The Amityville Horror (23 page)

On the first floor, George saw the front door was open, hanging from its hinges again, torn away by some powerful force.

Danny, Chris, and Missy were outside. The little girl, just awakening, was squirming in her brother's arms. Not knowing where she was, she started to cry with fright.

George ran for the van. He put Kathy on the front seat and then helped the children into the rear. Harry jumped in behind them, and he slammed the door on Kathy's side. George ran around to the other side of the vehicle, jumped in the driver's seat, and prayed.

He jammed in the ignition key.

The motor turned over immediately.

Spraying wet gravel, George backed out of the driveway. When he hit the street, he skidded, spun the wheel, and stepped on the gas at the same time. The van teetered for a moment, then all four tires grabbed and smoke shot up from the rubber treads. in another instant, the van was tearing up Ocean Avenue.

As he steered the van toward safety, George looked into the side view mirror. His house was fast disappearing from his sight. "Thank God!".he muttered to himself. "I'll never see you again, you sonofabitch!"

It was seven o'clock on the morning of January 14, 1976; the twenty-eighth day the Lutzes had lived in 112 Ocean Avenue.

25 January 15 -That morning, at the very moment the Lutzes were fleeing from their home, Father Mancuso decided to get out of town.

He waited until eleven o'clock, because then it would be eight A.M. in San Francisco, and he didn't want to awaken his cousin too early with a telephone call. The priest announced be was flying West for a vacation. He would leave in a day or so, probably on Friday, January 16.

Father Mancuso hung up, feeling greatly relieved. This was the first positive step he had taken in weeks.

The priest reasoned that a week in the California sun could only help his run-down condition and possibly bake the flu out of his system. Let the diabolical powers in 112 Ocean Avenue have the house and the cruel New York winter weather!

He called his office back at the diocese in order to inform them of his plans. They were to reschedule his appointments and duties until after January 30th. He would contact some of his clients in counseling on his own.

As the morning wore on, the priest felt progressively better. He had much to do before leaving, and all his thoughts of the Lutzes were shunted into the background. But at four in the afternoon, George Lutz called from his mother-in-law's in East Babylon. He said he wanted to let Father Mancuso know that he, Kathy, and the children were going to stay there until the scientific investigations were made at his house in Amityville. "That's fine, George," Father Mancuso said. "But be careful of who goes into the house. Don't make a circus out of this thing."

"Oh, I won't, Father," George replied. "We don't want people trampling all over the place. All our stuff is still there. Nobody gets in unless I say so."

"Good," the priest said. "Just follow up on the parapsychologists. The Chancery says they're the best equipped to investigate a situation like this."

"There's just one thing," George broke in. "Supposing they can't come up with answers. And after last night, Father, I frankly don't think they can. Then what? What happens next?"

Father Mancuso let out a gasp. "What do you mean, after last night? Don't tell me you stayed there again?"

There was silence on the telephone. Finally George answered. "It wouldn't let us go. We couldn't get out until this morning."

Father Mancuso felt his palms itch. He looked into his left hand. It was becoming blotchy. Oh no, he thought. Please God, not again! No more! Without another word to George, the priest hung up. He shoved his hands crossways beneath his armpits, trying to shield them. He began to rock back and forth on his heels. "Please, please," he whimpered, "let me alone. I promise I won't talk to him again."

George couldn't understand why Father Mancuso had hung up on him. The priest should have been happy that they were out of the house. He held the receiver in his hand, staring at the instrument. "What'd I say?" he murmured.

A sharp tug on his sleeve interrupted George's thoughts. It was Missy. "Here, Daddy," she said. "I made Jodie like you said."

"What?" George asked. His daughter was holding up a paper drawing. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Jodie's picture. Let me see it."

George took the paper from Missy. It was a child's rendering of a pig, distorted, but clearly a five year-old's idea of a ~running animal.

He raised his eyebrows. "What are all these things around Jodie?" he asked. "They look like little clouds."

"That's snow, Daddy," Missy answered. "That's when Jodie ran away in the snow."

Father Mancuso decided to catch the 9:00 p.m. TWA flight to San Francisco. When the panic after George's call had left him, the priest immediately picked up the telephone and spoke to his cousin's wife. He told her he had changed his mind and would be coming out that night. She agreed to meet him at San Francisco's International Airport.

Father Mancuso packed only one suitcase; called his mother, the diocese office, and a cab company. By eight, he was out of the Rectory and on his way to Kennedy Airport. When the priest checked in at the TWA counter he looked again at his palms. The blotches were gone, but his fear wasn't.

Jimmy and Carey went to stay at her mother's house that night. But before they left, there was a small celebration at Mrs. Conners' house. Because of the dramatic feeling of relief that swept over the Lutzes just to be free of 112 Ocean Avenue, it was practically a party.

George and Kathy now wanted to talk about their experiences, and in her family, they had a sympathetic and credulous audience. Events spilled from their lips in a flood as they tried to explain what had happened to them. Finally, George revealed his plans to rid his house of whatever evil force remained there. He told his mother-in-law and Jimmy that research groups would be invited to participate, but they would have to conduct their investigations by themselves. Under no circumstances would he or Kathy ever enter 112 Ocean Drive again.

Danny, Chris, and Missy were to sleep in Jimmy's room. The boys were exhausted from the harrowing appearance of the "monster" the night before and from the excitement of fleeing to their grandmother's. But they didn't want to talk about the white-hooded demon figure. When George pressed them to tell their version, both boys fell silent and looks of fear came over their faces.

Missy appeared to be entirely unaffected by the whole affair. She adapted easily enough to the new adventure and made herself right at home with a few dolls she had cached at her grandmother's. She wasn't even perturbed when Kathy questioned her further about Jodie's picture. The little girl would say only, "That is what the pig looked like."

George and Kathy took their baths early. Both luxuriated in the hot water and soaked for a long time. It was a dual cleansing: their bodies and their fright. By ten p.m., they were in bed in the guest room. For the first time in almost a month, the Lutzes fell asleep in each other's arms.

George awoke first. He felt as if he was having a dream, because he had the sensation of floating in air!

He was aware of his body being flown around the bedroom and then landing softly back on the bed. Then, still in his dreamlike state, George saw Kathy levitate off the bed. She rose about a foot and slowly began to drift away from him.

George reached out a hand to his wife. In his eyes, the movement was almost in slow motion, as though his arm was not attached to his body. He tried to call to her, but for some reason, he couldn't remember her name. George could only watch Kathy fly higher toward the ceiling. Then he felt himself being lifted, and again he had the sensation of floating.

He could hear someone calling to him from a great distance. George knew the voice. It sounded very familiar. He heard his name again. "George?" Now he remembered. It was Kathy. George looked down and saw she was back on the bed, looking up at him.

He began to drift toward Kathy, then felt himself slowly settling back down on the bed beside her. "George!" she cried. "You were floating in the air!"

Kathy grabbed his arm and pulled him off the bed. "Come on!" she shouted. "We've got to get out of this room!"

As though he was sleepwalking, George followed his wife. At the head of the staircase they both stopped and recoiled in horror. Coming up the steps toward them was a snake-like line of greenish-black slime!

George knew he had not been dreaming. It was all real. Whatever he had thought they had left forever back at 112 Ocean Avenue was following them-wherever the Lutzes fled.

EPILOGUE

On February 18, 1976, Marvin Scott of New York's Channel 5 decided to investigate further the reports on the so-called cursed home of Amityville, Long Island. The mission called for spending the night in the haunted home at 112 Ocean Avenue. Psychics, clairvoyants, a demonologist, and parapsychologists were invited to participate.

Scott had originally contacted the recent tenants, the Lutz family, and requested permission to film activities at their deserted house. George Lutz agreed and sat down at a meeting with Scott in a small pizzeria in Amityville. George refused to re-enter 112 Ocean Avenue, but said he and his wife, Kathy, would wait for the investigators the next day at the Italian restaurant.

To provoke the overpowering force said to be within the house, a crucifix and blessed candles were placed in the center of the dining room table. The researchers held the first of three seances at 10:30 p.m. Present around the table were Lorraine Warren, a clairvoyant; her husband, Ed, a demonologist; psychics Mary Pascarella and Mrs. Albert Riley; and George Kekoris of the Psychical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina. Marvin Scott also joined the group at the table.

During the seance, Mary Pascarella became ill and had to leave the room. In a quaking voice, she said, "that in back of everything there seems to be some kind of black shadow that forms a head, and it moves. And as it moves, I feel personally threatened."

Mrs. Riley, in a mediumistic trance, began gasping. "It's upstairs in the bedroom. What's here makes your heart speed up. My heart's pounding." Ed Warren wanted to end the seance. Mrs. Riley continued to gasp, then quickly came out of her trance and back to normal consciousness.

Then George Kekoris, the psychic researcher, also became violently ill and had to leave the table. Observer Mike Linder of WNEW-FM stated that he had felt a sudden numbness, a kind of cold sensation.

Clairvoyant Lorraine Warren finally voiced her own opinion: "Whatever is here is, in my estimation, most definitely of a negative nature. It has nothing to do with anyone who had once walked the earth in human form. It is right from the bowels of the earth."

Television cameraman Steve Petropolis, who bad been assigned some scary assignments in combat zones, experienced heart palpitations and shortness of breath when he investigated the sewing room upstairs where the negative force was said to be concentrated. When Lorraine Warren and Marvin Scott went into that room, they both came out saying that they had felt a momentary chill.

Lorraine and Ed Warren also found a source of discomfort in the living room. Mrs. Warren thought some negative forces were centered in statues and nonliving things; "That whatever is here, is able to move around at will. It doesn't have to stay here, but I think it's a resting place."

She also thought there was something demonic in the inanimate objects. Mrs. Warren indicated the fireplace and banister on the second floor, without being forewarned of their connection with the Lutzes' problems. As some people slept in some of the second floor bedrooms, a photographer shot infrared pictures in the vain hope of capturing some ghostly image on film. Jerry Solfvin of the Psychical Research Institute wandered about the house with a battery lantern, searching for physical evidence.

At 3:30 A.M., the Warrens attempted another seance. There was nothing unusual reported, no sounds or strange phenomena. All the psychics felt the room had been neutralized. The atmosphere, they said, simply wasn't right at the moment. But they definitely felt that the house on Ocean Avenue was harboring a demonic spirit, one that could be removed only by an exorcist. When Marvin Scott returned to the little pizzeria, the Lutzes were gone. By March, they had moved clear across the country to California. They left behind all their belongings, all their worldly goods, and all the money they had invested in their dream home. Just to be rid of the place, they signed their interest over to the bank that held the mortgage.

Pending its resale; its windows were boarded up to discourage vandalism and to prevent the curious, the morbid, and the warned from entering.

On Good Friday, 1976, Father Frank Mancuso recovered from pneumonia, and in April, he was transferred by the Bishop of his diocese to another parish. It is nowhere near 112 Ocean Avenue.

Now, Missy gets upset when she is asked about Jodie; Danny and Chris can still vividly describe the "monster" who chased them that final night; and Kathy will not talk about that period in her life at all. George has sold his interest in William H. Parry, Inc. He does hope that those who hear his story will understand how dangerous negative entities can be to the unwary-to the unbelieving. "They are real," George insists, "and they do inflict evil when the opportunity presents itself."

AFTERWORD

A Note From the Author

To the extent that I can verify them, all the events in this book are true. George Lee and Kathleen Lutz undertook the exhaustive and frequently painful task of reconstructing their twenty-eight days in the house in Amityville on a tape recorder, refreshing each other's memories so that the final oral "diary" would be as complete as possible. Not only did George and Kathy agree on virtually every detail they had both experienced, many of their impressions and reports were later substantiated by the testimony of independent witnesses such as Father Mancuso and local police officials. But perhaps the most telling evidence in support of their story is circumstantial-it takes more than imagination or a case of "nerves" to drive a normal, healthy family of five to the drastic step of suddenly abandoning a desirable three-story house, complete with finished basement, swimming pool, and boathouse, without even pausing to take along their personal household belongings.