ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The man convicted of slaughtering his parents and four siblings in a home that later inspired the "The Amityville Horror" book and movies has died.
The state Department of Corrections and Community Services Prison officials said Monday that Ronald DeFeo died Friday at Albany Medical Center.
The 69-year-old was taken to the hospital on Feb. 2 from a prison in New York's Catskill Mountains.
The cause of death wasn’t immediately known, The Associated Press reported.
DeFeo was serving a sentence of 25 years to life in the 1974 killings in Amityville, on suburban Long Island.
According to The AP, during his trial, DeFeo said voices inside his head told him to kill his family, Then in 1992 during his retrial, DeFeo claimed his 18-year-old sister killed the other five family members and he then shot her.
The home became the basis of a horror-movie classic after another family briefly lived there about a year after the killings and claimed the house was haunted.
The event inspired two movies (1979 and 2005) and a book, The AP reported.
