In 1677, he became involved in a business endeavour with James Forsythe, who soon found out that Brutus was cheating him out of money. At the same time, Brutus discovered that James was having an affair with his wife, Amanda Collins. Brutus took revenge by murdering both James and Amanda. He locked their dead bodies in a secret room in the west wing—the room that would come to be feared by the Collins family for centuries. This curse lasted until 1841, when Bramwell Collins and Catherine Harridge Collins successfully survived the room.