What happens to the families of those who have committed heinious crimes?

[FaeFae]

Given recent heinious crimes and sentencing, set me thinking. How do about their parents, siblings and grandparents continue their lives?

What happens to them?

Yes, I can.

There isn't any information about anyone who has been wrongly convicted.

I asked you who has been wrongly convicted because I don't see any evidence posted about proven wrong convictions.

I think it would be possible as a parent to know your child was innocent based on your understanding of their personality and behaviour from childhood onwards. Obviously this wouldn't be evidence that would count in court but it would count in your own mind.

If you had a child that was kind and polite and caring to their siblings and the dog and never agressive. Who had lots of friends and whose worst faults were that they were a bit messy and sometimes forgot to do their homework. Well you probably wouldn't believe they were a serial killer would you? Unless there was extremely strong direct evidence from eyewitnesses and vidoes etc and even then you would probably think they had an undiagnosed brain tumour or some other rare medical condition that had altered their personality.

Or conversely you might want to believe your child was innocent because you loved them but actually know deep down that sometimes they could be agressive or unkind or had been in trouble in the past but just be in denial about it.

often the family are targeted by people who as they are related so they get targeted by damage to houses etc hate mail so they end up having to up sticks move houses jobs etc
some well known criminals families still support and visit but I know that i could not

We don't need to wait the years it will take to prove it in a court. It's patently obvious to anyone with half a brain.

I've just remembered something.

The reason Hindley and Brady were caught is that Hindley's brother in law, David Smith, witnessed the last murder and went to the police.

But both he and Hindley's sister were attacked more than once.

Yes and it had a catastrophic effect on Maureen (Myra's sister) life, her marriage to David broke down and she abandoned her sons (although later David regained custody of them). Strangely thought she never disowned Myra and even supported her parole bids. IIRC her justification was that Ian Brady had groomed MH and the blame lay entirely with him.

Smith was present at the last killing hence why he blew the whistle, he went home to his wife they were so scared they hid for hours then sneaked to a phone box to call the police. The police disguised themselves as bread delivery men. I think Maureen died from a brain haemorage or tumour I am not sure. I do not know if David is still alive or not

David Smith died 13 years ago. He appears in the TV documentary Myra: The Making of a Monster.

You get on with your life, with great difficulty I imagine.

I read something quite recently actually, about the two sets of parents of the Columbine killers. One of the mothers went on to make it her life's mission to educate others about suicide awareness, school violence and mental health.

The other family had the benefit of more bland names, quickly moved away and set up whole new lives.

Even though he blew the whistle on them he suffered from the stigma for the rest of his life of people thinking he was guilty and had "got away with it".

I remember reading a quote from his wife once saying that she was dreading the day Ian Brady died because she whole thing would be brought up again with fresh new rounds of whispers and finger pointing.

This starts in school imo. "He says he didn't do it". Ok, well I was there and I saw him punch another kid. "They took his pen..." Excuse after excuse...

I feel the same. I would be appalled if they were guilty of a horrific crime, but I could not turn my back on them. I love them with every fibre of my being.

There’s also presumably a family member defending him in the comments.

@FaeFae That is horrific. Both the murder and the mother.