The Night the Defeos Died: Reinvestigating the Amityville Murders - Paperback

by Ric Osuna (Author)

On November 13, 1974, police received a report of a homicide at 112 Ocean Avenue in the Village of Amityville, New York, a sleepy seaside community located on Long Island's South Shore. Once there, the police discovered six members of the DeFeo family -- father, mother and four of their five children -- shot and killed execution style. The surviving son, Ronald "Butch" DeFeo Jr., was eventually charged and tried for the murder of his family and now is serving six concurrent life sentences. Some said a strong supernatural force in the DeFeo home drove Butch DeFeo to kill his family, while others claimed Butch DeFeo killed to receive an inheritance. The Night the DeFeos Died offers the true story behind this tragedy and exposes Butch DeFeo did not act alone in the commission of this crime. It also shows that the supernatural stories created about the famed Amityville house were nothing, but a ruse concocted for Butch DeFeo's defense that later grew into a cottage industry. The whole truth regarding the story has never been revealed, until the publication of Ric Osuna's book. From mob involvement to a corrupt judicial system, The Night the DeFeos Died reveals the full details of the DeFeo murders, including how they were a culmination of substance abuse and domestic violence.

Author Biography

Ric Osuna spent approximately three years investigating the Amityville case. "Ghosts and demons never dwelled in the Amityville house," says author Ric Osuna. "Only a dysfunctional family that found themselves on the path to cold-blooded murder. A corrupt judicial system, the Italian Mob, and flying demons, this story has it all." Due to the huge surge of interest in his book, author Ric Osuna participated in more than a dozen TV and radio shows across the globe, including A&E's City Confidential and The Travel Channel's On Location series. In addition, The Night the DeFeos Died has been the subject of several editorials in Internet-based and traditional publications, including the New York Post. Beyond Amityville, Ric Osuna is also a documentary filmmaker. His directorial debut was Subversive Doubt, a 2007 feature documentary about the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear repository proposed to house the nation's spent nuclear fuel rods in the barren Nevada desert less than 3 hours away from Las Vegas. Osuna spent over a year interviewing experts that included activists against and proponents for the repository. More recently, Ric Osuna directed The UnAmerican Struggle, a feature-length documentary that examines the resurgence of racism, misogyny, sexism, and xenophobia in America brought about by Donald Trump's words and actions as a candidate, and now his policies as president. The film is currently available via Amazon, iTunes and other digital distribution channels courtesy of the licensed distributor, Cinema Libre Studio.