Chapter Nine-Reaction to the DeFeo shootings

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Kathy Lutz, (Margot Kidder): Quote: "Shot was shot in the head!", unquote, from "The Amityville Horror", (1979), as she is in bed with her husband George Lee Lutz, when the time is 3:15 AM...the same time as when Ronald DeFeo, Jr., murdered his family on November 13, 1974.

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Several months before the DeFeo's lived at the Amityville house, Ronald DeFeo was in jail for 150 years. He waited for his time to be confessing to the murders the previous year.

ADA Gerard Sullivan, (Suffolk County), stared at the bearded 24 year old man. He watched him closely. Was he possessed? Was he faking it? Was he getting help from other people outside the DeFeo family to kill everyone at 3:15 AM on November 13, 1974?...

...Endless questions.

***

THIS IS A EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE DEFEO TRIAL

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1975

ONE YEAR AND A DAY AFTER THE MURDERS

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury...Each of you will be changed to some degree by this case...You will leave this Courtroom after rendering a verdict in a Month's time from now...carrying with you an abiding memory of the horror that occurred in that house at 112 Ocean Avenue in the dead of night...eleven months ago...

..."Bear in mind the evidence establishing...And bearing upon how these crimes were carried out...Is a importent to your verdict as the proof bearing upon who carried it out...

..."Much of the evidence of 'How', will bear upon the issue of whether you will excuse the defendant for his action by reason of some mental disease...or defect. If you keep your minds open...carefully evaluate...and assess...all of the proofs...I'm confident that at the end of the case...you'll come back into the Courtroom...And find Ronald DeFeo, Jr., guilty of six counts of murder".

And he sipped a glass of water, as the opening remarks of the most sensational US crime story since The Zodiac and Manson murders...took place in Long Island, New York.

(Source: http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/family/amityville/5.html).

***

After several hours, the 12 person Jury found Ronald DeFeo guilty.

And for everyone in Court that day, the horror was over.

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Page 10.

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