Double murder house for sale
HexhamCourant.co.uk
Thursday, 07 June 2007
A houes where two five-year-old
girls were murdered is on sale for less than £60,000.
The two-bedroom mid-terrace at 32 York Street, Barrow,
was the scene of the horrific double murder of the little girls in June,
1958.
Seventy-year-old chauffeur Tom Lionel Burns was
accused of the murders but was later deemed insane and unfit for trial.
Now, Cumbrian Properties is marketing the house as a “traditional style
terraced property in need of full modernisation” with a price of
£59,950.
A similar York Street property was sold for £74,350
in February.
One potential buyer, who does not want to be named,
said he pulled out of putting an offer forward after a neighbour told
him about its history.
He said: “Who would want to live there knowing the
story of it? It’s like Fred West’s house, though that got knocked down.”
But current owner Joanna Hartley said the house’s
history should not have an impact on the sale.
She said she thought the murders took place at
another York Street house before she bought it two years ago.
She said: “Quite honestly, we were told that it was
not this property. Even if it was, it’s the living people I worry about
— it’s not the dead ones.”
Cumbrian Properties declined to comment on the
house’s history but a spokeswoman said the estate agent had no knowledge
of the murders.
But another former neighbour, living in York Street
at the time, told the Evening Mail: “It’s that long ago, I don’t think
people remember it. I was shocked as I knew the two young lasses.
“Tommy Burns was a southerner — he had a hunchback.
He used to play the piano quite a lot. I’m sure I can recall that night,
I could hear someone on the piano. I knew the police were very upset.”
When Burns was arrested, residents threw bricks
through his windows and more than 100 turned up for one court hearing.
The details were deemed so graphic many left the public gallery before
it began.
The bodies of the two girls were found naked in one
of the bedrooms of the York Street property on June 13, 1958, after they
had been missing for two days.
Post-mortem examinations showed they died after being
attacked with a knife. At the time, a police officer claimed Burns said:
“Sex made me do them in.”
Burns failed to enter a plea when he went on trial
for the two murders at Lancaster Assizes in October 1958.
The jury found him to be insane and unfit for trial.
