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Would you buy a house knowing that an entire family was brutally murdered inside?

A house in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, sold for an estimated $200,000, according to reports listed by Zillow. It's quite a large house, with four bedrooms and three bathrooms sitting at over 2,735 square feet. Adjacent houses look to be valued at around $230-000-$285,000, so it appears there was a bit of a discount due to the home's horrible history.

In July 2014, Ron Haskell broke into the home where his in-law relatives were staying and killed six people. Four of those people were children aged between 4 and 13. After massacring his family, Haskell led police on a chase, which ended with a three-hour standoff in another neighborhood before surrendering to police.

Haskell, who was 34 at the time, terrorized the family before killing them execution-style. According to ABC 13's report from 2014:

A teen identified as Cassidy Stay, 15, recognized Haskell as her ex-uncle. She told him her parents were not home and he left. Haskell then reportedly came back a second time and kicked in the front door. He told Cassidy not to close the door and then tied her up. Haskell then waited for the rest of the family to come home.

Investigators say when the rest of the family arrived, Haskell tied all of them up face down and asked them where his ex-wife was. When they said they didn't know, he shot all of them execution-style in the back of the head.

Cassidy was the only family member inside the house who survived the shooting; she "played dead" after deflecting a gunshot with her hand, losing a finger in the process, ABC 13 reported. She gave police vital information about Haskell and his intent to kill more family members. Cassidy has been hailed as a hero who saved lives.

In August 2019, Haskell was sentenced to death and is currently on death row in Polk County, Texas.

Knowing all that about the house, how would anybody want to buy it? Someone did late last year. Whether they intend to live in it as-is, rent it out or heavily remodel it is unclear. I'm not sure if I believe in ghosts per se, but I know that I would feel the miasma of the place every time I walked inside. That may be purely psychological, but still very real for me.

Photos from inside the home make the house seem innocuous enough, and I'm sure highly trained clean-up folks did a fantastic job on the property. However, the images still give me the chills, especially the room that must have belonged to either 9-year-old Emily or 7-year-old Rebecca. Or perhaps they even shared it. The forlorn-looking playhouse in the backyard haunts me as well.

Murder House in Spring, Texas


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All information has been taken from TDCJ and court records.

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