Add this to the list of reasons why basements are scary: A woman renting a home in St. Louis says she had no idea that a serial killer who killed somewhere between 12 and 20 women, torturing many of them in the basement of the home. Until her friend told her to watch a TV documentary about serial killers. Turns out, her landlady is the killer’s mother. Okay, go on and shudder. And shudder again.

Authorities aren’t sure exactly how many people Maury Travis, known as the “Street Walker Strangler,” murdered, but they believe many of them died in that basement, which he’s said to have used as a torture chamber, reports KMOV.com. He hanged himself in jail in 2002.

The woman said she even realized the house’s dining room table was the same one featured in crime scene photos shown during the A&E documentary, a piece of furniture her landlord offered up for her to use.

“When she showed us the house, she said you can have this table if you want,” the renter told KMOV.com.

And about that basement… well she wanted to get out of the lease, lickety split, but at first the landlord wasn’t budging.

“This whole basement was his torture chamber and it’s not okay,” she said.

While the landlord insists she told the renter about the situation, the tenant claims otherwise. Because you know, you’d sort of remember something like that.

It’s not required for homeowners to disclose such things to renters in the state of Missouri, explains a rep from the St. Louis Housing Authority — but it seems she’ll be living in a torture chamber-free home soon enough.

“Initially, the landlord was not willing to let her break her lease but we talked with her and eventually the landlord agreed to rescind the lease,” the rep told ABC News. “In this state, there is no duty to disclose. Other states there are, but mostly that is for selling houses.”

A Woman Found Out a Serial Killer Once Lived in Her Home From Watching TV [ABC News]
News 4 Investigates: Woman sees home on TV, learns deadly secret [KMOV.com]

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