Bashara Home's New Owner: 'The House Didn't Kill Anyone'
GROSSE POINTE PARK (WWJ) - Linked to a notorious murder, Bob Bashara's Grosse Pointe Park home has been sold.
Bashara, who's charged in his wife's murder, was given until May 15 to come up with $64,000 to stop the sale. He didn't have the cash -- and the deal closed on Tuesday.
Bashara is currently behind bars, serving a 20-year sentence for paying his former handyman, Joseph Gentz, to kill his wife, Jane, in the garage last year.
The 2,800 square-foot home on Middlesex has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two half-baths, a remodeled kitchen, finished basement and wine cellar. It went on the market for $415,000.
WWJ Newsradio 950's Mike Cambell reported he could smell the fumes from fresh paint when he stopped by on Friday.
The new resident told Campbell there's nothing creepy about he home; he got a good deal on it and his family likes the location. The man, who didn't want to give his name, added: "The house didn't kill anyone."
The case has drawn national attention with tales that Bashara secretly ran a sex dungeon in the basement of one of his businesses and was known in chat rooms and at S&M parties as "Master Bob." Bashara's preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19 in 36th District Court in Detroit.
Kay Agney, Broker-Owner of Higbie-Maxon-Agney Realtors, said stigma of "murder homes" can cut both ways. She has sold the former east-side homes of Mafia members and bosses, and said the history actually intrigues some buyers.
"They love the fact that in the basement of this one home, there was a wall of bookcases that if you pushed a very discret button, the wall would open up into a secret room. And then on the third floor, the banisters, which were very large and very beautiful, the top of the banisters came off and that's where they kept guns," she said.
Agney said people can actually take a virtual walk through a Mafia house for sale right now. Click here to see the home.
