by Steve Lehto
The National Park Service (NPS) began documenting historic buildings around the country in the 1930s, and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) reports generated by the NPS are often a gold mine of information on old buildings. In 1958, a HABS report was created for the Lepretre mansion. Its author reviewed the long title history of the Lepretre mansion and noted the contract between Gardette and the builder. A long paragraph details the “amusing, but incredible story” of “The Brother of the Sultan,” told by Schertz. It concludes, “As a result of the publication of this story, this house, which was unmistakably described, became known as LaPrete Mansion, and also as the House of the Turk.” The HABS report places no credence in the story whatsoever.
In 1979, the Times-Picayune newspaper published an article titled “Life with an ‘Exotic Ghost,’” which detailed the story of the sultan’s brother and noted that much of the story made no sense and had no historical backing. “The story that has persisted down through the years …” “One fateful night, however, goes the story …” “Of course, as in the case of so many legends, there are some conflicting details …” The Times-Picayune did not call the story a hoax, but it came close. It should have noted that as time went on, the stories became more detailed and fantastic. Some explained how the sultan had been found buried in the courtyard of the home, with all indications that he had been buried alive. Some even included stories of how the harem girls were all grossly dismembered and had all been raped before they were killed. None of the stories cite any primary sources—although they do often cite each other.
In 1966, a man named Anthony J. Vesick Jr. and an attorney named Frank J. D’Amico bought the house. For years, city buses had traveled past the home on Dauphine. In 1971, the city redrew its bus routes so that buses would drive by on Orleans and then turn onto Dauphine. Because of the nature of the roadway, which was narrow and not constructed for the thirty-three-thousand-pound buses, which is what they weighed when full, the house became subject to severe vibration. It was worse when the buses, more than five hundred a week, would sometimes cut across the street corner to avoid parked cars and hit the curb next to the house. Soon, the walls of the house showed signs of cracking.
Just as any self-respecting attorney would, D’Amico filed suit against the city for the damage to the home. After the court heard testimony regarding the condition of the home before and after the buses had been rerouted, the homeowners were awarded damages to repair the home.
While the murders were not real, the house is very real. It contains nine bedrooms and ten bathrooms and comprises 7,057 square feet of living space. It is four stories tall and was listed for sale in 2013 with an asking price of $2.65 million. The seller suggested that the building could be turned into a six-apartment complex or restored back to its original form as a huge single-family home. The house is privately owned and is one of the most popular attractions on tours of New Orleans, particularly the ones focused on haunted houses and notorious crimes. It seems of little importance that no one was ever actually murdered in the house.
*Helen Pitkin Schertz, Legends of Louisiana (1922).
*Historic American Buildings Survey, Le Pretre Mansion, HABS No. 53.
Afterword
THE SALE OF A STIGMATIZED HOUSE
The number of murder homes that have changed hands in recent years raises the question: Is there an ethical or legal obligation for the seller of a murder house to disclose the true history of the home to prospective buyers? If a person was selling a home where someone had been brutally murdered, should they include that fact in the real-estate listing? If a person bought a murder house unknowingly, would they have legal grounds to file a lawsuit against the seller for not disclosing? Could they sue the real-estate agent?
As one might imagine, this sort of legal quandary has found its way into the U.S. court system several times, with interesting results. The most famous case in the field of “stigmatized” real estate is that of Stambovsky v. Ackley. In the late 1980s, Helen Ackley decided to sell her house in Nyack, New York. The house was beautiful, and according to an article she had written for Reader’s Digest, it was also haunted. Ackley did not know the source of the poltergeists that she claimed occupied her house, but she was certain they were there. She also included her home in a “haunted house tour” of the city. When Jeffrey Stambovsky made an offer to buy the home, he claimed that he was not told of the ghosts.
After he had given Ackley a $32,500 down payment, he found out about the house’s alleged haunting and sought to back out of the deal. Ackley refused. Stambovsky filed suit, hoping to get his money back. The first court to look at the suit simply threw it out. Who believes in ghosts? Stambovsky appealed, and a higher court ruled in his favor. Although the higher court did not weigh in on the existence or nonexistence of ghosts, the court noted that Ackley had written about, and advertised, the house as haunted—to everyone but Stambovsky. The court ruled that Ackley could not now say the house wasn’t haunted in light of her previous statements about the property. The realness of the haunting was irrelevant: There was something very important about this house that she had believed to be true that she chose to not disclose to Stambovsky. Presumably, the same legal principle would apply to the sale of a murder house.
An earlier case with an actual murder house was even more on point, although not as famous. In California, Doris Reed bought a home from Robert King and found out from a neighbor that five people had been murdered in the house a decade before the sale. King had not mentioned this to Reed. To make matters worse, King had allegedly asked a neighbor to not tell Reed about the murders in the house. When she found out, Reed sought to unwind the sale. The first court that saw her lawsuit also threw it out. She appealed, and the California court that heard her appeal was more understanding. There were no allegations that the house was haunted. Here, it was simply the allegation that the murders had devalued the house. Reed argued that the house was worth less money because of its murderous history. Prospective buyers who knew the truth would not pay as much for the property. If she had known, she would not have paid as much for it either. She might not have even bought it. She had paid too much for it and if she were to sell, she would receive less for it as well. The appellate court sent the matter back to the trial court with instructions to let Reed pursue her claims, which, the court noted, were largely based on “pecuniary harm.” That is, money. The court also pointed out how often it seemed to be the case that while sellers don’t disclose the ugly history of the houses they sell, neighbors always seem willing to run over and spill the beans at the first sign of moving vans.
Interestingly, two university professors who study real-estate values at Wright State University became curious about the market for murder houses. As academics tend to do, James Larsen and Joseph Coleman came up with a label for them first: psychologically impacted houses. These were homes that had no physical defects but had been the site for an event that might cause a potential buyer to hesitate in closing a sale, such as a haunting, an illness, or a murder or suicide. The professors then gathered data on homes affected by these events and found out that they did, indeed, encounter problems in the marketplace. It wasn’t catastrophic, but the homes did sell for 2.4 percent less than comparable homes. Worse, however, was that psychologically impacted houses took longer to sell. On average, these homes took 50 percent longer to find buyers.
While the 2.4 percent figure might not appear too significant, experts note that well-publicized murder houses, such as those in this book, often suffer larger drops in price. An appraiser named Randall Bell is considered to be an expert on helping with the pricing and sale of psychologically impacted houses. According to CNN, “Bell says a gruesome, well-publicized murder generally lowers a selling price by 15 to 35 percent.” Of course, the “well-publicized” aspect of that equation means that it is less likely for a buyer to buy such a home without knowing it. It creates bigger problems for the seller, who must be willing to lower his or he
r price to find a buyer willing to overlook the home’s past.
As you might imagine, some people are more than willing to help buyers and sellers of psychologically impacted houses. Besides the appraisers who help evaluate the homes, there are those who will help destigmatize the home. Since many murder houses are believed by some to be haunted, these experts will help rid the house of ghosts. There are also real-estate agents who specialize in selling psychologically impacted houses. One is Barry Lebow, who is based in Toronto. He even runs a popular seminar called “Selling the Haunted House: Realtor Disclosure.” He says his motto is: “Disclose unto others what you want disclosed unto you.” In a nod to human nature, Lebow told CNN that a murder house in a small town might be a near-impossible sale. In that case he suggests, “Sell it to someone from the city.”
Cases like this do not arise all that often, but when they do, they often make headlines. It was just a matter of time before people in the real-estate industry began wondering what might happen to them if they helped sell a home with a bad history and didn’t disclose to the buyer. Might they be sued as well? Soon, laws were passed that protected real-estate salespeople and brokers who did not disclose that a particular property was stigmatized. The laws varied wildly from state to state—more than half of the United States have these laws now—and some do not address the murder house scenario at all but instead focus on other things a seller might not disclose. For instance, a seller in Nevada might find legal problems down the road for not disclosing that the house being sold had been used previously as a meth lab.
Some states do require disclosure of a murder house’s status, but only under limited circumstances. In California, a seller only needs to inform a buyer of a death that has occurred on the property in the three years preceding the sale. In other words, the “murder house” disclosure requirement expires three years after the murders. And, just to make these cases more confusing, some states protect brokers and real-estate agents who do not disclose, but leave the actual seller open to lawsuits. How would a buyer guarantee they are not buying a murder house? Ask the seller and ask the agent. If all else fails, ask the next-door neighbors. They seem to be the ones who know and always seem willing to disclose all the gory details.
*Les Christie, “House Haunting We Will Go,” CNNMoney.com, October 28, 2003.
*Brendan Kennedy, “Buyer Unaware of Orangeville Home’s History, Abandons Sale,” Toronto Star, September 30, 2011.
The LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans where “Lady Nero” was rumored to have tortured and murdered her slaves.
Amanda Baird/BlackDoll Photography
The house in which Lizzie Borden allegedly “whacked” her parents.
Lee-Ann Wilber
Author Conrad Aiken’s childhood home, the site of a murder-suicide.
Marie Beschen
Eight gruesome murders that took place in this Villisca, Iowa, house in 1912 remain unsolved.
Johnny Houser/www.villiscaiowa.com
The one-time Chicago apartment where Richard Speck tortured and murdered eight student nurses.
Lupinacci/Campbell
After a group of angry men murdered Nelson Rehmeyer at his house in 1928, fearing witchcraft, Pennsylvania authorities moved to squelch those beliefs.
Gary Hinman’s Topanga Canyon home, where Manson cult members kicked off their murderous spree.
Rachel Reinard
Serial killer Dean “The Candyman” Corll met his end in the same house in which he murdered as many as twenty-eight boys.
Ken Carter Photography
The tiny house where James Ruppert shot and killed eleven members of his family.
Lyinn Wolf
Former peace-activist Ira Einhorn beat his ex-girlfriend to death in the Philadelphia apartment they once shared.
Ed Snyder/StoneAngels.net
A murder in Savannah’s Mercer-Williams House was the subject of the book and film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
C.R.P. Osborne
Adult film star John Holmes was implicated in the four murders that took place on L.A.’s Wonderland Ave.
Rachel Reinard
Nicole Brown Smith—O. J. Simpson’s ex-wife—and Ronald Goldman were stabbed to death in front of her condominium.
Rachel Reinard
The murder of child pageant star JonBenét Ramsey in her Boulder, Colorado, home captivated the media.
Rick Pawlenty
Built in 1704, the General Wayne Inn counted George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Edgar Allen Poe among its guests.
Ed Snyder/StoneAngels.net
The front gates of fashion designer Gianni Versace’s Miami Beach mansion.
Courtesy of Steve Lehto
The Houston, Texas, home where Andrea Yates drowned her five children.
Ken Carter Photography
Was the Gardette-LaPrete House a sultan’s palace? Not likely.
Jules Loubert
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ll be the first to admit that this is an unusual book. I have no idea what fascinates people about murders or murder houses or what draws them to go look at them, but there is no denying that the fascination appears to be almost universal. The book was fun to write in that regard—I find these stories interesting too—but it required a lot of legwork. In that sense, it was different from anything I have worked on previously. Each chapter, each house, required a whole new avenue of research. There was almost no overlap among the stories, so I had to start from scratch on each chapter. Some of these were quite easy to find information on, while others were more difficult. Entire books have been written on several of these murders, but I was limited by space considerations. For these I tried to summarize, and include the most important and interesting facts.
One minor note I feel I must include here: On the few occasions where a murderer has never been conclusively identified, as in Villisca, I use the masculine pronoun to describe the killer. While modern writing often eschews the use of gender-specific pronouns when a person’s identity is truly unknown, it is quite well known that most psychopathic killers, especially mass and serial murderers, are male. In this case, I am merely playing the odds.
For those interested in the legal aspects of the murders described here, I highly recommend the Famous Trials website built by Douglas O. Linder from the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law. Only four of the murders in this book are featured on the site, but the amount of information he has assembled is remarkable. Ever wonder about the trials of Galileo, the Salem Witches, Al Capone, or Patty Hearst? The site contains write-ups of more than six dozen famous trials through history, including photographs and excerpts of transcripts. More are being added all the time. See http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm. Or simply search on the phrase “famous trials” and you will find it.
I could not have written this book without immense help I received from generous friends, ones I met while working on this book and others I have known for many years. Lee Ann Wilber at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast Museum spent time with me on the phone and gave me many details I could only learn from someone who spent time in the house on a daily basis. Sean Coxen shared information and photos of the Rehmeyer “Hex” House in Pennsylvania. It is one thing to see photos of the house; it is another to speak to the person who took the photos and hear their impressions, the things that cameras cannot record.
J. Ross McGinnis extended me the professional courtesy, attorney-to-attorney, of speaking to me on the phone about the Rehmeyer murder trials. His knowledge of the crimes and the aftermath is encyclopedic, and he did a wonderful job of helping me understand it well enough to where I could put it down in plain English. I also received an amazing amount of help from people like Caitlin Foyt, a woman who just happened to have taken photos of the LaBianca house that she kindly let me use.
And, as I have often done before, I must thank Thomas Spademan, one of my oldest friends. He and I are the same age so he is not th
e “oldest” in that sense; it is just that we have been friends for so long. Tom is a professor and philosopher but has a knack for genealogical research, which translates quite well into finding out things about people who lived a long time ago. Some of the more recent murder houses were easy to find information on, but some of the earlier ones seemed to have left little or no historical trail. In those cases, I often found myself consulting Tom and asking him if he could track down some information for me. Often, it was about the victims, or the survivors, or the descendants of the people in these stories. Regardless, he always got me more information that I expected, faster than I thought possible.
I must also thank my agent, Steve Harris; my editor, Danielle Stockley; and Meredith Giordan, who first had the idea that a book like this should be written.
John Ferracane must be thanked as well. He is the friend in the first paragraph of this book who had lunch with me in Miami Beach at the News Café, where Gianni Versace bought his magazines the day Cunanan senselessly shot him to death. I had been talking to John about how there was one murder house in Miami Beach where he lived at the time, and I mentioned the News Café. John was familiar with it and suggested we eat lunch there and walk down and see the Versace mansion afterward. The mansion, the café, the hotel where Cunanan was staying, and the houseboat where he hid were all in the general vicinity of where John lived at the time, and he helped me map all of them out.
And I must thank my friends, many of whom mentioned names of potential subjects for me when I told them I was working on this book. Active and lively discussions are the only way to make sure a book is assembled properly. Of course I thank my wife, Jennifer, who is a true-crime buff as well, who heard me tell and retell many of these stories as I fleshed them out. Thank you.
Finally, I must thank Brandy and Sangria for protecting the house from intruders, real and imaginary. And of course, Milo and Wolfy, who keep me company as I write. Without them, my work would be impossible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR