Open Home Murders

The victim’s name was Sara Donoghue. Thirty-four years old. Wife, mother of two boys, Bryan age seven and Nicolas age five. Real Estate agent for three years. She went back to work to help supplement husband Brad’s income as a sixth grade school teacher in District 38. She lived in a northern suburb of Chicago and worked for a large national real estate franchise. Last year’s production was eleven homes and she was hoping to increase that to seventeen this year. Her main source of business was doing weekend open homes for other agents. She procured a bounty of buyers with this method and actually sold one property during an open home last year. Her current year was off to a fast start, thanks to an early spring and cooperating weather. The Donoghue Family were outdoors people. They loved to go for bike rides, hiking and took camping vacations in days before the boys were born. Real camping, with a tent. No Winnebago for Sara and Brad. A day at a nearby forest preserve was more exciting than a trip into the city. It was simple and pure. A day filled with laughs. Sara was the soccer mom who brought juice packs and homemade cookies, not for just the team, but coaches and the other parents as well. Each three by five inch juice carton had one of Sara’s business cards taped neatly in place. After all, these people someday may want to sell or buy a home. Why not mix business and pleasure? Sara had read in a real estate book that she purchased at last year’s annual conference in Springfield, that success was based on self- marketing. Every chance you have to put your name in front of someone, no matter who they are, do it. “Welcome. Come on in. My name is Sara. Are you familiar with the neighborhood? No. Well, let me tell you a little bit about the local parks, shopping and where the schools are located. Do you have children in school? This is a four bedroom Cape Cod with two and a half baths. And wait until you see the potential for finishing the basement. Follow me.” She’s so sweet and informative….and naive. Part of Sara’s charm was her unassumingness. Open and overly friendly was not an act with Sara, it was who she was, and served her well in the real estate business. Brad Donoghue had reported his wife missing when she failed to return home, late on Sunday, well after her scheduled Open Home should have ended. He and his sons had spent a terrifying twenty four hours waiting for news of their beloved wife and mother. He had driven by the house where Sara was to have held her Open Home, but there were no signs of her. The managing broker of her office as well as several concerned agents drove to the home. No one did a thorough search. No one checked the garage until the police decided to pop the trunk of a late model Lincoln the next day. Everyone had assumed the previous owner was storing the car, or a neighbor had chosen to keep an extra car out of the elements, or no one hadn’t thought it unusual that a vacant home had a car parked in the garage. Twenty four hours later, Sara Donoghue was found in the trunk of a ten year old black Lincoln Town Car. The car was safely parked in the garage at twelve fourteen Mission Hill Court, the sight of Sara’s last Open Home. Neighbors reported seeing the light on in the garage through the daylight windows in the rollup garage door. It was odd, as the previous owners had moved out months before. Their home was being foreclosed on by their bank. The Robbins had simply said their goodbyes to the friends on the street, packed what they could in a rental moving truck and left the neighborhood right after the first of the New Year. It had been important to Mr. and Mrs. Robbins to spend one last Christmas together in the home where their four children had been born. It had been a sad and cold day in January when the six Robbins drove away down the street. A two vehicle parade of minivan and rental truck. Local Glenburg police had come to investigate. Looking through the window of the garage door, they saw the car and ran the Illinois license plate. It had come back as being registered to a one, Sara Lynn Donoghue. The stench was powerful when the trunk was opened by police. Inside was the decaying body of Sara Donoghue. Her light blue oxford cloth peter pan collared blouse was unbuttoned and spread wide. Written on her chest, over her heart, in the same pink lipstick she had put on fresh the morning of the Open Home, was the word LYER. Her lips held a dried white powdery substance that was far from the color of rose pink. Taped across each eye, not nearly as neatly as a juice box, was one of Sara’s business cards. A smiling picture of Sara with a bright future ahead stared up at the policeman from the floor of the trunk of her car. ‘Call Sara, I make dreams come true.’ KEYNOTE