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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is a house where a murderer lived always the murderers house?

63 replies

NCforThis2022 · 13/01/2022 22:57

I'm rewatching Criminal Minds for the fifth or sixth time, and it occurred to me - is a house where a murderer once lived always the murderers house? Does it ever just become the house on the corner?

Obviously places like 25 Cromwell Street are 'famous', but what about the less well known places?

Would you be able to live in a house that a murderer had lived in? And if you could/do, how do you deal with true crime tourism?

OP posts:
KiloWhat · 14/01/2022 06:24

I am sometimes surprised when the houses aren't knocked down but I guess there is a housing shortage

Sablesmug · 14/01/2022 06:36

The notorious high profile ones will definitely be.

My dad always used to say to me that if a house was built before the post war era, then you could guarantee someone had been born in it and someone died in it.

Sablesmug · 14/01/2022 06:37

@KiloWhat

I am sometimes surprised when the houses aren't knocked down but I guess there is a housing shortage
I suppose it all depends on what the owner wants to do with it. Not all will have been owned by the murmurers themselves.
Cherrysoup · 14/01/2022 07:00

Local to me, not a murder, a suicide by sawn off shotgun, the walls were apparently embedded with remnants 😢 It was sold for very little given the area and has been totally re-done inside. I don’t think I could live there.

Chocomelon · 14/01/2022 07:16

As PPs have said, I'd be more bothered by what had happened there than who lived there.

@ParkheadParadise I am so very sorry Flowers

daisychain01 · 14/01/2022 07:44

@KiloWhat

I am sometimes surprised when the houses aren't knocked down but I guess there is a housing shortage
There's nothing to stop them building a new house though, it's just purging the area of a potential magnet for weirdos. It would be a lot better for the victims' families to know the house or property where their loved one was murdered no long exists. I imagine it helps with closure.
Briony123 · 14/01/2022 08:18

With the number of women murdered by their husbands every week in the UK alone, if every house was demolished there soon would be very few left.

Ricksteinsfishwife · 14/01/2022 08:20

I think it’s different between where a murderer lived and where someone was murdered.

People are not very squeamish about the simple fact a murderer once lived there, but if someone was murdered there then it’s very different.

Knitter99 · 14/01/2022 08:29

Someone was murdered in my home town when I was a kid. Years later kids would still tease the family who lived there, calling it "the murder house" and sharing all sorts of unpleasant and exaggerated facts about what happened. I was friends with the girl who lived there and she had nightmares as a result of the nonsense that went around the playground. It was bullying really, teasing makes it sound quite innocent. They moved house after that and a family with older kids moved in. They stayed for years

Georgeskitchen · 14/01/2022 08:31

@BasketBlocks

I think I read that Peter Sutcliffe’s ex-wife still lives in the same house as at the time (although I stand corrected if I’m wrong).
Yes I think she does
Limegreentangerine · 14/01/2022 08:41

The guy who killed April jones , his house was bought by the Welshman government and demolished

AlDanvers · 14/01/2022 09:06

@Limegreentangerine

The guy who killed April jones , his house was bought by the Welshman government and demolished
But wasn't that because it's believed she was killed there. Not because he lived there?
absolutenightmare · 14/01/2022 09:09

Not murder but my dad killed himself in his house. We thought we would have trouble selling but we sold within 24 hours of putting it on the market and accepted an offer only just below asking price. Family who bought it seem very happy, they knew the circumstances as we told people before they viewed. I was glad to get rid of the house as I felt incredibly uncomfortable being there after my dad's suicide.

WhatIsThisPlease · 14/01/2022 09:13

I live not too far away from the Yorkshire Ripper's house. Everyone still refers to it as that. I had to drive past it yesterday and while discussing directions with DP said "so I go past the Ripper's house..."

Think it will always be known as that round here.

Original poster
NCforThis2022 · 14/01/2022 14:44

@absolutenightmare, I'm sorry for your loss.

I think the idea of crime tourists would put me off more than anything tbh. It would seem intrusive to have random strangers staring at the house.

OP posts:
ShirleyPhallus · 14/01/2022 14:46

I think it’s a really interesting thing, because a lot of houses are over 100 years old and we likely don’t know the history of what’s happened in them beyond about 40/50/60 years

Teaandakitkat · 14/01/2022 14:58

Unpleasant info warning

My bil is a police forensics expert and he loves sharing gruesome facts about how far microscopic body fragments and blood spatter can travel and how hard it is to completely remove them, which is why police can revisit the homes of murderers years later and still find some forensic evidence. That would put me off.

Kitkat151 · 14/01/2022 14:58

Yes IMO....I live in a small market town ....been here years.... I can tell you every house where sOne one has been murdered ( 4 ) ......so can my now adult children and every one of my friends and family

Gymrats · 14/01/2022 15:13

The house where the children died in the fire (murder) by Something Philpot was it?? That was demolished.

ImJustNotMeAnymore · 14/01/2022 15:16

There have been several murders in houses near mine, including the one right opposite. To us who remember it is, and always will be, the murder house.

TheSixthSickSheik · 14/01/2022 15:34

@Teaandakitkat

Unpleasant info warning

My bil is a police forensics expert and he loves sharing gruesome facts about how far microscopic body fragments and blood spatter can travel and how hard it is to completely remove them, which is why police can revisit the homes of murderers years later and still find some forensic evidence. That would put me off.

Fair enough, but wouldn’t this to some extent apply to any house you buy that’s been lived in by people?
Pedalpushers · 14/01/2022 15:37

I had to Google 25 Cromwell Street, and I know who Fred and Rose West were so maybe the actual address isn't that notorious? Maybe just me...

I'm not overly spooked by these things but no way would I live in Dennis Nilsen's house. He buried his victims under the floors and left them there for months! There are probably still bone fragments in his back garden. Grim.

Gingerninja4 · 14/01/2022 15:39

House on our road had 3 people killed including a 17 year old 2 injured (drug shooting )but to be honest not known as that any more

It was Catalyst for clearing the area out and is area now that people want to move to and houses go for fair amount

Toomanypeople · 14/01/2022 15:44

There are 3 houses I know of in my town where people were murdered in them. I personally couldn't live in them

LuluBlakey1 · 14/01/2022 15:46

There was a house round the corner from us in Gateshead where, a few years before I was born, a man shot his two children and his wife in their beds then took himself off to a quarry and shot himself. It was often up for sale when I was growing up and my mam always told me the story. It was a religious thing - they were some odd religion and he felt driven to do it apparently (there was a note). We used torun past ig on our way to school because we were so scared of it- it was often unlived in and dark.
Eventually it seems to have been forgotten about- the house is still there, looked after and lived in.