The Devil I Know: My Haunting Journey With Ronnie DeFeo And The True Story Ofthe Amityville Murders - Plot & Excerpts
In the mid- to late 1970s, during a brief period when the state upheld the death penalty, Green Haven was famous for housing New York’s death row. A notorious electric chair, “Old Sparky,” was moved from Sing Sing to Green Haven, though never used. Capital punishment was reinstated in New York in 1995, fulfilling then-governor George Pataki’s campaign pledge, but in 2004 was once again struck down as unconstitutional by the New York Court of Appeals. Removal of the death penalty did not mean an absence of death, of course. Two correction officers had died in the line of duty while at Green Haven. One had disappeared while working only to be discovered later in a garbage dump twenty miles away, sexually violated and strangled to death. Another had been found lifeless in a watchtower with a gunshot wound to the head. That death was deemed a suicide. Authorities of the state, of course, always hold out hope that the instinct for death can be changed to the instinct for life. In 1975, the Alternatives to Violence Project was conceived and implemented at Green Haven to help develop inmates’ abilities to resolve conflicts without resorting to manipulation, coercion, or violence.
What do You think about The Devil I Know: My Haunting Journey With Ronnie DeFeo And The True Story Ofthe Amityville Murders?
