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Missouri woman learns from A&E show she lives in serial killer's old house

Catrina McGhaw found out she was living in the home that Maury Travis used as a torture chamber.

By Evan Bleier
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FERGUSON, Mo., July 9 (UPI) -- A Missouri woman found out that her $810-a-month dream home in Ferguson was actually a nightmare after seeing a documentary about serial killers on the A&E network.

After watching the show, Catrina McGhaw discovered she was living in the home that serial killer Maury Travis used as a torture chamber.

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Authorities believe Travis killed between 12 and 20 women and that many of them died in the basement of the home. He hanged himself in jail in 2002.

McGhaw was freaked out by what had happened in the basement and she was even more rattled when she realized the house's dining room table was the same one seen in crime scene photos.

Perhaps that shouldn't have been a surprise, because as is turns out, McGhaw's landlord is the killer's mother.

"When she showed us the house, she said you can have this table if you want," McGhaw told KMOV. "This whole basement was his torture chamber and it's not okay."

After confronting her landlord about the house's history, McGhaw will be breaking her lease thanks to some help from the St. Louis Housing Authority.

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"Initially, the landlord was not willing to let her break her lease but we talked with her and eventually the landlord agreed to rescind the lease," Cheryl Lovell of the St Louis Housing Authority told ABC News. "In this state, there is no duty to disclose. Other states there are, but mostly that is for selling houses."

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