Movie PictureLorraine Warren, back in the day, collapsing on a staircase,

inside the Amityviller Horror!Ed and Lorraine Warren have been the nation's top psychic researchers for 3 decades straight. Some call them ghost hunters. Others call them frauds. Together, they have written 9 different books on the supernatural, and have investigated thousands of different "supposed" hauntings. The most infamous of which is the Amityville case. They were 2 of only a handful of investigators every allowed into the house, and they have the only set of photographs ever taken there (which you can see at there website: www.warrens.net).

It's been nearly thirty years since they first stepped into the quaint mansion located at 112 Ocean Avenue. Lorraine Warren has recently been making the rounds, in conjunction with the upcoming MGM release, discussing her own personal experiences with the Amityville Horror...

O: Hello, how are you doing?

Warren: Wow, the rooms are getting nicer. You seem like a nice, friendly crew.

O: I just made bail, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Warren: That doesn't matter. That doesn't mean you can't be a friendly guy.

O: Your first encounter with the Amityville house was back in 1975?

Warren: Yes it was, sir. 1976, actually. February of 1976.

O: At that point, no one had lived in the house since the Lutzs vacated the property?

Warren: We met George Lutz at a pizza parlor some blocks away, because the priest involved had told him that if he went back in the house again, giving the spirit recognition could bring it right back. And that is very accurate. The priest was right. He had also fallen victim to that house. And we were to later meet with him.

O: You've said that this is the most evil you've ever encountered in one place?

Warren: The house itself...The case, not the house, I should say...The case itself has affected our personal lives more than any other case we've ever worked on in fifty-four years of research. And that's a lot of places. My husband is a religious demonologist. My husband is not well. We've been involved in very bad hauntings, and very bad diabolical cases. We've been involved with levitations. And blood coming from someone's eyes. All sorts of bad things. But that case followed us right into our home.

O: How did that happen? How did it follow you into your home?

Warren: Well, the very first night we came back from the house...First of all, Ed and I both came under attack the first time we went in the house. And that's very unusual. At that time, we were only involved in the research part of it. When we got home...I have to backtrack. Sorry. Prior to going in, the call came in about this case. When that call came in, I just had a very odd feeling. I wasn't comfortable. Why I was uncomfortable, I don't have an answer. Why would that case be different than any other case? Yet, I felt personally threatened by it. To the extent that I contacted the clergy and asked if they'd go in and spirit with me.

O: What does that mean?

Warren: In other words, team up. Spiritually.

O: Did you guys take anything from the Amityville house back to your house?

Warren: No. Other than interviews. And things like that. That's all. That would do it. If we took things from that house...

O: Like a bed, or blankets?

Warren: God almighty, they could keep all their beds and blankets. The furniture that was in there was from the Defeo Estate.

O: The Lutzs actually had their children sleep in the Defeo's bed, just like it is in the movie? It was the same bed they died in, right?

Warren: It just wasn't the same mattress. It was the same frame. (Lutz disputes this in my one-on-one interview with him.)

O: What bothered me about the movie was that the good didn't win out over the evil. Usually, good always triumphs over evil.

Warren: All right, let's look at this. This is done on many different levels. First of all, we were there just doing research. It required research. You have to know exactly what you are dealing with in these homes. Why the evil is there. Who invited the evil inside to start with? Ronald Defeo was a very vulnerable guy. Heavy into drugs. Occult practices. Hated his father. All of these are ingredients. They're not inviting God into the house.

O: Defeo is still alive, right?

Warren: He's still alive. Yeah. He'll never see the light of day. Anyway, in this house, to answer your question, Father Pecoraro came into the house to bless it. That's all he did. He didn't know anything. No research had taken place at that point. He just went in to bless it. He was told to get out. He was slapped across the face. His words to us. My husband and I.

O: He was blindsided. He had no idea.

Warren: He didn't, sir.

O: What is the most misunderstood interpretation of what you do?

Warren: That's a very good question. Maybe that we respect the areas of science. But, scientists have never gotten closure on a case. They can measure the point of the object. But we want to go in and bring closure. So we look at the phenomenon from a religious standpoint. That is why my husband is a religious demonologist. We're Roman Catholics. Every family we go into is not necessarily catholic. We have worked with Baptist ministers, who have been beautiful and very, very helpful. We have worked with Rabbis, we've worked with Muslims, we've worked with Anglicans, we've worked with all faiths. The important thing is bringing closure. You cannot bring closure unless it's fully documented. That takes a great deal of time. Father Pecoraro never went into that house to do an exorcism. He met with my husband and I, and the Lutz family, at Kathy Lutz's home, on St. Joseph's Day. And he prayed St. Joseph's prayer for us. I carried a relic for Padre Pio into that home. And in one room of the house, Padre Pio appeared.

O: Padre Pio appeared in the house?

Warren: Yes. He appeared to me. In spirit. We didn't know this when we met with Father Pecoraro, but Father Pecoraro is the judge of the church. He has a doctorate in our faith. He was a learned man. A very learned man. So, he stood to give us the Lord's Prayer. He looked directly at me. And nobody knew about the Padre Pio relic but me. I carried the relic. My husband knew, that was about all. But Pecoraro said to me, "Who do you think brought you out of that house?" I thought I was back in Catholic school. I said, "God, I guess, Father." He said, "Padre Pio, right?" And I said, "How do you know?" That was my question to him. His answer was, "Padre Pio told me so." We didn't have our proof sheets back then. And it was about a week later that our photographer, that was shooting throughout the house, called and said to Ed, "I'd like to show you something that's in one of these pictures, because I don't understand it." You know what the proof sheets look like. They're little tiny pictures. I looked at them and said, "You're going to have to blow those up. I can't tell by that." We blew them up, and we looked at the pictures of him. Padre Pio. Soon after that, I think it was our first tour date, because we were starting tour again during second semester at the University of Dayton. And it got bad press. Because they said we showed a picture of a man that looked like a Priest. So, we pulled it. Ed said, "Honey, until we can document that that's really him, I'm not going to use it." So, I said, "That's alright..."

O: The picture showed what, exactly?

Warren: Padre Pio.

O: His image appeared on a photo that the photographer took. Was he was living somewhere else at the time?

Warren: No, Padre Pio died in 1968. A relic means they're dead.

O: I didn't know.

Warren: That's alright, honey. Us Catholics, we can inform everybody. But at the University of Dayton, Ed got some bad press. It bothered me. It really did. So I began praying to him. And I began praying to Padre Pio, And I said, "If it's really you in the picture, I need to know who you are. And I need you to help me to better understand why you appeared to me." I kept praying. And I kept praying. Then we went out to California, we were doing television media. Our next date was at the University of La Hoya. On Sunday, we went to the Mass of the Good Shepard. Two men from ABC TV wanted to go with us. None of these people knew anything about Padre Pio. They knew nothing. So this one man says to me, coming out of Church, did you know Padre Pio? And I said, "I knew of him." That's how I answered. Then I asked, "Why?" And he said, "You're going to be in La Hoya tonight." And I said, "Yes, Ed and I are going to be in La Hoya tonight." And so he said, "There's a Solician school for boys, and there's a priest that served with Padre Pio, and he's a visiting priest there." I said, "Really. What's his name?" He said, "Father Ralph Negrai." So, I got back. Ed got back. And Ed said, "Honey, why don't you try to get a hold of that priest?" So, I called. I said, "Father, could you possibly spare us anytime this afternoon?" You Know? I said, "I'd love to meet a man that worked with Padre Pio." That's all I said to him. So, we went. He spoke broken English. He was a very lovely, lovely man. He served with Padre Pio in Italy. Then, from there, Ed said, "Father, I have something I want to show you." It was a room about this size, and he took his projector and showed his slide on the wall. The Priest knelt, crossed himself, and said, "Padre Pio." I said, "Father, why would he appear to me?" And his words were, "You must have asked him too."

O: Real quick, can you tell us what spirit, or spirits, do you think were in the Amityville House?

Warren: Evil. Evil. The personification of Evil.

O: What was the scariest thing for you?

Warren: When it followed us home the very first night. The Evil. Anyway, it would take me so long to tell you guys everything that happened to our car. We couldn't talk about Amityville. If you think I was going to talk about it on that flight from the East, you're crazy. And I don't consider myself superstitious by any means.

O: So you won't talk about it on a plane?

Warren: I won't talk about it in any moving vehicle.

O: Do you believe that it's still following you around?

Warren: I think that anything could activate it. It has the Wisdom and the Cunning of the ages. So your faith must be very, very strong in what you are doing...Anyway, we got home. Ed took his briefcase down to his office, which is at the lowest level on our property. The bedrooms are at the highest level. I went to bed. I opened up that brown manila envelope I'd picked up at the post office, and there was a little book in there on Padre Pio. I thought that was interesting. I decided I'd read it to see what it had to say. Then I realized that two of my dogs, a Belgian Sheep dog, and a Border Collie, which were in the room with me, weren't acting right. They were acting like they were drugged. Or something. They were acting very strange. I tried to read the first paragraph. When your point of concentration is affected, you know that there is some force trying to reach out to you. To cause confusion. It's what they call diabolical confusion. I sat there, and I couldn't move. All I had to touch was a button that was right there, for security, and I could let my husband know that something was wrong. But I can't. I feel almost paralyzed. Then, the only sound I hear is a sound I can only compare to big sheets of sheet metal. Like somebody is shaking it. Then there was this cyclone of wind, and darkness, and energy. It felt like it was sucking everything into it. It came up from the lowest level, into the dinning room, into the living room. As it got into the doorway, there's this huge massive black thing. I called on my faith, made a big sign of the cross, and said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I demand you to leave and come back where you came from." You can only do that with faith. Not words. Now, its seconds, not minutes, that my husband comes in. He lies down on the covers next to me, puts his hand on mine and says, "Honey, do you have any idea what just happened?" He was an extreme distance from where I was. And the same thing had happened. He had holy water on his desk. He threw it at it and made the sign of the cross in the air. That was only the beginging...

O: Has the house been cleared?

Warren: I've never been back to the house.

O: People are currently living in the house, right?

Warren: I'm not too sure of that, sir.

O: Is the Padre Pio picture available to look at anywhere?

Warren: I have one in my room, but it's extremely blurry.

And with that, she leaves....

Stay tuned for an interview with George Lutz, original owner of the Amityville Property. Coming soon...

Dont't forget to also check out: The Amityville Horror