Have you ever met or had any scary encounters with a notorious criminal...

[3littlemincemeatpies]

I am fascinated by true crime, particularly the behaviours shown and also how the investigations unfold into catching them...

I’m also a big fan of NM’s WOO/scary/creepy threads and thought I’d tie the two together and ask for your scary/near miss encounters with any evil and notorious criminals.

I actually don’t have any of my own other than my dad being involved in the investigation/operation that led to the arrest a well known Scottish peadophile, it was all very dramatic with the raid team (dad included) gaining access to his property in the back of a RM van...

Does anyone have anymore?

Well, I didn’t know he was a notorious criminal at the time. I worked for a financial institution and had to do checks on every new customer. His check came up amber as in ok, but no need to call HO for confirmation.

This chap put a few thousand into an account. Nothing unusual as to the location I worked in.

A few months later I opened up a news article online and there he was in full glory. I googled him and he’d been in prison for tax evasion and fraud and was linked to other high up odious people and famous people. I reported him to our fraud team.

Last year he was linked to a case where someone was murdered. He wasn’t involved, but the venue was his.

When I was a lot younger I worked in a decidedly dodgy club and a man came in with his absolutely stunning young wife, she didn't really speak but he told me they were from Belarus. The more drinks he had the chattier he got, turned out that not only was he from Belarus, they were people traffickers, trafficking women into the sex trade on the pretence of nannying jobs. He was really chilling. I remember saying "are you not worried about the police?" He laughed and said "no, I live on big farm. Sometimes Russian comes with Kalashnikov so I shoot them and bury them, no trouble for me"

He could have just been a fantasist but there was just something about him that gave me chills and I got the impression he wasn't.

I grew up quite friendly with a chap who became a rapist. I dated his brother and he seemed to be just an annoying younger brother- we’d find him peering through keyholes etc to see if we were doing anything (not much really, I was about 14). Makes me feel very different about it in retrospect.

He was convicted totally by chance due to a familial DNA link, several years after his offences.

x2boys I remember that murder quite vividly. I was working at the hospital there. I think the victim had been visiting a relative on one of the wards the night she died. As a rule I would have got the bus down to the station to continue my onward journey but that particular evening I got a lift thank goodness....

Fudgecakes. I think I once spotted the chap you are referring to - noticed him because he was being loud and lairy in the street one day. When the story hit the press and the photos came out, I thought ‘he looks vaguely familiar’ and then . My then bf used to use the spot in front of his house to park as it was so quiet....

And my mum spotted his equally well-known spouse in the hairdressers.

I sold something, buggered if I can remember what, to Mad Frankie Fraser.

My friend assisted in the autopsy on one of the most notorious serial killers of our time.

As a kid my best friend's brother made me feel really uneasy. He would often lock me and my friend in rooms in the house or in the shed and we would be really scared of him. He was about eight years older than me so about fifteen or sixteen. He made me watch him do a poo once! I was so scared of him I didn't tell anyone. My friend used to cry about how mean he was but it was put down to normal childhood behaviour. A couple of years later he was convicted of rape and when he got out he beat someone to death.

Not notorious but I was in an am dram panto a few years ago playing a part that worked heavily with the Dame (my characters Nanny). Two weeks before we opened we were told that our Dame could no longer continue as he was being arrested for possessing child pornography. He was subsequently jailed for it.

This guy had been the Dame in this theatres production for more years than we could all remember. Hell of a shock. On the outside, the nicest, most genteel gentleman you could ever wish to meet. Real pillar of the community. He had to be tried in a different county as he was an ex judge. I still can't wrap my head around it and it was years ago now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23451463

I unfortunately know this guy....

I've told this before on Mn.

One summer I was a lifeguard cadet. Trained every week with other cadets and we worked shifts as volunteer assistants during the day.

Went back to school after summer. Wandering home one day through town to find one of my fellow cadets on a wanted poster.

He was convicted for kidnap and murder and the case was so horrific there was a media blackout on some details.

Very well known case lovably and think probably nationally as well.

Maxine Carr gets the same bus as my mum every week

I worked with a guy who burgled and murdered 3 old ladies. You would have never have known. It wasnt until the final burglary he committed was in the home of a lady who had cameras and there was the usual "do you recognise this man" posts on the local news pages that we all found out

Yes she had Katharin, I was a student nurse at the time but not in the same town as had moved away I think most locals remember it ,he was only found by chance years later

My exhusband's nephew was taught by Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, and I used to drink in a pub, the Manville Arms, where he net one of his victims.

@Craftycorvid....in a town in the SW with a river and a beautiful cathedral by any chance?

Maxine Carr used to do the night shifts at our local 24h supermarket. She was pregnant at the time and was swiftly ushered to (another) new life once people figured out it was her.

Fudgecakes. The very same.

I work in law and have met many murderers. Most of them seem completely normal. It's really has no glamour or excitement.

I've worked with these people.
There is no 'woo' crossover. It helps to think of criminals as 'other' but in reality they are no bogeymen, but mundane, average looking people who are rarely terrifying and have no menacing presence about them.

Some of these people*

@MyLamaDontLikeYou she has such a recogniseable face I wonder how many times that has happened to her. And whether her daughter will only find out after she has died?

It’s probably quite outing but I had a run in with the chap who played the character ‘Random Task’ in Austin Powers.

When i found out about what he did ( he’s imprisoned for torture) I honestly thank my lucky stars that I had my wits about me.

Maxine Carr gets the same bus as my mum every week
In reality Maxine Carr's only crime was that she was misguidedly loyal to her boyfriend. He convinced her that he was innocent but that the circumstantial would suggest his guilt.

Friend from childhood is in prison for 2 violent rapes.

My first kiss ended up a drug addict who stabbed a teenager to death over his ex.

My mother went to school with a man who burgled an old lady, didn't realise she was in at the time, so killed her.

I didn't grow up in a very nice area though.