If These Walls Could Talk, Part III

For those of us who grew up on Long Island … add the house that gave us … The Amityville Horror

From the Amityville Record:

“On November 13, 1974, in the house at 112 Ocean Ave., Amityville, 24-year-old Ronald DeFeo murdered his family. DeFeo used a high-powered rifle, shot to death his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters. All six members of Ronald DeFeo’s family were killed as they slept and all, said police, were found lying in the same position, on their stomachs with their heads resting on their arms.

At his murder trial, Ronald DeFeo testified that he had killed his family because he had heard voices. “Whenever I looked around, there was no one there, so it must have been God talking to me,” he said.

On December 18, 1975, more than a year after the terrible murders, a family of five moved in. They were George and Kathy Lutz and their children Daniel, 9, Christopher, 7 and Missy 5. Twenty eight days later the family fled the house, claiming it was haunted.

Today, the home is occupied by a family that is living there in peace. The front of the home, as well as its number on Ocean Avenue, have been changed and despite the regular visits by the curious and believers in the supernatural, life along Ocean Avenue in Amityville is fairly routine. Sometimes a car will pull up in the middle of the night. A passenger will get out and cut away a piece of grass from the home. Sometimes another car will pass in the middle of a hot, summer afternoon, stop and the occupants will stare. Sometimes a deranged individual may even try to break into the home. But mostly, it is just another house in Amityville with nothing more than a horrific history.”

Now L.I. lovers of lurid real estate addresses prefer Billy Joel’s or ex-wife Christie Brinkley’s houses in the Hamptons.

Postal addresses are arbitrarily assigned by the U.S. Postal Service. They can be reassigned, within limits and subject to their approval. Think of all the streets renamed for purposes of politcal pandering. Sometimes corner houses are reoriented during remodeling and, in that case, the address might be reassigned from one street to the other. Tax numbers are arbitrary, also. Homes are most properly identified by their legal description.