Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Hey everybody, it is Lauren from the Llamas podcast and I am alone tonight recording. And I do apologize if you hear little voices in the back. It is not ghost or gremlins. It is just my children as I'm recording from home right now.
[00:00:22] So as you're watching this, it is Halloween.
[00:00:26] Happy Halloween. I hope you have some really great fun plans for this weekend like trick or treating or boo parties or anything like that. So I hope you have the happiest of Halloween.
[00:00:40] And I've been dealing with the non stop call for the last week, so I apologize if you do hear that tonight. Well, today.
[00:00:48] So this episode is me solo.
[00:00:52] And since it is Halloween, I'm not going to discuss like the Cornell case like we talked about. I'm going to talk about Halloween cases.
[00:01:01] So I know before we have kind of discussed some Halloween cases and more like eerie type cases, but I don't think we ever truly dug into the Amityville horror case.
[00:01:13] And it to me has kind of an interesting legal side because we have both the criminal aspect of it and the civil aspect and movie rights and slander and libel and those type things. So.
[00:01:30] And I am sorry for the cough once again.
[00:01:36] So with the Amityville horror case.
[00:01:38] So let me look up his name again. I think it's de facto, it is.
[00:01:45] So originally.
[00:01:49] So Butch DeFeo. DeFeo is a man and they lived in this house up in New York in upstate New York.
[00:02:00] I think it's like on the water, that type stuff is what I think. I'm not 100 sure, but I do know I was in upstate New York and this is known as the Amityville house.
[00:02:11] With this house, it was a family that lived inside of it and one day, but in the night murdered his mom, his dad and his siblings. So six people in total were murdered in this house.
[00:02:28] He was the only one in the house left alive.
[00:02:32] And so later he did confess to the murders to the police, but he did go through a trial and everything because in his trial he claimed insanity.
[00:02:44] And his attorney was a man named Mr. Weber, William Weber, to be exact.
[00:02:55] And he was his attorney and he tried to claim in his case that DeFeo was not liable for the murders due to insanity promotion, insanity defense. And pretty much he said that it was because he heard voices and he couldn't explain why he killed him. He just said he heard voices in his head that told them to kill them.
[00:03:23] And he did.
[00:03:24] He has died in prison in 2021.
[00:03:28] The jury didn't go for this mental insanity defense. He was given six consecutive life sentences for all the people he murdered.
[00:03:36] And he ended up dying at the age of 69 in 2021.
[00:03:42] So very sad, very tragic case there. Basic criminal case. But he was saying voices in his head.
[00:03:49] So he's trying to claim possession. You know, those type things.
[00:03:54] Not that different from Lindsay Clancy saying the voices in her head. I'm just saying, saying. But anyways, the complete insanity defense failed. He's died, he's in jail. But after he committed these crimes, a family known as the Luxes, it was husband and wife and their three children moved into this house.
[00:04:16] And I'm sorry for the coughing.
[00:04:20] They only lasted in this house for 28 days.
[00:04:24] At the end of 28 days, they fled the house and they stated that it was due to all the paranormal experiences. There was like ghosts. And I'm trying to think of everything they said, but pretty much that there were all these poltergeists coming after them and that that is the reason they couldn't stay in the house. They fled the house. So then they were going to enter this book deal and guess who's going to be a part of all this, but DeFeo's attorney, Mr. Weber. So feel like we're already getting into some legal ethical gray areas here because the man that just represented this guy in a criminal case is now going to help the people that came into the house and left the house have a book deal. So to me, that's little shouldn't be doing that.
[00:05:20] And with that in mind, so they're working on this book deal of kind of the horror of Amityville House, like those type of things. Well, in the course of this, they decide they don't want to. The Luxes is that they don't want to work with Weber anymore.
[00:05:40] And they go with this other group and this other publisher.
[00:05:44] And so they move on all of that. And then the Lexus decide to sue Weber and some other people, I think, like Good Housekeeping, a lot of different entities, to say it was defamation, like, no, to say it was invasion of privacy and these type things, because all these news outlets were coming out talking about the house, the whores, all this stuff. And in that, then Weber counterclaims and says fraud, breach of contract.
[00:06:21] So in the course of all of this, there's this lawsuit going back and forth.
[00:06:27] And so what happens in all of this is the judge pretty much rules. This is a civil case now. Criminal case was only at the beginning. It's done is over. The guy was in jail. This is where we're in civil court now.
[00:06:46] So in this civil case, the judge pretty much rules was known as summary judgment. He is saying he rules against the Lutzes pretty much. And lets says there's no grounds for your case. There was no real invasion of privacy. Your case is out. But that doesn't get the this case. Com like dismissed completely because the Lutz is. They're out. They don't have a claim.
[00:07:12] But when they sued, they counterclaim the defense Weber and those people counterclaim, relate the breach contract fraud because of all this stuff with the literary agents. So that lawsuit is allowed to move forward. So one thing you got to remember, if you file a lawsuit and then somebody counterclaims, your part could be dismissed and the counterclaims can move forward. And you can't just decide, I don't want to move forward with this anymore because there are counterclaims that have to be dealt with. So that's what was happening here. So the counterclaims.
[00:07:48] Well, a new judge comes in on this case and this judge is pretty much, you know, pretty tough, no nonsense, like get to the point type judge. Well, this judge says, says, hey, maybe some of this needs to be dealt with. With the New York State Bar because of how Weber acted, going from being this attorney and now being their literary agent, like something seems wrong about that.
[00:08:13] So because of that, magically, the case settled the next day because Weber probably didn't want to put his whole career because they'd only countersoed for $2 million. Now this was in the late 70s, so I'm not exactly sure what that was, but there were Weber and other defendants, so it wouldn't have been just his money. And I'm sure in the late 70s, even though that was probably a large sum of money that was not worth losing your complete law license from. And I'm guessing in Criminal World probably was making pretty good money in New York back then.
[00:08:45] So that's kind of where that case ended up there. You think it's over. You think it's done well years later. So we're up in year 2000 and there's going to be a sequel. And so there's like a contract signed about this case.
[00:09:05] I don't know if the sequel actually happened, but we do get the 2005 movie which this contract is covering. It has Ryan Reynolds and the Amityville Horror House. So it's the remake of the 1978 film, kind of, but it's different. And so in this, the whole premise of the movie, if you haven't seen it is pretty much the. Lutz is like Ryan Reynolds is playing the dad and he's in the house and he gets possessed and he's like, I've been making coffins for his kids, he's killed the dog, he's doing all types of crazy stuff.
[00:09:40] And then he has to go and the family escapes the house and golf is just killing me night. Right.
[00:09:50] But in that situation. So this movie comes out. Well, Lutz was supposed to get part of the proceeds to it and he didn't get that. He was supposed to get so much money, those type things and then he was supposed to get a percentage of the profits. He also sued them for level and slander for from.
[00:10:14] He was saying they over exaggerated him with doing all the stuff he did and betrayed him in the wrong light.
[00:10:26] So this case happened around 2005.
[00:10:30] And so with that in mind, the 2005 film was made. It was actually a box office hit.
[00:10:41] It is a work of fiction. But at the beginning of the movie it does say, oh, this was based on true events. And so then we had this whole case because he said it was based on true events.
[00:10:53] And eventually I believe this case once again settled as typically most civil cases do. But it's kind of interesting, this criminal case that happened back in the 70s is still having an impact. You know, it's 2005 and I remember going and seeing this movie in theaters. I remember going with one of. I think it was me and Rashon went and kind of a group of our friends in high school and sometimes I love a good horror movie and it was a well done movie and I enjoyed it, but I guess I never really thought it was truly based on a real, real story, kind of quasi real, but. So that's the story of the Amityville Horror House. And to this day the house still exists. It hasn't been torn down or anything. I believe it is currently on like Verbo or Airbnb and people still go to the house. And after the fact, the house doesn't seem anybody else has had any paranormal experiences in the house.
[00:11:51] I think realistically the man that murdered his family in there had.
[00:11:56] I'm not saying he wasn't possessed, but I don't think it was the house that did. It maybe had mental illness, those type things. We don't know what's going on there, but I don't think it was the house being possessed.
[00:12:07] So that's the Amityville Horror case. There's also a case that came from upstate New York that I just wanted to talk about that is actually a case I read in property law in law school.
[00:12:19] So with this case, it was one in upstate New York as well, where a person bought this house. And the person that bought the house is called the Stamboski vs. Ackley case. And. And this case is known as the Ghostbusters ruling. I may have probably mentioned this, but we read this case in property in law school and the whole issue of the case is not do ghosts exist?
[00:12:47] But if you have said your house is haunted, do you have to declare that to the potential buyers?
[00:12:57] And so in this case, what happens is a lady pretty much has went on the news, been in reader's digestion. Local folklore about this house is pretty much that there's friendly poltergeist in it. She didn't act like they were mean, they were friendly, just I guess, Casper, your friendly neighborhood ghost type thing.
[00:13:18] But anyways, she sells the house for a pretty good sum of money.
[00:13:23] And the person had put down about 32,000. This was in the late 80s, early 90s.
[00:13:29] They put down 32,000 on the house.
[00:13:31] And they didn't know that this house was supposedly haunted. They were not from the area, they were from somewhere else. They didn't know the local housing market, customs, all those things. So he sues to get out of going into this contract to buy this house.
[00:13:49] And the Supreme Court in New York said that she had went out to say this house was haunted. He did not know about this because he was not local. But she had. Whether the ghost exists or not was not really the question of law. But because she had said the house was haunted, she has admitted that there are ghost or poltergeist in the house. And in doing so, she should have disclosed that to the potential buyer. And in not doing so, she didn't fulfill her duties. And so they could rule the contract null and void.
[00:14:22] So you have to disclose as a matter of law in New York if your house is haunted. So, so that's in New York.
[00:14:29] Not all cities have that ruling. I believe here in South Carolina we don't really have that in certain states. If you ask, like if I believe California is one that if you ask, is your house haunted? You have to tell them. And there are laws that say if somebody died in the house under suspicious circumstances and that type stuff that does have to be disclosed. Like people do have to know about that. Because whether you believe in ghost or not, I think it is kind of creepy to think somebody was brutally murdered and you're going to live in this House.
[00:14:57] And as we all know, and I've said in other episodes, I definitely do believe in ghosts. I believe there's stuff happening paranormal. So I would definitely want to know if somebody was murdered House.
[00:15:07] But that's kind of a break from the crazy true crime stuff we've been into lately. Although this did incorporate it. But I just wanted a little spooky case for Halloween. I hope you all have a wonderful happy Halloween. Get all the candy you want to enjoy time with, you know, trick or treating with your kids if you have them, or dressing up or whatever it is you like to do. But we'll be back to normal next week. I think we'll probably talk about the Cornell case. I did not want to do that one without Lay is. I think that's one that there needs to be a conversation back and forth. And I had some questions for her. So we should be back with that next week. Hope you all have a great Halloween and merry Christmas, because November 1st to me is the start of the Christmas season. So have a great one.
