Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren with Robert David Chase

An ordinary—looking Dutch colonial house brought worldwide notoriety to Amityville, a suburban community on Long Island, New York, when a book called The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson hit the best—seller lists in 1977 and was followed up by a hit movie. The book and movie were based on events that supposedly took place in the house during the month George and Kathleen Lutz and Kathleen's three children lived there.

The Lutz family bought the house and moved in on December 18, 1975. They moved out on January 14, 1976, claiming they had been terrorized by demons. According to Rosemary Ellen Guiley in The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, "Ghostly apparitions of hooded figures, clouds of flies in the sewing room and children's playroom, windowpanes that broke simultaneously, bone&mdash...