Inside the Aspen Murder House
By Barry Keller, frequent contributor to Haunted Hideouts
ASPEN. There’s new furniture in the Aspen House. The bloodstains are gone—some of them cut out of the floorboards, some scrubbed into ghosts of themselves, concealed from view by new paneling. But you can still imagine them.
It’s said that the place where Brienne Cross rested her head—this was against the couch back in the central living area—was marked by a cross of dripping blood.
The couch is long gone.
And then there were the two bloody number eights painted on the walls of the bedroom where Justine Balough and Tanya Williams lost their lives.
Underneath all the cleansers, all the paint, all the paneling, at least a residue remains.
The Aspen Murder House is still on the market, although there have been no takers. You could say it’s been spruced up. The living room is described as “rustic, light and airy.” The floors are heart pine. The cream-colored sofas and ottomans are new and expensive. Ironically, a deer’s head pokes out from the stacked-stone fireplace, probably to add to that “cabin in the woods feel.”
One has to wonder: Did the decorators ever stop to think that Tanya Williams’s head was nearly severed from her body?
Didn’t think so.
There are plenty of windows looking out at the pristine beauty of the area. Outside, aspens encroach. Castle Creek roars past like a freight train.
It’s a beautiful spot.
A beautiful spot—forever sullied by a hideous crime.
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Comment by borgie on 28 January 2010:
Somebody should check this out: On the night of the Aspen murders, a Snowmass woman was nearly wiped out by a yellow Lamborghini out at the junction of Castle Creek Road and Highway 82. Maybe someone should look into the police reports for that night.
Comment by admin on 28 January 2010:
Where did you hear this? Do you live in Aspen?
Comment by admin on 28 January 2010:
I don’t think there’s any truth to this, but I’ll check into it.
–Barry
Comment by sauropod on 11 February 2010:
Bloody crosses and number eights? What’s your source for this?
I haven’t seen anything like that in the news reports I’ve read.
Sounds like sensationalistic embellishment to me.
The same quality is found in Barry Keller’s “Hollywood Death Houses.” Here’s part of a review from an Amazon reader:
“Again and again Keller just makes stuff up. His description of the Sharon Tate murders reads like outtakes from Polanski’s ‘Macbeth.’ One of the victims was decapitated and the head was left in the fireplace? Where’d he get that info? It never happened. Read Vincent Bugliosi’s ‘Helter Skelter’ for the real story. As if the actual Manson murders weren’t bad enough, Keller has to go crazy with details straight out of ‘Saw III.’ And let’s not even get started on his complete distortion of Jayne Mansfeld’s death in a car crash. No, Mr. Keller, she was not decapitated; that’s an urban legend. (What is it with this guy’s fixation on severed heads?) And yes, her daughter was in the car with her and did grow up to be an actress, but the girl in question is Mariska Hargitay, not ‘Marisa Haggity,’ whoever that is. And she doesn’t have ‘a wide two-foot scar down her right leg’, she has a hairlike, inches-long scar on her left cheek. Jeez. If I could give this book zero stars, I would.”
Comment by admin on 11 February 2010:
For your information, the police routinely keep some details from the public just to confuse them.