The episode revisits the story behind the Rhode Island farmhouse that inspired The Conjuring, beginning with the Perron family, who moved into the 1736 property on Round Top Road in 1971. The family described unexplained disturbances, frightening encounters, and increasingly violent supernatural experiences, particularly involving mother Carolyn. Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren visited the house, and a 1973 séance allegedly ended with Carolyn being thrown across a room. The Warrens attributed the haunting to Bathsheba Sherman, a real 19th-century woman they claimed had practiced witchcraft and sacrificed a baby. However, historical records reviewed by the Boston Globe revealed no evidence supporting those accusations, that Bathsheba lived elsewhere, died at 72, *AND* had no documented connection to the alleged crimes. The episode distinguishes the family's accounts from verified historical facts and questions how much of the legend was embellished.

The farmhouse became a real estate nightmare after The Conjuring premiered in 2013. Previous owner Norma Sutcliffe said the movie's depiction was inaccurate, but nonetheless visitors began trespassing, appearing in her yard at all hours of the night, and harassing her family. She sued Warner Bros., describing the experience as a siege. In 2019, paranormal enthusiasts Corey and Jennifer Heinzen purchased the property for approximately $439,000 and turned it into a destination for ghost tours and overnight stays. Their successor, Jacqueline Nunez, purchased it through an LLC for $1.525 million, financed with a roughly $1.2 million mortgage. The business eventually collapsed after reported incidents, a barn fire, a worker's wage dispute, a stop-work order, and Nunez's entertainment license being denied. After she stopped paying the mortgage, foreclosure proceedings began, setting off an extraordinary dispute involving YouTuber Elton Castee and comedian Matt Rife, Ghost Hunters star Jason Hawes, with competing purchase agreements, questionable legal documents, and a loan that had been sold separately from the property.

The final section unravels the ongoing ownership battle. Castee secretly purchased the mortgage debt through an LLC attributed to him, while documents appeared that give authority to sell the farmhouse to Hawes for $1.3 million. A bank subsequently recorded a mortgage discharge despite having already sold the loan, and Nunez's sister challenged the sale, raising questions about her ability to enter contracts. A judge invalidated the initial deed and power of attorney after concerns about notarization, although a second notarized deed later complicated the dispute. Further court proceedings addressed receivership, competing claims, property access, and whether Hawes could complete the purchase without knowing whom to pay. By June, town records listed Hawes as the owner, but Castee's side continued challenging the transaction, including arguing that Nunez's LLC had been dissolved before the deed was signed. The episode closes with the Conjuring House still caught in a legal and financial maze, demonstrating how a famous property's paranormal reputation can generate extraordinary commercial value, and even more extraordinary real estate litigation.

00:00 — The Perron Family and the Haunted Farmhouse

06:41 — The Warrens and the Alleged Haunting

12:00 — Bathsheba Sherman: The Real History

15:47 — The Conjuring Movie and the Owner's Nightmare

19:30 — Turning the House Into a Business

24:30 — The Rise and Fall of the Conjuring House Tours

33:23 — The Foreclosure and the Bidding War

40:00 — Who Bought the Mortgage?

48:45 — Competing Deeds and Courtroom Chaos

55:36 — Who Actually Owns the Conjuring House?

TCiRE

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The episode examines the true story behind the infamous “Watcher” case involving Derek and Maria Broaddus, who purchased 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, in 2014 for $1,355,657. The family planned to renovate the grand Dutch Colonial before moving in, but just days after closing, Derek discovered a disturbing letter addressed to “the new owner.” The anonymous writer claimed that the house had been watched by their family for generations, and then revealed details about the couple’s children that could only be known to someone who could see and hear what went on in the house and the yard. A second letter arrived weeks later, containing even more specific information about the children, the house’s layout and the “pain” caused by the renovations and changes, and asked what bedrooms everyone would sleep in.

The letters completely changed the family’s lives. They NEVER moved into the house, and to try and discover the identity of “The Watcher”, Derek and Maria spent months installing cameras, investigating neighbors, and paying private investigators, former FBI personnel, security specialists, and even a forensic linguist. They ultimately spent at least $100,000 trying to unmask the anonymous letter mailer, but every investigative avenue was fruitless in determining who was responsible. The family eventually listed the house for sale, but insisted that disclosure of the letters be done to not put any future owners through the same ordeal, but not surprisingly, this mostly scared away potential buyers. They sued the previous owners, claiming the Woodses knew about the Watcher and failed to disclose the threat, but the lawsuit was dismissed in 2017. Their attempt to tear down the house and divide the property was also rejected after intense opposition from neighbors.

A fourth and final known letter arrived in 2017, threatening Derek and Maria with accidents, illness, death, and harm to loved ones while revealing that the Watcher was aware of the family’s efforts to find them. Derek later admitted that he anonymously sent retaliatory letters to some hostile neighbors, but there is no evidence that he was responsible for the Watcher letters. In 2019, the house finally sold for $959,360 (nearly $400,000 below the original purchase price), and the family estimated losses closer to $700,000 when renovations, investigations, taxes, financing, legal expenses, and other costs were considered. The new owners have reportedly never received a Watcher letter, but nobody has ever been charged; the Union County Prosecutor’s Office considers the case open and inactive, leaving the identity of the Watcher unresolved.

00:00 — The Real Watcher Story

03:30 — Buying 657 Boulevard

07:00 — The First Letter

12:00 — The Watcher Knows Their Children

18:00 — The Second Letter

24:00 — Threats Without Direct Threats

28:00 — Living in Fear

32:00 — The Investigation

37:00 — The Lawsuit

42:00 — The Fight to Tear Down the House

47:00 — The Final Watcher Letter

51:00 — The House Finally Sells

54:00 — Who Was the Watcher?

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The episode examines the 2007 murder of Linda Stein, a former co-manager of the Ramones who became a successful Manhattan real estate agent known for selling multimillion-dollar apartments to celebrities. Stein was found beaten to death in her Fifth Avenue penthouse after her personal assistant, Natavia Lowery, told family and friends that Linda was out running or walking in the park. Investigators discovered through building surveillance that Stein had never left the building and that Lowery was the only person seen going to the apartment that day. Surveillance also contradicted Lowery's account of how she traveled, and after questioning she gave several different explanations before eventually confessing to killing Stein.

Prosecutors argued that Lowery had been stealing from Stein and had taken more than $30,000 through unauthorized credit cards and ATM withdrawals. They said Stein had discovered the theft and was preparing to confront or report her assistant when she was killed. Lowery later recanted her confession, while her defense acknowledged that she was a thief but argued that did not make her a murderer. The jury convicted her of second-degree murder and grand larceny after about five hours of deliberation, and she was sentenced to 27 years to life. Lowery has maintained her innocence.

The episode uses Stein's death to examine the risks real estate professionals take when giving assistants extensive access to their personal and professional lives. Stein's daughters later sued Douglas Elliman, the brokerage where their mother was a contractor, and the temp agency that placed Lowery with Linda, but the claims were ultimately dismissed; the appellate court found that Stein, as an independent contractor, controlled her assistant's work. Sandi Lyn emphasizes that agents should use separate logins and limit assistants' access to critical systems, financial accounts, MLS credentials, electronic signatures, email, and lockboxes. She also recommends cutting off access and involving a bank, broker, or law enforcement before confronting someone suspected of stealing or other illegal or unethical behavior, while brokerages should have policies for complaints involving assistants and understand applicable rules governing background checks and reference checks.

00:00 — The Murder of Linda Stein

04:54 — From the Ramones to Real Estate

08:49 — The Realtor to the Stars

14:40 — Surveillance Reveals the Truth

19:20 — Four Different Stories

25:18 — The Theft Behind the Murder

32:28 — The Defense of Natavia Lowery

34:53 — The Murder Trial

36:40 — The Wrongful Death Lawsuit

40:00 — How Much Access Is Too Much?

42:00 — Protecting Yourself From an Insider

44:00 — What Brokers Should Be Doing

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The episode examines the 1986 disappearance of 25-year-old British estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, who left her London office to show a house to a man identified in her diary as “Mr. Kipper.” Witnesses saw Suzy with a man outside the property, but she never returned to the office. Her company car was later found abandoned, and her wallet remained inside while her keys were missing. The case became one of Britain's most prominent missing-person investigations, receiving national attention through the BBC's Crimewatch. Investigators eventually focused on convicted murderer John Cannan, who was publicly named by the Metropolitan Police as the man they believed killed Suzy, although he was never charged in her disappearance and no forensic evidence has conclusively tied him to the case.

Evidence connecting Cannan to Suzy's disappearance include his use of the nickname “Kipper,” similarities between his behavior and descriptions of the man seen with Suzy, and his later conviction for the kidnapping and murder of Shirley Banks. Investigators have repeatedly searched locations connected to Cannan for Suzy's remains without finding them. However, former Scotland Yard detective David Videcette challenges the entire theory, arguing that Suzy may never have gone to the scheduled showing and that “Mr. Kipper” may not have existed. Forty years later, investigators still have unresolved witness leads, unidentified evidence from Suzy's car, and competing theories about what happened.

The case becomes a broader examination of real estate agent safety. Sandi Lyn argues that Suzy followed many of the safety procedures agents are still taught today (recording the appointment, the address, and the person she expected to meet) yet those precautions did not protect her. The episode recommends applying safety procedures consistently to every client, obtaining identification, using services such as Forewarn, meeting strangers in public first, sharing live location, maintaining current emergency information, and documenting warning signs such as stalking or unexplained gifts. The story of Birmingham agent Stephanie Slater, who was kidnapped and held for eight days by a man posing as a buyer, reinforces the risks of meeting unknown clients alone. The episode closes by highlighting the Suzy Lamplugh Trust's decades of work on stalking and lone-worker safety and contrasting Britain's formalized protections with the lack of comparable systems described for American real estate agents.

00:00 — The Disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh

02:30 — The Mysterious Mr. Kipper

06:00 — The Last Sightings

09:30 — The Search for Suzy

12:00 — John Cannan Enters the Case

15:00 — The Murder of Shirley Banks

19:33 — The “Mr. Kipper” Theory

22:30 — A Different Theory of What Happened

25:00 — Forty Years Without Answers

27:30 — What Suzy's Case Teaches Agents

30:00 — The Kidnapping of Stephanie Slater

34:00 — The Suzy Lamplugh Trust

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In this episode Sandi Lyn examines automated license plate reader systems like Flock Safety, and the ways the technology can be misused by law enforcement, private organizations, and homeowners associations. It opens with the case of former police chief Michael Steffman, who allegedly searched the license plates of his ex-girlfriend and her daughter roughly 600 times over a year. The episode explains how Flock has expanded into a nationwide network of more than 120,000 cameras, while selling access not only to police departments but also to HOAs, apartment complexes, commercial landlords, and developers. Reported cases include officers using the system to stalk romantic partners, databases being used for improper and potentially illegal investigations, and audit systems failing to prevent the very abuses they were supposed to catch.

The episode then focuses on the consequences not of abuse, but of inaccurate automated alerts and the broader question of whether surveillance technology produces enough public-safety benefit to justify its risks. Multiple incidents are described in which Flock or similar systems allegedly misread license plates or relied on incorrect database information, resulting in armed traffic stops, arrests, and other serious consequences. The episode also discusses a Texas search involving a woman who had allegedly undergone an abortion, as well as concerns about immigration-related searches of Illinois cameras. Counterexamples are presented through research suggesting fixed license plate readers were associated with an approximately 11% reduction in vehicle theft and faster recovery of stolen vehicles, while Flock cites additional research claiming much larger crime-solving benefits. The discussion emphasizes that misconduct involving police databases predates Flock, while acknowledging that automated audit logs can create a digital trail for identifying misuse.

The final section focuses specifically on real estate, where Flock cameras installed by HOAs can become an overlooked issue for buyers and agents. A Minneapolis-area buyer reportedly canceled a home walkthrough after discovering cameras at the neighborhood entrance and pool, raising questions about who controls the data, how long it is retained, and whether it can be used to issue fines. The episode notes that traditional HOA disclosures generally do not specifically address private surveillance systems and recommends that agents investigate camera locations, obtain HOA contracts, determine who can access data and how long it is retained, and understand whether the association can impose penalties based on surveillance data. Agents are encouraged to document what they discover and disclose relevant information according to applicable state law, while recognizing that crowdsourced camera maps can be incomplete or inaccurate. The episode closes by comparing the power of a police login with the access potentially held by an HOA board member: the system produces information, but does not inherently distinguish between guilty and innocent people.

00:00 — The Flock Investigation Begins

03:58 — Police Misuse the System

10:42 — When Flock Gets It Wrong

17:58 — The Abortion Search

23:28 — The Case for Surveillance

30:28 — Flock Comes to HOAs

37:18 — The Real Estate Problem

42:48 — What Agents Should Investigate

49:12 — All You Need Is a Login

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Today’s episode examines the 2012 murder of Irasema Chavez in Arlington, Texas, where she was found stabbed more than 100 times inside her apartment. Surveillance footage captured a hooded figure entering after Chavez opened the door, but the video was too low quality to identify the person. Investigators found a single drop of female blood on a bedroom TV stand that did not belong to Chavez, but the DNA produced no CODIS match. A stolen television, lack of forced entry, and the brutality of the killing suggested Chavez knew her attacker, while an early tip reportedly pointed investigators toward a close friend and her allegedly jealous husband. Police visited their home but after no one answered, they never followed up, and the case remained cold for 14 years.

In 2024, Arlington investigators brought the case to the FBI's investigative genetic genealogy program, which searches publicly accessible genealogy databases for relatives of an unknown DNA contributor and builds family trees to identify potential suspects. That investigation eventually pointed to Mayra Velasquez, a licensed North Texas real estate agent. Rather than immediately seek a sample that might alert her, detectives recovered a discarded plastic fork after following her to a restaurant. According to police, DNA from the fork matched the blood found at the crime scene. Velasquez was arrested in July 2026 and charged with capital murder, but she pleaded not guilty and was released on $450,000 bond shortly after.

Sandi Lyn stresses that the DNA match does not by itself prove Velasquez committed the murder. Her attorneys argue that the DNA only establishes that she had been inside the apartment, which would not be unusual because the two women were friends. They also challenge the condition and timing of the blood drop seeming fresh hours after the murder took place, the surveillance video's apparent depiction of a man, and the lack of an established motive. The case becomes a broader discussion of how real estate licensing and background checks can create an illusion of safety: records can reveal what someone has previously been caught doing, but cannot establish what an otherwise clean-recorded person is capable of doing or “gotten away with” doing . The episode ultimately leaves the question of Velasquez's guilt to the evidence and a jury while emphasizing the significance of solving Chavez's murder after 14 years.

00:00 — Disclaimer and Intro

03:00 — The Case Goes Cold

10:00 — Investigative Genetic Genealogy

16:00 — The DNA Match

20:00 — The Defense's Case

24:00 — What Background Checks Really Tell Us

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The episode examines the 2004 Killdozer incident through the lens of commercial real estate rather than simply as a notorious crime. It follows the exploits of Marvin Heemeyer, who bought a two-acre commercial lot in Granby, Colorado, in 1992 to use as a muffler repair shop, before becoming embroiled in a years-long dispute with neighboring concrete plant owners over a failed land sale, zoning approvals, property access, drainage, and code enforcement. As permits were approved despite his objections, the conflict escalated from legal appeals into an increasingly personal feud. The discussion highlights a lesser-known detail that challenges the popular narrative: Heemeyer sold the property for $400,000 in 2003, making a substantial profit before secretly spending roughly 18 months converting a Komatsu bulldozer into a heavily armored vehicle. On June 4, 2004, he drove through the wall of his former shop, first attacking the concrete plant at the heart of the dispute before methodically destroying or damaging 13 buildings across Granby. Despite causing millions of dollars in property damage, no one besides Heemeyer was killed or even injured, and the rampage ended when the bulldozer became trapped and he took his own life. The episode concludes by focusing on the real estate lessons rather than the spectacle. The town of Granby intentionally destroyed the bulldozer to discourage it from becoming a monument, rebuilt the damaged properties, and ultimately moved forward while the concrete plant remained in operation. The hosts argue that failed off-market land deals, neighboring property disputes, zoning conflicts, and emotional decision-making can create lasting consequences, emphasizing the importance of written agreements, due diligence, professional representation, and recognizing that real estate transactions involve ongoing relationships with neighbors long after negotiations end.

00:00 Intro & Disclaimer

02:16 Marvin Heemeyer and the Failed Land Deal

05:57 Zoning Battles, Appeals, and Code Violations

09:02 Selling the Property and Building the ‘Dozer

11:43 The 2 Hour Long June 4, 2004 Rampage

5:22 Aftermath and Rebuilding Granby

19:49 Real Estate Lessons Learned from Killdozer

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MV Realty's "Homeowner Benefit Program" promised homeowners quick cash (typically anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars) in exchange for agreeing to use the company as their listing agent if they ever sold their home. According to multiple state attorneys general, the sales pitch minimized or omitted the true terms of the agreement. Buried in the fine print was a 40-year exclusive listing contract that allowed MV Realty to claim a fee if the homeowner sold, refinanced, transferred the property, lost it to foreclosure, or even died. The company also recorded memorandums against property titles, creating clouds on title that homeowners often didn't realize existed until they attempted to sell or refinance years later.

The program expanded to more than 35,000 homeowners across 33 states before state investigations began in late 2022. Attorneys general alleged the agreements were deceptively marketed, documents were not provided in advance, contracts were difficult to read, mobile notaries rushed homeowners through the signing process, and many consumers did not understand they were granting long-term rights tied to their homes. A wave of lawsuits and settlements followed, resulting in thousands of agreements being terminated, liens released, restitution for affected homeowners, and new laws in dozens of states restricting or banning similar Homeowner Benefit Agreements. Throughout the litigation, MV Realty denied the allegations, and several settlements were reached without admissions of wrongdoing.

Sandi Lyn concludes that this example illustrates the importance of understanding every document before signing, particularly contracts affecting real estate. She emphasizes how consumers can unknowingly surrender significant property rights through complex legal language, while encouraging real estate agents to show the value they provide by identifying warning signs before clients sign on the dotted line. She closes by stressing that agents educate their past clients about emerging real estate scams, maintain long-term relationships as trusted advisors, and focus on protecting homeowners rather than simply asking for referrals or new business.

00:01 Disclaimer and Intro03:00 MV Realty’s “Home Benefit Agreement”07:10 The 40-Year Contract and Property Liens11:30 Nationwide Reach and Consumer Impact15:30 Lawsuits, Bankruptcy, and State Actions20:00 Court Rulings and Settlements24:10 Lessons for Homeowners and Agents28:30 Red Flags and Final Takeaways

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