First in a continuing series about the truth behind The Amityville Horror, the lives of the people who were changed by it … and how they continue to be changed by it today.
Over 30 years ago, John G. Jones began a new life as a paranormal investigator, telling the continuing story of the Lutz family and the Amityville Horror. But shortly after the worldwide success of his bestselling books, John dropped out of sight. Now he’s come back into the light, ready to tell the amazing and frankly frightening stories of what he and his allies have been doing – the demons they’ve battled and the secrets they’ve uncovered – beginning with a new book, Amityville Horror Now: The Jones Journal, inspired by his experiences.
One question that comes up more than any other is simple and straightforward: Did the Lutzes make up the whole story? He’s what John G. Jones had to say in a recent interview:
“I can’t know, from personal knowledge, how much of the Lutzes’ story has been reported accurately. It appears even Jay Anson may have made some small mistakes when writing his original book, which is not totally surprising since he took his information from almost forty hours of tapes the Lutzes made, and some misconceptions were never adequately corrected. I can say this: the Lutzes told me that their story was true, and until their deaths, both George and Kathy never wavered in that contention.”
Many have asked why George and Kathy Lutz talked about their extraordinary experiences at all…
“The Lutzes were in total, outright shock when they were suddenly faced with the terror that haunted them,” John G. Jones says now. “Today, stories like theirs are reported all over the world, including America, but when this happened to the Luz family in 1976, they were alone in their fear. This hadn’t happened to anyone they’d ever heard of. They reached out for help, not knowing the implications. The story spread. And when the New York press got hold of the story, it caught on. News outlets around the world picked it up and, without the Lutz’ involvement at all, it quickly became a phenomenon–essentially the most famous modern-day haunting in history.
One persistent story is that Geroge and Kathy Lutz sat down at their own kitchen table and cooked up the entire story. “Not a chance,” John says.
“To my knowledge, the only person to say that was a lawyer whom the Lutzes initially consulted in regards to a number of other problems, but whom they decided not to use. Both George and Kathy told me that the ‘hoax’ story was totally untrue. And, in retrospect, it would seem incredibly strange if it were true, since back in the mid-1970’s there had never been a story like this that became a huge bestselling book and movie. Nowadays, someone revealing a story like this might make the jump to the idea of making money from it, but at the time the Lutz family fled Amityville, nothing like this had ever received the slightest interest from press, publishers, or movie-makers. It would have been quite a stretch if they had somehow come up with some kind of scam regarding the events, in the middle of fleeing their old life, struggling to decide what to do to save their family refusing to go back into the house they had thought of as their dream house, and moving across the country. Both George and Kathy, until their deaths, repeatedly stated that what had happened had terrified them, and neither of them had even been involved in the publishing or the movie business.They never said their story was a hoax. In fact, both went to their deaths stating the exact opposite.
What happened to the Lutzes after they left the evil in Amitvyille? The whole story will be told in Amityville Horror: The Return, to be published in just a few weeks. Sign up for previews, interviews, and exclusive content in the right-hand column!
