Boise, ID

Driving past the house at 805 W Linden Street in Boise, Idaho, it’s hard not to stare. Covered in a layer of soot, with windows broken and boarded up and trash strewn about the yard, the 2-story, 2,728 square-foot Craftsman-style home looks like an abandoned horror movie set. The true story, however, is much scarier.

Known commonly as the Boise Murder House, the home is also sometimes referred to by locals as the Chop-Chop House, a glib reference to the gruesome homicide that took place there more than three decades ago. In the early morning hours of June 30th, 1987, 37-year-old Daniel Rodgers and 31-year-old Daron Cox shot and killed 21-year-old Preston Murr in the basement of Rodgers’s home at 805 W Linden Street. The two men then used an ax and knife to dismember his corpse, wrapped the pieces in plastic bags, and drove to the Idaho-Oregon border to dump the body parts in the Brownlee Reservoir.

It’s unclear what happened to the house in the immediate years after Rodgers was sent to the Idaho State Correctional Center to serve out a life sentence without parole, but property records available online list a new owner, James Howell, as of 2000. Howell has since rented the house to a number of tenants and, given its proximity to Boise State University, it’s become a popular choice among students seeking off-campus housing. As a result, local lore about the house has a decidedly collegiate flair: One persistent rumor claims that fraternity brothers have reported seeing blood dripping down the walls of the basement for years. While there is no truth to this tale—and 805 W Linden was never an official frat house—many former residents say there is something “off” about the space. It has become known as the most haunted house in Idaho.