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?

I've known 3 murderers, one of them a well-known serial killer. There was nothing about him that would make you think he was dangerous.
The second one was usually a nice guy but a bit of druggie, had an altercation with a flatmate and stabbed him.
The third was horrible, I'd always kept my distance, he was the husband of a friend. Very good looking but something about him was so cold. He beat up his own mother, and subsequently murdered a stranger he'd met on a night out.
Then the father of DS's best friend at primary school turned out to be a paedophile, he was convicted of having several thousand images of children on his PC.
I've known 3 women convicted and jailed for smuggling drugs, 2 of them had small children at the time.
A distant cousin was murdered by a serial killer, poor girl had had a difficult life and was vilified for allegedly being a sex worker, it was horrible that every time her name was mentioned in the press it was followed by reference to her being a prostitute, like she deserved to be a murder victim, or was somehow to blame for it.

I don't live in the UK so I hadn't heard about this story - I just read a BBC article about it now and my heart is broken for that poor, poor baby. How can people be such monsters to inflict such pin and suffering on helpless, innocent children - I will never, never understand it. It fills me with rage. And they only got 10 years - it should be life.

I didn’t know him personally, but his sister was in my year at school. He was an intimidating creature, on the few occasions he was at school everyone would steer clear of him.

A year or two after we had all left school he murdered a nun in a cathedral in the city centre. He raped and stabbed her, then did unspeakable things to her with crucifixes.

A guy I knew at uni murdered a woman, no one could believe it, everyone thought he was such a nice guy, he was married with kids and a professional……by all accounts a regular guy

I was at school with a girl who was later convicted (along with her mother) of murdering her step father. She was a nice girl when I knew her, and very friendly, but also a bit wild and hung around in questionable circles. I believe the murder was drink and drugs fuelled as all three of them were drunk and/or high at the time, and I have to say, whilst I was shocked that she had ended up in prison for murder, I wasn’t surprised she’d gone down the drugs route.

I can't believe that Fred West's brother would say that. The whole family was so dysfunctional and chaotic.

Given one of his brothers later also committed suicide while waiting on the verdict in his own rape trial (for raping Fred Wests daughter among others) I'd say that family members weren't the best judge of character in that family

He should have been Knighted for ridding the world of a disgusting beast!

One of my exs had done time for something quite awful and specific that would be really outing if I posted details about as it was in the papers at the time. But essentially he would have been a serial killer had he succeeded. The details were really twisted.

I did not know about this until 2 YEARS INTO THE RELATIONSHIP.

I knew he had done time in his 20s and he'd spun me a whole yarn about how he was defending his gf at the time. Which I believed.

Yes I was much younger than him. (Amd so I hadn't seen his pictures in the papers as I would have been a child at the time he did these things) Yes he turned violent on me in the last year.

When I look back there were so many red flags but i was 20 years old and just took everything at face value.
I'm lucky to be alive really.

Dad used to be a teacher, and he used to teach these three siblings. Not long after the last sibling left that school, the father ended up getting arrested for murder. Dad's school ended up spending a lot of time in the immediate aftermath of that telling the press to piss off because they kept ringing the school asking for comments.

A boy in my year throughout primary school was sadly a "criminal type" early in life, from that sort of family background, very unusual for that school and area.

But he was popular, funny and really quite intelligent. But also very violent when challenged, sensible kids were careful not to upset him.

Inevitably, he ended up in organised crime and was murdered by a rival while still in his twenties.

I guy I went to uni with murdered a woman he met on a night out. No reason given other than he wanted to know what it was like... awful thing was that he got away with it for 15 years as it was assumed she choked on her own vomit when drunk, and only his own guilt got to him years later and he confessed. Her body had to be exhumed and re-autopsied (if that's a word?) to support his confession.
He was a pretty normal guy, or so we thought... but obviously wasn't!

Is this Derby?

Is it really that high? Are you in the UK? Does that figure include things like driving offences?
That just seems so high.

Please don’t say “child porn”, the correct term is “images of child sexual abuse” as the children can never consent due to age and porn is the wrong term for what is always abuse.

I was at school with someone who was convicted of murder as an adult Not a violent kid, but on hindsight probably had some mental health issues.

I had a short-term work colleague, who was much later convicted of possessing indecent images of children. Didn't see it coming, but didn't know them very well.

Fred West did some work for a person who was a friend of my gran’s. My gran was visiting the person at the time of the work and said Fred was apparently a very nice man!

My uncle is a murderer and is currently serving 21-life in prison. He had a criminal record previously for drugs, theft and robberies. None of us suspected he’d be capable of murder though.

A student at college who was the loveliest and most gentle soul. Constantly looking after 2 of our disabled students. He was convicted of grooming a 9 year old girl when he was 19 in a case that (at the time) the judge declared was the worst case of grooming he had seen. I still can’t believe that he hoodwinked so many of us.

Small farming town, small school.
My class had 200 students - the largest in school history. My mum went there, so did my Nana and all of her siblings.
This boy was 2 or 3 years ahead of me in school. I knew him well enough to say hello as we passed in the hallway, but no more.
I left that town, attended university, worked, married, traveled, lived my life - the usual.
One day in my 40s my lifelong best friend who still lived in our hometown told me that this boy - now man - had murdered a woman in a large city, sat her body upright in the passenger seat of his car, drove the 250 miles to our hometown and attempted to burn her body in an oil drum.
His parents discovered this and stopped him (somehow) and called the authorities.
This was 20 years ago - I believe he never stood trial because he was deemed incompetent.
He drove with his victim’s body sitting in the passenger seat for 250 miles.
It was a major freeway. Always busy. Daytime.
Christ almighty.

One of my old teachers got sent to prison for embezzlement

Wish i could add my dsister to the list who had stolen money from my elderly dm manipulated her coerced her and isolated her from the rest of her family sadly you just get passed from pillar to post opg ss police everyone says someone else is dealings with it so they can’t get involved. As an ex care home manager area manager cqc inspector she knows how to play the system I hope someday in the future i will be adding her to this list and the truth comes out. She is welcome to the money it’s not about that to me

Firstly, ex boyfriend of mine from my late teens, pleasant, gentle soul … later jailed for several serious sexual offences.

Colleague of my DSF, who was good friends with him and my mum, and whom I met at their house a couple of times, pleasant academic… jailed for attempted murder of his wife.

And finally… good friend of MILs. Never liked him, he was a creepy, patronising mansplainer. MIL invited him to ours over Christmas as he was on his own. DBIL later told me he was saying dodgy things about children after a few drinks when everyone else had gone to bed. DBIL (not a violent man) threatened to punch him.
Some time later I discovered he (creepy MILs friend, not DBIL) was jailed for historic sexual abuse of several boys when he was in a position of trust. He was in my house with my children! Bleurgh!

Out of the blue, my flatmate told me a story of where they'd attempted to murder someone - and how they'd got the police to let them off.
We already had an uneven power dynamic is that we'd met when she was mu personal tutor uni lecturer.
Needless to say I moved out as soon as I could!

I went to school with the twin brothers that killed the charity cyclist in Scotland and hid his body on the estate they lived/worked on. They were only caught 3 years later because one confessed to a partner and she alerted the police. People were mostly shocked but there was definitely an acknowledgment that the boys were a bit weird. Once it became known what had happened and they’d been arrested but released on bail, their true colours really came out - they were horrible people with no remorse at all. My heart breaks for Tony Parson’s family, I watched a documentary about it recently and he seemed like a lovely man with a warm, loving family. It is utterly tragic. The twins didn’t get enough of a jail sentence imo.