Here's why real estate values are down

"Owner lay dead while pair toured her home

(Published Tuesday, May 1, 2007 11:14:08 AM CST)

By Shelly Birkelo
Gazette staff

A Janesville real estate agent can't believe she didn't realize that a form on the bed at a house she showed Monday night was a woman who apparently had been dead for two weeks.

'I've smelled death. I know what death smells like,' she said. 'I can't believe my sinuses were that bad.'

Linda Chabucos-Galow, a realtor with Shorewest, was showing the east side house at 1160 N. Claremont Drive to Justin and Colleen McKeen.

Chabucos-Galow stood in the dining room while the couple walked through the house. She heard Colleen scream as the couple stood at the doorway of the front bedroom.

'I thought, 'What's wrong?' Maybe it was a dead mouse or something,' Chabucos-Galow said.

But when Chabucos-Galow peered into the bedroom, she saw what looked like a dummy on the bed.

'It looked like a Halloween prop,'' Chabucos-Galow said.

It wasn't.

It was the body of Linda L. O'Leary, 55, the owner of the home.

The small, uncovered body was wearing dark shorts. Chabucos-Galow said the legs were wrapped in material that appeared similar to cheesecloth"

"If we spent five minutes in there, I'd be stretching it. 'We need to leave. This is not right. We need to get out of here,'" Chabucos-Galow said she told the couple.

She thought it was a hoax, she said.

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