The first attack happened on Aug. 6, 2002, when prosecutors said Anthony Kelly broke into the house through a kitchen window. During what investigators described as a robbery, he shot and killed homeowner Gregory Russell, 47, and his 9 year old daughter, Erika Smith, before leaving with only a worn Bible and a few dollars. Kelly was later convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following year, the home was bought by Brian Betts, an award winning educator and principal of Shaw Middle School in Washington, D.C. According to reports, Betts only discovered the home’s past after a neighbor told him about the killings. By then, the sale had already been completed, and Maryland law did not require the previous murders to be disclosed to buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends said Betts later invited two ministers to bless the home, hoping to bring peace to the property after learning what had happened there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That hope was short lived. On April 15, 2010, Betts was found shot to death inside the same house after investigators said he had invited someone he met online to his home. Authorities later determined the visit was part of a planned robbery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alante Saunders pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a life sentence, with all but 40 years suspended. Betts’ death shocked students, colleagues and education leaders, who remembered him as a respected principal committed to helping young people succeed. His family later said they wished the house could simply be demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, the property was foreclosed, renovated and sold again. Its address was later changed from 9337 Columbia Blvd.<\/strong> to 9335 Columbia Blvd.<\/strong> Although there is no official evidence the renumbering was meant to erase the home’s past, the new address made its history less obvious in online searches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The case has also drawn attention to Maryland’s property disclosure law. In the state, sellers and real estate agents are generally not required to tell buyers if a homicide or suicide previously occurred in a home. The law focuses on physical defects that could affect a property’s safety rather than events from its past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 20 years after the first killings, the Silver Spring home remains an unusual case in Maryland’s history. Beyond the crimes themselves, it continues to raise questions about transparency in real estate, what buyers have a right to know, and whether a property’s past should be part of the buying decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A house in Silver Spring, Maryland, where two different homeowners were killed eight years apart is once again drawing attention because of its remarkable and tragic history. The case has also renewed questions about how much buyers should be told before purchasing a home. The two story brick Colonial, now known as 9335 Columbia Blvd. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":34504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[776,25,4,5,18,3],"tags":[20722,20724,20720,20726,20728,20729,20719,20727],"class_list":["post-34489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-educational","category-entertainment","category-featured","category-international","category-lifestyle","category-naija-news","tag-9335-columbia-blvd","tag-brian-betts-murder-case","tag-gregory-russell-and-erika-smith-murder","tag-house-with-a-deadly-history","tag-real-estate-disclosure-laws","tag-residential-homicide-case","tag-silver-spring-maryland-murder-house","tag-stigmatized-properties"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot_8-7-2026_114121_web.whatsapp.com_-2.jpeg?fit=911%2C626&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34506,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34489\/revisions\/34506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Two](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot_8-7-2026_135822_www.bing_.com_.jpeg?resize=696%2C463\")