Lou Gentile Amityville Week, Night 1

(May 27, 2002)

LOU GENTILE: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, you're listening live to The Lou Gentile Show broadcasting via satellite and also via the internet at www.lougentile.com. Joining me live in the studio is Kevin Mears as usual.

KEVIN MEARS: Good evening everyone.

LOU GENTILE: Now tonight we're going to be speaking with George Lutz and a little bit about George Lutz. He has lived in the Amityville horror house and he is the basis for the books and everything that you've seen about The Amityville Horror. Him and his family lived in there for twenty-eight days and then left. We're going to be speaking with George Lutz and also it's a pleasure to have Lorraine Warren on the show. She's going to be also talking about what her and Ed found out about The Amityville Horror ‚ how they investigated it and everything else like that. So without any further adieu let's bring both of them on the show. George and Lorraine, welcome.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you.

LOU GENTILE: George?

GEORGE LUTZ: Hi.

LOU GENTILE: How you doing?

GEORGE LUTZ: Good, how are you?

LORRAINE WARREN: Hi Lee!

LOU GENTILE: Can you guys hear each other or what? George, can you hear Lorraine?

GEORGE LUTZ: Has she said anything?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, I said "Hi Lee"!

GEORGE LUTZ: Hi Lorraine! How are you?

LORRAINE WARREN: Good, Dear!

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes, I can hear her just fine.

LOU GENTILE: Okay. Alright, now let's see. Oh boy, where do I even start with this?

GEORGE LUTZ: Tell us how Ed is.

LORRAINE WARREN: Ed is sleeping while he's partially watching TV right in the room next to me. So I can look right in there and see him.

GEORGE LUTZ: Is he better?

LORRAINE WARREN: Well, he's home...that's the biggest thing of all. I mean considering the fact that we are very, very, very fortunate, through prayer and faith, to have Ed alive and he is home. I have live-in help that's helping me care for him.

GEORGE LUTZ: Good.

LORRAINE WARREN: But the most important thing is having him home.

KEVIN MEARS: Lorraine?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes?

KEVIN MEARS: Hi, my name's Kevin ‚ we met briefly once. I just wanted to say, I'm very glad to hear about Ed and my prayers go out to him.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you, I hope everyone's prayers go out to ‚ for, him. That is so needed. That's what's got him to the point where he is at and he is watching Tom Brokow on The Price We Pay for Peace because he's a veteran of World War II.

LOU GENTILE: Now, before we go into this, Lorraine, you have your views and what had happened at 112 Ocean Avenue.

LORRAINE WARREN: Okay, I can give you some of the background concerning before we met. To me he is Lee Lutz.

GEORGE LUTZ: That's to me, also.

LORRAINE WARREN: Before we met Lee and Kathy and the children, and Harry the dog, before we met them...let's go back to the night of the tragedy that had occurred thirteen months before George and Kathy ever bought this home. At the exact moment, the exact time, that Ronald DeFeo murdered every one of his family in that home at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Ed's mother passed away. Her death certificate reads the exact time.

LOU GENTILE: Wow.

LORRAINE WARREN: Ed's mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer twenty-two years before with six months to live. We had gone to a shrine in Montreal Canada to pray for a speedy recovery or happy death for his mother. It was very hopeful. His mom lived for twenty-two years and died at that exact same moment. Now at that time, Ed and I were speaking at a University in West Virginia and we had to drive home for her funeral. We had our car so we had no choice, we couldn't fly home and the body was held. We knew nothing about the tragedy that had occurred there in Amityville. We knew nothing about it, whatever, we weren't programmed by it ‚ we knew nothing about the news.

When George and Kathy and the family moved into that home and fled after twenty-eight days ‚ they didn't move out ‚ they fled. And when they did, we were again, on tour and we were out in the Midwest. So, we knew nothing about the news. But when the call came in to us that February day, when that call came in from the media from Marvin Scott to our home...what was any different about that case, about the Amityville case than hundreds and hundreds of cases, that Ed and I had already been involved with...after all, Ed and I have been involved for over fifty years throughout the world with cases. But what was it about that phone call that day that just made me have the eeriest feeling...it was such a strong feeling that I had, that I contacted many priests who had worked with Ed and I in the past and asked if they would enter that home with us in spirit and pray for us and the family. Why? I mean, did I psychically know it? I couldn't have been preprogrammed that's for sure.

LOU GENTILE: So Lorraine, you actually felt that something was wrong when you got that phone call?

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh yeah, so much so ‚ I remember that it angered Ed because I got in the car and I had to get out ‚ I had to leave the house in order to find some peace. But that day had been a beautiful day for Ed and I up until that point in time that afternoon. We had gone out for a ride and went for a really long walk. It was a beautiful day, there was nothing about the day prior to that phone call that could have programmed me to have that tremendous apprehension. But at the post office, when I went over to pick up our mail, at the PO Box, there was an envelope from a man on Long Island by the name of [inaudible]. To this day I have never met the man. He had watched us on TV shows and sent us a package. In that was a great deal of literature and a second class relic of Padre Pio. That man's relic I carried into their home that night.

LOU GENTILE: Now Lorraine isn't it true that you even have a picture of Padre Pio manifesting in the house?

LORRAINE WARREN: In ‚ in the wet bar room which is on the first floor, I got that cupped in my hand and I, it was, it was a horrible feeling in that room, that was awful. I could see bodies all lined up, I could see sheets over them. It was the DeFeos, I guess, that I was looking at. And I just hugged that, tightened that relic in my hand and hugged it to me and, you know, prayed for God's strength. I prayed, I prayed to Padre Pio for the gift of discernment ‚ to help me with my discernment and to also protect us ‚ the researchers.

Now in the meantime, after I had gone out to the post office to get this, not knowing it was there of course, Ed had contacted many people who entered that house with us. Although there are people today that are surfacing that said they went in to George and Kathy's home, they never were in that home. We were the chief investigators going in there, which Lee will tell you, and we brought the people that were there. The president of the American Society for Psychic Research a parapsychologist and his wife were friends of ours, people from Duke ‚ we brought these people in to that house. All of these people claiming that this was a hoax, that they were in that house, they were never in that house! What are they basing "hoax" on?

Ed put up, prior to Ed becoming so critically ill fourteen months ago, Ed put up a ten thousand dollar reward for anyone that would prove to him beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was any hoax connected to that house. Not one person, not one person ever claimed it. And now, today, who are these people that are coming forward? Who are they? What have they got to gain? And truthfully, how many people know how very, very little George and Kathy, the children got out of that case? How many people really know how very, very little they ever received? We have been behind them 100% since we were in that house. That home has affected our personal lives more than any case we ever worked on and we will always be 100% behind them.

LOU GENTILE: Now Lorraine, what exactly do you think made The Amityville Horror case what it is? I mean, why was it so widely publicized? Was it because people tried to get in there and they got agitated that they couldn't get in to experience what was in the house?

LORRAINE WARREN: It's probably...Ed and I have been all over the world, I mean involved, and like Ed will say so many times that you can go in the smallest village in the most remote area of the world and say ‚ about Amityville, and they know what you're talking about. It's the most famous haunted home in the world.

Now, George and Kathy didn't set out to move into the most famous haunted house in the world. Under no circumstances whatsoever. They went into a house and tried to make that their dream home. George was going to have his business out of there. I still have, I still have...and moved from Ed's room, right next to me here, out onto the porch, the same plant, the little plant, that he gave me that belonged to his grandfather. I still have that. And I think about, I think about the shows, I think about all the nonsense that came up because of the priest involved and how they would say there was no priest. Because we were asked to protect the identity of that priest and so were the Lutzes asked to and we did because of the fact that we knew how important it was to do it. But then finally it got out who Father Pecoraro was, that he was the priest involved. And finally it was released and still, and still they would find something else. But that case is a true case of demonic infestation that could have destroyed that family.

LOU GENTILE: Now Lorraine, the house at 112 Ocean Avenue, do you think that by any chance, all the controversy that was wrapped up around it, do you think it could have been like ‚ if there wasn't so much publicity towards it ‚ would it have been just another case that you worked on?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, yes it would have. It would just been another case. But it was, it was...maybe it was the timing, maybe that's what it was. But it was...maybe it was what the public was looking for. Tam Mossman was the editor. He then, years later, wanted our biography and it was Tam Mossman who was our editor of The Demonologist. And...did it start from there? Yes, it could have. And Jay Anson wrote that book just on tapes, you know, that George and Kathy, you know, sent to him. That's all.

GEORGE LUTZ: Could I add something here?

LORRAINE WARREN: Pardon?

GEORGE LUTZ: Could I add something here?

LORRAINE WARREN: Sure, please!

GEORGE LUTZ: What most people don't know Lorraine, is that you and Ed came down at the request of Laura Didio and met with Kathy and I and decided that you really needed to have more people there than just yourselves, so you went back twice. And what you organized for the second time was probably as good an investigation as could be put together at the time given all our considerations involved with the media that demanded to be a part of it, and Laura Didio worked for them so there wasn't much choice there.

All the people you brought in including Mary Pascarella, and their qualifications were exemplary. They all had years and years of investigating these kinds of houses or phenomena. And the reason you did that was because of what you sensed when you went the first time was ‚ from my understanding ‚ was you realized it was something bigger than what you should try to deal with yourselves.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh it was very big. It was extremely big. Do you remember, Lee, do you remember how Ed, who is never affected, how it was the men who were affected the most in this case.

GEORGE LUTZ: He was ‚ I had always thought of Ed as fearless, and yet he complained of the attack of tachycardia ‚ the racing of his heart ‚ and I think it jarred him in a way that he really couldn't explain to us because we were already...didn't know what to think about anything and here's someone that comes highly recommended, who has been all over, and if I recall correctly about Ed, he's the ‚ he was court-marshaled for missing a troop ship movement and then was exonerated when the ship went down and he had seen that the ship was going to go down and nobody believed him. [unintelligible]

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah, I do remember that.

GEORGE LUTZ: Ed is a real hero, and always has been in my mind. And he's a tough guy. For all of his education and experience, he's a very, very tough experienced man. His first experience in there was not something that was comfortable, it wasn't something that was usual for you to have had to go through on your own so he wanted more people there. I don't know if that's the right way to put that for you. I don't mean to put words in your mouth.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, it is and you put that very well. And then, I did not know as I went to go up the stairway onto the second floor, I didn't know that Ed wasn't behind me. You know, the media were there, and I didn't know that he wasn't behind me at all.

GEORGE LUTZ: This was the first time you went in before you went back with the... (Lorraine cuts in)

LORRAINE WARREN: That was when, uh, Marvin Scott and Laura Didio and Gene Campbell was taking the photographs throughout the house.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay, that was March 6th as I recall.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. That was March 6th.

GEORGE LUTZ: But before that, you were there before that without Gene Campbell.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, that was the second time, you're right. And when I started to walk up the stairs, it was as if, as if you were like walking against a waterfall. A force that was so strong. But never, never did I know that Ed wasn't behind me. But as a religious demonologist, Ed waited for the time when he could be really by himself to provoke in the name of Jesus Christ for what was there to reveal its identity. And he went down into the basement and took the relic ‚ that cross with the relic of the true cross in it ‚ and commanded in the name of Jesus Christ for what was there. Now, unbeknown to me, that is happening at the exact time that I'm under attack walking up the stairs and he felt, as he described it, like somebody took a very hot, wet blanket and threw it right over the top of him so that his heart pounded ‚ what you're talking about ‚ and it was almost impossible for him to catch his breath. And he had to then command that, in Christ's name, to leave and to go back to where it came from. But then he didn't talk about that, he didn't talk about that for a long time. So, it affected him, yes it did affect him very, very badly. And it was that night going home when... you remember, I had fasted and I was very, very hungry ‚ I just wanted something, anything ‚ you'd never, ever, ever have to ask Ed to stop for something to eat.

Everyone: (laughing)

LORRAINE WARREN: Ever!

LOU GENTILE: As we all know from experience, right? (laughing)

LORRAINE WARREN: I mean, honest to God,you know, you'd say something about that Diner you passed, he'd say "Why, did we pass a Diner?" Because you know, believe me, you'd never, ever have to ask!

And Ed is, Ed has always took tremendous pride in his driving, like he has no motor vehicle, you know, thank God, encounters whatsoever, in any category. And he drove erratically going home. Something, something was very wrong. Something was so, so wrong. I knew that. I knew something was so, so wrong. Now this is the first time, Lee...

GEORGE LUTZ: Do you remember what we...while you're on and I can ask you, rather than me say it, I think I'd rather have you answer it. Do you remember how little, or what information you were given before you went in there and how the circumstances came about that we ‚ that you got the keys to go in there with Laura Didio?

LORRAINE WARREN: Um, we met you at the pizza parlor.

GEORGE LUTZ: Did you and I talk to each other, for example, before that or did we, Kathy and I, sit down and tell you anything about what was going on or anything like that?

LORRAINE WARREN: No, no.

GEORGE LUTZ: My memory of it is that we kind of wanted you to go in cold without knowing anything and see if you found anything.

LORRAINE WARREN: We really did not know until we met with you and Kathy and Kathy's mom, and the children and the dog at Kathy's Mother's house for supper with Father Pecoraro.

GEORGE LUTZ: That was after the second time you were in there?

LORRAINE WARREN: That was after the second time and that's when we got really ‚ the whole story.

GEORGE LUTZ: Kinda filled in on what had gone on for us, yeah. That's the way I recall it, and so often my memory isn't the same as someone else's that's why I was asking you.

LORRAINE WARREN: Mmm hmm, that's when...I remember how this annoyed Ed, we met you at the pizza parlor and Ed takes out the recorder and asked you what happened and you kept saying to him, "you know". Oh, Lee if you ever knew how upset he was! Because you kept saying "you know".

LOU GENTILE: Alright guys, I gotta take a short break and when we come back to The Lou Gentile Show, we'll be speaking more with George Lutz and Lorraine Warren right after this.

[break]

LOU GENTILE: Alright, let's get back on the line with George and Lorraine, welcome back guys.

Both: Thank you.

LOU GENTILE: Alright, now Lorraine, can you explain to the listening audience exactly what happened the first day you actually investigated the Amityville house at 112 Ocean Avenue ‚ when you pulled up into the driveway.

LORRAINE WARREN: Well, when I first entered the home, the first emotion, and it was emotion it wasn't any psychic discernment, was one of terrible sadness and depression. But don't forget, I'm in a home that has known such a horrible tragedy with one family and a second tragedy with the Lutzes. And then I began to walk around and it was, it was incredibly sad to walk around that house. Everything that this couple owned was there. All furniture and important things inherited by George's grandfather...Parry, I believe the last name is Parry, am I right?

GEORGE LUTZ: Parry, yes.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. And looking at all of these very, very valuable things...looking at a, one of the gingerbread houses that Kathy had made the children on the dining room table...looking at bolts and bolts of yardage of material for drapes that was in the different rooms for probably reupholstering and making drapes.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh, you're reminding me. We had, Kathy and I had signed up for a class at, I think it was Amityville High School, a night class to learn how to reupholster. We were going to reupholster the dining room set that we had bought from the estate.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes...

GEORGE LUTZ: And then I think, possibly use the rest for curtains to go with the dining room as well.

LORRAINE WARREN: And that's what I remember.

GEORGE LUTZ: That's what the cloth was, yes.

LORRAINE WARREN: That's what all that cloth was, yup.

LOU GENTILE: Now what exactly had happened, I mean now George you had left the house and then...

LORRAINE WARREN: They fled the house. Don't say left. They fled.

LOU GENTILE: Right. Well, I know that.

LORRAINE WARREN: They fled in the middle of the night.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well...

LOU GENTILE: (laughing) Lorraine, you're always correcting me!

LORRAINE WARREN: (laughing) Lou you know me!

LOU GENTILE: I know, I know!

KEVIN MEARS: Lorraine, I don't blame you, I gotta keep him in line all the time too.

ALL: (laughing)

GEORGE LUTZ: My memory of it Lorraine is that we left really late afternoon.

LORRAINE WARREN: Well I thought you went there ‚ I thought you left at night.

GEORGE LUTZ: No, well it was pretty much dark by the time we got to Kathy's Mom's house. That I recall.

LORRAINE WARREN: (laughing still ) Okay.

GEORGE LUTZ: So, that would be night time but it's winter so it's dark.

LORRAINE WARREN: That's right. That's right, it was Winter.

LOU GENTILE: So basically Lorraine, you're walking into a house that the people just basically everything that they were doing ‚ was just left there?

LORRAINE WARREN: I'll tell you, and Lee will remember this. In the kitchen, um, were all the dishes from supper. And all the plants were sitting on the counter, on the uh, sink, on the set-tubs and like that. Probably to be watered. Of course, they had died, naturally. And it was, it was just a very sad feeling. The whole, the full effects of that house did not reach me until I began to go up the stairs onto that second floor, then it was ‚ my first comment, and that was in the red room. Er, not the red room, the uh, sewing room. When I went in the sewing room and...now remember, I knew nothing about this house. This is very important for you to know. I didn't know about all the flies. I didn't know about the priest and what had happened to him there. I didn't know any of these things prior to going in. George at the pizza parlor was so frightened to tell us what had happened. The priest had told him, "The more you talk about it," which is true, "the more recognition you give." And so, he didn't talk about it, he didn't talk. He didn't talk until we were to meet with Father Pecoraro who set it up on St. Joseph's Day and he braked ‚ baked ‚ St. Joseph's bread for us. That was some evening. That was some evening, believe me. That was outside of the Amityville home.

Now, this night in the Amityville house, when I went in the sewing room, I remember saying "I hope this is as close to Hell as I'll ever get." That is what I felt in that room. That was awful in that room.

LOU GENTILE: Which room was that?

LORRAINE WARREN: The sewing room.

LOU GENTILE: The Sewing room. Okay.

LORRAINE WARREN: That was absolutely terrible in that room. Then I went into the room that the little girl, your daughter....Kathy's little girl...

GEORGE LUTZ: Missy's, yeah.

LORRAINE WARREN: And, oh my God, it's like, it's like they were all there to greet me. All of these... spirits all ...oh it was it...I can't begin to tell you, the feeling. The feelings were all very, very depressing. They were there almost mocking you. It was, it was horrible. It was horrible. And I felt, I felt, George and Kathy's...I felt their fears, their anxieties and...you have to understand the kind of a man ‚ I mean, you're, you're describing my husband as being a tough guy, well (laughing) George Lutz isn't exactly a sissy! I'll tell you that right off the bat. I mean, both George, both George Lutz and my husband ‚ they are, they are tough. They are no nonsense men. And yet that broke that man right down, that home. Then I went into the master bedroom across the hall, right across the hall...went into that room. And I remember standing in the doorway of that room and really not even wanting to go in there. And I went to my right and went in a little room that was kind of like ‚ I don't know whether you were setting that up like a little study for yourself, but all of your clothes were in there in the closet.

GEORGE LUTZ: It was like a sitting room.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. And I remember going in there and everything, all those beautiful suits, all of your clothing, all of the personal things. And then there was the closet there with the linen and everything all folded. And then I went back to the master bedroom. And I looked at that mirrored wall and I sat on that bed and I could not believe that...what came over me ‚ it was, I uh, the anxiety, the horrible evil that I felt there ‚ the pain that I felt. I'm sitting on the bed, the bed, the very bed that the Defeo's ‚ Mr. and Mrs. DeFeo ‚ were murdered in.

GEORGE LUTZ: No, that's not true Lorraine.

LORRAINE WARREN: It is not?

GEORGE LUTZ: No. That was Kathy's and my bed.

LORRAINE WARREN: Well, I'm sitting on it.

GEORGE LUTZ: Right.

LORRAINE WARREN: In the same room...

GEORGE LUTZ: Actually, occupying the same space. I think it was set up in the same way.

LORRAINE WARREN: The same space.

GEORGE LUTZ: But it was never the bed that the DeFeo's had, it was Kathy's and mine.

LORRAINE WARREN: Okay. And I'm, I'm also, sitting on a bed that you both levitated from.

GEORGE LUTZ: Uh, I didn't, there. Kathy did it there, in that house. I levitated over ató

LORRAINE WARREN: That's where you looked and she was in the air.

GEORGE LUTZ: Right. Um, we both levitated together over in Kathy's mom's house.

LORRAINE WARREN: Kathy's mother's home.

GEORGE LUTZ: Right. But Kathy would lift up off the bed and slide away or just move away from me like she had no weight to her and head towards the wall...

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

GEORGE LUTZ: ...while we were laying in bed.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah and when you stood in the doorway that time and watched.

GEORGE LUTZ: Yeah.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, I remember that. But, then when it came time to go onto the third floor, I...my recollection of that third floor is almost erased from my mind. I don't, I don't know why, but it's almost erased from my mind. I really did not want to go up there. I did not want to go up to that third floor of the house. Uh, that, that home, I find so difficult to believe. I know that there are haunted homes. I know that families can move out of and other families can move in and nothing might ever happen. But not that house. Not that house at all. I cannot, I always said, that if I were given that home as a gift, I wouldn't want it. I really would not want it. And I have to say, as I have said so many times before, that that home affected our personal lives more than any case we ever worked on. It continued to follow us. It followed us right here to our own home.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well, of all the investigators and all the people that were there on March 6th, 1976, I understand that you are the only people still living in the same place. Everyone else that was in there, that house, has moved at least once since then.

LORRAINE WARREN: Mmhmm. No, we're still living in our same home. We're still living here. But the thing is, it had such far-ranging effects on us. Think what happened, which we'll probably talk about tomorrow night Lee...is coming home from that University in Pennsylvania and just talking about your case and what happened with that car. That brand new Ford Elite car.

GEORGE LUTZ: The black one?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. Think about that. Think about when I called you from the phone before we left New Jersey and when we were coming out to California. Think about that growling on that phone. When the operator said "what's that?" And I just hung up. And then we called you back again, again after the lecture that night and the same growling on the phone. All of these...

GEORGE LUTZ: I had forgotten that. I [unintelligible] on so many different times, you know, I'd just, I'd forgotten.

LORRAINE WARREN: We want to forget certain things.

LOU GENTILE: I can imagine. Lorraine, let me ask you a question. There was a photograph that was taken by Ed in the house, and it showed a little boy ...

LORRAINE WARREN: No, nothing was taken by Ed. Not one photograph was ever taken by Ed. The photographs were taken by Gene Campbell.

LOU GENTILE: Okay.

LORRAINE WARREN: Remember, he was acting as a photographer for us.

LOU GENTILE: Okay.

LORRAINE WARREN: He was a man from Newtown, Connecticut who had processed so many of our photographs into slides for our University lectures. And, he always wanted to go in on a case with us. So, this was just another case. And he took all of these photographs ‚ some infrared, most in black and white ‚ and one of them does show something looking out of the little girl's bedroom. Yes, it does.

LOU GENTILE: Now, there are some people that say that it could actually be one of the children or something like that, do ...

LORRAINE WARREN: We, we don't know who that is.

LOU GENTILE: No?

LORRAINE WARREN: No we don't. We don't really know.

GEORGE LUTZ: Ask Lorraine if there were any children there that day. That would probably be the best way to go...

LORRAINE WARREN: No, no there were no children. (laughing) Definitely, I wouldn't bring any children in that house. No, there was no children with us.

GEORGE LUTZ: Did I ever tell you the story, Lorraine of how that photograph was discovered by us?

LORRAINE WARREN: No.

GEORGE LUTZ: We were in the process of putting together what we were going to tentatively call The Amityville Horror Picture Book years ago, this would be back in 1979 or so, and Gene Campbell still had the camera emporium shop...

LORRAINE WARREN: That's right!

GEORGE LUTZ: And he had sent me out the originals to put all of that together and in, of those pictures that he set up on the second floor landing, the ones that were created on the black and white, infrared photography, they were automatically set-off so that the camera would, just every once in awhile wherever the timer, was, would take a picture automatically.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah, that's right. Yes.

GEORGE LUTZ: And the girl that was typing up the notes that we had for a secretary, at the time, she was I think in her seventh or eighth month pregnant, um, and we had probably fifteen or twenty at least of these photographs that were all the same. And she asked which one we wanted to pick, and I said, "Just pick one, it really doesn't matter because they were all the same so no sense in putting all of those in the picture book." And she went through them for some reason and every time she picked up that one picture, her baby would jump inside of her stomach. And she kept looking at it trying to figure out why it was that picture and then she found that and brought that in to me into my office and asked me who that was. And I said I have no idea, let me ask Missy and went and got Missy and asked her ‚ she said "that's the little boy I used to play with."

LORRAINE WARREN: I remember. "The little boy I used to play with." Oh my God. I remember that. Yes, I do remember that.

GEORGE LUTZ: Because everyone thought all of those pictures were the same, no one had seen anything in there.

LORRAINE WARREN: No. And you know what I always remember too, this is another thing I always remember Lee. Especially where the public listening to us talking. When we had met you, and we went someplace, all of us in the Winnebago, I don't know if it was one of our lectures at the schools, I don't know what it was.

GEORGE LUTZ: I think it was San Diego.

LORRAINE WARREN: But, okay. We were walking alone with the children, Ed and I. Ed and I were walking alone with the children, I don't know why. And those innocent little kids were relating to us, without certainly, without us asking questions, about things that occurred to them in that house.

GEORGE LUTZ: Now I never knew that. I never knew that you had even had discussions with them that way.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, yes. After they would open, to us.

GEORGE LUTZ: So this was a couple years later out in California?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, when we came out to California.

GEORGE LUTZ: What kind of things were they telling you?

LORRAINE WARREN: About the things that had occurred. Especially Missy. Missy told about her friends, told about the rocking chair incident, talked about things that had occurred. The little girl, she was, she was probably ‚ had a very high degree of sensitivity. The little girl. And you know what? That little kid was very brave. For some reason she was too young to be frightened or intimidated by certain things. She truly believed that they were little playmates that were there. It was frightening. It was very, very, very frightening.

But to hear the things that you related to us, that night, when you finally began to talk...oh, gosh. I think back of it, I think of the horror concerning a 28-day period that you lived in that house. But for the public to understand it all is very, very far reaching. It's very hard for people to understand how these things came to you, how you were able to hear what you were able to hear with that German marching band; how you were able to see that carpeting all rolled up; how you were able to see all of that goo come out of the stairs.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well actually it was the keyholes. The, um, the doors in the, especially on the 2nd floor...

LORRAINE WARREN: The keyholes in the doors.

GEORGE LUTZ: The keyholes had these black drips that, um, kept getting larger and larger. But it wasn't like the walls were bleeding blood or anything like that.

LORRAINE WARREN: No. Of course not. But the thing is that for the, for the public to realize that even where things seemed like they exploded, nothing really broke. It's just that that was a telepathic projection to you. That was to frighten, that was to terrify, that was to break you down. And it did. And it did.

GEORGE LUTZ: We would be laying in bed and Harry would, our dog, the black lab, would be laying by the front door. And the front door in that house was a very big, solid wooden door.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

GEORGE LUTZ: And it's an unmistakable sound when that door would close, and you could hear it in the house probably from anywhere.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes of course. Yes I agree.

GEORGE LUTZ: And you would be upstairs and it would be just about time to be asleep, or you'd be asleep, or you would think you were asleep, and you would hear the door slam. And I would run down the stairs and Harry would still be asleep and you would know that the door had not slammed but there was an unmistakable sound that it had occurred. That's what Ed would describe that ‚ the way you just did.

LORRAINE WARREN: And that was projected to you. And of course, it could easily do it in this home because there's a central hallway that goes all the way up the three stories. The stairway goes right up three stories high. The home, the home actually is very beautiful, but I don't want it. But it is a very beautiful house.

LOU GENTILE: Alright, um, I really don't want to stop, but I know you gotta run Lorraine.

LORRAINE WARREN: I do, I still have to give Ed meds. And I have to do a lot with Ed before I can even go to sleep.

LOU AND KEVIN: Thank you Lorraine.

LOU GENTILE: My prayers are with you and for Ed.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thanks a million!

LOU GENTILE: And I hope all the listeners out there are also praying for Ed.

LORRAINE WARREN: I certainly hope and pray they are. And goodnight Lee, I'll be talking to you tomorrow night and love to everybody.

GEORGE LUTZ: I'll look forward to it, goodnight Lorraine.

KEVIN MEARS: God bless.

LORRAINE WARREN: God bless, bye-bye.

LOU GENTILE: Alright Lee, we're gonna take a short break and when we return to Lou Gentile, we're going to be speaking with George Lutz and we're gonna get on the phone with John Zaffis and we're gonna be talking about what happened at 112 Ocean Avenue with that 28 days.

[off-topic talk excised ‚ break]

LOU GENTILE: And we're back to The Lou Gentile Show, live here with Kevin Mears.

KEVIN MEARS: Good evening.

LOU GENTILE: And we're speaking here with George Lutz ‚ the George Lutz who was the basis, and is the basis for the book The Amityville Horror. Lived in the house, fled from the house 28 days later. Lived in the most haunted house in human history. I would say that's pretty accurate don't you think Kev, or what?

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah! I was just thinking about it earlier today and it is definitely the most famous and most haunted in U.S. History if not the world. There aren't a lot of houses that come close to that degree of activity.

LOU GENTILE: Nope. And with us on the line right now, I'm going to introduce Mr. John Zaffis. John Zaffis is the nephew of Ed Warren, John has been ghost busting and ghost hunting for 28 years and he's a direct blood descendant demonologist of Ed Warren. John, welcome.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Hey Lou, how you doin'?

LOU GENTILE: Good how are you doing?

JOHN ZAFFIS: Okay.

LOU GENTILE: Well, I know this is, this is going to be a first for you too.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Yes it is!

LOU GENTILE: (laughing) You know, so, this is going to be interesting.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Well, you have to remember Lou, for the past uh, 28 years that Amityville has existed I've heard more about Amityville and more of the stories and more of the debunking of it than any, uh, individual I could possibly think of. So, for me it's a great opportunity to finally get on the air and talk a little bit about it and uh, it's a good thing.

LOU GENTILE: Alright well without any further adieu I'd like to welcome back George Lutz, welcome George.

GEORGE LUTZ: Hi Lou, how are you?

LOU GENTILE: Alright. Ah now, what I...

GEORGE LUTZ: Hello John!

JOHN ZAFFIS: Hi George! How ya doin'?

GEORGE LUTZ: I'm fine, how are you?

JOHN ZAFFIS: Okay.

LOU GENTILE: Ok now, I was just gonna introduce them but, that's Okay.

All: (laughing)

LOU GENTILE: You guys are always a step ahead of me I'll tell ya!

JOHN ZAFFIS: You're too slow Lou!

LOU GENTILE: I'm telling ya!

JOHN ZAFFIS: (laughs)

LOU GENTILE: Anyway. But anyway...

GEORGE LUTZ: You make me nervous when you say "The George Lutz" or words to that effect.

LOU GENTILE: Oh alright fine, I'll just call you Lee like everyone else. I don't know, I'm just [unintelligible] ever since you called into the show that one time, I'm just like..."um...Mr. George Lutz" ya know?! But anyway, Lee, um...if you could explain to the listening audience as well as John, what exactly led up to you going into that house after you purchased it, and then fleeing the house 28 days later. Could you possibly let everyone know exactly what happened?

GEORGE LUTZ: There's probably a little bit of background I could give you that would help...

LOU GENTILE: Sure. Whatever you think is going to help.

GEORGE LUTZ: ...you understand even how the finances went for that house. Kathy and I were married the previous July and we each owned a house. And Kathy had her three kids, and we wanted a new house for the new marriage. So the idea was to sell both houses, and if we could find something on the water where I wouldn't have to pay the docking fees for my boat, and we would have that savings as well, then we would be financially way ahead of having the two...keeping the two houses or...plus the rental for the boat and the travel back and forth and all the rest. So, the idea was to go out and find a house that would suit us in as many ways as possible.

I recall that we looked at 40, 50, 60 homes. We spent most of the summer doing that. We put our homes up for sale. Kathy's home sold first. So, she and the kids moved into my house in Deer Park. And, eventually we bumped into the Amityville house, um, just...the way I would describe it is by accident. The realtor said "I have something I want to show you." She had shown us some other houses before that and...as soon as Kathy walked in the front door, she just had this smile like "this was it." And...that hadn't happened in all of the homes we had looked at. In all of the different...and we'd looked at every price range possible, as well, that we could conceivably figure out a way to work out financially. And when she had that smile on her face it was like "Okay, let's see if we can figure this one out".

The house was on the market for $100,000 if I recall correctly we made an offer of 80. It was accepted. I applied for a mortgage from one bank. My credit was excellent. We got approved immediately for a $60,000 mortgage. We had more than enough money to put the $20,000 cash down payment, and I think the closing costs with the insurance and the title fees and the attorneys and all the rest ‚ and we bought some furniture from the estate ‚ was another $4,000 or so.

We moved my boat over to the boathouse there, and we had, I had just bought another boat that we hadn't even used yet. It was new for us. It was a speedboat. And we moved that in. And I built some Harley Davidson motorcycles as a hobby then, and we moved those over and my tools and what was left of the furniture from both of our homes, and we moved into this beautiful 4,000 square foot home on the water with a heated pool, full basement, boathouse, garage, and we thought we were home.

When I told a friend of mine what house we were buying, he made me promise that I would get the house blessed. I didn't know what that was at the time. I was a non-practicing Methodist, if there is a proper way to describe that. And I asked Kathy what a house blessing was. She was Catholic, and she explained it to me and the only priest I knew was a priest by the name of Father Ralph Pecoraro that um, was an ecclesiastical judge at the Diocesan Offices in Rockville Center New York. He was, uh, a therapist as well ‚ he had his degree in, in therapy and he was a judge and a lawyer in the Catholic Church court there. I didn't realize that he wasn't a, uh, I guess that you could call a Parish Priest where he went out and normally did house blessings. But I had met him when my previous marriage, which had lasted about six months, um, had been annulled and I had then called him a courtesy for those proceedings, met him and he and I had spoken from time to time over the phone since the time that I had met him. He hadn't met Kathy until the day that he came and showed up to see the house to bless it. I think they had spoken on the phone at least once before he came over.

He showed up while we were moving into the house. Uh, the day that we moved we had the trucks and trailers and van and all packed and we went from our house in Deer Park to the closing and then went to the house to move in with all our stuff. We were, I was unloading the truck and he came and I waved and in he went. Um, that was moving day, first day into the house. Twenty eight days later we left and it wasn't like immediately there were problems of every single kind or every kind of phenomenon ‚ it was the kind of thing that got worse and more noticeable as time went on. And I have believed always since then that one of the ingredients to cause that ‚ that one of the things that made the place uninhabitable ‚Ýwas the house blessing. And then subsequently when...when Kathy and I believed that we needed to do it again, ourselves, and what happened then when we went through the house saying the Lord's prayer and trying to rid the house of the noises and the odors and the different things that had been happening...it got to the point where our last night in the house, uh, was an experience for all five of us that individually you would have thought that we were each in five different houses when we recalled it and talked about it later to ourselves.

We called Father Ray that day and he asked us what we were still doing in the house and that was a question that didn't occur to us to leave...I mean everything of ours was there ‚ it was our house ‚ we just wanted to figure out what was wrong with it and somehow get it fixed. We wanted him to come back and do another house blessing or whatever you do. At that point his words were so strange to us, "what are you still doing in the house," and many times we had tried to call him and been unable to get a hold of him ...we'd connect and then the phone would go dead or there would be a buzzing on the phone line. There would be interference of some kind.

We grabbed some changings of clothes and the dog and we got in the van to leave, and the car didn't start and it was just like right out of a movie. You know we made the commitment to leave, we had just basically gone running around trying to stay together to leave the house and we got in the van and it wouldn't start. And one of the things that I had done with the ignition system in that car was to put in a transistor ignition ‚ it was a '74 Ford one ton super duty van, and it had a button on it, you could go out and switch it ‚ if you lifted the hood up you could switch it back to conventional or ignition, and I just got out of the car and pushed the button and got back in the car and tried to start it ‚ it started right up and we left and we moved to Kathy's mom's house and we did not go back to the house as a family. We didn't go back and get our things or ...um, the kids never saw the house again. We moved, eventually moved to California on Mother's Day of that, later that year.

LOU GENTILE: Now George, in the house you described knockings and bangings ...

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: were these things that you could not explain? I mean, this is gonna sound stupid, granted of what went on, but these were things that you could not explain physically from the real world ‚ these were something that you couldn't just explain, correct?

GEORGE LUTZ: Well let me preface that. I don't think that when you ask a question, or when you're trying to understand something here, that its "stupid," Okay? I don't think that I can always explain it well enough for someone to understand the way I mean it, so maybe I'm the stupid one instead.

The...I think what you're asking me is ...we had a thing where we would be sitting in the dining room...or the kitchen rather, there was a nook there where the table in a built in bell shape, upholstered area and some chairs and we'd be sitting there with some friends and you would hear footsteps overhead on the second floor walking around and you'd go upstairs and all the kids would be in their beds. And you wouldn't have a way to explain to yourself where those footsteps came from. And that would happen and then you'd try to dismiss it and then you would have friends over and you would be sitting there and you would look at them and you would ask them if they heard the footsteps also and when they did you would be partially relieved you would think "Okay, I'm not going crazy here, um they hear it too." And you'd go upstairs and you'd take one of them with you and they would see that the kids were asleep also. Um, that kind of thing, that's the beginnings of things that would just be so unnerving you would just start making a list in your mind of this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong.

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, I didn't mean it to sound like, you know, "stupid," but what I meant was...

GEORGE LUTZ: No, no, I didn't take it that way.

LOU GENTILE: I mean with all that you went through in that house, I just want the listeners to understand that, you know, these things weren't just things that you were picking out of your mind and you were saying everything in the house was, you know, supernatural or ghosts.

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh my goodness, no. It was very slow. It's a very difficult thing to explain to someone that hasn't experienced it but it's a process that's slow it's not like all of a sudden your first night is hell. There were changes in all of us as time went on ‚ the more time we spent there. And when we left the house, we were not the same people that had moved in, we were...aside from being frightened and disoriented and without sleep and way over-tired and having had so many things confront us that we couldn't explain ‚ didn't make any sense, just certain things that we had no idea could even go on, um, we were not the same people as a family unit when we left there 28 days later. We ‚ there was a change in all of us. It was, so many things would happen to one of the....let me see if I can explain this how I mean it...

Our perceptions individually, we didn't have a chance to compare them very often while we were in the house. But after we left and we would talk about this, um, what Kathy thought what was going on for me or what I thought was going on for her was really quite different from um, what really was. There was a sense of confusion that kind of moved in with us throughout this time, too.

LOU GENTILE: Did the house have some kind of a personality to it did you notice after awhile?

GEORGE LUTZ: One of the things that you noticed right away was the deadness of sound in the house...there wasn't a resonance ‚ you could be on the front porch and the sun would be out and you would look outside and you would see a car drive past and you wouldn't hear it. The outside noises didn't penetrate into the house. And... for example, the last night we were in the house we knew that there was a terrible terrific storm going on outside. And yet the weather bureau, whatever, afterwards people checked and said there was no such thing. Well, for us, in the house, that was going on outside. I don't really care what the weather bureau had to say about it later or even what the neighbors experienced. For us, there was a terrible storm going on outside.

LOU GENTILE: So in other words, you looked out the window and it was raining and...

GEORGE LUTZ: No, it was the wind and the noise from that ‚ that did come through the windows that we did hear.

LOU GENTILE: Okay.

GEORGE LUTZ: Okay, That was a time when that was very, very, very, very strong. Um, prior to that that was the kind of thing that was unusual. But it was so memorable; it was such a strong indelible kind of memory. And so when Anson did the book from the tapes that Kathy and I did, um just trying to undo this when we were talking about it, um, after we were in Kathy's Mom's house, we just sat down and did a series of about 26 cassette tapes just talking, about this. And then um, and then Anson when we eventually met him and he agreed to try to write a book, um, he had a very difficult job of trying to put together any kind of a book from those tapes. Nothing was chronological it was...we skipped all around and our language certainly wasn't the best. We were drinking at the times when we were doing those recordings. Um, by the time I left the house I was drinking pretty heavily without a doubt.

LOU GENTILE: Oh well I'd probably be doing the same thing.

GEORGE LUTZ: And for a number of years after that. See, the confusion that set in and that was the point I was really trying to make ‚ it wasn't slow, it was a progressive thing. And I think the house considered it ‚ years later when I look back, at the time I considered the house being very patient, it was willing to wait. But when we went around blessing the house again, it really got...that got it kind of upset. It didn't like that.

LOU GENTILE: Now John, I know you're soaking this in, you gotta be if you're like me! John, do you have any questions for George?

JOHN ZAFFIS: Um, no, not really. Um, I'm listening to everything that George is explaining and listening to all the details and Lou, you know as well as I do, to listen to what George is telling you and being involved in the research not only from the Lutzes type of case, but how many other cases over the years ‚ it's the same type of scenario with listening to George talking about trying to explain the tappings and the rappings that it starts out very light and then it escalates as time goes on. This is very classic with your personality changes when everybody starts to go through all these types of withdrawals, their personalities totally change. This is very, very characteristic when you're dealing with a demonic in these types of homes. So the amount of information that George is actually explaining first hand is very very good, and not only that, it's something that I've heard thousands and thousands of times before from other people. So it's good to hear it from George first hand.

LOU GENTILE: George, can we take a call?

GEORGE LUTZ: Oh sure.

LOU GENTILE: Okay. You're on The Lou Gentile Show. Hello?

CALLER: Hi, I'm sorry, are you allowed to make comments?

LOU GENTILE: We're actually on the air right now would you like to talk to George Lutz?

CALLER: Um sure, I would love to thank you.

LOU GENTILE: He's waiting for you to ask your question.

GEORGE LUTZ: Yell at me so I can hear you please.

CALLER: Oh, hi George, my name is Marcie [unintelligible]. I'm sorry if I'm a little hard to hear you. I just had a comment I just wanted to say, I really have a lot of admiration for you and I can't even imagine what it must have been like for you to go through all this stuff and I just think you're a really strong person and I hope things are going better for you now. I hope you're at peace.

GEORGE LUTZ: That's very kind of you. Thank you.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Hi Marcie, it's nice to finally talk to you.

CALLER: Hi there.

JOHN ZAFFIS: It's John Zaffis.

CALLER: Oh hi John, how are you? I'm sorry, I thought I was talking to George.

LOU GENTILE: Well you are. George is there as well as John.

CALLER: I'm sorry, I find it so hard to hear you guys.

[off-topic talk excised]

LOU GENTILE: Alright, thanks for the call dear.

GEORGE LUTZ: I don't know what to say to such a thing. I don't think that what we went through was admirable in any way. I appreciate what she's saying, but the hardest thing was to decide whether or not to go public with this, whether to even ever talk about it publicly.

KEVIN MEARS: You see, there's the thing that really is worth admiration though ‚ you were willing to go out in the public with it in a time when these stories as you all know were not quite as popular and in vogue as they are today. You were still willing to tell the truth and continue to tell the truth.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well I think if we knew what we were going to go through for the next 25 years when we made that decision, no, we wouldn't have.

KEVIN MEARS: Well, yeah, I can understand that.

GEORGE LUTZ: I think we would have been cowards about that part.

LOU GENTILE: Alright I gotta take a short break and when we return to The Lou Gentile Show we'll be speaking more tonight's guests. George Lutz from the Amityville case as well as John Zaffis, demonologist from Connecticut, and nephew of Ed Warren.. when we return to The Lou Gentile Show, right after this.

[break]

LOU GENTILE: And we're back to The Lou Gentile Show with Kevin Mears.

KEVIN MEARS: Hello.

LOU GENTILE: And we're on the line with John Zaffis and George Lutz and we're talking about The Amityville Horror from the person who experienced The Amityville Horror at 112 Ocean Avenue, Lee Lutz. Lee, you there?

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes I am.

LOU GENTILE: Ok, Lee, we're going to take a phone call in one second here. You're on The Lou Gentile Show what's your question for Mr. Lutz?

CALLER: Yes, Hi Mr. Lutz I have a question. While you were in the house did you ever see actual entities walking around?

GEORGE LUTZ: Not like most people would think of um, like seeing another person walk around. You would, in your peripheral vision you would see something move and you would look there and there would be nothing there. There would be times when you were sure that someone else was there in the room with you but you wouldn't see it. I was always very grateful I didn't.

LOU GENTILE: Any other questions?

CALLER: Uh, yeah, I have one more question for um, for John Zaffis. My mom always tells me that like if someone is using an Ouija board on TV. not to watch it because spirits or something can invade your house. Is there truth in that?

JOHN ZAFFIS: Yes there is. It's not actually the Ouija board it would be the people that are using it. It's just a piece of cardboard but with that, it is opening up the doors for the spirits to be able to come through. So uh, do I endorse the Ouija board? No. It's a type of situation that can bring things in. Does it happen all the time? No, but I've worked on a lot of cases where a lot of people had told me they were playing with an Ouija board and they didn't believe it was doing anything or helping in any way to be able to bring spirits in because they didn't believe in them. And I'll always ask these people the words "do you believe it now?" and they'll say "yeah John, I do."

CALLER: But I mean, just like watching people using one the TV would that have any effect on your home?

JOHN ZAFFIS: Watching something on TV I don't really think can cause something but, what you have to remember, it has a lot to do with individuals with their amount of sensitivity and the amount of recognition that would be given. If you have somebody that's very sensitive and they're seeing things like this, they can at some point, not always, but they could bring something in.

LOU GENTILE: Alright. Ok, thanks for the call.

CALLER: Thank you.

LOU GENTILE: George, I got a question for you. Have you guys, when you were in the house, did you ever come across an Ouija board or anything else like that?

GEORGE LUTZ: No. I had used one years earlier in New Hampshire when I lived there. My understanding is that they're made in Salem, Mass. and that each one is assigned a spirit, so to speak.

LOU GENTILE: well they used to be made out there, now where are they made at Kevin?

KEVIN MEARS: I think some of them still are but there's at least one other factory that makes them as well.

JOHN ZAFFIS: There's a couple of different ones out there now.

LOU GENTILE: Lord only knows where they're all at.

KEVIN MEARS: George, out of curiosity a lot of people in chat are asking and I've been wondering myself, did you have any experiences after you left the house?

GEORGE LUTZ: Yes.

KEVIN MEARS: Would you talk about them please?

GEORGE LUTZ: No.

LOU GENTILE: (laughing) He told you!

KEVIN MEARS: Okay, fair enough!

GEORGE LUTZ: Umm, I kinda segway into this for you. When years later, in 1979, we were given the opportunity to take some lie detector tests, and they were given by a fellow by the name of Chris Gugas who was at that time considered the number two or number three man in the Country to give such a thing. Among other things, he was accepted in California courts as a witness. He wrote a book called uh, (pause) I'm sorry, I can't think of the name of it at the moment. I'll make sure that I do remember the name of it tomorrow. But I did bring the, I'm not at home right now, but I did bring the results of the tests with me tonight and one of the questions, I'll read it for you, that we wanted to have established in this ‚ Kathy took a test and I took a test ‚ Final Witness was the name of the program ‚ it was the name of the book, I'm sorry.

"After leaving Amityville did both you and Kathy levitate at your Mother-In-Law's house?" And we answered "yes" to that and we passed the test, um, without any questions about that. But the hard part was for people to understand that we were serious when we said that, that that happened. This was within weeks of leaving the house in Amityville and moving in with Kathy's mom. And during that time we were trying to get what we called at that point, the house "fixed." We were trying to find reputable people like the Warrens to come in and tell us what was wrong and tell us what needed to be done so we could move back in. Um, that's an example if that's the kind of thing you were looking for.

LOU GENTILE: Does that answer your question Kev?

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah.

LOU GENTILE: We're taking your calls (reads number) John, does this sound classic of a lot of the homes that you encountered in your twenty-eight years and if it does, does it sound like it was accelerated for some reason?

JOHN ZAFFIS: It's very, very classic. Just listening to everything that George is explaining that transpired in that home, I've heard it time and time and time again from thousands of different people. So for me to listen to it, I can understand it and I can comprehend what the entire family went through once they moved into their dream home. So yeah, I can understand all of this. Classic? Yes. Escalated today to the point where thinking about it, when Father came in and he did the blessing, which was a very standard thing many years ago, Lou, where they, you would automatically call your priest in to bless your home ‚ everybody had that done. Today it's not even almost heard of anymore. But at that point in time it was a very good thing to do. What I think is another good possibility is when George was explaining that when Kathy and him had walked through the house and they were doing a blessing, that also is a form of provoking so that could've also caused things to accelerate a little bit faster and this could be why things escalated. George, did things actually occur more rapidly after these two, or I should say, after you and Kathy went through the house doing the blessing again. saying a few prayers?

GEORGE LUTZ: They got worse then. They got worse very rapidly after that.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Right. Sometimes when this is done it brings it forward a lot more faster than when somebody won't do anything at all, and they're just trying to piece together what the heck is going on in the house.

GEORGE LUTZ: Well that's actually how that came about that we did that. One of my tenants in my office building in New York um, she had a friend who had had a similar experience years earlier and he explained that he had had to go through the house himself and do a house blessing. You just go into each room, you open a window slightly, and you say the Lord's prayer and command whatever is there to leave in the name of Jesus Christ. We had been in the house at that point over two weeks and that seemed to be a very reasonable kind of thing if that was going to work. That was like, "Okay great, if it worked for you we'll try that."