The man who murdered his parents and four siblings in Amityville in a suburb of New York City in 1974, inspiring several horror films, died on Friday March 12, the state prison administration said. New York.
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According to a press release from these services on Monday, March 15, Ronald DeFeo Jr., 69, who was incarcerated in Sullivan Penitentiary, in northern New York, was pronounced dead on March 12 around 6:30 p.m. in a hospital in the capital of Albany, located 150 km from the prison.
The cause of his death was not immediately clarified, pending the forensic assessment.
The prison administration did not say whether he had been ill or injured before he died.
DeFeo was sentenced in 1975 to life imprisonment with a 25-year safety period.
A hearing to decide on a possible release was scheduled for next July, according to the prison services.
During his trial, his lawyer had unsuccessfully pleaded insanity for this sixfold murder, perpetrated on November 13, 1974, in the family home in this small coastal town, 70 km east of New York.
Ronald DeFeo Jr. was only 23 years old at the time of the crime.
All had been found dead in their beds, the parents shot by two bullets each, his four siblings by one bullet each.
The judge had imposed six sentences of 25 years minimum each.
This family massacre first inspired a novel, in 1977, then a horror film that became a classic "Amityville: The Devil's House", released in 1979. A remake followed in 2005, and a new version in 2017. These adaptations presented the family home as haunted by drama.