Case #10: The Amityville Murders - Part 2 (The Murders and The Investigation)
Last week, I discussed some background around Ronald Defeo Sr. and his son Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr. At this point, we're now arriving on the night of the murders.
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| The bodies of the DeFeo family are taken out of the home during the investigation. |
The Murders:
November 14, 1974. It should be noted that due to his violent tendencies, Butch was the only family member who had his own room. Butch had also collected weapons over the years. Because he had his own room, he also had some private storage for the weapons he collected.
While the rest of the family slept, Butch grabbed a .35 caliber Marlin rifle from his closet and headed towards his parents' bedroom. He fired the first shot at his father, shooting him through the back, ripping through his kidney, and exiting through his chest. Butch then fired a second shot through his father's back, piercing Ronald's spine, and lodging in his neck.
Butch's mother, Louise, was beginning to wake at this point. She barely had any time to react before she herself was shot twice. The bullets shattered her rib cage and collapsed her right lung. It didn't take long before Butch moved on to his next victims, his two younger brothers, John and Mark. Butch entered the bedroom they shared and shot them one time each while they slept. Mark didn't move at all. John, who was hit in the spinal cord, twitched for a few moments. After this, Butch moved on to the room shared by his two sisters, Dawn and Allison.
Allison, who was in grade school with John and Mark, woke up to Butch lowering the rifle to her face and pulling the trigger. She was killed instantly. He then turned the gun on Dawn and blew the left side of her face off.
It took Butch less than fifteen minutes to murder his entire family.
Now, I should note that before too long, the family dog started barking. The dog, Shaggy, was tied up at the boathouse down by the water. This is a detail that Butch actually ignored.
After the Murders:
Butch's next step was to set up an alibi for himself. He cleaned himself up, showering and trimming his beard. He took his bloodied clothing and rifle and wrapped them in a pillowcase. Butch drove from the suburbs in Brooklyn, where he disposed of the evidence by throwing it into a storm drain. He then returned to Long Island, and drove the dealership and clocked in for work. Apparently, Butch wasn't at work for very long. He had called his home several times. In a further effort to prevent suspicion, he acted like he was bored, and then left around noon when his father failed to show up for work. He called his girlfriend, 19-year-old Sherry Klein and told her he wanted to come see her. Along the way, he saw his friend Bobby Kelske, and stopped to talk to him. He arrived at Sherry's around 1:30 pm. He casually told her that he couldn't get ahold of his family. He called his home again from Sherry's home.
He then took Sherry shopping, and afterwards they went to Bobby's house. He did about the exact same thing at Bobby's that he did at Sherry's. This time, however, he mentioned that his family appeared to be home.
Butch pretty abruptly changed the topic after this, asking if Bobby was going out later. Bobby told Butch he was going to take a nap, but would be going out to a bar called Henry's around 6:00 pm. Butch spent the rest of the afternoon spending time with friends, drinking and taking heroin (you know, making sure plenty of people saw and talked to him).
While Butch was with Bobby at the bar, he mentioned the whole thing with not being able to contact his family again. Bobby told him to do what he had to. Butch left the bar and returned a few minutes later, feigning agitation and dismay, claiming his parents had been shot.
Butch and Bobby, joined by a small group of bar patrons, immediately got into Butch's car, and drove to the DeFeo home. Bobby ran into the house and raced upstairs to the master bedroom to find Butch's dead parents. One of the other bar patrons, Joey Yeswit found the phone and immediately called the police. Officer Kenneth Geguski was the first officer on the scene, arriving within ten minutes.
He found the group surrounding Butch, who described to be "sobbing uncontrollably." Geguski had discovered the bodies of Butch's parents, as well as those of his brothers. He returned downstairs to call the village police headquarters. Butch had been listening to Geguski's description of what he had seen and told the officer that he also had two sisters. Geguski put the receiver down and immediately ran back upstairs. Around this time, another officer, Edwin Tyndall had arrived on the scene. The two officers went upstairs together to find the bodies of Butch's sisters. It was reported that there was so much blood in the room, that a forensics investigator was required to tell them not only what kind of weapon was used to kill them, but also exactly where they had been shot.
The investigators returned to talking to Butch. They asked Butch if he could think of anyone who would want to hurt his family. He answered: "Louis Falini." Falini was a notorious mob boss that Butch claimed held a grudge against his family. One of the detectives suggested that if Falini was indeed behind the murders (even though he obviously wasn't), that could mean Butch was still a target.
The police brought Butch to the police station to finish questioning Butch as a safety measure. At the station, Butch gave his official written statement. He claimed he was home the night before, watching a movie on TV. At 4:00 am, he walked past the upstairs bathroom and saw his brother's wheelchair in front of the door. He claimed he heard the toilet flush. He also said that because he couldn't go to sleep, he just decided to go to work early. He then said he left early, visited Sherry and Bobby, drank and tried to call his family. When he finally came back home, he got into the house through a kitchen window, and went upstairs to find his parents dead. He then said he ran downstairs and back to Henry's Bar. He grabbed some friends and brought them back to his home. This is when the police were called.
The police brought the questioning back to Falini. Butch said Falini had lived with them for a little bit. Falini allegedy helped Butch and his father carve out a hiding spot for cash and gems. He also said that his father got into an argument with Falini. As Butch was giving up (false) information, he also may have casually mentioned that he used heroin and that he set one of his father's boats on fire so that his father could collect insurance money. The police finished questioning Butch around 3:00 am, and he went to sleep on a cot. At first, Butch appeared to be a cooperative witness. However, things began to change in this regard.
See, the police were actually doing more to investigate the physical evidence. When the investigation was first beginning, the rooms where the murders took place were scoured. Butch's room was just given a once-over. One detail Butch never took into account was the fact that his family were all still in their pajamas when they were killed. A detective actually called him out on this saying: "That indicates to me that it didn't happen at like 1:00 after you had gone to work." As Butch's story was beginning to crumble, he tried to reconstruct the narrative, which the police just weren't buying.
He kept going with the whole Falini angle too, even adding an accomplice for Falini to the story. But, Butch kept talking and eventually implicated himself, even reaching the point where he started describing how he discarded of the evidence. Oops. One of the police officers interrogating Butch made the comment: "They must have made you a piece of it. They must have made you shoot at least one of them - or some of them." At this point, they were still letting Butch go on with story about Louis Falini and his accomplice, who had at one point started taking Butch along with them. Because Butch was a moron, he almost immediately fell for the trap. Finally, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo, Jr. confessed to murdering his family.
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