out what happened there, like what kid that is.

01:06:33 Speaker_04
That is probably one of the scariest pictures I've ever seen in my life. I can feel the hair on my legs just standing up.

01:06:39 Speaker_03
yeah it's that one's definitely a scary one i'm like i hope i closed out of that because i don't want to like open my phone and have that be there i know right fuck that i do think though um that it has been debunked that photo it's very clear

01:06:56 Speaker_03
I think it was um one of the Warren's team they figured out um I think it might have been like his name is like Paul something I think is what they think it was uh either way it's a pretty scary photo just as like I could see why people were fooled for a long time I probably would have been.

01:07:15 Speaker_03
I just was. So see there you go that's I mean that's the That's the wild thing about the Warrens is they definitely, they're able to get you at first, and then you're like, oh, fuck you.

01:07:27 Speaker_03
So while the Warrens have been most, like the biggest names associated with the Amityville haunting, and they are very much associated with it, like it's like hand in hand. It's like them and the Conjuring kind of thing.

01:07:40 Speaker_03
They were merely one of several paranormal investigators who were attracted to the house by that press conference. Like they weren't the only ones. Their involvement in the case kind of ends when that investigation with Channel 5 ended.

01:07:54 Speaker_03
Like, they didn't really stick around longer. They obviously discussed the incident and the story many, many more times in their career. Like, they didn't use it as, like, the pinpoint kind of, like, goalpost thing.

01:08:07 Speaker_03
But they kind of, they peaced out after that Channel 5 investigation. Like, they got their fake photo and they were like, all right, bye.

01:08:14 Speaker_03
that's interesting so the warrens investigation was followed by another investigation by hans holzer i've heard of which hans holzer i think when we were with mikey and dave watching uh haunting yeah that's that show which we had so much fun watching so much hilarious hans holzer was in a couple of the things and i said i think i believe everything this man has to say because his name is hans holzer and he just makes sense

01:08:39 Speaker_03
He's a supposedly skeptical paranormal investigator who, unlike the Warrens, was guided by a more scientific method of inquiry, which I can appreciate.

01:08:50 Speaker_03
Accompanied by nominally famous psychic Ethel Johnson Myers, I don't know if you've heard that name. I have.

01:08:57 Speaker_03
Holzer suggested that the Lutz's house had been built on an ancient Shinnecock Indian burial ground, that's the quote, and was haunted by the angry spirit of Chief Rolling Thunder.

01:09:09 Speaker_04
I feel like that borders on racism when they go the burial ground route.

01:09:15 Speaker_03
Yeah. I think it's just that they don't have proof of that. There's also, they don't have proof of that at all.

01:09:23 Speaker_03
And they also were told by the historical society that like allegedly that these, um, the indigenous people would not bury their dead on that ground because it was thought of as like cursed.

01:09:36 Speaker_03
Yeah, so they were told that it wasn't and now this guy's saying it was.

01:09:40 Speaker_04
Yeah, I take it back when I said I believe everything Hans has to say.

01:09:44 Speaker_03
Yeah. So he also examined many of the photographs from the original DeFeo crime scene, including several photos of the bullet holes in the walls. And he said he saw mysterious halos appear around the bullets. OK. You're like, no, Hans.

01:10:00 Speaker_03
From William Weber's perspective, the Lutz's story was one that was worthy of being told, of course. Oh, yeah. You know, he just wants to get it out, you know? No other reason at all. No. Which is really important.

01:10:12 Speaker_04
Just, you know, he just was entertained by it. It has nothing to do with his ongoing court case. No, of course not. Why would you even think that, guys?

01:10:23 Speaker_03
So in March 1976, less than a month after the press conference, he presented the Lutzes with a book contract with publisher Mars and Burton. Bullshit.

01:10:33 Speaker_03
Under the terms of the contract, Weber, Mars, and Burton and George and Kathy Lutz would receive 12% shares of the profits. Well, Paul Hoffman, the book's proposed author, would receive 40%.

01:10:45 Speaker_04
That kind of sucks.

01:10:49 Speaker_03
That percentage sucks. I would not do that for 12%. Yeah. So Kathy and George were like, well, you know what? He's been supportive of us, so let's just go with it. So they signed the contract and let's go.

01:11:00 Speaker_03
Damn, you didn't even fucking negotiate a better percentage. No. Now, just a few weeks after signing the contract with William Weber, George and Kathy met Tam Mossman, who was an editor with Prentice Hall Publishing.

01:11:13 Speaker_03
They told Mossman about the deal with Weber, and he was like, yeah, he might be offering you free legal advice, but he also offered you a really bad book deal.

01:11:23 Speaker_04
I'm like, is somebody around? I'm like, yeah.

01:11:27 Speaker_03
So since the contract technically hadn't been finalized, I guess they hadn't signed it. I should have said that they agreed to the contract and signed it. There was still time to back out of the deal. No John Hancocks.

01:11:39 Speaker_03
Mossman suggested that they pursue their own author and sell the story on their terms. So a few days later, he introduced them to his friend, author Jay Anson, who I mentioned before.

01:11:51 Speaker_04
It sounds like they just didn't realize how lucrative this could be and when they did they were like, fuck yeah. That's literally what happened. Yeah.

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01:13:13 Speaker_03
So Jay Anson at the time was working on a documentary about the making of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist. Hey!

01:13:21 Speaker_03
Unlike the deal with Weber, which, you know, gave a lot of individuals a lot of money for doing nothing, Anson suggested that he work with the Lutzes to tell their story for an even split of the profits. That's a much better book deal.

01:13:35 Speaker_03
Much better deal. So days later, the Lutzes ended their contract with Weber, their proposed one, and eventually signed a new contract with Anson.

01:13:44 Speaker_03
By then, however, Weber and Hoffman had signed contracts with Good Housekeeping and New York Sunday News for articles about the Lutzes' experience in the house, one appearing in July 1976, the other in July 1977.

01:13:59 Speaker_03
As a result, the Lutzes ended up suing Weber and Hoffman in civil court for invasion of privacy, seeking $4.5 million in damages.

01:14:10 Speaker_04
You're going to have to show me those damages. $4.5 million. You weren't even worth that before. Are the damages in the room with us? That's what the judge said.

01:14:21 Speaker_03
The judge said, hello? Can you point to the damages? No. That's insane. Well, and Hoffman and Weber countersued, alleging breach of contract and fraud. So maybe they did sign, actually. And they requested $2 million in damages.

01:14:39 Speaker_03
which they now probably could have accounted for. Exactly. So eventually, the court did dismiss George and Kathy Lutz's suit against Weber and Hoffman. But by then, Anson's book had been published and had quickly become very, very successful.

01:14:54 Speaker_03
The book would actually go on to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide. Fucking A. And it spawned the hit adaptation and film, the 1979 Amityville Horror. You know, I've never seen it. It's wild.

01:15:07 Speaker_03
And it had seven direct sequels, as well as dozens of unofficial films, which- Just ask Caleb. Our boy Caleb is currently just bushwhacking his way through right now. He's chest deep in Amityville sequels. He's always, and he's not happy about it.

01:15:28 Speaker_03
He embarks on a journey that he didn't know all about. You know, Caleb is a completionist. He does not like to half-ass things. So once he starts something, he's going to finish it. He's a balls to the wall kind of guy.

01:15:41 Speaker_03
So if you, yeah, he's really going for it. Uh, cause as soon, you can now use the Amityville name to like, it's now open to you. So that's why people use it to sell movies. Yeah. It's like, cause you can't copyright a town name or something like that.

01:15:58 Speaker_03
Yeah. It's like, it's, you can just, you can use it. So it's like people use it. The publication of Anson's book and all the films were a financial boon for the Lutz family. Of course.

01:16:09 Speaker_03
But with the success and attention came a little bit of scrutiny, I would say, that would eventually uncover some inconsistencies and cracks in the story. Mm-hmm.

01:16:21 Speaker_03
So the cover of Jay Anson's book, The Amityville Horror, that's what it's like, his is the original, includes quite a bold subtitle, A True Story. So this is implying that this is a nonfiction book.

01:16:38 Speaker_04
That's wild.

01:16:39 Speaker_03
In fact, I mean, it was that claim that really was the success and the legacy of the books and films for Amityville. Of course. Creating a myth that even today, nearly 50 years later, a lot of people believe is a totally true story.

01:16:55 Speaker_03
but it's also understood that when an author adapts a supposedly true story for a book or a movie there will be elements woven in for you know the sake of readability and continuity you know like fictional elements some artistic license.

01:17:10 Speaker_03
That's why it always says like based on a true story. Exactly that's what it needs to say but there's just said a true story.

01:17:16 Speaker_04
Yeah you gotta say based

01:17:18 Speaker_03
Yeah.

01:17:19 Speaker_03
The problem with Anson's book, however, was that it included so many unbelievable and outrageous claims that it wasn't long before a lot of people wanted to see the evidence and support, you know, they were like, show me what makes this a completely true story because I don't know.

01:17:36 Speaker_03
Now, The Amityville Horror was released in mid-September of 1977, and within a few months, journalists and skeptics around the world started flooding Anson's publisher, Prentice Hall Incorporated, with requests ranging from the whereabouts of the Lutzes, or Ralph Pecoraro, the Reverend, to the existence of evidence directly contradicting the claims made by the book.

01:18:00 Speaker_03
They were like, we want it all.

01:18:02 Speaker_03
In an article for Newsday published in November that year, investigative journalists took matters into their own hands when representatives from Prentice Hall refused to respond to requests for any of this or any questions.

01:18:15 Speaker_03
Among the discoveries that were made were The local Catholic diocese, quote, denied that psychic incidents and conversations, including clerical officials cited in the book, ever took place.

01:18:28 Speaker_03
The Catholic Church is like, leave us the fuck out of your hauntings. The Catholic Church is like, get the Warrens away from, get our, get our name out of your dirty mouths.

01:18:39 Speaker_03
they're doing like they're putting the warrens in the freezer they're like we will engage in witchcraft stop we're gonna engage in the dark arts here just to get you to shut the fuck up about us i bind you warrens they also found out that neighbors and former and current residents of the house denied multiple key points of the story including the amityville historical society denying

01:19:03 Speaker_03
that there was any evidence of the land having been used by the Shinnecock tribe, whose ancestral land was quite a bit further east.

01:19:11 Speaker_04
That's so fucked up.

01:19:13 Speaker_03
Like, yikes, that you guys were like, let's throw some indigenous shit in there because that's spooky. Like, Whoa, you didn't think someone was gonna check up on that?

01:19:25 Speaker_04
That makes you look like such a fucking douchebag.

01:19:29 Speaker_03
And to use the Amityville Historical Society's name too, they're gonna be like, no. Like you don't think they're gonna come forward and be like, no fucker, that's our literal job. That's shitty to do.

01:19:41 Speaker_04
Yeah.

01:19:42 Speaker_03
Especially to like Indigenous communities. And what's funnier, because remember, they claimed that while they were in the house, they went to the Historical Society and joined them to find out what was going on. Or nor.

01:19:53 Speaker_03
A representative from the Historical Society confirmed that the Lutzes did join the Historical Society, but not until January 25th, 1976, which was a few weeks after they fled the house.

01:20:05 Speaker_03
and a few weeks after was when they met William Weber and started discussing all of this shit. So I'm sure there was discussion of why don't you join the Historical Society and find out some shit. Ew.

01:20:18 Speaker_03
And then if you don't find out what you want, just lie about it.

01:20:21 Speaker_04
Just make it up. That's fucked up. Yeah. Also, like I think you just said, you didn't think anyone was going to check up on that? That's the thing. Like, come on. That always happens with people who lie, though. You're like,

01:20:34 Speaker_04
You didn't think anyone was going to look into that?

01:20:36 Speaker_03
And that like the society that you literally mentioned by name isn't going to be like, no? Yeah, why wouldn't you just say like, according to unnamed sources? If you're going to lie, do it better. But you named a society. Yikes. Like, damn.

01:20:50 Speaker_03
Now, at least two paranormal investigation groups declined to investigate the house at the Lutz's requests, quote, because of commercial promotion or lack of observable data.

01:21:01 Speaker_03
So they were like, no, it was very clear that they wanted to make this a thing, so we wouldn't investigate, which I was like, good integrity on that. I love an integrity. I do too, I love an integrity. That's what I look for.

01:21:12 Speaker_03
Now, the new owners of the home, Barbara and James Cromartie, I hope I said their name right, also spoke out, holding their own press conference to defend the reputation of their home and the memory of the DeFeo family. Nice.

01:21:27 Speaker_03
Barbara told the group at the press conference, the house isn't haunted. It's beautiful and we love it.

01:21:34 Speaker_03
The Cromerities were particularly critical of Anson's book and the Lutzes, telling reporters that their claims have drawn thousands of curious onlookers to drive by the house and even come onto the property.

01:21:45 Speaker_04
That's really fucked up. Don't go onto somebody else's property.

01:21:48 Speaker_03
No. And Barbara said it was ridiculous and tragic for the surviving members of the DeFeo family and for the town. Yeah. They were made into ghouls. Right. And it's true.

01:21:59 Speaker_03
Now, Jay Anson, the author, defended the book in the assertion that it was a true story. He said, the way I approached the story, I left myself out of it. I did it as a reporter so that by the end of the book, you believe or you don't believe.

01:22:12 Speaker_03
These are the facts. This is what happened to the family. This is what happened to the priests.

01:22:17 Speaker_03
Now the problem with Anson and the Lutz's position there, that he just said, that readers could make up their own minds about what happened, that strongly suggests that he was not working with facts.

01:22:29 Speaker_03
But instead he was working with subjective experiences that are notoriously difficult to prove or disprove. Which is why you cannot put a true story on the cover. If it was a true story, you say, this is truth. Yeah, I'm just reporting facts.

01:22:46 Speaker_03
And I can back it all up. But instead, he's saying, you either believe it or you don't. Oof. Okay, I don't believe it. Okay, I don't. So there's that.

01:22:54 Speaker_03
Now, in fact, as Newsday pointed out, quote, differences between the Lutz version of events and ascertainable facts crop up in the book from start to finish.

01:23:06 Speaker_03
When Newsday reporters spoke to the Lutz's neighbors on Ocean Avenue, all of them denied noticing anything unusual happening in the house.

01:23:13 Speaker_03
One neighbor said, if they did have problems, you'd think they would have come over and make some mention to the neighbors.

01:23:20 Speaker_03
In fact, James Mullally, who purchased the Lutz's former home after they moved to Amityville, visited the family at the new house a few weeks after they had moved in, by which time the book claimed they were under very heavy supernatural attack at this point.

01:23:35 Speaker_03
But James Mullally recalled that George and Kathy happily gave him a tour of their new house. At no time did they say anything. At no time did anything seem out of the ordinary.

01:23:45 Speaker_03
And likewise, when the Cromerity family moved in a few months after the Lutzes fled, they found nothing out of the ordinary.

01:23:53 Speaker_03
And there was no signs that the house had sustained any damage on the inside, which, remember, they're claiming that doors blew off hinges. It was crumbling around. Shit's going crazy. Yeah.

01:24:04 Speaker_03
Well, it would have been impossible to verify the Lutz's story of their experience since, you know, you can't verify someone's personal experience.

01:24:13 Speaker_03
There were a large number of people supposedly consulted during their stay in the house who could be and often were followed up with by reporters.

01:24:22 Speaker_03
In one of the book's most notorious moments, George Lutz describes seeing his daughter's imaginary friend Jodi through a window. And when he went outside to investigate, he said he found a trail of hoof tracks left in the snow.

01:24:36 Speaker_03
Now, according to George, he called the police and he said Sergeant Pat Camaroto was dispatched to the house. Sergeant Camaroto, on the other hand, told the reporter that story was, quote, absolutely false.

01:24:49 Speaker_03
I was never on the property from the time of the DeFeo murder investigation until after the Lutzes left.

01:24:56 Speaker_04
You can't lie about the police, they have logs. You can't, they have logs. Like a low?

01:25:03 Speaker_03
Like you named some poor guy in this, like what the fuck? And an officer of the law? Of the law? You're kidding.

01:25:10 Speaker_03
Look, also, the weather report indicated there was no snow on the ground when George claimed to have found the tracks in the snow, nor had there been any snow on the ground the week prior. George. George! Honey.

01:25:24 Speaker_04
You gotta look at weather reports, my guy.

01:25:27 Speaker_03
Oof. Almost happier that he didn't, though. Like, damn! Big old yikes. In another of the novel's most memorable moments, Reverend Pecoraro hears that disembodied voice tell him to get out while he's blessing the house.

01:25:41 Speaker_03
In fact, Pecoraro's involvement in the story was one of the aspects that lent the story a lot of credibility. That he's a priest, he's coming and saying this is happening.

01:25:52 Speaker_03
Yet, when he was called to testify in the Lutzes' suit against Weber, Pecoraro stated, quote, his only contact relating to this case was a telephone call from the Lutzes regarding their psychic experiences. What?

01:26:08 Speaker_03
Now, contrary to their repeated claims and those made in the Amityville Horror, Reverend Pecoraro never went to bless the Lutzes' house. I feel duped. According to Pecoraro, he referred George Lutz to the local parish, St.

01:26:28 Speaker_03
Martin of Tours, and suggested they speak with the priest there, but he said, but, quote, the Lutzes neither called nor ever attended mass. Well, yeah, because remember, they weren't fucking religious.

01:26:40 Speaker_03
Oh, and the claim that the priest, this is the priest that helped them when they were getting married? Debunked. They were married July 4th, 1975. And during questioning, George answered later that they met the priest July 14th, 1975.

01:26:56 Speaker_03
And Kathy said they met him July 30th, 1975 over the phone. Y'all don't even remember your fucking wedding date? And then he said, no, no, I've only had contact with them over the phone.

01:27:10 Speaker_04
What? Yeah. Guys, what are we doing here? So they couldn't even get the date right. Do you think that, because like, I mean, they left the house, like, do you think they got in over their heads?

01:27:21 Speaker_03
I know exactly what happened here and I'll tell you. Okay. So the most damning discovery I would say made during this time came from one of the book's original architects, William Weber. who told People magazine in 1979, I know this book is a hoax.

01:27:36 Speaker_03
We created this story over many bottles of wine that George Lutz was drinking. We were creating something that the public wanted to hear.

01:27:44 Speaker_04
Oh no. So I'd say that. He said we were creating something that the public wanted to hear and allegedly it could have helped my client.

01:27:52 Speaker_03
Exactly. According to Weber, the Lutzes created the story in an effort to get out of deep financial trouble.

01:27:59 Speaker_04
Because they bought a house that was like double their fucking price range.

01:28:02 Speaker_03
Because the house was a bargain at $80,000 for what it was. But like you said, it was almost twice the average home price at the time and twice what the Lutzes could afford.

01:28:13 Speaker_04
Ma always says, a sale is not a sale if you can't afford it.

01:28:17 Speaker_03
Exactly. And their mortgage wasn't their only expense. They also owned a car, a motorcycle, and two boats. What the fuck do you need two boats for? I'm saying, the boats are fucking expensive. Yeah.

01:28:32 Speaker_03
Along with the typical expenses that come from raising three children.

01:28:35 Speaker_04
That's the other thing, you have three hooligans running around.

01:28:38 Speaker_03
Yeah, three little hooligans. They're expensive. Super expensive. I would not pass two boats, I'm sorry. What? Hell no! In simplest terms, the Lutzes were living a lifestyle well beyond their means.

01:28:53 Speaker_03
And it didn't take long to realize they couldn't fucking afford all of it. And that's why it's so strange that they decided to take this house on when they knew they couldn't afford that mortgage.

01:29:05 Speaker_03
So I think they went into this knowing what they could do. I wonder, because once they found out it was the DeFeo house, I wonder if they said, well, we could turn this into something. I think they knew it was the DeFeo house. I don't know.

01:29:16 Speaker_04
But like you said, they lived in New York.

01:29:18 Speaker_03
Yeah, it's strange that they didn't know.

01:29:19 Speaker_04
This was national news. It wasn't just like a little thing that happened in New York.

01:29:24 Speaker_03
Yeah. Now, the book deal with Anson and the movie adaptation that followed were very lucrative, obviously, but the Lutzes didn't plan on things going badly between them and their original partners or the possibility that they were going to be sued.

01:29:38 Speaker_04
That's why you don't fuck people over in contracts.

01:29:40 Speaker_03
Exactly. Contracts shouldn't be fucked around with. So, in fact, it was Weber's frustration and animosity that led him to expose the story in the first place because they fucked him over. And he continued to do so in the years that followed.

01:29:56 Speaker_03
And... I'm sorry. Isn't it just funny? Like, they fucked him over in a contract and he was like, okay. He said, hold my beer. He said, I'll bind my time and then I'm going to ruin your whole life. In 1988, in fact, so he's still going.

01:30:24 Speaker_03
This was in 1970 something. He's in 1988 still. Hold a grudge. Hold a fucking grudge. It's like that lady on TikTok. Oh, I feel that deep in my bones.

01:30:35 Speaker_03
Know that I will be that person who has a grudgery in the afterlife and I will take on other people's grudges for fun. I'm working the counter. I'm petty as fuck. I got, we got this.

01:30:46 Speaker_04
Together we are building a grudgery.

01:30:49 Speaker_03
I would be William Webber in this scenario. Me too. 1988, a decade later, I'm still pissed. I'm still fucking you over.

01:30:58 Speaker_04
I got something to say. He said, I'll burn it to the ground. Burn it all.

01:31:03 Speaker_03
So in 1988, like years later, he appears on the show, A Current Affair, where he elaborates. He said, we took the real life incidents and transposed them. In other words, it was a hoax.

01:31:19 Speaker_03
He's still, I love it, 1980, he's like, did I say it loud enough for the people in the back? It wasn't real. It was a hoax.

01:31:28 Speaker_03
So the Amityville hoax would be the subject of many court cases in the decades since its publication, most having to do with money, but none as surprising as Ronald DeFeo's 1992 attempt to use the claims as the basis for a petition for a new trial, which is the shitty part of what came out of this.

01:31:47 Speaker_03
I can't. Luckily it didn't work because by that time DeFeo had served 15 years of his life sentence, but he believed the exposure of the Amityville hoax entitled him to a new criminal trial. He said, William Weber gave me no choice.

01:32:01 Speaker_03
He told me I had to do this. He told me there would be a lot of money from book rights and a movie. He would have me out in a couple years and I would come into all that money. The whole thing was a con, except for the crime. I mean, yeah.

01:32:14 Speaker_03
We laugh about William Weber being petty as fuck about the Lutzes, but he was really shitty when it came to the DeFeo case, because he was trying to get him out on that. Yeah, which is not cool. which fuck that.

01:32:24 Speaker_03
So the legacy of the Lutzes and the Amityville Horror, and like I said in the first episode with the DeFeos, it didn't work. He didn't get his new shit.

01:32:33 Speaker_03
But the legacy of the Lutzes and the Amityville Horror has persisted for nearly 50 years and it has led to countless debates about fact, fiction, what is real, what isn't.

01:32:46 Speaker_03
What tends to get lost in all of that though is the story about Amityville, the town itself. Like, it's kind of taken on a life of its own, the myth of Amityville. And it, like we said, it's a seaside town. It's a small place. It's a nice place.

01:33:06 Speaker_03
And it's really disrupted life for the residents there. Because people can't tell fact or fiction, too. Absolutely.

01:33:14 Speaker_03
While Anson, the Lutzes, and Ed and Lorraine Warren made millions from their supposedly quote-unquote true story, people like Barbara and James Cromerity, who owned the house and the residents of Amityville, had to contend with thousands of people and paranormal enthusiasts descending on their town every year.

01:33:32 Speaker_03
Yeah, that's annoying. It's kind of like Salem during Halloween. I was just going to say, yeah. People forget that people live there. and that that's their home.

01:33:41 Speaker_04
And it's, I think it would be one thing if people, you know, just like went past by, like that would be something. But people act a fool around like Halloween and they act a fool around paranormal stuff.

01:33:51 Speaker_04
It's like, go if you want to go and be respectful like to Salem, obviously. But like leave people's personal properties alone.

01:33:58 Speaker_03
Yeah, that's the thing. Like you just got to be, you got to be cool about it, man.

01:34:02 Speaker_04
You want to drive past the house, I get that. I probably want to drive past it too.

01:34:05 Speaker_03
Don't be all like uncool.

01:34:06 Speaker_04
Drive by, look at it, move on.

01:34:09 Speaker_03
Yeah, but don't be weird. Don't disrupt people's lives. You know, it's not cool. I don't know when this episode comes out because I never know where we are in space and time. Sometime in October.

01:34:19 Speaker_03
It's in October, so if you're going to Salem this month or any time really, because remember people live there, but especially during the Halloween months when it's really crazy there, that's cool. People don't mind.

01:34:32 Speaker_03
I don't live there, but people don't mind. just be respectful to people who live there.

01:34:37 Speaker_03
It's a really cool place, it's a really historical place, it's got a lot of heavy history, and people live there year-round and have their kids there, they have families there, so just be cool, that's all. Just don't act a fool. Don't be all uncool.

01:34:49 Speaker_03
Don't be all uncool, as Luanne says. The Countess. Because you wanna be able to go there every year, and if it continues the way it has been, they're gonna be like, fuck y'all. Yeah, they're gonna shut that shit down. I wouldn't blame them.

01:35:02 Speaker_03
I wouldn't either. So last summer, apparently, and this was in 1977, Barbara told reporters, Barbara Careri, the owner of the house, said last summer 5,000 people trumped through here.

01:35:14 Speaker_03
They left trash everywhere and even had picnics on the neighbor's lawns, which if you're that kind of person, fuck you. Like you got to get it together.

01:35:22 Speaker_04
What are you doing having a picnic on someone's fucking lawn?

01:35:26 Speaker_03
Also, if you're one of those kind of people, which you're not if you're listening to the show, because none of our listeners are stupid. No, you're all great.

01:35:33 Speaker_03
But if you know someone that's like that, you got to tell them to go to BJ's and get themselves the family pack of fucking shame.

01:35:41 Speaker_04
because you have no – I didn't know what you were going to tell these people to buy.

01:35:45 Speaker_03
You have no shame. If you are – and you need some. Like you need a healthy amount of human shame. Buy shame in bulk. Where you don't sit on someone's lawn and have a picnic.

01:35:55 Speaker_03
Like that – you should – when you don't have shame to that degree, you're bordering on not being a human. And you need to go fix that.

01:36:03 Speaker_04
If you can't call your mom or like somebody you love and tell them what you did that day, don't do that. Yeah. Don't do that thing. Good call.

01:36:11 Speaker_03
Now, despite all the claims of supernatural assaults and documentation of hoaxes and an endless parade of tourists, the house at 112 Ocean Avenue still stands. And it's as marketable as ever.

01:36:24 Speaker_03
Some of the subsequent owners went as far as to renovate, removing the, you know, they finally removed the home's iconic Dutch windows to make it less recognizable to tourists. Because they did. They became the iconic windows. They looked like eyes.

01:36:40 Speaker_04
They were spooky.

01:36:41 Speaker_03
Yeah, and other owners embrace the history and celebrated its place in horror history. Like, you know, you never know who you're going to get living there. It's kind of like the house on Elm Street, the house from Nightmare on Elm Street.

01:36:53 Speaker_03
That house has had several owners over the years. The newest owner, does not embrace its place in our history. Please fuck off.

01:37:04 Speaker_03
Which that's a place, there's a difference between a mass murder happening in a place, a real mass murder, and a real hoax happening in one place. I feel like that's a place where It's just they got a different vibe.

01:37:17 Speaker_03
But if you're buying the Elm Street house, you know what you're buying. You're buying the house from Nightmare on Elm Street. Come on. Come on. You gotta know. You gotta know. But I won't get into that.

01:37:28 Speaker_04
If people are just driving by, cool. People taking like a quick pic, I get it.

01:37:33 Speaker_03
People on your lawn, kick them off. No, nobody should be going on your property. That's not, no matter what you're doing.

01:37:38 Speaker_04
But if they're near your property, like come on.

01:37:41 Speaker_03
But you got to embrace that one a little bit. Not on property, I'm saying. Off property. But that's the thing. With all these kind of houses and places, you're going to get people who embrace the kookiness and the wildness and the horror stuff.

01:37:55 Speaker_03
You're going to get some people who aren't as comfortable with it. And you need to respect regardless. People's boundaries are important. Yeah.

01:38:03 Speaker_03
Now, in January 2023, the former Tofeo murder house sold for $1.5 million, which was a 1,775% increase from what George and Kathy Lutz paid in 1977.

01:38:16 Speaker_04
Well, shit.

01:38:17 Speaker_03
Pretty good increase. I don't know how the newest owners feel about it, so I think the safest thing is to assume they do not like the attention of that house and to leave them be and let them live.

01:38:29 Speaker_04
I like that. I like that.

01:38:31 Speaker_03
But everybody so far who has lived in that house has claimed that that house is not haunted in the way that it has been portrayed.

01:38:41 Speaker_04
And it's been 50 years, so like 50 plus years.

01:38:44 Speaker_03
I think we're going on 60. Maybe people have experienced little things here and there I wouldn't be shocked by any means but they have not you know heard marching bands and been carried off into closets and such.

01:38:56 Speaker_04
I want to know whose idea it was to add the marching band because that's just. That's that's that's overzealous. It is and the big figure pointing that's my favorite visual that I created for myself. Yeah just.

01:39:10 Speaker_04
I just picture him like pointing and then when they didn't like start dancing like he just gets on the ground and starts doing like a coffee grinder move.

01:39:17 Speaker_03
Yeah he's like oh okay it's my turn then.

01:39:18 Speaker_04
Okay let me show you how it's done.

01:39:20 Speaker_03
You skipping your turn?

01:39:21 Speaker_04
Fine. This is how we do it on the other side.

01:39:23 Speaker_03
He's like all right it's gonna cost you in judging but let's go.

01:39:28 Speaker_03
oh man so that is the story of the amityville hoax what a tale what a tale it's when you really look at it like overarching view it is really shitty what they did it's very shitty it's like super shitty and they did it for their own personal gain which is very shitty yeah and when you think about like um i forget who said it but somebody was like they're still like defeo family members and you turned them into ghouls like

01:39:55 Speaker_03
That's fucked up. They banked off of the DeFeo tragedy, which is a horrific tragedy. I mean, we covered it in the first episode, how bad that was. That was a horrific, horrific family annihilation. And it still has unanswered pieces of that.

01:40:07 Speaker_03
Like, there's so much mystery surrounding that in and of itself. They banked on that. And they also banked on a fictional burial ground scenario. Yeah, which is so fucked up. I hate that.

01:40:18 Speaker_04
I hate that aspect.

01:40:20 Speaker_03
Yeah. And it's like, I don't. And then they threw, like, John Ketchum into there.

01:40:24 Speaker_03
yeah they they really just ran in so many different directions like damn you just dipped your fingers in the Salem witch trials too like you really grabbed it's like the trifecta of fucked up for real are you indigenous burial ground uh-huh actual family annihilation and the Salem witch trials you just grabbed all three and threw them in the story just tragedies everywhere yeah

01:40:45 Speaker_04
oof so yeah that's wild it is a wild tale but it's spooky season so we got more fucking crazy ass tales coming your way we do and i hope you're enjoying them and being horrified by them yeah i have like a murder mansion next i think there's a poltergeist coming down the pike oh yeah we got it all yeah and then guys hang real tight because following all of this the next couple episodes you're getting jerry brudos

01:41:15 Speaker_03
Oh no. So that one's gonna take us right back into the depths of hell. It's just gonna make you feel real weird about putting your shoes on in the morning. It sure will. I hate it. Look him up everybody if you don't know who he is and anticipate that.

01:41:28 Speaker_04
Yeah we also have some special guests that are gonna be upcoming. We're really excited about that. We have a lot of cool stuff coming down the pike. We do. I'm excited. And before our spooky season commences,

01:41:38 Speaker_03
we're doing something a little extra fun for the listener tale yes but stay tuned for that because we we got some stuff in the works because that one falls on halloween right it falls yeah that one falls on halloween yes so who knows who knows you might see what we have up our sleeve who knows oh i'm so excited i'm very excited i can't wait

01:42:03 Speaker_04
So yeah, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird.

01:42:12 Speaker_04
But not so weird that you take an entire family's tragedy and so many other tragedies throughout history and turn them into a book for your own personal gain. I just think that's a little bit shitty. Yeah, it's not cool. Yeah, just don't lie.

01:42:25 Speaker_04
Like, if you experience something haunted, go off. Go crazy. That's exciting. But if you're gonna lie about it, you're just a fucking squid. It's true. No one likes a squid. No.

01:42:38 Speaker_06
Bye.

01:43:20 Speaker_04
If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

01:43:29 Speaker_04
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

01:43:35 Speaker_02
In the upcoming episode of Killer Psyche, we will be diving deep into the unfolding case of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Huerman. Huerman is awaiting trial for the murder of three women, with many more victims still being linked to him.

01:43:53 Speaker_02
Now, a recently released tell-all bail application goes into unusual details and links to keep him locked away, revealing shocking updates about the case.

01:44:04 Speaker_02
Listen as we take a closer look into the newly revealed evidence and charges, bringing new insight into what we already know about the case and what may have motivated him. Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

01:44:20 Speaker_02
You can listen to Killer Psyche and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid and The Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.