THE AMITYVILLE HORROR MURDERS
This is a true life story.
• Year: 1974
• Country: United States
• State/Region: New York
• Place: Amityville
1ST PERSON POV: THE NEIGHBOR
The night was quiet, very quiet.
It was almost too quiet for a place like Amityville.
I had just laid my head down when the first shot rang out.
It was so loud, and sudden that it seemed like it was slicing through the calm environment like a blade or maybe an axe.
Startled, jumped out of my bed, hitting my head on the floor, the in my eyes completely gone.
That sound almost gave me a heart attack
"What in the name of Josh was that?" I muttered to myself, holding on to the front of ash nightwear as if it was my very heart.
It sounded like a gun but I didn't think it could be.
The only one that had a gun in this Ville was a retired post man but his grand children had taken him to there estate up north last week.
Surely, that meant it was not a gun shot I heard.
"Maybe it's those two again."
Living next door to the DeFeo family, I had grown very much used to their frequent arguments that had become a daily affair in the Ville.
Ronald "Big Ronnie" and his son, Butch, often fought, raising their voices and disturbing the entire neighborhood.
So I suspected it might be them again.
Only, this one was different.
They weren't yelling or slamming doors.
"By Josh what is going on this time?"
I pulled on my night cap that had fallen off, dragged my jacket from the pile of clothes on the floor that needed to be washed and stood up, feeling my poor knees ache.
Creeping to my window, I peered out at their house.
The lights were still on.
—-----------
Inside the DeFeo house, Butch paced up and down the hallway, holding the heavy rifle in his hands.
He was breathing shortly, heavyily, making grunting noise in his throat as his eyes darted about in his eyesockets looking up and the dark corridor.
"They deserve this," the voices whispered.
"Every last one of them."
"Do it Butch."
He swallowed, gulping down a batchful of saliva, squeezing his hands down on the rifle and turned to the left, coming to stand in front of a brown door.
Kicking it open, he entered into his parents' bedroom, the barrel trembling in his hands.
His father, Ronald Sr., stirred in the bed he lay, woken up from the noise, furrowing his brows as he squinted into the dark.
"Butch?"
The loaded rifle came into his view and he sat up, half rising from the bed with his hands plopped down to lift himself off it.
"What are you doing?! Drop that gun!"
Butch's finger slid into the circular hole in the arms he held and pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore through his father's chest with force throwing him back onto the bed and hitting his against the headboard.
Blood sprayed across the white walls, filling the room with the metallic scent of it.
"Haaa! Nooo! No no, what have you done!"
Hearing the sound, the son turned to his mother, cocking the rifle again
Louise, his mother, screamed, scrambling on the bed to get away, with the beddings following her.
But she was not fast enough.
He fired again, sending the bullet to tear through her skull just as her feet touched the carpeted floor.
---
From my window, I thought I saw a person move across the house.
A chill ran down my spine.
What is going on there, A burglary?
Should I call the police?
Perhaps I was imagining things, "Never take pumpkin seeds with vodka."
Pushing myself off the window I decided I should mind my business.
Afterall, the family never took it kindly when we tried to settle things between them.
Going to my bed, my hands pulled the bed spread to the side then I heard another shot.
That was a gun shot and this time, I heard a scream along wit's it.
Shaking, I reached for the landline.
---
Dawn, the eldest daughter, woke to the sound of footsteps just outside her room.
"Mom?"
The door creaked open, revealing her brother standing there with a rifle.
Her eyes went wide, fear cooed over her face.
"B… Butch?"
He walked closer to her while she grabbed the lampshade.
"Please, Butch," she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Don't do this."
He didn't reply, he couldn't hear her.
The voices in his head were so loud, they drowned out her pleas.
He raised the rifle and fired but she dodged, running to the other end of the room with him following her.
There was no where else to run, he was in front of her now, blocking every corner she could have escaped through.
So she pulled her dresser between them, blocking her body with it.
"Butch stop this madness immediately, it's not funny!"
He began to fire at the tall dresser repeatedly, haphazardly, just wanting to kill her.
"Stop it Butch. Please!"
Bullet after bullet shot out, creating several hole on the wooden piece between them as it's shells fell to the floor.
Then she was quiet, not shouting or begging anymore.
"Check if she is dead."
"She has to be dead before you leave."
"Pull that dresser out of the way!"
He dropped his gun to the floor, pushing the dresser and checked.
Her body fell forward without the dresser holding her to the wall, so he rolled her over, seeing her cloudy eyes.
She was dead.
—-----------
By now, my fingers were trembling so badly I could barely dial.
I pressed the numbers for the local police, breathing shallowly.
"911, what's your emergency?" the operator asked.
"There's… a maniac… someone is shooting, they won't stop. Help."
—------
In the next room, Allison, the youngest daughter, clutched her stuffed bear, her tiny frame trembing under the bed where she hid.
She heard footsteps enter the room and walk around.
"Aarrgh!!!!"
Her childish voice screamed out as he pulled her by her legs out of the bed.
A single shot rang out.
And he moved over to the next room, leaving behind his dead little sister still holding her stuffed bear in death as her blood spilled over, soaking it's soft pink in a bloody red colour.
Marc and John, the youngest boys, were hugging each other as they slept oblivious to all that had been happening.
They were smiling probably dreaming of candy and chocolate in their sleep.
Butch stopped, looking at them.
"Kill them, Shoot them."
"All of them must die, die, die"
"Shoot them"
"Shoot Butch"
"Do it!"
"Finish them"
"Shoot. KILL"
"KILL THEM!!!!!!"
Two more shots. Two more lives snuffed out.
—-------
I was still on the phone with the operator, hearing more gun shots, when the flashing red and blue lights appeared outside.
Police cars screeched to a halt in front of the DeFeo house with officers pouring out, drawing out their weapons.
One of them knocked on my door and I opened it immediately.
"Did you call this in?" he asked.
I nodded.
—-------
Inside the house, the officers were greeted by a scene that could only be in one's nightmares.
Blood pooled on the floors, splattered on the walls, and soaked into the bedsheets.
The smell of gunpowder and death was too much to take in.
When they found Butch, he was sitting in the living room with the rifle to the bottom of his jaw.
"Put the weapon down Sir."
"It'll be alright, drop the gun."
The officers were trying their best to get him to lower his weapon but he shook his head.
The tears were sliding down his cheeks dropped to his throat and some to the carpets as he raise his head and pulled the trigger.
An empty click was all that was heard.
There was no bullets left in the rifle.
"It wasn't me," he said as they urshered him out in cuffs.
"The voices… they made me do it."
---
I watched from my porch as they led him out in handcuffs.
He looked like a ghost, pale and detached, looking at something none of us could see.
"What happened?" one of the officers asked me.
"I don't know, I just heard the shots."
—---------
The DeFeo house became a crime scene, making headlines across the country.
It was a tragedy.
People whispered about Butch's claims of hearing voices, about the possibility of ghosts within the walls of that house.
The memories of that night, the screams, the gun shots… they haunt me.
Sometimes, late at night, I think I can still hear the gunshots echoing through the quiet streets of Amityville.
It is said that a family moved into the house sometime later but packed out 28 days later, talking about hearing strange voices and seeing ghostly figures in nightwear.
Till now the house on Amityville remains unoccupied.