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Would You Live in a House Where Somebody Was Murdered?
Your real estate agent walks you into a gorgeous home. It ticks every box on your checklist. There’s just one thing. Something small, your real estate agent says.
Somebody was violently killed inside.
A lot of people have immediate reservations about buying a home that was once a crime scene. These are called stigmatized homes, and they can present quite a challenge for real estate professionals and homeowners. Then, there are some cases where these homes have had no problem finding new purpose, no matter the heinous crime committed inside.
As you’ll see from these homes, each takes a different journey post-murder.
Amityville & the DeFeo Family Murders
Perhaps the most famous stigmatized property is the home in Amityville, New York, in which six members of the DeFeo family were murdered in 1974. Robert DeFeo Jr., 23, shot and killed his parents and siblings in their suburban Dutch Colonial home.
Three years later, the Lutz family moved in. The fruit of their very short stay? The Amityville Horror, a book alleging that the house was haunted. An attorney who worked with the Lutz family admitted that they all concocted the story together. The Lutz family holds tightly to the claims, which have spawned…
