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This page is designed to help answer many of the email questions I receive
each day in regards to
The Amityville Horror. All questions on this F.A.Q are answered by
George Lutz himself.
"Is
the house still standing today? Does anybody live there... can
I
visit it?" The "red room" as it referred to, was found under the staircase alcove in the basement. The area was found to be painted red and very small. There were times when strong foul odors would came from the space without any apparent source. There were no pipe accesses to be found in the room or immediately adjacent to it......... that betrayed this odors' source. Rotten eggs was one description of the smell. We did locate a plot plan that showed the existence of previous drywells and septic areas that had long been covered over. These would have had to have been when the pool was installed in the back yard, years earlier. There were no pipes found in the basement that connected to these, or went through the walls heading in those directions or also had any odor sources that we could find. The "room" did not show up on the construction blueprints and the as-built drawings so it is believed to probably have been built after the current structure was finished. Its purpose is unknown and its usage is speculation at best. There is one psychic that visited the house that had impressions about the room but these are impressions formed after her visit to the house and were not part of her physical visit to the basement. (She had looked down the stairs and "knew" she did not want or need to go further.......this is from an interview I did with her last year regarding her memories of her part of the investigation done 25 years ago.) The movie "The Amityville Horror" has a "pit from hell sequence" that takes place in this area and is the movies own creation. That sequence bears no relationship to anything we knew or experienced about this house. Ed warren experienced sensations just outside the "room" on his first visit to the house in early 1976. The sensations were described as incapacitating and being in the presence of a very strong "force" or "power." He felt strongly enough about there being a connection to this experience, that he then organized a full day and night investigation with a team that returned with him on March 6, 1976. Our black lab, Harry refused to go near the room. He came down to the basement rather unwillingly and had to be coaxed with his leash on. He was a lively, inquisitive dog that tried hard to please and trusted everyone until he grew older, yet that day....nighttime as I remember it,....he pulled away as we got closer to the opening. I had never seen him react this way before, and I do not recall that he ever appeared frightened anywhere else in the basement or on the property in the same way........or for that fact......for any of the years we had him later.....in both California and Arizona. Additional information from one of the producers of the History Channel Documentary: In 1999, during my research trip to Amityville, I met a woman named Nancy who worked at the town hall. She told me that her brother, George, built the "red room" in the basement of 112 Ocean Avenue for Mrs. Riley as a "plant room". The Riley's owned the house between the years of 1960 - 1965, before selling it to the DeFeos. Nancy had given us contact information for her brother, but due to the limited amount of time on our trip, we never did get the opportunity to get in touch with him for an interview. When we called him, we got his answering machine. Coincidentally, his wife's name is Kathy. Nancy was a very attractive, friendly and informative person. She was the only person at the town hall whom had remained friendly and informative, after they all found out who we were, and what we were doing there. During the course of obtaining copies of past deeds to the house, she offered the information about the "red room", and her brother's phone number, without even having to be asked. When we returned to Amityville the following year to shoot the documentary, she was no longer an employee at the town hall.
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