Confusion

"No...No, Mark disappeared himself in 1979. Just up and vanished off the face of the Earth. No trace was ever found. The town went through some legal wranglings and got the deed to the house and sold it."

What?? That didn't make any sense. How could the killings go on if Mark Finch was no longer the owner of the house? The killings were done inside the house, for God's sake! I doubted that the new owner would turn a blind eye to the previous owner using the house to commit brutal murders every year for the next 40 years.