Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles w No nonsense, let's get down to business. Bryant,
Speaker 2: there's Jerry. What's going on with this thing? Rolling? And
Speaker 2: again it's me Josh. Put the three of us together,
Speaker 2: you get Stuff you should know. The late twenty eighteen edition,
Speaker 2: which is tense.
Speaker 3: It's Josh doctor nonsense. Clark. You have a degree in nonsense.
Speaker 2: That's true, and a little I have a minor. And Tomfoolery.
Speaker 3: Oh man, how you doing. I'm well, how are you good?
Speaker 2: So I had to clear my throat. I had a
Speaker 2: little garlic chicken in it really kind of attacked my
Speaker 2: mucus memory just fall chuck. Yeah, Halloween's almost here.
Speaker 3: Man, It's finally like cooling off a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. It's been a hot one.
Speaker 3: Although the sun is still blazing hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah in the sun, if it's in the shade, maybe
Speaker 2: after sundown and the wind's blowing big, you're you're in there.
Speaker 2: It's fall time.
Speaker 3: Yeah for real.
Speaker 2: I'm wearing my boots. Oh nice, got a flannel shirt on.
Speaker 2: I might as well be on a hay.
Speaker 3: Ride wearing my pumas my my favorite murder shirt.
Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, that's a great shirt. The toxic masculinity ruins
Speaker 2: the party again. What a great shirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they actually follow through with great show quotes. Put
Speaker 3: them on T shirts. Smart and sell a ton of them.
Speaker 2: That's smart. Yeah, that's the way to do it.
Speaker 3: We try.
Speaker 2: The key is selling a ton of them, that's right,
Speaker 2: and having the good quotes.
Speaker 3: I feel like we ran out of good quotes seven
Speaker 3: years ago.
Speaker 2: That is not true. Chuck, watch this you ready?
Speaker 4: Huh?
Speaker 2: It's showtime?
Speaker 3: What do you think that's good? How about this? There's
Speaker 3: no business like show business.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one too. You could write a
Speaker 2: song out of something like that.
Speaker 3: It's not show friends, it's show business.
Speaker 2: Right. Well look, wait, waite, before we start, I want
Speaker 2: to address the ten people who are still listening at
Speaker 2: this point, I would like to announce the birth of
Speaker 2: my new website. Yeah, it's called the Josh Clarkway dot com.
Speaker 3: How much did it weigh?
Speaker 2: It weighed nothing because it's a website. But there was
Speaker 2: a lot of blood, sweat, and tears put into its
Speaker 2: gestation and delivery. And our friend Brandon Reid who's such
Speaker 2: a great guy and a listener on the podcast, put
Speaker 2: it together through his business Innovate with an E. Built
Speaker 2: this awesome website. It's super eighties, super poppy. I'm very
Speaker 2: proud of it. And I'm starting a newsletter just to
Speaker 2: celebrate the whole thing.
Speaker 3: And it's called The Josh Clarkway.
Speaker 2: Did you look it up? Just now?
Speaker 3: I'm trying but it's not loading.
Speaker 2: Oh what else? We're cutting all this part out? Anyway?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wait, here we go.
Speaker 2: Isn't it beautiful?
Speaker 3: Well? Still loading? It's because of my old phone, it's
Speaker 3: not because of your I appreciate that my phone just
Speaker 3: can't handle your website.
Speaker 2: There's so much to my website.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, there you are, Yeah, the Josh Clarkway
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: And I also want to say you me help me
Speaker 2: with the site too, so big ups and thank you
Speaker 2: to you me and Brandon for helping me put this
Speaker 2: thing together. So anyway, I just wanted to say, welcome website.
Speaker 3: Oh, I got a new fun thing to do to.
Speaker 2: Hang out on my website. Sure, sign up for the
Speaker 2: newsletter too. While you're there. Oh this is great, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're ready.
Speaker 3: I'm glad I have this in my life.
Speaker 2: Now you ready to get started.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll get a website one day.
Speaker 2: You should get a website. It's like the new thing.
Speaker 2: Everybody's it once. Yeah, So chuck, we're talking fall here,
Speaker 2: which means there's only one word that comes to mind
Speaker 2: every fall.
Speaker 3: Pumpkins.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: The other word candy corn, no, diarrhea.
Speaker 2: No. Amityville. Oh, and specifically two words, the Amityville Horror,
Speaker 2: which is, for my money, one of the greatest horror
Speaker 2: movies of all time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the great ones. And uh being a
Speaker 3: kid in the nineteen seventies when this stuff was going
Speaker 3: on and famous, yeah, Like, even as a little youngster,
Speaker 3: I remember being terrified at that paperback. Oh yeah, in
Speaker 3: the drug store when I would go by the paperbacks
Speaker 3: and the look of that house just terrified me.
Speaker 2: If the house looked any different, it be the story
Speaker 2: would have had fifteen percent less spread.
Speaker 3: Or did the house end up looking creepy because of
Speaker 3: the lore it's just a colonial.
Speaker 2: No, that house looked creepy. Well, yeah, if somebody, if
Speaker 2: somebody didn't say this house is haunted and by the way,
Speaker 2: look at it, right, you'd probably be like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: an interesting looking house. But yeah, you put just even
Speaker 2: the hint of a haunting to it, and that house was.
Speaker 3: Well, it looked like it had eyes, right, which was
Speaker 3: one of the key things. It's a colonial, but it's
Speaker 3: one of those colonials that is situated sideways on the lot.
Speaker 3: So from the street you saw the side of the house,
Speaker 3: the chimney running down the side of the house, and
Speaker 3: those two eye like windows on the top floor on
Speaker 3: either side of the chimney.
Speaker 2: Just amazing. Yeah, it was a Dutch colonial to be specific.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you Google maps that thing. Now, first
Speaker 3: of all, it is not any longer one twelve Ocean Avenue.
Speaker 3: It is now one oh eight Ocean Avenue because the owners,
Speaker 3: at some point, whoever owned it, I think two or
Speaker 3: three years ago, successfully lobbied to have the address officially changed.
Speaker 3: It took them that long too, well I don't know
Speaker 3: how long they had to battle, but they changed it
Speaker 3: by four digits, like they'll never find a side exactly.
Speaker 3: So I went and looked on the Google images, and
Speaker 3: of course now it looks it's bright and sunny and
Speaker 3: has a lovely yard, and it's in the middle of
Speaker 3: a lovely neighborhood and there's a Chevy in the driveway
Speaker 3: and an SUV and it just looks like any other house.
Speaker 3: But it's still you know, if you monkey around with
Speaker 3: Google you can see that image, right, And there are
Speaker 3: big signs all over like no trespassing.
Speaker 2: Sure, and they need them, believe me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people, just I feel sorry for homeowners since the letzes. Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't feel sorry for them though. No, I don't
Speaker 3: know either because they made up a bunch of malarkey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one way to put it. But we'll get
Speaker 2: to that part later, all right, Sure, let's set the
Speaker 2: scene here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, true, horrific thing did occur there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that kind of gets swept under
Speaker 2: the rug a little bit overlooked, you know.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: On November thirteenth, nineteen seventy four, Ronnie Butch di Feo
Speaker 2: Junior killed the other six members of his family. His
Speaker 2: own family, his mother, his father, sure, his two sisters
Speaker 2: Alison and Dawn, and his two younger brothers, Mark and John.
Speaker 2: He's the older brother, killed his whole family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nine, twelve, thirteen, and eighteen ages. Yep, that is
Speaker 3: just I mean, this is one of those crimes that
Speaker 3: rightfully has gone down in American history is one of
Speaker 3: the worst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, like you said, rightfully, this guy was
Speaker 2: a bad, bad dude from the outset. He denied doing
Speaker 2: anything when he ran into a bar called Henry's Bar
Speaker 2: in the little town of Amityville. I bet that place
Speaker 2: is great, and I'll bet too, you know, And he said,
Speaker 2: somebody just killed my family, and all the barb patrons
Speaker 2: were like, I got to see this. And they ran
Speaker 2: to one twelve Ocean Avenue with Ronnie to Fayo, and
Speaker 2: they found all six members laying his face down on
Speaker 2: their beds dead. I think their heads their faces resting
Speaker 2: in their hands. And Ronnie de Feo said it was
Speaker 2: the mafia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I think his family had some tie somehow
Speaker 3: to the mafia.
Speaker 2: H had an uncle named Carmine, and that's that's all
Speaker 2: you need right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there was one, like a legit crime family
Speaker 3: that had some tie to his family, so maybe he
Speaker 3: just thought that was a good an alibi or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it wasn't so good, No, And he killed them with
Speaker 3: a thirty five caliber Marlin rifle, which did you look
Speaker 3: this thing up? No, it's like the the Old West,
Speaker 3: like lever action. Oh really, riding on a horse, you know,
Speaker 3: cowboys and Indians kind of gun.
Speaker 2: I expected the side bolt action carbo like a Lee
Speaker 2: Harvey Oswald. Yes, that's what I would know.
Speaker 3: This is like a boom boom.
Speaker 2: That explains a lot, because one of the big mysteries
Speaker 2: that still remains is why didn't the other family members
Speaker 2: wake up?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a big I mean I read a little
Speaker 3: bit into the case, and that's definitely one of these
Speaker 3: sticking points is because it's not like they were all
Speaker 3: like three years old and fast asleep or something. I
Speaker 3: mean one of them was eighteen, and so there were
Speaker 3: a lot of variations of the story because of that
Speaker 3: that one of the sisters helped kill the father, and
Speaker 3: then the mother freaked out, so Ronald killed her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and like everyone was waking up, and I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean, it sounds like he just he did it
Speaker 3: all himself.
Speaker 2: I also saw that he had said years, like a
Speaker 2: year after while he was being questioned, that he had
Speaker 2: drugged them all with barbituates. But I only saw that once.
Speaker 3: That would make a little more sense at least, right,
Speaker 3: because you can't silence to this kind of I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe you could have wrapped a pillow around it. But
Speaker 3: it's not like a handgun, you know, right.
Speaker 2: So he said it was the mob first, and then
Speaker 2: he said that he did it, but there was a
Speaker 2: really big caveat to that. He said that he had
Speaker 2: been hearing voices that were urging him to kill his family,
Speaker 2: and even during the murder, something was telling him to
Speaker 2: continue and just keep killing, kill them all. And he
Speaker 2: said he looked around and there was no one there.
Speaker 2: So I just assumed it was God telling me to
Speaker 2: kill so I and he killed again his whole family.
Speaker 2: And I read this article in Vice magazine from like
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen from some guy who said he spent like
Speaker 2: five years in prison with Ronnie to Fayo and said, finally,
Speaker 2: after befriending him over a couple of years, he finally
Speaker 2: got to the truth. And the truth was he felt
Speaker 2: like his parents treated his brothers and sisters better than him.
Speaker 2: His parents didn't like the fact that he liked PCP
Speaker 2: and LSD and heroin. Imagine that, so they got what
Speaker 2: was coming to him basically, and he'd do it again.
Speaker 3: I mean he I don't know, this is an armchair diagnosis,
Speaker 3: but clearly if his reason is he liked my brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters more. Yeah, Like he's has some sort of
Speaker 3: serious mental issues going on for sure, but he did
Speaker 3: not want Apparently his attorney talked him into talking about
Speaker 3: God and voices because he was like, we can get
Speaker 3: you a plea of insanity and he was like, I
Speaker 3: don't want to do that. He's like, but you really should.
Speaker 2: And he goes, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, there may be a book deal in
Speaker 2: your future if you claim this. He goes, oh, I
Speaker 2: like books anyway.
Speaker 3: What are books again? There are things that make you money.
Speaker 2: And he's like, you know how you like carve out
Speaker 2: the middle of those things and you keep your heroin
Speaker 2: and PCP in there. That's a book.
Speaker 3: So a real crime happened there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. Let's just say it was a fateful
Speaker 2: decision for him to say publicly that a voice had
Speaker 2: urged him to kill his whole family. M m okay.
Speaker 2: That would come into play pretty soon after that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: after Ronnie de Fayo, I believe two weeks after he
Speaker 2: was sentenced a year after the murders, and he got
Speaker 2: sentenced to six consecutive life sentences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's still in jail.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he will be forever.
Speaker 3: I would guess, like he's alive though.
Speaker 2: It is my point, right, right, you're right. About a
Speaker 2: year after that, just like a year and a month
Speaker 2: after the murders, a couple named George and Kathy bought
Speaker 2: this place. And they bought it for a song. It
Speaker 2: was eighty grand at a time when eighty grand was
Speaker 2: a pretty good deal for a six bedroom Dutch colonial
Speaker 2: in Amityville, New York.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there were a couple, well, they were
Speaker 3: a couple with a couple of kids, well three, I
Speaker 3: think nine year old Daniel, seven year ol Christopher at
Speaker 3: the time, five year old Missy. We'll get to their
Speaker 3: financial situation a little bit in more detail later, but
Speaker 3: the thought was that George could run his even though
Speaker 3: it was kind of a lot of money for them,
Speaker 3: it was a good deal on the house and George
Speaker 3: could run his business out of the house so save
Speaker 3: on office space. He had a couple of boats. This
Speaker 3: house came with a doc. He's like, I don't have
Speaker 3: to pay marina storage fees, like you almost they almost
Speaker 3: had to buy the house. It sounded like financially speaking, right.
Speaker 2: It was just too good of a deal to pass up. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: so they bought the house. Did you say they were
Speaker 2: looking in the thirty to fifty range originally?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So it was a stretch for him. But again, that's
Speaker 2: how good the deal was. So they buy the house
Speaker 2: and they move in, and apparently almost immediately things started
Speaker 2: to get weird. Right, So Kathy was a Catholic, And
Speaker 2: what do you do when you're a Catholic and you
Speaker 2: buy a new house. You invite your priests over to
Speaker 2: come bless the house. See you really, I guess in
Speaker 2: the seventies in New York you did well.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if that had anything to do with
Speaker 3: the uh. I mean, did they know that the murders
Speaker 3: had occurred there and just sort of didn't care?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Yes, And I
Speaker 2: don't know that they didn't care. Supposedly, George Lutz later
Speaker 2: said that, like after they said we're interested in this,
Speaker 2: when the realtor was like, well, let me just tell
Speaker 2: you one little detail. Just six big horrific murders, all right, yeah,
Speaker 2: just a year ago. Yeah, sorry, we haven't cleaned up
Speaker 2: the blood yet. Seriously, So they apparently took his second
Speaker 2: to think about it and talk amongst themselves, like, is
Speaker 2: it really botherus? This is such a good deal, and
Speaker 2: they said not, the deal wins out over any superstitions
Speaker 2: we have. So yes, they knew. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if they hired them, brought the priest in because of
Speaker 2: that or just to bless the house, but they brought
Speaker 2: the priest in to bless the house.
Speaker 3: You can burn a little sage, ye, or you can
Speaker 3: call in a priest. I think they had to ramp
Speaker 3: it up. They called in father Ralph Peccarero, and he
Speaker 3: came in, and this is how the story goes, and
Speaker 3: we'll just sort of tell it as it happens supposedly.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea before we.
Speaker 3: Start pooping all of it. So he comes in blesses
Speaker 3: the house. Supposedly, he feels in one room in particular,
Speaker 3: a very cold chill. He said, even though it was winter,
Speaker 3: it was shouldn't have been this kind of cold. And
Speaker 3: he hears a strong voice, a masculine voice, shout, get out, kid,
Speaker 3: And then his car started acting weird. Apparently the hood
Speaker 3: flew open and smashed the windshield, doors are unlocking and
Speaker 3: opening his horn.
Speaker 2: Went auga and he didn't even have one of those
Speaker 2: kinds of horns.
Speaker 3: The car stalled. And this is just the very beginning
Speaker 3: of And if you've seen the movie, a lot of
Speaker 3: this stuff that we're talking about is portrayed in the film.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's Rod Steiger getting shouted at.
Speaker 3: He's great, like flies where there shouldn't be flies. Yeah, Crucifix,
Speaker 3: Crucifix is spinning what a pig well, smell of rotten
Speaker 3: eggs in this hidden room that wasn't on any blueprint.
Speaker 2: The red room the pigs. So there was a pantom
Speaker 2: like pig beast with glowing red eyes that would look
Speaker 2: in on the family from the outside and leave cloven
Speaker 2: hoof prints in the snow, and little five year old
Speaker 2: miss You would be like, oh, that's just my friend Jody.
Speaker 3: Which makes it ten times way scarier, Like I would
Speaker 3: rather have my kid say I don't know what that is,
Speaker 3: I'm scared, rather than that's just Jodie.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, Jody's been suggesting things.
Speaker 3: What else they claimed? I think the dad claimed to
Speaker 3: see Butch Dafeyo's face in a wall. He would wake
Speaker 3: up every every night or a lot of nights at
Speaker 3: three point fifteen in the morning, supposedly when these murders
Speaker 3: took place. Yeah, the kids started acting funny classic movie
Speaker 3: haunting stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a very weird situation for him. Things
Speaker 2: were tense. They were all like they had like hair
Speaker 2: triggered tempers. They were all yelling at each other, apparently
Speaker 2: very uncharacteristically. And supposedly George Lotts, I've seen him described
Speaker 2: as a ex marine who was an expert in karate,
Speaker 2: which again, this is a seventies so everybody was into
Speaker 2: karate back then.
Speaker 3: Sure, Elvis had a black belt.
Speaker 2: Sure, and he he was like a no nonsense kind
Speaker 2: of guy. No nonsense right, yeah, like me. So he's like,
Speaker 2: what's going on? And he goes to the local Amityville
Speaker 2: Historical Society and says, I want to know everything you
Speaker 2: have on one twelve Ocean Avenue.
Speaker 3: And it got quiet in the room and.
Speaker 2: The guy was like, come with me. So he George
Speaker 2: finds out that their house is probably built on Shinnacock
Speaker 2: Indian land. That was a big one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not only that, but supposedly where this Native American
Speaker 3: tribe used as a sick bay for the for the
Speaker 3: mentally insane. That's how they put it right. And this
Speaker 3: is where they would just keep all of those people
Speaker 3: where they were just sort of left to die there,
Speaker 3: so it was haunted by them.
Speaker 2: It was the kind of place where they just get
Speaker 2: dropped off and the people would kind of back slowly
Speaker 2: away like okay, take care, see you later, and they
Speaker 2: would die. And no one wants to be treated like that,
Speaker 2: So of course anyone who's left to die right there
Speaker 2: on that land like that would obviously haunt the land.
Speaker 2: There was some other there were some other legends about
Speaker 2: what was behind it too. There was like an abandoned
Speaker 2: cemetery pretty straight up on the nose.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a Salem witch guy that supposedly sacrificed animals.
Speaker 2: John Ketchum. And there actually was a John Ketchum who
Speaker 2: lived somewhat in the area around that time, but he'd
Speaker 2: never been accused of being a witch. And then I
Speaker 2: saw an interview with a guy named Hans Holzer, who's
Speaker 2: a bonafide parapsychologist and doctor. Holzer says that it all
Speaker 2: started in nineteen twenty eight or nineteen oh five, when
Speaker 2: the original house there was a house that was built
Speaker 2: in the seventeen twenties that was moved. When that house
Speaker 2: was moved in nineteen oh five, it disturbed an Indian
Speaker 2: chief's grave, a Native American chief's grave, and somebody played
Speaker 2: with his skull like a soccer ball, and he's been
Speaker 2: mad about it ever since. And that is what drove
Speaker 2: Ronnie to Fayo to kill and that is what terrorized
Speaker 2: the lutz Is, And that's the whole problem. Everybody just
Speaker 2: calmed down. That's it. So there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a little bit of peace falling into the puzzle. They're
Speaker 2: figuring it out, but it's not making anything better. In fact,
Speaker 2: everything's getting worse, Like this stuff's getting worse and worse
Speaker 2: and worse. And finally everything culminates on this one stormy
Speaker 2: night when their door blows open, blows off of the
Speaker 2: hinges outward into the street I believe, or no, into
Speaker 2: the house. I can't remember which way, but blown off
Speaker 2: of the hinges. It's like a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: pound door, and the windows, the iconic eyeball or eye
Speaker 2: windows blow out. Some of the glass somehow blows in.
Speaker 2: It's just an enormous explosion of energy, and the family leaves.
Speaker 2: They just left the house after like twenty eight days supposedly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: well no, they definitely, they definitely left the house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but neighbors say they left in ten days.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, one of the two.
Speaker 3: But they's still The point is there are discrepancies all
Speaker 3: over the place.
Speaker 2: Oh we'll get to those. Yeah, we'll get to those.
Speaker 2: But they left, and this is true. They left all
Speaker 2: of their possessions in this house and just fled.
Speaker 3: And that part is true.
Speaker 2: Never went back.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, unless they had a sneaky little moving team
Speaker 3: with a uhaul in the dead of night from go
Speaker 3: back and get our stuff from under story.
Speaker 2: There's stuff got auctioned off.
Speaker 3: Yeah it did.
Speaker 2: I mean they left it. They had, They grabbed some clothes,
Speaker 2: and they took off into the night.
Speaker 3: And which will go on later to be one of
Speaker 3: the key selling points that this really happened, because people
Speaker 3: that were on their side were like, why would they
Speaker 3: do that? Yeah, on just the gambit of this being
Speaker 3: a hoax that would eventually make the money, Right, would
Speaker 3: they really leave all their stuff behind?
Speaker 2: Could anybody be.
Speaker 3: That Foolish's take a break and we'll find out right
Speaker 3: after this.
Speaker 4: Stop you should know, stop.
Speaker 3: You should I should know all right, So they get
Speaker 3: the heck out of Dodge, they leave, they contact an
Speaker 3: author named Jay Anson.
Speaker 2: Oh even before that.
Speaker 3: Well, I was going to get to the attorney. Is
Speaker 3: that really so? Princess Hall as the publisher, in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy seven released The Amity of a Horror was a
Speaker 3: huge bestseller, forty two weeks on the bestseller list by
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one, six and a half million copies. They
Speaker 3: were all over the country plugging this book, right, and
Speaker 3: where the letses were household names. They're like on every
Speaker 3: talk show you could imagine.
Speaker 2: I want to underscore that. In nineteen seventy seven there
Speaker 2: was a family from New York who claimed to have
Speaker 2: been driven from their home by a supernatural evil force.
Speaker 2: And they were international celebrities for it. Yeah, reason number
Speaker 2: five million and eighty Why the seventies were just awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like that's what you could be famous for, was saying like,
Speaker 2: ghosts chased us out of our house. And everybody'd be like,
Speaker 2: that's a great story.
Speaker 3: Should we jump ahead and talk about that attorney?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Great?
Speaker 2: So what was the guy's name, Bill Weber?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is where things get really hinky, is that
Speaker 3: Bill Weber is an attorney, and he's the one that
Speaker 3: sort of gets every I think he's the one that
Speaker 3: saw dollar signs initially and gets a team together for
Speaker 3: this book and starts saying to everybody, including Dafao, Hey,
Speaker 3: we can all make some money if we do a
Speaker 3: book here. Dafeo's got to get a cut though.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: The Lutzes were like, what are you're going to pay
Speaker 3: the murderer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was like, yeah, it's my client.
Speaker 3: And they said, we're not We're not down with that plan.
Speaker 2: Yes, but this came after they had formed basically a
Speaker 2: business relationship, but not even in an attorney client relationship, straight
Speaker 2: up business relationship with William Webber.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like, how can we make money off of this?
Speaker 2: So the way that the world heard about these things
Speaker 2: going on at one twelve Ocean Avenue for the first
Speaker 2: time ever was at a press conference that the lts
Speaker 2: Is held at William Weber's office. That was when the
Speaker 2: world was introduced to the idea of this Amityville horror,
Speaker 2: even before the book ever.
Speaker 3: Came out for anyone, at least not locally.
Speaker 2: Right, right, So, so Bill Weber and the LUTs says
Speaker 2: they they had Yeah, they had kind of like a tentative,
Speaker 2: tenuous relationship. And when Prentis Hall came along and Jay
Speaker 2: Anson came along. I don't know if Jay Anson poached
Speaker 2: them or Prentis Hall poached them, but whoever was involved
Speaker 2: with the Amityville Horror book got the Lutzes away from
Speaker 2: William Weber and his book Ida and Proposal, and he
Speaker 2: got cut out of the deal. Just put that in
Speaker 2: your bonnet and smoke it and save it for later, Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and supposedly left because again they didn't want to
Speaker 3: give DeFeo a cut or they just wanted a bigger
Speaker 3: cut themselves. Yeah, at this point, it's a it's all
Speaker 3: about money, right, But jumping back or forward, can't remember
Speaker 3: where we are in time, but they're all over the country,
Speaker 3: all over the news.
Speaker 2: This would have been about nineteen seventy seven to seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're on MERV Griffin. There's they had a ghost
Speaker 3: team of ghosts TNS come by from Channel five in
Speaker 3: New York. Yeah, WPIX and had people posted in the
Speaker 3: house overnight taking all these photographs. There's one now very
Speaker 3: famous photograph of uh and it's creepy looking, but you
Speaker 3: take a picture of anyone in black and white in
Speaker 3: the dark, poking their head around a corner, and it
Speaker 3: looked creepy.
Speaker 2: So let me I want to comment on that picture.
Speaker 2: Have you seen it?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: Oh creepy.
Speaker 2: It is creepy. The the it's chalked up to some
Speaker 2: of the paranormal investigators, one of like one of the
Speaker 2: men who was at that WPIX seance fest at the
Speaker 2: house getting in front of the camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're saying that one of the uh Paul Bart's
Speaker 3: that it was just one of the ghost hunters.
Speaker 2: So that was a grown man. Whoever's in the picture
Speaker 2: is a kid, just plain as day. There's no there's
Speaker 2: no confusing that for a grown man.
Speaker 3: I think so. So unless he was had a boyish face.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very bizarre picture.
Speaker 3: I mean no, I think it's bizarre.
Speaker 2: And supposedly it was taken with infrared film in the dark,
Speaker 2: and again it doesn't look like a man.
Speaker 3: Which is that's why the eyes are glowing, right.
Speaker 2: That explains that. It's the fact that it's clearly the
Speaker 2: face of a boy. Are you going under the Josh
Speaker 2: clarkway dot com again?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to find that picture again.
Speaker 2: It's clearly the face of a boy that's not a
Speaker 2: man's face. That's the thing that sticks out to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it certainly looks like a boy. Man,
Speaker 3: it is creepy and also so it's got to be
Speaker 3: a boy.
Speaker 2: And that's what it looks like to me, and it's
Speaker 2: got to be. This picture was debuted in the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven seventy eight by George Lutz on the MERV
Speaker 2: Griffin Show.
Speaker 3: But they could have set that up. Could have been.
Speaker 2: They could have and we we say, whatever, have you
Speaker 2: seen the conjuring?
Speaker 3: I think I've seen parts of it. But that's the
Speaker 3: real life couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who hooked up with these I mean this is
Speaker 3: where they got their start kind.
Speaker 2: Of right, kind of They basically had like an occult museum.
Speaker 2: They were like a psychic and psychic investigators in Connecticut
Speaker 2: like you do. And the guy Marvin Scott who was
Speaker 2: the anchor who investigated the Amityville Horror for the WPIX
Speaker 2: local Channel five station, Yeah, he invited them to come
Speaker 2: out to this seance and it was like a series
Speaker 2: of siances that they filmed and you can actually see
Speaker 2: this look up WPIX News eleven Marvin Scott Part one,
Speaker 2: and it's like a nineteen ninety eight retrospective of this case,
Speaker 2: and it has some of the footage from the seance,
Speaker 2: but it also has an interview with George and Lorraine
Speaker 2: Warren and they're basically like, this was real. This is
Speaker 2: obviously real. And during these seances, supposedly the psychics started
Speaker 2: to feel sick. Lorrain Warren said she felt an evil
Speaker 2: presence from the bowels of the earth in the house.
Speaker 2: And then that picture, that famous photograph was taken.
Speaker 3: So I think the Warrens are the ones too that
Speaker 3: said why would they leave all of their stuff behind? Sure,
Speaker 3: and they also said, well, we would not be involved,
Speaker 3: that this was some sort of a hoax.
Speaker 2: Right exactly.
Speaker 3: Don't you know who we are proof positive?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: But the yeah, the real life Warrens were. They did
Speaker 2: investigate the Sanityville House in the early seventies or mid seventies,
Speaker 2: early on after the story broke.
Speaker 3: You also know it was the seventies because they were
Speaker 3: featured on Leonard de Mooy's Great show in Search of Love,
Speaker 3: which we both used to love, and of course they
Speaker 3: covered that in nineteen seventy nine, supposedly got the priest
Speaker 3: on there, even though he wanted to be kept anonymous,
Speaker 3: and he or whoever it was, kind of reinforced this
Speaker 3: cold room get out scream.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just went just double down on it. His
Speaker 2: face was hidden in the book, I think the jaynsm book.
Speaker 2: There were three source materials that came out about this story,
Speaker 2: all within a couple of years of each other. There
Speaker 2: was a Good Housekeeping article which is hilarious. Yeah, there
Speaker 2: was the JAYANSM.
Speaker 3: Book, and then there was a book, and then there.
Speaker 2: Was a movie. Yes, and those three are like the
Speaker 2: source material for what everybody knows about the Amityville legend.
Speaker 2: But what Leonard Nimoy pointed out is that you know,
Speaker 2: this movie was it's huge, everybody loves it. But what
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't know is that it's a
Speaker 2: true story. He says, it's a true story.
Speaker 3: The book said it was a true story. But Leonard on.
Speaker 2: The cover, I just I just I expected more from
Speaker 2: Leonard Neimoy than that. He says, unequivocally, it's a true story.
Speaker 3: That's because that's what the script, the teleprompter said.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, that was a great episode of In Search
Speaker 2: of anyway.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in nineteen seventy nine, the very famous film
Speaker 3: adaptation of this book comes out, starring James Berlin and
Speaker 3: Margo Kidder as the Lutzes, and it was a big,
Speaker 3: big hit, eighty million dollars in domestic release, which was
Speaker 3: I didn't do the conversion, but a very good haul
Speaker 3: for nineteen seventy nine, one of the smash hits. Yeah
Speaker 3: of that year, for sure.
Speaker 2: I think it was close to three hundred million probably.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, good money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is back in the time when
Speaker 2: like movies didn't routinely make a billion dollars in an
Speaker 2: opening weekend, right, that was a ton of cash.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of really bad sequels that, no doubt,
Speaker 3: just kind of threw out the whole legend of the
Speaker 3: house and just did whatever they want with that name.
Speaker 2: Have you seen any of them? I haven't.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen any of the sequels, Nor did I
Speaker 3: see the remake recently.
Speaker 2: With Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did you see that?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I don't remember the original movie that much, and to
Speaker 3: be honest, I don't know if ever saw it all
Speaker 3: the way through. I mean I was way too young
Speaker 3: to see anything like this. So it would have been.
Speaker 2: It's still around. They didn't burn a whole copy.
Speaker 3: I know. That's the whole point though, is I would
Speaker 3: have had to have seen this years and years later.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I ever did.
Speaker 2: It's worth seeing. It's a great horror film.
Speaker 3: Like I've seen a lot of the parts.
Speaker 2: James James Beard, Little Miss for Jodie's Friend is a
Speaker 2: little creep show.
Speaker 3: And who played Jody. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Who played her, but like, yeah, the kids did good.
Speaker 2: Rod Steiger was the priest. He was great.
Speaker 3: I remember seeing that scene, so I've definitely seen parts
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Yule Brenner was the good voice.
Speaker 3: Was he really.
Speaker 2: Sorry that.
Speaker 3: They actually didn't shoot at that Ocean Avenue house? Though,
Speaker 3: of course, you know with a movie like this, the
Speaker 3: law is kind of usually not true, and the law
Speaker 3: was that they the crew was too scared to shoot there.
Speaker 3: It's not true. They couldn't get a permit. So they
Speaker 3: shot at eighteen Brooks Road, Tom's River in New Jersey
Speaker 3: and built a superstructure around the house to make it
Speaker 3: look like the other house, which was just like a
Speaker 3: couple hours from there.
Speaker 2: Right the town of Amityville said no, we don't want
Speaker 2: anything like this, no publicity like this. Please. This was
Speaker 2: a tragedy. We like our quiet, sleepy town the way
Speaker 2: it is. No, we're not giving you a permit to
Speaker 2: shoot here.
Speaker 3: Yes, so, but Tom's River was like bring it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody knows about us. Who's Tom anyway? We don't
Speaker 2: know does a river? So the movie, like you said,
Speaker 2: it was a huge smash hit, And it's just like
Speaker 2: the Lutzes were already kind of household names. That changed
Speaker 2: everything that that the Amityville Hohrror became part of American
Speaker 2: popular culture. Like yeah, it was cemented into it. And
Speaker 2: it was also cemented in that this is based on
Speaker 2: a true story. Maybe the movie blew at a little
Speaker 2: labor abortion, as movies will do, but the Lutzes were
Speaker 2: driven from their house by an evil spirit and a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff was true. Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And it was that period in the late seventies where,
Speaker 3: like we talked about it with the Bermuda Triangle was
Speaker 3: a big deal.
Speaker 2: And waterbeds were huge.
Speaker 3: Waterbeds were big, But I feel like there was just
Speaker 3: there wasn't as much stuff. There wasn't as much content,
Speaker 3: a bigger deal. Yeah, like Amityville, like you said, it
Speaker 3: was part of it wasn't just oh that horror movie,
Speaker 3: like it was spoofed on Johnny Carson and it was
Speaker 3: like it was all over the place.
Speaker 4: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: It was like part of the fabric of America.
Speaker 2: But I wonder if people bought into and thought about
Speaker 2: this stuff like you were saying, because there was like
Speaker 2: nothing was grabbing their attention every thirty seconds over over here,
Speaker 2: look over here, we're here, Like it could like really
Speaker 2: kind of ruminate on something and let it like stew.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like now a show can win Best Show Emmy
Speaker 3: Award and you're like, I've never even heard of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Too much stuff, A lot of stuff out there, But
Speaker 3: is that better or worse?
Speaker 2: Like I feel like it's it is true that things
Speaker 2: can just change and they're not necessarily worse or better.
Speaker 2: But I also believe that it is possible for things
Speaker 2: to get objectively worse now, whether like they are or
Speaker 2: not right now, who knows. I don't think anybody's ever
Speaker 2: lived long enough to be like, I'm a thousan years
Speaker 2: old and it is way worse these days than it
Speaker 2: was five hundred years ago.
Speaker 3: Now, are you talking about entertainment content or.
Speaker 2: Just general culture everything being alive.
Speaker 3: See, I think entertainment wise, it's better because yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean back then it was just like everyone got
Speaker 3: obsessed with Amyville because it was the only thing around
Speaker 3: obsessed with and it wasn't even great, you know, but
Speaker 3: it was here. Just take this schlocky thing and obsess
Speaker 3: over it.
Speaker 2: But you're saying it wasn't great compared to today's standards,
Speaker 2: but back then, like it was great. It was something
Speaker 2: that like you could maybe you could basically put on
Speaker 2: like a cloak and wear around for a year and
Speaker 2: really really be into the Amityville or rather than you know,
Speaker 2: like the cameraman missed that shot by like an eighth
Speaker 2: of an angela. That's the critical detail that people have today,
Speaker 2: and I think it keeps us from enjoying stuff like
Speaker 2: they used to be able to in the seventies. That's
Speaker 2: but I think that's my point.
Speaker 3: Plus, we were all doped up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of grass, but really terrible grass.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that's gotten better is the grass from
Speaker 2: what I understand.
Speaker 3: All Right, so maybe we maybe we can take a
Speaker 3: break now and then we can start poking holes in
Speaker 3: this thing. Start, Does that sound good?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Stop?
Speaker 3: Should I should know? All right? So I insists we
Speaker 3: have not poked any holes yet.
Speaker 2: There's some dents in there that we've kind of put
Speaker 2: our fingers in.
Speaker 3: I've just been snidely laughing at everything we say, like yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: but here's some of the holes and there are quite
Speaker 3: a few. Yeah, I kind of mentioned before. Neighbors say
Speaker 3: that they left like a week and a half enter
Speaker 3: their stay in this house. The let's just said twenty
Speaker 3: eight days.
Speaker 2: So right out of the gate, you've got a discrepancy.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And the.
Speaker 3: Kind of what the thinking was and still is to
Speaker 3: some people is that they couldn't afford this house. Didn't
Speaker 3: take them long to realize it, and so they cooked
Speaker 3: up this story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but imagine figuring that out in ten days. That's
Speaker 2: a little weird.
Speaker 3: Well, and I also don't know how that would get
Speaker 3: them out of their mortgage, just defaulting on it, yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's haunted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just walking away like can't get blood from a stone.
Speaker 2: Go take the house if you want it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but could they claim that it wasn't disclosed? If
Speaker 3: it was disclosed, like, how could they literally get out
Speaker 3: of the mortgage.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I think like I think, if
Speaker 2: you if you stop making payments, if you don't care
Speaker 2: about your credit and I'm not sure what it was
Speaker 2: like in the seventies, but if you're like, I'll take
Speaker 2: this hit for seven years on my.
Speaker 3: Credit, right, just walk away.
Speaker 2: And just walk away, like then you don't have to
Speaker 2: make payments anymore. Yeah, that's what I think happened. But
Speaker 2: I don't think that they were able to do that
Speaker 2: because they started making money from their story, and everyone
Speaker 2: knew that they were making money from their story, so
Speaker 2: people wanted their money from them.
Speaker 3: Right, that's incredible. The great show from nineteen eighties. You
Speaker 3: just watch that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I watched the episode that this was on.
Speaker 3: But did you watch it as a kid? U A great,
Speaker 3: great show and on this show.
Speaker 2: Sorry, it was really positive. Do you remember it seemed
Speaker 2: pretty upbeat.
Speaker 3: Well, it's called that's incredible, not like that's crappy.
Speaker 2: The cameraman missed that shot and it was.
Speaker 3: I think it even had an exclamation point, didn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: at the end of the title. Yeah, so that's incredible.
Speaker 3: Barbara Camardi owned the house at the time of this episode,
Speaker 3: walks them through and shows like close up. So the
Speaker 3: hinges of that front door. Yeah, and these windows that
Speaker 3: are still sealed. It was like these things didn't blow.
Speaker 2: No, she went out of her way to make sure
Speaker 2: that everyone knew that this stuff hadn't happened, and ironically
Speaker 2: she exaggerated the facts that the skeptics pointed to. So
Speaker 2: everybody was exaggerating their case on either side of this.
Speaker 3: But Leut's also said though, that no, no, no, there were
Speaker 3: pictures in the newspaper of that front door blown out.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the picture?
Speaker 3: Well, no, I didn't think anyone could find it.
Speaker 2: It's a screen door that's kind of like hanging open. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding. That's the picture from what I understand.
Speaker 3: All right, so it's all falling apart, then.
Speaker 2: Right, oh yeah, it's all falling apart. For it has
Speaker 2: fallen apart big time. Apparently. George Lotts died in two
Speaker 2: thousand and six and to his dying day said that
Speaker 2: all of this is true. He said, yeah, man, the
Speaker 2: book got a bunch of stuff wrong. The movie got
Speaker 2: a ton of stuff wrong. Because I think the Ryan
Speaker 2: Reynolds remake of the movie was supposedly build is this
Speaker 2: is way more true to the book. Oh really, the
Speaker 2: original movie kind of created its own stuff, which is
Speaker 2: why it's viewed as one of an additional source rather
Speaker 2: than just part and parcel with the book. So George
Speaker 2: Lets would say, all these people got all these details wrong,
Speaker 2: but this this stuff we said happen really happened. Part
Speaker 2: of the problem is some of the stuff that they
Speaker 2: said happened was like levitating off the bed and looking
Speaker 2: at each other going, can you believe we're levitating?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I saw an interview where he said that in public
Speaker 2: on camera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really like, kudos to him for sticking to it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would say deathbed is a perfect time to be like,
Speaker 3: guess what everybody isn't Everyone would be like yeah, no, no,
Speaker 3: like you guys knew.
Speaker 2: No, s I love that this is a family show.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So George Lets went to his grave saying, no, this
Speaker 2: is this is for real. William Webber, Bill Webber, the attorney,
Speaker 2: did quite the opposite of that.
Speaker 3: Well, he said, and of course LUTs will paint. This
Speaker 3: is probably painted. This is sour grapes. Sure, because Weber
Speaker 3: was cut out of the money deal, but as soon
Speaker 3: as they left and made their own book deal, he
Speaker 3: started barking that this is all bs, this is a
Speaker 3: hoax that we made up.
Speaker 2: He totally did that. He said that over about three
Speaker 2: bottles of wine, he and George and Kathy Lutz concocted
Speaker 2: the story out of whole cloth.
Speaker 3: And then had a smoking night of love making the
Speaker 3: three of them.
Speaker 2: On their waterbed. Geez took a sexy turn all of
Speaker 2: a sudden. Sure, so yeah, Bill Weber, he said that.
Speaker 2: He said, Hey, I was just looking to get another
Speaker 2: trial from my client, who I think was innocent and insane.
Speaker 2: What the Lutzes were doing was going after money. But
Speaker 2: you can also look at it like running to fay
Speaker 2: was the greatest thing that ever happened to Bill Weber's career.
Speaker 2: He even said at the time, like, I'm giving Ronnie
Speaker 2: to Fayo a cut rate because the publicity from this
Speaker 2: case is worth more than anything Ronnie to Fao could
Speaker 2: ever give me. Yeah, so the idea of reviving interest
Speaker 2: in the case would probably help his case load as well.
Speaker 2: Who knows the point is? William Weber hired a guy
Speaker 2: named Paul Hoffman I think his name was, and he
Speaker 2: wrote the Good Housekeeping article. And when that Good Housekeeping
Speaker 2: article came out. The Lesses were like, you're gonna scoop us.
Speaker 2: We're gonna sue you for invasion of privacy because you
Speaker 2: stole our story. Which is pretty rich because they were
Speaker 2: using the courts. Like if you have a life story
Speaker 2: and some lawyer comes along and hires somebody to write
Speaker 2: that story, Yeah, that's invasion to privacy if you make
Speaker 2: that story up with said lawyer and then screw that
Speaker 2: lawyer over and he goes off his own way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: using the courts for that is pretty I don't want
Speaker 2: to say ballsy gutsy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And speaking of lawsuits, I mean, we won't go
Speaker 3: through the merriad lawsuits, but there were it felt like
Speaker 3: more than a dozen lawsuits over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they sued Weber sued them.
Speaker 3: People were suing everyone. People were suing cops. Cops were
Speaker 3: suing the family, The.
Speaker 2: Cro Marty's were suing the Lutzes for even making the
Speaker 2: thing up in the first place.
Speaker 3: And to me, this is what is sort of proof
Speaker 3: positive that the whole thing is rotten to begin with.
Speaker 2: Sure, when the lawsuits start flying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone had their hand out. This father of Peccerero
Speaker 3: in court documents said that you know what, I never
Speaker 3: went there and blessed the house right and heard this voice.
Speaker 3: I actually kind of just had a phone call with them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and maybe and the guy one of their daughters yelled
Speaker 3: get out right in the background.
Speaker 2: Because she was talking to a doll I think had
Speaker 2: a dog, Harry.
Speaker 3: But it creaked me out.
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, I always wanted to be played by Rod Steiger,
Speaker 2: so I went for it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, it just it all sort of
Speaker 3: fell apart.
Speaker 2: So there's you know, in cases like this, people are like, well,
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church is shutting that guy up. They don't
Speaker 2: want to talk about the truth if there are some
Speaker 2: demons here. But the priest really confounds things. Not because
Speaker 2: it's like it was a Catholic church really trying to
Speaker 2: keep this quiet, more like why did this priest lie
Speaker 2: so overtly on in search.
Speaker 3: Of Well, he may have had some skin in the game.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe, so maybe you're right.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But the Warren said, in addition to him, you know,
Speaker 2: experiencing that in the house, it followed him throughout his life,
Speaker 2: and that he was once in a hotel room with
Speaker 2: a rabbi in Florida and a lizard demon from the
Speaker 2: house appeared to him. There. That's the quality of quotes
Speaker 2: you can expect when you have the Warrens on your
Speaker 2: interview show.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love that we're treating In Search
Speaker 3: Of as if it was this you know, no, no,
Speaker 3: highly regarded. I mean it was, it was great, but
Speaker 3: it was schlocky TV for ten and twelve year old
Speaker 3: boys in the eighties. Sure, like I'm sure, I mean
Speaker 3: that probably wasn't even the priest. He probably just hired
Speaker 3: a guy.
Speaker 2: No, No, it was the guy who in court documents
Speaker 2: that was the guy on in.
Speaker 3: Search Of But they blacked his face out right, But.
Speaker 2: I mean, like they that's the guy. That's the guy.
Speaker 2: He was revealed later on. The guy on in Search
Speaker 2: Of was revealed later on to be father Pecqerero, and
Speaker 2: he was on in search Of back before anyone ever
Speaker 2: knew the name Pecquerero. He was called in the book
Speaker 2: father man q Soo. All right, But as far as
Speaker 2: I know, that is the same guy.
Speaker 3: And that he was just on TV lying through.
Speaker 2: His teeth, that's what I saw.
Speaker 3: Or he could have been just handed a script by
Speaker 3: Nimoy's team.
Speaker 2: It's possible it was the seventies and America went we'll
Speaker 2: believe anything you say.
Speaker 3: A couple of years ago, actually just last year, in
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, it was sold for about six hundred grand
Speaker 3: the house, which is a couple one hundred less than
Speaker 3: they were asking for it. They're asking around eight.
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3: And apparently it's not had nothing that the only had
Speaker 3: to do with the price ring was because of the
Speaker 3: pain and the rump to live there and have people
Speaker 3: constantly coming by. It wasn't like, forget that there were
Speaker 3: six people murdered here, forget that this house has green
Speaker 3: ooze and flies and devil pigs coming out of you know,
Speaker 3: looking through the window. It's the real problem is Google
Speaker 3: Earth and now people can just say, oh, let's go
Speaker 3: by there and take some photos.
Speaker 2: There it is. It's at one.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, they must have moved it. That still cracks
Speaker 3: me up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, that's the thing. That's why the house
Speaker 2: is still selling for less than it ever was before.
Speaker 3: And the Lutz has claimed that they didn't make much
Speaker 3: money on this and that you know, like we never
Speaker 3: got rich and what little money we made kind of
Speaker 3: went out the door with court fees and legal fees.
Speaker 2: I don't know that maybe utterly true.
Speaker 3: Who knows it says that they did. He did admit
Speaker 3: to getting about one hundred grand from the book and
Speaker 3: another hundred from the film.
Speaker 2: That's not that much money, No, but this is nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies money. Those some money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's not like kickback and retire money. Sure,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Sure. One of the probably the most telling thing about
Speaker 2: the Luts's story being a hoax, the whole thing being
Speaker 2: just one big hoax, is that no one, no other
Speaker 2: person owner, anybody who was associated with that house after
Speaker 2: the Lutz family left, ever reported anything even remotely supernatural
Speaker 2: like this nothing. Yeah, And of course Lorraine Warren had
Speaker 2: a pretty good explanation for that, which is what she said. Well, then,
Speaker 2: obviously one of the exorcisms was successful, because that's the
Speaker 2: only way job, that's the only way to explain why
Speaker 2: the hauntings went away. Yeah, and like it, that's the
Speaker 2: only way to explain it. Huh.
Speaker 3: The LUTs is also never called the which was a
Speaker 3: big hole people poke into it. Like if all this
Speaker 3: stuff was going on, like at some point you're going
Speaker 3: to go to the police, right, and even if it's
Speaker 3: ten days and not the twenty eight You're not just
Speaker 3: gonna just quietly be haunted by the demons of hell,
Speaker 3: right and not not sweat it with the cops.
Speaker 2: Sure, at least call them once and be like, you
Speaker 2: guys do anything about demons?
Speaker 3: No, okay, even if it's a crank call. Sure, what
Speaker 3: do you think? I mean? This is getting a little philosophical,
Speaker 3: I guess, But do you think what do you think
Speaker 3: about bad juju in a in a home where six
Speaker 3: people were murdered? Like I'm a I'm a totally agnostic
Speaker 3: non believer in any thing like that, But part of
Speaker 3: me also thinks that, like, if you brutally murder six people,
Speaker 3: there's got to be some change in the energy in
Speaker 3: the air, which sounds hokier than anything I've made fun of.
Speaker 3: I think, so you know, what's the Josh clarkway dot com?
Speaker 2: What's the what's the word? Oh, placebo? I think it's
Speaker 2: a placebo effect.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you know that something happened here. If you
Speaker 3: didn't know anything, you would never notice anything.
Speaker 2: Probably not. Yeah, I don't think that there is a
Speaker 2: change to the energy or the air or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I think there are cues that we can find where
Speaker 2: even if you didn't know. You could be like, well
Speaker 2: there's a shadow over there something like that. You can
Speaker 2: freak yourself out, even in a house like that that
Speaker 2: you didn't know was haunted or said to be haunted.
Speaker 2: But I think if you know a house is said
Speaker 2: to be haunted, if you are just your brain's working
Speaker 2: overtime and you're going to produce those things that you
Speaker 2: think you see, well that's why I create that. But
Speaker 2: my my imagination is just dead and gone. So who knows.
Speaker 2: If you do believe stuff like that, then that's that's
Speaker 2: fine with me. I mean, sure you're not hurting anybody
Speaker 2: with that. If you're taking money from people to exercise
Speaker 2: stuff like that, then I have a problem with you.
Speaker 2: But I don't think a lot of people are out
Speaker 2: there doing it. I think most people just believe one
Speaker 2: way or another.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, interesting, Yeah, I want to know that boy.
Speaker 2: Is in the picture, it's Jody the pig Demon. If
Speaker 2: you want to know more about the Amityville horror, you
Speaker 2: can type those words into the Internet. Actually, you can
Speaker 2: type it into how stuff works and it will bring
Speaker 2: up an article by our own former own Matt Hunt.
Speaker 3: I remember that guy.
Speaker 2: He wrote the Amityville article on the website.
Speaker 3: What's he up to now? Any idea?
Speaker 2: I don't know, and he's continuing his investigation into the
Speaker 2: Amityville horror.
Speaker 3: He was never heard from again.
Speaker 2: Right since I said that it's time for the listener mail.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call this follow up on the homelessness episode
Speaker 3: we re ran that one for selects. Got a better
Speaker 3: response this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really looking out for somebody, but I
Speaker 2: guess they learned their lesson or ell stop listening to
Speaker 2: us by now.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, and I set it up too, because it
Speaker 3: was my pick with like, hey, this is what happened
Speaker 3: last time. Oh right, so you know I dare you
Speaker 3: it right in this time?
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: So this is how this is from a woman who
Speaker 3: said that a homeless man saved her dog. It's a
Speaker 3: pretty great story. My sister and I were taking our
Speaker 3: three dogs for a walk down main Street in our
Speaker 3: city one day and we stopped dress on a bench
Speaker 3: for heading for home. That realizing it, I had accidentally
Speaker 3: let one of the leashes slip out of my hand. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: Sophia noticed her leash was free at about the same
Speaker 3: time I did decided to up and chase after something.
Speaker 3: My sister and I jumped to grab her, but the
Speaker 3: speed of two clumsy humans is no match for a
Speaker 3: spry young dog. She ran down the sidewalk. This is
Speaker 3: like a nightmare for me. As she ran down the sidewalk,
Speaker 3: a few pedestrians reached down to try and grab her,
Speaker 3: which frightened her enough that she ran from the sidewalk
Speaker 3: into the busy street, four lanes of traffic going in
Speaker 3: both directions, Sprinting to try and catch up. I watched
Speaker 3: in horror as she ran out into the street chore.
Speaker 3: I was about to see my dog get killed by
Speaker 3: an oncoming car. It was right about then that a
Speaker 3: homeless man that we had previously seen around town rode
Speaker 3: up on his bicycle right in the middle of the road,
Speaker 3: keeping himself between my dog and the cars flying by.
Speaker 3: Weren't for him doing that, she would surely have been
Speaker 3: run over. Finally caught up, was able to catch her
Speaker 3: attention call her. Thankfully. She ran right into my arms,
Speaker 3: and I looked up to thank the hero would save
Speaker 3: my dog, and he was nowhere to be seen. What
Speaker 3: was it a dream? That's me talking? He had put
Speaker 3: himself in harms way to save my dog's life and
Speaker 3: then just quietly ridden away when he saw that she
Speaker 3: was safe. Don't know his name, never saw him again
Speaker 3: to thank him. Sophia is now ten years old. It's
Speaker 3: because of that nameless man that she has lived to
Speaker 3: see that old age. And that is Ali from New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: That was a great story.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Ali, thanks for sharing that one. See
Speaker 2: everybody we told you. If you want to send us
Speaker 2: an email like Ali did or get in touch with this,
Speaker 2: you can go to our website stuffyshouldo dot com. I
Speaker 2: also have a website called the Josh Clarkway dot com
Speaker 2: if you want to check it out, and you can
Speaker 2: send an email to Chuck, Jerry and Me plus Frank
Speaker 2: the chair, guests producer Roll everybody. Send that email to
Speaker 2: Stuff Podcasts at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it HowStuffWorks dot com