Seattle Times: Couple sue after buying home where British teen was killed
Saturday, February 28, 2004
LONDON—A British couple who unwittingly bought a house where a teenage girl was murdered and dismembered are suing because the sellers did not tell them about the crime.
Alan and Susan Sykes say they discovered their house's history by watching a TV documentary about Samson Perera, who killed his 13-year-old adopted daughter and hid her body parts around the house and garden in 1984.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
Their lawyer said the Sykeses could no longer bear living in the house near Wakefield in northern England, which they bought for the equivalent of $156,000 in December 2000 and sold at a loss of $14,000.
"Knowing there were still undiscovered body parts in the house was particularly horrific," lawyer Clive Freedman told the appeals court.
Praise be to full-disclosure laws... yuk!