Hans Holzer dies, aged 89

[Medusa]

Hans Holzer, Ghost Hunter
26/1/1920 - 26/4/2009

HANS Holzer, whose investigations into the paranormal took him to haunted houses all over the world, most notably the Long Island house that inspired The Amityville Horror, has died at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.



Holzer wrote more than 140 books on ghosts, the afterlife, witchcraft, extraterrestrial beings and other phenomena associated with the realm he called “the other side”. He conducted his most famous investigation with the medium Ethel Johnson-Meyers in 1977; they roamed the house in Amityville, in which a young man, Ronald DeFeo, had murdered his parents and four siblings in 1974.

The house had become notorious after its next owners claimed to have been tormented by a series of noises and eerie visitations, set out in the best-selling 1977 book The Amityville Horror: A True Story, written by Jay Anson.

After Johnson-Meyers channelled the spirit of a Shinnecock Indian chief, who said that the house stood on an ancient Indian burial ground, Holzer took photographs of bullet holes from the 1974 murders in which mysterious halos appeared.

Holzer went on to write a non-fiction book about the house, Murder in Amityville (1979), which formed the basis for the 1982 film Amityville II: The Possession; he also wrote two novels, The Amityville Curse (1981) and The Secret of Amityville (1985).