Nothing is Scary Anymore Except Real Life Part 2: The Amityville Horror

Crime Scene photo with a creepy ass "high hopes" sign on the lamp post

Here is part 2 of the 3 part series. A little while back I got to visit Long Island and check out the Amityville horror house. Similar to Mothman, a lot of strange stuff went down and those who saw it firmly believe it. Others think they are full if shit. Would Amityville prove to me the existence of the paranormal? Would a bearded Ryan Reynolds sway me from my skepticism? Let’s find out together.

My flight into Long Island’s ISLIP Airport was late. I was already arriving late but thanks to a delay in Baltimore I didn’t touch down till almost midnight, nearly 3 hours later than planned. I sprinted to the rental desk just before they closed, got the keys to my Hyundai Elantra and drive off to Farmingdale about 45 minutes west.

This was a fly in/fly out trip. I was booked to present at a conference the next day till about 2pm with a 6pm flight home. I was so close to New York City but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to visit. There would be no pizza, no 10 ft temples of trash on the sidewalk, no nothing. This was strictly business and that was cool with me until I reached the exit for my hotel.

The sign at the end of the ramp had an arrow pointing north to Farmingdale and another pointing south towards Amityville. As in the “Amityville Horror.” I don’t know how I didn’t notice it when I was figuring out how to get from the airport to the hotel. I now had another purpose for being here: I was gonna get spooked.

Though I had to be up in about 5 hours and was exhausted from a long flight, I charged up my phone and looked up the location of the Amityville Horror house. The house was in fact real. A previous owner had the street address legally changed but only by 4 digits and I have the internet so I was able to find the real address in .5 seconds.  My GPS showed it was only 20 minutes south of the hotel. My chance for a visit was high.

Da book

Real quick history: The Amityville Horror was a movie based on a book about a family that moved into a house 13 months after a dude named Ronald Defeo Jr murdered his entire family, 6 victims in total. The weird thing is that all 6 victims were reportedly killed in their sleep. The eldest son went from room to room shooting his family with a very loud gun and no one woke up.

This new family, the Lutz family, knew about the murders but it’s a balling house in a balling neighborhood (somebody say boathouse?) for a cheap ass price so they bought it. Sure enough, their cocky asses are experiencing the type of paranormal shit you’d expect from moving into such an abode. Doors and windows would open and slam shut. Bizarre and pungent smells would appear out of nowhere. Hundreds of flies would suddenly swarm. Add in some red glowing eyes, a crucifix that would invert itself, and mysterious ooze dripping from the walls and you’ve got yourself a full-blown haunting. The family lasted 28 days and bounced.

There are a lot of folks who call bullshit on this story. I’m a reluctant skeptic but any house where there’s a mass murder has got to have some sort of residual nastiness lingering in the corners. I still get upset walking into old classrooms where a student called me a motherfucker so I understand.

Presentation-wise, everything went well. I got to hang out with some co-workers of mine before running a couple 45 minute poetry workshops. I was blessed to be working with students who were already stoked on the event and the time flew by. At lunch I began mapping out my plan for a visit when we received the most triumphant news that the conference was ending at 1pm instead of 2pm to accommodate schools that had bussed in from the Bronx. That extra hour assured me enough time to get to the house and to the airport so big ups to the Bronx.

I attempted to recruit some of my coworkers to come with but they were all headed to trains and different airports. Or they thought I was a creepy dude and were too kind to tell me so. We said our good byes, I punched in the coordinates and I was off to Amityville.

De La Soul is from Amityille and now I know why their music was so upbeat and positive.

De La Soul. Did NOT murder their families.

Amityville is absolutely delightful. Very suburban but close to the ocean without a surfer/hippie vibe. There was a quaint downtown with a gazebo and strip malls to serve any need. The homes look like the after pics of every home on every show on HGTV. There were columns and freshly painted shutters on all the windows. Well-manicured lawns and foliage gave each home the much desired curb appeal I’ve heard so much about.

Turning right onto Ocean Ave I drove past the strip mall that was once home to Henry’s Bar. This is where the killer went for a night cap after icing the fam. A couple blocks down, backing up to a canal was the Amityville Horror house. At the time of the supposed haunting, the house had windows at the top that were curved and resembled eyes. They have since been squared off but the house still resembles a face from the street. Trying to maintain some sense of chill, I drove past and turned around instead of screeching to a halt. Senior citizens in track suits were walking about in the peak Spring weather. Landscaping crews pulled weeds and mowed the lawns of neighboring homes.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. I could park the car and take a pictures but I didn’t want to get scolded by old ladies. I could’ve pretended that I was interested in buying the house (there was a For Sale sign and holy shit I’d love to get in on that open house) but everybody knows that if you’re driving a Hyundai Elantra with New Jersey plates you don’t have million dollar home buying money. I pulled up to a stop sign, took a couple blurry pics and I was off.

I'll shoot your wedding for $4

Was it scary? Maybe if I was stuck in the home by myself but after a couple hours of nothing happening I’d probably be okay. I was more scared of a neighbor calling me a morbid creep than of being chased by a ghost.

The scariest part of the whole trip was thinking about how many maniacs have easy access to high powered weaponry. It’s still not clear why homey took out his family. Some say he was possessed, others think it was an insurance scam. He told someone a demon convinced him to do it and later he said his sister helped him do it. He keeps changing his story and if he’s still changing his story, I don’t think any ghosts were involved.

What is known about the killer is he was beaten terribly as a kid. His Dad beat him, his Mom, and probably the rest of the family. It’s not ghosts haunting the streets but real people with unchecked trauma willing to commit real crimes despite the consequences that scare me.

Then I started thinking about other dumb shit. For instance, I thought about how many murderers I’ve unknowingly crossed paths with at concerts, on the street, etc. What makes me so special (or not so special) that I am not amongst their victims. How many times did I avoid accidents by taking a left instead of a right? What if I miss my flight and it ends up crashing? Like I said, dumb shit that will drive you insane if you obsess over it .

I made my way back to the airport. A random TSA check showed there were no demons attached to me. There were no evil spirits occupying the empty seat next to me as the plane took off and banked west.

By the time I landed in Baltimore to catch a connecting flight, I was no longer worried about ghosts; I just wanted to go home. I left there being less scared of ghosts and more scared about becoming one.