The couple looked at more than 150 homes before they found it.
Nestled among a neat row of sandstone-colored houses on a quiet street, the spacious two-story was big enough for their three boys, close enough to schools and cheap enough for their budget.
The interior wasn’t in the best shape, granted, but that wasn’t going to deter them after the long string of vandalized foreclosures they’d visited.
They put in an offer. The seller accepted. And then, they got the call.
“Can you go into another room away from your kids? You guys need to sit down,” their real-estate agent said. “There was a tragedy in the home you had the offer accepted on.”
In 2008, a little more than a year earlier, Jodi Arias killed her former boyfriend, the home’s previous owner, in one of the bathrooms. After an on-again, off-again relationship whose torrid details emerged only after the body was found, Arias stabbed Travis Alexander almost 30 times, slit his throat and shot him in the head, later claiming self-defense.
“People pass away in their homes all the time, but as far as something this horrific, it’s very uncommon,” said Sue Henstein, the real-estate agent who sold the foreclosure home. “It must happen, but I’ve never come across it, and if I ever mention it to another Realtor, they never have, either.”
After the call with Henstein, “I Googled the address, and the first thing that came up was that (June 2009) ’48 Hours’ episode,” the home’s new owner said.
The Arizona Republic is withholding the new owners’ names to protect their children, who have yet to grasp the full details of the case, according to the woman.
“I was a little nervous about it. My husband, though, it didn’t bother him. He said, ‘This is a good deal. It’s a beautiful home. It’s in a great school district,’ ” she said. “When we signed the papers, we didn’t realize this was going to be that big of a case.”
USA Today