Dateline: The Dream House Mystery - Who was Lindsay Buziak and what happened to her? Disturbing details of a 2008 incident, revealed

Dateline: The Dream House Mystery, which aired on September 17, 2010 on NBC, focused on the murder of Lindsay Buziak, a Canadian real estate agent. Lindsay, a twenty-four-year-old woman, was found stabbed multiple times in a house in Saanich, British Columbia, worth almost a million dollars. The day she thought would be a good work day had turned into the worst day of her life.

On February 2, 2008, Lindsay Buziak and her then-boyfriend Jason Zailo had lunch together and then went their own ways, agreeing to meet at the Saanich house later. Lindsay was about to show a house worth almost a million dollars to a couple. While it sounded like a mundane situation, Lindsay would end up dying that very day in the very house she was hoping to sell. The Dateline: Secrets Uncovered episode that aired on November 2, 2022 shows details of this strange murder case that remains unsolved even after a decade.

Details of the Dateline: The Dream House Mystery

Lindsay, as her father Jeff Buziak describes to Dateline, was a:

"spectacular young woman.”

Jeff also said that she could:

“make friends with everybody. You would want to be part of her life. You would want to be her friend."

Given the kind of person he described his daughter to be, it makes sense that he had a question like:

''How could you possibly think you’d want her dead?”

A few days before the murder, Lindsay talked to the couple on the phone and felt that they spoke English with an accent. As Dateline reports, Lindsay had told her father that the couple's accent was:

“kind of Spanish but not really.”

She had also saved their number as 'The Mexicans', probably because she made that assumption from their accent. Investigation after the murder revealed that a burner phone was used by the couple to call Lindsay, which is why the couple was hard to trace. As far as specific details go, the couple had purchased the burner phone a few weeks before February 2.

No further information could be acquired about the callers or the owner of the phone, as it was registered under a fake name. The fact that it had been activated merely two days before the murder made it look like this wasn't just any murder. It was well-planned, and as the police confirmed, Lindsay was most likely targeted for a specific reason.

Dateline also revealed that Lindsay had written in her diary that the couple had asked for a house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. They had asked the house to have a separate arrangement for accommodating a housekeeper. Additionally, they had a high budget of a million dollars.

One thing about the requests was strange. The couple had asked for a house that they could buy in two days. While in retrospect that sounds odd and suspicious, it didn't seem strange to Lindsay. She went ahead and scheduled to show them a house worth $964,000 on February 2, 2008.

Events on the day of the murder

According to Dateline, on February 2, 2008, Lindsay and her then-boyfriend Jason had gone to lunch. While Jason, a mortgage broker, went to run an errand, Lindsay went to the Saanich home for the potential sale. The police initially suspected Jason to be the killer, but surveillance footage showed him somewhere else, leaving in his car to meet Lindsay. This was the same time, that is 5:30 pm, that Lindsay (as reported by witnesses) was seen meeting the couple who were interested in the house.

Witness testimonies revealed that the couple was Caucasian. According to Dateline, the woman seemed like she was in her late thirties, with blonde hair cut short. She was wearing a black and white dress which had some colour on it, either red or pink. The man's age wasn't described much, but witnesses observed him to be tall, around 6'0 in height. He had brown or black hair and was dressed well.

Saanich Police Detective-Sgt. Chris Horsley said to Dateline:

“The witnesses were quite firm in that it appeared to be a meeting, a shaking of the hands, so we’re quite satisfied that the people who showed up were not known to Lindsay.”

Around eight minutes later, Jason had texted Lindsay to inform her he was close by, but had received no response from her. At 5:41PM, Lindsay’s phone made an outgoing call, believed to be an accidental pocket dial, that must have happened during or just after the attack. At 5:45PM, Jason arrived outside the house and saw a few people in the entryway, but did not bother them, assuming Lindsay was showing her clients the house.

As 6PM came along, Jason grew concerned as Lindsay didn’t respond to messages. He walked to the door, and on finding it locked, called 911 at 6:05PM. Shortly after 6:05PM, Jason helped his friend climb over the back fence. As Dateline reports, his friend entered through the back and unlocked the front door for Jason. They discovered Lindsay’s body in the upstairs bedroom, stabbed multiple times. Jason tried CPR, but Lindsay was already deceased.

As seen on Dateline, police and forensic investigations revealed that there were no signs of robbery or sexual assault. Lindsay’s Blackberry was in her pocket, indicating the murderer(s) were not after money or possessions. The house had been recently cleaned, leaving little forensic evidence. The police's theory suggested that Lindsay was possibly killed by hired killers.

Investigation results

Even after so many years, the couple Lindsay met that day remains unidentified and has never been found. According to Dateline, Jason Zailo was suspected but publicly cleared about a year later after an extensive investigation, due to a lack of evidence and a clear alibi. Lindsay's ex-boyfriend, Matt MacDuff, was also investigated and ruled out as the two had not spoken in months.

Years later, the murder of Lindsay Buziak remains unsolved. Her father, Jeff Buziak, spoke with Dateline's Josh Mankiewicz, saying:

“I’m not going to let her down. The only way I’m going to stop right now finding out who killed her, is die myself and I’ll be dying trying, I’ll guarantee you that.”

As Victoria Buzz reports, Jeff Buziak has spent a lot of money in

“the pursuit of justice."

and even a $500,000 reward for anyone who had information about her daughter's murder.

Authorities also think Lindsay may have seen or heard something incriminating. She may have been targeted through her social media or professional rivals. No concrete links to organized crime were established, though some of her associates were involved in illegal activity.

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All the released episodes of Dateline can be streamed on Peacock. New Dateline episodes come out on Fridays on NBC at 10 pm ET.

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