Number 8 Brandon Wilson
In September of 2017, Brandon Wilson, then in his late teens, broke into a house where he once lived
as a foster child, in Woodbury, South Jersey. Wilson had intended to burglarize the residence
but was surprised to find 26-year-old Shawneeq Carter, who was housesitting for a friend,
inside. He bludgeoned her with a metal bar from a gym weight and then stabbed her to
death. Wilson tried to cover his tracks by cleaning up the scene before fleeing.
Carter’s body was found in a second-floor bedroom by her 5-year-old son and his cousin, also aged 5.
They then wandered to a barbershop up the street and reported what they’d seen. In the 2-month-long
investigation that followed, surveillance footage from another house on the street as well as
physical evidence placed Wilson at the scene. He was charged while in custody at Cape May
County jail, in an unrelated case stemming from his extensive criminal record. His parents,
David Wilson and Kim Ward, both in their early 50s, soon became part of the investigation as
well. A shoeprint was found on the premises and detectives contacted the jail asking staff
to remove Wilson’s footwear for inspection. The suspect reportedly called his parents, from jail,
and asked them to get rid of two pairs of shoes from their home. When officers arrived at their
Paulsboro address, they recovered two pairs of sneakers from an attic and realized that they were
wet and smelled of cleaning solution. David and Kim would subsequently plead guilty to hindering,
a third-degree charge that could result in a maximum sentence of 5 years whereas Wilson was
given 54 years in prison for Carter’s murder. Today's featured fan shoutout is Instagram
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Number 7 Zachary Craven
In August of 2018, Washington man Zachary Craven, aged 27, was sentenced to 72 years
in prison for a double homicide that had occurred several years earlier. Craven had
been raised by his grandmother, Angelika Hayden, who’d maintained a loving relationship with him
even as his life had begun spiraling out of control due to his methamphetamine addiction.
She hoped he’d recover, even after he’d committed multiple assaults against her including one that
involved killing her cat and another in which he’d bound her hands with electrical cord,
demanding she give him money. He was charged with assault and a no-contact order was put in place
to protect Hayden. On July the 7th of 2015, Craven went to her home, in Skyway, and fatally shot her
in the head. He then headed towards the Renton home of his ex-girlfriend, Theresa Cunningham,
undoubtedly with the intention of killing her as well. However, she and her family were away
and housesitting for them was Cunningham’s best friend, Meagan Smith, aged 21. Craven arrived
at the residence and, upon encountering Smith, demanded a piggy bang that he and Cunningham
used to share. He then executed Smith as well as his ex-girlfriend’s elderly dog in the kitchen.
About a week before his killing spree, Craven had failed to show up for court-ordered transportation
to a drug treatment clinic. Smith’s family would subsequently sue the Department of Corrections
for what was deemed as a poor job of monitoring him, even though he was a convicted felon and an
addict with a history of mental illness. Number 6 Valerie Graves
On December the 30th of 2013, a British woman was killed while housesitting for friends at a
waterfront property in the East Sussex village of Bosham. The owners had gone abroad for Christmas
leaving 55-year-old Valerie Graves, who lived in nearby Bracklesham Bay, to watch the home,
estimated at over $2 million. Graves’ body was discovered by one of her relatives in
a ground-floor bedroom. She’d suffered fatal injuries after being bludgeoned with a claw hammer
which was found less than half a mile from the property. Forensic analysis of DNA recovered from
the scene established the killer was male but, for several years, no suspects were identified. The
police launched a massive DNA voluntary screening that examined over 3,000 men before ultimately
fearing that the killer might never be caught. The crucial break in the case would come from a woman
living in a rural part of Romania’s Transylvania region. While looking through her husband’s phone,
27-year-old Claudia Sabou had found Google searches about a murder in Bosham and a
media-released picture of a hammer which looked like the one he had. She confronted her husband,
Cristian, who asked her not to break up with him and to keep quiet about the matter. Claudia,
however, contacted British authorities. Before returning to Romania, Cristian and
his wife had been living in a caravan at a scrapyard along the A27, in Chichester.
Sabou had done odd jobs at the home where Graves was killed. On the night of her death,
he’d drunk a bottle of whiskey and cycled to the address. He’d broken in, expecting to find the
place empty, with the intention of stealing from a safe he’d believed to hold money and precious
ingots. He found Graves inside and bludgeoned her to death fearing she’d be able to identify
him. Cristian was arrested in his home country on a street that was named after Vlad the Impaler,
where he’d been living with a new girlfriend, and extradited to England. DNA evidence confirmed his
estranged wife’s early detective work and he pleaded guilty to killing Graves, in 2019.
Number 5 Karen Smallwood
On October the 13th of 2004, while housesitting for her aunt and uncle in New Mexico,
19-year-old mother-of-one Ursula Duran was shot dead. Her body was discovered by her boyfriend,
also the father of her child, and by her mother, who then alerted the authorities. The young woman
had been shot five times, twice at close range, and there were some gray hair strands clutched in
her hand, presumably belonging to her attacker. 11 days after the murder, the aunt and uncle
revealed that some items had been taken from their home, including Duran’s ATM card and checkbook.
The card was used at cash machines in New Mexico, Texas and Arkansas before a final
withdrawal occurred in Louisiana. Video from one of the ATMs showed an older woman whom the aunt
and uncle would identify as Karen Smallwood, who used to housesit for them. The 59-year-old had
been living at a campground at the edge of town and, after a long time of not speaking with them,
had contacted the couple to ask if they needed a house sitter. They said no, adding that their
niece was taking care of the home. The police found a DNA match between Smallwood and the
hair strands from the scene while recovered casings proved to be of the same type as those
of a 9mm handgun in her possession. Blood found inside the said gun was positively matched to
Duran’s. Smallwood was consequently sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 30 years served.
Number 4 Rebecca McCurdy While housesitting at an address in
Osage County, Oklahoma, a mother-of-two was the victim of a brutal dog attack, in June of 2021.
Deputies from the Sheriff’s Office were asked to perform a wellness check at the residence,
just west of Skiatook. It was there that they found the lifeless body of house sitter Rebecca
McCurdy, aged 28, who’d been mauled to death by a pit bull. There were several caged dogs, which the
owner claimed to be raising for profit, in the garage. One of the cages was toppled over and,
aside from the injuries on McCurdy’s body, further evidence pointed to a dog attack. It’s unclear
what charges, if any, the owner would face. A GoFundMe was subsequently set up in McCurdy’s
name meant to offer support to her family. Number 3 Elizabeth Bischoff
In May of 2019, police were called to a home in the Broadmoor neighborhood of Colorado Springs,
to the report of a theft. The homeowner, who chose not to disclose her identity, had had a broken arm
for a few months and thus hadn’t been wearing any jewelry. When she went to put on her Rolex
she realized that the watch, along with several other custom pieces, was missing. There were no
signs of forced entry to indicate a break-in. The main suspect was 39-year-old Elizabeth Bischoff,
a known dog and house sitter in the area, from whose services the homeowner had also benefited.
Bischoff had sold $400,000 worth of jewelry to a company in Denver, claiming that she’d inherited
the pieces. Upon examining the diamonds, the jewelers realized that they’d been custom
cut in a particular store from New York. Further communication between the two companies revealed
that Bischoff’s pieces had actually been stolen. She was arrested in October and still had about
$200,000 worth of jewelry in her possession which she’d stashed away at a different home,
where she was pet sitting, unbeknownst to the owners. In the aftermath, Bischoff faced
charges of second-degree burglary and theft. Today's topic was requested by instagram
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Number 2 Michael Roblas & Monica Caban On July the 1st of 2020, a homeowner
from Alamo Heights, Texas, called the local police department to report that her house had
been basically stripped of its interior. Michael Roblas and Monica Caban, both in their early 40s,
were arrested and charged with theft of $150,000 to $300,000. The aptly-dubbed
“house sitters from hell” had been hired to watch the home while the owner was in Australia.
During that time they removed all interior doors, granite counter tops from the kitchen, the oven,
washer, dryer, window blinds and even cabinets. Roblas and Caban attempted to extract the windows
and the air conditioning unit through a makeshift scaffold. The authorities reported
that the house had been left in a “dilapidated and unlivable condition" after even items that
were nailed down or attached to piping had been ripped from their supports. Aside from theft,
Roblas and Caban were also charged with three counts of drug possession with intent to sell and
held at Bexar County Jail on a $25,000 bail. Number 1 Jacob Eveland
On May the 31st, a man in Elma, Washington was stabbed, shot and burned to death by a friend
who’d been freshly released from jail. 47-year-old Roy Jones had been housesitting for Jacob Eveland
while he was doing a 30-day jail stint for domestic violence assault. Jones’ grandmother
was the one who’d driven him to the house on the night. She remembered waving at Eveland,
who’d been released that same day, before leaving. The next morning she turned on the news and saw
the house on fire with reports claiming that a body, who she soon realized was her grandson,
had been found in the front yard. Eveland had shot and stabbed Jones before setting his
own house ablaze and fleeing the premises. The cause of the murder remained unclear but Grays
Harbor County Sheriff Rick Scott suspected that Eveland had committed it “because of animosity
that he had towards Jones over drug usage, drug theft". Eveland was arrested in Seattle
and confessed to the killing for which he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather housesit for a mob boss
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