Foreclosure Auction Sparks Desperate Homeowner Act

Criminal Justice

Foreclosure Auction Sparks Desperate Homeowner Act

Posted Jul 23, 2008, 06:40 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

As interested buyers gathered outside a foreclosed home in Taunton, Mass., to bid on it yesterday afternoon, the standard-issue auction scheduled for 5 p.m. suddenly veered off-course.

At 2:30 p.m., homeowner Carlene Balderrama, 53, faxed a letter to her mortgage lender, saying that she would be dead by the time they foreclosed. And, when the lender called police and they came to the home to check, at 3:30 p.m., she was, reports the Boston Globe.

Balderrama had apparently shot herself to death in the home with a high-profiled rifle that her husband owned, according to the newspaper article. It says her husband John Balderrama, a plumber, wasn't even aware that the house was in foreclosure, because his wife paid their bills.

Before she died, Carlene Balderrama left a note, recounts Raymond O'Berg, the town's police chief. It said the rest of the family should use the life insurance money for her death to pay the lender and save their home.

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