Cops: Elderly Home Buyer Kills Realtor, Then Self

A man's decision to buy a house sight unseen led to a murder-suicide in Portsmouth, Va., police say. Albert Baglione, 84, shot his 41-year-old realtor, Soren Arn-Oelshlegel, and then himself, according to a news release from the local police department. The chain of events:

• Baglione lived in Alabama and bought this $160,000 house with cash on Oct. 4 without actually seeing it person, reports the Virginian-Pilot. When he arrived with a U-Haul to move in a few days later, he didn't like the house and thought it fell short of the listing's photos, a neighbor identified only as Shane tells the newspaper.

• "He just looked like maybe he had a mental breakdown or something," a neighbor identified as Jay tells WTKR. "He didn’t look right at all. He kept driving up and down the street all day." The other neighbor, Shane, had a similar take: "He seemed a little off. He just seemed out of it."
• On Oct. 8, police say that Baglione called police to say he had fatally shot his realtor inside the house. When officers arrived at the residence, they say Baglione shut the door on them, went back inside, and fatally shot himself.
• The shooting appears to have taken place at the first face-to-face meeting of the two men, during what would have been Baglione's formal walk-through of the house prior to taking possession, per WAVY.com. “We feel sad for [Arn-Oelschlegel] and his entire family for what happened," veteran realtor Wendy Carbaugh tells the station. "Everything comes with risk. You are working with people you don’t know.” Arn-Oelschlegel's mother also is a local realtor.

(More murder-suicide stories.)