Case File: Ronald DeFeo Jr.

Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. was born in 1951, the eldest child of Ronald Sr. and Louise DeFeo. Outwardly, the DeFeos seemed to represent the American ideal; Catholic, close-knit, financially comfortable and socially respected. Ronald Sr. was known to be strict and authoritative, while Louise was a devoted homemaker.

Ronald Sr. worked at a Brooklyn Buick dealership owned by his father-in-law, and when Butch was 14, the family, like millions of others in the post-World War II decades, left the city for the suburbs. The family’s large house in a quiet, upper-middle-class Long Island neighborhood symbolized upward mobility for the DeFeos, and they hung a sign outside their new home reading “High Hopes.”

Behind closed doors, however, accounts suggest a volatile home. Friends and family members later reported that Ronald Sr. was domineering and sometimes abusive, particularly toward his son. Ronald Jr. reportedly struggled with emotional and behavioral problems from a young age. By his late teens, he had begun experimenting with drugs and alcohol and showed signs of increasingly erratic and violent behavior.

Despite working for his father’s dealership, DeFeo had frequent run-ins with his family and the law. He was also known to exhibit troubling behavior, including threats against family members and an obsession with firearms. Psychological evaluations conducted after his arrest would reveal a history of antisocial behavior, painting a picture of a deeply troubled young man spiraling out of control.

According to police reports and his later confession, in the early morning hours of November 13, 1974, DeFeo took a .35-caliber Marlin rifle and systematically shot each member of his family as they slept in their beds. His parents were killed first, followed by his two brothers and two sisters. Each victim was found face down, and none showed signs of a struggle.

DeFeo then showered, dressed and left the house. He went to work and then visited a local bar with friends. Throughout the night, he commented to friends that he’d tried to call the family home several times with no response, before borrowing a friend’s car to drive home to check on them. Around 6:30 p.m., he ran into the bar shouting that something was wrong at his house. Friends accompanied him back to the home where they discovered the grisly scene.

DeFeo told police that he believed a mob hitman had killed his family and that he narrowly escaped. DeFeo Jr.’s maternal grandfather, Michael Brigante, reportedly had ties to the Genovese crime family, one of New York’s most powerful mafia groups. Could the murders have been payback of some kind? The murders resembled execution-style killings and there were no signs of forced entry or theft. 

However, inconsistencies in DeFeo’s story quickly raised suspicions.

Police questioned DeFeo at length, with his story constantly changing. At one point, he claimed that hitman Louis Falini and an accomplice had held DeFeo hostage as they forced him to watch them kill his family. Law enforcement found no link to organized crime, but they did learn that with his entire family dead, DeFeo would have been the beneficiary of a $200,000 insurance policy (worth more than $1.3 million today). 

By the next day, under pressure from mounting contradictions in his story, he confessed. According to police statements, he admitted to killing his family but offered little clear motive at the time. “It all started so fast,” he reportedly told investigators. “Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast.” DeFeo pointed authorities in the direction of the murder weapon that he hid in a storm drain  in Brooklyn, N.Y. Forensic evidence, including gunpowder residue, also tied DeFeo to the scene. 

Despite the confession, the case generated numerous questions. Several rifle shots had been fired, but none of the victims appeared to have been awakened by the noise. The medical examiner found no evidence that the family had been drugged or put to sleep before the murders, and all were likely still asleep when they were shot, found in almost identical positions. And no neighbors reported hearing any gunfire that night, leaving unanswered questions surrounding the case.

DeFeo was charged with six counts of second-degree murder. His defense attorney initially sought an insanity defense, claiming that DeFeo had been hearing voices that compelled him to kill. Psychiatrists hired by the defense supported this claim, diagnosing him with dissociative disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. DeFeo’s attorneys also claimed that his confession had been coerced, and he’d admitted to the murders only after being physically assaulted while in detention. 

However, the prosecution presented its own mental health experts who argued that DeFeo was aware of his actions and understood their consequences. Their diagnosis was antisocial personality disorder, a condition that indicated emotional detachment and lack of remorse but did not meet the legal standard for insanity.

In November 1975, DeFeo was found guilty on all six counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York. 

In the years following his conviction, DeFeo gave multiple, often contradictory, accounts of what happened the night of the murders. At various points, he claimed his sister Dawn committed some of the murders, or that unknown intruders were involved. These shifting stories complicated efforts to fully understand his motivations and contributed to the enduring mystery around the case.

Despite efforts by some to appeal his conviction or reduce his sentence, all legal attempts failed. DeFeo was denied parole numerous times. He remained imprisoned until his death in March 2021 at the age of 69, never providing a consistent or verifiable explanation for his actions.

While the actual murders were horrifying in their own right, the public's fascination with the case was intensified by what came after. Just over a year later, a new family, the Lutzes, moved into the home at 112 Ocean Avenue. They fled the house less than a month later. Their experience, in which they claimed to witness paranormal phenomena (including mysterious voices and levitations) became the basis of the 1977 book, The Amityville Horror.

Though heavily disputed and widely criticized as an elaborate hoax, the Lutzes’ story was covered in numerous books, documentaries and movies, blurring the line between fact and fiction.

Nevertheless, the actual tragedy that saw six lives lost at the hands of a family member remains a stark reminder of the real human toll behind the media storm. For many true crime historians and analysts, the DeFeo case still proves to be an important example of familial violence, untreated mental illness and unanswered questions.