No murderers as far as I know, but I had ( anow deceased) family member who did federal time, but straightened themselves out after they were released.
I also worked in the restaurant industry, where you meet some people with very colorful pasts.
No murderers as far as I know, but I had ( anow deceased) family member who did federal time, but straightened themselves out after they were released.
I also worked in the restaurant industry, where you meet some people with very colorful pasts.
There was a kid who grew up up the hill from me. We had known each other since fifth grade and graduated from the same small high school together. We weren't super close, but we were did kid stuff: took the same bus every day, rode bike, played football, kickball and frisbee in the neighborhood all the time. He was very quiet, but smiled all the time, so we called him Smiley. He was a nice kid, but his older brother was a troublemaker.
Years later, I had built a house very close to where his parents lived (five houses away). I was driving my daughter to school one morning, and I saw a town cop driving slowly up the hill, as if he was trying to read the numbers on the doors of of houses with long driveways. Then another cop, driving slowly up the road. I thought maybe one of the older neighbors hadn't woken up that morning and they were coming to investigate.
As we got closer to our destination, we started seeing State Troopers heading toward us, coming in hot, two in each car, and I knew that something was up. After I dropped my daughter off at school, I headed back home and there were cop cars everywhere, and two cops laying in the grass with rifles pointed at his parent's front door. My immediate thought was, "Smiley's brother has finally done something big this time...".
Nope.
Smiley had gone off his meds and killed his fiancee across town the night before, and then drove to his parents' house in the morning and confessed. He was taken into custody without incident, and is now serving life in prison.
After his father retired, I used to see him heading out to visit his son in prison. I really felt bad for the old man. When Smiley's mother died, they listed him as one of her survivors, from the town where the prison is located.
When I worked as a admissions counselor for 10 years I had met several criminals, one ended getting 25 to life high profile drug and prostitution ring. Super nice to me, always greeted me as Mr. The day he was sentenced he came in and talked to me. Told me that he had to leave school for a while and thanked me for all I had done for him. Another guy I met with was a sex offender he tried to meet with a underage girl that was a FBI agent, it happened two years before I met him, it was in the paper, and he was in his 20's, he was upfront about it, regardless he made a mistake. The worst was a I had a meeting with someone fresh out and they had their parole officer with them, he had been in out of jail for several reason mainly violence, didn't meet any of the academic requirements, suggested another school and he lost it. I told him to leave and never comeback. I am pretty sure I could write a book with all the crazy stories I have.
A kid I caddied with for probably 7 years. He was from a rougher neighborhood, but went to the private high school. Out of all the people I caddied with, if you told me that someone that I worked with murdered someone I would have 100% believed you. There were some rough and shady characters, I don't think I'd have ever guessed him. Probably spent about 140 hours or so hanging out with him over the years.
Then there is one childhood friend who is serving time and is on the sex offender list. Looking back there were signs that this person had been abused as a child, and signs that this person should have been getting help.
My wife had a childhood friend who's life was pretty berkeleyed up. We suspect she was FAS. Parents were terrible influences. They would let the teens (kids) party at their house. Loaded guns just sitting out, with teens and alcohol. Well one day the step dad decides to play Russian roulette with the kids. He pressured the kids to play too. Stepdad is now in prison for pressuring a child to play Russian roulette. Child is dead. Step Dad had a few more years added on for all the drugs in the house and the fact that he ran away, was able to avoid getting caught for a day or two.
My BIL was on death row before the governor dropped the death penalty(conveniently just before he himself was arrested & imprisoned). He was convicted of one murder, suspected of another(which he very unlikely committed), and still proclaims his innocence.
He & SWMBO are still close & talk frequently, though she doesn't get the chance to visit much anymore. I've visited him before & other than having to go through security & the fact you're deep inside a prison, it wasn't a strange or awkward visit at all.
I will say if there ever comes a day that he's pardoned I wouldn't hesitate to let him stay here indefinitely.
Nobody I've had to deal with before/after differences, but a few acquaintances and distant relatives.
- A mechanic's dad caught his wife at the time cheating on him some time in the '80s, threw a half-stick of dynamite into the bedroom while they were at it, went to jail for quite some time...I met him in the 2010s
- A distant relative did a murder-suicide on his wife and himself
- Another distant relative is accused of murdering his wife. He says she killed herself by jumping off a balcony in front of him, police think she was thrown.
- There was a guy I used to chat with on a computer modding/gaming forum, years later on another forum (which I lurked on but wasn't a member of at the time) in the middle of an epic thread about a cross-country motorcycle ride he was doing, it came out that he sexually assaulted a woman from the forum he was staying with on a leg of the trip.
- I'm acquainted with the father of the driver in the '07 Gumball crash that killed two people.
I went to hs with a kid (now in his mid 40s) that's serving life without for the death of a MN state trooper after a car chase gone bad or something along those lines. I'm not really surprised - he'd already stolen one teachers car and totalled it, among other things.
Apparently he was also the youngest person in MN to catch life- he was 17 when he did the crime. https://mndaily.com/259407/uncategorized/deputys-family-teen-who-killed-him-face-future/#:~:text=DUNDAS%2C%20Minn.,a%20chase%20in%20May%201996.
https://coms.doc.state.mn.us/publicviewer/OffenderDetails/Index/187051/Search
I did business with a guy now and again. One day he said he'd probably not be continuing our business relationship. He mentioned sentencing. He was a real estate developer in Ann Arbor, MI. I assumed he'd cheated on some deals or something.
Nope!
Pedophile. He had hundreds or thousands of videos on his computer, and over a million images. Some of those he was in. He did the same in Canada. He was given a sentence in the US, and I understood he would be given a LOT of time in Canada. I just looked him up. Nope, he's walking free among us now.
Wow. Just wow.
One of my best friends killed his brother with an axe when they were teens. No one ever knew about it because it was in the 70s and they live in the middle of nowhere. From what I understand, nobody missed the jerk brother, everyone assumed he ran away, and they were thankful for it. I only found out about it after we had been friends for 20 years. I figured that 20 years of friendship trumps any preconceptions about whether or not he was dangerous.
One of the guys I used to camp with was doing a survival camping trip in the wilderness of Alaska many moons ago (70s or 80s maybe) and some shady weird recluse tried to steal his stuff and threatened him with a knife, so my friend sliced his throat with a swiss army knife. He buried him in the snow because the ground was frozen. That guy had some PTSD demons from the Vietnam War as well, so I'm sure there is more to the story.
Neither one of them ever faced charges. I assume the second one could have easily been self defense, but I doubt anyone ever knew it happened.
I have some berkeleyed up friends. Never really thought about it until now.
Friend of a friend was convicted of murder, in his late teens or early twenties, and did his time. I guess he was gay and put the moves on an acquaintance and it wasn't well received. There was a fight and he stabbed him. They found the body in a snow bank. I only met him a few times. The local VW dealer gave him a chance and hired him as their parts guy. He stopped by my shop a few times on a delivery run and let me take the new Rabbit turbo diesel out.
Also in the 80's, a good friend of mine was busted in Miami with a suitcase full of cash, just like in the movies. I used to do all his repairs, maintenance, and find him (in his words) inconspicuous cars, which could keep me busy, as he had quite a fleet of them. He got 7 years in a US prison.
I may have earned quite well through the 80's. I had my own retail and wholesale operation offering something that's legal here now.
I had an uncle that lived with us off and on. He wasn't a bum, he just didn't really have a life plan and seemed to drift between jobs. He would sometimes show up at our house with gifts for everyone, anything from high end electronics to home appliances, and everything in between. I learned the meaning of it fell off the back of a truck pretty early. Our family was quite blue collar, and from a bit of a rough area, and things like that were not out of the ordinary
One of the guys I wrestled with in HS got arrested for murder of I think it was a GF(A female in his life). I was driving into work one day and heard it on the news and was like hmmm not really surprised. He was always a bit of a punk. I think I need to look and see what happened to him.
In reply to Duke :
I don't recall the cop's exact verbage, but yeah, cut ties immediately.
914Driver said:In reply to Duke :
I don't recall the cop's exact verbage, but yeah, cut ties immediately.
I was just wondering if they thought he had probably made the transition to actually molesting, or whether the images were enough of an outlet to prevent the physical aspect. Because I wondered that about the person I knew.
Not that I'm saying the imagery should be acceptable in any way at all, but hopefully you get my point.
Duke said:914Driver said:In reply to Duke :
I don't recall the cop's exact verbage, but yeah, cut ties immediately.
I was just wondering if they thought he had probably made the transition to actually molesting, or whether the images were enough of an outlet to prevent the physical aspect. Because I wondered that about the person I knew.
Not that I'm saying the imagery should be acceptable in any way at all, but hopefully you get my point.
Getting pretty far away from the point of the thread here, but this is something I've pondered quite a bit. Where is that line? I heard a story on NPR once, I wish I could find it, but it basically involved someone asking a patient what they were most proud of in their life. The guy answered that he had never acted inappropriately with a minor. The person who asked laughed, thinking it was a joke, and the guy said something to the effect of "no, I'm serious - I'm sexually attracted to them, but have known it is wrong and been able to isolate myself from it".
He didn't choose to be attracted to that group of off limits people. He just is. But acting on it is rephrehensible. Where do we draw the line? Feeling that way? Viewing SFW images/videos? NSFW images/videos? What if it is an adult, who looks like a child? Is that wrong? I grew up with someone who could pass as a 10 year old when she was 25 - the only indication that she was an adult was a tattoo, which I'm pretty sure she got just to make her look older. I was always amazed that this person was an adult, and wondered what it would be like to be her partner - I personally would find it so creepy, at least initially. If one was attracted to her, does that make you a bad person?
I don't know if this is studied at all. I feel like it should be, but would immediately be shouted down and impossible to get funded. Similar to the people who suggested that sexual urges can be behind sexual assault - everybody is so sold on the idea that it is just for power and control, while completely ignoring another root cause.
Definitely not family or friend, but when my wife was practice teaching, she would come home and say if I ever have a student that is going to make the news in a bad way, this one kid is the one.
Fast forward several years and we are going home from my in laws we see a bunch of unmarked cop cars on a frontage road. We say to each other something serious has happened there. Sure enough, my wife's former student (James Terry Roach), and older army guy (Joesph Carl Shaw) and a 16 year old kid had raped a girl multiple times and killed here where we saw the cops. They had kidnapped her from her boyfriends car where they had also killed him. Shaw returned to the scene and raped her dead body again. They had also murdered another woman in a trailer park near Fort Jackson just before that. They caught them pretty quickly, were convicted and were executed in the electric chair. The 16 year old got life in prison and testified against the others. He died in prison several years later.
Year later my wife taught with a lady whose son kidnapped and murdered 2 guys from the local theater and shot them both with a 44 magnum. His mom claimed her son was a good boy and only did it because he was scared of his accomplice. Of course he could have shot his accomplice instead of 2 innocent kids. They were both convicted and executed as well.
In reply to mtn :
Along that line of discussion, the former friend I mentioned earlier had a girlfriend he met at a bar (she was a bartender). She was petite and looked far younger than her age.
What if it is an adult, who looks like a child? Is that wrong? I grew up with someone who could pass as a 10 year old when she was 25 - the only indication that she was an adult was a tattoo, which I'm pretty sure she got just to make her look older. I was always amazed that this person was an adult, and wondered what it would be like to be her partner - I personally would find it so creepy, at least initially. If one was attracted to her, does that make you a bad person?
I worked with a (sorry Duke) girl who was quite small, like probably about 4'10". She did not look particularly young, and had perfect proportions. Mentioning to a coworker how good looking I thought she was, he said she looked like she was 12 years old, called me a sicko and meant it
I thought he was the sick berkeley because there was nothing even remotely young looking about her, she was just small. People are berkeleyed.
I worked with a guy that was in the construction business, after we parted ways he got talked into helping another guy collect a debt. Killed the debtor with a hammer.
In reply to Peabody :
Yeah, I know some women like that too. The person I'm referring to legitimately looked like a child, at least until she had children herself. It wasn't that she was short - though she was less than 5'- but literally everything else. There were no outside indications that she had gone through puberty at all.
My grandfather stuck a sawed-off shotgun in the face of a corrupt racist southern cop back in the 50's and was ready to murder the guy. I don't think that counts though...
In reply to mtn :
It was just my coworkers inability to separate the two that astounded me.
I think he was the one with the problem, not me
Ooh I forgot about a guy I went to school with. He was older, but had been held back until he was in our grade, then either dropped out or got kicked out. I remember hanging out with him & a couple friends on the street corner downtown when he mentioned that someday he was going to get his dad's gun, climb up on the roof of the building across the street & shoot everyone - except us because he thought we were cool. We never worried about it at all.
Years later he killed his wife, did about 20-years & got out a few years ago. He friended me on FB, but I think he's deleted his account since then.
Thanks guys for the thoughts, much appreciated. Charges were just filed, and everything is in a disarray. Events happened about 350 miles from here. The kids+wife have to get released, then home, settled, I am just at a loss still, and definitely in shock about it.
Steve_Jones - yeah definitely can't abondon the family, especially the kids. It is on the national news, so I am sure people have seen it.
CAinCA - Damn thats some story, my friend.
dculberson - 50 years is definitely something. For me its very strange on this one, as I knew them before wedding and kids, and now...I mean..i can't even fathom the charges. Yeah the family are the victims here.. they definitely need the support once they recover from the injuries.
Javelin - YIKES. My sister was a Psychiatrist for a local prison. She did for 7 years. COuldn't take it. Now does private practice for rich folk...... doesn't enjoy the work ...but hardly any stress, and the pay is ridiculous.
914Driver during covid, an investor bought a house a block away. He was going to put 4 sex offenders in there. Two judges live on the block. They got wind of it. Huge protests happened, and the people showed up at the investors house (mile away) protesting their. Their business is to buy houses in CA and use them as halfway for sex offenders, and bill the state huge $ compared to the actual average rent in the area (example, rent should be $6500 for a 3+2, but they were charging $8700).
golfduke - shot him in front of everyone? must have been gruesome!
Pete- yeah when I was doign the project at death row - the crimes were so hineous, but after years and years there, and when you visit them all time, we saw them as people and families etc.... most were so many years removed from their crime (not excusing it), just saying it out loud, since I always got the questions back then "OMG how can you work with murdereds and rapists"
curtis- damn your friends are messed up!!
I was a kid, when she married my friend's uncle, Freddie Schultz. Only met her a couple times, but I knew Freddie and his sons (well, his oldest son, mostly).
Looking back, I don't believe Laurie did it. I firmly believe that if Freddie didn't do it himself, he damn well knows who did. Why? He got rid of both ex-wives - kill one, framing it on the other.
That HS murder experience was kind of a life changer for me. I had been in fist fights at every school I ever attended. I never started any of them but I always finished them. After that I cooled off and reverted to my more passivist side.
I almost forgot one. At my first tech job there was a late 20's guy who was smart but pretty abrasive. A couple years after I started working with him he flew to the Philippines and married a girl (18ish). Around that time he grew a "pedo stach". We gave him a load of crap about it. Fast forward 20 years and I was talking to my old boss and he mentioned that he had a couple of ex employees in prison. The guy in question got nailed for kiddie porn and got a lot of prison time for it. I don't know all the details and I sure as berkeley don't want to know.
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