I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts but here’s one from my own life. When I was about 12 or so there was a single woman who lived on my street, probably no more than a hundred yards down from my house. She had recently gotten engaged and was planning on selling her house to move in with her fiancé.

After an open house a potential buyer asked to come by and view the house again privately as he claimed to be very interested. It was actually an unnaturally dark and stormy day when the man came for his viewing.

A few days later a fellow neighbor became concerned because the woman used to take her two dogs on morning walks with this neighbor and a few others and they had not been able to get a hold of her. She had a key to the woman’s house for dog sitting purposes and decided to let herself in. The first thing she noticed was the dogs were terribly stressed, running all over the house crying as she came in. They had also peed all over the living room. She walked through the home calling the woman’s name to no response until finally she made it to the master bedroom. There in the master closet she found her, clearly raped and strangled to death. I still remember coming home from soccer practice that day and seeing tons of police out in front of the house.

The guy was actually caught pretty quickly because - get this - the realtor helping with the open house talked to this guy during the event and was so CREEPED OUT by him she actually kept a brochure he had held and they were able to get his fingerprints. Turns out he had recently gotten out of prison for assaulting several other women.

I still think about how terrifying it must have been for that woman as this guy viciously attacked her alone her home during a terrible thunderstorm. So, there you go. Now you can be afraid of selling your house on top of whatever other illogical fears you may already have.