# The Real Amityville Horror

An episode of [Buried Bones - a historical true crime podcast with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1455668750), 28 Oct 2026, 1 h 08 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/976825e3-37d8-4387-a0cd-b24b002d91e5/45ab44d3-d73f-462e-8bb0-b4ea01587c91/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3df02c7c-f75a-4bea-abe8-b24b002d91ff

In this week’s episode, Paul and Kate explore the real story behind the Amityville Horror, examining the murders that took place in the house and the events that made it infamous. Join our Patreon! patreon.com/kateandpaul Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/4buCoMc See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last
[0:06] Speaker 1: 25 years writing about true crime.
[0:09] Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Holes, a retired cold case investigator who's
[0:12] Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.
[0:16] Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
[0:19] Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
[0:21] Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
[0:24] Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
[0:31] Speaker 1: cases through a 21st century lens.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Some are solved, and some are cold. Very cold.
[0:38] Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones. Buried Bones Hey, Paul.
[1:03] Speaker 2: Hey, Kate. How are you?
[1:04] Speaker 1: Almost Halloween. That's how I am. I'm so excited. I
[1:08] Speaker 1: asked you to wear a Halloween shirt and you've got
[1:11] Speaker 1: like goth black going on. Is that your Halloween shirt?
[1:14] Speaker 2: Of course. Well, hey, I got a couple little pumpkins
[1:17] Speaker 2: on the shelf behind me. So, you know, I'm trying
[1:19] Speaker 2: to get into the spirit. I know you're quivering with
[1:21] Speaker 2: excitement about Halloween.
[1:23] Speaker 1: I love it. Love Halloween. You said your kids have
[1:26] Speaker 1: a gazillion different costumes, right?
[1:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, over the years, they definitely, you know,
[1:33] Speaker 2: liked to dress up, and we've kept most of those costumes.
[1:37] Speaker 1: Well, I have dressed up the cottage just a tiny bit.
[1:40] Speaker 1: I used to have a skeleton, but I can't find it.
[1:42] Speaker 1: I think it's in the attic. So I have, let's see,
[1:45] Speaker 1: I have a little lamp, a little oil lamp I
[1:47] Speaker 1: got a couple years ago.
[1:48] Speaker 2: It's going.
[1:49] Speaker 1: If it catches a book on fire, if you would
[1:52] Speaker 1: kindly let me know, that would be great because it's going.
[1:56] Speaker 1: And I haven't lit it in a long time. This
[1:57] Speaker 1: might not be the best idea, but we'll see. And
[2:00] Speaker 1: then I've got my pumpkin over here. Yep. Right there.
[2:02] Speaker 1: It's a funkin. It says Dawson Winkler household on it
[2:06] Speaker 1: where it got carved up and everything.
[2:08] Speaker 2: I can somewhat make out the lettering on it, but
[2:11] Speaker 2: it's hard to read. Yep.
[2:13] Speaker 1: I love a good Funkin. So this is my favorite holiday.
[2:16] Speaker 1: So I was tasked by Alexis to pick a good
[2:19] Speaker 1: spooky story, right? And so I was talking to one
[2:23] Speaker 1: of my kids, the one who likes all the horror stuff,
[2:25] Speaker 1: and we go and watch horror movies with my mom.
[2:27] Speaker 1: I mean, horror as in like violent mystery is what
[2:30] Speaker 1: I would say. But I said, oh, you want something classic?
[2:34] Speaker 1: We should watch this film called The Amityville Horror. And
[2:39] Speaker 1: that film scared the crap out of me when I
[2:42] Speaker 1: was a kid. 1979. And James Brolin, Margot Kidder and
[2:47] Speaker 1: Ron Steiger. And it's based on a true story. And
[2:51] Speaker 1: I didn't know much about the true story. And so
[2:53] Speaker 1: I thought we should do the true story for Halloween.
[2:56] Speaker 2: I don't remember the movie. I've heard of the movie.
[2:58] Speaker 2: I think I've seen it, but I definitely don't remember it.
[3:01] Speaker 2: And I had no idea it was based on a
[3:03] Speaker 2: true story.
[3:04] Speaker 1: So the story in the movie is that there is
[3:08] Speaker 1: a young couple that gets a great deal on a
[3:10] Speaker 1: house and they move in in Amityville, New York, and
[3:14] Speaker 1: then just like bad stuff starts happening. And they think
[3:17] Speaker 1: it's based on what happened in the house before they
[3:20] Speaker 1: bought it. And so the real story of Amityville horror
[3:25] Speaker 1: is pretty, I think, awful. And so I thought, ah,
[3:29] Speaker 1: just write for Paul Holes. He'll enjoy this story. And
[3:32] Speaker 1: it's very Halloween-y. And I think it's interesting, too.
[3:36] Speaker 2: Okay. Well, looking forward to it. All right.
[3:38] Speaker 1: We're off to Amityville. Let's set the scene. So there
[3:43] Speaker 1: are a lot of books about this because, you know,
[3:46] Speaker 1: the story's been out there forever. It's a classic story. Ghost,
[3:50] Speaker 1: evil spirit, kind of horror story, the haunted house, then
[3:54] Speaker 1: finding out what happened in the house that made it haunted.
[3:57] Speaker 1: And then what is happening? Are you going crazy? You know,
[4:01] Speaker 1: is there really, you know, an evil presence there? And
[4:04] Speaker 1: so in the movie, what scared me was that the
[4:08] Speaker 1: girl who lived in the house, the daughter of the couple,
[4:12] Speaker 1: was seeing she had a friend named Jodi. who no
[4:16] Speaker 1: one else could see, but you could see like her
[4:18] Speaker 1: red eyes looking into the window. And I mean, just,
[4:21] Speaker 1: it was terrifying to me. And so there's a lot
[4:24] Speaker 1: of specific stuff, you know, that pops up in the
[4:27] Speaker 1: movie that, that, you know, kind of is related to
[4:30] Speaker 1: the house. So we looked at a lot of different
[4:33] Speaker 1: sources and I think Allison, who's our crack researcher settled
[4:37] Speaker 1: on a book called mentally ill and Amityville murder mystery
[4:40] Speaker 1: and mayhem at one 12 ocean Avenue. And she said
[4:45] Speaker 1: this was a really good, reliable source. So there have
[4:47] Speaker 1: been other sources out there that have been tied to
[4:51] Speaker 1: maybe some family members. And it sounds like there's been
[4:55] Speaker 1: some stuff out there that's been fabricated. And so, you know,
[4:58] Speaker 1: Allison and then subsequently I decided, obviously, we're going to
[5:01] Speaker 1: lean heavier on to the most reliable sources. So if
[5:05] Speaker 1: you guys watching this or listening to this, if you
[5:07] Speaker 1: hear something that you thought, oh, wait. That's not what
[5:10] Speaker 1: I thought. It's because we were really leaning away from
[5:13] Speaker 1: the fables that came with this and the lore and
[5:15] Speaker 1: trying to get to the facts. Sound good? That was
[5:18] Speaker 1: a long disclaimer, I guess.
[5:20] Speaker 2: Yeah. No, that sounds good. You gave me an address.
[5:23] Speaker 2: Of course, I have to see it. Oh, I should
[5:27] Speaker 2: do that. Oh, this is actually on Long Island. Yeah.
[5:32] Speaker 1: Suffolk County. Yep, you're right. Yes, you're right. It is
[5:34] Speaker 1: Long Island.
[5:35] Speaker 2: It is literally right across a bay from Gilgo Beach.
[5:41] Speaker 1: Oh, Paul. I thought we could get away from this
[5:45] Speaker 1: story without connecting it to some famous serial killer case.
[5:50] Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
[5:51] Speaker 1: So, you know, are we saying Nexus of Evil here, maybe?
[5:55] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[5:57] Speaker 2: I don't know. We'll see. You have to tell me
[5:59] Speaker 2: the story.
[6:00] Speaker 1: This week we're going to Amityville. It's November.
[6:02] Speaker 2: Cold.
[6:02] Speaker 1: Cold. November 13th, 1974, I am about six weeks away
[6:09] Speaker 1: from being born. And Amityville is a small village of
[6:14] Speaker 1: about 9,000 people, like you said, on Long Island. And
[6:17] Speaker 1: it's pretty close to Manhattan. And, you know, a quiet place.
[6:20] Speaker 1: This is in Suffolk County. So at 6.30 that night,
[6:24] Speaker 1: the Suffolk County Emergency Dispatch receives a distressing phone call.
[6:28] Speaker 1: And the call says there have been six people who
[6:30] Speaker 1: were shot in the house on Ocean Avenue. So there
[6:35] Speaker 1: is a cop that shows up, and he gets to
[6:38] Speaker 1: the scene 10 minutes later. And outside the house, there
[6:42] Speaker 1: is the lone survivor. His name is Ronald Joseph DeFeo Jr.,
[6:48] Speaker 1: but everybody calls him Butch, and he's 23 years old.
[6:52] Speaker 1: He is crying, crying uncontrollably. He had been at a bar,
[6:57] Speaker 1: and I'll tell you a little bit more about what
[6:58] Speaker 1: he did that day. He had been at a local
[7:00] Speaker 1: bar with his buddies. and drinking, and then he went
[7:04] Speaker 1: home and saw what I'm about to tell you he saw,
[7:07] Speaker 1: and then he ran back to the bar to go
[7:09] Speaker 1: get his friends. So he's surrounded by these other guys.
[7:12] Speaker 1: There's six guys there who are trying to calm him
[7:14] Speaker 1: down and help him. And, you know, I think probably
[7:18] Speaker 1: trying to keep people out of the house. And then
[7:20] Speaker 1: when the police come, you know, they're talking too. So
[7:25] Speaker 1: at the crime scene, we have a police officer who
[7:28] Speaker 1: enters the house and And the first thing he sees
[7:31] Speaker 1: is an unharmed dog. My kid would like to know that.
[7:34] Speaker 1: Unharmed dog. He's a sheepdog named Shaggy, and he's tied up.
[7:40] Speaker 1: I've never heard of anybody tied up. I mean, I
[7:41] Speaker 1: guess tied up, like, boy, at first I thought trust,
[7:44] Speaker 1: but not. I mean, I'm assuming he must be just
[7:46] Speaker 1: tied up, you know, like a leash or something. But
[7:50] Speaker 1: he's unharmed, and he's in the kitchen. But he's been restrained.
[7:53] Speaker 2: So, like, he's just leashed to prevent him from wandering
[7:58] Speaker 2: through the house, right?
[7:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I believe so. I don't know why I
[8:01] Speaker 1: went straight to, oh, they had bound him, but no,
[8:03] Speaker 1: this was, he, I believe he's tied up, so he
[8:07] Speaker 1: can't wander around the house.
[8:08] Speaker 2: Okay.
[8:09] Speaker 1: So they go to the second floor. Everybody in the
[8:11] Speaker 1: house is dead. Six people. Okay. So it's a massacre.
[8:16] Speaker 1: On the second floor, they find Butch's parents and three
[8:21] Speaker 1: siblings dead in their beds. And I'll explain how this
[8:24] Speaker 1: is distributed. There's blood on the dressers and the floorboards
[8:28] Speaker 1: in the house. His father is named Ronald, but people
[8:32] Speaker 1: called him Rocco. He's 44. And his mother, Butch's mother,
[8:38] Speaker 1: is 43. Her name is Louise. And they are in
[8:42] Speaker 1: the primary bedroom. Butch's brothers, there's a 12-year-old named Mark
[8:48] Speaker 1: and a nine-year-old named John. They're in a shared bedroom.
[8:53] Speaker 1: And Mark was recovering from a football injury. And so
[8:57] Speaker 1: he had been using a wheelchair and crutches. And, you know,
[9:00] Speaker 1: these are found kind of near the bed. And the
[9:03] Speaker 1: body of Butch's younger sister, 13-year-old Allison, is in the
[9:08] Speaker 1: second floor bedrooms that she shares with 18-year-old Dawn DeFeo.
[9:14] Speaker 1: And the issue there is, is Allison, the 13-year-old, in
[9:18] Speaker 1: that bed? But Dawn is not. And she's the 18-year-old.
[9:24] Speaker 1: So they go up to the third floor guest room
[9:29] Speaker 1: and they find Dawn there. There is brain matter and
[9:33] Speaker 1: blood that stains the pillow in the guest room where
[9:36] Speaker 1: she is. So there's blood on everybody's bedclothes, on nightgowns.
[9:41] Speaker 1: Everybody's dressed for bed. They're all in bed. But what's
[9:45] Speaker 1: interesting about Dawn is even though she's got blood all
[9:48] Speaker 1: over her, there's no blood spatter on the white headboard
[9:53] Speaker 1: in the guest room where she is. So they don't
[9:57] Speaker 1: think that whatever happened, it happened in that bedroom. Maybe
[10:00] Speaker 1: she was carried up or she ran. Who knows? We
[10:03] Speaker 1: don't know. All the victims were in their pajamas and
[10:06] Speaker 1: they were all face down. Their hands are all extended
[10:10] Speaker 1: above their heads. They have all been shot in the
[10:13] Speaker 1: back with a rifle. And now, Paul holds, you've got
[10:17] Speaker 1: door number one and door number two. And door number
[10:20] Speaker 1: one is a diagram of where each person was found.
[10:24] Speaker 1: Or I can show you two scene photos that show
[10:28] Speaker 1: the parents. And you could see a bolt hole in,
[10:31] Speaker 1: I think it's going to be Rocco's back. And you
[10:33] Speaker 1: can also see a photo of Dawn. Don't look yet.
[10:36] Speaker 2: I haven't. Let's... I mean, I have a pretty good,
[10:42] Speaker 2: based on your description, I have a pretty good understanding
[10:44] Speaker 2: of the distribution of the bodies throughout the house and
[10:47] Speaker 2: their position. So I think most informative at this point
[10:51] Speaker 2: would be the photos. Okay.
[10:53] Speaker 1: So open up your photos and you have a bonus photo,
[10:56] Speaker 1: which is this creepy looking house. So this is the house.
[10:59] Speaker 1: The very first thing you see is a house from 1973.
[11:02] Speaker 1: They were a religious family and you can see You know,
[11:07] Speaker 1: some statues down below, people, statues of children, it looks like,
[11:11] Speaker 1: in prayer stance. But it's a creepy house. I mean,
[11:15] Speaker 1: you'll see there's a lot of different photos, and it
[11:17] Speaker 1: doesn't get any not creepy.
[11:20] Speaker 2: Well, it's an unusual-looking house, at least, you know, to
[11:24] Speaker 2: my eyes. And I've lived in a fair number of
[11:26] Speaker 2: places in the United States. It almost looks like the
[11:29] Speaker 2: front of a barn in terms of its shape.
[11:32] Speaker 1: It's Dutch colonial, so 1700s.
[11:34] Speaker 2: That's the style. Yeah. And you're right. You know, there's,
[11:40] Speaker 2: you know, these statues in the front yard of the
[11:42] Speaker 2: children praying, as well as they're all facing, can't quite
[11:49] Speaker 2: make it out, but looks like maybe a religious figure
[11:53] Speaker 2: of some sort.
[11:55] Speaker 1: Holding a baby, right?
[11:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, I see what you're saying. So, okay. Yeah, so
[12:01] Speaker 2: is this, I'm assuming their religion is some sort of
[12:05] Speaker 2: Christian denomination. Yeah. You know, outside of that, it's a
[12:08] Speaker 2: multi-story house. There's the old over-the-air antennas that are affixed,
[12:15] Speaker 2: one at least that's affixed to the chimney. It looks
[12:19] Speaker 2: like it's a nice property. You've got, you know, mature
[12:23] Speaker 2: trees surrounding it. I can see, you know, other houses around.
[12:29] Speaker 2: in the same neighborhood. So, I mean, I would say
[12:33] Speaker 2: that this is a solid, you know, what I'm guessing
[12:36] Speaker 2: is solid middle-class house, nice house for 1974. Yeah.
[12:40] Speaker 1: And, you know, you don't have to look at the
[12:42] Speaker 1: diagrams if you don't want to. It's just the diagrams
[12:44] Speaker 1: make clear everybody's on their stomachs and everybody's arms are
[12:48] Speaker 1: kind of like stretched forward. Their shoulders are forward. And
[12:53] Speaker 1: then you can look at the photos. The first photo
[12:56] Speaker 1: is Dawn, the 18-year-old, and this is the guest bedroom.
[13:00] Speaker 1: And then the second photo are the parents. And there
[13:03] Speaker 1: you can clearly see the bullet hole in Rocco's back.
[13:07] Speaker 1: And these are not photos we're going to show, obviously,
[13:09] Speaker 1: you guys, anybody who's interested in that.
[13:11] Speaker 2: Okay, so I kind of scrolled through the diagrams. I mean,
[13:14] Speaker 2: it's pretty straightforward based off of the description of where
[13:18] Speaker 2: you found the various family members. I mean, basically, they're
[13:21] Speaker 2: in their own bed. They were probably asleep. You know,
[13:27] Speaker 2: and the offender or the offenders went into each room
[13:31] Speaker 2: and shot them in the back. Now, did the offenders
[13:35] Speaker 2: order them to turn over or is this just their
[13:38] Speaker 2: natural sleeping position? You know, that I don't think we
[13:42] Speaker 2: can discern at this point. So I'm looking at a photo.
[13:46] Speaker 2: It's a photo taken from basically kind of the left
[13:51] Speaker 2: lower corner of the bed. Towards the headboard, also showing
[13:56] Speaker 2: the door into the room. On the right is a
[14:02] Speaker 2: set of shelves that appears to have what might be
[14:06] Speaker 2: a phonograph system on top. And then I can see
[14:11] Speaker 2: what appears to be a radiator just out of picture.
[14:17] Speaker 2: Dawn is underneath a pink blanket. Mm-hmm. that has some
[14:23] Speaker 2: sort of red striping on it. And it does appear,
[14:28] Speaker 2: it looks like I can see her left arm. I
[14:31] Speaker 2: can see the mass of hair. I'm assuming she's face
[14:34] Speaker 2: down or her face is towards the down. She's laying
[14:37] Speaker 2: on her front and her left arm is up with
[14:42] Speaker 2: her hand near the top of her head. And then.
[14:47] Speaker 2: It appears her legs, her left leg is straight out.
[14:51] Speaker 2: Her right leg is just kind of, you know, pulled up.
[14:54] Speaker 2: I mean, this could be just a natural sleeping position
[14:57] Speaker 2: for her. You know, that's from at first blush, you know,
[15:01] Speaker 2: it's not looking like she has been, you know, put into,
[15:04] Speaker 2: you know, ordered into some sort of specific position. The
[15:10] Speaker 2: photo is a bit grainy. However, it appears that there
[15:16] Speaker 2: are red blood droplets that have fallen down onto the
[15:22] Speaker 2: pink blanket, as well as, it's not as clear, but
[15:28] Speaker 2: further into the photo, the white door appears to have
[15:32] Speaker 2: some possible blood patterns, basically droplets that have struck the door. So,
[15:41] Speaker 2: you know, this is where for me to interpret, I
[15:43] Speaker 2: need to know the autopsy results.
[15:45] Speaker 1: Okay, there you go. Well, let's get to it. So
[15:51] Speaker 1: we have detectives, local detectives, and then more from the
[15:54] Speaker 1: Suffolk County Homicide Squad. There is a broken window on
[15:58] Speaker 1: the ground floor, but it says, you know, nothing appears
[16:02] Speaker 1: to have been stolen. So they eliminate robbery as a motive.
[16:06] Speaker 1: Of course, I mean, who knows what's been stolen or not,
[16:09] Speaker 1: that something might have been stolen. Several mounted guns are
[16:13] Speaker 1: collected as possible evidence. So these include a Marlin. 22
[16:17] Speaker 1: caliber rifle found in the third floor bedroom, an Ithaca
[16:22] Speaker 1: 12-gauge shotgun, a Crossman. 38 caliber revolver discovered in the
[16:27] Speaker 1: primary bedroom closet, a Healthways planesmith pistol recovered from a
[16:33] Speaker 1: dresser drawer in the primary bedroom, a starter pistol also
[16:38] Speaker 1: found in the primary bedroom dresser. But none of these guns,
[16:42] Speaker 1: they say, have been used recently. What they're saying is
[16:46] Speaker 1: that it appears like each person was shot in the
[16:49] Speaker 1: back with a. 35 caliber rifle. So they find the shell.
[16:55] Speaker 1: They're collecting other evidence. But the medical examiner says it's
[17:00] Speaker 1: really odd that they're positioned the same way. We've talked
[17:02] Speaker 1: about it. He wonders if they were drugged. I don't know.
[17:08] Speaker 2: You know, at least with the one photo I've looked
[17:13] Speaker 2: at so far with Don as well as the diagrams,
[17:16] Speaker 2: You know, they may have been ordered to go face down,
[17:18] Speaker 2: but there's nothing about it that's really, you know, standing
[17:22] Speaker 2: out that, you know, they've been positioned specifically in the
[17:26] Speaker 2: same way. If they're ordered, the offender is probably just
[17:29] Speaker 2: telling them, go face down. But it's also possible that
[17:33] Speaker 2: some of them were just sleeping in that position when
[17:35] Speaker 2: they were shot.
[17:37] Speaker 1: That's actually the position I sleep in. It's actually like
[17:40] Speaker 1: that on my stomach.
[17:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't sleep that way in.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Well, it was hell when I was pregnant, I can
[17:45] Speaker 1: tell you that. I had to learn how to sleep
[17:46] Speaker 1: on my side. It was awful. Okay, let me tell
[17:49] Speaker 1: you what the ballistics experts say. So, at first, it
[17:51] Speaker 1: looks like all the victims have been asleep when they
[17:53] Speaker 1: were attacked. He finds a shell casing from a. 35
[17:56] Speaker 1: caliber rifle lodged in one of the boys' mattresses. The
[18:01] Speaker 1: trajectory of the bullet indicates that the killer stood at
[18:04] Speaker 1: the rear and alongside the children when he shot them.
[18:09] Speaker 1: There's also gunpowder residue on the left shoulder of Dawn's nightgown.
[18:14] Speaker 1: but not at the entrance wound under her left ear.
[18:17] Speaker 1: This indicates that maybe she had been close to the
[18:20] Speaker 1: muzzle of the gun when it was fired around three
[18:24] Speaker 1: to five feet away. Does that sound right to you?
[18:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so.
[18:28] Speaker 1: Okay. But there's also evidence that some of the victims
[18:32] Speaker 1: had been awake when they were murdered. So Rocco was
[18:35] Speaker 1: shot multiple times in the back. Each bullet had a
[18:38] Speaker 1: different trajectory. This suggests he might've been standing at the
[18:42] Speaker 1: time when he was shot and the bullet that killed
[18:44] Speaker 1: Alison entered one ear and exited the other. So then
[18:50] Speaker 1: experts are saying maybe she raised her head before she
[18:52] Speaker 1: was murdered. What do you think about that?
[18:54] Speaker 2: That, you know, that's all part of these types of crimes.
[18:58] Speaker 2: You always have to take into account, you know, the
[19:00] Speaker 2: dynamics of movement at the time, let's say the shooting occurred. Okay.
[19:05] Speaker 1: So the Emmy is using rigor mortis. It's totally set
[19:07] Speaker 1: in on everybody. So the ME says that they probably
[19:12] Speaker 1: died no later, he says, than 7 a.m. that morning.
[19:17] Speaker 1: Nobody gets called in until like 7 o'clock that night,
[19:20] Speaker 1: 12 hours later. But he says, I don't see any
[19:23] Speaker 1: evidence that they were drugged. But then, Paul, he only
[19:26] Speaker 1: orders blood and urine tests. And he does this, and
[19:30] Speaker 1: these tests are done two weeks after they were murdered.
[19:34] Speaker 1: So we don't know if they were drugged conclusively or not.
[19:38] Speaker 2: Not to go into great detail, but obviously there's certain
[19:41] Speaker 2: drugs that will be found in the blood, certain drugs
[19:43] Speaker 2: during elimination will be found in the urine, but other
[19:46] Speaker 2: drugs will be more heavily concentrated in other variants. organs.
[19:50] Speaker 2: And so typically for a thorough examination, you're doing multiple
[19:55] Speaker 2: types of analyses on different tissues.
[19:58] Speaker 1: Okay. Everyone is in full rigor with the exception of Dawn,
[20:02] Speaker 1: the 18-year-old who's on the third floor. So... It's possible
[20:07] Speaker 1: maybe that she died hours after the rest of the family.
[20:11] Speaker 1: It also says that she had sex shortly before her murder,
[20:17] Speaker 1: possibly even that night. We don't know if it was consensual.
[20:21] Speaker 1: They would have definitely marked if it looked like obvious trauma,
[20:25] Speaker 1: but we don't know what happened. But the rigor part
[20:29] Speaker 1: of it, everybody else is in full rigor and she's not.
[20:33] Speaker 2: She's in a different area of the house. Right. Different
[20:37] Speaker 2: environmental conditions. You know, so this is where now it's like, OK,
[20:43] Speaker 2: how how does the where the body's position in the
[20:46] Speaker 2: house going to impact when rigor is is going to
[20:49] Speaker 2: be settling in? If she's not demonstrating any rigor, then
[20:53] Speaker 2: I've got some concerns about, OK, was she kept alive
[20:56] Speaker 2: for a period of time? The fact that he's saying
[20:58] Speaker 2: that she had recent sex, you know. The only way
[21:03] Speaker 2: that he can really say that is through a microscopic exam,
[21:07] Speaker 2: and you see sperm with tails. That's showing recent deposit.
[21:11] Speaker 2: Tails have a tendency to be dissolved very quickly within
[21:16] Speaker 2: the vaginal vault, within the oral cavity, the rectum. So
[21:20] Speaker 2: the presence of tails is an indicator that it's relatively recent,
[21:24] Speaker 2: but we're talking a window of a few hours. And
[21:28] Speaker 2: of course, after Don is killed... you know, you still
[21:31] Speaker 2: have this environment that the sperm are existing in. And
[21:36] Speaker 2: so there's still going to be degradation that's occurring after death.
[21:41] Speaker 2: But is there a possibility that Dawn had been kept
[21:44] Speaker 2: alive for a period of time? You know, Dawn is
[21:47] Speaker 2: an 18-year-old female. The other females in the house, one
[21:51] Speaker 2: is a 43-year-old female. The other one, Allison, is 13
[21:54] Speaker 2: years old. You know, so if there's a sexual motivation
[21:58] Speaker 2: to this crime and Dawn was selected... You know, she's
[22:02] Speaker 2: the one that's, you know, your typical, would be your
[22:05] Speaker 2: typical target of this family.
[22:08] Speaker 1: One thing I thought about that it could be a
[22:10] Speaker 1: simple explanation is Dawn was out with her boyfriend or whoever,
[22:14] Speaker 1: and she came back much later. You know, he came
[22:17] Speaker 1: home at 6.30 p.m., he says. That's when his buddy
[22:20] Speaker 1: said it. So maybe she came home at midnight and
[22:25] Speaker 1: finds everybody dead. And maybe that's how she ends up upstairs.
[22:28] Speaker 1: Who knows? I don't know what the answer would be,
[22:31] Speaker 1: but I was trying to think about that. You know,
[22:34] Speaker 1: the rigor part. It's not that it's not set in
[22:38] Speaker 1: at all. It's just not totally set in with her.
[22:41] Speaker 2: I'm not sure how much weight to put on that
[22:43] Speaker 2: at this point. And of course, now, you know. Each
[22:47] Speaker 2: family member, what were their movements? What's their timeline in
[22:53] Speaker 2: the day before? Do we have evidence that Dawn was
[22:56] Speaker 2: out with her boyfriend that night? Is the boyfriend saying, yeah,
[22:59] Speaker 2: we had sex and then she went home? Yep.
[23:02] Speaker 1: Okay. Well, let's continue on. So officers cordon off the
[23:06] Speaker 1: house and search it. Of course, they talk to neighbors,
[23:09] Speaker 1: Butch and Butch's friends. No one had heard any gunfire
[23:13] Speaker 1: that night. But they have five neighbors that say Shaggy
[23:17] Speaker 1: was going crazy and barking around 2.30 in the morning.
[23:21] Speaker 1: So then we've got Butch's friends telling officers that Butch
[23:27] Speaker 1: had recently purchased a. 35 caliber Marlin rifle from their friend.
[23:34] Speaker 1: And that Butch had accidentally fired the gun in the
[23:36] Speaker 1: house a while back after he purchased it. And a
[23:40] Speaker 1: bullet from the weapon is still lodged in the living
[23:43] Speaker 1: room floor. So you've got this guy who's bought a weapon.
[23:48] Speaker 1: And also, I want to clarify the timeline because I
[23:51] Speaker 1: thought this was a little confusing too. So when we
[23:54] Speaker 1: are talking about midnight, 2.30 in the morning, we're talking
[23:58] Speaker 1: about the night before. So Butch works with his family's
[24:03] Speaker 1: car dealership in Brooklyn. And he has to be at
[24:06] Speaker 1: work at 4 something in the morning. So Butch got
[24:11] Speaker 1: up the morning before... If we knew when everybody was murdered,
[24:15] Speaker 1: the morning of the day he calls emergency dispatch and says,
[24:20] Speaker 1: I need help. He had been gone all day long
[24:23] Speaker 1: since four in the morning because he was at work.
[24:26] Speaker 1: And then, you know, he's got a series of things
[24:28] Speaker 1: that he did. He has a girlfriend and stuff like that.
[24:30] Speaker 1: So when he got home at 630 that night, that's
[24:33] Speaker 1: when all of this stuff started to happen.
[24:35] Speaker 2: That's what he finds them, right? Yeah. And he calls dispatch. Yep. Okay. And.
[24:42] Speaker 2: Do we have confidence that we can put Butch out
[24:46] Speaker 2: of the house at the time that these homicides likely occurred?
[24:50] Speaker 1: So let's see. He left the house for work in
[24:53] Speaker 1: his family's car dealership that morning around 4.40. He gets
[24:57] Speaker 1: there around 7.00. It's in Brooklyn. At noon, he meets
[25:01] Speaker 1: up with his girlfriend, who confirms that. And around 3.00,
[25:05] Speaker 1: he wanted to hang out with his friend Bobby Kelske.
[25:09] Speaker 1: And they went to the pub, and then he drank from,
[25:11] Speaker 1: it sounds like, 3 o'clock until whenever, you know, 6.30.
[25:16] Speaker 1: And then that's when he discovered his family was murdered,
[25:19] Speaker 1: and he went back to the bar for help.
[25:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, but 4 a.m., he's showing up at work. What's
[25:24] Speaker 2: happening that night before he goes to work?
[25:27] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I don't know if he talks about that.
[25:30] Speaker 1: I don't know if they ask that. I don't know
[25:31] Speaker 1: if they're clear, 100% clear on the timeline. So let
[25:35] Speaker 1: me go back. When they were saying that rigor mortis
[25:36] Speaker 1: had set in on everybody else— So the M.E. says,
[25:41] Speaker 1: based on the rigor, that they died no later than
[25:44] Speaker 1: 7 a.m. that morning. He would have been gone. But
[25:49] Speaker 1: then they don't say whether it could have occurred before
[25:53] Speaker 1: he left. Like there's no, oh, it might have been
[25:55] Speaker 1: 5 in the morning when they were murdered and he
[25:58] Speaker 1: would have been gone already. I don't know.
[26:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that that's going to be, you know,
[26:02] Speaker 2: as you know, rigor is just a very, you know,
[26:06] Speaker 2: loose way to estimate time of death. And so I
[26:09] Speaker 2: think this thing with Butch, you know, he's a purchaser
[26:16] Speaker 2: of the. 35 caliber rifle that was used in the homicide.
[26:20] Speaker 2: I would say I would not discount the possibility that
[26:25] Speaker 2: this family was killed before Butch went to work. Now,
[26:27] Speaker 2: I'm not saying Butch is a killer. I'm just going,
[26:30] Speaker 2: he's a lone surviving family member, you know, and the
[26:34] Speaker 2: weapon that he purchased is, Is one that's used to
[26:38] Speaker 2: kill the family.
[26:39] Speaker 1: They haven't confirmed that. So, you know, they said there
[26:43] Speaker 1: is a cache of guns there, which includes. So they
[26:47] Speaker 1: say there's a 22 Marlin and the list goes on.
[26:50] Speaker 1: But none of these have been shot recently, but they
[26:54] Speaker 1: have not done any testing yet. It's just a friend
[26:57] Speaker 1: who says, listen, he bought this gun and they can't
[26:59] Speaker 1: and they can't find that gun.
[27:01] Speaker 2: Okay. I was under the impression that they said this
[27:04] Speaker 2: was the gun that was used. So right now, it
[27:06] Speaker 2: at least is the same caliber weapon, but we can't
[27:09] Speaker 2: conclude it's the murder weapon.
[27:11] Speaker 1: So Butch tells investigators, you know, about his timeline. We
[27:15] Speaker 1: went over that. Then we talked to Bobby, who Bobby
[27:20] Speaker 1: is the friend that he hung out with starting between
[27:23] Speaker 1: 3 p.m. and then, you know, all the way until
[27:25] Speaker 1: he went home at 6.30. So they take Bobby and
[27:29] Speaker 1: Butch into custody at 8 o'clock that night. So the
[27:31] Speaker 1: call to bring emergency dispatch from Butch came in at 6.30,
[27:36] Speaker 1: an hour and a half. They're taking him into custody
[27:39] Speaker 1: as well as Bobby. And they go to different police
[27:41] Speaker 1: stations for further questioning. For hours, they interrogate these guys. Now,
[27:46] Speaker 1: a caveat here, Suffolk County police in this time period
[27:49] Speaker 1: in 74 were horribly corrupt, awful corrupt, like just hundreds
[27:54] Speaker 1: of complaints about it. And so that's kind of part
[27:58] Speaker 1: of the story here. So they are being interrogated. They're
[28:03] Speaker 1: asked personal questions at nine o'clock. And I know you're
[28:06] Speaker 1: going to want to weigh in on this. They make
[28:08] Speaker 1: Butch take a paraffin test to determine whether he had
[28:12] Speaker 1: recently fired a weapon. And then Bobby has to take
[28:14] Speaker 1: the same test. So, of course, I think we know
[28:17] Speaker 1: now that's been discredited. I mean, explain that test.
[28:20] Speaker 2: When somebody handles or fires a firearm. there's various components
[28:28] Speaker 2: in addition to the bullet that come out. And to
[28:31] Speaker 2: try to just keep it simple, you have gunpowder that
[28:36] Speaker 2: comes out the end of the barrel, comes out cylinder gaps,
[28:39] Speaker 2: comes out ejection chambers. This can deposit on the shooter's hands.
[28:44] Speaker 2: You also have the gases that come out that deposit
[28:47] Speaker 2: on the shooter's hands. So back in the day, law
[28:51] Speaker 2: enforcement would use paraffin in order to sample on somebody's
[28:58] Speaker 2: hands and then use a chemical that would react with
[29:01] Speaker 2: this firearms discharge material, and you'd get a color change.
[29:08] Speaker 2: And it's a perfectly fine test as a presumptive test.
[29:12] Speaker 2: We ultimately moved to a much better test using scanning
[29:18] Speaker 2: electron microscopy, a different type of sampling, and everything else.
[29:23] Speaker 2: The problem with any what we call gunshot residue evidence
[29:28] Speaker 2: is that, number one, you can merely have it on
[29:32] Speaker 2: your hands as a result of, you know, touching a
[29:35] Speaker 2: gun or touching where that discharge had been. You know,
[29:39] Speaker 2: like if Butch... had walked in and he sees a
[29:42] Speaker 2: family member and he goes up and touches them where
[29:45] Speaker 2: they have some of this firearms discharge material, he now
[29:49] Speaker 2: has it on his hands. So you can't say he's
[29:51] Speaker 2: a shooter. Oftentimes, especially in 1974... what you're dealing with is, well,
[29:59] Speaker 2: who else is a source of firearms discharge? Law enforcement.
[30:04] Speaker 2: They have guns on their hip. They're driving around in
[30:07] Speaker 2: cars that they took out to the range. And so
[30:10] Speaker 2: when they go and put handcuffs on a suspect, and
[30:13] Speaker 2: then after that, they sample the suspect's hands, Well, of
[30:17] Speaker 2: course he has gunshot residue on his hands. It's because
[30:20] Speaker 2: law enforcement has transferred it to his hands. This is
[30:23] Speaker 2: where we would provide gunshot residue kits, and there would
[30:28] Speaker 2: be very, very specific instructions on how to ensure that
[30:33] Speaker 2: law enforcement is not contaminating the alleged or the suspected
[30:38] Speaker 2: shooter's hands. So right now, I would basically throw out
[30:44] Speaker 2: the paraffin test under this set of circumstances. Okay.
[30:48] Speaker 1: They're also looking at the people in Butch's inner circle
[30:52] Speaker 1: who were some folks who were not great people. So
[30:55] Speaker 1: they find out that either his uncle or his great uncle,
[30:57] Speaker 1: I don't think we're clear on this, Tony Mazzeo is
[31:01] Speaker 1: a hitman. And he lived with the DeFeos in the past.
[31:05] Speaker 1: And Butch says he held a grudge against the family.
[31:09] Speaker 1: But this is known, that this guy is a hitman.
[31:11] Speaker 1: Butch says that the night of the murders, around 3.30
[31:14] Speaker 1: in the morning... He says he woke up to Tony
[31:17] Speaker 1: holding a revolver against his head. Tony ordered Butch out
[31:21] Speaker 1: of bed, and he held him hostage as Tony kills
[31:26] Speaker 1: the rest of the family. So, you know, this is
[31:30] Speaker 1: his story, and detectives follow up on this. He does have,
[31:35] Speaker 1: you know, a relative that is known in the Genovese family.
[31:40] Speaker 1: And in 1934, this guy had been indicted but never
[31:43] Speaker 1: convicted for the murder of another man. And in 1947,
[31:47] Speaker 1: he had been involved in a shootout. But none of
[31:50] Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, is stuff that can be concluded decisively.
[31:56] Speaker 1: But you absolutely have, I think, Butch starting to tell
[32:00] Speaker 1: a lot of different stories. And one question is, is this,
[32:04] Speaker 1: you know, sanity, insanity?
[32:05] Speaker 2: What is it? Yeah, first, you know... just based off
[32:09] Speaker 2: of what sounds like an Italian name, that Tony Mazzello was,
[32:12] Speaker 2: you know, mafia-affiliated, and that's where he is doing his hits,
[32:16] Speaker 2: is for the mafia. You know, this is going to
[32:19] Speaker 2: be a bit of a more sophisticated offender. No hitman
[32:22] Speaker 2: is going to go and use a. 35 caliber rifle
[32:26] Speaker 2: in order to do these homicides. That is just a
[32:31] Speaker 2: an awkward weapon, if you will. It is not something
[32:35] Speaker 2: that a hitman or somebody who knows what they're doing
[32:37] Speaker 2: is going to choose in order to commit this type
[32:40] Speaker 2: of crime.
[32:40] Speaker 1: It's not discreet.
[32:42] Speaker 2: I think it's, it's not shown like in Don's photos,
[32:46] Speaker 2: but if you are talking close range shot to a
[32:48] Speaker 2: human head with a, with a rifle, it makes a
[32:52] Speaker 2: mess and hitman doesn't want that. Yeah. You know, so
[32:57] Speaker 2: It's not only just being discreet, it's also accomplishing the
[33:01] Speaker 2: crime without having evidence thrown all over the place. And
[33:05] Speaker 2: in Don's photo, we see blood droplets flying everywhere throughout
[33:09] Speaker 2: this room.
[33:10] Speaker 1: Yeah. This case gets confusing because the Suffolk County police
[33:16] Speaker 1: are so terrible that it mucks up a lot of
[33:19] Speaker 1: different things. So they have these interviews with Butch and Bobby.
[33:24] Speaker 1: They are denied access to an attorney. For a really
[33:28] Speaker 1: long time before Miranda, you know, they would say you
[33:31] Speaker 1: can have an attorney, but if you can't afford an attorney,
[33:34] Speaker 1: you're going to have to represent them, you know, yourself.
[33:37] Speaker 1: After Miranda, then you had to be given a court-appointed
[33:41] Speaker 1: attorney if you couldn't afford it. These guys have attorneys.
[33:44] Speaker 1: Butch has an attorney. But when the attorney arrives that night,
[33:49] Speaker 1: between 11 and 1130 that night, he says, I need
[33:52] Speaker 1: to see Butch. And the officers won't tell him where
[33:55] Speaker 1: Butch is. They send them to the Suffolk County Police Department.
[33:59] Speaker 1: Then they send them to a different precinct. And so
[34:03] Speaker 1: after this attorney, Richard, had been searching for hours and hours,
[34:06] Speaker 1: he stops looking. And, you know, Bobby is released the
[34:09] Speaker 1: next morning at 6 in the morning, but Butch is kept,
[34:13] Speaker 1: and his attorney has no idea where he is.
[34:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, but, you know, I'll address that a little bit,
[34:18] Speaker 2: is that only the person, such as Butch, can invoke Miranda.
[34:24] Speaker 2: his attorney cannot insert himself. You know, what you see
[34:28] Speaker 2: in the movies where you have attorneys come in and say,
[34:30] Speaker 2: stop talking to my client. Law enforcement doesn't have to
[34:34] Speaker 2: listen to that. Only Butch can say, I want my attorney.
[34:40] Speaker 2: You know, so that's where did Butch, you know, unequivocally
[34:46] Speaker 2: invoke his Miranda rights? It doesn't sound like he did. Now,
[34:49] Speaker 2: is there corruption? Is there, you know, did they play
[34:52] Speaker 2: some games? Yes, but the idea that oh, they're doing
[34:56] Speaker 2: something bad because they didn't let the attorney know where
[34:59] Speaker 2: his client was. Well, his client didn't ask for his attorney, potentially.
[35:03] Speaker 1: I think they did, because through the interviews, they are
[35:07] Speaker 1: denied access to an attorney, both of these guys. So
[35:09] Speaker 1: they both asked, and there's no way Richard would have known,
[35:12] Speaker 1: the attorney, if Butch had not requested him. So they
[35:15] Speaker 1: are actively saying, we want attorneys, and the police are
[35:19] Speaker 1: hiding or whatever.
[35:21] Speaker 2: And then there's obviously, you know, what is inappropriate behavior
[35:26] Speaker 2: on law enforcement in that set of circumstances.
[35:29] Speaker 1: And he hasn't been arrested. He's in protective custody at
[35:32] Speaker 1: this point. But, of course, he's the number one suspect.
[35:34] Speaker 1: So they learn that Butch has a troubled and traumatic past,
[35:38] Speaker 1: which is not surprising. His father sounds like a big
[35:41] Speaker 1: piece of work. He was physically and mentally abused. For years,
[35:46] Speaker 1: the father physically and mentally abused everybody in the family.
[35:51] Speaker 1: And there was also talk that he was sexually assaulting Dawn,
[35:54] Speaker 1: the oldest. So when he was a junior in high
[35:59] Speaker 1: school is when Butch started acting out with a lot
[36:02] Speaker 1: of psychological problems. He was expelled from school three times
[36:06] Speaker 1: for behavioral issues, all before the ninth grade. He started
[36:10] Speaker 1: drinking a bottle of scotch a day, starting when he
[36:13] Speaker 1: was about 17. He did heroin, LSD. He spent money
[36:16] Speaker 1: on extravagant luxury items like cars and speedboats and guns
[36:20] Speaker 1: and drugs. And then he began to steal. He was
[36:23] Speaker 1: convicted of grand larceny in 73. So this is about
[36:27] Speaker 1: a year before all this happened. Right after high school,
[36:31] Speaker 1: he tried to get into the army, but he failed
[36:33] Speaker 1: the psych test. So that's when he joined the family business.
[36:38] Speaker 2: And I just want to clarify, you're saying that Butch,
[36:41] Speaker 2: not Rocco, was sexually assaulting Don?
[36:44] Speaker 1: No. It actually is not Butch who's saying it. It's
[36:47] Speaker 1: other people saying that Rocco, the father, had been sexually
[36:51] Speaker 1: abusing Dawn.
[36:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify because then you started
[36:55] Speaker 2: talking about Butch's criminal history. Yeah.
[36:58] Speaker 1: So it sounds like he had a hellish childhood with
[37:00] Speaker 1: a lot of abuse. And then, you know, he moves
[37:04] Speaker 1: into really troubling behavior in high school. But when everything
[37:08] Speaker 1: else fails, he starts to work at his family's Buick dealership.
[37:13] Speaker 1: So Butch was a terrible employee. And only two weeks
[37:16] Speaker 1: before the murders, he had gotten into trouble for stealing
[37:19] Speaker 1: from the dealership. I'm sure his dad just went crazy
[37:22] Speaker 1: over it. Well, one day he was supposed to deposit
[37:24] Speaker 1: $ 1, 900 in cash and $ 20, 000 in certified checks in the bank,
[37:29] Speaker 1: which is about $ 150, 000 today. Instead, he and a friend
[37:34] Speaker 1: claimed they had been robbed. And, you know, he has
[37:37] Speaker 1: a history of threats. So he had tried to shoot
[37:40] Speaker 1: his father with a 12-gauge shotgun, but it misfired. And
[37:44] Speaker 1: on a hunting trip, he threatened a friend with a rifle.
[37:48] Speaker 1: He pointed a pistol at a bartender because the bartender
[37:52] Speaker 1: had fired Butch's girlfriend. So, you know, there is a
[37:56] Speaker 1: lot happening and there is a life insurance policy worth
[38:01] Speaker 1: about today $ 1. 4 million in the event of people's deaths.
[38:07] Speaker 2: And who's the beneficiary?
[38:09] Speaker 1: It says Butch. And I don't know if this is
[38:12] Speaker 1: something he took out, but maybe there was some sort
[38:15] Speaker 1: of structured beneficiary thing happening. But he was supposed to
[38:19] Speaker 1: get $ 1. 4 million today.
[38:21] Speaker 2: And Butch is how old? 23. 23? Yeah. Okay, so
[38:29] Speaker 2: he's the oldest of the siblings, but he doesn't have
[38:34] Speaker 2: any financial responsibility to the family. Right. You know, so
[38:39] Speaker 2: this is where this, I mean, if he's the beneficiary,
[38:42] Speaker 2: it sounds like he's the one that arranged this life
[38:45] Speaker 2: insurance policy.
[38:47] Speaker 1: You would think so, yes. So that's a lot of money.
[38:51] Speaker 1: And he's a disturbed person, clearly, to begin with. Lots
[38:55] Speaker 1: of threats with different people. So he gets arrested November
[39:00] Speaker 1: 14th at 8.45 in the morning. And this is when
[39:04] Speaker 1: we've got two detectives who are sort of notorious detectives.
[39:07] Speaker 1: There's a Detective Rafferty and a Lieutenant Dunn. They enter
[39:11] Speaker 1: the picture. They have a reputation for coercing, you know, confessions.
[39:17] Speaker 1: And for 21 hours, they deny Butch conference with an attorney,
[39:20] Speaker 1: which he asked for. They don't give him food or
[39:23] Speaker 1: water or use of a bathroom. And he eventually does
[39:27] Speaker 1: confess after 21 hours. And there's bruises all over his
[39:32] Speaker 1: body when he shows.
[39:33] Speaker 2: Up to court. You know, and this is where, you know,
[39:36] Speaker 2: there's circumstances in the case where I'm thinking, yeah, law
[39:42] Speaker 2: enforcement is possibly on the right track, you know, in
[39:45] Speaker 2: terms of looking at Butch for killing his family. But
[39:49] Speaker 2: then when you have this type of behavior, you negate
[39:54] Speaker 2: the investigation, right? Because it calls into question anything about
[39:58] Speaker 2: what you're doing in that investigation. Yep.
[40:00] Speaker 1: And we saw that in the Long Island serial killer case, too.
[40:03] Speaker 1: When you have just terrible cops. It was the chief
[40:06] Speaker 1: of the police who was indicted for something. And, you know,
[40:10] Speaker 1: there was a lot happening.
[40:12] Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I remember some of those details, you know.
[40:16] Speaker 1: Okay. So this is what Butch says. He confesses after
[40:19] Speaker 1: 21 hours of killing everybody in the family. He says
[40:23] Speaker 1: that his motive was nothing more than hatred. So this
[40:27] Speaker 1: is some colorful language here, Paul. So I hope you're
[40:30] Speaker 1: not delicate. He says his family might be able to
[40:32] Speaker 1: handle it.
[40:33] Speaker 2: Come on.
[40:35] Speaker 1: He describes his family as fat fucks and fucking pigs.
[40:40] Speaker 1: He killed Dawn because she took too much time hogging
[40:44] Speaker 1: up the bathrooms. He killed Allison because she annoyed him.
[40:49] Speaker 1: He killed his mother because her cooking tastes like shit.
[40:53] Speaker 1: And then he says, once I started, I just couldn't stop.
[40:56] Speaker 1: It went so fast. He estimates that it took him
[40:59] Speaker 1: about 15 minutes in the dark to kill them all.
[41:02] Speaker 1: Then he calmly got ready for work. He showered. He
[41:05] Speaker 1: put his bloody clothing and shell casings in a pillowcase.
[41:09] Speaker 1: He tosses the pillowcase in a storm drain in Brooklyn.
[41:12] Speaker 1: And on his way to work, he dumps the rifle
[41:15] Speaker 1: in a river.
[41:16] Speaker 2: Okay. So do they recover the pillowcase with the evidence
[41:19] Speaker 2: or the rifle?
[41:20] Speaker 1: So regarding the rifle and the stuff he dumped, he
[41:25] Speaker 1: made the police a map and they follow the map.
[41:28] Speaker 1: They find a rifle carrying case, a pillowcase containing bloody clothes.
[41:35] Speaker 1: They find live ammunition and eight shell casings. And in
[41:39] Speaker 1: Butch's bedroom, they find two empty boxes for a Marlin.
[41:43] Speaker 1: 35 caliber and a Marlin. 22 caliber rifle. And they
[41:47] Speaker 1: recover the bullet that Butch had accidentally shot into the
[41:50] Speaker 1: living room floor sometime before the murders. It matches the
[41:54] Speaker 1: bullet that killed the DeFeo family. But they can't find the.
[41:57] Speaker 1: 38 caliber handgun that Butch was known to carry. And they,
[42:04] Speaker 1: let's see, on November 15th, divers pulled a cocked. 35
[42:08] Speaker 1: caliber Marlin lever action rifle from the water around Richmond
[42:15] Speaker 1: Avenue dock. And that's the murder weapon. So Butch is
[42:20] Speaker 1: in jail. He turns over a pair of boots and
[42:22] Speaker 1: trousers and a shirt and a jacket. And the Suffolk
[42:26] Speaker 1: County lab detective says, looks at all of this stuff,
[42:29] Speaker 1: he finds blood inside the right and left cuffs of
[42:33] Speaker 1: the dungaree jacket. It's type A. And this is the
[42:37] Speaker 1: blood of all the DeFeo children except for Allison. They're
[42:40] Speaker 1: all type A.
[42:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is where things are adding up. Obviously,
[42:47] Speaker 2: we've got, you know, inappropriate behaviors by law enforcement, the interrogation.
[42:53] Speaker 2: That should have been handled differently because that just opens
[42:55] Speaker 2: up doubt. But... The details provided by Butch are being
[43:02] Speaker 2: supported by the physical evidence. In my opinion, Butch is
[43:07] Speaker 2: the killer.
[43:08] Speaker 1: Okay, well, let me tell you how this goes. So
[43:11] Speaker 1: he's arraigned in November, a few weeks after the murders.
[43:14] Speaker 1: He enters the courtroom, but he has so many new
[43:16] Speaker 1: bruises that the judge orders an immediate medical examination. And,
[43:21] Speaker 1: you know, he had bruises on his spine, his thighs, everywhere.
[43:25] Speaker 1: When he returns, he's indicted on six counts of second-degree murder.
[43:30] Speaker 1: And that same day, the DeFeo family is buried in St.
[43:33] Speaker 1: Charles Cemetery. Now, why would this be second-degree murder, do
[43:36] Speaker 1: you think?
[43:38] Speaker 2: Well, I think that's where the DA is probably taking
[43:41] Speaker 2: a look at, you know, the circumstances. When you hear
[43:46] Speaker 2: Butch saying, well, I killed them, you know, Allison annoyed me,
[43:51] Speaker 2: you know, my mom had horrible cooking and stuff like that.
[43:55] Speaker 2: This is showing more of an in the moment, oh,
[43:58] Speaker 2: I'm pissed off. I'm going to do it now. Versus,
[44:02] Speaker 2: you know, he spent weeks planning this. And so that's
[44:06] Speaker 2: where I'm thinking that the DA possibly could have pursued
[44:11] Speaker 2: first degree. He purchased that. 35 caliber gun relatively close
[44:16] Speaker 2: in time to the homicide. So that might show a
[44:19] Speaker 2: level of pre-planning. He most certainly is setting up an
[44:23] Speaker 2: alibi you know, getting to work early, being out at
[44:26] Speaker 2: the bar and doing all of that, and then finding
[44:30] Speaker 2: the family and being the one to call law enforcement.
[44:35] Speaker 2: I do think that there's a level of planning, but
[44:37] Speaker 2: I bet the DA just goes, you know what, with
[44:40] Speaker 2: the set of circumstances and how this went down, I
[44:43] Speaker 2: don't think I'm going to be able to get a
[44:45] Speaker 2: conviction at first degree, so I'm going to charge second. Okay.
[44:48] Speaker 1: Okay. Well, during this preliminary hearing, Butch says, you've got
[44:51] Speaker 1: to throw out this oral confession given everything I went
[44:55] Speaker 1: through with the cops. They made me do it. But
[44:57] Speaker 1: the judge says, nah, we're going to keep it. And
[45:01] Speaker 1: then inexplicably, Butch, while he is awaiting trial and he's
[45:05] Speaker 1: in jail, he makes a list of top 10 people
[45:09] Speaker 1: he will kill if he's found not guilty. Okay. So
[45:14] Speaker 1: the trial starts. He's sitting in jail for a long time.
[45:17] Speaker 1: The trial starts about 11 months later, and he pleads
[45:21] Speaker 1: not guilty by reason of insanity. Yeah. So then this
[45:26] Speaker 1: kind of stuff unravels. I know, Paul. This stuff all
[45:29] Speaker 1: comes out. So there's a psychiatrist for the defense that
[45:33] Speaker 1: says Butch is neurotic. Get in line, Butch. There are
[45:36] Speaker 1: a lot of us that are neurotic, but also has
[45:38] Speaker 1: disassociative personality disorder. And, you know, then... We have a
[45:44] Speaker 1: counterargument that says, well, I mean, he planned all of
[45:47] Speaker 1: this out and he tried to cover up evidence. And
[45:49] Speaker 1: so he's sane. He says Dawn was behind the killings.
[45:54] Speaker 1: He said that she got into a massive fight with
[45:57] Speaker 1: her parents because she wanted to move to Florida with
[46:01] Speaker 1: her 17-year-old boyfriend. But Rocco was controlling and he, you know,
[46:07] Speaker 1: the insinuation that he was sexually assaulting her, he didn't
[46:11] Speaker 1: want her to leave. He violently choked Dawn. In response,
[46:14] Speaker 1: she attacked him with a butcher knife. So Butch helped
[46:18] Speaker 1: break up the fight, he says. But a few days later,
[46:20] Speaker 1: Dawn told him it wasn't over yet and she was
[46:23] Speaker 1: going to kill the family. You would think the medical
[46:25] Speaker 1: examiner would point out any sort of butcher knife marks
[46:29] Speaker 1: on Rocco. He didn't. So this is, you know, his
[46:34] Speaker 1: story is changing an awful lot. And he's saying it's
[46:37] Speaker 1: mental health, obviously. There's all sorts of stuff.
[46:40] Speaker 2: Well, you know, and his attorney is having an influence.
[46:43] Speaker 2: The attorney is trying to think, you know, what can
[46:46] Speaker 2: I get him off? You know, what kind of defense
[46:49] Speaker 2: can I use to get him off on? I mean,
[46:51] Speaker 2: there's a lot of evidence against Butch. I mean, it's
[46:54] Speaker 2: a pretty clear-cut case from my perspective. So, you know,
[47:00] Speaker 2: I'm just now starting to go, okay, so the semen
[47:05] Speaker 2: inside of Don, is that from Rocco? Is that from Butch?
[47:08] Speaker 2: Is that from her 17-year-old boyfriend? You know, because there's,
[47:12] Speaker 2: you know, if Don is killed and you've got a
[47:15] Speaker 2: sexual assault that's occurring, this is in California, a special circumstance.
[47:19] Speaker 2: You know, you now have a sexual assault occurring during
[47:22] Speaker 2: a murder. You know, and that's in 1974, 1975. They
[47:28] Speaker 2: just did not have the technology in order to definitively
[47:31] Speaker 2: say whose semen that was.
[47:33] Speaker 1: So, you know, another story he has is that he
[47:35] Speaker 1: fell asleep watching TV that night and there was a ghost.
[47:40] Speaker 1: That woke him up. And there was something in the house,
[47:45] Speaker 1: and then the family ends up being murdered. So there's that.
[47:49] Speaker 1: And of course, you know, that doesn't match Butch's previous confessions.
[47:53] Speaker 1: And I mention this, though, because that is part of
[47:55] Speaker 1: the lore of the story. The ghost. Like, maybe with
[48:00] Speaker 1: the house, it's not something that started with Butch and
[48:03] Speaker 1: his actions. Maybe this has always been like the nexus
[48:06] Speaker 1: of evil, this particular house. So that's just, while it
[48:10] Speaker 1: doesn't really matter with the trial and with the true
[48:12] Speaker 1: part of the story, that all plays into, you know,
[48:16] Speaker 1: the house and the legend behind it.
[48:20] Speaker 2: So I'm assuming Butch is convicted. You know, this, yeah,
[48:25] Speaker 2: there's a ghost inside the house. You know, for me,
[48:28] Speaker 2: that sounds like Butch is trying to set up, you know,
[48:30] Speaker 2: or further a mental health defense. Yeah. So, but yeah,
[48:37] Speaker 2: I'm assuming Butch was convicted.
[48:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he is telling all of these different stories.
[48:42] Speaker 1: And one thing that's interesting, the defense presents new evidence
[48:46] Speaker 1: that undermines the prosecution. He says that, back to the paraffin,
[48:51] Speaker 1: and I'm only circling back because I think it's interesting,
[48:53] Speaker 1: the lab guy testifies that the paraffin tests had been
[48:57] Speaker 1: conducted on all the victims' hands, but those results had
[49:00] Speaker 1: been lost. So it's suggesting a police cover-up. That's what
[49:05] Speaker 1: the defense is saying. Like, somebody else did this. Dawn
[49:08] Speaker 1: did this. And they never tested her. But again, you know,
[49:12] Speaker 1: like really this does come down to right. Like this
[49:15] Speaker 1: is somebody who's making up a lot of different versions
[49:17] Speaker 1: of this. He has a really violent past. he has
[49:20] Speaker 1: a grudge against his parents but still i think about
[49:26] Speaker 1: why take out the whole family you know i mean
[49:30] Speaker 1: i guess is it the life insurance really.
[49:32] Speaker 2: I mean i think it's you know only butch knows
[49:37] Speaker 2: but he said you know he had I think you
[49:40] Speaker 2: said three of his family members that he articulated why
[49:44] Speaker 2: he killed them.
[49:44] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[49:45] Speaker 2: You know, but then he goes, then it went quickly
[49:48] Speaker 2: after that. I think he just got on a roll. And,
[49:53] Speaker 2: you know, I would not be surprised. Let's say he
[49:58] Speaker 2: doesn't articulate why he killed Rocco, his dad. But I
[50:03] Speaker 2: would not be surprised that that was probably a very
[50:05] Speaker 2: contentious relationship over the course of Butch's life. And, you know,
[50:11] Speaker 2: there's probably a lot of angst, you know, towards dad. And,
[50:16] Speaker 2: you know, in many ways, Butch not articulating why he
[50:20] Speaker 2: killed Rocco, his dad, is possibly a form of minimization. Because,
[50:25] Speaker 2: you know, the rumor is his dad is actually assaulting Don. Well,
[50:30] Speaker 2: his dad's actually assaulting Butch. You know, but oftentimes, you know,
[50:35] Speaker 2: male victims oftentimes do not want that to be known.
[50:38] Speaker 2: And they're not going to articulate it. They're not going
[50:40] Speaker 2: to disclose.
[50:42] Speaker 1: And I'm thinking he's growing up in this violent environment
[50:45] Speaker 1: and not just somebody who's abusive, but they obviously have
[50:49] Speaker 1: relatives who were in the mafia. You know, they obviously
[50:52] Speaker 1: have a ton of guns in the house. And Rocco does,
[50:56] Speaker 1: by all accounts, seem like this really overbearing guy. But
[51:00] Speaker 1: the sanity versus insanity part of it is sort of
[51:04] Speaker 1: the interesting thing, too.
[51:06] Speaker 2: I come at it at a very practical level in
[51:09] Speaker 2: terms of, are we dealing with truly somebody who's insane?
[51:13] Speaker 2: And the legal side, from my experience, and I'm sure
[51:17] Speaker 2: there's a lot of nuances and different states have different criteria.
[51:22] Speaker 2: But the legal side is, is this person demonstrating knowledge
[51:27] Speaker 2: of right versus wrong when the crime is committed? You know, and,
[51:31] Speaker 2: you know, with just, let's look at the post-offensive behavior
[51:35] Speaker 2: of Butch in terms of getting rid of the bloody clothing,
[51:39] Speaker 2: collecting the shell casings that were left behind from this
[51:42] Speaker 2: lever action rifle. He's racking them out and he's picking
[51:46] Speaker 2: them up. I mean, that's, he's understanding that that is
[51:49] Speaker 2: a form of evidence that could be used against him.
[51:52] Speaker 2: he's dumping the rifle in the river. You know, this
[51:55] Speaker 2: is all showing I can't be caught with this evidence.
[51:58] Speaker 2: That is not what a truly insane person, a legally
[52:01] Speaker 2: insane person does. They leave the gun there or they
[52:04] Speaker 2: call up law enforcement and they got the gun in
[52:07] Speaker 2: their hands. You know, your true psychotic individual can, can,
[52:12] Speaker 2: can absolutely be found not guilty by a reason of insanity.
[52:19] Speaker 2: Butch is not, from my perspective, demonstrating that level of
[52:23] Speaker 2: mental health issues. Doesn't mean he doesn't have mental health issues.
[52:27] Speaker 2: It just means he knew right from wrong because he
[52:30] Speaker 2: is trying to cover up his tracks. Yep.
[52:33] Speaker 1: Well, we turn to the spooky aspect of this because
[52:36] Speaker 1: Butch does get convicted, not surprisingly. Guilty on six counts,
[52:40] Speaker 1: a second degree murder, and he has six consecutive 25
[52:44] Speaker 1: to life sentences. So he's in prison. A year later,
[52:49] Speaker 1: we've got to sell this house. And so it goes
[52:53] Speaker 1: for sale, and it is bought by a family called
[52:56] Speaker 1: the Lutz family. And if anybody's seen the movie, the
[52:58] Speaker 1: Lutzes are real people. And it's a young couple, and
[53:03] Speaker 1: they hire a priest, knowing what happened there, to bless
[53:07] Speaker 1: the space. But the priest would later say that he
[53:11] Speaker 1: heard a deep voice that followed him into the room saying,
[53:14] Speaker 1: get out. And so that is also part of this legend, right?
[53:18] Speaker 1: So at one point he said he felt a slap
[53:20] Speaker 1: in the face. And then all kinds of crazy shit happens.
[53:24] Speaker 1: I mean, the dog, the Lettuce dog tries to jump
[53:27] Speaker 1: over the fence, but it's tied and like with a
[53:30] Speaker 1: leash and it almost hangs itself. And then you've got
[53:35] Speaker 1: lots of supposed paranormal activity. I mean, flies everywhere, red
[53:41] Speaker 1: eyes staring at them through the house's windows. demonic faces.
[53:46] Speaker 1: And then, you know, one of the girls says about Jodi,
[53:51] Speaker 1: which is a friend of hers that nobody else can see,
[53:54] Speaker 1: but that can transform into various shapes like a little
[53:58] Speaker 1: boy or a pig. And it is truly petrifying when
[54:02] Speaker 1: you see it in the movie and described also. So
[54:05] Speaker 1: the real family, the Lutzes, they're there four weeks and
[54:08] Speaker 1: then they're done. They've had enough. And so when they
[54:11] Speaker 1: get home from school that day, they leave. And, you know,
[54:15] Speaker 1: they end up calling Bush's attorney, the DeFeo attorney, and says,
[54:20] Speaker 1: we need to know more about what happened because now
[54:22] Speaker 1: they have to sell this house. So the whole thing
[54:26] Speaker 1: around this place is, you know, we have this couple
[54:29] Speaker 1: of the Lutzes who moved in and hired a vampirologist,
[54:35] Speaker 1: I think is what you call, yes, vampirologist, didn't know
[54:37] Speaker 1: that was a thing, to help investigate too. They do
[54:41] Speaker 1: something that's kind of key that makes this legendary. So
[54:44] Speaker 1: their thought is all of this stuff happened. We have
[54:46] Speaker 1: to understand it. We need to understand Butch DeFeo better. And,
[54:53] Speaker 1: you know, obviously the debate is, are we crazy or
[54:56] Speaker 1: they create, you know, is the house crazy? What's happening?
[54:59] Speaker 1: And they hire a couple that's very controversial that I
[55:02] Speaker 1: think most people have heard of, you know, so it's
[55:04] Speaker 1: Ed and Lorraine Warren. Do you know them?
[55:07] Speaker 2: I need more. I don't know the names.
[55:08] Speaker 1: So they're famed. They were famous demonologists and paranormal specialists.
[55:15] Speaker 1: And they came to the home. And my kid knew
[55:19] Speaker 1: all about this because the series The Conjuring, which is
[55:23] Speaker 1: a huge movie series, is based on the Warrens and
[55:27] Speaker 1: their cases. So I don't think it's based on them,
[55:29] Speaker 1: but it's like their spooky cases and stuff. And they've
[55:33] Speaker 1: investigated a lot of different cases, including murderers. that were
[55:37] Speaker 1: purportedly done at the behest of bad spirits. So they've testified,
[55:42] Speaker 1: you know, before in murder trials. So they get there
[55:47] Speaker 1: and they hear all kinds of paranormal stuff, demonic possession.
[55:52] Speaker 1: And eventually what makes it spooky is no matter what
[55:57] Speaker 1: accusations are thrown at, the Warrens for being fake in
[56:01] Speaker 1: this or the Lutzes, for cashing in on things. I mean,
[56:04] Speaker 1: there's a lot of evidence that the Lutz's at a
[56:07] Speaker 1: minimum really amped up the things that they experienced at
[56:10] Speaker 1: the house, but that it's taken on this, this life
[56:15] Speaker 1: of its own. And, you know, then you've got this
[56:18] Speaker 1: real family here, you know, Butch is still hanging around
[56:21] Speaker 1: in prison with nothing better to do than think about this.
[56:24] Speaker 1: And he said, Dawn killed everyone in self-defense. He killed
[56:27] Speaker 1: Dawn and, He admits that he lied about, you know,
[56:31] Speaker 1: any ghosts or demons or anything that were in the house. So,
[56:35] Speaker 1: you know, all of this is to say that there
[56:37] Speaker 1: are a lot of theories out there about what people
[56:41] Speaker 1: were lying about, what wasn't happening. But then you've got
[56:44] Speaker 1: this real family, regardless of Rocco, you've got kids who
[56:47] Speaker 1: end up dead. And then, you know, this guy, DeFeo,
[56:51] Speaker 1: who a lot of people will always remember, he's infamous now.
[56:55] Speaker 1: taking center stage, as usual, with the killer over the victims.
[56:59] Speaker 1: And then it turns into, you know, this Halloween spooky story,
[57:04] Speaker 1: which I love. But we're doing this to remind me, frankly,
[57:09] Speaker 1: that this was a real family that was murdered terribly
[57:12] Speaker 1: by someone who they trusted or trusted enough to live
[57:14] Speaker 1: in the house.
[57:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this case is so different than what
[57:21] Speaker 2: I was expecting kind of going in. You know, I,
[57:24] Speaker 2: I didn't, I was not thinking it was going to
[57:26] Speaker 2: be this, you know, basically a mass shooting of the
[57:30] Speaker 2: six family members inside the house. Um, you know, so the,
[57:37] Speaker 2: you know, the, the, what do you want to say? The,
[57:39] Speaker 2: the mythology that surrounds this is, is I'm surprised, you know,
[57:44] Speaker 2: you know, for me, it's a, it's a pretty open
[57:46] Speaker 2: and shut case. Uh, obviously it's a tragic case with
[57:49] Speaker 2: six family members being killed.
[57:51] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[57:52] Speaker 2: Um, and then the post, you know, once the, the
[57:56] Speaker 2: house is sold and now you get all the, you know, the,
[58:00] Speaker 2: the haunting aspects, you know, and it's, you know, unless
[58:05] Speaker 2: I were to personally experience something like that, I'm going, really,
[58:10] Speaker 2: is that really what happened here? You know, or are people,
[58:15] Speaker 2: you know, there, there could be a, um, a psychological
[58:19] Speaker 2: thing where now the Lutz family is recognizing they're living
[58:24] Speaker 2: in a place where six people died. And then their
[58:27] Speaker 2: imaginations start running wild and starting to attribute it to
[58:32] Speaker 2: supernatural types of phenomena. I can't sit here and say
[58:40] Speaker 2: whether or not the haunting aspect is something that's real
[58:43] Speaker 2: or not. All I know is I'm like, I don't know.
[58:48] Speaker 2: You know, this seems a little weird to me.
[58:50] Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And, you know, none of it works.
[58:53] Speaker 1: The Lutzes did make a lot of money off of
[58:54] Speaker 1: the story. And then I don't think it was recently,
[58:57] Speaker 1: but maybe their son or their grandson said, listen, stuff
[59:02] Speaker 1: happened there, but they exaggerated it. And I think we
[59:05] Speaker 1: can think it was, you know, nobody's going to leave
[59:07] Speaker 1: their new home after four weeks unless they are seeing
[59:09] Speaker 1: and feeling something. But they definitely kind of cashed in
[59:14] Speaker 1: on this, especially when the movie came out in 71.
[59:18] Speaker 2: But I think it's also, you know, to what you're
[59:21] Speaker 2: bringing up, it is a family. You have innocent victims
[59:26] Speaker 2: that were killed. And It's a curiosity of my part
[59:32] Speaker 2: on how certain cases just seem to be glommed on
[59:37] Speaker 2: by the masses, by the public. And I've experienced that firsthand.
[59:44] Speaker 2: I was at a conference in San Francisco decades ago,
[59:48] Speaker 2: and a producer from 48 Hours says, oh, you're from
[59:52] Speaker 2: Contra Costa County. I was like, yeah. And she goes,
[59:55] Speaker 2: I want to take you to lunch. I want to
[59:57] Speaker 2: talk to you about cases. Sure. So I get taken
[59:59] Speaker 2: to lunch and I'm like, oh, shoot, I've got all
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: these great cases that are great stories. And then she goes, no, no, no.
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: I want to hear about the woman who killed her psychiatrist.
[1:00:11] Speaker 2: And it was all of a sudden it was like, well,
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: that's like the most boring case, but it was active
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: at the time. And for some reason, the public glommed
[1:00:21] Speaker 2: onto it. And I'm like, there's no mystery here at all.
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: She killed him.
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: It's irony, isn't it? It's the irony of it. I mean,
[1:00:32] Speaker 1: I think these cases, so, you know, think about the
[1:00:34] Speaker 1: infamous cases that we have. Lizzie Borden. Upright, middle class,
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: really upper class, except, you know, her father didn't spend
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: that money. Accused of brutally killing her stepmother and her
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: father with an axe. Not even shooting them with an axe.
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: And picturing this, like, prim and proper woman, a spinster type,
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: covered in blood. So there's that. There's Jack the Ripper
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: with his taunting letters. That's so unusual. Ted Bundy. I mean,
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: how many serial killers have been out there?
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: Many.
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: Any of them as good looking as Ted Bundy? Probably not.
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: And eloquent and representing himself in court.
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: Sure.
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: You know, I think you've just got this like pile
[1:01:13] Speaker 1: on of it has to be something weird and unusual
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: for sure. Like some twist on, oh my gosh, can
[1:01:19] Speaker 1: you believe this? Somebody killing their psychiatrist, there's a real
[1:01:23] Speaker 1: sick and twisted irony there that I understand why people
[1:01:26] Speaker 1: thought it was interesting.
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, but I think that that's where I have
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: the hard part, the hard time relating, you know? And
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: it's just like, you know, like with you and Alexis and, okay,
[1:01:37] Speaker 2: what kind of true crime things do we want to cover? Right.
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: And it's like, you kind of know more of what
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: the public is going to be interested in. Versus me,
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: it's like, this is a run-of-the-mill case. I don't understand
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: why people find things fascinating. This case, Amityville Horror Case,
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: it's a, you know, outside of the number of victims
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: and it's family on family, it's a run-of-the-mill case. There's
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: no mystery as to what happened here at all.
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: Well, except that your suspect is leaning really hard into
[1:02:11] Speaker 1: ghosts and demons and And he's seeing things. And he,
[1:02:18] Speaker 1: you know, has a little bit of a Charles Manson
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: look about him. He also was younger and good looking.
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: But this, I think the case just like hit on
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: a lot of different levels. You know, the vulnerability of
[1:02:29] Speaker 1: a family and then you get into the mob stuff.
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: It's just, it's not your run of the mill. Like
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: in England, they might say fish and chips, you know,
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: newspaper type, easy peasy case. I mean, it's not a domestic.
[1:02:41] Speaker 1: It's something that's a little bit more there there. But,
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: The film, they remade the film with Ryan Reynolds. It
[1:02:48] Speaker 1: was in 2005. That film took off and was a
[1:02:51] Speaker 1: really big deal. And I remember, I think I've seen
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: it two or three times. And I just remember being
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: fascinated by the idea of somebody being in a house,
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: like The Shining. I love The Shining too. Someone being
[1:03:02] Speaker 1: in a house and you are not to blame for
[1:03:06] Speaker 1: whatever you do in this house. It's the house. It's
[1:03:09] Speaker 1: the spirits within the house that are making you do it.
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: And that's what DeFeo planted. Butch planted that seed out there.
[1:03:17] Speaker 1: And the house looks creepy, you know? And so I
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: think that that's really, for me, that was what the
[1:03:22] Speaker 1: allure was. And by the way, Paul Hulls, I don't
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: know what the public wants. I know what I like.
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: So I am our true crime consumer. And I just
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: crossed my fingers that the things I like are the
[1:03:32] Speaker 1: things that everybody out there likes. So it was, you know,
[1:03:37] Speaker 1: it's interesting. So let me just wrap this. In 1990,
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: Butch wants DNA testing. Because he says the blood on
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: his clothes that he had turned over to the police
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: was his blood after being beaten nearly to death by
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: the police. And he wants DNA testing. Court says no.
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: So he is changing his story like you wouldn't believe
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: through the 90s and the 2000s. And Butch DeFeo just
[1:04:01] Speaker 1: died five years ago. Oh, wow.
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:04:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:04:04] Speaker 2: Well, he was, what, 23 in 1974. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously,
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: it wasn't that old. I can see where he could
[1:04:13] Speaker 2: have still been alive. Now, as far as this post-conviction
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: DNA testing, I've been involved in those cases. And these
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: guys roll the dice. I had one guy killed a couple.
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: And he says, no, you know, the blood that was
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: used and presented and the ABO testing, it's not mine
[1:04:33] Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah. And I get the evidence and
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: we do more tests. And I was like, oh, his
[1:04:39] Speaker 2: semen is inside the woman's body. I talked to his
[1:04:45] Speaker 2: attorney and his attorney is like, never mind, you know.
[1:04:49] Speaker 2: These guys are just going to throw things, you know,
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: at the wall hoping something sticks that will cause them
[1:04:55] Speaker 2: to get, you know, their conviction overturned. You know, I mean,
[1:04:59] Speaker 2: I think this is a fascinating case. You know, it's,
[1:05:03] Speaker 2: you know, very enlightening about, you know, what the true
[1:05:06] Speaker 2: story is, you know, behind Amityville Horror. And it also
[1:05:11] Speaker 2: just kind of shows sort of the lore that happens
[1:05:14] Speaker 2: in select situations and whether or not that house is haunted.
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: Or not? I don't know. I'm not going to opine
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: on that at all.
[1:05:23] Speaker 1: We just know that a ghost did not kill six
[1:05:25] Speaker 1: members of the DeFeo family, for sure.
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: No, that's true. And, you know, I was doing some research,
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: and the very plot of land that your cottage is
[1:05:33] Speaker 2: built on, there was actually a homicide there back in 1851.
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: Have you experienced?
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: One day I'm going to show up at your house,
[1:05:44] Speaker 1: like my stepmother used to do, With a chainsaw with
[1:05:47] Speaker 1: the chain removed and just scared the crap out of
[1:05:50] Speaker 1: you guys.
[1:05:51] Speaker 2: Oh, there's a face in the shadows over your left shoulder.
[1:05:55] Speaker 1: Is there a demonic face in my flickering light over there?
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: No, but I'm seeing that fox's lips move. He's licking his.
[1:06:03] Speaker 1: Stop, Paul.
[1:06:04] Speaker 2: He's licking his nose.
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: Don't scare me. Don't scare me.
[1:06:07] Speaker 2: I think that fox is going to be screaming pretty soon.
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: We're going to have to watch Amityville Horror, and you're
[1:06:12] Speaker 1: just going to be tortured by it. Well, I wish
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: you the best of Halloweens.
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: Thank you. You too.
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: And scary times, but safe times. And, you know, beware
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: of red eyes in windows.
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: And we'll see what happens inside your cottage from now on.
[1:06:31] Speaker 2: All right.
[1:06:32] Speaker 1: I'll see you next week. All right.
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: Sounds good, Kate.
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production.
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com slash buriedbonessources.
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi.
[1:06:49] Speaker 2: Research by Allison Trouble and Kate Winkler-Dawson.
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Talladay.
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Breifogel.
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
[1:07:00] Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.
[1:07:04] Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at BuriedBonesPod.
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book, All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the
[1:07:14] Speaker 2: Criminal Mind, is available now.
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: And Paul's best-selling memoir, Unmasked, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases,
[1:07:21] Speaker 1: is also available now.
[1:07:23] Speaker 2: Listen to Buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.

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