Detectives leading the murder investigation now began to consider the possibility that Butch had been lying to them and, indeed, that he may be their prime suspect, knowing far more about the killings than he had so far told them. At 8.45am, Detectives George Harrison and Napolitano shook DeFeo awake.
‘Did you find Falini yet?’ was his first question. As he quickly found out, the officers were not there to answer Butch’s questions, but to read him his rights. Butch protested that he had been trying to co-operate all along, and that it wasn’t necessary to read him his rights. He went so far as to waive his right to counsel, all to prove that he was an innocent witness with nothing to hide.
By this time, Gozaloff and Napolitano were due to go off duty and two other officers, Lt Robert Dunn and Detective Dennis Rafferty, took over. They meant business and, in the years following the Amityville shootings, both would be heavily criticised by a New York Commission of Investigation for using illegal practices to gain verbal confessions from suspects. Rafferty began by reading Defeo his rights, and proceeded to question him about his activities and whereabouts over the prior two days. Suddenly, Rafferty zeroed in on the time of the murders. Butch had written in his statement that he was up as early as 4.00am, and that he heard his brother in the bathroom at that time.
‘Butch, the whole family was found lying dead in their bedclothes,’ said Rafferty. ‘That indicates to me that it didn’t happen at, like, one o’clock in the afternoon after you had gone to work.’
Rafferty continued to press until he was able to pry Butch away from his earlier account of when the crime took place, establishing that the murders actually occurred between 2.00am and 4.00am.
With this slight fissure, DeFeo’s crudely constructed story began to crumble. Dunn and Rafferty hammered at the discrepancies between Butch’s stated version of the events and what the crime scene evidence indicated had actually happened. Once the time of the murder was established, Butch was implicated by his own statement, which confirmed his presence in the house at the crucial time. His response to this predicament was a desperate attempt to lead the detectives up the garden path. But they were not accepting the bait.
‘Butch, it’s incredible,’ said Rafferty. ‘It’s almost unbelievable. You know we have a .35-calibre gun box from your room. Every one of the victims has been shot with a .35-calibre. And you’ve seen the whole thing. There has to be more to it. It’s your gun that was used, so where’s the fuckin’ gun?’ he shouted, just inches from Butch’s face.
His desperation growing by the minute, DeFeo continued to lie, even though his lies sucked him in more squarely to the commission of the murders. He told his interrogators that at 3.30am Louis Falini woke him up and put a revolver to his head. Another man was present in the room, he said but, upon further questioning, he could not provide any kind of physical description to help the police. According to his new version of events, Falini and his companion led Butch from room to room, murdering each one of his family members.
The police allowed DeFeo plenty of rope and, as he continued talking, he eventually implicated himself with his account of how he gathered up and removed the evidence from the scene.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Rafferty. ‘Why did you pick up the cartridge if you had nothing to do with it? You didn’t know it was your gun that was used.’
Perhaps sensing that his position was deteriorating rapidly, Butch did not immediately respond to the question. The detectives played a waiting game and allowed him to keep talking. They had already obtained a good deal of evidence implicating DeFeo, particularly the absurd pretence that Falini and his accomplice had taken him along on their killing spree while sparing his life alone. Once they had been given a solid description of how, according to Butch, the murders had taken place, Dunn went in for the kill.
‘They must have made you a piece of it,’ he said. ‘They must have made you shoot at least one of them – or some of them.’ Butch tripped on the snare and the trap was sprung.
‘It didn’t happen that way, did it?’ asked Rafferty.
‘Give me a minute,’ DeFeo replied, putting his head in his hands.
‘Butch, they never were there, were they? Falini and the other guy were never there.’
At last came the confession. ‘No,’ said Butch, ‘It all started so fast. Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast.’
On Wednesday, November 19 1975, a year and five days after the murders, the presiding judge instructed the jury in the deliberation chamber to return to the court with a verdict. On Friday, November 21 1975, Ronald DeFeo Jr was found guilty of six counts of second-degree murder. Two weeks later, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on all six counts. He became eligible for parole in 1999 and insists that he is an innocent man.
* * *
Around the time of the Amityville murders, Suffolk County, covering the eastern portion of Long Island, beginning approximately 45 miles east of Manhattan and adjacent to suburban Nassau County, had a population of well over 666,500. It has one of the largest police departments in New York State after the New York City Police Department, the New York State Police and the Nassau County Police. Suffolk also ranks as one of the highest-paid police departments in the country. This police force also has something else to be proud of, for it enjoys the highest confession and oral admission clear-up rate of probably anywhere in the world.
In April 1989, a State of New York Commission of Investigation published its report on an Investigation into the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and Police Department. In various sub-reports, the Commission unearthed a number of serious problems, which included misconduct and deficiencies in homicide investigations and prosecutions, misconduct and deficiencies in narcotics investigations and prosecutions, illegal wiretaps, failure by the District Attorney’s Office to investigate and punish misconduct by agency employees and law enforcement personnel, deficiencies in the oversight of police personnel, and a whole host of other issues including corruption, the unlawful gaining of confessions by over-zealous police officers, police brutality, and ‘precinct jumping’, an unlawful police practice, used to stonewall lawyers trying to gain access to their clients. As a result of the Commission’s damning findings, one senior police officer committed suicide and dozens of other ranks ‘retired’.
From 7 to 11 December 1986, Newsday published a lengthy five-part series on deficiencies and misconduct in Suffolk County homicide prosecutions stretching back to the early ’70s. The series included a statement that 94 per cent of Suffolk homicide prosecutions involved confessions or verbal admissions. This figure was confirmed to the Commission by the former Commanding Officer of Suffolk County Homicide, none other than Detective Lieutenant Robert Dunn, one of the two detectives who had obtained a confession from Ronald DeFeo.
This was an astonishingly high figure compared to other jurisdictions; so high, in fact, that it provoked scepticism regarding the police agency’s use of confessions. For example, in Newsday’s study, which compared 361 Suffolk homicide defendants, from 1975 to 1985, to seven hundred cases from six other large suburban counties, Suffolk’s 94 per cent confession rate far exceeded the 55 per cent to 73 per cent rate in the six other jurisdictions. The national average was 48 per cent.
There is no doubt that DeFeo had been ‘precinct jumped’, as two attorneys, Richard Wyslling and Richard Hartman, who had tried to see him were given a thorough run-around by the Suffolk County Police. Ronald DeFeo also says that his confession was ‘beaten out of him’ by Detective Lt. Robert Dunn and Detective Dennis Rafferty, who hit him with a telephone book. To verify this claim, it is only necessary to go back to the first day, when DeFeo appeared before District Judge Signorelli. The judge was so shocked at the defendant’s appearance that he ordered a medical examination. The next day, a doctor reported that he had found black-and-blue bruises over different parts of the defendant’s body and legs, a cut lip, and a great deal of swelling on his face. These injuries were not pre
sent when DeFeo was taken into police custody. During an interview for this book which took place at the Yaphank Police Headquarters on 27 September 1994, a smiling Dennis Rafferty said, ‘Sure, of course we did a good job on him … what do you expect?’
Ronald DeFeo Jr was not the only one to receive a good beating from the police. Robert Kelske, Chuck Tweskbury and Barry Springer also say that they were seriously assaulted and ordered to sign confessions for murder. Patricia and Robert Geiger were even accused of murder.
On 16 November 1974, DeFeo received a visit from a Reverend McNamara, the priest who had given the dead family their last rights. Within hours of McNamara’s departure, jail records show that Butch’s uncle, Vincent Procita, paid Butch a visit. Rocco DeFeo, Butch’s grandfather, and his brother Peter, both members of the organised crime circuit, had asked Procita to get Ronald to sign a document, making Rocco administrator of his late father’s estate. Butch was told that if he refused, he would be killed in prison. He deferred to his relatives and signed.
The following day, DeFeo received a visit from the FBI and was questioned for two hours about the DeFeo and Brigante families’ links with the Mafia. Agent Robert Sweeney explained that his own daughter had been acquainted with Dawn DeFeo. He went on to say that the FBI had placed a legal wiretap on Michael Brigante’s telephone. One of the conversations they recorded was between Brigante and Peter Defeo, who said that Butch knew too much, and they were going to have him killed. Sweeney offered Butch the witness protection programme if he told them what he knew; he refused.
Jail records show that on 19 November, DeFeo received a visit from two more attorneys. Alexander Hesterberg and Jacob Sigfried told him that Michael Brigante wanted him to sign another document, this time making him the administrator for the late Mrs DeFeo’s estate. Butch told them about the visit from the FBI, and Jacob Sigfried said, ‘That’s all the more reason to sign, then.’ He was also told that his aunt, Phyllis Procita, was working for the District Attorney’s office, which she was, and, unless he agreed to allow Sigfried to represent him with an insanity defence, he wouldn’t get out of prison alive. Realising that his life was now in great peril, DeFeo agreed to both suggestions.
At his second court appearance, Sigfried failed to turn up. When the Judge asked DeFeo where his lawyer was, he told him about the prison visits and the Judge remarked, ‘Even Stevie Wonder could see through this.’ Events took an even more sinister turn, a few weeks later, when the Judge appointed William E Weber as DeFeo’s defence attorney. Weber, who had never represented anyone in a murder case before, was also running as the Judge’s campaign manager in the forthcoming surrogate court elections.
Weber collected a fat retainer from the DeFeo and Brigante families and moved on to prepare an insanity defence. Indeed, he started off with honourable intentions by employing the services of Herman Race, acknowledged as one of the most experienced investigators on Long Island. He had been a homicide detective for 20 years, and his first job was to examine the firearm and ballistic evidence on behalf of his client. He quickly discovered traces of ‘backfire’ on Dawn DeFeo’s nightdress caused by unburned gunpowder blowing back on to her clothing. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that Dawn had fired the rifle, at least once, on that fateful night. Armed with this information, an excited William Weber was quick to inform DeFeo’s relatives, who were not pleased.
The next afternoon, while the attorney was pulling up outside his home, two police officers stopped him and asked questions about unpaid parking tickets. They searched his car and, in the glove compartment, they found an unlicenced handgun and arrested him. Later, under the influence of the Brigante family, the police decided to drop the charge. Weber was left in no doubt that the matter of the nightgown should not be raised again.
With Butch protesting that he was not insane, William Weber, nevertheless, was carrying out his instructions from his client’s family who were, as DeFeo said, ‘calling the shots’. Counsel retained the services of a psychiatrist, Dr Daniel Swartz, for a fee of $8,000 and a professional opinion that was tantamount to saying that Ronald DeFeo Jr was insane.
Shortly before the trial started, the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Gerald Sullivan, asked Judge Signorelli to remove himself from the case, which he did. In turn, and quite illegally, Sullivan picked Judge Thomas M Stark, a tough, no-nonsense man whom the prosecution could rely on to bat for their side. Judge Stark later dismissed this matter with a wave of his hand.
‘In hindsight,’ he said, ‘this was quite wrong, but things were different back then.’
With a psychiatrist in their pocket, the defence team now started to trawl elsewhere for people who knew DeFeo, and tried to coerce them to testify that they thought that Butch was insane. William Davidge, was approached, and in a sworn affidavit before Esther B. Hopkins, Notary Public for the State of Florida, dated 6 October 1988, he had this to say, ‘I was a defence witness at the request of Attorney William Weber, defence counsel for DeFeo in Suffolk County, State of New York. Weber told me during consultations that DeFeo was guilty, but told me he would get DeFeo declared insane by fabricating a defence of insanity. Weber had me state facts to back up his defence. I was unco-operative with Weber over matters he stated to me about my personal friendship with DeFeo and his family that were not true.
‘Weber startled me, because he was an officer of the Court and represented DeFeo. I wanted to help DeFeo by telling the truth. I was directed through Weber to describe Ronald DeFeo as insane, by testifying to acts to support the defence of insanity.
The acts described were purposely directed to me while testifying, by Weber’s cross-examination at the DeFeo trial, in an attempt to place DeFeo in a mental hospital, and exonerate DeFeo from all criminal acts alleged in the indictment and proceedings. Weber advised me and ordered me to testify at his will, to support his insanity defence, and he refused to allow me to testify in any other manner, other than directed by him. At the time of my testimony, I did not know that I was violating any laws; nor could I appreciate a violation of any laws being violated, as I was completely unaware. I can also say that my brother, Frank Davidge, informed me that he and William Weber made a deal in a ‘back-room’ discussion in 1975.’
If William Weber was reluctantly breaking almost every rule in the book, the District Attorney had no compunction in breaking them all. Having schemed at standing down one judge, and illegally engineering the appointment of another, more ‘suitable’ judge to try the case, Gerald Sullivan now needed to find a motive for the defendant’s crimes. He thought he had hit the jackpot when he learned that the DeFeos had a substantial horde of valuable jewellery in the house, which was now missing from the secret recess in the basement. He reasoned, therefore, that the accused had stolen it and, when his father had discovered the theft, Butch killed him and the rest of the family as well. Unfortunately, from Sullivan’s point of view, the jewellery had recently been placed in a safety deposit box at the European Savings Bank in Amityville.
In a desperate and quite illegal move to save the day, Sullivan called on the services of none other than Detective Rafferty who was told to visit a number of DeFeo’s friends, including Lin and Roger Nonnewitz. After speaking to them over some quite spurious matter, the detective asked them to testify that the DeFeos had other jewellery, and that Butch had stolen it. Not only did the Nonnewitzes expose this in court, but they also signed sworn affidavits explaining that the prosecution had asked them to commit perjury. Judge Stark dealt with this serious issue with his usual air of casual indifference and that was the end of it.
There is no doubt that a confession had been beaten out of DeFeo by the Suffolk County Police, and it had done him no good trying to implicate the alleged hit-man, Louis Falini, who was able to provide a solid alibi for the time of the murders. There was also no doubt that Ronald DeFeo was in the house when the murders were committed. But with the absence of motive, what was his reason for killing his family? The answer is that h
e did not have one, whereas his sister, Dawn, had a very strong motive indeed. After considerable research, it has been possible to disentangle the web of lies spun by DeFeo surrounding the murders, and arrive at something nearer the truth.
During the evening before the murders, DeFeo had been visiting his estranged wife, Geraldine. At around 8.00pm, she received a telephone call from Mrs DeFeo, who was in a distressed state and crying. She asked to speak to her son who came to the telephone, and then informed everyone else present that there was trouble between Dawn and her father. ‘The fuckin’ bitch,’ he said, ‘she’s started again.’
Dawn was not the neatest person in the world, and had often left food to spoil in her room, which subsequently attracted a plague of flies all over the house. Now aged 18, she was attending the Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School, at her parents’ request. She was in love with her boyfriend, William Davidge, who was moving to Florida, and she wanted to join him. Her parents were strongly against this idea and, according to friends and relatives, she had started experimenting with drugs as an escape from her situation at home and, when aroused, she, like her father and eldest brother, had a terrifying temper that knew no bounds.
In his sworn affidavit before Theodore Yurak, Notary Public for the State of New York, dated 27 July 1990, William Davidge affirmed that he knew that Dawn wanted to follow him to Florida, that she was using drugs such as LSD and Mescaline, and that she had a ‘bad temper that got out of hand at times’. Davidge also said that Dawn had a deep hatred for her parents and her eldest brother, whom she used for cash handouts.
Immediately after receiving the telephone call from his mother, DeFeo, and Geraldine’s brother, Richard Romondoe, departed for ‘High Hopes’. When they arrived, Butch gave Dawn the keys to his car and told her to take a long drive until she cooled off. Apparently, she followed his advice. Under the influence of drink and drugs, Butch and Richard went down to the basement, leaving the door open so that they could hear what was going on upstairs. They turned the television down low and began to play pool. Time seemed to pass very quickly for the two men, when, to their shock, they heard a ‘loud roar’.
Talking with Serial Killers Page 17
