Ronald DeFeo ..The Amityville Murderer

November 14, 1974 is marked in history as the night of one of the most horrific murders in our country’s history. Ronald DeFeo Jr. was the murderer of his six family members, killing them at point blank range in the middle of the night with .35 caliber shot gun. He first walked into his parent’s room. Following the 3 shots he fired into his parents, he headed to his little brothers’ room. After the quit massacre in there, he finished his family off by killing his two little sisters as well. Proceeding this horrific event, he calmly took a shower got dressed, dumped off the shot gun shells and his bloody clothes into a storm drain, and headed to work.

He claimed to have attempted to reach his family all day, calling and going by the house. The cars were in the driveway and the door was locked, no one was answering the phone either. Around 6 p.m. he decided to break into the house through the kitchen window since he was concerned about his family. He discovered the bodies and ran to the local bar and said his parents had been shot! At first everyone believed that he had no connection with the murders, and the thought never crossed anyone’s mind that he had in fact murdered his entire family. At first he said the mob did it because his family had had a mix up with them a few years back, but his story began to unravel as the police found the gun box in his room. He was taken to prison and awaited his trial. At the trial, the question was and still remains, “Was he mentally stable at the time he killed his family?” The psychiatrist firmly believed that he was insane at the time, but the jury did not buy it. He is still serving his 6 consecutive life sentences in New York.

So what state of mind was Ronald really in during his murdering spree? Doctors to this day believe he was insane. He claimed to have heard voices and other schizophrenic symptoms that led him to killing his entire family. How can you put someone away for life (6x) if he was mentally ill? That question can be answered very easily: he was NOT insane, he was pissed off. He felt such resentment towards his father because he used to beat him and treat him horribly. This resentment grew further into resenting his entire family. One night he decided he wanted to be freed from his burdening family, so he killed them all. He knew what he was doing. He was in the state of mind of a serial killer, not a psychopath (and yes, there’s a difference).

Yes he was messed up in the head for murdering his entire family, but that should not excuse his crime. His father basically produced the pent up anger machine from childhood. I believe this goes back to the idea that killers are not born, they are produced. He was not born with a genetic disposition that was only maintained by killing his family. There was nothing wrong with his brain! He was a cold-blooded killer who knew exactly what he was doing.

www.amityvillemurders.com/

Message from your Heart

Kina Grannis was the winner of the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest, where she was given a deal with Interscope Records. She is an extremely talented artist whose songs are not just for easy listening. The creator of her website said, “Her lyrics tell a story, spill out emotions, and confront the eccentricities of life. Kina's ability to parallel the delicate nuances of her melodies with poignant observations on life, love and the many uses of pennies is superseded only by her transcendent voice, which rivals that of many of today's popular musicians.” After watching the video and listening to the lyrics of this song, one can easily agree with this statement.

The song, entitled “Message from your Heart,” is about a heart talking to the person that encompasses it. How she thought of this song is truly beyond me. The first two lines set the mood for the rest of the song. The heart wants it known that it is the source of all your emotions, more specifically the two polar opposites: love and misery. The heart lets us know when we are in love, and when we are completely miserable. Without the heart, we wouldn’t feel anything, according to the heart that is. I would like to argue that the heart in this song is extremely boastful and selfish. It thinks it runs the show! It goes on and on about all the things it does for you and you give it no credit whatsoever. The heart thinks its time for the person to start taking care of it.

Kina paints beautiful illustrations of the heart and what its functions are. It gives the listener a new way to look at the heart besides just pumping blood in and out all day long. The heart works 24/7 while you are sleeping and awake. When you aren’t active, it’s still working. One line says “I don’t work for free, please take care of me.” All the heart wants is to be taken care of because it takes of you. Not working for free means that it has no choice but to give life to the person it beats in.

When it says, “Don’t break me I bleed constantly,” it not only means literally pumping blood constantly, but also bleeding in pain. It gets no brake, no day off. It has no other job except providing life. It is completely devoted to its host, no questions asked. However, it does have a simply request: for everything that it does for you, the least you could do is to take care of it. Taking care of it could mean a number of things, including eating healthy so you won’t have a heart attack. But I’m sure, in this song, it is referring to your love life. Don’t put yourself in a situation where the heart has to be in more pain than it already is in.

The main thing I took from this song is that the heart is constantly reminding you that it’s the center of your life. It maintains your life. It wants gratitude. It wants to be taken care of, because it so graciously takes care of you. I do think it is being quite selfish in its request. The heart makes it appear that it is the only thing in your body when in fact there are tons of other organs vital to your survival. In reality, the heart has nothing to do with your emotions at all, your brain does. But no one thinks the brain is a cute organ. Who says you broke my brain? I have a brain ache! People refer to their heart breaking when they are hurt because they feel like want to die when they lose something they love, and if your heart is literally broken and not functionally, you will die. Therefore, that is where the heart metaphor arose.