Robert Swift

Recently, we reported on the unfortunate saga of Robert Swift, the 7-foot high school stiff the Seattle Supersonics drafted with the 12th pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. Swift was holed up in a foreclosed home in a Seattle suburb, refusing to leave after the bank sold the property for half its original price. Well, Swift finally left the home sometime over the weekend (likely under threat of a court order), but he left the home’s new owners with nasty reminders of the previous tenant. From KOMO TV:

“The first thing you get when you walk in the door is kind of whiff of whatever is festering in here,” said Jessica Ko-Dalzell. She and her husband Eric now own a mansion on a hill Sammamish.

“It was a shocker. It was definitely a shocker,” Eric said.

What was it that was so shocking?

Animal feces clogs the deck. Walls are punched out on different levels of the house. One even has an autograph. Pizza boxes and beer bottles are piled on the kitchen granite.

Multiple guns were found in the home. Some appear to be air guns, but live ammo was also found. Dalzell said they also found a handgun.

A makeshift shooting range is in the basement storage area. Eric Dalzell said load-bearing beams have graze marks from bullets, and part of the home’s foundation appeared to stop some of the slugs.

Robert Swift

Robert Swift

Robert Swift

While the feces, handguns and beer bottles might have been the most disgusting remnants (there’s a full gallery on the KOMO link), the most depressing has to be a box of recruiting letters the Ko-Dalzells found:

A box of letters from colleges around the nation sat pushed against a downstairs wall. It looked like another trash box. Crests and logos of UCLA, Arizona, UConn and others are jammed together as untold memories of what could have been for Swift.

There’s an obvious “Rosebud” comparison to be made here, as Swift held onto those letters for nearly a decade — a reminder of what could have been; what should have been; or what he wished had been.

[KOMO]