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?

not really notorious but my 23 year old neighbour was given a minimum of 16 years in jail for killing his girlfriend after a row. I was a witness in court of their violent relationship as he was claiming she slipped and fell onto his weapon.

Yes, there is a film about one of the locals who comes into the pub I work in. I had no idea about his violent past, he seems a very gentle man.

I dated a man who had just served 10 years on an IPS (not necessarily the right abbreviation, I can't remember) sentence for attempted murder.

He was a very old school bloke but having been inside 10 years he wasn't ready for dating in the world of modern technology and mobiles and social media offended his ideals about loyalty and respect.

My lovely late grandfather worked somewhere in Leeds and the delivery driver was Peter Sutcliffe (Jack the ripper)

The Yorkshire Ripper, not Jack - we still don't know who he is!

I’ve drunk in the same bar as OJ Simpson on a few occasions.

Our ex-vicar has many prosecutions for possessing child pornography.

My Dad's Masonic policeman friend killed his wife with his police truncheon and tried to cover it up as a traffic accident.

I taught a lovely young girl many years ago who went on to be tried, along with her boyfriend, for shaking their young baby to death when she was 20. They both refused to say who did it, so noone was ever punished for the death of the baby and noone knows who was guilty. They both were imprisoned instead of perverting the course of justice for only two and a half years, and would have been out in 2010.

I worked in a garage when I was 16. My only job was to phone customers and tell them how much work the mechanics had fabricated found and the estimated cost. It meant I had a lot of contact every day with the mechanics

They had a scheme where someone from the nearest prison would come in once or twice a week when they only had 10/12 weeks of their sentence left. It gave them an introduction into work and people again, also the garage boss would give them an appropriate reference if they got stuck in. One or two actually got jobs either in our garage or within the company

Normally I just worked two evenings and weekends, but through the summer I'd worked nearly ever day. Then I went on holiday for a week with my best friend's family

Got back to a meeting with my boss, his boss, her boss, a police detective, a man from the prison, another woman from the probation service, my school Head Teacher, a social worker and my Nana

The woman from the probation service had been in for a meeting and spotted the general invitation for my 17th birthday and had freaked out. She'd been under the impression there was no females under 18 that worked there. I was questioned for hours and hours over five meetings about any conversation we'd had. Had I told him where I lived and did he know my age being the main repeated questions. I was told he'd raped a girl under 18 and he wasn't meant to have any contact with females under 18

It was years before I actually found out he was a repeated rapist and murderer. He murdered again a few years ago and is suspected of many more murders - all of young women

Harold Shipman was my GP.

Another who does this as a job.
This could be your father, mother, sister, brother, son, cousin, friend etc. People commit horrific crimes. Even the seemingly nice ones. Everyone has a story.
Nowt glamorous going on.

I live round the corner from one of Danny Dyer's deadliest men. He's actually lovely. Real member of the community. I'm aware he obviously has a dark past, but that's all behind him now.

Love this thread! I haven't met anyone but I've written to a couple of well known US serial killers.

I've name changed for this.

Peter Tobin was the handyman in a local church before he was caught. I 'knew' him to say hello to in passing.

@DahmerDarling, to me your user name and what you have written is indicative of someone who is naively thrilled by this type of person, get real, there is nothing glamorous about people who rape, murder or torture other human beings....

@DahmerDarling, you are in urgent need of a new hobby.

Why would you write to them? Are you seeking the thrill of being associated with them?

@lyralalala, that's reminded me that had a lot of penpals when I was a teenager and somehow ended up writing to a young man in a Young Offenders Institution. He then passed on my name and address to fellow inmates. One of them freely told me that he was in for raping a 15 year old girl and that he wasn't supposed to have contact with anyone under the age of 18, but was I okay with him writing to me?! And the mail is allegedly checked?! I was 15 at the time.

Looking back now, I should have reported it. Especially as he had my name and address. I just didn't write back, and he never made any attempt to contact me again. Whilst what he did was horrific, I can only hope that being imprisoned for it had the effect it needed and that he never did it again.

I used to work in a public facing office where we had a few regular faces come in with queries. This chap used to come in and he was very paranoid and quite domineering. He was almost flirty and his gaze was horrible. You would answer his questions but never quite to his satisfaction.

I would see him round and about town and he would always chat but I always felt uneasy. My friend and I were sat eating chips on a church wall at 2am after leaving a nightclub and he wandered over to chat and I remember us freezing when he showed us an enormous knife he had tucked inside his jackets and he was quite hyped, like he was on cocaine. We should have called the police at this point in hindsight.

A couple weeks later he was arrested for abducting, drugging and raping his female victim and supergluing all the locks in his house so she couldn't escape. She managed to get out and was found half dressed wandering in the early hours. I remember seeing the forensic tent and media camped outside his house. A media blackout was imposed and I can't find out what happened but I'm guessing he's in Rampton or Broadmoor.

@DahmerDarling why would you do that? I don’t understand the mentality of anyone writing to serial killers, it’s just odd.

Yes, you could say that. On all occasions I have been struck either by how unbelievably “stupid” (and manipulated) or how clever (and manipulating) they were, with nothing in between. There was never anything scary about these encounters though, which is what made it so strange knowing who they were.

No, but my mate had regular shags with someone who is now in prison for the jewellery robbery at The Dome. Nice bloke, not a bit scary 🤣

My grandparents used to live on the same street as the Kray twins, they would fuss over my dad in his pram and carry my nan's shopping for her 🤨

No, but Ive an example of power of mind in these circumstances.

I once went to a local theatre group stage play which included a murder.

A few years later, I was in town shopping and there was this really dodgy looking bloke in the queue in front of me. I didnt know him but had a feeling he was horrible and I was really suspicious and thought it was "first impressions, gut feeling". A few hours later, still slightly spooked by the strong feeling I had, I suddenly realised it was the guy who played the part (obviously very well!) of the murderer in the play a few years earlier.

@2of50BookChallenge2020done

It's scary how contacts can slip through the net

Where I worked there were apprentices and the probation people had asked if any of the apprentices were female. My boss had said no - which was accurate as I was an office junior - and that was the end of the questions

I regularly walked the 25 minutes from the garage to the city centre by myself. It was a standing joke because the lads would regularly bound out of one of the alleys at me to make me jump.

I was also so young looking I never paid full price on the train - another joke - and that was known by this man and anyone he decided to tell

I didn't think too much about it until years later. Now that I have teenage daughters I completely understand why my Nana was absolutely furious

Fortunately didn't meet....and didn’t find out about this until years later.

On honeymoon in 1981. We borrowed my parents car and went on a European camping trip. Some nights in sites others wild camping in woods, forest tracks etc.

Unknown to us there was a predatory Italian murderer/sex attacker who preyed on those camping in the middle of nowhere.

....................

One of my teaching colleagues predicted that one particular lad would murder someone one day. He did.

Amazed at how many people know!