Latest / Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃 / Buried Bones: The Real Amityville Horror

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Buried Bones: The Real Amityville Horror · Spooky Season Podcasts 🎃

• 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.