The Devil I Know: My Haunting Journey with Ronnie DeFeo and the True Story ofthe Amityville Murders by Jackie Barrett
Authors: Jackie Barrett
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right over the bank counter, like in Hollywood. I just said to myself, ‘Let me see if this works.’ I didn’t even have no gun on me. The other guys, they had guns, 12-gauge shotguns, including the guy driving the getaway car. The shotgun was mine. I jumped over the counter with a paper bag. I didn’t have no gun; I wasn’t going to hurt nobody. I told the lady I had a bomb in the bag. There was a kid’s clock inside; it went
tick-tock
,
tick-tock
. I told her, ‘You press that button, I’ll blow this whole bank up including myself; we’ll all die together, right now. I got nothing to lose.’ ”
“What did you mean by that?” I still didn’t have a reliable sense of whether Ronnie’s stories were real, embellished, or completely fictitious. But each one provided a small opportunity to find out more about the man, and what had made him who he had become.
“Just what I said.”
“You had nothing to lose.”
“That’s exactly what I had to lose. What did I have? That bastard beating me whenever he felt like it, and mymother screwing the hairstylist one day and the brother the next. That’s what I got to lose?”
“So robbing the bank was a way of saying you didn’t care what happened to you.”
“I was happy to do it or not do it. It was a dare.”
“What happened when you said that to the woman?”
“She says, ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’ I’d shaved my beard off, I had a blond wig. She starts screaming, ‘Don’t take it all, please!’ So I left all the singles and all the change.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I told you, for kicks. I was restless, I don’t know. Came out of there with thirty-nine thousand. The other guys couldn’t believe I’d did it. I gave them five grand apiece, kept the rest of the money. I didn’t hurt nobody. I was never arrested, never indicted. It’s ridiculous. I shoulda taken the singles. Probably another thousand or so. Manufacturers Hanover Trust, that was the name, it was on a corner. 1973.”
I signaled to Joanne, who looked up the bank online and came up empty. With some more searching, she quickly found that it had closed in 1992.
“The one we hit was in Manhattan. Peter was with me. Peter Hill, he was the schoolteacher. Peter got time for the bank. When I ran into him, in Suffolk County Jail, he had a female lawyer, I’ll never forget that, and he got probation and six months’ jail time running concurrent for that bank. The other charges he got two to four.”
“What other charges?”
“He had a lot of robberies. He robbed an HMC, the loan agency, and they shot him.”
“Who shot him?”
“I wouldn’t go with him on that one. He told me he was gonna do it, but I told him, ‘I’m not going,’ ’cause you had to go up a set of stairs. Sure enough, he went up those stairs, and they got him in a cross fire.”
“Who did, Ronnie?”
“A security guard who was there. Peter was a sitting duck coming up those stairs. He got shot a couple of times. He got two to four. But for the bank, the judge wanted him to make restitution, and he couldn’t, ’cause he woulda had to give me up.”
“He didn’t want to implicate you?”
“No, he was an all-right guy. Judge gave him six months’ jail time and five years’ probation after. I was never arrested, never indicted. It’s ridiculous.”
Ronnie DeFeo was a man caught permanently between unresolved guilt and righteous indignation. He seemed to resent every single person who had ever had a hand in
not
punishing him for wrongdoing. He was someone who had spent his entire youth trying to be as bad as possible in order to validate his father’s opinion of him and then becoming angrier and angrier with those who failed to help him bear it out.
When he said it was ridiculous that he hadn’t been arrested for robbing that bank, on the surface it might have sounded as though he was mocking the authorities for letting him get away. But I’d come to know him better than that. I knew by
tick-tock
,
tick-tock
. I told her, ‘You press that button, I’ll blow this whole bank up including myself; we’ll all die together, right now. I got nothing to lose.’ ”
“What did you mean by that?” I still didn’t have a reliable sense of whether Ronnie’s stories were real, embellished, or completely fictitious. But each one provided a small opportunity to find out more about the man, and what had made him who he had become.
“Just what I said.”
“You had nothing to lose.”
“That’s exactly what I had to lose. What did I have? That bastard beating me whenever he felt like it, and mymother screwing the hairstylist one day and the brother the next. That’s what I got to lose?”
“So robbing the bank was a way of saying you didn’t care what happened to you.”
“I was happy to do it or not do it. It was a dare.”
“What happened when you said that to the woman?”
“She says, ‘Oh my god, oh my god.’ I’d shaved my beard off, I had a blond wig. She starts screaming, ‘Don’t take it all, please!’ So I left all the singles and all the change.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I told you, for kicks. I was restless, I don’t know. Came out of there with thirty-nine thousand. The other guys couldn’t believe I’d did it. I gave them five grand apiece, kept the rest of the money. I didn’t hurt nobody. I was never arrested, never indicted. It’s ridiculous. I shoulda taken the singles. Probably another thousand or so. Manufacturers Hanover Trust, that was the name, it was on a corner. 1973.”
I signaled to Joanne, who looked up the bank online and came up empty. With some more searching, she quickly found that it had closed in 1992.
“The one we hit was in Manhattan. Peter was with me. Peter Hill, he was the schoolteacher. Peter got time for the bank. When I ran into him, in Suffolk County Jail, he had a female lawyer, I’ll never forget that, and he got probation and six months’ jail time running concurrent for that bank. The other charges he got two to four.”
“What other charges?”
“He had a lot of robberies. He robbed an HMC, the loan agency, and they shot him.”
“Who shot him?”
“I wouldn’t go with him on that one. He told me he was gonna do it, but I told him, ‘I’m not going,’ ’cause you had to go up a set of stairs. Sure enough, he went up those stairs, and they got him in a cross fire.”
“Who did, Ronnie?”
“A security guard who was there. Peter was a sitting duck coming up those stairs. He got shot a couple of times. He got two to four. But for the bank, the judge wanted him to make restitution, and he couldn’t, ’cause he woulda had to give me up.”
“He didn’t want to implicate you?”
“No, he was an all-right guy. Judge gave him six months’ jail time and five years’ probation after. I was never arrested, never indicted. It’s ridiculous.”
Ronnie DeFeo was a man caught permanently between unresolved guilt and righteous indignation. He seemed to resent every single person who had ever had a hand in
not
punishing him for wrongdoing. He was someone who had spent his entire youth trying to be as bad as possible in order to validate his father’s opinion of him and then becoming angrier and angrier with those who failed to help him bear it out.
When he said it was ridiculous that he hadn’t been arrested for robbing that bank, on the surface it might have sounded as though he was mocking the authorities for letting him get away. But I’d come to know him better than that. I knew by
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