Keisha Gebre

Little Black Book of Safety Keisha Gebre

The recent 2020 murder of Minneapolis real estate agent, Monique Baugh, highlights the dangers of showing houses to strangers. When you think of dangerous jobs, selling real estate is hardly the first thing that comes to mind. Taxi drivers, logging, mining, police work, test pilots yes, that sounds scary, but not a job that is known for glamour, sophistication, glossy ads, beautiful homes, lifestyles that many only dreams of living. Let's face it, how many people meet a perfect stranger, talk to them over the phone, and then enter a secluded place, well, hmmm, not many! As crime victims go, Real Estate agents fall short of taxi drivers, who suffer the highest rate of homicides of any particular occupation. But, unfortunately, Real Estate agents are included in the dangerous job category according to the U. S Department of Labor. Beverly Carter was abducted and murdered while meeting potential clients in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2015. Sidney Cranston Jr was murdered in 2015 while showing a home in Kingman, USA. While meeting a client in 2016, Hanle Lategan,52, was murdered, and her body dumped in a wetland in South Africa. In 2018, Steven Bernard Wilson was murdered in a Model Unit in Maryland, USA. 2019, Lalit Vakhatia, was killed after meeting a client in India. In January 2020, Monique Baugh, 28 of Minneapolis, USA, was abducted while conducting a showing and taken to a separate location and shot in the head execution-style. A female agent stabbed while showing an apartment in Japan in April 2020. These are just a handful of victims over the years. I could write pages, but I wanted to give you a couple of examples to show you how important it is to safeguard yourself. It would be best if you weren't another statistic, another story on the news. Protect yourself and follow these tips.