I hate to give any press to someone like Ronald DeFeo Jr., who was “convicted of killing his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters inside his home in Amityville in 1974”, but the murders had a major impact on the horror genre.
Ronald DeFeo Jr., whose murders inspired The Amityville Horror book and movie series “died, according to a spokesman for the Department of Corrections and Community Services of the State of New York (DOCCS),” reports CNN through the affiliate WABC. He was 69 years old.
“He was serving a 25-year life sentence when he died on March 12 at Albany Medical Center, said the DOCCS spokesman.”
“The cause of his death was not immediately available, but ‘will be determined and disclosed by the Albany County Medical Examiner’s Office’ and it is at the discretion of that office whether the results will be made publicly available, the spokesman said.”
In 1975, the Lutz family moved to DeFeo’s house, where they would live for only 28 days, leaving after allegations that she was haunted. The story would be the catalyst for the book “The Amityville Horror”, which would be adapted for the 1979 film starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder, which generated several sequences and even more copies.