When you think of a village nestled along a coastline, most people would think it would be the idyllic place to grow up or raise a family. Between beaches, boats and wealthy families live the American dream. Often educated and with good careers, money was not an issue and the finer things in life were within their reach. Beautiful homes line the canals of the village of Amityville, New York, but the DeFeos lived anything but this quaint life. On the surface everything was serene, but underneath were very turbulent waters that resulted in the massacre of six people. Ronald and Louise DeFeo lived at 112 Ocean Avenue with their five children: Ronald, Jr., Dawn, Allison, Marc and John. . Ronald, Sr. made a comfortable living working as a salesman at his father-in-law's Buick dealership. They had the finer things in life: cars, boats, a beautiful home, and wanted for nothing, but Ronald Sr. had an incredibly volatile relationship with his family, often verbally and physically abusive toward his wife and children. Ronald, Jr., also known as Butch, received a fair amount of his father's aggression. In the documentary First Person Killers: Ronald DeFeo, trial juror Amelia Franza, told a story from Butch's early childhood in which Butch was grumpy at a family wedding. While Butch's mother tried to comfort him, Ron, Sr. "just slammed him into a chair and that was the end of his crying." » Butch's childhood abuse continued as he grew older and he consequently began to imitate these behaviors towards his father and the few friends he had. Not only did he imitate them; they continued to intensify as Butch began drinking heavily and combining it with drugs like LSD and heroin. In an episode that takes place in the middle of the paper and plays with Dawn to get the gun from her, it appears to be another one of her pathological lies, supported by the medical examination of her body. -mortem. She had no wounds or fresh bruises, and no Butch cells had been scraped from under her fingernails, as the law of mutual exchange would suggest. Although it's a cruel statement, when Butch says, "Maybe I should have gotten a medal for killing them." » (Edginton), I think it's one of the few things he tells the truth about. Works Cited Edginton, John, ed. First Person Killers: Ronald DeFeo, Jr. History Channel, 2006. Film. Hickey, Eric W. Serial Murderers and Their Victims. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.Lynott, Douglas B., “The Real Life Amityville Horror: The DeFeo Family Murder.” Crimelibrary.com. TruTV. Internet. February 7. 2014.