We will never know the cause of death for Amityville killer, DeFeo

First off, what an intense week it’s been for me work-wise. Massive video editing deadline yesterday that drained my entire week, which is unfortunate as I was aiming for a bit of a celebration of 2021’s first ‘Friday the 13th.’ In lieu of being able to celebrate that date, I hope to have a couple articles of various types (crime, UFOs, ghosts) posted this weekend. Here’s the first…

When I first did a write-up announcing the death for Ronald DeFeo, the troubled son and brother who murdered his entire family at the now famous Ocean Avenue house in Amityville, NY, I made an innocuous note that the article would be updated once the cause of death was released.  I assumed this would just be a minor formality as usually it takes a week or two before the findings of the autopsy are announced.

Then, my article goes on to recap the DeFeo mass murder and the haunted-or-not controversies about the property that followed.  One thing I was very surprised about was the multiple connections the DeFeo family had to the New York mafia.  After first writing the article, I came across a much bigger and very well-developed conspiracy theory that the mass murder was indeed connected to an act of mafia retribution.

And now the latest news… Ronald DeFeo Jr.’s cause of death at the age of 69 will never be announced.  As US Day News writes, “It was reported that his cause of death would be determined and announced by the Albany County Medical Examiner’s Office officially. However, it is announced that the Albany County Coroner’s Office is not able to publish Ronald DeFeo’s cause of death to anyone except relatives, over health privacy laws.”

Considering we are talking about a prison and a coroner’s office, it can’t be all that uncommon for an inmate to die while incarcerated, so how was there a course correction here?  Did the rules and laws regarding announcing the cause of death just change?

The conspiracy-minded who already thinks we don’t know the whole story here will easily be able to latch onto this new revelation and wonder of DeFeo’s death is just the newest chapter in this family-wide murder/cover-up.

Let’s fight the temptation to lean on the outlandish and just assume that DeFeo was suffering from some sort of unnamed illness and finally succumbed to it.  After all, he had been incarcerated for 45 years at the time of his death and those aren’t easy years when you know there is no end in sight.

Okay, now that we’ve been rational, let’s play the ‘what if’ game.  And we’re going with the idea that his Mafia-connected family was executed, gangland style, sending an ultimate message while having Ronald Jr. take the fall – yes, it sounds outlandish, but do check out the previous article if you haven’t seen it yet.

Was there a threat that in his “golden years” DeFeo might be willing to tell the whole story in an attempt to leverage an early release so that he could experience just a little bit of life on the outside?  Surely, most if not all of the people associated with the mass murder would be goners by now, right?  Well, the mafia likes to keep their secrets, secret, even if they belong to a previous generation.  Also, ya never know what other upstanding members of the community might end up having their hands dirtied by a news leak.

Then, it also comes to a (speculative) cover up on the part of the prison.  This brings to mind the time in 1963 at an Atlanta correctional facility that LA mob boss Mickey Cohen was beaten nearly to death by an inmate who apparently couldn’t have possibly reached him.  Too many guards had to look the other way, allowing Burl Estes McDonald to get from one end of the prison, pipe in hand, to the other without being confronted and sent back to his quarters.  Naturally, negligence lawsuits ensued against the prison.  The same would’ve happened in this era with a deeper look into WHY this was able to unfold.

So, yes, chances are there’s nothing untoward here… there is no “there” there, as they say. However, the unusual change of reporting on top of an already mysterious mass murder case where, even today, 46 years later, there are still more questions than answers. If nothing else, we’ll just lean on DeFeo’s first insanity plea and wonder if ‘the voices in his head telling him to kill’ finally finished him off as well.

Have any tips or do you know any lesser known facts about the DeFeo mass murder case? Please leave a comment on the page – thanks in advance!

Further Reading:
US Day News Article – https://usdaynews.com/news/how-ronald-defeo-jr-die/