Jamison Bachman was a Philadelphia-area man with legal training but no law license who spent roughly a dozen years conning his way into other people’s homes, refusing to leave, and using tenant protections to make eviction slow and expensive. His pattern ended in November 2017, when he beat his older brother Harry to death at the family home in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. He hanged himself in a Montgomery County jail cell on December 8, 2017, days before his preliminary hearing. He was 60.1The Reporter. Cheltenham Homicide Suspect Commits Suicide
The Squatting Pattern
Beginning around 2005, Bachman ran the same scheme over and over. He found rooms through Craigslist or personal contacts, offered a sympathetic story to get in the door, then refused to leave. He had a master’s in history from Georgetown and a law degree from the University of Miami, failed the bar exam in 2003, and never retook it. That was enough legal knowledge to make him dangerous to anyone who tried to remove him.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
How He Got In
His cover stories were calibrated to disarm. He told one roommate he had lost his home to Hurricane Sandy. He told others he was dealing with a family crisis, a sick relative, or money trouble. For his final victim he used the alias “Jed Creek” and said he was a New York lawyer.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
How He Stayed
Once inside, he withheld rent and cited the “covenant of quiet enjoyment” and the “warranty of habitability” to justify it. He represented himself in housing court. His tactic, by his own description, was to let the roommate pay to file for eviction and then counterclaim on top of their filing fee: “She files the filing fee, and then I piggyback on the filing fee and hit her with the counterclaim. That’s just tactics.”2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
At home, he waged a parallel campaign. He took lightbulbs and kitchen chairs, clogged toilets with cat litter, moved roommates’ belongings around, damaged property, and recorded them. When confronted he would say, “This house is my house.” Victims described it as closer to domestic abuse than a housing dispute. More than one concluded he was not really after free rent. He seemed to enjoy the conflict itself.
Known Victims
Reporter William Brennan documented the following targets, roughly in order:2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
- Thornton-Donovan School in New Rochelle, 2005, which gave him a faculty apartment and had to formally evict him after two months of nonpayment.
- Arleen Hairabedian, a Queens dog walker, 2006 to 2010. Agreed to two months; he stayed four years and paid one month’s rent. The dispute produced mutual restraining orders, a physical altercation in which he allegedly choked her, and a false police report from Bachman that led to her arrest.
- Sonia Acevedo, a Rockaway Beach veterinary technician, 2012. She eventually booby-trapped her own bedroom door.
- Melissa Frost, a Philadelphia homeowner, 2012. He moved in claiming to be a Hurricane Sandy victim.
- Mark Gainer, a principal oboist in Charleston, South Carolina, 2015. Gainer reported that Bachman carried a baseball bat around the house.
- Michael Oberhauser, a composer in Washington, D.C., 2016.
- Neville Henry, in South Philadelphia, January 2017. Bachman threatened him with a broken coffee table leg within a week of moving in, then sued him.
- Alex Miller, March to May 2017. The last.
The Attack on Alex Miller
In March 2017, Alex Miller, then 31, listed a room in her Chestnut Hill apartment on Craigslist. Bachman answered as “Jed Creek.” Trouble started when Miller asked him to split $140.80 in utilities and he refused on habitability grounds.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
Miller’s mother googled his phone number and found articles identifying him by his pattern. On April 26, Miller sent him a formal notice of demand telling him police had been alerted to his history. She threw a “send-off” party on May 1. The next morning he forced his way into the bathroom, pushed Miller against a wall, put a hand on her throat, and during a struggle at his bedroom door jabbed at her with a serrated knife he had been using on cat food, cutting her thigh. In his room, Miller and her mother later found court filings from earlier housing disputes, a cleaning kit for a .380-caliber pistol, and a box of bullets.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
Bachman was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and other felonies. Miller obtained a protection from abuse order that included his eviction. His brother Harry bailed him out on June 17. During a later belongings exchange at a police precinct, Bachman pulled alongside Miller and said, “You’re dead, bitch.” He was jailed again for violating the protection order. Harry bailed him out a second time on October 28.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
The Murder of Harry Bachman
After his second release, Bachman asked to stay at Harry’s house in Elkins Park. Harry refused. His wife, Caroline, specifically asked him not to let Jamison into the house while she was out of town. On the evening of Friday, November 3, 2017, Harry stopped at the Elkins Park home on his way to Albany, New York, and texted Caroline that Jamison had just arrived.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
Harry never got to Albany. Caroline called police early on November 4. Officers initially found the house secured but noticed the family’s 2013 red Ford Escape was gone. Around noon they returned with the couple’s daughter, entered, and found a hole in the dining room drywall, a shattered serving plate, blood on the walls, and drag marks leading to the basement. Harry’s body was on the basement stairs, with blunt force trauma to the head and body and a lacerated ear. Bloody clothing had been piled in the kitchen.3CBS News Philadelphia. Man Arrested for Murder of Brother in Elkins Park
Investigators traced Harry’s iPhone to a Fairfield Inn and Suites in Upper Moreland Township and found the stolen Ford Escape in the parking lot. Bachman had checked in under his brother’s name. When a Montgomery County SWAT team came through the door, he rushed them swinging a lime-green campfire axe.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever Early police statements described the arrest as “without incident”; an affidavit filed weeks later described the axe confrontation.4NBC Philadelphia. Man Charged With Killing Brother in Elkins Park Home
On November 5, Bachman was arraigned on first-degree murder, third-degree murder, theft, receiving stolen property, and identity theft. He was denied bail.56abc. Police: Man Kills Brother in Elkins Park Home He hanged himself at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility about a month later, before his preliminary hearing.1The Reporter. Cheltenham Homicide Suspect Commits Suicide
The Tulane Killing He Witnessed
Bachman grew up in Elkins Park, four years younger than Harry, and friends later described him as the family’s “golden boy.” He enrolled at Tulane University in 1975. In January 1976, during his first year, he was on the porch of the Sigma Chi fraternity house when 25-year-old Randell Vidrine stabbed an acquaintance of Bachman’s, Ken Gutzeit, in the neck with a jackknife, severing his carotid artery. The dispute had started over eating rules at the Tulane Library. Gutzeit bled to death in front of Bachman and roughly two dozen other witnesses.6Oxygen. The Shocking Murder That Shaped Jamison Bachman’s Life
Friends who saw him that summer described him as paranoid and anxious. A therapist diagnosed him with depression and called him “excessively dependent on the world.” By his friends’ accounts he spent that summer getting high and then dropped out of their lives for about two decades. When he retold the Tulane story in later years, he embellished it, claiming Gutzeit had been decapitated with a meat cleaver.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
Books, Articles, and Screen Adaptations
The scale of Bachman’s pattern became public through journalist William Brennan’s investigation for New York magazine, published in February 2018 under the title “Worst Roommate Ever.” Brennan interviewed Miller, Frost, Acevedo, Oberhauser, Hairabedian, Gainer, and Henry, and reported that the pattern had been “unknown even to the police” before his reporting.2New York Magazine. The Worst Roommate Ever
Netflix adapted the story in 2022 as part of its documentary series Worst Roommate Ever, covering Bachman in episodes four and five of the first season, with interviews from his former roommates.7Netflix Tudum. Worst Roommate Ever A scripted feature based on Brennan’s article and focused on Miller’s experience is also in development. As of mid-2024, Paul Feig was attached to direct, Blumhouse was producing, and Stephen Susco was writing the screenplay. No cast or release date had been announced.8Deadline. Paul Feig, Blumhouse Worst Roommate Ever Movie