The person who purchased an “as is” Connecticut home at auction discovered skeletal human remains inside — though police do not believe foul play was involved, officials said Tuesday.
State troopers were called to Stanwich Lane in Burlington on Sunday after the new homeowner made the macabre discovery, Connecticut State Police said in a statement.
The home had been purchased “‘as is’ at a foreclosure auction,” police said.
The medical examiner has not yet determined a cause of death or identified the remains, officials said Wednesday.
Police said that “there is no indication of anything suspicious and no indication of any criminal aspect.”
“This appears to be an isolated incident and there is no danger to the public at this time,” they added.
The house was bought at auction for $525,000 on June 6, court documents showed.
It had been purchased in 2019 by a couple who had secured a $385,000 loan, according to a complaint filed Aug. 1 by Jason Brooks, an attorney representing the lender.
If bodies found in the house are of those default borrowers, their date of death could invalidate court findings against them and the auction order, according to court-appointed attorney Christopher Thogmartin, who oversaw the sale.
Depending on when the borrowers died — assuming they died — their heirs would have had standing in all of the court proceedings and might have been denied a chance to answer.
The home, despite the final hammer price of $525,000, is probably worth more than $800,000, Thogmartin said.
So the borrowers or their heirs could be in line for a six-digit windfall even after they pay off the $373,201.14 owed to the lender.
“So they had some money to gain out of this,” Thogmartin said. “That’s a lot of equity to walk away from.”
Thogmartin theorized that squatters could have been living at the house, perhaps even with corpses inside.
Thogmartin had “for sale” signs erected outside in May, but new signs reading “Keep Out” and “Owner Occupied Premises” had been posted recently.
Phone calls to publicly listed phone numbers for the couple appeared to go to disconnected lines Wednesday.
So the borrowers could be dead or might have just gone off the grid after having fallen behind on their mortgage, Thogmartin said.
“No, it wouldn’t shock me if they were still alive,” he said. “I’d be happy if they were alive, because, first of all, they’d be alive. But secondly, it’d mean this sale doesn’t need to be disturbed.”
The winning bidder at auction, Edward A. Marchion, his attorney and a lawyer representing the lender all could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
Marchion came through with the winning number against seven bidders last week.
