The Amityville Horror house and physical security

Last month, en route to Brooklyn, New York, for CSO’s Security Standard event, my traveling companion and I took a detour to Amityville on the south shore of Long Island. I wanted to take pictures of the house made famous by the “Amityville Horror” books and movie and, before that, the murder of the DeFeo family at the hands of one of their own.

It’s true that the trip was mostly to satisfy my appetite for visiting places that have historical significance — in this case, significance in the world of criminal history. But this was also a work mission — to take pictures of the old house for a sequel to January’s story.

Usually, when we do something off the wall like my article and slideshow on L.A. crime scenes and the psychology of security, some readers are left asking what the subject matter has to do with their cyber-based jobs. The short answer is that CSO covers physical as well as cyber security. We spend a lot of time illustrating where the two sides connect.

In my mind, this stuff fits the subject of security like a glove. After all, security is largely a game of examining the psychology  of criminals who lurk in the physical and cyber worlds and how best to protect our employers, friends and family from their sinister schemes.

The L.A. crime scenes and the Amityville house on Long Island are off-the-wall case studies. Some would even call them a stretch. But part of my mission is to get you thinking about security lessons to be found in unlikely places.

Watch for the next slideshow in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of the house I took in September, followed by an old “That’s Incredible” segment on the house. In it, Jim and Barbara Cromarty, the couple that moved in a year after the Lutz family fled (the Lutz story, which I believe was a hoax, spawned the book and movie franchise), describe the security nightmares they experienced at the time, which were worse than evil spirits yelling “Get out!” People would pull up to the house at all hours, urinating on the lawn, yelling obscenities and even trying to tear off pieces of the house.

The gawkers still come and go. Admittedly, on this photo mission, I was one of them, though I did my best to be discreet and not disturb anyone.