Recent history repeats itself

A story in the weird news the other day sounded reminiscent of another a year or more ago. Right I was, and here is the proof in reverse chronological order:

Notting Hill, London 9/16/10 An estate agent left the living room till last as he showed an £800,000 house to potential buyers because there was someone asleep on the sofa. It was the divorced, depressed, and unemployed homeowner Katherine Frame, 55, and she wasn't napping. “I conclude that this was natural causes exacerbated by chronic excessive alcohol ingestion,” said the coroner.

Aspen Park, Colorado 3/5/08 Potential buyers were touring the grounds of a house on a heavily wooded hillside when they found the body of an adult male, who had been there "for some period of time."

Quorn, Leicestershire, U.K. 2/7/08 The attendees at the open house of a £350,000 property fled the premises when they opened a closet door in the master bedroom and discovered the body of the 48-year-0ld owner. He had hanged himself, despondent over the recent death of his mother. "Our sympathies go to the family and praise to my colleague for the way he handled the situation," said the owner of the realty company. "We have had people who were there for the viewing phoning up to praise the way he conducted himself."

Janesville, Wisconsin 5/2/07 When she heard her clients scream as she waited in the dining room, a real estate agent was alerted to the fact that Linda O'Leary, 55, lay dead in her bed of apparently natural causes.

I also found 3 stories in which the real estate agents themselves were found dead in homes for sale:

Ravenna, Ohio 9/21/10 ''The Northeast Ohio real estate community has lost a giant,'' said a longtime colleague about Andrew VonStein, 51, whose body was found in a vacant house and whose death was being investigated as a homicide.

Los Angeles, California 1/7/10 Two real estate agents preparing to show a foreclosed 3-bedroom house found the body of a 3rd agent - Ricardo M. Contreras, 45 - inside, the victim of a stabbing.

Oakland, Wisconsin 3/20/08 When real estate agent Ann Nelson, 71, did not return after the 4:30pm showing at a home up for sale by her realty firm, police found her on the floor inside. She had been hit over the head with a blunt object and killed, apparently by her potential client.

Image) John Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare (1781)