As
the Lutz's settled into their new home... things continued to
occur, but only gradually. "The house was very patient...
it was willing to wait", George recalled.
Mysterious
and repulsive odors pervaded the home. A strange green jello
like substance leaked from the walls. The toilet bowls began
to turn black. Swarms of houseflies were found time and
time again in the sewing room.Strange drops of black
goo oozed from the keyholes in the doors. Small indicators
that something was wrong inside the house at 112 Ocean Avenue.
Personality
changes also began to affect the Lutz family. George would
suddenly awake precisely at 3:15 am each morning... with an uncontrollable
urge to check the boathouse. He would go for days without
bathing. George was often sick, losing a lot of weight,
and energy. Kathy began having nightmares. The children
often fought and argued with one another.
Then,
the noises came. Footsteps could be heard walking about
the house. "In the middle of night, you would hear
the front door slam... it was a very distinctive sound".
George would rush down the stairs to the front entrance...
only to find Harry the dog sleeping at the foot of the door. It
was obvious that he hadn't been disturbed, yet George distinctly
remembers hearing the front door slam. "It was the
only door in the house that made that type of sound, I knew what
I had just heard ".
George
would also hear a strange sound at night... like a clock radio
going off. "It sounded like a clock radio that was
tuned slightly off station, or a marching band that was tuning
up. An unorganized musical sound, coming from downstairs.
At first I thought it was indeed a radio that may have gone
off..."George would again reach the first floor, to
find the rug rolled back and furniture moved.
When
the Lutz's invited people over to their new home, many of their
guests would also witness the noises, and hear the footsteps walking
about in the rooms above their heads from the kitchen. "We
would ask them if they had heard that, and we would go upstairs
and find the kids asleep... and their would be no way to explain
this".
One
of the Lutz's guests who witnessed this explained to them that
he had also lived in a house that was besieged by similar noises
when he was a kid. He would hear footsteps, and bangings as well.
One of the things he remembered was that his parents used to open
the windows... and go through the house saying the Lord's Prayer.
"He said it had worked for them, as a child he had done this...
and it sounded like a reasonable thing." So the Lutz's decided
to give it a try.
They
opened one of the windows in each room of the house. Together,
they went around from room to room, reciting the Lord's Prayer.
In George's words, "It didn't work".
From
out of nowhere, many voices screamed at them 'Will You Please
Stop!". George eventually searched the house for speakers
that might have been hidden, thinking someone was playing a cruel
joke on them. None were found.
It was obvious to the Lutz's by now, that whatever was occurring
in the house, it wasn't going to be fixed simply by them telling
it to leave.
One
of the most frightening aspects of the Amityville haunting was
the apparitions that manifested inside the home. Kathy would
be in the kitchen, and suddenly feel a presence embracing her
from behind. They would also see things peering in through
the windows at them at night. Shadows would move about the
house. Then George and Kathy began to notice that their
daughter Missy had begun interacting with an imaginary friend
named "Jodie".
When
it comes to the topic of 'Jodie", it was obvious to me that
this was something George Lutz was not comfortable talking about.
He took on a very serious tone, and often hesitated before
he spoke. "Our daughter came to Kathy one day and asked
her if angels talked, and started talking about her imaginary
friend. Missy had someone that she spoke of, and she called
this... entity, or thing.. person... 'Jodie'. At the time,
we thought that it was just an imaginary friend". George
continued, "You know, it's a pretty funny thought to have
kids with imaginary friends. It's not so funny when the
'imaginary friends' have things that they are trying to influence
upon your children".
Lutz
went on to explain that, "Missy had a friend, she called
him 'Jodie'. Jodie had the ability to change form, and for
Missy, she thought it was a good thing. We also did too,
having an imaginary friend like that, until Jodie said, 'Your
going to live here forever'. That was too strange a thing
to come from a four or five year old kid".
Things
were rapidly escalating in the house. Again, George and
Kathy would see eyes peering in at them in the living room. George
raced out of the house after the culprit... only to find hoofprints
leading away in the fallen snow. One night Kathy launched
a chair towards the eyes that were peering in from Missy's bedroom
window. The sound of a squealing pig pierced the night air.
It
was time to leave their 'dream home'.
Next:
Fleeing the house
