Foreclosure Casualties

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NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION LIFELINE

Call us: 1-500-273-8255 – YOU’RE NOT ALONE!

No matter what problems you are dealing with, we want to help you find
a reason to keep living.


http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

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All our situations are unique in their own way, but we’re all fighting the same hidden ghosts that have taken over our lives.  In order to win this fight people have to stop looking at themselves as victims…we’re survivors…survivors and witnesses of the most brutal financial crime ever occurred…Now, when we know the truth, it’s time to go from defense to offense!

On this page, we will share a list of people whose death was a result of their foreclosure situation…there is always a way out! Please stand up and refuse to be pushed into that black hole.  I understand that many spent all their savings while trying to keep their house, and at the end they still faced a foreclosure eviction.  Once you realize that you’re not alone in this situation, that millions of other families are going through the same thing, everything will be easier…

Do you want to show to the too big to fail who is actually in charge in this country? Do you want to decide your kids’ future or let it be in the hands of those who robbed us blind multiple times?  Take charge of your life; don’t let this fight for your home and justice to bring you down – use it to empower yourself!

Here are stories of people who lost this fight – and we’ll continue to ask for truth and justice not only for ourselves and our families, but for all those who can’t longer do it

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December 14, 2012 – AZUSA, California – Authorities say three people found dead in a fire-gutted home in Southern California were all siblings who committed suicide. The three were found dead Dec. 6 in the aftermath of a house fire in Azusa. Also discovered at the home were two dead dogs and two dead cats, along with 22 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Public records show the house was in foreclosure, and family friend Nora Dewester told the Tribune that the siblings were expected to move out the day they died. Friends also say the siblings’ father died earlier this year and their mother died several years ago.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/14/azusa-house-fire-siblings_n_2301710.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

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On June 28, 2012, Michael Marin
, a millionaire in Arizona, died in a courtroom after being convicted of arson for burning down his mansion because he wasn’t able to make his mortgage payments. Initial reports claim that he appeared to put something in his mouth shortly before suffering from convulsions and collapsing after the verdict was read. A container labeled “cyanide” was found in his vehicle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2166303/Arsonist-Michael-Marin-53-collapses-dies-Phoenix-court-guilty.html

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In May, 2012, California resident Norman Rousseau was attempting to repair his RV so his family would have a place to live after being notified of an upcoming lockout. Mr. Rousseau and his wife had refinanced their home, receiving a higher interest rate than they previously had. Wells Fargo subsequently didn’t credit them with a payment, which led to a loan modification denial. Unable to repair the RV, Rousseau was distraught and committed suicide.

-A woman is packing up her home after being served an eviction notice — a situation that drove her husband to commit suicide.

“I lost my husband and it hurts me like hell,” said Oriane Rousseau, whose husband, Norman, took his life Sunda Norman’s death has delayed the eviction but Oriane said it’s difficult for her to stay in the home where he died.

“I don’t want this to happen to anybody. This is horrible. I lost my husband. I lose my pets, I lose my house, I lose my furniture, everything…for nothing,” Rousseau said.

The family bought the home 13 years ago and used their life savings to put 30 percent down.

In 2006, their dream home became a nightmare. The family said they were talked into a new loan, an adjustable rate mortgage. Then, the couple was accused of not paying their mortgage. But Rousseau showed CBS2 News a cashed cashier’s check used to pay Wells Fargo Bank.

The family then applied for loan modification. Rousseau said they were told not to make payments because it would disqualify them. y after an eviction notice was placed on their front door.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/05/16/newbury-park-woman-faces-eviction-after-husbands-suicide/

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Oct. 1, 2010: 55 Earle St., Garcia took her own life on Oct. 1. And, in the eyes of her attorney, her story is emblematic of the devastation the foreclosure epidemic has inflicted on so many once-proud homeowners.
Rather than comply with a foreclosure notice and allow a marshal to evict her from the home she loved at 55 Earle St., Garcia took her own life on Oct. 1. And, in the eyes of her attorney, her story is emblematic of the devastation the foreclosure epidemic has inflicted on so many once-proud homeowners.
Garcia, who had won the city’s Freedom Lawn contest last summer for her beautifully landscaped yard, loved the small house near Point Beach she had owned since 1996.
http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Foreclosure-notice-leads-to-suicide-of-nice-lady-307253.php

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Mar 5, 2010 Lynda Clark’s South Philadelphia
On March 5, deputies arriving to post an eviction notice on Lynda Clark’s South Philadelphia home found she had hanged herself.

Less than three weeks later, owner Gregory Bellows shot and killed himself shortly before deputies arrived to evict him from his Roxborough home.

“It’s devastating for everyone. We’re not even family members and it’s just devastating to us,” Captain Albert Innaurato of the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office said.  Court records show Clark, whose debt topped $100,000, lost her home at a sheriff’s sale last October. Bellows, owing more than $240,000, had his home sold at a sheriff’s sale in 2008.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-6329383.html
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October 3, 2008: Addie Polk, Ohio woman, 90, attempts suicide after foreclosure

Addie Polk was found lying on the floor of her home with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her shoulder when police came to the home on Wednesday to serve an eviction notice, Akron police spokesman Lt. Rick Edwards said on Friday. Polk survived the shooting and is being treated in a hospital.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/10/03/us-foreclosure-shooting-idUSTRE4928IS20081003

An Update: March 31, 2009
Polk, made news last fall when she shot herself during an eviction, died Monday at the Arbors at Fairlawn nursing home near Akron. She was 91.

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October 4, 2008: Karthik Rajaram’s mass murder/suicide in Los … the 53-year-old Pasadena, California
“Rajaram, a former financial analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Sony Pictures, left two suicide notes — one for police and another for family and friends — and a will. “I understand he was unemployed, his dealings in the stock market had taken a disastrous turn for the worse,” said Los Angeles deputy police chief Michel R. Moore. “This was a person who had been quite successful in this arena.” Amid news of the global financial crisis and the credit crunch, this murder-suicide has become emblematic of the times — in its way parallelling the deathly plunges of Wall Street stockbrokers in 1929.”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1848422,00.html

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July 25, 2008: 53-year-old Carlene Balderrama of Taunton, MA
Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday warning that she’d be dead by the time they foreclosed on her house later that day. She was.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/07/25/massachusetts-mother-saw-only-one-way-out-foreclosure-on-house-suicide/

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In Tennessee (2008), a woman fatally shot herself last week as sheriff’s deputies went to evict her from her foreclosed home.

Pamela Ross, 57, and her husband were fighting foreclosure on their home when sheriff’s deputies in Sevierville came to serve an eviction notice. They were across the street when they heard a gunshot and found Ross dead from a wound to the chest. The case was even more tragic because the couple had recently been granted an extra 10 days to appeal.

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – A Sevierville woman apparently committed suicide as Sevier County Sheriff’s deputies arrived to evict her family from their home, but the family attorney and relatives are asking a big question. Should deputies have been at the home at all?
http://www.local8now.com/home/headlines/30712089.html

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In Ocala, Fla., Roland Gore shot his wife and dog in March and then set fire to the couple’s home, which had been in foreclosure, before killing himself. His case was one of several in which people killed spouses or pets, destroyed property or attacked police before taking their own lives.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705255161/Financial-troubles-leading-to-violence.html?pg=all

3 responses

24 11 2013
senkalive

Thank you Mary for your post – I need to update this page, unfortunately there are new cases that have not been added here.

23 11 2013
Mary Mcculley

I hope to use some of this data in my trial against US BANK in February, and this story about Phyllis Walsh, and the only home she had ever known really sums it up for me…
They Were Coming for Her House
Two Days Before Eviction, Phyllis Walsh Killed Herself and Left a Note About the “Foreclosure Vultures”
The last time neighbors saw her alive on July 29, 2013, , 65-year-old Phyllis Walsh was walking her dog, Arnie, as she did nearly every day. But Walsh’s life was in turmoil. Her husband, a factory worker named Jerry, died in 2009, and Walsh had struggled to pay the mortgage on the small white bungalow in South Seattle that she was now solely responsible for.
“When he passed, it was very hard on Phyllis,” says Joell Rhyner, who lives across the street. “But she was active, trying to go out and do things.”
Walsh, who was retired, had been trying to refinance her mortgage so she could keep the home. Still, Walsh had not been able to stave off US Bank, which, according to King County property records, was trying to collect more than $15,000 in past-due payments and had sold her home at auction.
On the evening of Tuesday, July 30, Rhyner saw a police car in front of Walsh’s home. Walsh had fired a single pistol shot into her head, killing herself, in the front yard.
A note pinned to her shirt mentioned the “foreclosure vultures” were coming.
The note began mundanely:
About the stuff
The foreclosure people will be here on thurs. they may or may not be reasonable. So, any trinkets, mementos, art
Whatever should be removed quickly. Any thing too large, heavy, cumbersome or difficult let the foreclosure vultures handle…
Except for a hard decision, the last couple weeks have been filled with wonderful days, each of them perfect. Family, Church, friends, music, Arnie, enjoying the back yard…
Everything is in a terrible muddle, the house got foreclosed
While I was in the middle of a refinance (!) jeez
Jerry’s been gone four long years and I’m not
Doing so well. This is too hard to do alone.

Walsh was born on November 15, 1947. She grew up in the little white house, which was built three years earlier, with her mother, who lived there until she passed.
In 1978, Walsh married Jerry, who was later disabled in a medical operation gone awry. At some point, the two of them were living on retirement and disability payments. He died four years ago following complications from heart surgery, family members say.
Walsh always stood out, with her bright red hair and unconventional fashion sense. All six people interviewed for this article remarked on the same qualities: She was smart, well-read, musical, sweet, and kind. She gave her friend Sandy guitar lessons and brought her neighbor’s daughter books from the library. One next-door neighbor calls her “life-affirming.”
Being life-affirming, though, doesn’t pay the bills. Those close to her say Walsh lived frugally, but it was clear she was struggling. Her neighbors say they’d bring her extra food. Walsh didn’t have money to fix her car, so she took the bus everywhere.
Walsh and her husband had purchased the family home in 1992, King County property records show. It appears they took out two mortgages in 2004 and 2006 with US Bank and Countrywide Home Loans, respectively. They fell $15,000 behind on the first loan and defaulted last year (I could not track down records on the second loan). US Bank signed her mortgage over to Bishop, White, Marshall & Weibel, a firm that carries out foreclosures, the records say.
The home was sold off at auction earlier this year. “We offer our sincere condolences to the family,” US Bank says in a statement. From the papers the family looked through, including Walsh’s journal, Fasoli says it looked like the bank “passed her from specialist to specialist,” and the last specialist wouldn’t return her phone calls or the number wouldn’t go through.

22 03 2013
Anita Reyes

This page is very powerful, very sobering. As survivors of foreclosure we all too well know the stress, depression and helplessness that accompanies the fight against foreclosure and eviction. May the ones that have chosen to end your fight by suicide…peace.
Respectfully, Anita

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