AMERICAN HORROR STORY

‘Amityville Horror’ Killer Ronald DeFeo Jr. Dead at 69

The infamous murderer would have been eligible for a parole hearing in July.

Ronald DeFeo Jr., who shot and killed his parents and four siblings in their Amityville, Long Island, home, died Friday at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Upstate New York, prison officials told the New York Daily News. Known to the public as the “Amityville Horror” killer, DeFeo, 69, was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder for the 1974 massacre. He was serving a 25-years-to-life sentence, after attempting an unsuccessful insanity defense, and would have been eligible for parole this coming July. DeFeo was 23 when he shot his mother, father, two younger brothers, and two younger sisters with a .35-caliber rifle while they were asleep. The grisly crime was the basis for the 1977 book The Amityville Horror, which was turned into a movie two years later. A cause of death has not been announced, pending an autopsy.