Stigmatized Property

What would you do — how would you feel — if you suddenly learned that your dream house was the site of a ghastly murder?

Greg Lietz is a friendly enough guy, but on Halloween, nobody comes to his door for candy.

The first Halloween after Lietz bought his small ranch-style home in Wichita, Kansas, he put up decorations like everybody else and laid in a supply of candy for trick-or-treaters, but he soon found that he needn’t have bothered. No children came to his door.

When he mentioned that to a neighbor, he found out why. Somebody had murdered four members of a family who had previously lived in Lietz’s residence — and the crime had been committed right in the house.

Lietz’s property is of one of six homes you’ll probably want to skip if you are house-hunting in Wichita. The six are dissimilar in size and style, and they aren’t all in the same neighborhood, but they share a common denominator: Five are homes where the BTK killer committed his heartless murders. One is where he lived.

BTK, standing for “Bind, Torture, Kill,” was the identifier used by the...