My Murder Crawl Space Nightmare

[rynling]

Content warning for gruesome true crime under the cut.

Suicide Adds to Mystery Of Corpse Found in Barrel
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/13/nyregion/suicide-adds-to-mystery-of-corpse-found-in-barrel.html

The case came to light on Sept. 2, when Hamid Tafaghodi, having just bought the Jericho house for $455,000, found a rusted 55-gallon drum, weighing 345 pounds, in a 36-inch crawl space. He insisted that Ronald Cohen, the seller, take it away.

For an abbreviated version of the full story:

Reyna Marroquín’s body was hidden in a crawl-space for three decades
https://lizjin.medium.com/the-murder-of-a-9-month-pregnant-woman-whose-body-was-found-in-a-barrel-35604dd57cf2

At first glance, the address book looked destroyed. But miraculously, skilled forensic technicians were able to extract names and numbers from the pulpy mess. While most of the people identified in the address book had long since moved, detectives caught a break when they reached one of the named individuals, Kathy Andrade. When detectives explained why they were calling, Kathy immediately knew that the woman in the drum had to be her friend Reyna, who had inexplicably disappeared in 1969.

And that is why I do not want a crawl space in my house.

Comments

[raisedbymoogles]

ugh, those are the stories that haunt my nightmares

[rynling]

The worst part is that the guy who did it immediately moved out of the house and happily lived the rest of his life with his wife and kids in Florida. And between him moving out in 1969 and the barrel being found in 1999, three families lived in that house. Fun times. 🙃

[lassarina]

*crab-sidles away from that with wide eyes* holy yikesadoodle.

[rynling]

There was one house I was looking at in the suburbs that was listed as "newly renovated, two floors, with a finished basement." And the house was indeed newly renovated, with two aboveground floors and a beautifully finished basement.

But then there was a door at the back of the basement. I opened it, expecting it to be a utility closet or something, but it turned out to be a staircase leading into a sub-basement. The sub-basement was also beautifully finished, which was somehow even creepier than if it had been left in its original state. Also, given that so much care had gone into renovating this sub-basement, why wasn't it mentioned in the listing?

Here's the listing if you want to look at it:
https://www.redfin.com/PA/Lansdowne/114-Drexel-Ave-19050/home/38875872

In Photo #12, you can kind of see a door in the back. That's the door that goes into the sub-basement. Photo #11 is the small bathroom (with clear glass standing shower?!?!) in the sub-basement.

It was a beautiful house, but I got the fuck out very quickly. I'm not sure how to describe the vibes I was getting, but they weren't great.

Anyway, it looks like someone made an offer on the house. It's their murder castle now, I guess.

[lassarina]

That's a stunningly gorgeous house but not worth bad vibes! Godspeed to the new owners of the murder castle.