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Ronald DeFeo Jr., the convicted killer whose murders in 1974 spawned the “Amityville Horror” franchise, died last week while serving 25 in life in prison, officials said Monday.
DeFeo, 69, was pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. Friday at Albany Medical Center, state corrections officials said in a statement.
It was not known why DeFeo, who was serving his sentence at the Sullivan Correctional Center, had been hospitalized and the cause of death was still being determined by the Albany County medical examiner’s office, officials said.
DeFeo was 23 when he shot dead his parents, two sisters and two brothers at their home in Amityville, on the south shore of Long Island, on November 13, 1974.
During his trial, DeFeo claimed to have heard voices telling him to kill his family.
He was convicted in 1975 on six counts of second degree murder. A family who bought the house about a year later fled within weeks amid an alleged string of strange events.
A film based on the murders and their aftermath, “The Amityville Horror”, was released in 1979 and became a decades-long franchise.
The house was listed as recently as 2016 for $ 850,000.
The Associated Press contributed.
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