Amityville: Fact, fiction or fake?

When looking at any poltergeist case, we need to establish whether the events even happened at all. If they didn’t, then we’re dealing with the first and most basic level of faking. What I would call the second level of faking is when the people and place existed, but the events, by and large, did not occur. To find the most famous example that many think fits this description, we need to cross the Atlantic to Suffolk County, New York State, and a small town of just under 10,000 inhabitants called Amityville.

According to the town’s website, Amityville was once the haunt of “stage and theatre personalities, prominent members of society including businessmen, artists, writers and the so-called ‘rich and famous’ Manhattanites.” It was also once the haunt of ‘something’ that became known as the ‘Amityville Horror’ – a story so clouded by movies claiming to be ‘inspired by true events’ that it is now surrounded in legend, the reality of the events obscured (see FT190:32-37, 325:44-46).

What is undoubtedly true is that in November 1974 the DeFeo