Police stumble upon house of horrors while searching for dead body

Police have stumbled upon a house of horrors while searching the home of a dead recluse who is suspected of murdering a young boy.

The unsettling home filled with creepy objects belonged to Peter Haskell, an 85-year-old who died last month.

After his death, police extensively searched the home for clues to a decade-long mystery of a murdered child.

There were no human remains inside the home, but some incredibly bizarre items turned up in the days-long search.

Among them are a box of children's identification cards, a boy mannequin dressed in a soccer uniform, two mutilated mannequin arms, a tooth in a container, women's underwear, dolls and hundreds of children's videos, according to the Boston Globe.

Police also found a dozen Barbie-type dolls, with the breasts cut off at least one of them.

Three bones, which authorities believe belonged to an animal, were also discovered.

Mr Haskell came to the attention of police more than nine years ago.

An unnamed man told officers he was taken by Mr Haskell to the woods near his Massachusetts home when he was only five or six-years-old.

The witness claims Mr Haskell murdered another boy in front of him.

"This is what happens to bad little boys," the man allegedly declared as he was hitting the murdered child in the head with a rock.

The murdered child was aged between eight and 12, and had sandy brown or blonde hair when he was killed in either 1969 or 1970.

His accuser - who also alleges Mr Haskell sexually abused him between the ages of 10 and 12 - remains anonymous.

Investigators checked Mr Haskell's home in 2007 but failed to find anything.

No missing children reports from 1969 or 1970 matched the description of the child either.