by The Ghosty Gal

Created on: January 05, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Amity Horror-ible Fraud.

Did the George Lutz lie about being bitten by that porcelain lion?

Did Ronny really hear voices telling him to kill?

Were George and Kathy really just skipping out on their mortgage?

The Amityville Horror-the quintessential haunted house, although now considered a hoax, remains one of the most sensational and controversial cases of an alleged haunting of all time. A bright beautiful house in Amityville, New York, had been on the market for a year at a bargain price because it was the scene of a mass murder, by 23-year-old Ronnie DeFeo of his father, mother, and younger siblings in November 1974. George and Kathy Lutz bought the house a year later, in December 1975, and moved in with their three children.

A month later the Lutzes fled the house, never to return. They told the media of bizarre happenings-mysterious odors, doors slamming shut, and gelatinous substances losing out of the walls. In 1977 The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson was published by Prentice-Hill as a nonfiction book. It sold six million copies and led to a top-grossing movie in 1979 and a host of other books and films.The hunting was quickly dismissed as a hoax, and want it is possible a haunting may have occurred, skeptics argue that there are too many discrepancies. The American Society for Psychic Research found the whole matter questionable and did not investigate, believing that the incidents were not paranormal. Also, when the Lutzes moved out the house became quiet. The next owners, Jim and Barbara Cromarty, said they experienced no unusual phenomenon. However, they grew so annoyed by the tourists flocking to see their house that they sued the Lutzes, Anson and Prentice-Hall for $1.1 million. They won a settlement for an unspecified lesser amount, with the judge ruling that "the evidence shows fairly clearly that the Lutzes during this entire period were considering and acting with the thought of getting a book published".

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