If anyone has seen the crime scene photos.......

[lori52976]

A few things I noticed that maybe might be my mind working overtime or maybe could infact be something to think about.

Ronnie Sr & wife: if you look at Ronnies position in the bed it def looks "unnatural" kind of looks as if he was placed or pulled that far up the bed with the pillows underneath him. Also if you look at his gunshot wound the blood trickels down almost straight or slightly to the right. If he was shot laying in this position the blood would have ran to the side, gravity would not have made it go down in a straight line. My guess is he was standing up. His right leg is awkardly straight as if he might have been standing as well.

John Defeo: This picture shows the little boy looking extremely unnatural, my guess is he was not sleeping. I believe he was awake and knew what was happening or just possibly confused, he was also the youngest and most defenseless which would make him one of the last ones to be killed. His body is extremely straight and stiff and seeing where his head is this is not a natural position of sleep. Is it possible that Ronnie may have told him to lay down and then just shot him?

Marc Defeo: Marc seems to me to have been actually sleeping. His body looks natural as his head is perfectly placed on the pillow and turned to the side facing outward (away from the wall) but towards the shooter. My guess is that if he saw someone about to shoot him his head would be facing the other direction or buried straight into the pillow (similar to John). His wound also bleeds to the side, seems the blood runs in a way that it should if someone was shot exactly in this position. I also see that the wheelchair next to his bed has no blood on it but in the next frame the floor has drops of blood where the wheelchair was. Its obvious Ronnie moved the chair to shoot his brother then moved it back.

Dawn Defeo: If you look at her position in the bed her right leg is bent. Most people are in this position when they are sleeping, its a relaxed position. Or quite possibly about to get up. If she was about to get up from the bed she would have had to bend her leg like this to do so to try to escape. She clearly was not awake and struggling with her brother as it has been said. Also considering her wound was the most gruesome since she it was said her skull was distorted from the impact, her hair strangely covers her entire face, as well as her headboard being so clean for someone who literally had half her face missing. Maybe he just couldnt look at what he did.

Allison Defeo: Very hard to tell much from this pic as you cant really see much. Again like Dawn her hair is covering her face also as she was shot I believe in the face. She is also facing the door which could signify she was actually sleeping. Doesnt seem to be much blood from what I can see. My guess is that he covered her face with her own hair and cleaned up a bit because he couldnt come to the realization of what he did.
What I do notice is Allison, Dawn, and his mom Louise all seem to be covered in blankets as well as John and Mark (you can see the blanket in Johns picture where they show the mattress that it was stained with blood proving he was also covered. Almost as if he was sorry then covered them in a respect sort of way or nuturing. However the father whom he out right states he hated is left out in the open.

I am not an investigator by any means or trying to be one, I just noticed these things and was wondering if anyone would agree to what I see.

[Link the Labrador]

That's a good observation.

I saw the crime photos as well and from what I can tell, Dawn's photo pretty much looks like she's sleeping (minus the blood on the sheets). Everyone else, but Mr. DeFeo has their blankets pulled up to their heads. I don't think this was just out of respect, more like "I wanna cover them up cause I don't want to look at them while I'm cleaning up what I did!"

You have a good point about the covering the girls' faces with their own hair and that could explain why he orders the boys to turn over but this is what I don't understand: He goes after them AFTER he kills his parents, why is it NOW that he decides to start ordering his victims to lie on their stomachs? Was the parents' positions just mere coincidence or what?

[lori52976]

I think the whole reason for making them lay on their stomachs was to eithier make it appear "execution style" since the first thing he said was they were killed by the mafia. Or I believe he did this to avoid looking at them face to face. No other reason to have everyone shot on their stomach except for the fact you couldnt face them.

[Dan the Damned]

Welcome to the board.

We can see a lot from the crime scene photos, but we also need to consider other evidence, such as the trajectories of the bullets passing through the bodies (which can determine if the victim was standing or laying down) and if the bullet holes in the mattresses line up with the bullet holes on the bodies.

From what I understand, the evidence shows the father was indeed shot in bed.

Yeah, it does look a little weird the way the pillows are more under his chest than his head. Perhaps this shows he didn't die right away, but was able to move a bit. And maybe that's why Ronnie shot him a 2nd time?

I disagree with what you say about the blood line from the bullet hole in his back. I think this is more in line with him being shot laying down. The blood does not go straight down his back, it veers down to the right and appears to perhaps fall off his body around the waistband of his underwear. It seems totally natural for his body position, as in all other directions it would be going uphill. Instead, it is following the only downward path on his body, which is down his back to the right of the small of his back.

It is not in a straight vertical line.

If he was shot standing up (and managed to remain standing as the blood started to flow out of him), wouldn't the blood flow be in a straight vertical line instead of how its shown in the photo?

And just in case you don't know, let me take this chance to remind everyone not to post photos of the DeFeo bodies on this board.

[lori52976]

Well the father was also shot 2 times, once in the front (kidney area) and in the back. My guess is that Ronnie did not shoot once in the front and then turn his father over and shoot him in the back leaving him in this position. That would have been to much work, he would have just shot him twice in the front of his body. I am thinking that his father got out of bed when seeing Ronnie with the gun and being a little "nervous" or even somewhat unsteady, Ronnie shoots and hits his father at an odd place by his hip. Keep in mind this is the man or person he feared the most this was his oppurtunity to do what he always wanted so his accuracy and confidence could have been somewhat off. If his father was laying down why would he shoot him there of all places? He probably would have went for the chest or even head. At this point I think his mother awakes and searches for the hand gun, Ronnie sees this and shoots. Now maybe his father still in shock over what just happened is hunched over by the bed or close to his wife. Ronnie takes the oppurtunity to shoot his dad in the back and his father collapses in the bed but on the edge, Ronnie pulls his dad up closer to the top of the bed and leaves him in this position. Now my reasoning for saying the father was shot standing is 3 reasons first there is a picture that shows a tennis shoe on the floor away from the bed with drops of blood (not splatter but large thick drops as if bleeding from a wound) 2nd is the flow of the blood from the wound and 3rd would be the fact that he was shot in the front then the back. His father was a heavy man his back would have had to be arched for the blood to just roll down his back the way it did in the picture that would be hard with someone who has a belly, not much of an arched back in that position.

[Shawn]

Shot in the front? Where did you get that info?????

Welcome, btw!

[Chichibcc]

Welcome to the board!

[# 13]

Welcome to the board Lori

I kinda agree with your theory that Ronnie covered up the girls faces with their own hair out of guilt. This is not uncommon for murderers to do things like this. A child murderer in Detroit in the late 70's actually washed and reclothed the bodies of his victims, and laid them out, hands across their chests as if for burial. Investigators were almost positive that this was an act out of guilt. Who knows, maybe Ronnie covered their faces out of guilt. However, we will never know for sure (about the Defeos and as for the the case in Detroit, it remains, I believe unsolved).

About the bloody tennis shoe picture, I must have missed that. Also the theory that Ronald Sr. was standing up when shot I think has been highly disputed.

[astonio]

It never ceases to amaze me the belief of Mrs. DeFeo actually looking for a hand gun to fire from her bed in the early morning hours at her own son after been awaken by gunfire aimed at her husband . When Mrs. DeFeo was found later that evening, she was found clutching her necklace underneath her body. If she really were looking for a hand gun, say, in her nightstand drawer, her body wouldn't have been found as it were.

I believe Mr. DeFeo didn't make it a common practice to sleep under cover, possibly because of his weight. As for the pillows found underneath him and not his head resting on them, I sleep like this every night, so that is not unusually peculiar to me.

Just for the record, Dawn's wound was most horrific; however, from the entry and exit wounds of the purported trajectory of the bullet, there wouldn't have been splatter on her headboard as the exit wound was the left side of her head she was resting on. And it's a huge leap to state Dawn had half her face blown off. The left side of her face concaved to the confines of the human skull and the bullet's gases at point of entry causing an implosion.

[lori52976]

Thanks for the welcome...I read Mr. Defeo's autopsy report on Tracey Defeo's website where it speaks of 2 gunshot wounds and gives the specific area.
As for the remark about Mrs. Defeo having a handgun, this was stated in a report filed by the Suffolk police that I read, not something I made up. Although I am not questioning the sleeping habits of Mr. Defeo not having a blanket but I am sure not every member in the house was sleeping with a blanket up to their neck and bundled up like they were found, and if they were I would have to say it would have been somewhat cold to a point where someone no matter how heavy they were wouldnt be sleeping almost naked with not even a thin sheet covering them. Also I understand your explanation of Dawns bullet wound but anyone being shot in the head at point blank range with anything smaller then a rifle which is what was used would cause SOME type of splatter that is totally impossible to say it wouldnt. She had an exit wound as you said, when a bullet has an exit wound blood along with a bullet comes so clearly there should have been some kind of splatter. In the court transcript the medical examiner described to having half her face blown off, that is what I read.

[lori52976]

I know we have been speaking of the crime scene photos and I am not intending this to be disrespectful in any way but if anyone has a link to the site where they showed the actual autopsy photo could you private mail me on that? I have my own theory as you can read what I have written but I can only figure out so much on my own without reading the report or seeing the actual picture. Even a link to view the actual police report on EXACTLY how they were found would be great. Thanks again everyone for welcoming me

[msmart112]

Well the father was also shot 2 times, once in the front (kidney area) and in the back.

Wrong. Both of Mr. DeFeo’s entrance wounds were in his back.

Now my reasoning for saying the father was shot standing is 3 reasons first there is a picture that shows a tennis shoe on the floor away from the bed with drops of blood (not splatter but large thick drops as if bleeding from a wound)…

Why do you believe that this picture of the tennis shoe has ANYTHING to do with the DeFeo crime scene?

As for the remark about Mrs. Defeo having a handgun, this was stated in a report filed by the Suffolk police that I read, not something I made up.

The Suffolk County police reports listed two handguns recovered from the master bedroom…



…one of them was a pellet gun…



…and the other was a BB gun…

Also I understand your explanation of Dawns bullet wound but anyone being shot in the head at point blank range with anything smaller then a rifle which is what was used would cause SOME type of splatter that is totally impossible to say it wouldnt.

Wrong. There is an article on Snopes.com titled The Last Interrogation that shows how it is ENTIRELY possible for a point blank gunshot to result in NO splatter (Warning: graphic content).

[Dan the Damned]

The Suffolk County police reports listed two handguns recovered from the master bedroom…
…one of them was a pellet gun…
…and the other was a BB gun…

And aside from being pretty harmless, neither was found in the nightstand (which is where Ronnie claimed his mother was reaching, IIRC). And just as Astonio said earlier, her body positioning shows Ronnie was incorrect.

As for the picture of the bloody tennis shoe, that simply does not come from the DeFeo house, no matter what Ric Osuna or anyone else says. Wanna see for yourself? Go to Ric's website and view the crime scene photos. Make a list of all the rooms you see -- they are all represented. Now while you're doing this, note these following points:

1) The carpeting in the DeFeo crime scene photos is pristine. In fact the entire DeFeo house is immaculate.

2) The carpeting in the "bloody shoe photo" is disgusting -- filled with dirt and hair and dust. It looks like it hasn't been vaccumed or cleaned in years.

3) The carpeting in the "bloody shoe photo" is orange. Note in the DeFeo crime scene pix that there is no orange carpeting anywhere.

And that's all you need do to prove to yourself that the bloody shoe photo came from another house. Too bad the brilliant self-proclaimed "investigative journalist" Ric Osuna didn't bother looking at his own photos before including the bloody shoe photo in his book -- for now he looks like a fool.

But don't feel bad. When people stumble across Tracey's or Ric's websites, it is easy to be misled by the stuff they say and by the way they present their evidence. Step into our debriefing lounge. We serve hot cocoa.

[lori52976]

In response to your snopes.com theory, I checked it out. Are you kidding me with that? Its a man in a police interrogation room that picks up the cops gun that the cop LEFT in the room with his keys on the table ( I mean that alone should give a clue as to how authentic this video is) and the man proceeds to shoot himself. Even if this was a REAL video and I use the term IF, the gun is COMPLETELY different from the rifle Ronnie Defeo used. High powered rifles carry out high velocity which in turn causes a much different gun shot wound then the one shown in this video. The top of the article you told me about even says it may not be authentic...regardless different weapon different results.

[msmart112]

Even if this was a REAL video and I use the term IF…

No if about it…

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/20 ... -copshot20

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/23 ... e-deputy23

...and a .45 handgun is not exactly a pellet gun (or BB gun).

[lori52976]

Right it isnt a pellet gun but its also certainly not a .35 Caliber Marlin rifle....you cant even compare that to what this guy was using. I respect your opinion but this is mine.

[astonio]

lori52976, believe me when I say, I do respect your opinion. That being said, apart of the many injustices surrounding the DeFeos stem from conjecture. It's the idea we may have in our minds of how the murders transpired vs. the facts of the case. There have been too many "theories" or out and out lies about those early morning hours that have been published that it misleads anyone undertaking research to any degree about the case.

I can safely say, we here at the board trade back and forth the facts of the case vs. that said conjecture to either discern the truth or to uncover the motivations of those conjectures. Not so arguably, the circumstances have been debated for over three decades. In any event, those things which spring to mind regarding the DeFeo murders aren't necessarily the way the crime took place at all. Yes, truly horrific, but not as fantastic as others would want the public to believe. The reason I can state respect of your opinions is that in the areas you brought up, we can only debate those points because those are the facts missing from the case, i.e., Dawn's headboard, the manner in which Butch killed his family, his movements, all of which, we can only piece together and could still be very far off from what really happened.

Please note, at this particular forum, we will respond to posts based on the evidence which encompasses a great deal dependent upon what area we are discussing. It's new members such as yourself that keep the board alive, per se, by coming forward with your opinions and allowing the board's members to respond from the information we have readily at hand. So, with that, welcome to the board!

[Shawn]

Its a man in a police interrogation room that picks up the cops gun that the cop LEFT in the room with his keys on the table

No it is NOT. Watch it AGAIN, please. And please, by all means read the entire article. Thanks.

[Howard64]

i had the rare privilege of seeing ALL the photos once. In fact i showed them to a forensic pathologist, a the college i attended. He said to me it didn't appear that the bodies were shot then moved.

He did tell me that from what he saw on Dawns pic, he agrees with me, there was no fight before she was shot.

In his professional opinion, they were all shot as they slept.

[Brendan72]

I am interested in hearing ideas on why nobody moved from their beds when the gunshots went off ... or even why no neighbours heard it?

I read the above theories and I find them credible and possible weighed against evidence based on the photographs and forensic / ballistic evidence - I always thought the victims remained in their beds.

It is possible that DeFeo Sr probably was sleeping with the sheets off the bed and was lying there in that position when he was shot. I don't think any of them had the chance to react.

I could give ideas but I am not sure how they could not hear the gunshots going off inside the house ... but even more interesting is how the neighbours didn't.

[t00nCiNaToR]

Right it isnt a pellet gun but its also certainly not a .35 Caliber Marlin rifle....you cant even compare that to what this guy was using. I respect your opinion but this is mine.

I can't watch the video at work here but if it indeed was a .45 then that's a bigger bullet than the .35, but it's a slower moving bullet which at close range does more damage than a faster moving bullet like the .35 Remington that Butchie used.

This is simply fact.

I am interested in hearing ideas on why nobody moved from their beds when the gunshots went off ... or even why no neighbours heard it?

- Ummmm the Irelands heard the gunshot(s) and so did that boy(Nesbit?) who heard the dog screaming.

I read the above theories and I find them credible and possible weighed against evidence based on the photographs and forensic / ballistic evidence - I always thought the victims remained in their beds.

- They did I believe, except Dawn.

It is possible that DeFeo Sr probably was sleeping with the sheets off the bed and was lying there in that position when he was shot. I don't think any of them had the chance to react.

- Yup, except Dawn.

I could give ideas but I am not sure how they could not hear the gunshots going off inside the house ... but even more interesting is how the neighbours didn't.

- But They Did

The ONLY 2 Reasons for Dawn NOT getting out of bed.

1.- She guessed that Butchie would eventually have killed them and she lay there to ride out the storm(Awake).

2.- She knew what he was going to do beforehand and was expecting it.

In EVERY single account I have heard Butchie tell of the night in Question, he ALWAYS wrestles with Dawn and the gun. I mean before he was arrested, not at the police station when he said it was the mob, but since... yeah.