The Story of Ocean Avenue

1. Amityville, 1974

1 min. 17 sec.

They named the house High Hopes. They hung the name on a wooden sign at the front door. From 1965 to 1974, that was wher…

They named the house High Hopes. They hung the name on a wooden sign at the front door. From 1965 to 1974, that was where they lived. On the night of 13 November 1974, six of them died there. And in the fifty years since, the specific fact that they lived there — that they were a family, that they had names, that they were people — has been almost entirely displaced from public memory by the fabricated ghost story that would follow.

2. The House on Ocean Avenue

1 min. 19 sec.

For nine years and five months, the house on Ocean Avenue was the DeFeo family home. Six people lived in it — a father,…

For nine years and five months, the house on Ocean Avenue was the DeFeo family home. Six people lived in it — a father, a mother, and four of their five children, with the eldest son also resident during his adult years. It was the specific setting in which four children grew up. It was the specific setting in which Dawn DeFeo graduated from Amityville Memorial High School. It was, until 3 a.m. on the morning of 13 November 1974, one of the ordinary family homes of one of the ordinary Long Island villages of postwar America.

3. Ronald and Louise

1 min. 21 sec.

They were, in every respect, a specific family — a middle-class Long Island household of the postwar type. Ronald Sr. co…

They were, in every respect, a specific family — a middle-class Long Island household of the postwar type. Ronald Sr. commuted daily to Brooklyn. Louise ran the household. The four youngest children attended local schools. The eldest son, Ronald Jr., worked for his father at the family dealership. That was, on paper, the shape of their lives. The specific facts of what was happening inside that shape — the specific conflict between Ronald Sr. and Ronald Jr., the specific tensions that would erupt on the night of 13 November — had been building, per every subsequent account, for years.

4. Ronald 'Butch' DeFeo Jr.

1 min. 6 sec.

He was, at 23 years of age, a young adult who had never left his parents' house. He was employed at his father's workpla…

He was, at 23 years of age, a young adult who had never left his parents' house. He was employed at his father's workplace. He worked under his father's direct supervision. He was resented, per his own subsequent statements, by that father. He resented that father in return. On the evening of 12 November 1974, per the reconstructed timeline of the case, he was in his second-floor bedroom in the house at 112 Ocean Avenue. He was armed. And what he was thinking, per the testimony he would give at trial one year later, has been the subject of forensic and legal debate ever since.

5. The Four Youngest

1 min. 7 sec.

On the evening of 12 November 1974, Ronald Sr., Louise, Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John DeFeo went to bed in the Ocean Ave…

On the evening of 12 November 1974, Ronald Sr., Louise, Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John DeFeo went to bed in the Ocean Avenue house. Ronald DeFeo Jr. went to his own second-floor bedroom. It was, in every documented respect, an entirely ordinary Tuesday evening in Amityville. Between approximately 3 and 3:30 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, 13 November 1974, that ordinariness ended. In a specific sequence of rooms, with a specific rifle, over a period of approximately fifteen minutes, six members of the DeFeo family were shot while they slept.