Ronald DeFeo Jr. was convicted in November 1975 of six counts of murder in the second degree. The six people who died in Amityville, a village on the south shore of Long Island, New York, were his father, his mother, two sisters and two brothers. The offenses date to the early morning of November 13, 1974. A Suffolk County jury returned its verdict after a trial that lasted six weeks, and the court sentenced him in December 1975 to six consecutive indeterminate terms of 25 years to life. He remained in state custody for the rest of his life and died in New York on March 12, 2021, at the age of 69.
DeFeo was the oldest son of the family and was 23 at the time of the killings. The six who died were his father, his mother, two brothers and two sisters, and four of them were his younger siblings.
The killings took place in the early morning hours of November 13, 1974. On the afternoon of November 14 he gave an oral statement to police, and the court later treated that day as the day of his arrest. He was held and charged in Suffolk County with six counts of murder in the second degree.
The case was tried in the Supreme Court of New York, Suffolk County, before a justice sitting with a jury. His trial lawyer pursued an insanity defense. The trial lasted six weeks.
In November 1975 the jury found him guilty of six counts of murder in the second degree. In December 1975 the court imposed six consecutive indeterminate terms of 25 years to life, one for each count. The consecutive terms later became one ground of his challenges.
An early federal petition was dismissed because he had not yet exhausted his state remedies. The Appellate Division, Second Department, unanimously affirmed the conviction on March 27, 1978. On May 23, 1978, the Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal.
He filed a second federal petition in August 1982. The district court denied it on the merits on May 16, 1984, and the Second Circuit affirmed on October 19, 1984.
In March 1990 he moved in the state trial court under section 440.10 of the Criminal Procedure Law to vacate the conviction. The motion alleged that his trial lawyer had pressed the insanity defense against his wishes, that the lawyer had kept witnesses from testifying, and that the lawyer was motivated by prospects of commercial rights to the story. The trial justice held an evidentiary hearing and denied the motion in an order of January 6, 1993. An associate justice of the Appellate Division denied leave to appeal on June 28, 1993, and denied reargument on September 24, 1993.
A third federal petition was decided on March 17, 1997 by a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The judge dismissed some claims as an abuse of the writ and denied the others on the merits. The state court, after its hearing, had found that DeFeo consented to the insanity defense and cooperated in preparing it. The federal court declined to disturb that finding. It also held that the claim of an excessive sentence failed because the sentence "is within the range prescribed by state law and is not unconstitutional." The clerk was directed to close the file.
DeFeo died in New York on March 12, 2021, at the age of 69, while still serving his sentence. State corrections officials announced the death on March 15.
DeFeo's sentence was a set of indeterminate terms, each with a minimum and a maximum, ordered to run consecutively. The decisions in DeFeo's case show the routes of review open to him after a trial: a direct appeal to the Appellate Division and an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals; a motion in the trial court under section 440.10 of the Criminal Procedure Law to vacate a judgment; and petitions in federal court after state remedies had been used. A federal court may refuse a later petition as an abuse of the writ when its claims could have been raised in an earlier one, which is what the federal judge held in 1997 for several of his claims.
His 1990 motion and his 1990s federal petition rested on claims that his trial lawyer had acted against his wishes and that evidence at his hearing had been misrepresented. The state court rejected those claims after a hearing, and the federal court denied the petition. No court set the conviction aside.
November 13, 1974: six members of the DeFeo family die in Amityville, New York.
November 14, 1974: DeFeo gives an oral statement to police and is arrested.
November 1975: after a six-week jury trial in Suffolk County, he is found guilty of six counts of murder in the second degree.
December 1975: sentenced to six consecutive terms of 25 years to life.
March 27, 1978: Appellate Division, Second Department, affirms the conviction.
May 23, 1978: Court of Appeals denies leave to appeal.
May 16, 1984: second federal petition denied; affirmed October 19, 1984.
January 6, 1993: motion to vacate the conviction denied after a hearing.
March 17, 1997: third federal petition denied.
March 12, 2021: dies in New York at the age of 69.