Some horrors just won't die, and The Amityville Horror is a case in point. The tale of a reportedly demon-infested house in Amityville, New York, became a best-selling novel in 1977 and a hit horror film starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder in 1979. Several inferior movie sequels followed in its wake (including a 3-D version), and 15 April 2005 saw the debut of a remake, this one starring Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George. Scary films are a dime a dozen, but what initially drew the public's interest to the original version of The Amityville Horror was the claim that it was based on real events. The following is a combined investigation highlighting various results from Joe Nickell, Benjamin Radford, Rick Moran, Peter Jordan, and Steve Kaplan. I would like to thank them for their expertise and ground-breaking research in their various fields of interest, and the chance to quote from their findings in editing together this overall investigative piece.
THE CRIMEThe story behind the story began on 13 November 1974, when six members of an Amityville, New York, family were killed. The parents, Ronald and Louise DeFeo, were shot in bed while they slept, along with their two sons and two daughters. As far as we know the first people to have been notified of the DeFeo killings were the drunken masses at a local bar when Ronnie DeFeo came running in. If you look hard enough you can even find the 911 transcript online.
Supposedly when the locals arrived at his house they found the entire family one by one in their beds lying on their stomachs. This in itself is odd because Ronnie DeFeo Jr. supposedly used a .35 Marlin Rifle which is a very loud gun. The fact that no one in the same house heard the shots or if they did, neglected to move from their beds, is odd. What makes things even odder is that the mother was shot in the chest while his father was shot in the back. You cannot shoot someone in the chest if they are laying on their stomachs, you would logically have to go through the back first. This could mean that the family, or at least some of them, were moved into position on their stomachs after the shooting. Why do police records not indicate any evidence of dragging?
According to police reports, it looks as if every one of them was sleeping peacefully throughout the whole event. Did someone or even something tell the other family members to stay down? Also did something muffle the sound of the gunshots? As I said this is a loud gun. Why did no one on the street hear anything? If they were able to report hearing a dog barking, how did they miss the rest of the racket? Some say the murders were done by some sort of mafia because Ronnie's father owed them money. This might be supported by Ronnie's initial denial. Even though he admitted to it later his story kept changing. This could be due to his supposed drug use and trauma related to the murders.
With Ronnie Jr. convicted and sentenced to prison (and in no position to inherit the place), the house went up for sale. The horrific nature of the massacre unnerved the otherwise quiet Long Island neighborhood, though no supernatural activity was associated with the house at 112 Ocean Avenue.
THE HAUNTINGThe following year, a new family, the Lutzes, moved into the house. George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, said that shortly after they moved in, their six-bedroom abode became a Hell house. It seemed that perhaps the demons that drove Butch to slaughter his family were not in his head but in the house. An unseen force ripped doors from hinges and slammed cabinets closed, noxious green slime oozed from the ceilings, a biblical-scale swarm of insects attacked the family, and a demonic face with glowing red eyes peered into their house at night, leaving cloven-hoofed footprints in the morning snow. A priest called upon to bless the house was driven back with painful blisters on his hands, famously told by a demonic voice to "Get out!" and so on...
A local television crew did a segment on the house, bringing in several self-styled "ghost hunters" (including Ed and Lorraine Warren) and other alleged psychics. The group held a series of séances in the house. One psychic claimed to be ill and to “feel personally threatened” by shadowy forces. Lorraine Warren pronounced that there was a negative entity “right from the bowels of the earth.” A further séance was unproductive but psychics agreed a “demonic spirit” possessed the house and that an exorcism would be needed to stop the activity. The Lutzes left the house and took their terrifying tale with them, collaborating with Anson on the book The Amityville Horror. And, as William Peter Blatty did when he promoted The Exorcist, Anson vouched for the truthfulness of his fantastic tale: "There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that [the Lutzes] either imagined or fabricated these events."
Many people expressed doubts about the events in the house. Researcher Rick Moran, for example, compiled a list of more than a hundred factual errors and discrepancies between Anson's "true story" and the truth. The 2005 remake promises to mine Anson's book more deeply than did the previous screenplays, including background about early Indians (whose vengeful spirits may lurk nearby) and devil-worshipping early settlers of the area. Yet, Moran explains, "Experts told me that the tribe mentioned was not from the Amityville area at all (actually, they had inhabited the eastern tip of Long Island, 70 miles away) and that the settlers mentioned were never local residents either. Anson's tactic was clear — when strapped for good material for a book, pad it with quasi-factoids." And Father Pecoraro, the priest who was driven from the house by demons? According to Moran, who interviewed Pecoraro, "He said he never saw anything in the house."
Is the Amityville House Haunted? I have read a first hand account from the oil man from Oregon Fuel that used to service the house while the Lutz's were there. When they wrote their famous book they mentioned the house always being cold even with an oil heater and a fireplace going. If your house was constantly freezing cold and you were paying for oil, wouldn't you have a word or two with your oil man? Also according to Oregon Fuel records, they did not use up any unusually high amounts of oil. There are also rumors that the Lutz's might have gone in over their head with the house and may have been in a financial pinch.
THE FACTSJoe Nickell, author of Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings (and who personally visited Amityville and interviewed later owners of the notorious house), also found numerous holes in the Amityville story. A few examples of these discrepancies as compiled by researcher Rick Moran:
The Lutzes could not have found the demonic hoofprint in the snow when they said they did, because weather records showed there had been no snowfall to leave prints in during the entire time the Lutzes stayed in the house. Though the book details extensive damage to the home's doors and hardware, the original locks, doorknobs, and hinges were actually untouched and remain so to this day. The current owners have let investigators inspect the house and it is clear the original paint and varnish are untouched.
The book and film show police being called to the house, but, Nickell writes, "During the 28-day 'siege' that drove [the Lutz family] from the house, they never once called the police." The Amityville Police Department confirms this.
Also the Lutzes actually only spent 10 days in the house, but it wasn't considered a long enough
period for all the events to occur in, so it was changed to 28-days in the otherwise "factual" book.
William Weber, Ronald DeFeo's attorney, was originally called a non-believer in the supernatural by newspapers when the family first went public. However, right after the Lutzes went public, he began trying to get DeFeo a new trial on the basis that he was "possessed" at the time of the murders. That's kind of a strong motion for a non-believer in the supernatural.
The Catholic Church was never involved. The priest (an alias was used in the book) was never in the house and had only counseled the family after they left the house because they were having trouble living where the murders had taken place.
The sign "High Hopes" on the lamppost at the end of the driveway never existed while the Lutzes lived there. They had apparently seen it in the pictures of the house that attorney William Weber had shown them. Apparently, relatives had taken it down after the murders.
Ronald DeFeo did claim that he heard voices while living in the house. However, it is known that he heavily used drugs and alcohol.
In the hardcover edition of the book, the priest's car is a Chevy Vega, which makes it impossible for the hood to fly back against the windshield since a Vega's hood opens forward and away from the windshield. In the paperback, the car is a tan Ford. Apparently, an editor caught this discrepancy, and it was changed.
Another example of changing or inventing an incident to suit the story.
The time 3:15AM came into play from a news reporter who said that a neighbor of the DeFeos had heard the DeFeos' dog barking around 3:15AM. The coroner's report never pinpointed the time of the deaths at 3:15AM as the book and movie claim. 
George kept complaining about the cold, and I would too since it's in the middle of December, the house is next to the river, it isn't well insulated, and the heating system had broken a couple days after they'd moved in.
"The children had accidentally cracked a pain of glass in the playroom's half-moon window." Dr. Kaplan had seen the windows not long after the family was gone. The original glass was still in the frames. Had any panes of class been fixed or replaced, it would have been very noticeable.
Kathy is touched in the kitchen. She never tells anybody about it. Isn't it possible that she could have imagined it?
Black stains are discovered in the toilets. This was taken from a picture of attorney Weber's of a sink after the investigation into the murders had taken place. Apparently, an investigator had washed off fingerprint dust in the sink, and it had stained the basin.
Smells and odors are detected in the house. Again, this comes from when Weber met with the Lutzes, and was never mentioned by the Lutzes themselves. At the trial, the smell/odor of the decaying bodies had often been mentioned. 
The family finds a swarm of flies on one of the sewing room windows. This, also, came from the meeting with Weber and testimony at Defeo's trial, and not from the Lutzes. It had been said that the body of the daughter in one of the third floor bedrooms was infested with maggots.
The testimony from DeFeo's trail later found its way into revised drafts of the book's manuscript, but mysteriously was
absent from earlier versions of their account.
The 250-pound front door is ripped off his hinges. George later admitted in an interview that it was actually the screen door that had gotten ripped off by the wind.
Kathy finds all three kids sleeping on their stomachs. "'Later, when I thought about it,' Kathy says, 'That was the first time I could ever remember the children sleeping in that position--particularly all three on their stomachs at the same time. I even remember I was almost going to say something to George, that it was kind of strange.'" Maybe it's just a coincidence that they were all on their stomachs when Kathy checked them?
As the locksmith leaves, George and Kathy decide not to tell him about the boathouse door because "they didn't want the news spreading around Amityville that again their was something funny going on at 112 Ocean Avenue." Since when were there ever rumors going around the town that there was something weird about the place? None of the locals ever heard of any.
While on the phone with her mother, Kathy sees Missy go into the sewing room and hears her looking for something in the boxes. Kathy wonders what she's looking for. Maybe she's looking for one of her toys that might still be packed away?
Kathy thought it was strange when Missy asked, "Do angels talk?" and when Missy (looking out a window) knew she was there. Since when is a 5-year-old girl's asking about angels around Christmas unusual? Also, couldn't Missy have seen her mother's reflection in the window?
The two brothers get into a fight, and Kathy says that that had never happened before. So now we are to assume that two brothers, ages 7 and 9, have never fought? 
Kathy finds her crucifix hanging upside-down. Kathy was on the third floor with Danny and Chris. She doesn't note if Missy had left her bedroom or if George had left the living room. That means that there were two people in the house who could have hung the crucifix upside-down.
No one else in the family reports seeing a crucifix hanging upside down at any time.
The first time George awakens at 3:15AM on the first night in the house, he "padded across the cold, uncarpeted floor of the hallway and into the sewing room". The hallway was actually carpeted.
"Father Mancuso" begins having visions of the house while he has a 104-degree fever. He's more than likely having hallucinations brought on by the high fever.
The Lutzes begin to experience problems with their phones. Yet never once did they try to contact the phone company to report the problems.
Sergeant Al Gionfriddo enters the story on December 24th. However, Sergeant Al Gionfriddo doesn't exist. Both he and his actions are totally made up in this otherwise “true” story.
After Kathy wakes up screaming, "She was shot in the head!" the book (as does the movie) mentions that only Mrs. DeFeo was shot in the head. However, Mrs. DeFeo was not shot in the head.
George sees the pig in Missy's window while the property is lit up by the light of the full moon after he wakes up at 3:15 and checks the boathouse. Weather reports have the moon only a quarter full and setting well before midnight.
George rushes into Missy's bedroom, and her little chair is rocking back and forth behind him. Maybe the breeze of his running into the room moved it, or maybe he bumped it and didn't realize it. 
"They had gone over some of the incidents each had witnessed, and now were trying to put together what was real and what they might have imagined." It would seem as though they are trying to make people believe that they are now trying to think rationally rather than blame everything that had happened on the paranormal.
Jodie is then introduced. Jodie was actually the neighbor's Siamese cat. It's eyes glowed red in the dark, and the neighbor said that she'd seen the cat over to the house numerous times and sitting on the window sills. The "pig" came from the Lutzes' meeting with Weber. Apparently, Ronald DeFeo had always referred to the cat as "that pig". This struck me as being very funny since in the movie after Kathy sees the eyes at the window, she tells George, "What I saw was not a cat!" Also, there was a bad TV-movie that I saw once called Something Evil where a family buys a home in Pennsylvania that is inhabited by the devil. In one part of the movie, a pair of red eyes is caught on film, staring out from a window of the house. Since it was a 1972 movie, it has to be considered that this could have had an influence on the Lutzes' interpretation of the red eyes that they saw.
George develops a case of diarrhea. Since when is diarrhea not a natural occurrence?
Jimmy's $1500 disappears when he leaves his raincoat in the kitchen and goes into the living room with George. The book doesn't mention where Kathy or the kids are. If the family is hurting so badly for money that they'd make up a tale of the supernatural and make it into a book and a movie, who's to say they wouldn't steal money from their own relatives? Also, if the kids are behaving so badly after moving into the house, how do we know one of them didn’t take it and hide it?
George gets sick during Communion just before Jimmy's wedding. Since he's Jimmy's best man, maybe it's just George's nerves acting up or a coincidence. Plus, he had been sick not long before.
George and Kathy hadn't made love for nine days. George also hadn't shaved or showered in nine days. Seems like a direct link between the two to me.
It's mentioned in the book that Mrs. DeFeo was having an affair before the murders. That, however, was just a rumor that had gone around the neighborhood and had afterwards been known to be false.
Bobby, a little boy from up the street, acted uncomfortable in the house. Who wouldn't? He probably lived on the street at the time of the murders and maybe even knew one or more of the kids. Now that he's in the house, it's probably bringing back a lot of bad memories for him.
The "red room" is discovered. It's actually a 2X3 foot access space for plumbing that the family had admitted painting red themselves.
In Chapter 10, "Sergeant Gionfriddo" tells "Father Mancuso" that Ronald DeFeo had drugged his family at dinner on the night he shot them. This was speculation at the time of the murders and was later ruled out. Granted, we now know that there are some drugs that wouldn't have probably showed up in an autopsy at that time, but it was ruled out that the family had been drugged before the Lutzes' story came about. So we have a priest that in real life never visited the house having a conversation with a “non-existent” police officer in this otherwise “true story.” 
"Gionfriddo" passed George as he was driving past The Witches' Brew and thought he'd seen Ronald DeFeo. The bartender also thought that George looked like DeFeo. The only similarity between George and DeFeo is that they both have beards. Other than that, they don't look anything alike. Also, the bar sounds great and spooky being called “The Witches Brew” except the actual bar was called “Henry’s Bar”, a somewhat less mysterious sounding name. Also, George goes to Newsday and looks through the microfilm. He sees Ronald's picture and thinks "the bearded twenty-four-year-old face staring back at him from the picture could have been his own. Again, George and DeFeo don't look anything alike.
Kathy sees "movement" out of the corner of her right eye and is sure that she's seen the ceramic lion move a few inches closer toward her. She later feels "foolish about wanting to mention the lion" to George. Didn't she say that she only saw movement and not what moved? How does she know it wasn't a curtain blowing or something? Apparently, she must have realized that it could have been her imagination since she doesn't say a word to George about it.
"What disturbed Kathy was the clear imprint of teethmarks on his ankle!" How could a ceramic lion "bite" somebody? It’s jaws cannot move, and it wouldn’t have been able to turn its head to even get to the ankle.
One of the shock absorbers on the rear of the van comes loose and falls off. "George was puzzled." Sounds like George needs to do some maintenance to his van more often. One of the tires on the van almost comes off, and he can't find the jack handle. Once again, bad maintenance. George considers vandalism, which would be another possibility.
Kathy hears a window opening and closing in the sewing room. Rather than opening the door to the sewing room to find out what the noise is, she goes back to the master bedroom and hides in bed. How do we know, since Kathy NEVER opened the door, that it was really a window making the noise and not a tree branch or something? 
George gets some history about the property from the Amityville Historical Society about the indians using the land for their insane and about a John Ketcham buying the land for witchcraft purposes. The family never went to the Amityville Historical Society until January 25, 1976 (after they'd moved out). Also, the Historical Society doesn't have any information about that piece of land. Everything about the background of the property is “made up” in this otherwise “true story”.
"George was beginning to choke with the pressures of mounting bills; for the house he had just taken on, and for the office, where he would shortly have a very serious payroll deficit. All the cash that he and Kathy had saved had gone toward the expense of the closing, and old fuel bill, and paying off the boats and motorcycles. And now the latest blow--the investigation of his books and tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service." Sounds like more reasons for why the book was written.
A "white figure that had burned itself into the soot against the rear bricks of the fireplace". George and Kathy later admitted that it was just an ugly shape burned into the bricks and nothing more.
The windows on the second floor are all found open. Keep in mind that these are the older style windows that have the counterweights in the frames. It's possible that if the windows were improperly latched then they could open by themselves. It's said that one of the sewing room windows was stuck open. Again, that's possible, too.
George and Kathy note that Missy's room is warm. Of course, it is. None of the windows in that room are open.
It was never said until the book came out that the overhead garage door had been ripped off it's frame. The newspaper articles only told of the garbage shed doors that had been nailed shut being found ripped open.
Kathy is embraced and passes out. She then wakes up on the bed. It's possible that she might have had a dizzy spell and passed out. In the process, she could have fallen down on the bed. 
"Father Mancuso" says a mass for the Lutzes, and when he returns to the Rectory, he found "a stupefying odor of human excrement pervading his rooms". In the hardcover, the smell spreads through the building, and the other priests are driven from their rooms and gather in the lobby of the school building across the yard. The pastor is extremely upset over the incident.
In the paperback, "Father Mancuso" is simply afraid that the smell would spread through the Rectory and that the pastor would be upset. However, he then lights incense in his rooms and returns to the school building with the others. This is caused by the editing of the book after it's first release. However, it is funny how in the paperback Father Mancuso joins the other evacuated priests,even though there was no evacuation!
The police are called in to look around the house. This is obviously wrong as the police were never called to the house as mentioned earlier.
George is starting up the basement stairs and stops to see where a smell is coming from. "From his position on the stairs, George had been able to see almost the entire cellar." his is wrong since there are walls on both sides of the basement stairs. Had George stopped on the stairs, he'd only be able to see a portion of the basement at the bottom of the stairs.
In Chapter 15, the hardcover details the Pastor's explosion on "Father Mancuso." In the paperback, "Father Mancuso" explodes on the Pastor. Which is it?
Missy's bedroom is supposed to be "diagonally opposite their master bedroom." Either this is wrong or the house diagram for the second floor is wrong. 
Kathy levitates two feet above the bed. George later said in a radio interview that it was an exaggeration and that she'd actually been only two inches off the bed. Maybe she had arched her back or something in her sleep and it looked like she was levitating two inches off the bed.
Either way, changing his story from two inches to two feet makes any other testimony on his part suspect.
George is out checking on Harry when he hears the marching band in the house. He gets inside, and all of the furniture was "pushed against the walls". George could hear it way out by the boathouse and nobody inside the house heard it, isn't it possible that it was his imagination again? And with the furniture being moved, where was the rest of the family? Or, couldn't George be hallucinating or having a dream? It also sounds like this could have been added for the purpose of trying to substantiate George's account of this "event". The family also admitted at their press conference that there had beenno moving furniture.
George doesn't hear the phone ringing in the kitchen. Maybe he's just preoccupied with what he's doing in the basement and either doesn't hear it or does hear it but doesn't realize that it's the phone. 
George also discovers a well in a basement when he loosens some of the dirt around the cement cap. For one thing, there is no well in the basement. Also, I don't think anybody would cap off a well like that since somebody could be standing on the cap, the cap could come loose, and the person would fall in.
Is this yet another example of sheer fabrication in an otherwise "true story?"
When Francine visits the house, she says that the house "'is built on a burial ground or something like that.'" Except that there are no burial grounds on the property.
George and Kathy hear a chorus of voices telling them to stop blessing the house. Five other people in the house didn't hear it, and Kathy had covered her ears to block out the noise.
Green slime is found on the walls in the third floor hallway. Kathy blames the kids, but George would rather believe that it's supernatural. Since this is George's first time at fathering, he's probably unaware as to what kind of things kids are capable of. Also, the slime in the story went through a number of changes. When the Lutzes first went public, they said it was red coming out of keyholes. In the book, it was changed to green slime. After the book was released, the family said it was a black tar-like liquid that hardened so solid that it couldn't even be scraped off the walls. Of course, in the movie it was changed to blood. So which is it? It would be hard to forget something like that! 
George explodes and runs through the house opening windows and yelling at the spirits to get out. Sounds to me like he's just stressed and relieving tension.
George sees the flames in the fireplace "reaching out for him!" Perhaps the fire rekindled and startled George? I know that I would be startled too if a fire that I thought was almost out suddenly came roaring back to life.
George finds the kids' bedroom windows wide open. Maybe the kids opened them.
Danny's hand gets caught in the window. Originally when the family went public, the incident happened in the sewing room. It was an aluminum storm window. Both of Danny's hands got cut, and Kathy bandaged them there at home. In the book, Danny is in the master bedroom. It's the main/wooden window. Only Danny's right hand is under the window. It is smashed, not cut. And Danny is rushed to the hospital. The hospital has no records of the incident. George later said on an interview that the hand had only a slight cut and that they'd bandaged it at home. The movie moved the event back into the sewing room. So what’s the “true” story?
George nails boards across the sewing room door to keep it shut. This door opened into the room as did the doors to the other rooms on that floor. Nailing boards across it from in the hallway would not keep it shut, but it does sound more dramatic that way!
Harry, the dog, gets nervous when George takes him around the house. Maybe Harry just doesn't like the house.
Missy introduces George and Kathy to Jodie. It's the neighbor's cat. Enough said.
Harry barks at something in the boathouse. Maybe he saw or heard a rat or cat and is wanting to go after it.
After the glazier fixes the windows and leaves, the family "realized that maybe their imaginations were too fired up and they were panicking unnecessarily." Sounds like they've just admitted that what's happened in the book so far might have been their overactive imaginations. 
The marching band strikes up again, and surprisingly, Kathy and the kids don't hear it. George dozes off to sleep, starts speaking in different languages, and wakes up screaming, "It's in Chris's room!" Sounds like the marching band was once again George's imagination. His talking in his sleep is nothing unusual. He might have just been mumbling something that sounded like another language other than English. The dream sounds like an ordinary nightmare.
Chris then claims that he went up to the third floor bathroom, looked through the floor, and saw George. Sounds like a dream since he was the only one awake, a bathroom floor can't just disappear, and he couldn't have seen George in real life since the third floor bathroom isn't above the master bedroom at all.
When the family tries to leave, the van won't start. Sounds like the classic horror story, doesn't it? Maybe the van was just flooded or something. Also, since it's January, maybe it just has a hard time starting up. With the shock absorber and tire incident earlier, this wouldn't be surprising. Also, why is it that the family goes back into the house, the same house that they are so scared of that they are fleeing from? Why didn't they go over to a neighbor's house to borrow the phone or get help?
The thunderstorm that keeps the family from escaping never existed, according to area meteorologists. Sorry.
George says that he'd removed the damaged lock on the playroom door, and when he tries to bless the house, the green slime is flowing out of it. Except that there is no lock hole on the playroom door where the slime could come out of.
George is afraid to go outside to check the van because he's afraid that the doors to the house will never open again, even though the van represents
their only means of escape. Sounds like he's just a little paranoid, doesn't it? Even if the doors did lock behind him, wouldn't he have been able to break open a window to get his family out?
George goes to bed and sees Kathy get up. "George saw in the candlelight that her eyes were open, but he knew she was still asleep." Sleepwalking is not paranormal. That's been a known fact for quite a few years now.
Harry throws up in the hallway. Dogs occasionally get sick. He hadn't been out to go to the bathroom for a while, either. Maybe that was affecting him too, especially if he was housebroken.
George hears what sounds like the boys' beds sliding back and forth. He can't move. The dresser drawers begin to open and close. The voices and marching band start up. George can't scream or move. Doors throughout the house begin to slam back and forth. George sees Harry out in the hallway sleeping through the noise. "Either that dog is drugged, George thought, or I'm the one who's going mad!" Well, the dog wasn’t drugged…
The storm returns. Jodie shows up on the bed. The next thing George knows is Danny and Chris standing next to the bed and waking him up. George thinks he must have passed out. He probably never passed out but was sound asleep and having a nightmare until the two boys woke him. He had the classic signs of a nightmare: couldn't move, couldn't scream, etc. Not to mention the “non-existent” storm that didn’t occur but does sound more dramatic, however.
George sees the hooded figure in white at the top of the third floor landing pointing at him. Sounds like George's imagination could be running overtime again since he's the only one to see the figure.
As the family heads out to the van, they find the front door off its hinges again. George, as mentioned before, had said in an interview that it was actually the screen door and not the wooden door.
Of course, the van starts this time, and the family escapes.
The book says that it was 7:00 AM on January 14. The next chapter is dated January 15, and George tells "Father Mancuso" that they couldn't get out until that morning. So now, they're saying that they moved out on January 14 and 15? Seems like somebody can't get their facts straight.
"'Please, please,' he ["Father Mancuso" to the spirits] whimpered, 'let me alone. I promise I won't talk to him again.'" So a Catholic priest is now bargaining with the demon to save his own hide? I don't think so.
George sees him and Kathy levitating in a "dreamlike state". Sounds like it was exactly that--a dream.
They run out of the bedroom to find "greenish-black slime" coming up the stairs towards them. "George now knew he had not been dreaming. It was all real. Whatever he had thought they had left forever back at 112 Ocean Avenue was following them--wherever the Lutzes fled." Sounds like a lead into a sequel, doesn't it?
From the Afterword: "I should point out, too, that when the Lutzes fled their home in early 1976, they had no thought of putting their experiences into book form." They might not have thought about it right after they moved out, but it didn't take them long afterwards to think about it. After all, about a month later, they had a contract for a book and a movie drawn up.
"There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that they either imagined or fabricated these events." After cutting out the police and Catholic Church's accounts which had been proven to have never happened, the only real witnesses to the events are George, Kathy, and their three kids (who would be very impressionable at their age by their parents). 
THE INVESTIGATIONSOver the months that followed, their story grew, and soon even more bizarre "phenomena" was told to the public. The family also changed the original amount of time that they had lived in the house from 10 days to 28 days. Sound like what happened is the classic case of when you embellish, exaggerate, or invent too many details to make a story sound more believable it then becomes hard to keep track of what version you said when, and have to keep changing or adding more detail to cover it all up. Surely with the numerous inconsistencies and fabrications, this would have gotten thrown out of a court of law if this were evidence in a criminal case.
The Amityville Horror hit the big screen in 1979 and was based on the book. It, too, claimed to be a "true story." That's when the lawsuits started. The family that had moved into the house after the Lutzes had left had experienced absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The only problem that they had experienced with living in the house was dealing with the number of tourists visiting the town to see the "horror house." They sued the Lutzes and the publishers. The case was settled out of court.
A second lawsuit exposed the real "horror" that had happened in Amityville. Attorney William Weber, Ronald DeFeo's defense lawyer, was suing the Lutzes for stealing his ideas for the story.
Apparently the Lutzes had moved into the house, thinking that they could handle living where the murders happened. However, after a couple of days of moving in, the heating system in the house broke down, and after a few days, the family began having bad feelings about living there. They were nervous and left to stay at a relative's house to collect their thoughts. It was there that a family member told them that they could expand on their "bad feelings" and make it into a ghost story.
The family then met with William Weber to find out more about the history of the murders and the house. At the time, Weber was also thinking of writing a book, not on ghosts, but about the murders. When the Lutzes met with him, they told him about the bad feelings that they were having in the house. Weber thought that their being nervous about living in the house after the murders would make a good afterwards section for his book. The three talked about the murders with Weber telling George and Kathy more and more information and showing them pictures of the house and the crime scene.
The Lutzes then went public. At first, Weber went along with their scheme since it was sticking very closely to the bad feelings that they had experienced. However, the Lutzes soon began making their experiences more and more exaggerated. Weber and Paul Hoffman, the group's original choice for an author, backed out of the mess. Weber was still planning his book, but before it could be finished, the Lutzes had released their book.
Author Jay Anson had written the book from audio tapes that George and Kathy had given him. The tapes contained their accounts of the events that the Lutzes claimed happened to them. Anson then took the events on the tapes, rearranged them into a more interesting order, exaggerated some events, and added his own ideas here and there. However, the Lutzes, even after the book came out, continued to change and rechange their story. Weber even saw a letter that had been written to Jay Anson, telling him to tell the Lutzes to get their story straight.
Weber's lawsuit against the Lutzes was settled out of court. The judge in the trial even said that with all of the discrepancies and exaggerations in the story that the book was a lot of nonsense.
Dr. Stephen Kaplan was the first person to say that the case was a hoax. George had contacted him to ask him to investigate the house for the "psychic phenomena." A couple days later, George called Dr. Kaplan to call off the investigation, saying that there was too much publicity. Dr. Kaplan thought this was strange since the investigation was something that would help George. He also noted that the family had just held a press conference in William Weber's office, but they didn't want any publicity. Dr. Kaplan also got suspicious that the Lutzes were meeting with the lawyer who was defending the kid that had killed his family in the house the year before. His suspicions were confirmed when the "séances" held in the house were televised on public television. He also got to tour the house not long afterwards when he and two colleagues arrived at the house and saw that the family was in the process of selling off everything in the house!
Another group of investigators from the American Society for Psychical Research stumbled upon a piece of evidence that really blew the whistle on the Lutzes. The investigators were interviewing the family. They'd gone over some of the incidents with the family to confirm that this happened and that happened. However, the investigators weren't convinced that the case was legitimate, since there wasn't much evidence to support it. They asked the family to show them a copy of their signatures. George and Kathy then showed the investigators a paper that had their signatures at the bottom. However, the couple hadn't thought that the investigators would get a good look at the paper. They did. It was a contract for a book and a movie.
Over and over, both big claims and small details were refuted by eyewitnesses, investigations, and forensic evidence. Still, the Lutzes stuck to their story, reaping tens of thousands of dollars from the book and film rights. In a recent “History’s Mysteries” documentary, George estimates they made a little over $250,000 from the book and around $160,000 from the film, and in a 2002 interview with Art Bell, George estimated they received around $300,000 after taxes and lawyer fees and such, which refutes some claims that they never made a penny from their experience.
Over the years more stories have been spread around about the Amityville house in addition to those in the books and the movies. Not long after the movie came out, NBC's show "In Search Of..." ran an episode entitled "Amityville Horror". George and Kathy were interviewed, as was the Catholic priest, who remained anonymous. There were some interesting changes in the Lutzes' story: In the show, George and Kathy now say that each room had its own personality, which was something new that they'd never mentioned before. Kathy now describes the red room as being behind a bookcase that she moved in the basement. In the book, it was behind a wall that had shelves on it. Kathy also adds a new event regarding Missy in that she would be singing in her room, come out and stop singing, and then go back in the room and start singing right where she left off. While that would certainly sound peculiar, it has to be asked why that was never mentioned before. George also says that what he saw in Missy's window was a shape and that he didn't know what it was. He also says that the kids' beds were now levitated. Jay Anson changes his story and now says that he investigated the story and talked to the Lutzes. 
THE HOAX FINALLY ADMITTEDThe truth behind The Amityville Horror was finally revealed when Ronald DeFeo's lawyer, William Weber, admitted that he, along with the Lutzes, "created this horror story over many bottles of wine." The house was never really haunted; the horrific experiences they had claimed were simply made up. Jay Anson further embellished the tale for his book, and by the time the film's screenwriters had adapted it, any grains of truth that might have been there were long gone. While the Lutzes profited handsomely from their story, Weber had planned to use the haunting to gain a new trial for his client. George Lutz reportedly still claims that the events are mostly true, but has offered no evidence to back up his claim.
Weber tells how the Lutzes had come to him after leaving the house, and he had told them their “experiences” could be useful to him in preparing a book. “We created this horror story over many bottles of wine that George Lutz was drinking,” Weber told the Associated Press. “We were creating something the public wanted to hear about.” Weber later filed a two-million-dollar lawsuit against the couple, charging them with reneging on their book deal. The Cromartys (the owners of the house immediately after the Lutzes) also sued the Lutzes, Anson, and the publishers, maintaining that the fraudulent haunting claims had resulted in sightseers destroying any privacy they might have had. During the trials the Lutzes admitted that virtually everything in The Amityville Horror was pure fiction (Nickell 1995; Kaplan and Kaplan 1995).
Now Ric Osuna’s recent book "The Night the DeFeos Died" adds to the evidence. Ronald DeFeo’s wife Geraldine allegedly confirms much of Weber’s account. To her, it was clear that the hoax had been planned for some time. Weber had intended to use the haunting claims to help obtain a new trial for his client (Osuna 2002, 282–286).
As to George Lutz, Ric Osuna states that “George informed me that setting the record straight was not as important as making money off fictional sequels.” Osuna details numerous contradictions in the story that Lutz continues to offer versions of (286–289).
For his part, Osuna has his own story to tell. He buys Ronald DeFeo’s current story about the murders, assuring his readers that it “is true and has never been made public” (18, 22). DeFeo now alleges that his sister Dawn urged him to kill the entire family and that she and two of Butch’s friends had participated in the crimes.
In fact, DeFeo maintains that Dawn began the carnage by shooting their domineering father with the .35-caliber Marlin rifle. Butch then shot his mother, whom he felt would have turned him in for the crime, but claims he never intended to kill his siblings. He left the house to look for one of his friends who had left the scene and, when he returned to find that Dawn had murdered her sister and other two brothers, he was enraged. He fought with her for the gun and sent her flying into a bedpost where she was knocked out. He then shot her.
Osuna tries to make this admittedly “incredible” tale believable by explaining away contradictory evidence. He accepts DeFeo’s claim that he altered the crime scene and asserts that the authorities engaged in abuses and distortions of evidence to support their theory of the crimes. Even so, Osuna concedes that “DeFeo had offered several different, if ludicrous, versions of what had occurred” (33), and that he might again change his story. But he asserts that “Too much independent corroboration exists to believe it was just another one of his lies” (370). Whatever the case may be, it is clearly no longer connected to anything supernatural.
THE VERDICTThe Lutzes account was likely influenced by another fictionalized story, that of The Exorcist. In fact, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that The Exorcist strongly influenced The Amityville Story: Recall that The Exorcist came out in December 1973, and demonic possession and hauntings were very much in the public's mind when the Lutzes spun their stories of diabolic activity a year or two later. The revelation that the story was based on a hoax has led to embarrassment, especially among the handful of "paranormal experts" who "verified" the fictional tale. The Lutzes must have had a good laugh at the expense of the mystery-mongering ghost hunters and self-proclaimed psychics who reported their terrifying visions and verified the house's (non-existent) demonic residents.
To this day, the fact that The Amityville Horror story was an admitted hoax is still not widely known — as we often say, the truth never stands in the way of a good story. Though the story was made up by the Lutzes and further sensationalized by Anson, there were real victims of The Amityville Horror (the film, not the demons). In addition to the murdered DeFeo family, the subsequent occupants of the Amityville home have suffered a continual stream of harassment by curiosity seekers, horror fans, and gawkers who want to photograph and tour their infamous house. Then there is the public, who, fooled by the films' and book's tagline, think they are partaking of works based on true events.
Used with permission; copyrights retained by the original investigators.
