The rifle that six sleeping DeFeos were shot with — and the son who confessed

The call came on November 13, 1974.

A neighbor placed it to the Suffolk County Police Department.

Officers arrived at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York.

Inside, they found six members of the DeFeo family shot while sleeping in their beds.

The parents and four children.

All six had been killed with a .35-caliber Marlin rifle.

The sole survivor was 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr.

He was present when officers arrived.

He initially said he had been away.

He claimed he had been out driving and returned to find the bodies.

The exact time of the call is not in the record.

The neighbor's identity is not in the record either.

What is in the record is the scene itself.

Six bodies, still in their beds.

A rifle recovered later, confirmed by ballistics as the murder weapon.

DeFeo Jr. stood among the investigators.

Officers noted he showed little emotion.

That detail would not leave the room.

It would not leave the case.

It would not leave the story that followed.

THE BODIES

The bodies were found in their beds.

Six members of the DeFeo family: the father, the mother, and four of their children.

The children were Dawn, Allison, Marc, and John Matthew.

All six had been shot with a .35-caliber Marlin rifle.

It is a rifle that fires a heavy round.

It is a rifle that was kept in the house, according to the confession.

The father and mother were killed in their beds, like the children.

The rifle was later recovered.

Ballistics confirmed it as the murder weapon, according to the investigation.

That confirmation tied the weapon to every victim.

The scale of it is the thing.

Six people, one night, one rifle.

The exact order of the shootings is not in the record.

Not who was shot first.

Not who was shot last.

That would require evidence the case did not produce.

What the record does say is that they were sleeping.