Lou Gentile Amity Week, Night 2

(May 28, 2002)

LOU GENTILE: And welcome back ladies and gentlemen to Amityville Horror week, night number two. Here with Kevin Mears.

KEVIN MEARS: Good evening everyone

LOU GENTILE: And tonight we're going to be speaking again with George Lutz, Lorraine Warren and after the second hour ‚ or after the first hour ‚ we're going to be speaking with John Zaffis. And for those of you who missed it uh last night the archive will be available tomorrow morning of all the shows so far. Actually I was a little scared to put it up there today. I really was, Kevin!

KEVIN MEARS: [laughs]

LOU GENTILE: I really was because I mean we literally got hammered last night and I can only imagine what the archives are going to promote so we'll see. But anyway tonight on the show we're going to be speaking with George Lutz. George lived in the Amityville horror house for 28 days with his family until they fled in fear. And uh this is his first public radio interview that uh he has done in over 25 years talking about what has happened at 112 Ocean Avenue, as well as the first time in radio history that him and Lorraine have actually talked together about what happened in the house. Now last night we had heard from Lorraine who described a lot about what ‚ you know ‚ about how they got involved ... what happened when they went into the house ... we're going to be talking a little bit more about that so let's bring them both back onto the show ... George and uh and Lorraine, are you there?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes we're here!

LOU GENTILE: All right!

LORRAINE WARREN: I'm here!

GEORGE LUTZ And Lee is here, George is here!

LOU GENTILE: And George is here, good ... well, um, I tell you it's been interesting, there's some things that I have never heard before um ... Lorraine I guess we can uh ... let's start with you.

LORRAINE WARREN: Fine

LOU GENTILE: Um, you know what were your feelings, you know, after you were inside the house at 112 Ocean Avenue after you had been in there uh after you had experienced going up the steps and experienced the feelings in the sewing room and things like that ... actually how many times were you actually in the house?

LORRAINE WARREN: Twice

LOU GENTILE: Okay, lets ...

LORRAINE WARREN: I was there twice for long periods of time ... I don't remember if we went back after, after we with Father Pecararo and the dinner that night at Kathy's mother's home. I know Father never wanted Ed to go back in but my recollection is we may have gone back in the home after that.

The house had ... the house had a far-ranging effect on you. It wasn't just a haunted home that you visited and you could leave it and find your peace. You didn't find that peace after you left that house. It seemed to continue to plague you. You didn't want to give it recognition, which is what brings it right back to you, but on the other hand it was just always there like it seemed to have a way of obsessing your thoughts so that you thought "maybe if we just take a walk along the beach .. maybe if we take a ride out in the country," you know?

LOU GENTILE: So you were ...

LORRAINE WARREN: "Maybe if we go to a movie and think about something else," but it was ... it just seemed to stay. You really really had to work at your peace of mind to find it. You really did. It was an extremely extremely oppressing home.

LOU GENTILE: Now Lorraine we were speaking last night about how we were going to talk about the after effects of the Amityville house.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: Do you think anything at all followed you home?

LORRAINE WARREN: There isn't a doubt in my mind that it followed us home. First of all, that envelope that I picked up at the post office, among the other things that were in that envelope was a lot of literature about that priest, Padre Pio, who suffered the wounds of the stigmata for 50 years of his life. He was a Franciscan priest who lived in a monastery in Giovanna Rotunda, Italy. A lot of very very beautiful things have happened as a result of him in the way of miracles. He had the gift of discernment. He had the gift of bilocation. And he was just a very incredible person that I always regret I never met personally.

And so when I opened that envelope, when we got home, there was a book on his life. And I got in bed and I had the light on and I was trying to read. Ed had gone out to his office. Now, Lou, you are familiar with our property, and the office is on the extreme other end of our property. In other words you have to go from the bedroom here, down the steps, into the living room, into the dining room, down the stairs, out through the passageway that goes partially underground to the museum and to Ed's office. That's the extreme other end of the house. So I got in bed and at that time two of our dogs ‚ we had two dogs ‚ one big dog and one smaller dog. And they were both here in the bedroom with me. Now the bedroom is very bright, it's very cheerful, the canopy bed, the whole bit. We've been here a long time. And when I couldn't concentrate on the first paragraph of that book I knew something was very, very wrong. Now Ed isn't here, but all I have to do is push a little buzzer that's an in-house security so that wherever he is ‚ you know ‚ it alerts him. It isn't something that isn't the same thing that we would use for police or like that.

LOU GENTILE: Right

LORRAINE WARREN: And I began to hear the sound of like sheet metal, shaking. There's no sheet metal in the house. No sheet metal at all in the house, not even in the boiler in the house. And that alerted me, and then it was like a huge vacuum ‚ is the only way I can describe ‚ what it was like. Like a cyclone ‚ a wind or energy. And that came from the lowest level of the house, up the stairs into the dining room. Now I only moved my eyes. I only moved my eyes. Why didn't I press that buzzer? I don't know why I didn't ...

LOU GENTILE: Were you experiencing like phantomania?

LORRAINE WARREN: Phantomania. Yes. And then I looked at them. I could move my eyes. The one dog was halfway under the desk ruffle on the bed. The other was over by the bureau. The hair stood right up and they were like statues. They weren't moving nor were they reacting. They were terrified! Then as I looked right in the hallway here, this huge black thing formed. I talked right out loud to Christ. Right out loud I talked and commanded it, in the name of Jesus Christ, to leave and go back to where it came from.

I laid here ‚ I just laid just right here on the bed. Within not minutes ‚ seconds. Ed did not come up from the lowest level of the house. Something forewarned him, something would not allow him to come that way. Ed came out the back door of the studio, the museum there. As he started to go up the stairs ‚ this is how he described it ‚ it was like animals fighting. He had a flashlight ... there were no animals. He came in the kitchen door ... he came through in the bathroom into the bedroom and laid down on the covers, on top of the covers, next to me. He put his hand on my hand and said, "Honey, you have no idea what just happened to me." And I said, "You have no idea what just happened to me!"

It happened to us independent ‚ completely independent ‚ of each other. Completely independent of each other. Me here in the bedroom and him on the furthest area of our property from this room where I am right now.

LOU GENTILE: Now had ever, at any time during your whole career, had anything like that happened in the house?

LORRAINE WARREN: Things would happen but as I have said, and I probably will always say, no other case ever effected our personal lives like this case. No other case at all.

LOU GENTILE: Now George did you ever experience anything like that?

GEORGE LUTZ Certainly not in the same way as Ed and Lorraine. I think that at that point they were probably considered some kind of a real threat to what was in the house. When Lorraine was talking about going back to the house before ‚ it's not my recollection that they ever went back a third time.

LORRAINE WARREN: No, okay.

GEORGE LUTZ Um, but I do remember that dinner and that Ed and Father Ray ‚ you could call it a friendly argument ‚ but they discussed much of that day whether or not Ed should or would go back to the house at all.

LORRAINE WARREN: That's right!

GEORGE LUTZ It was pretty much by the end of the evening when he "saw the light," I guess, or agreed that, you know, that this was ‚ it would not be a good healthy idea to go back and have anything more to do with it.

LOU GENTILE: Mm-hm.

LORRAINE WARREN: Mh-hm. Now that same night um at Kathy's mother's home when Father Pecoraro set that date up for us to meet there...

GEORGE LUTZ Yes.

LORRAINE WARREN: Uh, when we went in we were told we couldn't talk in front of the children. And we knew enough not to talk in front of the children. And you remember what transpired and how Ed was getting agitated?

GEORGE LUTZ Oh, sure!

LORRAINE WARREN: You remember that?

GEORGE LUTZ You called it a form of oppression.

LORRAINE WARREN: It was! It was a form of oppression. Because it was out of character. And he wanted ... it was important for Ed to know exactly what happened to them in that house in their words. And yet Ed knew that the more somebody would talk and discuss it, the more recognition they would give and cause themselves more problems. But all was still.

Now we're having dinner, we're not discussing the case at all. We did not have those sheets back ‚ the proof sheets of all those photographs that we taken in the house. We did not have them back. No way whatsoever did we know anything about that one photograph that showed what appeared to be the image of Padre Pio looking at me. We didn't have anything with us. Nobody even knew of that ‚ nothing. And there was like a stillness at dinner. And Father stood to slice the bread ‚ the St Joseph's bread. He looked directly at me ‚ talk about intimidating ‚ looked directly at me and said "Who do you think brought you out of that house?" ... and I said with all the respect in the world, "God, I guess, Father." He said "Padre Pio, right?" And I said back to him, "How did you know?" And he said, "He told me so."

LOU GENTILE: Wow.

LORRAINE WARREN: I'll never forget that, Lee. Never, never, never forget that.

LOU GENTILE: Now you know, Lorraine, you have dealt with literally tens of thousands of cases.

LORRAINE WARREN: Mm-hm.

LOU GENTILE: And you know you have experienced things that most people would think are complete science fiction or whatever.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes, I guess so.

LOU GENTILE: [laughs] ... and you know, how could you, when you talk about you know the Amityville case being that close to home and effecting you that much, and no other cases that you have ever done have come close, does that lead you to believe there was just something just so overpowering about that house that made it unique above everything else?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes it did make it very unique. That's why, that is why Ed and I aside from our love and respect for Lee and Kathy and the family ‚ aside from that ‚ that's why we have always fought so hard for their honor regarding that case, and become so enraged by these so-called skeptics. Who are they? What are they? What was their role? What did they have to do with a house with the family? They read a book? You evaluate a case on a book?

LOU GENTILE: Mm-hm ... well that's what it seems like it is, I mean it seems like most of the people who don't believe it are the ones that say, "Well, on page 211 it says this and did that really happen?" And you know...

LORRAINE WARREN: [scoffs]

KEVIN MEARS: They want the book to be perfect. That's the problem.

LOU GENTILE: Exactly! And we all know that, you know, no matter what book it is they're all not perfect!

LORRAINE WARREN: There is literary license taken in any piece of literature ‚ any piece of literature at all, there is some literary license that is taken. And it was! And it was. And there was certainly more than dramatic license taken in the movie. Had they, had the movie actually portrayed what really happened to the Lutz's it would have been far more terrifying than what they portrayed in the movie.

GEORGE LUTZ I feel it would have been harder to understand, though, too. I think it would have been harder to translate in a movie um, accurately...

LORRAINE WARREN: But we sure tried our hardest for American International Pictures when...

GEORGE LUTZ Sure.

LORRAINE WARREN: Not for American International Pictures, for the general public to understand what really happened in that home when we did the ... well we did more than a national tour, we went out of the country, too. But, um, it's one of the most-discussed cases. It's the one case that even if you tried to avoid it even today at a university, it's going to come up. If you don't bring it up at some part of your program then they want to know about it during question and answer period. But it is always something that... We got to the point, I'll tell you ‚ one thing, before I forget it, we'll never discuss the case on a plane, in a car, in any mode of transportation at all. We will never discuss it.

LOU GENTILE: Good idea! [laughs] Very good idea!

LORRAINE WARREN: Never!

LOU GENTILE: Oh man!

GEORGE LUTZ I don't know if I have ever thought about that that way Lorraine but I don't think that I do discuss it at all in an airplane or ...

LORRAINE WARREN: No.

GEORGE LUTZ ...in a car.

LOU GENTILE: Well I don't think it would be too much of a good idea.

LORRAINE WARREN: Well, it stems a lot from the incident that happened in that car. Now Ed is an excellent driver. I had stressed it last night. And he is. He's an excellent driver. Always has been. And we had left a school in Pennsylvania, and a section of 84 was just like opening. It was brand new ‚ it was real nice. And um we were on the road, it was a sunny day. There was no wet pavement, there was no frost. Certainly no ice or snow was on there. And we were going along and first we came ‚ I always mix these up ‚ one was the Lord's Valley and one is the Promised Land, and I always forget what comes first. But anyway first of all I believe it was the Lord's Valley that came first. That was an exit. And Ed said, "Wow! Look hon, the Lord's Valley!" And the next exit was the Promised Land. Ed made a statement: "Even The Amityville Horror couldn't get us here." [Lorraine scoffs] That was not the smartest thing to do at that given time.

LOU GENTILE: No.

LORRAINE WARREN: And when we had left our hotel room that morning, Ed's miraculous medal, that he always wears, was on the nightstand and it had all knots in it. So I had had it on my lap and I was undoing all the knots in it, and I finally got the last one and I put it over Ed's head and down into his shirt ... and put it on him. And it was just moments later. Now there is a tractor trailer that is a distance behind us, and he is the person who is really witness to what is going to happen. The car is brand new, and it is heavy car, a very, very heavy car. And all of a sudden this car starts to go out of control and makes the circles. Now the truck that's behind us speaks into his radio ... or his whatever ... what's their ...?

LOU GENTILE: A CB?

LORRAINE WARREN: You know what I mean? The tractor trailers, what is it they have that they can ...

LOU GENTILE: A CB?

LORRAINE WARREN: A CB ... okay! He speaks into it. And he's relating what he is witnessing about this car out of control on the highway ahead of him. Then we hit the guard rail and we go right over the guardrail and we go down the embankment backwards. There's all stones down forty feet below us. Ed in that car spoke right out loud to the Blessed Mother, like she was sitting there next to him. Spoke right out loud to her. When we got down to the bottom of the hill, the car was on an angle and Ed had to kick the door open in order to get me out and then crawl out himself. As we started to go up that embankment there were two men standing at the top of the embankment. And the one guy said, "Is there anybody alive in that car?" And you really had to pinch yourself to make sure that you were alive. That man was a State Police Intelligence officer who was driving the opposite direction on 84, and heard this trucker relating what was happening. He got off the next exit and came around and they were at the top of the hill. We thought that was the end of our car and we got up to the top of the hill. We were all right. I mean we were a bit shaken, but I mean we were all right. And we waited for them to tow the car up and we thought for sure that that car was totalled.

But when they pulled it up there was a scratch, like a little scratch ... like a little dent, underneath the carriage of the car where we hit the guard rail going over. Even these men could not believe what they were looking at. They shook their heads. We had to drive that car home that night. Our lecture for that evening was cancelled, we had to cancel it. It would have been just totally impossible for us to speak that night. That's the kind of thing that happened to us, that had affected us to such a strange ... well more than a strange affect. You become aware of just how strong that personification of evil can be and careful of the recognition that you give.

LOU GENTILE: Now Lorraine what I wanted to add to that, was, you know, most people would think: "well most of that was just probably a coincidence, blah blah blah!" I wanted to share something with somebody about an experience we had, myself, you and Ed. And I know you'll remember this but we were driving back from Pennsylvania somewhere and we had a brand new car, remember that car?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: And we were talking about the little doll. I'm not going to say the name.

LORRAINE WARREN: No, please don't!

LOU GENTILE: [laughs] Okay, sorry! Because I have enough problems already when I say that name on the air but... And we were talking about that doll. And we had a brand new car that had less than, what, three thousand miles on it? Something like that?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. It was brand new‚

LOU GENTILE: Brand new! And we started talking about that damn doll and what ‚ you tell me what happened?

LORRAINE WARREN: Go ahead!

LOU GENTILE: Alright [laughs]

LORRAINE WARREN: Go ahead! [laughs] You...you said it Lou!

LOU GENTILE: All that [Laughs] All of a sudden, we're sitting there driving, everything's been fine. All of a sudden the transmission just like disappears. It's just like I'm not driving anymore.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes it did!

LOU GENTILE: You remember that?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes I do!

LOU GENTILE: And I'm like, "no I don't believe this!" We're out in the middle of nowhere.

LORRAINE WARREN: [laughs] We sure were!

LOU GENTILE: And if I remember correctly for some odd strange reason ... after that transmission had just completely died after we were talking about that.

LORRAINE WARREN: Right

LOU GENTILE: Then we actually coasted down that hill for like‚

LORRAINE WARREN: We coasted down the hill and got right off the exit!

LOU GENTILE: [laughs more] Exactly! It was like it was meant to be!

KEVIN MEARS: You know what? After all the things that have happened on the show after naming that doll on the air, I absolutely believe that story! [laughs]

LORRAINE WARREN: Right! [laughs]

KEVIN MEARS: [indistinct] to all of our listeners!

LOU GENTILE: But that's something right along the same lines.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes it is.

LOU GENTILE: Things ... and you know?

LORRAINE WARREN: That's what happens where recognition is concerned. Now the case itself ... Lee is absolutely right when he said that the reason were affected was because of the threat that we were to what was in the house, in recognizing what was there.

LOU GENTILE: Mm-hm

GEORGE LUTZ And I know ‚ I don't mean to limit that threat to just you and Ed, I think that you had the resources, the friendships, the, um, resources of people to organize something that, with enough people, might have really challenged its ability to stay there.

LOU GENTILE: Believe me if anybody has the resources it's Ed and Lorraine!

GEORGE LUTZ Right. I don't mean it to...to...I don't want Lorraine to think that I always thought that just her and Ed could deal with it, because I think we all know better than that...

LORRAINE WARREN: No of course not!

GEORGE LUTZ But I think they did have in the back of their minds a game plan of something they could have put together to deal with that, and one thing would have been a mass, and...

LORRAINE WARREN: Uh-huh ... and an exorcism of the home.

GEORGE LUTZ Yes and that kind of idea would have been a real threat. It would have been perceived as a real threat by the house. I have always considered the house at that point in time to be very intelligent.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh of course ‚ you mean what was there?

GEORGE LUTZ Yes. Very smart.

LORRAINE WARREN: The house, itself, was not ‚ what was in the house was!

GEORGE LUTZ Yes.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes. And I've always found it so hard to believe unless ... unless something has been done that none of us are aware of. And we don't know that. I mean something of a spiritual nature may have been done in that home. Because how could anybody find peace in that house? And how could you live in a home without peace? Because peace is so important, and you certainly moved in as a loving couple! And if love conquers all, it was still too powerful for you.

GEORGE LUTZ We were newlyweds...

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes! I know! That's for sure! That's definitely for sure! And these innocent little children, and that poor dog! How old did that dog ... how old did Harry live to be?

GEORGE LUTZ Harry lived until sometime in 1981 I think it was, or 1980.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh, goodness! Wow! My goodness.

GEORGE LUTZ I was remembering the first night that we were at Kathy's mom's house, and everybody was kind of high-strung, and Harry was still pretty much a puppy ... um‚

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes!

GEORGE LUTZ We had him tied to the piano, which was an upright piano in Kathy's mom's living room.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

GEORGE LUTZ And he would keep getting up and kind of turn in a circle and then lie down again. Well by the end of the night he had dragged the piano halfway across the room just in his sleep.

LORRAINE WARREN: [Laughs]

GEORGE LUTZ Kind of in just desperation to move and...

LORRAINE WARREN: Right!

GEORGE LUTZ I don't think he got over his dreams for quite a while...

LORRAINE WARREN: No. The poor dog!

GEORGE LUTZ He was pretty unhappy! He was happy to leave there.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh I bet he was!

GEORGE LUTZ He did try to hang himself the first time that we were moving. When we were moving into the house there was a dog-run there ,and we had tied him to the dog-run because we knew he had a rather creative ability to jump over fences. Well he managed to jump over the fence and then hang himself on his chain, so we had to lift him back in and then shorten the chain so he couldn't do that again.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh my God! Oh, good Lord!

GEORGE LUTZ He really was a good dog.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh he was! He was a very good dog! Yes he was, I do remember that for sure. What a very very good dog he really was.

LOU GENTILE: Now...

GEORGE LUTZ When we got to California and when we got off the airplane, we had taken a red-eye so we had arrived very early in the morning at about 4.30-5.00am and the rental car that we had ordered did not show up yet, because we needed a station wagon for all the luggage that we had, and the kids and we had the dog. And we had um, taken the dog to the vet and gotten drugs for him for the flight, and gotten him the biggest cage we could find that they would allow on the airplane. And American Airlines had treated him really well, but when he came out of the airport in San Diego he was walking across the street with the three kids holding on to the chain ... he was just kind of walking sideways. I can still remember Kathy and I across the street watching the kids with the dog and just being relieved that we were there and we were out of New York.

LORRAINE WARREN: I bet!

GEORGE LUTZ He was walking sideways ‚ he was like a drunken dog after that flight. But he was sure happy to be back with everybody again.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh God! Yes. He was happy to have his feet on the ground too!

GEORGE LUTZ [laughs] Yeah!

LORRAINE WARREN: In a place other than New York.

LOU GENTILE: What I want‚

LORRAINE WARREN: I'm certain of that! And we then went out, and we stayed with you folks for a while at the ... now that was in ... that was in San Diego ... that was in Mesa ... let's see... Come on Lee, I can't think of the name of the town, the village or ...

GEORGE LUTZ Tierrasanta?

LORRAINE WARREN: Was it?

GEORGE LUTZ I think we were living in Tierrasanta at the time.

LORRAINE WARREN: No, there was some Mesa in the name. Oh I wish I could remember and I can't remember‚

GEORGE LUTZ We lived in La Jolla, and then we lived in Tierrasanta, and then we lived in Carlsbad or La Costa.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah.

GEORGE LUTZ Oh Mesa, Arizona!

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh that one ... that's what I'm thinking! [laughs]

GEORGE LUTZ Okay, that was— [indistinct]

LORRAINE WARREN: But no, we were never ‚ no, I'm sorry, we were never in Mesa, Arizona, no. We were never there. You're right about ... yeah it was in California where we were.

GEORGE LUTZ That would have been in 1978, '77-'78, and‚

LORRAINE WARREN: Yep!

GEORGE LUTZ That's when we went out for dinner and we were sitting next to a couple that um-he was a fisherman.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes!

GEORGE LUTZ And um, Lou this is kind of off-topic but it's really not. We were sitting next to this older couple than all of us and we got to talking with them and asked him what he did and he a sea Captain, a fisherman, that travelled up and down on the coast and his wife would travel to meet him in different cities. And I asked him what he did while he was out at sea alone. And he said he would read his Bible, and he said that rather sheepishly, like it wasn't the kind of thing he talked about publicly.

And we got to talking and I asked him if he had ever gotten to seeing anything out there in the ocean that he never talked about usually to anyone. And then he told us about the lights that he saw come out of the sky and go underneath the water and then‚

LORRAINE WARREN: Ohhhh! I remember that.

GEORGE LUTZ And his wife was looking at him with this amazed face that this was the kind of thing he had never spoken of with her.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes!

LOU GENTILE: Wow!

GEORGE LUTZ For some reason he sat there after meeting Ed and Lorraine Warren, the ghost hunters, and decided to go ahead and spill the beans on things he had seen out there that he had never shared with anyone else. It was a very interesting night.

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh my God! And if I'm not mistaken, I think Ed shared back with him experiences during ... Ed's ... periods of time at sea during World War II.

GEORGE LUTZ Yes, that's when I first heard the story of his court-martial.

LORRAINE WARREN: [laughs] Yes, his court martial! Yeah right! Oh yes I can remember that well. That ship went to Normandy, hon.

GEORGE LUTZ They didn't quite make it.

LORRAINE WARREN: That's where the ship went.

LOU GENTILE: Now what I wanted to bring up, ah we have about twenty minutes or so. I want to know, and I'm sure the listening audience wants to know, how [clears throat] excuse, me ... how Stephen Kaplan got involved with this whole thing?

LORRAINE WARREN: Oh do we have to mention his name?

LOU GENTILE: Well ... unfortunately there is a lot of people there that want to know exactly he got involved with this because ‚

LORRAINE WARREN: From our standpoint or from Lee's standpoint?

LOU GENTILE: If both of you can elaborate on how he got involved. I mean‚

LORRAINE WARREN: All right, he got involved first with Lee before us.

LOU GENTILE: Okay, now George...

LORRAINE WARREN: He was like an angry dog that wouldn't let go.

LOU GENTILE: [chuckles]

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah, I've seen his book. I've got to admit, it's so much of a blatant personality attack that he keeps whining as "the truth"! It's sickening.

LORRAINE WARREN: What about what Ed did? Ed was on ... Ed would put that guy down so many times ... I mean some of the fabricated stories he would come up with! And finally Ed said to him, "I'll tell you what, Steve Kaplan!" he said, "You bring all of your evidence. I want to see all of your reports. You bring them all to me and we'll meet and we'll do a radio show together on this." This was going to be a show they were going to do together in Waterbury, Connecticut, here. And he never ever showed up. Never! Ed ... Ed put that guy down so many times ... he publicly apologized to us and then would turn around like some angry little dog biting at your ankles and come back again. He was ... he was something else again that guy.

LOU GENTILE: Now George how...

GEORGE LUTZ Can I get in on this answer? [chuckles]

LOU GENTILE: Yeah that's what I want to find out, I mean how did he become involved? I mean I'm sure he didn't just appear.

GEORGE LUTZ I called him on February 19th, 1976. That was my first phone call with him, and he told me at that point about ‚ I'm sorry my first phone call with him was on the 17th ‚ and he had told me that he was affiliated with the university of the State of New York at Stonybrook, and that he had taught there, and he gave me a number of different qualifications that he had, and then I spent some time trying to check those out. And I called the state university at Stonybrook and I had asked them about him and they had never heard of him.

LOU GENTILE: [chuckles]

GEORGE LUTZ On the 18th was an article in, I can't remember, either the Long Island Press or Newsday, that, where he was quoted talking about the case, talking about the house. On the 19th I called him and I recorded the conversation. And no one's ever heard this conversation before but I'll read you a transcript of it if you wish?

LOU GENTILE: Sure!

GEORGE LUTZ Ah, Kaplan answers the phone and he says: "Oh, George how are you?" My answer is "Fine how are you?" Kaplan says: "Okay." And then there's an unintelligible remark. My answer to him is: "We're going to cancel out Saturday." Because we had made arrangements for him to come that Saturday and investigate the house. Kaplan said: "Yes I know that." My answer was: "The very last thing we wanted was any publicity and I thought I had made that clear with you, and you went ahead and made a release to the newspapers which is a circus." Kaplan says to me: "Which newspaper is that?" My answer to him: "It's in the papers tonight, now we didn't tell anyone of it, so I have no idea how it got in the papers other than through you" Kaplan's answer to me was: "Which paper is this?" My answer to him is: "Well it's in the Long Island Press tonight and was in the Newsday yesterday." Kaplan's answer: "Well it can't be through me, then, because I had contact with the newspapers. They had called me. In fact ABC. I don't know if you knew about it? ABC and Channel 5 called me. I don't know how they even got my name. But they called my organization and they wanted an interview."

LORRAINE WARREN: His organization? He was the organization!

GEORGE LUTZ Yeah. Right. "In fact, ABC said they'd make me a star to come out there, and I said 'no thank you', and Channel 5, I didn't call back. And Long Island Press called me and said they wanted to find out if I was indeed one of the organizations involved in it. And I said 'No, and if we are it will be off the record, and we're not going to discuss the case. If you want to talk about ghosts fine'..." Pause. And there's a series of question marks there in the transcript, "'... still talk about psychic phenomena to the newspapers and we talk about cases that we handled on Long Island. We are a known organization that does deal with psychic phenomena, so I can't turn the press down." My answer to him at this point was, "Well you are quoted in the press tonight as saying you are involved in the case, and that you would be working over at the house. And in the Newsday yesterday or Long Island Press, I'm not sure which, you are quoted as saying you would be there this Saturday. The problem arises because it ends up being a circus over there and that's the last thing that we want." Kaplan: "I don't know how they got that story, it's very possible that I contacted one of my members and maybe it happened, I don't ‚ I know that I didn't..."'

LOU GENTILE & KEVIN MEARS: [laughing]

LORRAINE WARREN: That's the biggest joke in the world!

LOU GENTILE: It sounds like somebody was either smoking crack or something like that ‚

LORRAINE WARREN: That wasn't popular then.

KEVIN MEARS: Lorraine?!

LORRAINE WARREN: [unintelligible] what he was smoking. He was a vampirologist.

GEORGE LUTZ [unintelligible] in the end, um, his remark to me is: "We will pull out if that's what you wish, no problem."

LOU GENTILE: Hmm... So that's how it all started?

GEORGE LUTZ Yes. That's the last time I ever spoke to the man.

KEVIN MEARS: I wanted to ask you, Lorraine, um ‚

LORRAINE WARREN: I have to tell you something before you ask me that question.

KEVIN MEARS: Sure.

LORRAINE WARREN: This is weird! This is really weird. It's sad, I didn't wish, I certainly would never have wished the man any, uh, any horrible illness or death. But Ed had, let me see now, was it, did he die in '85 or '95?

LOU GENTILE: I think it was '95.

LORRAINE WARREN: All right, so Ed had bypass surgery ‚ Ed had the heart attack in '85. Ed had the bypass surgery and he died, uh, Kaplan died at that same time. Ed would always say, if he ever died during his bypass surgery and turned around and seen Kaplan coming behind him, he would always say, "Don't you think, Steve, that you carried this just a little too far?" In other words, if they both met at that time. But do you realize that he died quite suddenly from a heart condition, the very same day that Ed had bypass surgery? Triple bypass surgery?

GEORGE LUTZ I had no idea of that.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes!

KEVIN MEARS: Wow!

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes he did. The exact same day he had that happen to him. So what ‚ I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you, Lou.

LOU GENTILE: No, that was Kevin.

LORRAINE WARREN: Honest I didn't.

LOU GENTILE: That was Kevin. Go ahead Kevin.

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah, that's me. No, that was a very good piece of information. I don't mind being interrupted. I was going to ask if you could comment a little on some of the various titles he's claimed for himself over the years, along with ‚ I know he called himself a parapsychologist, and a doctor, and he you had just mentioned vampirologist.

LOU GENTILE: Ed would...

KEVIN MEARS: Was there anything else?

LORRAINE WARREN: Ed has a whole loose leaf book ‚ whole loose leaf folder downstairs in his office of all the things that he was not. Everything that Ed was able to prove regarding the doctorate that came from Pacifica University, which was um‚

LOU GENTILE: Mail order?

GEORGE LUTZ A non-traditional school without walls.

LORRAINE WARREN: Pardon?

GEORGE LUTZ A "non-traditional school without walls," is his quote [unintelligible]

LORRAINE WARREN: Exactly! And it was a debunked thing. He was a vampirologist... I mean there's a whole thing on him. The guy worked out of a one-bedroom apartment. Everything. That was the organization! That was the organization, this guy! And then when he finally put together this book which I have not read, but I'm certain that Ed has a copy of it in his library, um, he died I think before it was even circulated.

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, that's true.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yeah, he did.

GEORGE LUTZ He was a very angry man.

LORRAINE WARREN: But he carried on such a vendetta that was so extreme and so, he made some of the most stupid statements.

LOU GENTILE: Oh I know. And then he...

LORRAINE WARREN: ...that were so totally unfounded. Now one thing that I want to say before we have to cut that I think is important ‚ and that is that it would come up, is how we would ever document that photograph that was taken you know in the Amityville home regarding the image of Padre Pio. Well what had happened was when we finally got to see that photograph, I prayed to Padre Pio. I would talk to Padre Pio. I would say: "If that was really you in that photograph, then I want to know about you, I want to know more about you". And if it is not, then I also want to know. And it was incredible the things that happened. That wasn't the only time he made his presence known to us. It always seemed to happen during very controversial cases, and certainly Amityville was because of the skeptics and then um, the Smurl case in Pennsylvania, also made his presence known there.

Now, we at a university in Dayton, Ohio, and Ed showed that photograph, I think it was for the first time. And he got bad press from it. And he said he was going to take that photograph out of the presentation because the press said that Ed showed a photograph of a man who looked like a priest. But Ed did never say that it was. He did say that it did resemble Padre Pio. And it did.

So, then from Dayton we went out to L.A. We lectured there to a few universities. And this one day, on a Sunday, the man's name is Joe Maggio ‚ I don't know if Mr Maggio is still alive, but he was an executive with one of the television studios, and a close friend to Ed and I. We had met him through a very close friend in Beverly Hills. The next morning ‚ this is on a Saturday ‚ the next morning he said to me "Would you like to go to Mass with me at the Church of the Good Shephard?" And I said, "Oh I've always wanted to go to Mass there." And, so for some reason Chuck, the man whose guest home we were staying in, this friend of ours, and Ed, did not go to that Mass. And we went ... and we were coming out of Mass, and nothing was mentioned about Padre Pio, because I didn't even know this man that well. He had become a good friend, but not at that point, I really did not know him that well. And he said to me, "Did you know Padre Pio?" And I said "I knew of him." That's how I answered. I said "Why?". And he said "Well there's a priest", he said, "just down the coast. You're going to be speaking at La Jolla tonight?" And he said, "There's a priest just down the coast who served with him in Italy. His name is Father Negre. And he is at a Catholic Boy's School, just in residence there right now.

So when we got back to where we were staying where Ed was, I called to see if I could speak to this priest. And I did. And I didn't tell him anything about a photograph. All I said is "Father I understand that you had served with Padre Pio, and I would love to meet you. My husband and I are going to be speaking at a school not far from where you are, and we wondered if it would be possible to meet you?" And he said he had an hour free that afternoon, which I don't feel was a coincidence, and he met with us. And we went in. He spoke very broken English and at one point, Ed said "Father, can I show you a slide that I would like you to see?" Not telling him what it was. And Ed went out to the car, and got his projector and put it in, and showed it on the wall in the area where this priest was living at the school. And he knelt down, he blessed himself, and he said "Padre Pio." And I said, "Father why would he appear to me?" And he looked, and he said, " You must have asked him to." And from that time on I found out much about Padre Pio. I would find myself in situations where I was to receive his rosary beads, where I'd receive a first-class relic of his, and in all, Padre Pio has played a very important role in our life since Amityville.

LOU GENTILE: Now, Lorraine before we let you go, um, first I'd like to thank you very much for coming on and sharing everything that happened at Amityville.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you.

LOU GENTILE: I do appreciate it. And you know I would like to say that you know there aren't many people out there, or there are people out there that believe that you guys fabricate evidence and all that other stuff.

LORRAINE WARREN: No way.

LOU GENTILE: No. Well, Lorraine I know that first-hand that you don't.

LORRAINE WARREN: No way. We would never have been able to have a career that went over fifty some years. There is nobody that could ever poke holes in any of our evidence, any of our cases. We would never have remained university speakers for almost thirty four years if we didn't actually bring the facts as they occurred and not fabricate one solitary thing.

LOU GENTILE: That's true. That's absolutely true. And you know, I know from, you know, even what I've been taught, and what I've been told and from what I've seen, that you guys, there's no way that you fabricate anything.

LORRAINE WARREN: No.

LOU GENTILE: And you know, you guys are the real deal, you're the best at what you do, and you're in my opinion the best in the world at investigating this and, you know, bringing peace to a lot of people. So, you know anybody out there who thinks that you know, you guys are fabricating ‚ it's just not, it's just not true.

LORRAINE WARREN: No it is not. It's all based on our faith.

LOU GENTILE: Yep.

LORRAINE WARREN: And our protection, and we feel that all these years that we have been guided in doing what we do and we have been protected because we have been doing what God wants us to do. And we believe that very strongly.

KEVIN MEARS: Thank you for coming on the show as well, Lorraine, from me.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you very much for having me. And Lee, it was a pleasure to be on with you.

GEORGE LUTZ Well I miss you, I don't want you to go away now, so why don't you just stay?

[all laugh]

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you ... thank you! I'll never go away, believe me. I'll never go away.

LOU GENTILE: All right well Lorraine I want to thank you very much ... it's been a pleasure. Now one other thing that I want to mention, at al the lectures and um, and for members who join the New England Society for Psychic Research, there are these tapes who talked about Amityville, and these were recently converted from tapes to CD's, is that correct?

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: Okay how can people, uh order these?

LORRAINE WARREN: Uh, they can order them by sending it to the New England Society for Psychic Research, the NESPR, PO Box 41, Monroe, Connecticut 06468, or they can go on our website at www.warrens.net.

LOU GENTILE: Okay and how much are the CD's?

LORRAINE WARREN: Twenty.

LOU GENTILE: Okay and uh, those CD's they were converted from tape to CD.

LORRAINE WARREN: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: They were done very nice, professional.

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you.

LOU GENTILE: And you should definitely check these out and for further information you can go to Lorraine's ‚ well, Ed and Lorraine's website at www.warrens.net ‚ and also there's a link on our website that will take you there, and it's definitely something that you don't want to miss.

LOU GENTILE: All right Lorraine, thank you very much!

LORRAINE WARREN: Thank you! Pray for Ed.

LOU GENTILE: Yeah!

KEVIN MEARS: We will!

LOU GENTILE: I always do, Lorraine! Always do.

LORRAINE WARREN: Pray for Ed. And thank you, and God bless you all!

KEVIN MEARS: God bless, Lorraine.

GEORGE LUTZ Bye-bye Lorraine.

LOU GENTILE: All right, goodnight! Well George um, we're going to put you on hold and we're going to get back. Actually you're going to call on the other number right now.

GEORGE LUTZ Yes.

LOU GENTILE: And we're going to take a short commercial break. Actually it's going to be about seven or eight minutes [laughs] So anybody who wants to go out and have a smoke and go eat, or drink or whatever, go do what you gotta do, and we're going to be back in about ten minutes and uh, George I'm going to hang up on you now so you can call in. [chuckles]

GEORGE LUTZ Okay then.

LOU GENTILE: But it was definitely, definitely a pleasure, I mean you know here we had it first-hand you know from Lorraine Warren and George Lutz of what really happened at 112 Ocean Avenue, how Kaplan played into this, and I think it's a very you know coming first-hand from the people who were there. I mean there's a lot of people out there that might want to write books about it, they might want to talk about it, that don't really know diddley-squat about what happened at the haunting of 112 Ocean Avenue, which is The Amityville Horror.

Um, so you know I mean you might as well listen in while we talk more with George Lutz, and we're going to be bringing on John Zaffis, uh when we come back to The Lou Gentile Show and also I wanted to mention this that uh, I'm going to be having an announcement about what I'm going to be appearing at which is going to blow your mind.

 

[At this point after the break the system goes down and they have to reconvene for the following night]