The name is the first thing you meet, and it is the least reliable thing about this house. Other urban explorers call it the “Murder Mansion”. The explorer who photographed it does not know why. He says so himself, in the first line of his post: the reasons he is not sure about, and he is only going by what other explorers have called it. He could not find too much history and information about the place.
That honesty is the reason this article can be written at all. There is no murder in the post. No victim, no date, no crime, no police record, no newspaper report. There is only a nickname, repeated from one explorer to another, with the reason lost somewhere along the way. This article keeps the nickname because it is what the house is known by — and it does not repeat it as a fact about what happened here.
What is actually known
The post is dated 3 July 2023. It says the building once belonged to a Frank and Barbara, who ran their own business from the home. No surname is given, and none is used here. It says the building is pretty big and would have looked stunning before it was left abandoned. Now, the post says, it is mostly trashed, and it looks like squatters may have sheltered there.
The rest of the caption is a list of what was found on the property. On the front of the drive is an old caravan, which looks to have been ransacked. The owners’ cars are still parked around the back, never to be driven again. There is also a big swimming pool with a slide, which the explorer found interesting. Loads of possessions are still left behind, never to be used again.
None of those things is in the five photographs shown here — the caravan is, in the featured photograph, parked at the front right of the house, cream-coloured and weathered — but the cars and the pool are not among the five, so they are reported here only as the post reports them. The photographs show the inside instead, and the inside tells its own story.
Four rooms, four kinds of leaving
The second photograph is the piano. A dusty wooden upright, the brand “Carman” on the fallboard, its lid open to show the green felt inside. The stool in front of it has a mould-stained seat. A red cloth lies on a small table beside it. A piano is not a thing you forget when you move house. It is heavy, it is personal, and it is usually one of the first things a family arranges to take. This one stayed, and the dust on it is thick enough to see.
The third photograph is harder to place: a tall, ornate metal hookah pipe with a large round glass base and a blue hose connector, standing amid papers, magazines, cardboard boxes and a step ladder, with a doorway behind it opening onto another debris-filled room. It is the kind of object that raises more questions than it answers. Was it the owners’, or did someone bring it in later? The post does not say, and the photograph cannot.
The fourth photograph is the study, and it is the most intact room of the five. Wall shelves full of books — a Scrabble box sits on the top shelf — folders and files, a desk buried under papers and envelopes, a telephone, a wire basket, a wooden cabinet, a framed picture. This was a working room, and the work stopped mid-sentence. Papers are not filed. They are piled.
The fifth photograph is the living room, and it is the most damaged. Blue walls, torn beige curtains, a black leather sofa covered in debris, a black leather armchair overturned on its side, chipboard sheets leaning against the walls, floral curtains at a bright window fitted with a perforated metal screen, and a floor strewn with rubble. If the study looks paused, the living room looks attacked — whether by squatters, by vandals, or by the weather coming in through broken windows, the photographs do not say.
The nickname, and why it matters
It is worth pausing on the nickname, because it is the one thing about this house that most readers will remember, and it is the one thing the post cannot support. A name like “Murder Mansion” does real work: it makes a house famous, it brings visitors, and it attaches a violent story to a building where no violence is documented. The explorer who posted these photographs did the responsible thing. He said he did not know the reason, and he said he was only repeating what others called it.
This article follows his lead. The house is presented here under the name it is known by, with the warning attached in the title itself: a nickname with no story behind it. What is known is smaller and sadder than a murder: a big house, a couple who ran a business from it, possessions left behind, cars that will never be driven again, and rooms that were lived in, then sheltered in, then trashed. That is enough of a story without inventing a crime.
A house that is lived in and for sale is a different kind of place from this one, and the difference is worth seeing side by side: a lived-in 1902 home in Alexandria, Minnesota shows what upkeep and a price look like, where this house shows what happens when nobody comes back. More houses in this condition are gathered in abandoned houses and in abandoned mansions, and the site’s front page is abandoned.blog.
FAQ
Where is the “Murder Mansion”?
No location is given in the post, and none is given here.
Was there a murder there?
Nothing in the post documents a murder. The nickname comes from other explorers, and the photographer says he does not know the reason for it.
Who lived there?
According to the post, the house once belonged to a Frank and Barbara, who ran their own business from the home. No surname is given.
What was left inside?
According to the post and the photographs: loads of possessions, including a “Carman” upright piano, books and files in a study, a hookah pipe, and a trashed living room with black leather furniture.
What about the caravan and the cars?
The post says an old ransacked caravan stands on the front of the drive — it is visible in the featured photograph — and the owners’ cars are still parked around the back. The cars are not among the five photographs shown.
Is there really a swimming pool with a slide?
The post says there is a big swimming pool with a slide on the property. It is not among the five photographs shown here.
Can I visit it?
No visiting information is given here, and entering private property without permission is not encouraged.
Disclaimer
This article is general information only, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules on abandoned and private property differ by state and county; check county/local records and a local professional before acting. The “Murder Mansion” nickname is as reported in the source post; no murder or crime at this house is documented in the post, and none is claimed here. The account of the house and its former occupants is as reported in the source post and has not been independently verified.
Photos
Photos by Luke2Explore, via the original Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/Luke2Explore/posts/this-abandoned-building-is-known-as-the-murder-mansion-reasons-im-not-sureim-jus/658259483006410/ — 5 of the 60 photos are shown here.