The confession that shifted: DeFeo Jr. led police to a river — but who else walked through 112 Ocean Avenue first?

The first call came on November 13, 1974, from a house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, a village on Long Island.

A 23-year-old man told police he had come home from work to find his family dead.

Inside the large Dutch Colonial, officers found six bodies, all shot with a rifle.

The father, the mother, four children.

The sole survivor of the household was Ronald DeFeo Jr., the eldest son.

He said he had just arrived.

The weapon, a .35-caliber Marlin rifle, was not in the house.

It took DeFeo Jr. to find it.

He led police to a nearby river, where the rifle was recovered.

That was a turning point.

It was also a shift.

DeFeo Jr. had first told detectives a mob hitman named Louis Falini did the killings.

The story did not hold.

Under questioning, he confessed, though his account of the events moved.

He told detectives he had committed the murders.

Later, he said he heard voices, that he was in an altered state.

The confession came after inconsistencies.

The rifle came after the confession.

What happened inside 112 Ocean Avenue that night remains a question the record leaves open.

A theory circulating online suggests an outside gunman walked through the house first.

That theory remains a claim, not a fact established by the record.

The identity of any possible outside gunman is not established by the record.

The documented evidence points elsewhere: the confession, the recovered weapon, the man who led police to the river.

Why did the story shift?

Why did he lead them to the rifle?

Why did the account change once, and then again?

That would require evidence.

THE CALL AND THE SCENE

The call came from Ronald DeFeo Jr.

He said he had returned home from his job at a car dealership and found his family dead.

Officers arrived at 112 Ocean Avenue and found six bodies.

The father, the mother, and four children.

All face-down in their beds.

Each shot multiple times.

The killings were later determined to have occurred during the early morning hours of November 13.

The scene was not effectively secured.

Family members and others moved through the house before forensic examination was complete.

Evidence walked through the rooms in shoes that did not belong to the crime scene.

DeFeo Jr.'s initial claim of an outside gunman was not immediately dismissed.

That cost time.

Hours passed while police followed a story that would not hold.

The exact sequence of events inside the house that night is not fully established by the record.

What is established is the call, the bodies, and the delay.

What is established is that the rifle was not found at the scene, and that the son was not yet in custody.

He was taken into custody after the claim, after the walk-through, after the mistake.