Ronald 'Butch' DeFeo

 VICTIMS: 6

Well, this story begins on November 13, 1974, with a crazy guy running into a bar, screaming that his entire family has just been killed. So the when police where called they went out to the bar to check it out. When they arrived they asked the young man in question what was going on, he replied that "they had got his mum and dad."

When the cops did a quick walk through of the house, it seems the guy had underestimated "them". There were six bodies. When identified they were found to be Ronald DeFeo Sr., his wife, Louise, their daughters Dawn, 18, and Allison, 13, and their sons Mark, 12, and John, 7. And the guy who had lead to this find was Ronald jr, 23, the sole survivor of the family.

Once police began questioning Ronald jr., who preferred to be called 'Butch' (as he repeatedly pointed out) he told them a pretty amusing story. It seems that two weeks earlier Butch was taking the family's business's money to the bank when he was robbed by a known mobster, Louis Falini. Butch said that his father was in deep with the mob. Anyway, when he broke the news of his run in with the mobster, his father called him a liar, and accused Butch of stealing the money himself. One would think this caused a little friction in the family.

So onto the day of the murders. Butch spend most of the day drinking. He had some friends around to the house earlier in the day for a bit of a piss-up, and then later that night turned up at a bar, continuing his drinking. As he left the bar to go home he made a point of saying that he'd left his keys at home, and would have to brake in. Well an hour or so later Butch came bursting back into the bar, and you know the rest.

So while Butch was giving this version of events Police were checking out the guy with his friends. It didn't take long to work out who was the main suspect in the case. They were told he was a bit of a nutter, and his main passion were guns. In fact, when police checked out his room, they found an empty cardboard box for a Marlin .35 rifle. Butch was held a little longer until it was confirmed how the family members were killed. I'm sure you can figure this one out from here. Yep, all were killed by a bullet in the head from nothing other than a Marlin .35 rifle.

From about this point on Butch started inventing some crazy fuckin' stories about how the family were killed, and following his actual arrest he begun to act very crazy. So it's no surprise that around one year later when his trial started, he decided to plead insanity. It nearly worked too, but unfortunately the judge and jury seen through it and he was found guilty.

He was sentenced to 25 to life six times, but because of a bizarre law all the murders were counted as one, so he is serving all six sentences concurrently, meaning he should already be up for parole now. You just gotta love the U.S. justice system.

INTERESTING BIT
So this is where DeFeo became known. The house, known as 'High Hopes', was bought by a stupid family who thought it was haunted and were finally scared off less than a year after moving in. They then sold the story of the 'haunted house' and it became probably the most famous of our era. The book written on the place was called The Amityville Horror. It was later turned into a film that scared the fuck out of a lot of people and spawned a couple of shitty sequels.

If you want to check out a very interesting site on this case click the following link . It may well prove every friggin thing I've typed above as bullshit, but it's still worth a look: http://www.thenightexposed.net/
 

MY OPINION

I have to admit that as a murderer DeFeo sucked. This is not exactly a great killing, and I personally don't rate it very highly. DeFeo was a fuckwit who was too stupid to ever pull it off, and deserves to be locked up because of this stupidity. But my interest in the case is high because when I was a kid and Amityville Horror first came out it scared the shit out of me. The last time I watched it I realized how tame it actually is, but like all things that scared me in childhood, I have a respect for it, and I think others might too.