I keep going back and forth between Diaryland and the chat with George Lutz. I'm checking updates between posts at the chat. So far none of my questions have made it to the que yet, but I'm hopeful. I've had questions for him and his wife (ex-wife now, I think), ever since I was thirteen years old. That was the first time I read The Amityville Horror, and it really affected me. I had bad dreams and was nervous for weeks afterward. I never questioned whether their story was true or not because the accusations of a hoax never made sense to me.

George and Kathy Lutz only made three hundred thousand dollars via royalties from the book and film. The production company that made the film went on to make millions with the sequels, money that the Lutzes never saw. It hardly seems worth it once you factor in the venom this family has been subjected to not only from their former neighbors, but from skeptics and the general public. They have been mocked, ridiculed and harrassed, and their children have taken the brunt of a lot of it as well.

I do believe something horrible happened in that house. Whether the presence was there before or after the murders that occurred over a year prior to the Lutzes purchase of the house is still uncertain, but there's definitely something there.

Mr. Lutz was interviewed last night about his experiences and after seeing him I hope that some of the people who harrassed him and his family will leave them in peace. It's almost thirty years later and he's still so obviously shaken by his experiences that at times he looked as if he were on the verge of tears. He lost far more than he gained by coming forward with his story and I admire the courage he and his wife had that allowed them to do it. They knew most poeple would be skeptical and they did it anyway.

Oh damn! Chat's over and my questions didn't make it into the que.

Damn damn damn!!

I'll never have another chance to ask them.

The chat was moderated and I guess there must have been a lot of people standing by. I wish it has lasted longer than an hour, though.

Here's the entire chat. I just want to hold onto it so I can remember everything he said. That's very important to me. In all of this time his story has never changed.

Chat began at 2PM.

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Moderator at 2:01pm ET

Our chat with George Lutz will begin momentarily. Please stay tuned.

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Moderator at 2:03pm ET

Welcome to our live chat. Our guest today is George Lutz, former resident of America's most haunted house.

The Lutz family's story would later become a best-selling book and blockbuster movie, The Amityville Horror.

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Moderator at 2:04pm ET

Welcome -- and thanks for joining us!

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Moderator at 2:05pm ET

You knew that a whole family had been murdered in the Amityville house a year before. Didn't that make you think twice before moving in?

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George Lutz at 2:06pm ET

We talked about it as a family for quite a while. Kathy and I were concerned that the children might not be comfortable or might not want to live in such a house.

When we were convinced that the kids were okay with it, we went ahead with arrangements to try to purchase the house.

But yes, it was a concern. But that concern went away once we had spoken as a family.

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Moderator at 2:07pm ET

Can you describe some of the things that happened in the 28 days you spent in the house?

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George Lutz at 2:08pm ET

When I look back at it now, what comes to mind first and foremost is the subtle but increasingly severe changes in our relationship as family -- the way we treated each other, talked to each other. In general, we retreated into our own little corners of the house. We changed as a family.

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George Lutz at 2:10pm ET

What that means today is that we were no longer the same people 28 days later. We went in there as a happy family and came out very frightened and very confused, and very worried about our ability to survive with our sanity intact.

I don't mean to be rude to not go into all the details of what happened. But one of the reasons we wrote the book was to not have to relive the events, which is what happens with the retelling.

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Moderator at 2:11pm ET

Do your children back up your claims that the house is haunted?

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George Lutz at 2:14pm ET

You need to understand that I don't speak for the children, just as I don't speak for Kathy. They're all grown-ups, they all have their own lives, they all have their own memories.

As a family, there isn't one of us who denies anything that ever happened there; we all know what happened.

But the kids are no longer kids and have their own stories to tell if they so choose -- and that is their right.

I can understand them not wanting to, because of all the distortion that happens when you begin to talk about this kind of thing. But my own conversations with each of them, even over the last year, reminds me just how good their memories are and how severely they were affected there as well.

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Moderator at 2:14pm ET

Did paranormal activity follow your family after you left the home on Ocean Ave.?

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George Lutz at 2:17pm ET

Yes it did for a number of years, in a lot of different ways. Over those years, there were many, many times that we thought it was over -- we thought the activity had stopped. Just as many times, we came to believe otherwise.

We worked very, very hard at trying not to blame the "house" on things that would go wrong. But too many events take away the possibility of randomness. It's been a long time now since we've been as concerned as we used to be about this.

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Sean at 2:18pm ET

George-

Would you say you were a skeptic when it came to ghost-type things before these phenomena began occuring around you? Also, at the height of the disturbances, were you or any of your family physically hurt as a direct result of these happenings?

Thank you.

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George Lutz at 2:22pm ET

Absolutely, we were all skeptics -- including the kids. I don't thing we would have bought the house if we weren't.

My son Danny's hands were crushed in a window. Our dog Harry literally hung himself by his chain over a fence trying to leave the property.

When we did the lie-detector test years later with Chris Gugas and Michael Rice, one of the questions asked of Kathy was: Is it true that you turned into a 90-year-old lady. It took a very long time for the effects of that to disappear.

I personally lost about 25 pounds in the house; I was ill much if not most of the time we were there.

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Michael at 2:23pm ET

Do you believe whetever may be in the house was there before the DeFeo murders or as a result of the murders?

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George Lutz at 2:29pm ET

We came to the conclusion that there was something wrong with the house and wanted to get it fixed so that we could move back into the house after we left.

The idea that what was there was there long before the DeFeos, didn't really have the credibility until we did research on the house and the investigators (the Warrens and Holzer) came in to see what it was DeFeo thought was there.

When we think back upon it now, then yes, I would certainly say that the general conclusion back then was that what was there was very old, very intelligent and very strong, it had the ability to reach out from there and affect lives on many different levels to the point that of all the people that were involved with us then, as far as we know, only the Warrens still live in the same house that they did then.

That house changed everyone's lives.

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amy at 2:29pm ET

Did you ever retrieve your possessions from the house, or was everything left there and disposed of?

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George Lutz at 2:30pm ET

Some friend went back and got one of my motorcycles, which I eventually crashed in California and a wooden chest that my grandfather had made for me. Other than that, we retrieved nothing else.

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George Lutz at 2:31pm ET

We left our clothes, food, boats, and furnishings. Everything. It was eventually auctioned off in April or May of 1976. After that, we gave the house back to the bank, forfeiting our downpayment and we were glad to be relieved of the responsibility of selling the house to someone else.

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Deklan from at 2:32pm ET

Although I am highly skeptical of the para normal, I do believe that you and your family experienced something. Whether it was mass hysteria or a true para normal phenomenon will never be known. I remember reading the book as a teenager, and it scared the hell out of me. That book along with Stephen King's books kept me up quite a few nights.

I am curious, what was the slimy stuff that you describe seeing in the mornings on the carpet? Also, what happened to the priest that blessed your house? How did he die?

Thanks.

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George Lutz at 2:34pm ET

The slimy stuff was like drops of jellow that went from room to room. At first, we thought it could have been kids, but it wasn't. There was also a teardrop kind of ooze from the keyholes in certain doors. It was a hard substance, almost like epoxy, and grew longer as were there. But there was no blood from the walls, as in the movie.

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George Lutz at 2:35pm ET

I personally do not know that Father Ray is dead. His life was turned upside down by the publicity from all of this. Eventually, he changed states and went on to get a degree in forensic psychiatry.

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angelia at 2:36pm ET

can you explain why other people that have lived in that same house have experienced nothing?

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George Lutz at 2:38pm ET

I don't know that that is true. I don't believe that any family since us has ever had the house blessed or investigated by a serious psychic team. But they all have had financial problems. And it is probably the most divorced house in the United States -- almost every couple that's lived there has divorced.

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George Lutz at 2:38pm ET

Of course, there are all kinds of stories -- but they're those families stories, and not mine.

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Sean O at 2:39pm ET

What was your initial reaction to the movie??

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George Lutz at 2:44pm ET

Well the first cut I would say, if you can imagine, was even worse than the released version. Since I had no control over what they had done, but they wanted me to go and do publicity for them, the only way I could get some changes made was to agree to do the publicity for them if they edited out certain parts.

One of the hard things to explain to people is how the rights were obtained by the movie company. Initially, Anson sold the rights to CBS. Then, American International Pictures wanted the rights and came in and made a new deal with Anson and CBS.

They then paid Anson and came to us and said: "We're going to make this movie."

And we said: "How are you going to do that? We have signed no contract with you and have none of your money."

After about six weeks of negotiations, Kathy and I obtained the sequel rights, which is basically unheard of in such a case, and agreed to let them go forward with the movie.

So we had no control over what they did, but at least it left us in control of our own story in the future.

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Cindy from at 2:45pm ET

Why did you let Anson "embellish" your story in his book? Were you more interested in telling a good tale or telling your story?

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George Lutz at 2:52pm ET

We didn't write the book; Anson did. To this day, I don't think Kathy has ever read it.

To understand how this came about, we finally had a contract with the publisher in August, 1997, when the book was due to be released to weeks later. It was already printed and shipped.

That doesn't mean we didn't contribute to the book -- of course we did. We had done a number of cassette tapes, talking out most of our experiences, and gave him those tapes.

We did the tapes really for ourselves -- not for anyone else, let alone for a book. They weren't exactly coherent, and it was just us sitting around talking about all the different things that had happened in no particular order.

We had done our own research about the history of the house, and the Warrens had agreed to be interviewed by Anson, and so had the priest.

We left New York with a verbal agreement with Anson on Mother's Day 1976. The agreement was that if he was able to write a book and get it published, then we would have a contract with him. During the process of all this, there were different galleys sent out to us that we worked hard to correct. But ultimately, the control for the content was in the hands of the publisher and the author.

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George Lutz at 2:52pm ET

When I think back to then, I was not dissatisfied with the book -- and I'm not today.

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J. Callahan at 2:53pm ET

I've never seen the picture of the little boy on the landing before, and can find no reference to it on any of the Amityville internet web sites, pro or con. What person or organization actually took the picture? How/from whom did Prime Time Thursday obtain it? Where has it been all these years? Is there any documentable past reference to its existence? Thanks.

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George Lutz at 2:59pm ET

The first time that picture was shown was on the Merv Griffen show back in 1979. It was discovered 3 years after it was taken.

Dene Campbell, who was a professional photographer, was brought into the house in 1976 when the Warrens went in with their team.

He set up an automatic camera on the 2nd floor landing that shot off infrared film, black and white, throughout the night.

There are literally rolls of film with nothing on them. There's only one picture of the little boy.

In 1979, I was putting together a book that has yet to be published that included the photographs, many of which were on the show last night. The secretary I had at the time was about 8 months pregnant. We had dozens of these pictures to choose from that didn't have the boy, and she asked me: "Which one should we put in the book."

I told her to just pick one. She came running back into my office about 5 minutes later saying that every time she picked up the photograph with the boy, the baby kicked her.

We then asked my kids if they knew who this was. Missy said it was the little boy she used to play with in the house.

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George Lutz at 2:59pm ET

I then called the Warrens and the photographer and let them know about the picture.

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George Lutz at 3:00pm ET

We licensed the photograph to the History Channel's documentary 2 years ago. But it hasn't been published in a book yet.

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Kevin Hott at 3:01pm ET

Would you return to the house today if you were given the opporunity? Would you stay in the house for a night 27 years later?

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George Lutz at 3:01pm ET

No --I can think of no circumstance where I would consider that.

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George Lutz at 3:06pm ET

I don't have anything profound to say. We understood skepticism would be a large part of this story when we agreed to tell it. The last 25+ years have shown us just how much we underestimated that.

Just because we lived through this, we really don't think of ourselves as special. But we do think of ourselves as fortunate for having survived it.

We can only tell our story and it's not our place to tell other people what they should think. But I want to thank ABC for being so fair last night and for all of you having the interest to come here today.

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George Lutz at 3:07pm ET

There is a site that deals with the truth of all of this. Go to Google and type in "Amityville Truth." There is a forum there that deals with a lot of this. Thank you.

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Moderator at 3:10pm ET

Thanks to George Lutz -- and all those who joined this live forum.

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Me screaming at the computer:

WAIT!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!