Buyers Find Human Remains Inside Foreclosed Home
By: Gerri L. Elder
With the foreclosure crisis in full swing across the country, scammers have been given new opportunities and they are taking them.
The homes that are lost in foreclosure are put up for sale at foreclosure auctions. In Chicago, a buyer at a foreclosure auction recently got more than they bargained for when they purchased a rundown home on the South Side. When they entered the home for the first time, they found the skeleton of the son of the former owner and his dog inside.
The home had changed hands three times before the body of Randy Johnson was found. The cause of his death is under investigation, but one thing is certain: he did not sell the home. Now Countrywide Home Loans could be out $450,000 in mortgage loans it has made on the property, which wasn't for sale by the man who sat dead inside.
Cook County officials have announced that they will fight to have the property returned to the Johnson family. After hearing that news, Countrywide Home Loans decided that they would vacate the recent sale of the property and have returned the money they received to the buyer. It seems as though the Johnson family, the most recent buyer of the home and Countrywide were all victimized by mortgage fraud.
Randy Johnson was a reclusive 46-year-old man. He had posted "Keep Out" and "Private Property" signs all over his back yard. He had blocked the stairs to the basement door with a metal shopping cart and had chained and padlocked the outside doors of the home. None of his neighbors knew him very well, but they all knew of him. One of his sisters had died in 1996, while another moved away. His mother died in 2001 and that left Johnson alone in the three-story home.
In early 2006, neighbors noticed that Johnson had not been seen outside in weeks and called police to do a well-being check on him. Firefighters broke down his front door and searched the home, but were unable to locate him.
Then in October 2006, someone filed a deed with the Cook County recorder of deeds showing that Randy Johnson's mother had signed the house over to a woman named Rhonda Evans. The deed was dated as if it had been drafted in 1996, before Johnson's mother died. The deed has the signature and notary seal of Mae Evans, the mother of Rhonda Evans. Mae Evans also has another child, Edwin Evans, who is a convicted rapist and armed robber. Interestingly enough, Edwin Evans was also indicted for mortgage fraud in September.
Cook County Public Administrator Michael Bender filed a motion in Chancery Court declaring that the deed is fraudulent and was forged. Bender's office is in charge of representing the estates of people who die without wills in Cook County. Proof of the forgery was right there on the stationery that was used. The 1996 deed was drawn up on the stationery of Cook County Recorder Eugene Moore, who did not take office until 1999. The recorder of deeds in 1996 was Jesse White.
The Chicago Tribune reports that despite the discrepancy on the deed, it was recorded. Then Rhonda Evans sold the house for $450,000 in late January 2007. Evans sold the house to Donald Franklin who took out a $360,000 first mortgage and a $90,000 second mortgage on the property from Countrywide.
Bender alleges that Franklin was working with the Evans family and was a fraudulent straw buyer. TriStar Title was the title company that handled the closing on the property and has now had its Illinois license revoked. The company is also under investigation for mortgage fraud in both Missouri and Illinois and has gone out of business.
Of course, Franklin never moved into Johnson's house and did not make the mortgage payments. Countrywide then moved to foreclose on the home. Countrywide had the foreclosure on the property fast-tracked because they told the judge that the home appeared to not be lived in. The judge agreed and the foreclosure proceeded.
The home was sold at a foreclosure auction in January for $93,000. It was a great deal for the buyer, or so it seemed. A house in the neighborhood had recently sold for three times more and the price was 75 percent off of the original mortgage debt owed to Countrywide.
Foreclosure sales still have to have a judge's final approval and that is usually given about six weeks after the auction of the property. The sale of Johnson's home never got the judge's final signature because Bender's office stepped in and Countrywide cancelled the sale of the property.
Bender's office now intends to open an estate in the name of Randy Johnson's mother, and search for heirs. The house will be sold and the proceeds will be divided among Mrs. Johnson's survivors.