Well, since I originally posted this, I went out and had a look at the door, and the PO obviously DID do some modifications.
First of all, I think it is a pretty new gasket, because it is black and still squishy. AND, a little bit of it next to the lock has been cut out, so obviously he was trying to get the door shut.
But you can also see that there used to be some kind of additional hardware there, which is now missing, possibly because the door was having trouble closing? It does latch with this half-@$$ed setup right now...
Then I just noticed this this spring:
So, I'm not sure what kind of gasket or trim might have been up top on that eyebrow area... or if there was anything there at all. But it does look like he just applied some black tape to that area, maybe just to make it look pretty, or maybe to hide the fact that some trim was missing?