Meth, Death & Subpoena’s The Time I Stopped a House From Being Stolen

Part of the fun in buying fixer upper houses is the stories behind them and one of our most recent deals had it all. Drug abuse, death, a pitbull and me getting subpoenaed as a witness. This is how I helped prevent a kind lady from having her house stolen and found a great dog a new home.

When the lead came to me all I knew was that the property was in Oceanside and had recently been inherited by the Grandson, his Grandfather had lived there since the sixties. Jesse wanted to sell the place quickly and homes in this area are well known for foundation issues so it made sense that he wanted to work with a rehabber.

I made the appointment and went to view the property the same day, the moment I walked into the house I knew something strange was going on. It was like a scene out of Breaking Bad. The home was in complete disarray, there was strange cryptic writing on the walls, furniture on its side and the kitchen looked like a four year old had tried to make breakfast in it… a month ago.

Jessie and Holly his girlfriend were a wreck, they were on meth and highly unstable. It's about now I’m starting to realize this wasn’t the safest place for me to be and then a pitbull comes wandering in from the patio holding a bone. His tail is moving so fast from side to side it’s causing his entire body to waggle. That was Froggy, he belonged to Wilbur the now deceased owner. Seeing him put me at ease, it wasn’t smart to be alone in a house with meth addicts but I had a feeling Froggy would look out for me.

To sell a house you need proper documentation and I wanted to see it. I needed proof this house could be sold and find out what was really going on. Nothing seemed normal and I had a terrible gut feeling. Everything inside of me was telling me to get out of the house but when I was handed the paperwork it suddenly started to make sense. They were trying to commit fraud.

I was handed copies of wills, trusts and pension forms all with illegible signatures and questionable notary stamps. Everything looked suspect. I played along to get copies of each document and left the house as quickly as possible, although technically the house belonged to Jesse at this point. The methods to do this were highly illegal. It was also at this point that I saw the death certificate and realized Wilbur had passed away only two days prior. The deed they had forced him to sign was endorsed on the day of his death; my skin began to crawl when I realized the severity of the situation.

At this point I needed to find out who really was the rightful owner, with a little luck I turned up a relative who was likely to be the daughter of Wilbur and she lived locally. Phone numbers are hard to come by but I did locate an address so I sent her a letter. After a week had gone by there was no response, I decided to send another note with much stronger language explaining how important it was that she call me. Finally I got a call from Patricia, Wilbur’s daughter.

I asked to meet Patricia in person to explain what was going on, she sounded very friendly but fragile. It was just weeks since her father’s passing away and she mentioned that she had recently suffered a stroke herself. Before the meeting I packaged together every document I had copied at the house from the fraudulent will to the power of attorney, grant deed, trust revocation and his VA and CALPERS benefits documents. I had every document needed to send these two to prison neatly organized in a file.

Once we met I learned just how bad the situation was with Jesse and Holly. A year ago they had  moved themselves into Wilbur’s home and began taking advantage of a man who wasn’t entirely  aware of the situation. Wilbur had suffered from several strokes that had left him unable to communicate and not entirely aware of his surroundings. Patricia had exhausted all resources  trying to regain control from contacting the Oceanside Police Department who had told her they don’t get involved in family matters of this nature to requesting Hospice perform welfare checks on her father. Each time Jesse and Holly made it through without hassle. The red tape of government  enforcement assisted them in continuing to take advantage Wilbur and their own family.

Thankfully, I had copies of every document that proved they were committing fraud. This was exactly what it would take to allow civil proceedings to begin and start the process to reclaim the property to its rightful owners. The final piece I needed was to locate the person who had notarized the documents used to transfer ownership and the rights to Wilbur’s pensions and bank accounts. I was optimistic they were not involved in the fraud but tracking them down proved to be very challenging.

Through a little creativity on Facebook I turned up the notary and that was when the case blew wide open. Back in March the Notary, Terry had all of her personal belongings stolen from her car and that included her notary equipment. For reasons I still cannot explain the moment we had Terry on board we had full support from law enforcement and the district attorney. Within days the house was raided, Jesse and Holly were arrested and a criminal case for grand theft, elder abuse and fraud began.

Immediately I was subpoenaed as a witness and the property was reclaimed and secured by Patricia. Froggy stayed in the house with the neighbors watching over him while the courts finally went to work for Patricia. With the evidence on hand Jesse and Holly soon realized that they had no chance and they agreed to a plea bargain that forced them to sign everything back over to Patricia and serve a very light sentence. For over a year Jesse had lived in the house, controlling his Grandfather, emptying his bank accounts and allowing his manipulative girlfriend to work on documents to take the property and everything that belonged to Wilbur. It was a horrible situation and I wish someone would have listened and helped Patricia before her father had passed away.

During the court proceedings I helped Patricia clean out the property and promised myself I would find Froggy a home. The poor dog was the last remnant of Wilbur and he was such a happy fella, who knows what his life had been like in that last year. We lucked out one day when one of our contractors came by the house and took a liking to him. Marc promised me he would let me know in a day if he could keep Froggy after he spoke to his wife but I knew from the look on his face that dog had a new home. Two days later Marc picked him up and I felt like Wilbur would have been happy to see all of these loose ends tied up.

We’d fought to make sure the rightful owner of the property was who sold it, made sure that a wonderful person who had been bullied by a relative and found no support finally had someone on their side fighting for them and we helped honor the memory of a great person by finding his dog a loving family to spend the rest of his life with.

This was by far the most dangerous and rewarding business transaction I have ever been a part of. It reminded me how important it is to stand up for someone when they need help and not to bend on your convictions when you know something isn’t right. In those two months while we helped Patricia fight for her home two other individuals attempted to purchase the house from Jesse. There is no way they weren’t able to tell this was fraud, yet they   decided to try their luck and   ignore the fact there were real victims. After it was all said and done, Patricia and I agreed on a price and I purchased the property and realized if I ever get bored in real estate I may have a future as a private investigator.