JonBenet Ramsey's Colorado Home And Other Infamous Murder Houses For Sale
From Amanda Knox's Perugia house to Jeffery Dahmer's childhood home, some murder houses are perpetually on sale—while others have made a real estate killing.
For $1.9 million, you could be the proud owner of a 7,240-square-foot, five-bedroom renovated 1920s home in one of Boulder, Colorado’s most desirable neighborhoods. The catch? The basement of this dream home is where six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was found dead in 1996. Still interested?
Despite the Bernardi Real Estate Group’s efforts to promote its “grand rooms, great light” and “elegance of past generations combined with modern updates,” the Ramsey estate clearly seems to be suffering from a textbook case of Haunted House Syndrome. JonBenet’s parents, who vacated immediately after the young pageant winner’s body was discovered, sold the house to investors for $650,000 in 1998. In 2004, televangelist Robert Schuller’s daughter, Carol Schuller Milner, and her husband Tim Milner, bought the place for $1.05 million, but it’s been on and off the market several times since then. [UPDATE: After publication of this article, Schuller Milner and her husband have since repurchased the home and are living there again.]
Whether or not they’re actually possessed, so-called “murder houses” can be the bane of a real estate agent’s existence. They’re often severely under-priced (unless their murders are fictional), impossible to sell and even harder to keep off the market—despite being a serious bargain for anyone who can get past their sordid backstory. Occasionally, realtors manage to avoid revealing the secrets of lesser-known houses, leaving their clients to learn of their new home’s horrific history after the deed has been signed. But, like the Ramsey house, the scenes of famous crimes that captured national headlines are often doomed to be haunted by the ghosts of murders past.