The Warrens became a household name for the supernatural after their involvement in the infamous Amityville house case. The scary elements of this story really began in 1974. Per CBS New York, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr., one of the children of the DeFeo family, murdered his two parents and four siblings in their sleep. The house was empty for a year, but George and Kathy Lutz eventually bought the house for a very cheap price of $80,000.
Their residence was short-lived. The couple and the children only stayed for 28 days after seeing slime ooze from a wall and a red-eyed pig creature, among other disturbances. In addition to these occurrences, George saw his wife levitating and said that he woke up at 3:15 a.m. every day, the time when DeFeo killed his family, per Cosmopolitan. According to The Daily Beast, the Warrens came in and determined that there were psychic troubles even before the notorious murders.
The house became the stuff of horror pop culture, most notably portrayed in the 1979 film "The Amityville Horror," which was based on Jay Anson's 1977 book on the case. (Yes, the remake film in 2005 is the one with an especially hot Ryan Reynolds.) We also see it mentioned briefly in "The Conjuring 2." But did the Amityville haunting really happen? Back in 1979, lawyer William Weber (DeFeo's attorney) apparently claimed that he and the couple made the story up over lots of wine, per The Washington Post.
