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??’Silence Of The Lambs’ Home Of Psychotic Killer Buffalo Bill Sells For $195,000

By Ny MaGee
Published on: 13:33 PST, Jul 9, 2016

The western Pennsylvania home of fictional psychotic killer Buffalo Bill in the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs has been sold. Real estate agent Dianne Wilk tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that the home sold last week for $195,000. Scott and Barbara Lloyd listed the three-story Victorian home for sale last summer for $300,000, and at the time, they believed the hit movie would improve its value. Wilk declined to name the buyer, but said he was interested in the home because it had been in the film.

Inside Edition went inside the home with the previous homeowners earlier this year, check out the video report below. The couple dropped the price several times before finding a buyer.

The Lloyd’s put their home of 39 years up for sale because they wanted to downsize, and they acknowledged that its history might put off some potential buyers. However, they assured Inside Edition that is is just a house.

“It was just a movie. No ghosts. No serial killer. Nothing evil in the house,” Barbara said. Wilk wasn’t concerned with whether the Silence Of The Lambs connection would impact the sale.

“People are definitely not spooked. Most of the people that have been interested in the home love the home because it’s a home and because it’s a charmer,” Wilk said.

The exterior of the house, which was built in 1910, hasn’t changed since the movie was released in 1991. Filmmakers spent 10 weeks shooting at the home, where they removed all the kitchen appliances and painted the woodwork a nauseating shade of green.

“Just for posterity sake we left some of the green paint up here just to remember,” Barbara admitted. “They had all types of junk on the mantel and the china cupboard. To make it look like there was an old bachelor serial killer living in the home,” she said of the production design to turn the home into a house of horrors.

The psychological horror-thriller was directed by Jonathan Demme, and is the sequel to the 1986 film Manhunter. The film is based on Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel of the same name, his second to feature Hannibal Lecter. Moviefone.com notes how the author was inspired to write the novel after meeting renowned FBI agent John E. Douglas. While attending a lecture of the decorated special agent, Harris learned about three notorious serial killers that would shape the character Buffalo Bill: Ted Bundy, Gary Heidnik, and Ed Gein.

Ted Bundy killed at least 30 people between the years 1974 and 1978. Harris had attended a portion of Bundy’s 1979 murder trial in Miami, and later sent him a copy of his first book in the Lecter series, Red Dragon.

Heidnik held his prisoners captive in his Philadelphia basement, where he kidnapped, tortured and killed six women.

“He kept women in a pit about five and a half feet deep,” John Douglas recalled. “His lawyers argued that he was insane, but he had over half a million dollars in his bank account. He selected stocks with his little disability check through Merrill Lynch. So Merrill Lynch testified, ‘We would like to say it was through our strategy that he got so much money, but he did this on his own.'”

Wisconsin farmer Ed Gein had the most influence on Silence of the Lambs. Gein was found legally insane and sentenced to live out his remaining days in a mental institution after he shocked in the nation in 1957 for robbing several graves and exhuming freshly buried middle-aged women, (that he thought resembled his abusive mother), to take home and cut up for a collection of body parts. He crafted some of his vile trophies and keepsakes into furniture. When Gein decided that he wanted to become a woman, he began collecting the body parts in hopes of building a “woman suit” that he could wear, just like Buffalo Bill. Gein also inspired The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In the film, Jodie Foster’s character (Clarice Starling) seeks the advice of Dr. Lecter to apprehend serial killer Buffalo Bill. The basement of the recently sold house in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania, is where Starling and the madman filmed their climatic confrontation.

The Silence of the Lambs grossed $272.7 million worldwide against its $19 million budget. It won Academy Awards in all the top five categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Adapted Screenplay. A sequel, titled Hannibal, was released in 2001 with Hopkins reprising his role. It was followed by two prequels, Red Dragon (2002) and Hannibal Rising (2007).

[Photo by Keith Srakocic/AP Images]

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