During the final stages of researching The Night the DeFeos Died in the Amityville house, author Ric Osuna discovered a mysterious and intriguing image embedded in the actual negative strips of the DeFeo crime scene photographs. After receiving the reprint, Osuna was amazed that the photo seemed to show what would later be called the “seventh body.”

Osuna had numerous theories about the image, including it was everything from a repositioned DeFeo to a co-mingling of crime scene evidence from another case — a red herring if you will. Questions around the mysterious “seventh” body were left unanswered for several years. That was until Ryan Katzenbach undertook the extensive research for his docudrama Shattered Hopes. Shattered Hopes is a multi-part docudrama based on The Night the DeFeos Died and released in late 2011.

Katzenbach and team continued where Osuna had left off, and spent years researching the DeFeo case and the Amityville house like no other documentary crew had done before them.

Since the “seventh” body question has been answered, a link is provided below to the Shattered Hopes website’s page dedicated to the matter. There, readers may understand for themselves the origins of this mystery.

Please click here to be taken to the Shattered Hopes site to read the truth about the “seventh” body. Viewer discretion is advised.

You may also read the original (now outdated!) article by Osuna from 2001, archived for historical purposes, here.