Lou Gentile Amity Week, Night 5

(May 31, 2002)

 

LOU GENTILE: Hi, Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. You're listening to another broadcast of The Lou Gentile Show from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We've just finished up with four days of incredible Amityville Horror Week. Tonight we're going to be recapping what we talked about that was involved with what we thought. We're going to be taking your calls all night, for the next 2 hours. So whether you thought or think that The Amityville Horror was a hoax or if it was real, we'd like to hear from you. You can call into the studio, toll free, 888-777-8488, that's toll-free, 888-777- 8488. Listening here is Kevin Mears. He's all rearing to go. As well as Mr. John Zaffis.

JOHN ZAFFIS Hey guys. How's the Amityville Crew doing?

LOU GENTILE: Alright, how are you doing tonight, John?

JOHN ZAFFIS Doing pretty good.

LOU GENTILE: It's been a long week, John.

JOHN ZAFFIS Yes it has.

LOU GENTILE: This is the 5th night we've talked about The Amityville Horror.

JOHN ZAFFIS Yep.

KEVIN MEARS: Good to hear from you, as always, John.

JOHN ZAFFIS Hey, How you doing? You know the Amityville site is up and ready to go?

KEVIN MEARS: It's nice to be able to wind down. And you know...

[off-topic talk excised]

LOU GENTILE: Anyway, with us on the line is, John Zaffis, head DNA certified demonologist. [off-topic talk excised]

LOU GENTILE: Well, we've been talking for the last for nights about The Amityville Horror. We had George Lutz for 3 nights, we had Loraine Warren for 2 nights, we also had Joel Martin as well as the History Channel, and it's incredible. A lot of information, a lot of people called in with their view on Amityville and I'm surprised, John, that nobody called in complaining about The Amityville Horror being a hoax. You know what I mean?

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, it made me feel good, because for umpteen years, I can't tell you how many years, you sit there and you hear this person debunking it, that person debunking it, and, you know, I did not work on the original case. Unfortunately, I was too young. It wouldn't have worked out that way. But, you know, so many people claim they've been in there, so many people claim they have information, but yeah. Here, they have the opportunity of a lifetime this week to voice their opinions, and we didn't hear "boo."

KEVIN MEARS: And to confront some of the principles...

JOHN ZAFFIS No pun intended.

LOU GENTILE: Well, you know, I think people, where they get their information from is probably important. There are people out there that just call it a hoax-hoax-hoax, and don't know exactly what happened. They were never a part of it, were never even born then in some people's cases. I think these last couple of months have been very enlightening because we talked to the actual people who were inside of the house, who investigated that house, who were the first reporters on the house, who made documentaries about the house.

JOHN ZAFFIS It was great, I mean, it's funny, 28 years later, as many years as I have been listening to this, I was enthused, I wanted to hear it, I was very excited about talking to some of the people first-hand. I've never met George or talked to George before, and it was great to be able to do that. Talk to the reporter, and to actually hear him firsthand come out with what he experienced, some information that was never spoken about before, not only by Joel, but by Loraine and by George, so it was very intriguing and very interesting to hear things that people never heard before.

LOU GENTILE: I think that's what made it pretty good.

KEVIN MEARS: I was a little flabbergasted to be able to talk to people, I mean, Lorraine, George Lutz, himself. I think it's really quite a thing for the show, and quite an opportunity.

JOHN ZAFFIS Yeah, absolutely. Fantastic week with the information. And like I said, it was very eye-opening and it was very interesting because those were the facts ‚ these were the people that were there. And that's what counted.

LOU GENTILE: And then, you know, we had the History Channel on last night, they were talking about how they researched it and how they got the information they did by going to the town of Amityville and how they weren't exactly welcome, but there were certain people that were in the little village of Amityville, if you wanna call it that, that were very hospitable and things. A lot of what we hear from other people, namely Ric Osuna, is just there to confuse the matter, I think, and to portray a personal vendetta against George Lutz, basically because he was told that his manuscript, or his galley, or whatever you want to call it, was written like a 6th Grader. So naturally, that's going to tick some people off ‚ or, naturally Ric. And everyone who's been involved with it, John, says the same thing. Those two had a falling out and naturally he went ahead and started calling everything a fake, a hoax, and debunking everything, and went on this crusade instead of acting like a man.

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, Lou, what I've found over the years, and not just with Amityville, but any major cases that have anything to do with any kind of publicity or a book or a movie, somehow, someway, it always ends up turning into a total disaster where people will just start arguing, there would be disagreements, people will get to a point where they would get aggravated with their family or someone else involved in it, and the first thing everyone starts screaming is "hoax," and "its fraud", "its not real", "its made up." As soon as these things come in to play, I mean, we know what's behind it, we know what's causing all of it, you know, and it will move forward that way. So with a lot of the different things, you just take it with a grain of salt as it goes by over the years, and you just get used to it when people start debunking the cases. Like I always said, if there's something I was on, I worked on it, I witnessed it, I don't care if Peter, Paul and Mary came out of the woodwork debunking it, I know what happened on the cases.

LOU GENTILE: Well, I think that's what a lot of people are failing to realize, was that, you know, the Lutzes were a family that like, you know, you get involved with John or I get involved with investigators all the time. And they went through something that they could not explain, that was in their eyes, and in many other people's eyes, supernatural, pretenatural, paranormal ‚ however you wanna phrase it or paraphrase it ‚ and I think that that is where everybody loses sight ‚ that this family actually went through something. Now whether in the beginning because of Mr. Weber's involvement with trying to get them to get a book deal, and things like that, you know, things happen. And when somebody tells you, "Oh, this sounds like a book deal, and we're gonna try and turn this into the biggest thing," and blah blah blah, what are you supposed to do? You know, if you've never experienced that before, you know, you act naive and stupid. And George Lutz even mentioned the fact that he acted, you know, he shouldn't have done what he had done in the very beginning ‚ but he didn't know any better because of what was going on. He never experienced a haunting before, he had no clue of what to do, and the way this attorney was making it sound was that this was just something that was going to pan out to make them a lot of money, and things like that. And really, the Lutzes didn't really make that much money off of it.

JOHN ZAFFIS Not really, Lou. After you sit back and you weigh all the attorney fees and...

KEVIN MEARS: Lawsuits...

JOHN ZAFFIS ...the aggravation and the grief ‚ what's left?

LOU GENTILE: Sure. Yeah.

JOHN ZAFFIS That was a horrendous-type situation that they went through. It was actually totally chaotic with the way everything actually went with who made money and really who didn't make money. Who ended up with paying the price, who did the most suffering, and it was basically the Lutzes out of the deal. I mean you stop and think about it, just what George was saying, I mean... You know, he sold his home; Kathy sold her home; they put the money down; that was their dream home... When all of it was said and done, they walked away with a very few items, and they basically had to start over from scratch. So basically George and Kathy really didn't gain all that much out of the deal.

LOU GENTILE: And people start nitpicking the book between the movie, and that's gonna go on for years.

JOHN ZAFFIS I think so. I don't ever really think the controversy per se will ever really end, with somebody else coming along and debunking something. But, as we all know, we know what the facts are, we heard it right from the people that were there.

LOU GENTILE: Well, John, how many times when George was talking, and you were on the line, were you sitting there ‚ I mean I know I was doing it ‚ but George was explaining certain things, and it was just like, that sounds so common. You know what I mean? And you're sitting there going mhm, I know, and it sounds like familiar cases you've been on.

JOHN ZAFFIS Absolutely. Absolutely. Everything that George was describing, it is basically a classic type of what I refer to as an infestation in the beginning with the demonic. There's no two ways about it to me. I mean, you had all the ingredients there. I mean, you had, you know, you had deaths in the house. There's just so much that ties-in, that, you know ‚ there's not really any way around it. And there was no reason for them to make it up! None! Absolutely none!

LOU GENTILE: Yep.

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah, and the reasons that have been given are so silly. I mean, its like, so you're saying that they wanted to create a defense for a man that had never met, and had been convicted of six murders?

JOHN ZAFFIS I mean, it makes no sense.

KEVIN MEARS: And you're also saying that an attorney would think any court would believe this?

JOHN ZAFFIS It's ludicrous. It's totally ludicrous that they would take it upon themselves to purchase that home thinking they were gonna turn it into that. Well, we heard it directly from George. George said that they wanted that to be their dream home. They sat down, they talked to the kids, they went over everything, explained everything that there was murders in there, but they weren't looking at it from that perspective. They were looking at it as a perspective that it had a built in pool, had all the rooms that they needed, you know, it was a big home, everything could be spread out. George talked about having the business right out of home, so, to me, I did not get the impression whatsoever that it was "purchased" to turn it into a haunted house. I didn't get that impression whatsoever.

KEVIN MEARS: And frankly, the house wasn't expensive, comparatively speaking, for a house like that in a rich area at the time ‚ but it was still a fair amount of money, especially to go buy it, run after 28 days, and then sell it back to the bank and lose money on it. I mean, you'd think if they wanted to write a book, they'd just stay in the house, write the book and say, "Oh, you know they had some priest come by to exorcise it or something, and he doesn't want to say anything." I mean you don't lose the house and think you'll use the money from the book to pay for it!

JOHN ZAFFIS Right.

LOU GENTILE: Well, I think one of the other things is, back in the 70's it wasn't exactly socially acceptable to say that you had a haunting ‚ so for someone to even fathom doing this is pretty far-fetched. Nowadays, you would think that somebody would do this, that they would come up with a story that their house is haunted, and all these things, and blah blah blah ‚ you know, and... I don't know...

JOHN ZAFFIS Today, more so than ever ‚ and Lou, you know this for a fact with me ‚ I'm more cautious now than I ever was. Because I don't know whether something is going to end up being legit, because like you just said, it is more talked about today, it's much more open today, so this is good as far as research goes; this is good as far as families getting help, and that's positive. But when someone starts telling you about some of the things that are transpiring in their home, you take it with a grain of salt more so now than you ever did before.

LOU GENTILE: Oh sure.

JOHN ZAFFIS Because you just don't know. You have to be extremely careful with a lot of the things today.

LOU GENTILE: Well, there's a lot more information out there today, too.

JOHN ZAFFIS Right! I mean, you know...

[36 min of talk excised ‚ Lou & Kevin talk about their feelings towards the haunting and the murders]

LOU GENTILE: The person who is on the line right now is Kathy Lutz. We had George Lutz on earlier this week, but Kathy is there as well as Christopher Lutz. She's gonna tell you about the red room, John.

JOHN ZAFFIS Great, looking forward to hearing it. So we can put that part to bed, so to speak, too.

KATHY LUTZ: ...I wasn't sure, but I said to Chris, "Maybe I'll call-in."

LOU GENTILE: Oh, there you are. Now you're on, Kathy. How are you doing, Kathy?

KATHY LUTZ: Okay.

LOU GENTILE: How are you doing?

KEVIN MEARS: Hello, Kathy.

KATHY LUTZ: Hi.

LOU GENTILE: A pleasure to meet you.

JOHN ZAFFIS Hi Kathy, you've been a part of my life for 28 years.

KEVIN MEARS: Thank you for calling in.

KATHY LUTZ: Yeah, this was a surprise. It wasn't planned on my part, I just spontaneous responded to this. Um...

LOU GENTILE: Kathy, before I do that, I would like to ask you, how are you feeling? Are you okay?

KATHY LUTZ: Yeah, some days I feel good.

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, a lot of the people have asked me how you were doing. I said I have no idea, I've never met Kathy, but people were concerned, so...

KATHY LUTZ: Some days are real good. Today's a good day.

LOU GENTILE: Well that's good. Alright so, continue, you were saying about how you were calling in.

KATHY LUTZ: Yeah, I was calling in on the question about the Red Room. The discovery of it came about because I was down in the basement, rearranging the storage and there were several wooden bookcases lined up, and I just wanted to rearrange them. And when I pushed one, this Red Room was revealed behind it. It was an area that was maybe 32 by 5. It was painted bright red ‚ floor, walls and ceiling. No windows in it, um...

LOU GENTILE: Was it all cement?

KATHY LUTZ: It was all cement. It was a cold spot. Later when I told Lee about it, um, we brought the dog in, we brought Harry in to see what his response would be to this, and he would not go into it. He backed out of it. Just literally backed out. We pushed the bookcase back in place. And just kinda talked about it and what to do with it. Later on, after everything else had transpired and we had gotten the building plans for the house ‚ that was an area that was not in the original plan. We couldn't tell you who put it in.

When they did the investigation on March 6, '76, the consensus from several of them was that it was an area that where possibly animal sacrifices were made.

LOU GENTILE: So they, now, this is the police that made that assertion?

KATHY LUTZ: No, this was the investigative team ‚ the psychic investigators.

LOU GENTILE: Okay. Wow.

JOHN ZAFFIS Kathy, was there, when you had opened that, I'm not sure whether you or Lee had gone in there but was there anything in there at all?

KATHY LUTZ: Nothing.

JOHN ZAFFIS There was just plain ‚ nothing was in there whatsoever?

KATHY LUTZ: There wasn't a hanger, there wasn't a book, there wasn't a piece of paper ‚ nothing. It was absolutely empty.

LOU GENTILE: That's amazing. Now Kathy, did you think that the DeFeo's even had any idea that it was there?

KATHY LUTZ: I can't say. I really can't.

LOU GENTILE: Really? I don't know, John, that's really bizarre. What do you think?

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, I'm just thrilled to death that Kathy called-in and finally answered that for me after all these years. 'Cause I was always curious to know if there was anything whatsoever left there, like Kathy said, a book, or a piece of paper or anything.

KATHY LUTZ: Nothing.

JOHN ZAFFIS I was just always curious. Now I'm glad I know the answer.

LOU GENTILE: Now, Kathy, you said that the room was cold?

KATHY LUTZ: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: Was it, like above ‚ I mean was it just abnormally cold there in that particular spot?

KATHY LUTZ: It was colder than the rest of the area of the basement.

LOU GENTILE: Hmm. Wow. I don't know, Kevin do you have any questions? That's wild. That really is. I can't imagine that, I mean what exactly did you do? You removed a book or something?

KATHY LUTZ: A wooden bookcase. There were several of them and I was just rearranging the basement in order to get the storage organized.

LOU GENTILE: Now was this... What was down there? Was that...

KATHY LUTZ: There were freezers, there was washer machines, dryers.

LOU GENTILE: Was that like the DeFeo's stuff or..?

KATHY LUTZ: Some was the DeFeo's, some was ours. We had purchased some of their appliances [unintelligible].

LOU GENTILE: Right. I guess naturally, when you buy a house I guess you can get the appliances.

KATHY LUTZ: Right. And the wooden storage unit that I was moving was part of the furnishings that were purchased with the estate.

LOU GENTILE: Wow.

KEVIN MEARS: That's amazing

LOU GENTILE: It really is. Well, thank you very much Kathy.

KATHY LUTZ: Okay.

LOU GENTILE: I really appreciate it.

KATHY LUTZ: Alright. God bless you guys.

JOHN ZAFFIS Bye.

LOU GENTILE: God bless you too. I hope you feel better.......Wow.

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah.

LOU GENTILE: Wow. That is amazing.

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, I'm very thankful that Kathy took a few minutes out to call in, Lou, and to finally clear that up for me, because you have no idea for how many years that's been bugging me.

[7 min of talk excised ‚ then Christopher Lutz calls-in]

LOU GENTILE: Christopher, is this you?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, you got me.

LOU GENTILE: Oh, there you go.

KEVIN MEARS: Welcome back.

LOU GENTILE: Welcome back. But um, what could you add to this? 'Cause I'm just trying to suck all of this in, 'cause its just too much.

CHRIS LUTZ: I got you on my computer here. I'm getting like a 20-second delay here. Okay. Oh, I don't know what to add. Why don't you go ahead and ask a question.

LOU GENTILE: Well, how was it for you going through that 28 days? I can imagine that it was hell, but did you.. Let me ask you this, when you went into the house, did you figure it was a normal house, and everything was fine, or did you know something was wrong?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, when we first went in the house, I remember the day that we where with the real estate agent.

LOU GENTILE: Hello? John, are you there?

JOHN ZAFFIS Yeah. [laughs]

LOU GENTILE: Here we go. Here we go.

JOHN ZAFFIS I was just gonna say, Lou, here we go again. Tuesday night all over again.

LOU GENTILE: Well you're on the line, but Chris, I don't know where he went. The line's red, but its dead. The line's red, but the line's dead. I dunno. This happened once before, but...

JOHN ZAFFIS I hope that's "no pun intended."

LOU GENTILE: No, its no pun intended, but I'm looking at the line. Its red, but the line went dead. Alright, well we're gonna hang that up because apparently he got disconnected, and he'll probably call back.

KEVIN MEARS: I hope so.

[off-topic talk excised ‚ Chris calls back]

LOU GENTILE: Chris, is that you?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yep.

LOU GENTILE: There we go. We got disconnected for a second, so... Okay. My question was, what can you remember when you first thought, you know, when you first went in the house, or whatever. Did you have any feelings that this was just a bad place, or what have you?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, I don't know how far into it ‚ I was talking and got cut off. Then I paused and you didn't...

LOU GENTILE: At the very beginning.

KEVIN MEARS: Yeah, its like, "Yeah [unintelligible]"

LOU GENTILE: Its the same thing with Lee. Ya know, he started answering somebody's question and everything went down. So I'm just hoping and praying that does not happen now.

CHRIS LUTZ: Okay. Well I remember when we first, even before we had moved into the house, we had gone and were looking at it. We were down in the basement and there was unfinished walls in some of the spots. And I had asked "is that where they hid the bodies?" We already knew that there was a murder there. Us kids knew that there was a murder. The full details of it, that they were in their bed, I suppose I wasn't aware of. But yeah, I remember quite a bit of what took place, and especially after.

LOU GENTILE: So you didn't really have that many details about exactly what happened to the family that was murdered? Or you knew details of it?

CHRIS LUTZ: No, I didn't know details of it. For me to have asked "is that where they hid the bodies," all I knew was that there was a murder, I didn't know where they were....

LOU GENTILE: What do you think was the first noticeable sign that something was wrong in the house? That there was something there maybe that you couldn't see, that led you to believe that maybe there was maybe a ghost, I guess, in the house?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well as a kid, smelling stuff that smelled dead ‚ you don't necessarily associate that with a ghost. I had no prior knowledge or anything to that sort of uh, what an encounter would be like. What I would say, uh...because you asked what did I notice besides seeing something. So smelling something at the time I didn't associate it with "that's what that was." The other things would have been sounds. But when I actually saw something, then I knew I saw something.

LOU GENTILE: What did you see?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, in the book, it's described it as a white hooded figure. Well, I don't remember it as being white, I'd call it more as gray. As distinct as a shadow but it wasn't against the wall.

LOU GENTILE: So, it could have been like an outline, almost?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yes.

LOU GENTILE: When you were in the house, let's say you were lying down in bed, did you hear noises? And what kind of noises did you hear? I mean, I'm sure that you were probably used to hearing noises in a home from before ‚ you know, every house settles. But what did you hear in the house that scared you?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well there were several times when I became frightened. Um, Danny and I shared what was Ronald DeFeo's bedroom, so it would have been the bedroom with the two quarter moon windows at the front of the house. The infamous eyes. There was, not so much in that room, but more in the play ‚ what we called the playroom, which would have been Dawn's room, which is directly across the hall on the 3rd level. I had some experiences in there that weren't too cool. The uh... [he hesitates] I don't know if I want to get into too many details with the uh...people trying to do...there are some works that people are writing presently and...

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, I understand. I understand. Plus its difficult to talk about.

KEVIN MEARS: We understand. Just talk about what you're comfortable with.

LOU GENTILE: Well, I'll tell you what. Why don't we do this. How about, you know, what sounds in the house... Okay, let me ask you this, did you hear bangings and rappings on the walls in the house while you were laying down?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah. Yeah. And those weren't like "house settling" sounds. Those were, umm, like "things scooting across the floor" sounds. That's not like a door jamb settling ‚ that's different. Stuff that would make you turn your head real fast. Not just a settle...

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, or get underneath the covers. That's for sure. Go ahead, Kevin, what were you going to say?

KEVIN MEARS: I have two questions. One which comes from the chat was, did you have any encounters with Jodie?

CHRIS LUTZ: Not in the house.

KEVIN MEARS: Okay, the other one which is my own. I'm understanding that there are some things that for different reasons you're not going to be overly-comfortable with talking about. But in terms of what you are talking about, is there anything you can pick out the most remarkable thing that happened to you? I mean, again, only as far as you're comfortable.

CHRIS LUTZ: I don't really know how to describe it to you. Knowing that some things can happen and then have it happen immediately after...um?

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, basically, Chris, what that is where information's fed to you, enough to get you scared enough to throw the energy off. That's basically what you're referring to was taking place. You would basically know before what's going to happen?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, but it wasn't like your typical type of ..... I don't really know how to describe it without getting into details for ya. I did know that there was plenty of stuff that took place that ‚ there's not another way to describe it, it wasn't physical realm touch stuff whereas...(long hesitation)...where there's a logical explanation for it. I mean, even looking back all these years later, there's plenty of times when I just tried to say, so, why does this happen and why did that happen?

LOU GENTILE: You can tell this is difficult for him to talk about. And Chris, you were in the armed services and stuff. Chris isn't like a little kid. This is a tough guy here. This has got to be pretty hard for him, You can tell in his voice...it really is.

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, like I was saying earlier, Lou, even us when we were kids when we experienced things with the supernatural. It's there as clear as day, as if it just happened yesterday. So those things stays fresh in a person's mind.

LOU GENTILE: Well yeah. You know I would only confide in you and your Uncle about some of the experiences I had. Remember? Because I didn't really ‚ because I didn't want people to think I was absolutely out of my skull, and I knew you guys would understand. So that I can, I can definitely understand where you're coming from, Chris, because it is difficult to talk about this. What would you feel comfortable talking about? I'll leave it up to you.

CHRIS LUTZ: Alright. You guys talked about plenty this week. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to hear a lot of it. And I got the computer up and running so I've been able to hear last night and tonight. So that's why I'm finally on the horn. It's a big deal, it's not something you can just go ahead and forget. I'd like to just forget it. As this kinda stuff gets brought back up ‚ people like Ric Osuna writing their books, and... You know, that's... What does this guy know, anyway? You know? I mean. [unintelligible] said it pretty good, he wasn't bitter.

LOU GENTILE: Well, I mean, that's true. Like I've stated before, I've interviewed literally hundreds of people, and I've never had somebody call me up on the phone, at my house, telling me that they're going to sue me because I put Ric Osuna on the air. You know? And that's the truth. I've never had that problem before. And Kevin, we've carried some very, very controversial guests. You know. And I mean when that happens, it's the kind of thing that just makes you go, hm, what really is going on here? And when all the people's names that are here in the book start calling me on the phone, calling on the air saying, "this guy's out of his skull", "he's an Amityville junkie", what's that make me believe? If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck...

CHRIS LUTZ: I think it's probably a duck.

LOU GENTILE: Haha! There you go Chris!

KEVIN MEARS: My words almost exactly most of the time!

LOU GENTILE: I mean, John, can you seem to relate to this or what?

JOHN ZAFFIS Uh, yeah.

LOU GENTILE: I don't know. I mean, you guys gotta be pretty sick and tired of people trying to, you know, trying to act like, you know, they're the experts and then they're going to, like, expose this great big hoax when what your family did is they went through a haunting. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It's very... I'll tell you, I have never seen a situation that has so many twists and turns to it and so many people that come out and wanna speak about a certain topic, or about a certain issue with this book than when I had him on. And uh, I don't know. I really don't. Before, it was Kaplan. I mean, let me ask you a question, did Kaplan torture you guys, did he pester you guys about a lot of this?

CHRIS LUTZ: Personally, I didn't even know about Kaplan until they started talking about the History Channel. I never saw his book. And then when somebody brought that up.... I remember years ago Danny told me that he talked to this guy and, ya know, he was gonna tell him what really happened, and it was a brief conversation and... I didn't know, I didn't recall his name or anything to that effect. And then we got to talking about it again. That's when he brought up who he was and... I haven't even read his book. Someone gave me a copy of it, but, you know, as far as I'm concerned, that's garbage. So personally, he didn't bother me. There's another one that just doesn't really know what happened either. So...

JOHN ZAFFIS Well, Chris, There's a lot of them out there.

LOU GENTILE: Alright guys, I gotta take a short break. Chris just relax, and when we come back we'll talk about something you wanna talk about. John, hang on. Everybody else out there, if you're listening, go grab something to eat. It's commercial time. You know what time it is, right? We'll be away for the next six minutes. On The Lou Gentile Show, when we return, we'll be speaking with Christopher Lutz and John Zaffis, Myself, and Kevin about The Amityville Horror, and what really happened on 112 Ocean Avenue right after this.

[break]

LOU GENTILE: And we're back to The Lou Gentile Show. And we're talking tonight, on the last night of The Amityville Horror week. So far we've had on George Lutz, Lorraine Warren, Joel Martin, The History Channel, Kathy Lutz, Christopher Lutz, John Zaffis. This is a lot to soak up here. A lot. Amazing, we're hearing first hand from the people who were inside of the house on 112 Ocean Avenue. The basis for the movie and everything. And its incredible. We're back with John Zaffis. John, welcome back.

JOHN ZAFFIS Thanks

LOU GENTILE: I don't know, man, this is incredible. It really is.

KEVIN MEARS: This is great.

LOU GENTILE: And we're back now with Christopher Lutz. And for more information, ladies and gentlemen, you can go to our website at www.lougentile.com. So, Christopher, what do you feel comfortable talking about?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, during the break, I went ahead and grabbed my briefcase. That's from my History Channel Interview. I decided to go about my own investigation. I've got a briefcase full of stuff here.

LOU GENTILE: See, that's a good idea. Why didn't anyone think of that? The Lutzes investigate The Amityville Horror. Why not, you know?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, maybe you'll [unintelligible] what happened, so... Somebody that really knew what happened had to do it, so, that's what I went for. Uh, rather than get into my stuff, because, until that's all squared away and put together into a final piece, I hate doing what Ric did to you, but you gotta wait for the book.

LOU GENTILE: [laughing] Oh Man!

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, here's what I do wanna share with you. Not only did this house affect our family... You know, it was shortly after my interview with the History Channel, I was cruisin' around on the internet and personally I was surprised when I put "Amityville Horror" into a Google search engine. I couldn't believe how many people, how many hits it had. I mean it was like, I don't even remember, it was...

LOU GENTILE: You like Google?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, I've used that one a lot. It's a good search engine. I don't mean to promote somebody else's site on your radio station, but it works for me.

LOU GENTILE: I think Google rocks. I use it all the time.

KEVIN MEARS: We're in complete agreement on that one. Its the simplest and most straight-forward that has the best results. And I love that.

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, I like that part where you can get the images, and pull it up. Anyway, so I clicked on Google and this guy's name came up, at the time, the name of the site was Amity Talk, or something to that effect. I don't know if anyone talked about Michael Limbaugh this week, that you guys had on the show, but he claimed to have an experience of his own with the house. It kinda piqued my curiosity, so I read around on the site. His site's no longer there, but uh...

Anyway, as a kid, right after the book came out, he went out to the house. He was in New York going to a bat mitzvah one of his family members was having, and he convinced his dad to take him by the house. He got to the house, jumped out of the car, snapped some photos of the house, got in the car, and he left. When he got back to California, his mom went and got the pictures developed, he was only like a 13 year old kid at the time. His mom got the pictures developed, and in the bedroom window, what would have been my bedroom... Now Iíve seen these pictures firsthand. I mean, Iíve held them in my hand. What I did was, after I ran around on his site, I was thinking, this guy seems a little bit whacked, but at the same time, somebody might say the same thing about me. So I gave him a shot and checked him out. So I e-mailed him a couple of times, and he didnít believe it was me. So I told him a couple of things that there ainít no way that anybody else could have known, and he was like, okay I got his confidence. And then he decided... He lived in California, and presently I live in Scottsdale, Arizona ‚ so he jumped in his car and he came out. Heíd been investigating his own little thing. Actually, it got pretty deep. It got into a lot of, a lot of different paranormal type of stuff ‚ shamanism, playing with the Ouija, and a couple other things. Kinda skipping my memory, exactly what else he dealt in. Numerology and some other things...

And so when he got to my house, I was kinda like, I didnít know, what Iíd want him bringing into my house, so I prayed over his car before I let him bring his stuff in, and when we opened up the back hatch of his minivan, I felt something go by me. For sure.

LOU GENTILE: Now, you felt a spirit?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah. Yeah. And I knew it couldnít stick around after what I had prayed so that was one way out after that [unintelligible] getting by us. So, anyways we went into the house and brought his stuff in. I let him tell me what happened. And for about 5-6 hours we sat there, and I asked him questions. And then later on, Iíd restate a question, twist it a little bit, and he wasnít changing his answers, so I was starting to feel, you know, this guy wasnít kidding. And then, the following day, I told my Mom about it, and had him over to the house and I videotaped him explaining to my mom what took place to him. I mean this guy physically was shaking and crying and, you know, he had spiritual encounters with Dawn, and it was just one hell of a story.

LOU GENTILE: Now, when did this gentleman go into the house?

CHRIS LUTZ: He never went in the house. He went to the house as a kid.

LOU GENTILE: So in other words, he drove by it and took some shots?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yep. And in the shots thereís... Well, thereís a couple that seemed like they could be something, but thereís two that, as far as Iím concerned, they are something. Ah, I got a phone ringing. Iíll toss this out of the way so I donít have to listen to it.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Well, from what Chris is describing, Lou, it sounds like the gentleman heís talking about is already pretty much tapped into the supernatural. I mean, heís played with the Ouija and heís been into shamanism and everything else. He probably already knows how and why and where to basically open up and bring things through. So, like Chris is saying, is it a good possibility that it might be a legit-type situation where he picked up something or actually had something on film. I wouldnít be surprised by that, if heís already tapped into that. Cause you know as well as I do that, once youíre open to the doors to that stuff, youíre going to bring things through, whether thereís anything actually still happening at that dwelling or not.

KEVIN MEARS: Hey guys?

LOU GENTILE: Yeah?

KEVIN MEARS: Since I know this is something all of you are going to be somewhat interested in, the answer has finally been posted.

LOU GENTILE: To what?

KEVIN MEARS: To this week.

LOU GENTILE: What do you mean?

KEVIN MEARS: I mean, I just took a glance over at Osunaís site and he actually finally has bothered to put up some kind of response.

LOU GENTILE: Oh, to who, us?

KEVIN MEARS: Ah, not directly, but itís pretty obvious thatís who he means.

LOU GENTILE: Here, let me go there and read it.

KEVIN MEARS: Itís under ìMedia Center ‚ Exposing the Liesî

LOU GENTILE: See, heís such an idiot. ìExposing the Lies.î The kid was in diapers when this was going on. Heís an Amityville junkie. I mean, come on. This is like the guy that watches teletubbies all day. Iím not talking about George, either. [all laughing] íCause I know heís gonna think Iím talking abut him now! ...Iím just saying. Letís see here. Whatís it? Whereís it? Oh, ìDebunking the Lies.î

KEVIN MEARS: Yep, its under, like I said, ìMedia Center.î

JOHN ZAFFIS: What are you guys talking about?

LOU GENTILE: Weíre talking about...

KEVIN MEARS: amityvillemurders.com

LOU GENTILE: I donít think this is new, Kevin.

KEVIN MEARS: No, this just got edited. Like I saw the site earlier today and it wasnít there.

LOU GENTILE: Here we go... ìSadly, there are those who seek to continue the lies and fallacies of The Amityville Horror as they trivialize the DeFeo murders because they are more interested in non-existent demonic pigs and green slime than in reporting accurate information.î Well, apparently heís a goofball because I believe that George actually explained a lot of that.

KEVIN MEARS: Yep.

JOHN ZAFFIS: He sure did.

LOU GENTILE: And ìIn their quest to keep alive a childhood fantasy, they have shown a total disregard for the truth. It is similar to the case of those individuals after World War II who refused to believe that the holocaust ever took place.î I think he just likes writing to hear himself write.

KEVIN MEARS: His ideas are getting funnier and more desperate!

LOU GENTILE: Oh, like I said, Iím waiting for him to start investigating Charles Manson. Thatís the next one.

KEVIN MEARS: I want to know where we trivialized the murders. We never [unintelligible]...

LOU GENTILE: I donít think heís talking about any... Heís not stupid enough to do that.

KEVIN MEARS: Well some of the stuff seems to be direct references to our show.

LOU GENTILE: Because believe me... Well...

KEVIN MEARS: And stuff thatís been said, but thereís stuff on there about Daniel Farrands...

LOU GENTILE: Look, if I go on a crusade against him, he will pray to the Almighty that I never did that.

KEVIN MEARS: Youíre right there, I know you well enough to know that!

LOU GENTILE: Because if I go on a crusade, you know, the DeFeo book, you might as well bring it to one of those trash burnings. You know, because people will be showing up there with the book.

KEVIN MEARS: And then we did a pretty good job of it...

LOU GENTILE: Oh yeah, here we go: ìIs it true that Geraldine DeFeo harassed the show producers? Not so. She only wanted assurance from the documentary and the director Daniel Farrands that the show was going to be objective, after the showís producers contacted her for her personal photographs.î Here we go. We got all these bogus things. Now, here he has an email that was scanned, right? Heís asinine enough to put your fatherís home address up on his website, but he doesnít put Daniel Farrandís email address up there.

KEVIN MEARS: Hereís one more even more twisted. I looked over this ìdocumentationî he has on the site and I donít know if anyone else has noticed this, but for one thing, most of the documentation is typed and the signatures, the one thing that you couldnít verify is the handwriting he claims itís from. All blotted out! So like for all we know ‚ its got, like ìRonî black ‚ so for all we know it could say Ronald McDonald!

LOU GENTILE: First of all, why is this goofball using Geraldine DeFeo? Thatís not her last name, itís Gates. I mean, whatís the deal with that? Anybody have any clues to this? I donít know. See, heís not man enough to come on here, because I know heís listening.

KEVIN MEARS: We both know heís listening. I think weíre all reasonably sure heís listening, but he wonít call.

LOU GENTILE: You know when heíll contact me? When the archives are up.

KEVIN MEARS: Oh, of course.

LOU GENTILE: [whiny voice] ìOh, I listened to your archives...î

CHRIS LUTZ: I thought it was pretty funny what uh... I had called Ric up when I heard his book came out ...I called him and said, ìHey man, why donít you send me a copy of your book!î So he sent me one and uh, I asked him, go ahead and add a little signature in there for me and add a little message too. And he writes in there, ìI hope this answered your question.î [laughing] That was pretty ridiculous.

[off-topic talk excised ‚ Lou and Kevin bash Ric some more]

LOU GENTILE: Anyway, Chris, go ahead. I know that you were talking to all of us about this story with this guy. So this gentlemen was having a... By the way, if youíre just listening, weíre having Christopher Lutz, who is one of the children inside of the Amityville House, oh, youíll find out. Anyway, so this guy went ahead and he had all of these experiences about Dawn and things like that. Now did you ever let this guy in your house? What happened?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, I did.

LOU GENTILE: Okay, what happened after that?

CHRIS LUTZ: Well, I wound up... I was heading to New York back in, it would have been May of ... two years ago. He wanted to go too, so I let him come on out and meet up with me out in New York. We went by the house together, and then we went by the DeFeo Grave. And when we went by that grave, the guy just started busting up crying, just shaking really hard and I didnít know if he was going to pass out or what. He definitely had some kind of an experience on some kind of level with Dawn. Then he called me a couple of times after we returned and he had more problems back at his house, and winded up leaving all the stuff there and taking off. He cruised around in his motor home and that was the last I heard from him. I got a postcard from him, and it says ìIíll see you soonî, and after that the guy just kinda dropped out of sight. So whether heís alright or not, I donít know. I hope he didnít do anything stupid like suicide or anything, but... thatís a possibility.

LOU GENTILE: Now, how have things been since you left the house? Have they been up and down, straight line...?

CHRIS LUTZ: Ah well, when we first left the house, especially in grandmaís house, there was, my Nana, there was stuff going on there. And then, once we got out to California, it wasnít good either. That happened for several years. There was ups and downs for sure during that period of time, but I can remember several major flare-ups. And then, years later, after Iíd left home and was out in New York, I was upstate in the military, Fort Drum. And on the weekends Iíd cruise down to the city, down to Long Island, check out my cousins, my brother. There was an occasion when my brother and I went to... I asked him, ìwhere is the house?î and uh, we went by the house and we pulled up in front of the house. We were both drunk. Weíd been smoking. We walked up and pissed on the lawn, flipped the house off and just because it caused me so many problems in my life. And uh, I thought I was rid of it because I changed my name and nobody would know it was me anymore and uh, that just started things back up again on me.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Thatís, uh... You were in a vulnerable state as it was and the amount of recognition ‚ Iím not surprised, Chris. That will do it instantly.

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah, it wasnít good. A lot of stuff took place when I got back up to the basin. In New York, my roommate ‚ stuff was happening with him. The van that I was in, it got rolled. Both the guys that were in there almost died. A lot of witchcraft in upstate New York. Around [unintelligible], in that area.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Fort Drum. You mean right up right around that area of Fort Drum?

CHRIS LUTZ: Yeah.

JOHN ZAFFIS: Yes, there is. Yeah, thereís quite a bit of activity up in that area.

CHRIS LUTZ: Oh yeah, there was, you know, another time I had seriously bad dreams after that. [unintelligible] Had some dreams that I was decapitated and died and go to hell and all that stuff. Not that thatís paranormal to have a nightmare, but, you know, the level that it affects you and then your subconscious and whether or not that feeds into your dreams. Iím sure that plays a role. But when somethingís that real to you, youíll dream about it, too. It wasnít a joke. Everything... A lot of things happened there, you know, thatís... Its all very real to me.

LOU GENTILE: Well, it sounds like there was a lot that happened to you, Chris, and you can tell in your voice that, from what Iíve seen, and I know John, you have literally interviewed and been on thousands upon thousands of cases with individuals who have hauntings in their homes. From my aspect, John, I think that what heís saying right here is from his heart. It doesnít sound like heís out, out for, you know, to make a buck, or to do something; but itís just difficult for him to get it out because he probably doesnít like bringing it up. And I canít say that I blame him for that.

KEVIN MEARS: Not at all, I wouldnít think that this would be an easy thing to discuss.

JOHN ZAFFIS: I can understand what heís doing, is heís trying to straighten it out, you know, get the facts out there. And thatís basically what counts because like all of us know, and Chris said the same thing, you put Amityville in and you come up with more stuff than you can shake a stick at. I mean, itís incredible. Iíve seen more things and more people that have been involved with that case than I donít know what. And some of them werenít even born yet.

LOU GENTILE: Alright Chris...Iím gonna... Iím gonna...Iím gonna... I hate do do this but...I gotta... Iím gonna let him go because I gotta actually discuss some other stuff and bring some things up.

KEVIN MEARS: Hey Chris, thanks for calling in.

LOU GENTILE: Definitely thanks for calling in, Chris, I appreciate it.

CHRIS LUTZ: Sure. Iíll probably be giving you a call another night.

LOU GENTILE: Yeah, believe me, the lines always open here for you, man.

CHRIS LUTZ: Right on.

LOU GENTILE: So thatís not a problem. And I do thank you for coming along. So with that, tell your mother thank you very much, I appreciate it, and I hope she stays in good health, okay?

CHRIS LUTZ: Okay.

[Chris hangs up ‚ remainder of show excised]