The Devil I Know: My Haunting Journey with Ronnie DeFeo and the True Story ofthe Amityville Murders Read Online Free Page A

and bought us a night-light; they told us to find the inner strength to cope. After listening to my story, my mother sent me back to my room and told me to go to sleep.
    That was eight years before the Amityville murders occurred, forty-three years before I first set foot on the south shore of Long Island. Now, as I peered at the mug shot taken on that distant night, I realized I was looking into the features of the same face that I’d last seen in my bedroom while a small, frightened girl.
    The feeling I’d brought home with me two weeks earlier from the canal still seemed to cling. And now, the same evening I’d recognized Ronnie DeFeo’s face as the one that had terrified me years before, that feeling seemed to manifest in tangible forms. Our brand-new refrigerator, in perfect working order, abruptly failed, ruining everything inside. Eggs cracked and oozed yolk; meats became rancid; bread purchased the day before turned immediately to mold.
    Our longtime housekeeper, Abby, was at a loss. She’d been coming for several years, three times a week, morning till evening. She was a cleaning whirlwind, and we all respected the work she did and tried not to mess it up too badly or too quickly. But now we couldn’t do anything about it. She’d come on Monday morning, clean everything from top to bottom, then return on Wednesday to find the place a sty. We could only shrug our shoulders and apologize, explaining that we’d had nothing to do with it. But Abby dealt in reason. Like many, she believed only in what she could see.
    That’s fine when the things you can see are explainable. But what do you do when they aren’t? Abby would hear my voice coming through the intercom even when I wasn’t home. Other times, she would hear children’s giggles that chilled her blood. Our pets, normally affectionate with her, would suddenly take to hiding when she was around, and she would have to spend hours looking for them all. And the damn beds. She’d make one, go clean a different room, then return to find it unmade again. Finally, she walked up to me one day and said simply, “There’s something evil here.” A few days later, Ifound a cross and a protection medal between Joanne’s mattress and box spring.
    Finally Will and I decided to go to the store and stock up on nonperishables, then investigate the issue once we got back. But as we were preparing to leave, we looked at Joanne, and both of us had the same thought. We need to stay right here. Even a slight tremor of anxiety in one’s child, no matter her age, is like an earthquake inside the heart of a parent.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked her.
    “Nothing.”
    “Something’s up,” Will said. “Talk to us.”
    “I’ll be fine,” Joanne said, pushing us out the door as though we were going on a date. “Go. I’m just going to run a bath.”
    “I’ll get you some coffee,” I said. We left, but I kept my phone close. Will and I didn’t need to say anything to each other. Our eyes said it:
Let’s just get what we need as quickly as possible and get back home.
At the grocery store he rushed up and down the aisles as though he were on a game show.
    We were gone just short of an hour, our anxiety snowballing with each minute that passed. When we arrived back home and came through the door, a feeling of alarm seized me. I called for Joanne, but she didn’t answer. Will and I saw her bathroom door ajar. Will dropped the shopping bags he was carrying and ran toward the bathroom. I’m not as big or as fast as Will, but I was close behind. I was the first to notice the washcloth floating in the tub. Will was the first to spot Joanne.
    She was curled up in the corner of the bathroom, sobbing, her white robe tied loosely at the waist. Her head was on her knees, the phone clutched in her fist. On the other end, I could hear Adam’s voice and his attempts to comfort her.
    Will scooped up Joanne and carried her to her bedroom. I told Adam we’d call him back and then