House Where University of Idaho Students Were Killed to be Demolished
“This is a healing step and removes the physical structure where the crime that shook our community was committed”
This makes sense. Who would want to buy the house now?
Oregon Live reports:
House where University of Idaho students were killed will be demolished
The house where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in November will be demolished, school officials said Friday.
The owner of the home in Moscow offered to give it to the university and the school accepted, University President Scott Green said in a memo to students and employees.
“This is a healing step and removes the physical structure where the crime that shook our community was committed,” Green wrote.
No timeline has set for the demolition, but university spokesperson Jodi Walker told the Idaho Statesman that the goal is to have the house knocked down by the end of the semester.
“We’re just working through the processes that it takes to do such a thing,” Walker said. “But from the university standpoint, and in talking with the families, the sooner, the better.”
Walker also said the university is working with students and other community members to create a plan for the property’s future development that would honor the slain students: seniors Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, junior Xana Kernodle, 20, and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20.
The victims’ bodies were found on Nov. 13 at the rental home, which is across the street from the university campus.
Bryan Kohberger, a former graduate student of Washington State University in neighboring Pullman, Washington, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the killings.
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Comments
Smart move on the part of the landlord; he’ll never get another student tenant in there, so he donates it to the U and gets a nice tax writeoff at full value.
The U makes a big gesture and the emotionally insecure get the boogey man out of their closet.
Win/win, I guess.
“This makes sense. Who would want to buy the house now?”
It makes as much sense as “melting down crime guns,” which is to say, no sense at all. It’s the “deodand” instinct all over again — magical thinking.
I realize real estate agents encounter problems selling such houses. This is really a commission issue. At the right price, nothing is unsellable. And maybe the price is pretty low. Maybe you have to auction it. But destroying a perfectly serviceable house because of “magical thinking” is stupid. It has value to somebody.
Who wouldn’t? I don’t understand emotional attachment to inanimate objects that you have no personal history with. That landlord was an idiot, surely they could have sold that property, at a discount if necessary, which would have been a lot better for them than just giving it away. The university is pissing away money demolishing the structure, I imagine many students would be happy to live there if the rent was inexpensive.
Well, I do stipulate Dolce’s comment that “artificial” tax preferences may have made it more profitable in absolute terms for the landlord to give the property to the school rather than sell it himself. That doesn’t negate the illogic, it just transfers it to the school. Now, instead of the school selling the property for whatever it brings (which would be greater than the zero it cost them), they will actually throw more good money away paying someone to demolish it.
List it on eBay and auction it off for a likely immense amount of dollars!!!!
One of my favorite bloggers points out that Jeffrey Dahmer’s house had no problem finding a willing buyer, and is occupied.
I can sympathize with the former property owner. I had a house down the street that burned down with two deaths. It took more than a decade to get the property sorted out.
Someone should wake up and realize that it might be a good idea to wait until after the trial. The defense will use the fact that the crime scene had demolished to their advantage.