505 1st Avenue

The house where the murders occurred. Pictures, floorplans, maps, and discussion.

House longitude and latitude:

37°17'45.75"N
78°24'5.00"W

Gurl - I think you were able to tell us more about the house at WS, right? If so, could you fill in what you remember? Thanks!

I've got a little detail to add, which is a technicality, but might lead to confusing results, like what I've just been getting for instance. The address of the house is 1st Avenue, not 1st Street. There is also a first street a few blocks away and searching with "street" or "st" instead of "avenue" or "ave" may miss something, not that there seems to be a lot to find anyway, but that may change. I was searching real estate listings to see if it was listed anywhere. Not yet apparently.

The longitude and latitude as well as the pictures are correct, but I wanted to make sure we are all searching for the right thing when we go googling.

Fixed. Thanks Blou.

I copied this from the Auction Thread because it has good information on the house.

ROCKDAWG wrote:

ziggy wrote:ugh, that is heartbreaking.

Doesn't say anything about new carpet upstairs. Guess there wasn't a body upstairs? Where downstairs was the fourth body? How did the cops miss that when they made their visit inside to check the basement.

I wish there was a better picture of the back of the house.

Thanks Peace for posting this.

I thought it was the upstairs that they had to air out ? Window left open ? Wasn't that upstairs ????

My suspicion is that was the upstairs on what looks like an old garage conversion, the wing to the left in the street view of the house. The auction listing mentions an upstairs storage attic with stairs. I mentioned it before on the last forum, but the upstairs on that part of the house would be a very awkward room for most purposes. That wing is probably about 15' feet wide inside. That's pretty common because of 16' joists. 45 degree roof line from just above floor level (compare to the top of the lower window and you can see where the upper floor is approximately) means little headroom. My guess is that's the storage room. Where exactly the stairs may be isn't clear to me, but I'm pretty sure that's the storage place and likely where the upstairs body(ies) were found. If the floor were replaced, it would be cheap and not a selling point to mention. Someone did write a long time ago that the windows there were open to air out the place.

I spent 20 years +- as a professional cabinet maker and I've been in a lot of houses and kitchens in particular. My thought re: house layout. I may be wrong,but those types of houses are all pretty similar. (i've also gone through the painful ordeal known as architecture school)

THESE ARE GUESSES, NOT KNOWN FACTS If I can go to the auction or preview, I will sketch and draw real plans of the house.
Peace, if you can comment on these, it will help and I may be able to draw a floor plan before seeing the house. I'll try to wrk one out anyway and post if before long to see if we can work it out.

Left and Right all refer to view from the front.
The house is 60's -70's construction, with a 80's renovation that may have converted a garage and extended the house in the back.
Partial basement means the original house. That gives rough dimensions of that.
Breakfast nook is back left corner of the house, it also serves as entry, likely the family's main entrance. Only guests and police use the front door.
Stairs more or less straight ahead when you go in the front door. Entry to the basement is staircase below them. it goes down towards the front of the house.
Kitchen is at right rear of the house. Pantry and basement entry are between breakfast nook and kitchen.
Living room is to the left after entry from the front door. (see chimney location)
Den is the connector between the wing and main house. (second chimney to left from front)
Two bedrooms are in lower wing. Hallway may be between. Looks like it would fit, but still can't figure out how it works with stairs.
Master bedroom at rear of upstairs with closet on right end.
I can't figure out what the front right room would be. I used to live in a house very similar to that, and it was a bedroom.

Places I think I may be wrong:
I put the breakfast nook at the (back) entry. It's commonly, but not always that way. Doors suck in kitchen space, but not so bad in casual eating space.
There may only be one bedroom in the far left wing with another in the front right, but that doesn't make sense to me. Front right is too far from the kitchen to make sense as formal dining. Kitchens are never in the front. My guess is that the bathroom is between the front right room and the one behind it, but it's a full bath, may not fit there and may be in the left wing. There is a plumbing vent it seems coming out of the roof thee, but that's kind of far away from everything else for a full bath.

Just thinking out loud so to speak, so comment and let's see what we can work up for a floor plan. I'm going to work outside enjoy the first real sun of the new year. You all are welcome to come join me.

About 505 1st Ave. Many people in horrorcore in New Mexico refer to New Mexico as the 505. It's the area code. Actually there are two area codes nowadays, but they still call it the 505. Doesn't mean anything, but everyone's been playn with numbers so I thot I'd throw that in.

I have such a morbid curiosity, I would be driving by to see if anything was up, or taking photos of the backyard from that field or talking to the neighbors about what they saw of Sam during that time or if they saw Mark arrive that day. Mark did arrive in the afternoon-ish, so you'd think someone would have seen him.

Did the neighbors see the police activity? Did they see Mel's Dad lingering for hours?

My curious mind is working on what's up in Farmville.

Why were lights on in the Kelly home at night I wonder?

I imagine it is still a crime scene or has it been cleared?

How do the utilities get paid when you're gone?

Will that house ever sell?1) My friends live across the street and said they never noticed anything
2) The police tape has been taken down around the yard, but the doors on the front of the house are still taped shut.
3) My landlord said he'd buy the house if it was up for sell......I told him I wanted to go through it before he did anything to it if he did buy it

I plan on going to the presentation on Sunday and will be interested to hear what this guy has to say.

Just one body on the floor, for more than a few days and the fluids purged would certainly contaminate flooring. Had to be either wood or carpet - tile is not common for bedroom flooring in that part of the country.

I'm always fascinated by what happens to the houses afterwards. It's sad that a neighborhood and a home must always carry that stigma forward forever. They changed the number/address of the Ramsey home after the JonBenet murder and it was remodeled so that the room she was found in was sealed off completely. Still, no one has lived in the house long term, not because of anything creepy, but it seems to just be jinxed now or something.

Paul Bernardo/Homolka house...it just had to be torn down. No one would ever live there and the neighbors couldn't stand the sight of it. Completely new house rebuilt in its place.

I hope Farmville will be able to move on. Maybe some nice family will live in the house someday and everything will be fine.

Originally Posted by PAXIMUS Thanks Zigster and sorry to hear about your concert that stinks. I am catching up myself and just saw Peace Gurl's comment about FLOOR REMOVAL and now I am wondering what sort of flooring we are talking about, was it a WOOD/COMPOSITE/FAUX WOOD FLOORING or CARPET since surely one wouldnt have to remove tile because of stains, so I would guess carpet first or some sort of older style wood floor that wasnt sealed properly due to wear and the wood stained from the blood. This all of course lends credence to our theory and early reports that the place was a slaughterhouse in spite of the fact that we had a relative earlier saying these reports were false. I do believe Rimer was this last Saturday (yesterday) so maybe Peace Gurl had a chance to attend or not?

A typical house in these parts has strip oak flooring. Pine sometimes, but that is usually either very low end soft pine or high end southern yellow pine. Basic mid-20th century middle class houses usually just have oak.

No matter how well "sealed" wood is supposed to be with any finish, that is usual just a myth. Wood finishes are almost always permeable to water and water vapor to some extent. A floor usually has joints every 2 3/8 inches which will wick standing moisture through capillary action. Once that happens, the wood swells and warps, which both causes the finish to crack and opens the joints and hidden cracks even more. The tannic acid in oak also causes black staining when oak, iron, and moisture meet. Oak gall ink, which is still perfectly readable from medieval days was made that way.

I haven't tried large amounts of blood on oak, but I would guess the iron in it makes a huge nearly black stain. That is what I've seen in Virginia houses that supposedly have Revolutionary or Civil War blood stains. That's considered cool. This not so much.

I'm reminded of an article I read a few years ago in some home decorating type magazine. There were two guys who had renovated a farmhouse together and had an antique sofa they got a real good deal on at an auction where it and several other pieces of furniture were spattered with blood. It was reupholstered.

Some people get weirded out by that sort of thing, but I wouldn't. Most of what I own has come from auctions thrift shops etc. People, places, things, they've all got histories, but I can't say I've ever been hurt by something's history. More often than not the fact that something has a history before it came into my hands just makes it more interesting to me.

I am certain that Debra and Mark were not legally divorced, though they had been seperated for some time. I have a friend who was close w/ her (though she hadn't had any contact w/ her for several months prior to the murders) and as far as she knew, they had never made the divorce final. Mark had lived in Appomattax (about 30 min away) near his church for awhile. I would imagine that Debra's parents would retain possesion of the house (and I am sure they will end up selling it).

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&cp=37.29667325058982~-78.39668965869481&lvl=16&sty=r&sp=Point.q6gd5n8fzww7_37.2960416666667%2C%20-78.4013888888889____&where1=37.2960416666667%2C%20-78.4013888888889

This shows the house on the map. It is a short walk from campus.

Hell, we should consider that Robert E. Lee rode thru our little town. Our nation reunited in Appomattox, just 20 minute ride from Farmville. Thomas Jefferson's designed Longwood and University Of Va Buildings. Oh, and get this the home the 4 murders happened in belonged to one of the founding fathers of the private school, Prince Edward Academy. A school that I am proud of, a school that I attended! A school that my grandfather and my uncles help build. Oh and the field beside the home on 505 First Avenue was where the "Black" school was. Never saw the KKK march in Farmville, did in Bedford though......Scared the hell out of me.

Example...

The address of the house is 505 1st Avenue. It has previously been pointed out that 505 is also the area code of New Mexico where SKR is based. Chance occurrence or symptom of some deeper connection between these people? Would you change your view if I told you that SickTanick has a large 505 tattooed on the right side of his neck? FYI the zero in the tattoo is the New Mexico sun symbol that is also on Razakel's MySpace page. This is a symbol of the southwest (Pazuzu is the demon of the southwest winds) since New Mexico is in the southwestern U.S. and it is an esoteric symbol of the number 4 (four dead) and specifically the 4 cardinal directions...

Originally Posted by dangrsmind I mean, this is interesting and you are correct that I didn't know about it. It is true that the MJ-1 marker is across a river and a bridge from the main part of town but it certainly isn't Kentucky. The location I was talking about is something around 1-2 miles from 505 1st where the murders were committed, and it was the location of a story that involved adultery and a supposed infanticide which I linked to. It also happens that the guy married his first cousin and supposedly seduced her sister, also his first cousin. Just back in 2008 Farmville was the site of another axe murder. And what ever happened with the body found at the lake earlier this spring with the tattoo? This is a very small town with a lot of murders in the past 24 months and I wouldn't be surprised to see Farmville beat Oakland CA on a per capita basis this year. What is going on here? Farmville is like a Stephen King novel come to life.

Are you really surprised to find out that we live in a ****ed up country?

I moved to Virginia from Oklahoma as a kid only to find out not long after that a friend my age back In Oklahoma had murdered his girlfriend's father. My junior high school in Oklahoma had a kid in normal classes who was notorious for having murdered another kid a few years earlier with a pair of scissors when a snowball fight got out of hand.

I met a few guys one day when they came by my house in rural Virginia looking for my brother and he wasn't there. I'd heard their names but never met them. One kid I knew a lot about because I was in the high school chess club and he was a legendary former member. We talked for while before they left and I think it was later that day they went into town and the second guy shot shot someone else with a rifle.

I talked with a neighbor one night as he and a friend got into his car and headed off on a road trip to North Carolina. They were arrested either that night or the next day for armed robbery.

I've already told you what happened in Blacksburg in the course of one school year at the university there. 34 people murdered only a few steps from where my college life was centered. Last year there was a decapitation in the Au Bon Pain in the graduate student center at Virginia Tech right in front of a stunned group of onlookers. Several years earlier, there was a student who was picked up at the Seven-11 in the middle of town, taken out to the country by two captors who tortured and eventually killed him.

I could go on and on, and I'm just a more or less normal (sort of) person who had a boring middle class childhood. Incest and other sexual abuse, hidden domestic violence, beatings that don't result in death, suicide, that's all pretty much a normal part of life in a significant number of people in this country. You just happen to be examining Farmville under a microscope. Pick anywhere and we could find pretty much the same thing.

I was in this house yesterday, I have friends who live there. Nothing seemed weird. The residents know about the murders but I'm not sure if they know all the details. I think they believe the murders happened somewhere else and the bodies were moved to the house which isn't true.