RedHanded - Episode 249 - The Amityville Horror | RedHanded LIVE

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

Join Hannah and Suruthi live on stage at a packed out Islington Assembly Hall as they describe the demonic possessions, bouncing beds, ghostly green goo and red-eyed pig-monsters linked to 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. The six brutal murders and explosive demonic haunting depicted in ‘The Amityville Horror’ are now a part of horror folklore. But what really happened? Did something malignant take over in that three-storey Dutch-colonial house on the south shore of Long Island? This episode includes audio ONLY. For the FULL experience, we’ve created a YouTube video where you can watch and listen! Check it out here: https://youtu.be/3kWkueiP-BY And be sure to subscribe! Thanks as always to The Franklys for the use of their music on the night! Check them out at thefranklys.com Classic merch is out now: redhandedshop.com Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact Sources: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2003/01/amityville-the-horror-of-it-all/ https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/15/nyregion/ronald-defeo-amityville-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/15/archives/neighbors-recall-defeos-as-nice-normal-family-drink-and-play-music.html https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/25/nyregion/amityville-prisoner-says-movie-money-tainted-defense.html https://www.topic.com/the-true-twisted-story-of-amityville-horror https://www.criminalelement.com/the-warren-case-files-fact-or-fiction/  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgS-NWfJtZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZAm8yOS0LM   The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson The Night the DeFeos Died – Rick Osuna https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/out-the-ooze/201612/haunted-houses-what-keeps-the-legends-alive https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/movies/my-amityville-horror-a-haunting-documentary.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/07/27/archives/film-devils-legacy-in-amityville-horrora-family-in-peril.html https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/warner-bros-settles-900m-lawsuit-conjuring-1067445/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, listeners.

Today, we've got a different kind of episode for you. It's actually a live recording of a show we did last Friday at Islington Assembly Hall in London for the podcast show 2022. We thought since there were only 450 tickets it would only be fair if we recorded the whole thing and then released it so that everyone of you spooky bitches could listen in on the fun. Now you can listen to this version which is of course the audio only but because there were a lot of visuals, you can listen to this version, which is, of course, the audio only. But because there were a lot of visuals, there were a lot of videos, there were a lot of things up on the screen while we were doing the show, we have also created a video version, which you can watch now

on the Red Handed YouTube channel. The link is in the episode description. Or just go to YouTube and search Red Handed. Head on over and watch that video. I would suggest you watch that rather than just listen to this. But we wanted to give you all the choices you could have because we love you and we're great like that. So do what you want, but watch the YouTube video. And while you're there, hit subscribe because we are gonna be bringing you so much more YouTube content over the coming year.

It's very exciting, we know. But either way, sit back and enjoy. Now please welcome to the stage, Hannah Maguire and Saruti Bala. What's happening? What's happening? Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, we're going to be late. And you're in time. You've got nowhere to be Hi Did I just come out and immediately flash everyone?

Can we get these headlights down? Thank you Thank you Everything is so far away And we didn't pour ourselves a drink Last time we were much closer together With a much less invisible table We both kicked it like four times

Okay, you might have to do the glass pouring Because I'm in a precarious situation that I didn't think through. Hello, everyone. Hi. It's so nice to be back. Islington is where we did our first ever Big Girl live show. Big Girl show. Yeah.

Yeah, indeed. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes. Everyone's excited. I feel like it was a sunny Friday. Who's already drunk? Okay, who listens to the show every week? Make some noise.

Oh, good, good. Who is a patron? Nice, thank you for keeping the lights on. Who has been dragged here against their will by their partner? Nice. And who here is a single straight man? There never are. Oh, a couple.

That's better odds than last time. How about the lesbians? Where are my lesbians? I thought so. It's so good to have you all here. Thank you so much for coming. We even heard there are people here from Cornwall. Is that true? Yeah.

That's Iceland. Iceland? Oh, wow. Hello. Thank you so much for coming. So before we get on with the show, I've got one more question. Who came to the UK tour in November? Nice.

Loyalty point. So you guys know the drill. What we're going to do is we're going to inject a bit of audience participation into the show tonight. Exactly. You can ask us whatever you want. It doesn't have to be about true crime. It can be anything. Those of you who came to the UK tour know that it got a bit spicy.

Our parents aren't here either, so you can say whatever you want. So feel free to ask away, and you can do it anonymously. You can use your real name, or if you want to trick me by using fake names like people did on the UK tour, feel free to do it.

But I am now on to... What was it? I can't remember what it was. I remember. I will never forget. Mo Lester. Now I remember, yeah. And who can forget Mike Litteris. Exactly, yeah. The favourite.

I have been fooled before, and no doubt it will happen again. Maybe it can be you. One more thing before we get on with it. You are being recorded tonight so if you're a silent laugher you can fuck off. You're absolutely no use. Please leave. So if you laugh loudly you might have

your laugh etched on the internet forever because we're releasing it next week. So you could have your 15 minutes but don't be a dick about it. And if you use your real name it will definitely be on the episode. Yeah, exactly. Be warned. 15 minutes, but don't be a dick about it. And if you use your real name, it will definitely be on the episode. Yeah, exactly. Be warned. So, I think we should probably get on with it.

Yeah, I like you. So, we haven't actually said what this is, have we? No. Okay, so I'm going to give you some clues as a run-up. In 1974, in a sleepy town an hour's drive from New York City, a 23-year-old man was convicted for killing six members of his family as they slept. But this was

no ordinary run-of-the-mill family annihilation, because reports from his trial said that he was guided by a demonic voice. So long. I know. The family that moved into the house straight afterwards left after just 28 days, saying they had been driven out by a malicious and invasive supernatural force. Does anyone want to have a crack? Yes.

You're so clever. Yeah, exactly. We are going to be talking about all of the demonic possessions, bouncing beds, green goo, red-eyed pig monsters linked to 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. Sounds like I told you. How did you know? So the original book about this case, which was called The Amptiville Horror, sold 10 million copies around the world. And along with the original 1979 film, it built a terrifying, rickety bridge between the worlds of horror and true crime and it provided absolute nightmare fuel for an entire generation and looking at scenes like this it's easy to see why it's the mouth wipe it's a little mouth wipe that really finishes it off.

The house and its sinister eye-like windows are still among the most recognisable images in true crime and horror history. Amityville is a tale that has endured for absolutely decades, even landing itself a soft reboot starring everybody's favourite creepy stepdad who's always got his top off for some reason, Ryan Reynolds. Look at that as long as you want. And maybe most shocking of all though is that the green ooze, the ghostly voices,

and the pig demon all somehow took center stage and completely overshadowed the fact that an entire family was slaughtered in one single night. Yet, the book's author and the runaway family at the heart of this entire story maintained until their deaths that every spooky word they uttered about what had happened was absolutely true. But what really happened? Was Amityville really a haunting, or was it all just a big money grubbing hoax? Or did something really malignant take over that three-story Dutch colonial house on the south shore of Long Island? Whatever it was, six people lost their lives in a night of

unbelievable violence. So let's get into it and you can make up your own minds. If you're familiar with this case, which it sounds like some of you are, you'll know that the Lutz family are often cast in the center of the story. But if you really know the case, you'll know that the story doesn't start with them. It starts with the murder of the DeFeo families

and that's what really thrust this house onto the front pages. So let's meet them. We first up got Ronald Sr. There he is, known to his probably not friends as Big Ronnie. And he married Louise Marie Briganti, who's there, in the early 50s. And Louise's father, Michael Briganti, really, really hated Big Ronnie. He hated him so much that he refused to speak to him or his own daughter until the couple welcomed their first child, Ronald Jr.

That's baby number one. And Ronald Jr. was soon followed by Dawn, Allison, Mark, and John Matthew. And you would presume that if they had had another one, they would have called it Luke. Which is a gag for all of my New Testament scholars in the audience. I'm glad I kept it in. The DeFeo's moved into 112 Ocean Avenue in 1965, but it wasn't just called 112 Ocean Avenue. It had another name. It was called High Hopes, and it had a sign outside saying just as much. So their eldest, Ronald Jr., who is there with Big Ronnie looking like a Big Ronnie. Played here by Mickey Rourke.

He had a bad time. He, like his father, was a sizable child, and he had the shit ripped out of him at school for it. And things at home weren't much better because Big Ronnie as his name might suggest had quite a temper on him he was prone to fits of rage and he frequently flew off the handle at Louise and the kids and there are several reports of him smacking little butchers head into a wall repeatedly during violent arguments and we know you know we all together, that a turbulent childhood and repeated head trauma is often a recipe for disaster.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, Butch started lashing out early. Don't you think that he looks a little bit like a filled-out Cerruti's boyfriend, Richard Chase? Like a little bit? Do you know what? He's not the worst looking killer we've ever come across. Yeah. I don't know why it always... Okay, but for the record, she also fancies Jeffrey Dahmer, so are we really going to listen to her? Look, it was a throwaway comment that comes back to haunt me repeatedly. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life.

You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series,

NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Start your free trial today. So Butch started lashing out early. And his family tried their best. They really did. They took him to a psychiatrist. They were trying to figure out what was wrong with Butch. But he made very little progress and pretty soon he stopped going altogether. Instead, Butch got into drugs. And as a teenager,

he decided to start his drug-fueled journey with amphetamines. And then he branched out into speed, acid, and, as you all know, my personal favourite, heroin. And if you still think I take heroin, I can't help anymore. And obviously with all that going on, Butch pretty quickly found himself expelled from school. And his dad, Big Ronnie's approach to what was going to happen here given his son was just addicted to drugs and not going to school was to throw more money at the problem. He decided to buy Butch, his son with a major drug problem, a $14,000 speedboat. And he gave him a job at the Puyik dealership. And that might sound

like a good idea. It might sound like, okay, he's got a job, gives him a reason to get up in the morning, teaching him responsibility. But the problem was that Butch got paid whether he turned up or not. So, surprise, surprise, all of this newfound money that Butch had found its way funneled into more choice drugs, booze, and pimping his ride, which was his favorite thing to do apart from take heroin. But not content with all the free drug money he was getting and an actual mansion to live in, Butch started hatching schemes

to embezzle money out of his own family business. The problem was, Butch wasn't the sharpest tool in the box, so he wasn't even very good at that. So it won't come as a surprise to learn that Butch wasn gyfrifol o'r mis ymlaen yn y gwasanaeth buwch. Felly pan wnaeth hi fynd i fyny i'r gwaith ar amser ar 6 oes ar 13 Nofembr 1974, fe wnaeth hi gynyddu ychydig o glwynau. Ond ar y cyfnod oed, roedd yn ôl yn ôl ar ei bwysigrwydd ac By midday he was firmly back on his bullshit and he announced very loudly that he was bored and he was going home. And then at 6.30 that same evening he burst into Henry's bar which happened to be on Ocean Avenue and he told the people drinking in there that his parents had been shot.

So the people drinking in the bar, I mean I'm sure not all of them, I don't think it's some sort of clown car situation, but they get into Butch's car and they speed down Ocean Avenue back to 112, back to High Hopes. And there they find Butch's parents and his four siblings all dead. That's a door. Someone is really ready, though. Don't worry about it. They were all lying in their beds, face down, shot with a 35 Marlin rifle. Big Ronnie was the first one to be discovered with a hole in the dead center of his

back. Next to him was the body of his wife, Louise, covered with an orange blanket. Their two sons, age six and nine, were found in the next room, again with bullet holes in their backs. And then finally, they found 13-year-old Alison and 18-year-old Dawn, who had suffered a massive head injury. So naturally, the police thought they better question the only surviving member of the DeFeo family. And when Butch was asked what had happened, he lent quite heavily on his family's mob connections. And he said that there was a mafia hitman called Louis Fellini who had a grudge against his father for, like, a botched repair or something, or maybe, like, he wormwooded the car and, like, put sawdust and, like, I don't know, something.

Something that Louis Fellini was upset enough about to murder not just Big Ronnie but his entire family. And we don't know how well Butch told that story but the mystery didn't last particularly long because as soon as the police searched the house they found a 35 Marlin rifle box in Butch's bedroom. And then later they found the gun itself along with ammunition and Butch's bloody clothes stuffed into a storm drain, which he had quite obviously done on his way to work. He's so lazy. Not the most innovative guy. Okay, that was quite a lot of bloody mattresses.

Shall we have a question? Yes, we've got loads of questions. Okay, good, because I haven't been looking. So when I am sat here looking at my phone, it's not because I've just checked out emotionally. Yeah, sorry, we should have said. And I'm just doing a butch, and I'm like, I'm bored, I want to go home. This is, we're looking at the questions, guys. So there are so many.

Also, Hannah, if you will remember, there are ones that get... Oh, yeah, they relegate really naughty... So if you guys are being really naughty, they are filtering them. This one got... Rachel's got, like, red flagged immediately because it says fuck and fucked in it. But I'm going to read it. Okay.

So, Rachel, that's how you get to the top of the list, just get flagged. So Rachel says, on the London tour, I asked you how I should get back at my cheating husband. Oh, yeah. You suggested I fuck his brother. I think I said his dad.

Update, I fucked his dad instead. Yes! It worked. Thanks, Galveston. You're a hero. Good for you. Fucking iconic. What a legend.

Okay, okay. Piglet says, Hannah, I've been with my boyfriend six years. He only really wears shorts. Should I trust him? Absolutely fucking not. No, no. How are you finding Hinge?

Next question. Next question. Masturbator. I'm on to you. Have you ever been to a funeral that hired a photographer? No. No. You're right, there's a gap in the market. Someone fill it. Someone's, oh, okay.

Hannah, are you gay? I knew it. This happened on the tour every single night. They're like, Hannah, are you sure? You've just got this really big gay energy. Guys, I've tried. I've tried. It's not for me, okay? I tried really hard. I like the one that's like, Hannah, are you gay? Doesn't have a question mark.

And I feel like they swapped the U and the R around the wrong way. It does have two kisses, though. Hannah, did you text back half your age plus seven? We're going out tomorrow. Oh. Ignoring all the ones that are about me. Oh, I see, I see, I see.

Struty, where did you get your shoes from? Awesome cart. I got them from Topshop about 12 years ago, so good luck, I'm afraid. And that's why I will never throw them away. Ooh. H&S, do you think there is a cluster of personality traits for people who enjoy true crime?

Exactly how weird are all of we? Are all of we? This is from Beck. I think the cluster of personalities that enjoys true crime is like inquisitive, curious. And sexy. And sexy. There you go. That's it. Exactly. So getting back to Butch, here he is. Eventually, Butch did confess to all six killings, considering

they found the gun very close to his house. And he said, quote, once I started, I just couldn't stop. So it's interesting because it's... Who's cheering? I know. That wasn't the reaction that I was expecting. Serious therapist. We weren't like, pause for cheer. Okay, continue. Yeah, he's very much like can of Pringles about the whole situation. He's chill about it. But the case was far from closed, even though Butch admitted what he had done.

Because between the time of his initial confession and the trial, he spun 15 completely different stories about what actually went down that night. And offending him was this guy, William Webber. Webber, spurred on by Butch's fantastical range of stories, as well as the fact that he kept saying that he lost control on the night of the murders, Webber decided to mount an insanity plea.

And if you have read the book, then you will know that this is a very difficult thing to do. It's successful maybe in 1% of 1% of cases in which it is used. So the jury at the trial heard that Butch DeFeo was guided by another presence on the night of the murders. Apparently, a presence so strong that it actually handed him the rifle and led him from room to room as he slayed his family members one by one. And the psychiatrist for the defense, a Dr. Daniel Schwartz, backed this up. Schwartz said that butch was suffering from disassociative identity disorder, in which a person can feel the presence of one or more different identities. But, as we have said many a time on Red Handed,

you can find an expert to say anything you want at your trial. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, the psychiatrist for the prosecution completely disagreed with Dr. Schwartz and instead put Butcher's behavior down to antisocial personality disorder. In this case, the jury sided with the prosecution and Butch DeFeo was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder. Butcher's sentencing hit the front pages all over the country. But questions still lingered as to why he had killed his entire family and also how he had managed to do it all by himself.

It's a very important question, but one that we're going to come back to later. Did someone's phone go off? Who was it? Okay, one month after the trial wrapped up, it is time for us to meet the Lutz family. There they are. That's the dog. Oh, yeah.

I never saw the dog before. It looks a bit demonic, doesn't it? Well, if you've seen the film, bad things happen to that dog. Okay, so George Lutz is the one that you think he is. He's got a bit of a, like, Final Destination photo face going on in that picture. Like, everyone else looks kind of clear, but George looks a bit... He's next. He's next.

Yeah, so George was an ex-Marine with a gun license and an anger problem and also quite a lot of debt from his land surveying business that he just couldn't really get going because the only thing more boring than a surveyor is one that can't make any money. So he and Kathleen got married and Kathleen had three kids from a previous marriage, so they were on the hunt for a house for their new blended family unit.

Money was tight, and their demands were really high. They'd actually seen 50 other properties on the South Shore before they took a look in Amityville. And when they did look in Amityville, they found a deal that was just too good to be true. The house was massive. It was three stories. It had six bedrooms. It had a swimming pool and a boathouse that was 30 feet out on the lake. It was listed for $80,000, which was a relative steal. We have to remember that this is like two or three recessions ago. So they wasted no time in going to view it. They had been looking more in the $40,000 range, but George, he had expensive taste,

and he couldn't resist a bargain. So while they looked around, the broker let them know that this house actually was too good to be true. There was a big blood-spattered catch, and that was, of course, the murders of the DeFeo family had happened in the house just a year earlier And it had stood empty ever since But George didn't let that bother him. He leapt at the chance to seal the deal and

He even agreed to keep the DeFeo family's furniture We're assuming that he did swap out the mattresses And I don't know I get it, but you also know, and everybody probably, I am a very cheap person. Usually she says thrifty. I'm glad this time she said cheap, which is the truth. Well, I had to

after my mum called me a cheap bitch. When I when I won on eBay, do you win? I won a wardrobe, and it's all like... It's a haunted fucking wardrobe, by you win? I won a wardrobe. And it's all like... It's a haunted fucking wardrobe, by the way. It's a haunted wardrobe.

They are antique. A wardrobe, a dresser, and a side table. And then as soon as I won, I had immediate buyer's remorse because I thought I had been shafted. And my mum was like, you're a cheap bitch. And now she's possessed by a demon. Yes, now I'm possessed by a demon. Victorian ghost.

So, the house stood exactly as it had the night the DeFeos were murdered in their beds by their own son. And if that's not asking for a haunting, don't really know what is. The Lutzes moved into the house a week before Christmas 1975. But less than a month later, they abruptly left their dream home. And that's the point where the stories start to diverge. Almost everything that happened in those

28 days and the many, many things that happened afterwards have been the subject of debate for decades. So what we're going to do in this part of the show is we're going to tell you the Lutzes story and we're relying on accounts that they gave in the press and also through Jay Anson's best-selling book, The Amityville Horror, which is quite defensively subtitled, A True Story. So according to the Lutzes, the spooky shitstorm kicked off within minutes of them moving into this new house. For example, their weird demon dog that we saw earlier was tied by its lead to a tree. And apparently, it suddenly went berserk, leapt over a fence, and almost hanged itself.

So the couple invited a Catholic cleric named Father Ralph Pecoraro to come by and bless the house. Now, this isn't exactly that unusual for a Catholic family at the time and in the area. But as Father Ralph came into the house and started praying and spraying holy water around, in an upstairs room specifically, he suddenly heard a growling voice saying, Get out! That's ripped straight from the Amptiville movie, and it's saying get out, in case you didn't hear that. And after this, things just kept getting worse and worse for the poor Lutzes. The house was freezing cold. The upstairs sewing room was filled with hundreds

of flies, even in the middle of winter. George, the father, became withdrawn and brooding and absolutely obsessed with keeping every single fireplace burning at all hours, which I do have to say, at least that last bit kind of sounds like going on holiday with me. And then I

can put my feet just directly into the fire and take pictures and then you guys be weird about my feet on social media. You just shouldn't give your feet pics away for free. I think that's the only lesson to take away. And as if all this wasn't bad enough, the youngest child, Missy, in a classic fuck you creepy horror movie kid style move, suddenly disclosed to the family that she had an imaginary friend called Jodie. Yes, quite. So with each day that passed, more and more invasive and terrifying events kept befalling the Lutzes. One afternoon, Cathy suddenly felt two presences. One was pulling her

by the wrist, another was pulling her by the waist. They were pulling her back and forth, and in his book, Anson reports that she, quote, sensed a struggle going on over possession of her body. It's like somehow she was trapped between two powerful forces. You can see why it sold so many copies. George also saw a pair of terrifying blood red eyes in the window and on closer inspection he saw that it was the face of a demonic pig. Yes. And just in case the pig viewing wasn't enough it got worse because later the family even found a set of cloven cloven yeah cloven yeah it sounded weird when i said it cloven what do you think it is cloven cloved cloven cloven hoof prints. Maybe I should put this down. Cloven hoof prints in the snow outside their house.

Then, on the 6th... I don't even know why. Then, on the 6th of January, which is, of course, I mean, I don't know why I'm saying this, of course, Hannah, the Feast of the Epiphany. Well, it is the Feast of the Epiphany, which if you are a heathen, is when the wise men go and visit the baby Jesus, right? And I always thought it was quite odd that Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus stayed in the stable for 12 days, waiting for the wise men Like, no room at the inn ever? Like, I said, no. No God in flesh.

Stay in the manger. Yeah, anyway, but it is traditionally when you take your Christmas decorations down. And if you don't, you're a pig. Yes. So that's what they do. They take their Christmas decorations down. They're incredibly holy Christmas decorations down

because the minute they did, the demons let loose. A crucifix flipped upside down, drawers in the house slid back and forth. A putrid green ooze started pouring out of the keyholes and covered the inside of the boathouse. Their beds leapt up and down of their own accord. They started to see and feel the presence of people throughout the house. One night, Cathy even levitated out of her bed and across the room, where she transformed into a 90-year-old crone with red gashes down her face.

This is all from the book. Do you know where all of this is also from? Because in case you recognized any of these clips we just played, they are from The Exorcist, a film that came out coincidentally before the Lutzes told their story. Just purely coincidence. But even if we want to think that the Lutzes just ripped off The Exorcist, we do have to give them credit because try as we might, how many other times we watched The Exorcist this week, we couldn't find a pig demon in it. And the cherry on the pig demon cake, remember Missy, the creepy kid with the mate, Jodie,

that no one could see? Well, she decided at this point to casually reveal to her family that Jodie was the pig demon all along. Which kind of implies the pig introduced itself. How do you do? Not the name I would have gone for if I were a pig demon. No, Soranti. So, on the 15th of January,

1976, the Lutzes decided it was time to flee this house. And they did so with just three changes of clothes, just 28 days after they moved in. And about a month after that, they had the presence of mind to hold a press conference. In which they said that a very strong force had pushed them out of their dream home. And naturally they were inundated with offers from press. But after a five-hour conversation with a reporter, they agreed to give local station Channel 5 exclusive coverage.

And Channel 5 assembled a team of parapsychologists, psychics, demonologists, for what they would later refer to as a kind of psychic slumber party. And leading the charge on this psychic slumber party were two grade-A bullshitters whose names might ring a bell. It's Ed and Lorraine Warren. That's not them. This is them. It's some very, like, generous casting going on. Very generous casting, yeah. I can feel them looking at me.

Ed's not. He's drunk. So if you're not intimately familiar with the Conjuring cinematic universe, Ed and Lorraine Warren were ghost hunters, and they were kind of the best to ever do it. They were definitely at the top of their game when Amityville happened. Back in 1952, they founded the incredibly legit-sounding New England Centre for Psychic Research. And you can go there, and you can see the original Annabelle doll

positively do not do not watch just don't just don't and yeah she's a she's a lot less terrifying than she is in the country but you can go and see her in her glass case with her crucifix all locked away. And the Warrens also claim that they have studied over 10,000 occurrences of paranormal activity across the world. In news that will surprise absolutely no one, they both grow up extremely devout Roman Catholics. And they started their ghost busting activities very early on. Ed always said that he'd grown up in a haunted house and he often hung out with the ghost of the dead landlady,

who was assuming, like, maybe they're for ghost rent or something, and also his dead auntie, who would bring him messages about the future. I feel like Ed was maybe the OG spooky bitch. I don't think it was Martin anymore. I think it was Ed. I want less to do with Ed Warren than humanly possible. So I don't know if we can invite him in.

Keep him out. He's not allowed. Lorraine had reported seeing lights surrounding people from the age of about seven years old. And she called herself a light trance medium. I love him so much. Okay, okay, right. So during, I'm just going to leave him there.

During Lorraine's visit to Amityville, I'm sorry, I'll take it away. Ed and Lorraine Warren are the reason that we have the ghost hunting TV shows that we have now. So Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, I'm Zach Bagans and I never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. That whole genre we absolutely would not have if it weren't for the Warrens. If you haven't seen them, it's usually a group of men walking through dark buildings with digital recorders capturing absolutely nothing on camera. And we have them to thank for that. They invented modern ghost hunting. And like all dynamic duos,

they both had a separate job. Ed was the exorcist and Lorraine was the clairvoyant. There she is. That picture was actually taken in the Amityville house she's having a light trance we tried to put little glow sticks in her hand but it didn't quite work it didn't quite work so during her

visit to Amityville she did a lot of lying down and she also decided that the house was absolutely possessed by some sort of demonic force that had come from the bowels of the earth, is what she said. And later on, she went on to say that Amityville, and this is a quote, was probably one of the most haunted houses in the world. You don't want to spunk your load too soon. They were, you know, she was just a sprightly 70-year-old at this point. There might be another haunting the next year. You can't just say this is the most haunted house just yet.

So they conducted a series of seances. There they are. And they decided that it absolutely, definitely, 100% was a demon. And they also produced this very famous photograph. And what we're looking at is what appears to be a ghostly boy poking his head out of the sewing room, which is the room where all of the shit happened, like the priest burning his hands and the flies and the get out, and none of the family slept in that room. And it's been said by the people who were there that this image could be, or if you're Lorraine Warren, is John DeFeo, who was the youngest kid killed by his brother, Butch, in the house. Yeah.

Creepy. Creepy times. We'll come back to it. Let's have some more questions. Some questions. Let's do questions. I've been looking at them, which is why I'm missing a few to tell you that we were doing questions.

Okay. I've got one from Anonymous, which has had four upvotes. He's perfect in every way, but he'll only have sex with you dressed as a monk. At this stage, I could get into it. Yeah. Do you take your chairs with you or do you hire them from the venue? I love them, says Laura Pinson. You love this chair. Yeah, we carried it here on our back.

Okay. Sierra says, help me write hinge prompts, please. My family back home in Ireland are trying to set me up with a farmer. Plow this? I don't know. I think she's trying to avoid the farmer. Oh, right, I see.

I don't know. Okay. Oh, my God, there are so many questions. Okay, snog, marry, sleep. Pardon? Someone says snog, marry, sleep Marry, Sleep. Pardon? Someone says Snog, Marry, Sleep. Oh, Sleep With. Israel Keyes, Richard Chase, Gary Ridgway.

Do you know what? Gary Ridgway was very romantic. Wait, have you read the book? Who's read the book and remembers what I'm talking about? Because Gary Ridgway, if you will remember, actually basically completely stopped murdering sex workers when he was in love with his third wife. So that's kind of nice, I guess.

So you're marrying him? I'd marry Gary. Okay. And then I would... I feel like Israel Keys might be a bit crazy, so maybe I'd sleep with him and then snog my boyfriend Richard Chase. Snog your boyfriend Richard Chase. Okay.

How do we submit suitors for H, says Anonymous? LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Oh my, Saruti, will you marry me, says Jessie Wong. Yes, Jessie, let's go. You've got your own lesbian. I've got my own lesbian, my. Saruti, will you marry me, says Jessie Wong. Yes, Jessie. Let's go. You've got your own lesbian. I've got my own lesbian. Yay. A lesbian of one's own. Oh, God. Okay.

Papa Roach says, Saruti, I've come here with my friend, Gus, who really likes you. And even though he doesn't look like Jeffrey Dahmer, he's hot and nice and smart, please come for a drink with us. Okay, this is a good one we've had before but I think we should answer it. Would you rather sleep with your boyfriend in your dad's body or sleep with your dad in your boyfriend's body? Wait, say it again. Would you rather sleep with your dad in your boyfriend's body? I think it's got to be dad's body right? It has to be. But he looks like your dad. Yeah but then your dad doesn't know. We okay we had a question on the UK tour we had a question that was like would you rather watch your parents have sex or have your, what was it?

Would your parents have sex? Always have to watch your parents have sex. Always have your parents watch you have sex. Right. To which I said, well, my dad's dead. And she said, so he's always kind of watching. Thank you. Okay.

I think let's leave it there. No, no, no, I've got one for you. Oh, you've got one for me, okay. Saruti, when are we getting Cleopatra the musical in theatres? Tonight! Yeah, actually, I'm just going to come on with a sheet. If you don't know, Cerruti in primary school... Was a megalomaniac. She wrote basically a one-woman play in which she was Cleopatra

and everyone else in her class just had to make the scene. I thought blue satin. It was educational. The second act is me just waving at you. Thank you very much. Okay, let's get back to the story. So we said earlier that the Lutz family are probably the only people who can say for sure what really happened in those 28 days before they ran away from the Amityville house. You might also say the Butch DeFeo is the only person who can really

have told us what happened the night his entire family were murdered. But the thing is, things like this, events like those that Butch and the Lutzes are describing, don't happen in a vacuum. They leave marks, they leave reverberations. Six murders and an explosive demonic possession don't just happen under the radar. So what really went down? Could a supernatural evil force invited in by Butch DeFeo's violent actions really have terrorized the Lutzes? Or is every single word of Jay Anson's multi-million dollar book complete bullshit? To find out, join us for part two in which everything is a lie and everyone gets sued. Yes, sorry, I timed that really badly because I made it look like I was going to say something else and I am. I was going to say, go, we're going to take a quick interval, just 15 minutes, grab a drink.

You're going to need it because we're going to play a drinking game in the second half. And get your merch. It's back in the lobby. Spooky Bitch is back and she's out there. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul. The man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about.

Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from

grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Welcome back! Hello! Yay! So we were just saying backstage, we are not having a great time being able to hear each other. So if that's why, if we're asking. And we also had a look at some of the questions you sent over the interval, which...

They're so good, we decided in a change to the scheduled programming, we're going to do some questions before we go into the second half. Before we do that, though, did everyone get a drink? Yes. Really? Okay, good. They do a double pint here. Yes.

There's a strict 15-minute turnaround. You've got to get them in. So the reason you have to have drinks is because in the second half, like I said before we left, everyone gets sued, there's a lot of lies, there's also a lot of debunking that we're going to do. So,

this is the deal. Every time we debunk something, we'll all drink because it's Friday and it's fun. We'll figure out as we go. But also expect no prompting from us. You're on your own. Because we have forgotten to do this every single time we've rehearsed it. But let's do some questions before we move on.

I've got one. Yeah. He's perfect in every way, but he'll only have sex with you when he's dressed like you. Which obviously I would be fine with. So in my case, has he also got brown face on? No, no. It's like a full skin suit. Oh.

Yeah. Oh, I don't know. No. No. It's a very good one. It's very specific. Hannah, would Gaggin for a property says, would you buy a Zone 1 property in London, Victorian style,

four bed, Zone 1, gorgeous, for cheap, cheap, but a murder has happened at it. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. No problem at all. I don't know if you know what line of work I'm in, but actually quite useful. I don't really understand. Saruti, how are you getting on with ACD face? This question says, these people have come all the way from Dublin. I think they deserve an answer.

Is he here? He's in Spain. Anyway. If you had to choose one serial killer to eat a whole raw vegetable out of your hand, says Amy Barry, which serial killer and which vegetable would you pick? That's a good one. I would pick Richard Chase. I was going to say that also. I don't know why. I think he feels like a clean man, even though he put a rabbit in a blender. He just looks like he needs a feed-in, you know? He does. He does. What did someone shout?

A blood orange. Blood orange. Ooh, all right. Richard Chase and a blood orange. Conceptual. Fine. OK, great. Love it. Let's get on with it, because we'll get yelled at by the venue if we're late. So the story we've told you in the part one of this show is now part of horror folklore. The house has become such a byline for terror, the IMDB currently lists 70 films with Amityville

in the title. And that canon includes Amityville in Space. Gets better. My personal favourite, Amityville in the hood. And I really like how, even though it's in, like, rural fucking wherever,

they still kept it urban. Kept it urban. They're like, we'll put a little skyscraper down here. And the plot, which I know you're all dying to know, is that a gang grow weed inside the Amityville house and anyone who smokes it becomes possessed. And the latest addition to the Amityville film family...

Which is my favourite. Which is Ceruse's favorite. It's coming out this very year. And it's a complete masterpiece. So let's see a little bit. We didn't make this by the way. God, good health is so hard to find. I might have to just fire you right now.

Everyone's talking about this wine, the Amityville wine. They're saying it's from Amityville. They're saying it's cursed. It's worth it. But what we're going to do now is tell you the true story, which has less, like, face-plunging and foot stuff, but is just as terrifying as Amityville Karen. So to do that, to tell the real story,

we have to go back to this guy, Butch DeFeo. In the Jay Anson version of events, Butch murdering his entire family as they slept is just kind of a prop for the main event. And although it's not remembered as the central part of the story, six people being murdered does mean that we have to ask another mysterious question. It's not a ghost question. It's what could possibly make someone do that? Because yes, obviously it is a horrific thing to do. And even in the world of true crime that we all love to splash about in weekly, parasite, especially parasite carried out by children, even adult children, is exceedingly rare. So yes, this brutal family massacre would be difficult to explain. If, that is, Butch hadn't

been threatening to do it for literally years. When it actually happened in interviews with neighbors and other people in the town, all of them basically said that they weren't that surprised that he'd actually ended up killing everybody. Exactly. Butch was volatile. In fact, the entire family were kind of considered to be a bit volatile. And in fact, Butch had a history of this. You'll be unsurprised to hear. Your first rodeo isn't murdering your entire family. As a teenager, he threatened a friend of his on a camping trip with a gun.

No doubt when he was probably off his tits on speed. Later, he even tried to shoot his dad, Big Ronnie, and the only reason that Big Ronnie survived that particular attempt was because the gun actually malfunctioned. Butch was constantly getting into fights, and with all the stuff we said before about hatching schemes for cash, all of the drug use, he was pretty much out of hand by the time the murders happened. And unfortunately, his dad, Ronnie Senior, Big Ronnie, was no better. His volatility hadn't slowed down in his old age, and most people in the town probably quite rightly put it down to the fact that his years of abuse had probably worn Butch down.

Not that obviously it's an excuse to murder your entire family, but they also said that it probably worn down his sister Dawn as well. In his book, The Night the DeFeos Died, author Rick Osana actually gathered years of research and lands at what we think is probably the best approximation of what really took place that night. According to him, Butch didn't and can't have acted alone. And if you consider the facts of what actually happened, it does make a lot of sense. Firstly, a.35 Marlin is not a quiet gun.

A blast from one of those could be heard streets away. So how could one person go from room to room firing nine consecutive shots without anybody waking up or making any attempt to escape? Because remember, almost all of the victims were found shot in their beds, most likely while they were asleep. Their bodies were not moved and all of the victims had no drugs found in their system that could have incapacitated them. But there was one victim whose body was found at the house that night that did stand out, Dawn DeFeo.

And that's because the headboard of Dawn's bed, in which she was found shot, was suspiciously clean. But there was another Buds batter that was found by the doorway. So if we presume that that means that maybe Dawn was actually up and about and the only one apart from Butchie was up and about during the time of the murders, then maybe it points to the idea that Dawn was the second shooter. If this is the case, then it begs the question, why? Butch had form for this, but why would Dawn take part in killing her entire family? Well, Dawn had apparently been desperate to move to Florida with her boyfriend for absolutely years,

but she'd always been manipulated into staying in the DeFeo house by her dad, Big Ronnie. So maybe, finally, she'd snapped and hatched this plan with Butch in order to get her father, Big Ronnie, out of the way so that she could finally be free. But maybe then, when she saw that Butch had killed the entire rest of the family as well, maybe Dawn had confronted him and Butch had shot her to keep her quiet. So that's that debunked.

Oh, God, yeah, debunk! I don't know. No! No. So that is that. So what about those voices, those demonic voices that coerced Butch to kill his entire family? Well, that is where Butch's lawyer, William Webber, little baldy egg man, really earned his stripes. You might remember, if you were paying attention in Act 1, that William Webber went for an insanity plea,

which is not only incredibly difficult to prove, it also isn't the get-out-of-jail-free card that everyone thinks, not everyone, not you, because you're smart, but some people think it might be. Does someone just say thank you? And commitment to a psychiatric hospital quite often doesn't come with a release date. What you might not know is that William Webber was the one that brought the demonic coercion story to the attention of George and Kathy Lutz.

It wasn't a secret that DeFeo murders were national news and everyone knew the story of the demonic possession. And Webber was actually already making bank from his involvement in the trial. But it wasn't enough. He wanted more money. So he approached George and Kathy with a money-making scheme. He wanted them to turn their haunted house story into a book. And the Lutzes really needed the money. They'd spunked all their cash on the Amityville house, and George's business debts had just got worse, which is what happens when you don't pay them. So after the Channel 5 series, the Lutzes sat down with Webber to see what kind of shape this book could possibly take. And Webber suggested the writer Paul Hoffman, because he'd already

written two very popular articles about the Amityville Horror. One was in New York Sunday News, and the other was in this issue of Good Housekeeping. You can see there, it's just a little byline down here. So you don't believe in haunted houses? Now you will. Try me, good housekeeping. I just love the other stories on there. And it's like, Jennifer, 14 months. Want to see your baby on our cover? Oh, so this is Jennifer? This is Jennifer.

Jennifer would be in her 60s now, if she's still around. And she's here tonight. I know. So Weber pitched to the Lutz families a kind of contract between him, Paul Hoffman, Kathy and George, and then two other interested parties. And Paul Hoffman would take 40% of the proceedings because he was the one actually writing the book. And then whatever was left over would be split up amongst the rest of the people in the deal. But the Lutzes thought that was bullshit. They thought they were getting shafted.

They said, absolutely not, and they moved to San Diego and took their story to author Jay Anson, who did the rest. And the book was an enormous hit. But even though the Lutzes thought that they were avoiding a shafting, they actually got shafted even harder. They missed out on the film rights completely. And in the book deal, they only made $300,000 flat fee, no commission, nothing like that.

Which is over triple what they paid for the house in the first place. But when you consider the book sold millions upon millions of copies and then was followed by a multi-billion dollar film franchise, doesn't really touch the edges. So the Lutzes weren't very happy and they did what Americans do when they're not very happy. They got their sewing pants on. And the Lutzes filed a $4.5 million lawsuit

against the first two Amityville horror books, Webber's Publishing Company, and the Hearst Corporation, which sounds a bit rogue, but they also own Good Housekeeping. Apparently, the New York Sunday News, they were like, that one's fine, I'm going after Good Housekeeping. And here's what they argued, in a very swift 180, they now said that their experiences in the Amityville house

were absolutely nobody's business but their own. So they claimed invasion of privacy, misappropriation of name for trade, and negligent infliction of mental distress. Yep. And over the course of this court case, absolutely everything came out. By this point, Weber felt slighted by the deal

and dropped the Demon Act in the press altogether. He even told People Magazine, and this is a quote, we created this horror story over many bottles of wine that mainly George Lutz was drinking. He said they took ideas from reality and added fantastical elements. So a cat, thank you, so a cat in the window became a red-eyed pig. A bowl of tomato sauce dropped down the stairs became the green slime. It's also, it was a bowl of tomato sauce that was dropped

down the basement stairs, so apparently by, not Kathy Lutz, was it? It was Louise DeFeo. Louise DeFeo, Mrs. DeFeo. Why she was taking tomato sauce down into the basement, we'll never know. Also, who is just eating a bowl of ketchup?

I think that's the real question. I think there was some sort of sex party. She had a basement wife. Can't think of any other explanation. So when he appeared, because he went whole hog with this, I'm debunking the demon story now, I've seen the light, I'm telling the truth. He even appeared on the TV program A Current Affair and said the following, quote, we took

real life incidents and transposed them. In other words, it was a hoax. And a video of that interview was actually played in the courtroom. So it was pretty damning stuff. So what was Webber actually up to? Why was he going around debunking the story that he had so carefully crafted for years? Let's say that it was all just about trying to squeeze more money out of the situation. Maybe he felt snubbed by the book deal, and now he was just saying anything he could to undermine the demonic story that was selling millions.

But even without Weber's boo-soaked, tomato-sauce-drenched, weird writing party, a string of other inconsistencies are fairly easy to check. That is, if you want us, need us, should I say, to go into debunking a demonic possession story, let's do it because then you'll all get really drunk. Firstly, despite all the craziness that the Lutzes claimed to have faced

during their 28 days at 112 Ocean Avenue, they never called the police once. I feel like I would call the police if my partner turned into a 90-year-old crime. I just saw someone walk down the stairs backstage and I nearly called the police. Well, there you go. And what about those demon cloven cloven. Yeah, well done. English is her third language, guys. Give her a break. Cloven hoof prints. Well, that didn't look good either.

Because remember, they said, the Luxor said they saw those cloven hoof prints in the snow outside their house. Well, it didn't snow in Amityville that entire winter. So that couldn't have happened either. I love it. No. And then I've got more. It doesn't end there because this thing. Do you need help?

The book also, Jay Anderson's book also included a comedy straight out of the past kind of twist. I'm dead, look! It's an ancient Indian burial ground.

Man, this place has got everything. Yes, that is also what they claimed. And again, this one is very easy to debunk. The house wasn't built on anything like that because the tribe that Jay Anson described in his book lived absolutely nowhere near Amptiville. Question? Yeah.

What would be in your kill kit? In my kill kit? Oh, all the essentials. Plastic, sheeting. Okay, so you're going Dexter, right? Yeah. What would you do? Well. Just your favourite, the insulin. What would you do? Well.

Just your favourite, the insulin. I've given it some thought. All you need is to make sure that your victim is not diabetic and vial of insulin. Well, there you go. Because if you're not diabetic, that will give you a heart attack. And the kicker is, Sarah Pascoe put me onto this, the kicker is that they don't check for insulin in autopsies because it's naturally occurring in the human body.

It's the perfect crime. I think... Yeah? I would just hug them. Give them some orange juice. Look, we're getting into tricky, tricky territory. Let's keep going. Okay.

How many murders would get to occur in a house before you buy it from a fellow cheap bitch? That's what they call themselves. I think a discount would be needed. 3K per murder. 3K? Is that the price of a human life for you? Animal.

Weird. Hannah, would you help Cerruti bury a body? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I asked my sister that and I was like, if I murdered someone,

would you hand me in? And she was like, yeah, definitely. And I was like, what? I'd at least give you my car and a 24-hour head start, you bitch. Momo says, what about a bisexual man though, Hannah? Not me, I'm one of the lesbians. What products do you guys use in your hair? Both of you look gorgeous. From Neve,

I think that's how you say it. That's nice. I'm using Olaplex because I bought a bunch of it and then everyone was like, oh, it's going to make you infertile. And I was like, how? It was really expensive. I'm going to use it. Whatever. I'm just using a wing and a prayer. Oh, thank you. You too. She can't see you. She's lying. Anonymous says, when was the last time you went to Slantyville?

Do you want a job writing copy? Where are you? Oh, too shy now. Keeping it quiet. I'm going to do the same. Last Wednesday. What do you do if you are in love with your therapist? Says Anonymous.

You fuck his dad. Weirdest night out. Weirdest night out? Yeah, that we've had together. Together? Oh, I don't know. I definitely do. Oh, well, you go. The first time we ever went out Oh, I know. We went

We didn't know each other at all. We went to this pub and I actually think James was there. James, who's here tonight. James! And we were in this pub and someone had left a box of chocolates which was obviously like a work leaving present someone had left a box of chocolates,

which is obviously like a work leaving present, just like on a pile of coats. And I was like, well, I'm obviously having that. So I stole it, took all of the chocolates out of it and put them in my coat pocket, wandered around the rest of the night just handing out chocolate like I was the child catcher. And Drew was like,

who are you? And then we ended up in Visions in Dalston, which I don't know if it's there anymore, but have you seen that meme of Will Smith where he's dressed like a big sunflower and with all the little sunflowers? We were just much too old to be in there. And we just looked at each other and was like, you've got chocolates in your pocket and my back hurts. Let's leave. Let's go home, shall we? Let's go home and start a murder podcast. And now it's now. Okay, let's get back on track.

Right, so the next piece of the puzzle is these two, who you've already seen, but forget about it. And these are James and Barbara Cromartie. they're quite affectionate as you can see. I mean, what's his name? James doesn't look very happy about it though. I think his hand positioning would beg otherwise. Is she wearing stockings? She's like hold me here Anyway, so obviously you probably recognize that house these two moved in to the Amityville house after the Lutzes left. And years of having their house hounded by ghost-hungry tourists had left them with a paper-thin tolerance for bullshit. They were angry.

So they sued the Lutzes, they sued Jay Anson, and they sued the publishers, all on grounds of privacy. And their argument was pretty obvious, pretty cut and dry. They sued Jay Anson, and they sued the publishers, all on grounds of privacy. And their argument was pretty obvious, pretty cut and dry. The Abbottsville Horror Book recounts doors being blown off hinges, furniture smashing against the floor, windows exploding into tiny little pieces. But when the Cromarties arrived, everything was completely intact and still in place. There wasn't a trace of disturbance to the paint on the walls or the varnish on the floor, which if furniture was getting thrown around, you would think they would leave some sort of trace.

All the doors were on their hinges and all of the windows were still window shaped. So that's that one. Does anyone know the piece of evidence that we haven't spoken about yet? Yes. What is it? I just wanted to be involved. Come on, guys. What's the only piece of physical evidence in this whole thing? Yes.

Yes. Thank you. It is, of course, this photo. So the most striking thing about the photo is obviously this. Sorry, I'm just going to move my boobs so I can, there you go. The eyes, right? Sort of like glowing demonic orbs. That's actually what happens if you're wearing glasses and the flash catches them.

Debunk. That's that. And if we take a look, a looker closer. A looker closer. A looker closer. So if we take a look a closer... A look a closer. A look a closer. So if we zoom in, enhance. And if you look between the... What are they called, the banister sticks? No, it's the spindles. The spindles. Okay.

If you look between the spindles... Oh, no! No, you didn't see anything. If you look between the spindles, you can see a pattern that looks quite a lot like a plaid shirt. And it's quite similar to the plaid shirt that this guy, Paul Bartz, who's a paranormal investigator, was wearing in the Amityville house the night that that picture was taken.

So he's sitting on the sofa there in a similar shirt, similar hair situation. Boyish, good looks. Yeah, exactly. And even though he wasn't in that picture, he was definitely also wearing glasses that night. So sorry about it. It's definitely him. And he also basically completely admits that he's been tracked down for comment.

And he is very diplomatic, but he does eventually admit that it is of him. And here's what he says in an email. He says, the image in the photo you mentioned does resemble me. And I know that Ed and Lorraine went on record stating it was a ghost. Because I have great respect and admiration for them, I will say no more on the issue, allowing the legend of the most haunted house in America to live on. He's so brave.

He's so brave. And he starts the email so convinced that it's the most haunted house in the world. And he's like, and Lorraine, like, fanboy, loves it. He spent a whole life being a paranormal investigator. So he really is trying to sell it. But then he's just like, yeah, it was, yeah. So with all this going on, as if the trials weren't dramatic enough, suddenly there was a surprise guest who turned up in 2001

and blew yet another chunk out of the credibility of this story, as if that was needed. And this person who turned up was none other than Butch DeFeo's secret wife, Gasp Geraldine. There she is. There's Geraldine. And she said that she and Butch had been happily married living far away from 112 Ocean Avenue with their baby daughter at the time of the murders. And after she'd proved their marriage to a judge, Geraldine was allowed to make a whole heap of other court records public.

And Geraldine had the receipts, because she revealed that Father Pecoraro, remember him, the Catholic priest, Father Ralph? Despite what he'd said in Jay Anson's book, and despite what he'd been running around saying in the press for years, apparently he had testified at another libel case under oath and said that he had never actually heard a demonic voice in the house, that he didn't get blisters on his hands, and that he definitely wasn't taken with a month-long stupor that stopped him from helping the Lutzes. And that is the first time in history a priest has lied about anything.

But he definitely molested all the kids when he was there. And apparently it turned out that Father Ralph had never even been to 112 Ocean Avenue. He'd only ever spoken to the lasses on the phone. So it turned out that all of this was very seemingly pointing at the fact that the entire story had just been made up to sell books. y byddai'r holl beth hwn yn ymddangos yn ymddangos yn y ffaith bod y stori'r holl ffordd wedi'i wneud i gael llyfrau. Felly, efallai y cwestiwn gwirioneddol yw, sut oedd y cyhoedd wedi credu'r stori hwn am lawer o amser? Mae'r ffordd o ffantastig o ffantastig yn y sgwneriaid amrywiol

a ddim yn cael ei ddangos yn unig. Mae'n anodd credu bod stori'n ffantastig with absolutely no evidence at all. It's hard to believe that such bonkers, wildly unsubstantiated stories would be believed so widely today. But we have to remember that this is the 70s, and many Americans had a very literal Christian faith. So, and it was... What? I'm the one they're laughing.

And also, on top of that, The Exorcist had come out the year before. And then The Omen came out the year that the Lutzes left the house. So America was ready for a real haunting. Have we got any Damians in the house? Oh, yes. Well done, your parents. And of course, this would not be a red-handed show if we didn't mention our absolute favorite,

the Satanic Panic. It was waiting in the wings, ready to sweep America. And if you're here against your will, dragged here by a partner, I will explain to you what the Satanic Pan panic was. It was an ideology that swept America in the 70s, 80s, and very early 90s. And it was a very literal idea that actual demons from actual hell were creeping into Christian brains and making them do despicable things like eat babies. Okay.

So you can kind of see how someone with a Christian faith could possibly believe in demons, because you can't have angels without demons. And that brings us very neatly back to our best friends in the whole world. Oh, no. Well, there we go. Anton LaVey is my best friend. Ed and Lorraine. Warren.

So as a lifelong paranormal expert, Ed spent a lot of his time debating faith. And one of his favorite gotcha moments when talking with skeptics was to turn it back on them, to ask them about their own faith. He would say, can you name the Holy Trinity, which is of course the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit, depending on which type of childhood trauma you have.

And then Ed would say, oh, you see, a third of your faith is based on ghosts that you can't see. Oh, bore off, Ed. He's such a twat. So it might not be the logical slam dunk that Ed thought it was, but it does show you that it doesn't take a devout Christian that much of a push to believe in a cheeky little bit of demonic possession. It's hard to say definitively whether the Warrens, there they are again,

whether the Warrens were charlatans, they were, or maybe they were just well-meaning believers who were just trying to help. And how bad can it really be? They go to a troubled family and they tell them that the demon has been banished forever, right? Well, actually, it can be extremely bad. Yeah. And nothing highlights how bad doing something like that can be more than a case that the Warrens actually worked on in the early 80s in Connecticut. It actually became known as the devil made me do it case. And fun fact, it was actually the first ever time in the US that the defense argued innocence based on demonic possession. And many more since. Yes. And the Warrens were all up in there acting as expert witnesses, claiming in court that the killer was possessed, and they were doing that to try and get him off.

Now, if this case that we're describing sounds a little bit familiar, it's probably because it is, of course, the basis of the plot of the fourth Conjuring film. The film is not very good, in my opinion, but I do think the story behind it is a good one. If, and only if, the accused is painted as a kind of innocent, well-mannered guy who just fell under the influence of something demonic. Without that element, then Arnie Shea and Johnson, the killer, is just a brutal murderer. And the Warrens were just interfering like crazy in the sentencing of a murderer. And that's not it, because there's loads of other things that make the Warrens look incredibly dodgy as fuck. Are you ready? Because I've got loads of them. When Ed died, his supporters changed their stories, saying that Ed had paid them

to say the things they had said. I've got more. A woman after Ed died named Judith Penny, and there she is, also said in a sworn declaration that she had been in a relationship with Ed. But I would draw your attention to the age difference here because Judith said in her sworn declaration that this relationship started when she was 15 years old and Ed was pushing 40. Yes. I would say that's not very Catholic of him, but let's face it.

Yeah. And she actually claimed to have lived with the Warrens for four decades. As like a live-in pedo. His basement wife. Yes. So the question really becomes, like, with all of this stuff, they really were operating in plain sight. They were saying some absolutely crazy things. So how were they able to win so many

people over? Well, the Warrens, let's get back to them. They were known for their sort of calm, non-dramatic tone when it came to talking about things like demons. They've kind of became like, would you say like the acceptable face of talking about demons? The acceptable face of a demon. The acceptable face of a demon. Because obviously you've got people going to church and hearing about angels and all of that stuff. And they were lying. But demons, though. I think the acceptable face for demons for me

will always be Derek Okora, and I won't hear another word about it. There you go. R.I.P. There you go, R.I.P. So the way it worked was they spoke about things very calmly, and they seemed to offer what looked like rational explanations for things that were completely inexplicable. The things they were saying weren't rational,

but they said it calmly so people kind of felt like it was. And also, like we said, at this point, people were up to their eyeballs in the satanic panic. They were ready to believe any old nonsense. And these two were actually backed up by the Catholic Church. Pope approved. Yes, now Pope approved.

Ed Warren. Because the church has a whole department dedicated to exorcisms. And normally, only ordained priests are allowed to carry out these kind of demonic banishments. But for Ed Warren, they made an exception. And he is, we believe to this day, the only ever non-priest who was allowed by the Catholic Church to carry out official church-sanctioned exorcisms. That is huge, right?

I mean, maybe everyone... I mean, say what you like. He had a dream and he went after it. They did. And also say what you like because you've got to hand it to the Warrens. Whatever fucking bullshit they were saying, they stuck to it.

The conjuring is very, very accurate. Ah, Shiva! Very, very accurate. Very, very accurate. Just going to let that hang there for a minute. So, not-priest Ed Warren quite often said that demonic possession sometimes can feel like a demon is standing next to you and putting thoughts into your head, which sounds almost exactly like what some people with schizophrenia describe command hallucinations to feel like.

And schizophrenia specifically is much more informed by culture than a lot of other mental illnesses are. So, for example, a religious person is more likely to have religious hallucinations because our faith often encapsulates what we're most afraid of. Judeo-Christian communities have more religious hallucinations than any other community on the planet. It doesn't happen nearly as much in Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic cultures, and religion isn't the only factor either. In his book, Crazy Like Us, The Globalization of the American Psyche, Ethan Waters recorded that someone with schizophrenia in Pakistan is much more likely to have a hallucination of ghosts, whereas someone in the UK is more likely to hear a persecuting voice. Similarly in the US, where celebrity wealth and power are held above all, someone with

schizophrenia is more likely to think that they're all powerful or fabulously famous, and that just doesn't happen in South Asian villages where delusions of grandeur just don't really exist. So what Ed and Lorraine Warren did is kind of similar. What they did is they took mysteries surrounding incredibly emotional and difficult events and offered a black and white good versus evil explanation. And if we take the faith out of it, maybe some Christians weren't that bothered about Ed and Lorraine, they weren't that bothered about the satanicic or any of that.

They just really believed the Lutzes' story. They wanted to believe. Because the truth is, not that much was known about the Lutz family at all. The public only knew what they saw in the press or in the book or in the film. What they didn't know is that the Lutzes had enormous money trouble. And the public also didn't know, it was completely left out of the narrative, that George and Kathy Lutz had a

direct connection to the DeFeo family via the lawyer William Weber. So if you have none of that information they do look like a completely normal family. What would the reason be for them to leave this enormous house if something awful didn't happen? They look like a shaken up, scared family just trying to tell their story. And while we don't for a second believe any of that, we do have to point out that some of the Lutzes were wholly innocent. The 2012 documentary, My Ampteville Horror, focuses on Daniel, the oldest Lutz child, who was nine at the time of the haunting. It presents maybe the starkest view of the entire story, of the entire Ampteville legacy. Daniel remembers the flies, he remembers the green goo and the ghostly figures, and he genuinely still, as an adult now, appears to believe that it was a real haunting.

But for him, for Daniel, it definitely isn't about publicity. He actually completely went under the radar as soon as he left home when he was old enough to. And actually, you can tell when you watch the documentary that he completely resents any sort of notoriety around it. But you can also tell that he's still very much haunted by memories of an angry pig with red laser beam eyes and wolf-like teeth. He makes no secret that he hated his stepdad, George, and that he was glad when he died.

In fact, in the documentary, Daniel actually says, and this is a quote, that he tried to kill George, his stepdad, himself, maybe up to 50 times. He says that he recalls a violent head of household. And this is a quote. He says that George was only ever a Marine, and that's the only way he ever knew how to handle things.

So whether or not you buy the ghost story, it's generally agreed that George Lutz, so the father of the Lutz, the stepfather of the Lutz family, was the catalyst for the Amityville Horror. Believers, including Lorraine Warren, have agreed that his volatility is what triggered events, creating some sort of like portal for demons and other bad entities to come through. But non-believers point to his fury too. I would recommend that you watch my Amityville Horror if you haven't seen it. I don't recommend that you watch it quite as many times as I have, which is upwards of 40. So when I lived in Costa Rica for the first two months, I had no Wi-Fi in the place I was staying. So I went to iTunes, because that's how long ago this was, and I bought two films, Miami toville Horror and Behind the Candelabra. And I watched both of them a bajillion times,

which I can't recommend for anyone's mental health, but you should watch it at least once. And the thing that's really stuck with me about Daniel is that for him it's true. Even if none of the demon stuff actually happened or whether you believe it or not, it's affected him as if it was real. So functionally, what's the difference for him?

And he agrees, he says that George was the problem, that the more angry George got, the more destructive things got, the more demonic stuff would happen too. Yeah, I think it's time for a question. I think it probably is a time for a question. I've been looking at them. Oh, have you? So, Alex says,

and this was upvoted five times, so let's do it. S, bring back the dino blog. Are you a Triceratops or a Tricerabottom? Wouldn't you like to know? Which minister is most likely to be a serial killer from Max D? Bridget Patel, yeah.

Well, she's not far off. Anonymous says, please tell Liv that shagging her boss isn't a good idea. Oh, Liv, I'm not going to tell you anything. I'm not going to tell you how to live your life. I mean, yeah. Sometimes shitting where you eat is absolutely the right thing to do. Oh, I thought that was, Liv says thank you. Jess Pinson says, Butch looks fit like Ashton Kutcher.

Please say you agree. I think this is the same person who liked these weird chairs we're sat on. So, no. Anonymous says, perfect in every way, but needs to dip it in ketchup every time you change positions. Kate, you're going to get BB. Don't do that.

Don't do that. Fucking deep. No. No. Unsubscribe. No. No, unsubscribe. Anonymous says, low rider jeans are making a comeback. How do you feel about that? Asking the hard questions. I'm fucking annoyed about this, right? Because I feel like we've done a lot of work to bring the waistline up.

And all they're doing is rewarding us. As a petite lady, waistline down. Way down. Yeah. You go high, you're going to look like you've got tiny little torsos. Weird. So you're going like low-ride butt crack jeans. No.

Well, that's what they're saying. I mean, that's what I almost came out here like. She did, yeah. She was like, can you do my dress up? And I was like, would you like me to do the zip as well? And she was like, is there a zip? And I was like, well, only if you want there to be. Getting close to a married man at work, is it worth it?

Don't do it. Don't do it. That's bad. That's bad news, Bez. Don't do it. Don't do it. That's bad. That's bad news, Bears. Don't do it. Grow up. Well, all right. That shut me up then.

Danny says, what the hell is in your bloody cellar? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We haven't looked in the extra room yet. Oh, the secret room. Yeah. Saru has a basement in her extremely haunted house. Double basement.

That you can just see like over the brick wall and you can see over it and you can see that there's stuff in there. You just can't see what it is. Yeah. It's full of rats and ghosts. Okay. Let's do one more and then get back to the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anonymous says, do one more and then get back to the case.

Anonymous says, Hey team, I'm in a relatively new relationship. He's here with me tonight. What red flags do you think I should look out for and what makes him a keeper? Huh? I don't know. Me, never seen one. I just keep an eye on how often he talks about his mum.

Is that a red flag? I would say upwards of once a month is too much for me. Once a month. Okay, there you go. That's the only thing you want to be looking out for. Does he mention his mum more than once a month? In which case, break up with him. Now, let's get back to the case.

Okay. So, let's get back to the Amityvilleville Horror which I know is why you're all here. There it is again just in case you had forgotten. It's difficult for anyone to tell the lies from the truth because a lot over the years has been added to this story and a lot has been taken away but at their heart both the DeFeo murders and the Amityville hauntings were born of trauma and then perpetuated by greed. Yes. Greed. Trauma. Okay. Let's just drink to that. To greed and trauma. But we can't forget, even though we've all had a lovely laugh,

six people, including four children, were brutally murdered in their sleep. And 50 years later, Daniel Lutz is still chasing off those demons. And even Cerruti's boyfriend, angry little Butch Defoe, there he is now, what an eyebrows. I don't fancy him anymore. Pardon? I don't fancy him anymore.

No, you've aged out, have you? I have. Okay. He, even he, out, have you? I have. Okay. Even he has washed his hands of the possession story. He soon realized that a plea deal was never going to happen for him because the entirety of the U.S. wanted him behind bars for life, so he eventually gave up the ghosts. You're welcome.

He spent... Oh, fuck it out. He spent the rest of his life in my lungs, apparently. He spent the rest of his life in custody and he actually only died last year. But before he died in 2002, he told the New York Post there was no demon.

You know who the demon is? I'm the demon. He's such a metal. He's such a fucking edgelord? I'm the demon. He's such a metal. He's such a fucking edgelord. I'm the demon. Shut up. Shut up, Birch. And usually we would leave it there, guys,

because that is officially the end of the story. But it's Friday night, and this isn't a regular episode of Red Handed. It's Red Handed Live. And... Exactly. And although someone whooped for trauma and greed,

sending you out on child trauma and mass familial murder isn't very TGIF of us, is it? So, as you patrons in the room know, on our weekly Under the Duvet episodes,

we like to end with a little listener-sponsored empty-handed story. You know, and if you don't know, that's basically where listeners send us voice notes telling us about their tragic relationships or dating, and me and Hannah give completely terrible advice to them. So tonight we have a very special empty-handed red flag spotting video for you and it comes from none other than our old friend Lorraine Warren herself. I remember meeting my husband. I had gone to the movies. Then when we left, there was a little ice cream parlor there. And he says, I'll buy all you girls a Coke.

I never drank Coke in my life. I don't like Coke. And I ordered an ice cream soda. He told me from day one, he knew I was a gold digger. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. You've been amazing. You've been under whiff and red-handed. Thank you. Thank you much. Thank you.

You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of

the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.