A Grisly Murder Took Place In...

[Ash]

After reading this story about a "British couple who discovered their home had been the scene of a grisly murder as they watched a crime documentary on television."
Here's the link:  
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=573&e=1&u=/nm/20040301/od_nm/crime_britain_house_dc

I wondered to myself if I or any of you would ever want to live in a home or rent out a place if you had knowledge that something terrible had happened there.
I'm specifically referring to finding about the murder/s AFTER the fact as I can think of no one who would move into such a place with knowledge beforehand.

I think I would be a little disturbed and begin to research what had happened.  
I can just picture myself at the public library using one of those slide viewers turning the dial and watching & reading as old newspaper headlines scroll upwards.
I would even try to locate the exact part of the house where it occurred...maybe even try to obtain some crime scene photos somehow through legal means.

I would be torn between giving it a close inspection or to cordon off the area entirely and have nightmares about it.

I would be on the borderline of morbid fascination and/or revulsion.

What are your thoughts and what would you do?



Post Edited (03-01-04 17:46)

[AndyC]

Funny that you should bring this topic up. There was a double murder in our city just over a week ago - a nice old lady and her boarder. The house is on my wife's way to work, and still taped off and under guard. I've been past it a few times myself.

It got me wondering if kids in that neighbourhood will know that house as the 'murder house' for years to come. I've also been thinking about who might move into it, and what sort of a deal they might get. It's a nice house in a nice part of town, and with the recent publicity, it  might go dirt cheap. It might not, of course, but something like that has got to freak out a potential buyer at least a little. Somebody could actually get a rock bottom price on a house that, aside from some history, really has nothing wrong with it.

There's certainly no danger, since it wasn't a random murder, but rather somebody known to the victims. Even if you believe in ghosts, a sweet old lady isn't the scariest ghost that might haunt your house. Still, I wonder if the future owners will tell the story to impress people, or do their best to bury the house's history.

Weird, the things that pop into your mind when something like that happens.

[raj]

There have been a number of cases like that; basically an owner has a duty to disclose defects, the problem being is a murder (or alleged ghosts) a defect.

If it were my dream house, I'd buy it, and leave a glass of single malt scotch out for the ghost.  Not that I believe in ghost, but I'd rather try and make nice with them.

[Eirik]

"I wondered to myself if I or any of you would ever want to live in a home or rent out a place if you had knowledge that something terrible had happened there."

Probably wouldn't bother me all that much...  but the potential impact on property values would probably make my neighbor Bill's head explode.

[Neon Noodle]

As I understand it, by law, when you sell a house you have to reveal everything structural, all deficiencies, and any crimes that may have happened there.

I have read enough John Douglass novels (he writes about his true experiences as an Quantico Behavioral Science agent) that it might not phase me as long as it was PAST TENSE. If that person had any connection to the property, I'm outta there like poop thru a goose....

[Eirik]

"As I understand it, by law, when you sell a house you have to reveal everything structural, all deficiencies, and any crimes that may have happened there."

I am pretty certain the law does say that...  but only applies to stuff you know about and someone can prove you knew about at the time you sold the house.  So basically, if the crime occurred while you were living there they can prove you knew...  otherwise you can just say you'd never heard the story.

[AndyC]

Eirik wrote:
> Probably wouldn't bother me all that much...  but the potential
> impact on property values would probably make my neighbor
> Bill's head explode.

LOL! I thought about that too.

Hmmmm, how old is Bill's house? Wouldn't be hard to produce a copy of a phony newspaper clipping from 20 or 30 years ago.

[odinn7]

My parents have been divorced for over 30 years. I used to live with my father and occasionally would visit my mother when it wouldn't inconvenience her and affect her wonderful life (yeah, that's a whole story in itself). The problem is, she used to buy old houses, I mean old, and live there for a few years while her and her new husband would fix them up. There were a couple that she lived in that I can remember having terrible feelings when I was there and "seeing" things that weren't there. Nightmares, real bad stuff.  The one house that was the worst was over 200 years old. The room she picked for me to sleep in I was unable to sleep in at all. I cried so much about it that she moved me to the floor of another room. Well, years later now that I'm grown up, I asked her about this particular house. Turns out that about 20 years before she moved there, some guy blew his head off in the the general area where that room was. The house had been remodeled somewhat but that room was close to where the body had been found. On top of this, there was a sealed up tunnel in the dirt basement that lead to another house that was supposedly used as the underground railroad for the slaves way back when. Who knows what was actually in that tunnel. All this stuff I was unaware of at the time but it affected me when I was there. So...would I live in a house that I knew something bad had happened in? No F'n way.

[Chopper]

if i was in that situation i would just use very romantic and soothing music to calm down my significant other in the tainted house, for example: Slayer.

[BoyScoutKevin]

The classic case of this: "Amityville.'

[gecko brothers]

Be creeped out but yet at the same time say cool

[JohnL]

This was actually the theme of an anthology movie called Terror Tract, with John Ritter. He plays a real estate agent trying to make a sale, but every house he shows has some horrible history that he has to tell the buyers about. Those stories form the majority of the movie as you see them acted out.

[eeeee5]

.  .  .  .  In, "Quella villa accanto al cimitero/Zombie Hell House" an interaction mentions that some New England (Boston) homes have graves in them (aside from the gallon of dust covering the one in the film)...

Catriona MacColl  as Lucy Boyle:  I mean this, this house is soo strange.  Sure I can live with a graveyard next door, but to live with a tomb in your hallway.
Paolo Malco as Dr. Norman Boyle:  It's just something you'll have to get used to.  This ain't New York.
LB:  I know.
NB:  Most of the old houses have tombs in them, really.
LB:  No kidding.
NB:  It's because in the winter it freezes here.

.  .  .  .  Now that may or may not be more scary than a past execution.  I used to read a lot of books written by someone named Cohen when I was in elementary, so I've always had a belief/fascination with/about spirtual remnants.  But I don't know if this is historical truth or not.
.  .  .  .  I'm paranoid as heck, so if I could avoid living in a house where some heinous stuff went down would be nice, if not, I'll just have the plummer (?) from "Drainiac!" on speed dial, and the electrician from "House 2" on backup.



Post Edited (03-08-04 12:33)