Have you ever known someone who committed a serious crime?

[TheGhostsOfMeAndYou]

I’ve been listening to a true crime podcast recently and it got me thinking. One of the episodes was about Fred and Rose West. When Fred was first arrested (at the stage where police had only uncovered three bodies in the garden), his brother and sister-in-law spoke about him and said they couldn’t believe he’d done what he was accused of, as he had always seemed so gentle and polite spoken.

It made me wonder — has anyone here ever known someone who’s committed a serious crime, and did it come as a total shock? Or were there warning signs in hindsight? Did you ever suspect anything at the time? And how did others around them react — was it disbelief, or did some say they weren’t surprised?

A teacher when I was at school who killed his DD's ex partner and a parent of a child i taught who was imprisoned for murder.

Its a long time ago - but when I was a teenager a schoolfriend was murdered. A few years later the perpetrator turned out to be her dad. Respectable, pillar of the community type bloke who everyone liked.

He walked into a police station and confessed when he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and so had nothing to lose. There have been documentaries that featured the case.

My boss at work embezzled £1.1 million. Currently doing 4 years after 20years of living the high life, I didn't particularly like him but certainly never thought he was sitting opposite me stealing money. Also work related, I have spoken with 3 people who went on to murder someone within the month. One of those was in and out of prison but not for violent offences.

Jesus. I hadn't heard about that, but just read it now. I'll never be able to forget that. How the hell could someone do that to a tiny, vulnerable, innocent little baby.

I’ve never known anyone who has committed a serious crime and I hope I never do…

…but after reading this I think it’s probably just that I’ve never known anyone who has been caught. This thread is horrific.

I knew someone who committed murder. He killed a hit man who was sent after him. I think he’s still in prison.

A guy I went to school with murdered a man on the way home to his family. I knew his brother as he was in the same year as me.

I knew someone from my home town who shot someone and served jail time. He wasn’t away for very long.

I have a relative who killed someone but I won’t go into details because it got a lot of media coverage.

Another guy I knew (went to highschool with) broke into a guys house that assaulted his sister and beat him up.

I’ve just been focusing on murder but I know other people that have committed major crimes. Actually, the more I think of this - the more names I keep coming up with - so I’m going to stop now. 😳

2 men in my then work killed their wives
both appeared nice, normal family men, in professional tech jobs
one was always very open about how much he adored his wife

both left their children motherless, and with a father in prison

Other than people who went to my school having a criminal record I don’t actually know anyone who does. I couldn’t comment on whether or not I’d have seen it coming as they were just people who attended a really large school at the same time as me. Just asked DH and he doesn’t know anyone either so we must just be very boring!

Yes - I was a teacher and so occasionally read news articles of former pupils who have erred and strayed.

One of my colleagues predicted that one lad would end up murdering someone - sadly he was right.

Another put inside for GBH, attempted murder. Was I surprised? Not really.

Another inside for death by dangerous driving. Texting, games, Facebook whilst driving a truck.

However many more have succeeded in life and made positive contributions to all. Several doctors, teachers, priests, got involved with charities etc

Yes, someone we employed is due to go on trial for murder soon, had conversations with him a few times, always seemed like a nice understanding guy, as an employee his co-workers found him co-operative and a calm personality, we were all totally shocked when we found out he'd been arrested.

A family member did a long stretch for distributing images of child sexual abuse. The length of the sentence was quite something for a first offence, so it must have been horrendous.

I was fond of him and had often seen him with my dc. I absolutely did not see it coming.

There are undoubtedly people who access CSA images because they are looking for escalating kicks by transgressing more and more boundaries of decency. There are also people who are excited by the sadistic element. Much as we dont want to admit it, there are people whose primary sexual attraction is towards children. Some never act on it, some try to resist and some arent bothered enough to avoid it. If you have that and dont want to act, there is not a lot of actual help and support with this. FWIW I understand that attraction to prepuberty age children is harder to treat, and more of a risk factor for offending.

Years ago I worked in a team who provided emergency MH placement for people who were in crisis. One was a guy who had been in a terrible car accident, had a significant acquired brain injury and had started to have this attraction. He was horrified by it, was desperate to never act on it, and when it started to feel more difficult to control, he would call us and we would get him in immediately.

I’d say he was unlucky, as was a close friend of mines son a few years ago. On a night out with a mixed group. A couple of girls getting hassled over the evening by a couple of men. End of the evening the guys try again. Friends son steps in (nicely) to say the girls aren’t interested and can they please leave them alone.. They shake hands - all good. The guys hangs onto friends son hand and doesn’t let go while staring at him. Friends son tries to pull his hand away and man refuses so he shoves him. Man falls striking his head on way down. Gets up. Altercation over. Friends son leaves. A few days later is arrested as man got up, went outside and collapsed and sadly ended up in a vegetative state. Friends son is charged and goes to prison.
this was absolutely horrific for everyone involved. The man. His friends and family. My friends son, her and his friends and family. There were no winners.
my friends son stepped in to defend two young women. This man seemed (I’ve seen the cctv) not happy about it. Friends son felt threatened and so tried to get away resulting in a horrific turn of events. Had that table been a couple of inches to the side it wouldn’t have happened. Had the guy have just accepted the girls weren’t interested it wouldn’t have happened. Had friends son not intervened it wouldn’t have happened (although that could have led to something else happening). It was a complete Swiss cheese effect of the holes lining up with tragic consequences.

my point is, because my friends son was involved in something absolutely terrible it does not make him a bad person. He was a victim of circumstance. How many people go out on a Saturday night and have fistycuffs and the worst is a black eye or bloody nose and everyone goes on with their lives. Doesn’t make it right of course but one action, despite the tragic outcome, does not a bad person make.

its those that wilfully commit atrocities….

edited for typos

Yes I know a murderer who is serving life in prison. I also know someone who was murdered, the case was a huge national story.

I went to school with someone who ended up murdering her millionaire boyfriend.

We used to go out clubbing it/pubbing it together - a group of 8 of us.

He was into kinky sex was dressed in a gimp suit with an orange in his mouth when she killed him. She cut him up and put him in a suitcase.

A couple of days later she went to the police and told them what happened.

Due to her defence she got 5 years.

I left my home town at 18yo. I found out about this when reading a paper on my flight back from USA c14 years later. I saw her picture in the paper and read all about it.

Our group of friends all feel bad we didn't keep in touch more. Her life went wayward after uni.

Tragic all round.

I did work in criminal law for a while. Most crime is not planned. Paedophilia is not one of those. These men are extremely manipulative; particularly of their adult partners which is not much discussed. To damage children they spend a lot of time, they are obsessive people. And very frightening to children - they can spend years on their preferred victims.

Yes. A relative seriously assaulted his mother. He had been devolving for some time but the psychiatrist had decided he wasn’t a risk at the last appointment. Later that same day he nearly killed her. Many would not have survived the injuries she did.

He was detained a secure hospital rather than a prison for a year.

He has repeated relapses as he is schizophrenic and doesn’t think he needs his medication.

I lived on the same road as a boy who grew up to commit murder. I wasn't surprised as he was bad news even as a kid.

I could murder a pint. Does that count?

One of my best friends murdered someone he met on a dating app - he stabbed him to death in a frenzy with a knife and a pair of scissors. He then confessed this to me and was obviously then arrested. It blew all of our minds. We never would have expected it but in hindsight it's not as surprising now that I've realised he is a covert narcissist and his coke problem was much bigger than he let on, he'd escalated to selling it, was dabbling in crystal meth as well, and was becoming increasingly paranoid and aggressive towards strangers. So it kind of makes sense he'd fly into a narcissistic rage and be incredibly dangerous, but we still never saw it coming.

The problem was the jury didn't know him and were only presented with his 'unblemished record' and history of being a 'gentle' guy. So he was convicted of culpable homicide when it was absolutely, 100% murder. And I know that because he told me what happened. Then he stood there in court and called me a liar.

I grew up on the same street as the infamous “father” who set fire to his own home killing his children. I am still good friends with one of his surviving children.

My father.

He should have been imprisoned for the abuse he inflicted on us children (one of my brothers still has a scar from the iron to this day) but wasn't.

He later served time for ABH or GBH (I'm not sure which as I had no contact with him after being removed to live with my grandparents, I only found out years later). How he wasn't charged with attempted murder is a mystery to me as he beat his then partner unconscious and then physically threw her down a flight of concrete stairs.

He went back to prison for another assault which involved beating someone, and in the same incident stabbing someone with a needle and saying he had HIV (he didn't, but the worry that person must have felt is horrific).

He later got away with conning at least two women, one terminally ill, out of thousands of pounds.

Yet you'll find people adamant he was a lovely man. Wee bit troubled occasionally, but always lovely to the elderly...

Blimey!! As far as im aware nobody I know has a criminal records

I worked with someone who was sent to prison for fraud. I was really shocked, and would never have guessed.