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Who hasn’t watched the Amityville Horror movies or read the book and had shivers down their spine? Well, the man who was at the heart of the happening, Ronald “Butch” DeFeo, was held responsible for his doings and was under state custody for years now. The latest in is that is he passed away while still in prison.
As per reports, DeFeo was 69 when he breathed his last on March 12, 2021. Read on to know the information we got our hands-on regarding his demise.
As per a Niagara Gazette report, the notorious Amityville Horror killer was receiving treatment for an illness at Albany Medical Center. Ronald “Butch” DeFeo was an inmate at Sullivan Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in the Catskills. The Albany County Medical Examiner’s Office is yet to release the cause of his death.
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Talking about Ronald “Butch” DeFeo and the Amityville Horror, DeFeo was serving life in prison for the November 13, 1974 murders of his mother, father, two sisters and two brothers. The murders took place at the family’s Dutch Colonial home in Amityville, a quaint village on Long Island’s South Shore.
His victims were found with their faces on the bed and were shot to death with a .35-caliber Marlin hunting rifle in the early hours of the day. There was evidence the killer had used pillowcases to transport items from the house and toss them in a storm drain.
Ronald “Butch” DeFeo was 23 at the time of the Amityville Horror killings and was eligible for a parole hearing in July. During his 1975 trial, DeFeo pleaded insanity, asserting he acted in self-defence because he was convinced his family was plotting to harm him. However, the prosecution team, aided by the testimony from forensic psychiatrist Harold Zolan, said that DeFeo was a user of LSD and heroin and understood the consequences of his actions.
The murders by Ronald “Butch” DeFeo were penned down in Jay Anson’s 1977 book about the allegedly true paranormal experiences of the home’s subsequent owners. The book was then turned into the Amityville Horror series of films. The murders were also the subject of a 2012 documentary, Shattered Hopes: The True Story of the Amityville Murders. In it, filmmaker Ryan Katzenbach argued that more than one person killed the DeFeos.
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