Stealing from the dead

They are all dead. Yet if city records are to be believed, they all walked into the office of a notary public and signed away their homes, which just happened to be in gentrifying neighborhoods with soaring property values.

Gail Harrison lived alone in the house where she grew up on Seybert Street in North Philadelphia. She had her quirks, but neighbors looked out for her. “She was a nice, friendly, Christian-hearted woman,” one said.

Harriet Dunn and Dorcas Moone lived quietly in a North 27th Street rowhouse in Brewerytown that they bought in 1950 after leaving the Army.

Alex Krasheninnikow survived a Nazi concentration camp. His home on Agate Street in Port Richmond was overflowing with books.

Their properties all ended up in the hands of a stranger, a 43-year-old man named William Ernest Johnson III, who wrapped up some of the deals while still on parole from a long prison term for a string of violent crimes.

William Ernest Johnson III has acquired a string of properties in sales involving people who were dead or whose family members have disavowed the acquisitions.

In all, an Inquirer investigation has linked Johnson to at least six suspicious home transfers over the last 2½ years. In case after case, he acquired vacant houses with longtime owners who were dead or so aged that their grown children would later say they never participated in the transactions.

Johnson insists that he is a victim too — that he was misled by a series of impostors posing as the dead owners and by other “sellers” who misrepresented the provenance of the deeds they were offering. "I assumed the seller of the home was legitimate, straight up,” he said.

He has resold three of the properties, two for $50,000 each, city records show.

The acquisitions exemplify an especially virulent problem in Philadelphia that has grown as neighborhood after neighborhood has undergone gentrification: the outright theft of homes.

It is the illicit trade of grifters, who, in the search of suitable scores, scour public rolls for properties behind in taxes or mortgage payments, or simply held for decades by a single owner. Once the mark is settled on, a deed is forged, sometimes with the aid of a compliant notary, and ownership is transferred to the thief. The property is then flipped for a quick profit.

How a House Is Stolen

1. Sheriff’s sales lists and public records are searched for properties with unpaid taxes and overdue mortgages. Deeds are scoured for properties that have been off the market for decades, a sign they might be abandoned with dead or absent owners.

2. A visit is paid to the property to chat up neighbors — is the owner dead? Does anybody stop by? Are there family members who show interest in the house?

3. A deed is forged. A blank deed can be purchased for a few dollars and a sale fabricated. A crooked notary is used to validate the document. Sometimes a notary’s signature and seal are simply forged.

4. The doctored deed is filed with the city deed room in City Hall. A modest transfer tax is paid and the property now belongs to the thief.

5. The property is flipped. Sometimes it is transferred first to a confederate or fictional buyer to launder the title’s shady history. Ultimately it is sold to a legitimate buyer, often a developer, for cash.

Along with a fake title company, some of the deals involve counterfeit notary stamps.

Philadelphia officials have been struggling for years to get a grip on deed fraud. For more than a decade, the city has been alerting homeowners by mail whenever a deed selling their properties is processed. People taking deeds to City Hall to record transfers are asked to show identification and be photographed.

Still, critics say more could be done..