Remains in Heights a mystery
Bones found in wall of home 2 years after previous owner disappeared
No one knew what happened to 61-year-old Mary Cerruti.
The lawn of her west Heights bungalow grew wild. A window broke. Mail piled up. The signs of her disappearance troubled neighbors, who had rallied behind her as a holdout against a massive new apartment complex that had gobbled up much of the surrounding property.
They contacted police in 2015. One neighbor hired a private investigator. As theories swirled about her fate, a bank that fall was cleared to foreclose on her home. Police issued a missing person’s report three days later.
Neighbors noticed when the for sale sign went up in her yard. Still they wondered: Where was Mary? Only when the new residents started moving in this weekend did a startling possible clue surface.
In a gap in the wall, the new residents found a pair
of red eyeglasses — like the type Cerutti once wore — and a jumble of human bones.
It was a discovery that shocked those who had long searched for Cerutti. They saw the police check the home. They took note when animal control arrived to set traps for the cats she’d once fed. They watched the home get renovated, including new windows and a new roof.
And so now they wonder — as they await authorities to confirm whether the remains are hers — how all of those people could have missed the fact that her body may have been there in the wall of her house all along.
Cerruti bought the home on Allston Street around 2001. It was built in 1930 and had last been remodeled in 1998, according to Harris County Appraisal District records. There are two bedrooms and one full bathroom in the 1,161-square-foot home, plus a small porch. It’s value has soared to more than $400,000.
She had been married and divorced at least once, in 1990, from a man named David Cerruti, to whom she’d been married for 11 years. He now lives in Brooklyn. He shared that Mary had attended the University of Houston and worked mostly in retail.
Neighbors who knew her in more recent years believed Cerruti lived alone. The area used to be more dicey, she would say, sharing stories about the brothel across the street.
It wasn’t until late 2012 that concern grew over plans for a luxury apartment complex to be built around her property.
A group of residents organized and attended planning commission meetings to oppose it. “Casual elegance and an energetic neighborhood vibe” is how its website now describes the building, named for its location, “Yale at 6th.”
Neighbors described Cerutti as a shy, kind and frail woman who seemed older than she really was. But she, too, joined the effort to voice her opinion on the issue. She spoke for about one minute at a planning commission meeting on Feb. 14, 2013.
Recorded testimony shows Cerruti dressed in pink, with eyeglasses perched on her nose and gray hair falling past her shoulders.
“Literally this project is going to be in my backyard,” she said. “I’m surrounded. And I just don’t see the sense of this project. It seems like just too many apartments for such a small space.”
In the years that followed, Cerruti faced the trials of a development rising all around her, neighbors said. Her water got cut off. Her car was blocked in the driveway. Construction made getting to her house more difficult — it also made them less likely to pass by her house, where they rarely saw her emerge.
The company, Trammell Crow Residential, put in some efforts to help her. A representative from the company did not respond to an emailed request for comment on this story. But when she went missing, neighbors said they told them they believed she was dead.
It’s not clear when, exactly, Cerruti disappeared.
At some point, she had stopped making her mortgage payments. Deutsche Bank filed a petition to foreclose on March 4, 2015, online records show. The judgement was signed on Sept. 25.
The Houston Police Department’s missing person notice went out promptly after, on Sept. 28. It described her as a slight woman, standing at 5 feet 3 inches and weighing 110 pounds. She was last known to have been seen around the time the petition for foreclosure was filed.
Neighbors had tried to initiate a missing person’s report themselves but had been turned away because they weren’t relatives or more closely linked to her. Her ex-husband David was the only person they managed to speak with of any relation.
She seemed to prefer to keep to herself. There was only one other personal link they knew of: In February, one neighbor found out, she had sent a Valentine to a friend. But they had continued to worry.
Each imagined theories for what had happened: Had she been murdered? Committed to a mental institution? Decided to hide out of embarrassment because she sold her property to the developer after all?
A second suit later filed by a tax-related company said that as of May 31, 2016, 22 monthly payments had gone unfulfilled, with $7,395.78 required to cure the default. The amount needed to pay off the tax loan was $25,224.32.
Eventually the house was cleaned out. Workers wore masks. Dead cats were found inside.
No news emerged — until the discovery of the bones.
The new residents on Saturday shifted a board in the attic, peered down inside a wall and saw the remains. Nothing else was there but a tattered rag and the red glasses, of the $5 drugstore variety. Animals had disturbed the skeleton, police said.
The residents called police in the afternoon, and the medical examiner’s office finished extracting the bones shortly before 7 p.m. They appeared to belong to an adult, Houston Police Detective Jason Fay said.
The new homeowners were “a little worried because they have a body in the house,” Fay said. “Was it someone who was killed and stuffed in the wall, or did they accidentally pass away by ending up in the wall?”
It’s possible the person tripped in the attic and fell into the empty space, he said.
The news troubled many, catching even the realtor and owner Michael Nassif off guard.
“You probably want to talk about what was discovered there,” he said. “I don’t even know what to tell you. It was really sad.”
Cerruti’s ex-husband had been in Hawaii when the discovery was made.
“I guess it would be a bit of a relief to find out what exactly happened,” he said. “Maybe the evidence will clear up the mystery.”
Hearing word of the news caused neighbor Roxanne Davis’ face to fall and mouth to drop in shock. She knew something had happened but had not expected this.
“I wish I knew what more we could have done, how we could have pushed it farther to get somebody to do something else,” she said.
Another nearby resident said he felt that he’d failed Davis as a neighbor and as a friend. A third noted that every time he saw her house he wondered what had happened to her. He felt bothered that more of an effort was not made by all involved to find her, asking, “This lady could just disappear off the face of this Earth, and nobody knows?”
This perhaps would help fill in some answers. But there was still an alternative outcome. It was possible the bones were not hers.