Inside the Los Feliz murder house before it was cleaned up

For decades, the mystery of this abandoned mansion in Los Feliz with a distant but sad past has been bolstered by the fact that very few people have been inside. Now it's up for sale and we've seen a tidied-up version of the house, much cleaner than one would expect from a house that was left empty decades ago following a grim murder-suicide in 1959.

Update: A Brave Couple Purchased the Los Feliz Murder House

But how did it really look after decades of supposed neglect? People who peeked in the windows over the years reported all kinds of aging home goods, including a Christmas tree and presents that became part of the legend.

Now, courtesy of local photographer Alexis Vaughn, we have photos of the estate from just before it was spruced up and emptied out. The images, posted on Vaughn's blog Life In My Lens, were taken in January and show a house that appears to have been very much lived-in, with plenty of mail, cat litter, clothes, and other signs of life.

It has been said that there were still-wrapped Christmas presents under a tree in the house, allegedly dating from the night of the murder—an eerie, frozen-in-time detail that was too good to be true, at least in January. All Vaughn found was a gold ribbon and a gift box lid, though she was "not so sure of its origins."

Rudy Enriquez, the last owner, died in 2015. He inherited the house from his parents, Emily and Julian Enriquez, a couple from Lincoln Heights who bought the house at a probate auction in 1960. Word was they never moved in, but appeared to use the house for storage. Vaughn says she had the opportunity to speak to some of Rudy's relatives, who "remembered him as a well-kept, dapper man who was quite devoted to his church and who went out of his way to take care of stray cats in the area."

In addition to a collection of stills, Vaughn managed to capture some footage inside the house, which she compiled to make this video:

• Los Feliz Murder Mansion - January 2016 [Life in My Lens]
• First Photos Inside the Abandoned Los Feliz Murder House [Curbed LA]
• The Mysterious Los Feliz Murder House is For Sale [Curbed LA]
• The Real Story Behind LA's Most Famous and Mysterious Murder House [Curbed LA]

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