Brian Betts bought a two-story brick colonial in Silver Spring in 2003, before finding out a double homicide had occurred in the house only a year a before. Shocked and upset, Betts tried unsuccessful to get out of the deal. He was shot and killed last year, in a robbery, in his home.

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In Maryland, real estate agents aren’t required to inform buyers of murders, suicides, or deaths that may have taken place in a home, reports NBC Washington.

On Aug. 6, 2002, a man broke into the house at 9337 Columbia Blvd., shooting and killing a 9-year-old girl, before shooting her father Gregory Russell six times, and killing him.

After Betts, a principal at Shaw Middle School in the District, found out, he had ministers come to the house to bless it.

On April 15, 2010, he was found shot dead in his bedroom, in a robbery gone wrong. Betts had met Alante Saunders, 18, in a sex chat line, and had arranged for an in-home meeting, leaving his front door unlocked. Saunders, intending only to rob Betts, entered the home with two other teens.

Since his death, his family’s surrendered the house to the bank.

“If the Betts family had their way, they would have bulldozed this house, they would have done a memorial permanently for Brian K. Betts,” said Rene Sandler, Betts’ family attorney.

(via NBC Washington)

Would you buy a house that you knew someone had been murdered in?

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