Further reading for Neville Heath/ Amityville murders

Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller

The Amityville Murders: Stories of Strange True Crime

June 1917, Essex, UK. Neville Heath was born into an upper middle class family living in the suburbs. It was said that he was a strikingly beautiful baby, with golden hair and flashing blue eyes and was greatly adored by both his parents. In 1920 Neville became an older brother but tragically, the family lost the younger boy to tuberculosis while he was still an infant. This would help create the monster that Neville was to become as he both suffered from the from the emotional scars of having his young brother die, but he also was then overly heaped with love and attention from his parents who overlooked many of his bad habits or problem behaviors leading to Neville having the belief that he could get away with anything.

When Neville was 11, his parents had another son taking some of that attention away from Neville, he was also sent away to a grammar school where he had his first exposur4e to physical punishment, and real discipline. His crimes had at first started as small and petty but as time went on, they began to grow in the extreme. At the age of 15 he attended a party with friends and was attempted an assault on one of the female party goers. When the girls cries for help were heard by other attendees, the attack was interrupted and stopped and he was immediately kicked out of the party. When confronted about the incident he claimed he only intended to tease the girl but was drunk and it was all a misunderstanding, and sadly given the society norms at the time, this was a valid excuse.

Neville used his good looks and charm to get himself out of many bad situations but also to try to get ahead in life. But he had a hard time figuring out how to get ahead in society, that is when he decided to join the lower ranks of the Army with the mindset that he would make his way up the ranks quickly. After enlisting he lied and and modified his accent and personal history in order to achieve this goal, but instead was court martialed and dismissed.

Given his looks and ability to charm his way through almost anything its easy to believe that Neville was a ladies man, add in excess drinking, and his life falling apart and we can see how his sadistic murder spree started. Women began to be found murdered in local hotels, raped, and their bodies brutally abused and tortured. In the end he essentially led the police to himself by signing his real name to a hotel room he rented in which they found the body of one of his victims.

At the trail, two prison doctors testified that Health was a psychopath and sexual sadist but he was not insane. He was found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

The murder of a family leads to a mad haunting story:

The Amityville horror actually started with a house that saw a tragic murder, the question becomes, was the the house haunted to begin with? and that spirit caused the murder?? Who knows, but its a great story all around nonetheless.

Episode 90

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