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?

Just had a quick google for stats, number of police reported homicide* in England and Wales seems to be roughly 500 to 750 per year, with a couple of outlier years higher up to around 1000.

Looks like homicide is murder and manslaughter stats combined.

A third of the female victims were killed by a partner or ex partner.

A good friend of mine murdered his partner. It was a drunken rage after an argument during a night out.

He is the most normal placid man you can think of. I don’t think I’d ever heard him swear or have an argument. He was just very pleasant.

I couldn’t believe it when I found out what had happened. It still feels surreal now a number of years later.

It definitely changed my perspective on life as I now believe that anyone is capable of doing the most awful things if they are faced with specific circumstances. In my mind if he could do something so awful then surely any else could too.

I've met lots as I used to work in a cat A prison. A few seemed nice but mainly you could tell that there's something not right and they deserve to be there.
Outside of work a boy I grew up with, who lived over the road, grew up to be the rapist of 2 women and sexually assaulted several young girls. It was known he was odd and a bit weird from about the age of 14.
He spent very little time in prison and recently married a woman with 2 daughters. I mean who would want him??

A family friend stabbed her husband, he was extremely abusive and after a particularly bad beating she stabbed him, she got a long sentence as it was multiple times. She wanted to make sure he wasnt going to get up and hurt her again. She was the loveliest lady.

I agree it sounds far too high for criminal offences, but this report (which is more than 23 years old) says "nearly" a third of British men have a criminal conviction by the age of 30:

Noe that is the stuff of legend! What a plonker.

An inlaw of a sibling was convicted of manslaughter of their baby.

Not exactly on topic, but I noted something about my family just recently: when my DF was 20 one of his friends raped and murdered a girl during a night out - my DF had to give evidence in the trial (in which he was found guilty), then many years later my DB witnessed a body being dumped during a night out and was an important witness in the subsequent murder trial. And more recently, my host brother in the US (from when I spent a year abroad as a teen, and stayed in touch) witnessed the pursuit of a man who was subsequently murdered by his pursuers and had to give evidence in the trial. Is this weird?

Twice worked with the same woman (in different years) that ended up murdering and torturing the daughter of her partner, who was also convicted.
She was strange and a bit of a loner. Was diagnosed with having NPD and is possibly due to be released soon.
It was a shock and horrific as the job where I met her was working with vulnerable people although we were always working with at least one other person so she would not have had the opportunity to hurt someone when I knew her.

Yep. My brother. I'm not going to share details because people I know frequent Mumsnet and it would be very outing.

We don't have contact.

Yep. I knew a young man who committed GBH and I knew a man whose sister was a murderer who killed her husband, I met her a couple of times. You could have guessed the young man might have been a criminal, but not that he bashed someone so badly that the man landed in hospital in a terrible state, he was quite a pleasant person to hang out with. The sister, would not have guessed murder specifically, but she was cold, weird and gave off a bad vibe.

And then there was George who was a seriously violent criminal and was apppalling to be around, but only because I knew how violent and dangerous he was. He could be quite charming when he wanted to be.

It depends on whether they're psychotic, or a psychopath, people mix those terms up but they're totally different types of people. It also depends if it was a crime of passion (as they used to call it) or something culty or folie a deux based. I think if you spent a good amount of time around a murderer you'd know there was something wrong with them, but people especially women are really good at lying to themselves and underplaying weird behaviour and not listening to their intuition.

Everyone is capable of killing and violence if they are terrified for their life, most of us couldn't do it for any other reason than self or family preservation though.

I was a teacher in primary school. A former student was arrested at the age of 18 for murdering a “friend” and attempting to murder another during an argument. From a young age he was a troubled boy and came from a very dysfunctional home.

Relative murdered his wife under the guise of a mercy killing. He fooled the judge but the rest of us know the truth. Due to his age he only got four years. Absolutely sickening

The cousin of a friend, she was 15/16 at the time, stabbed her stepdad to death while he was sleeping. She went to a psychiatric hospital for 6 years and is now out and having a normal life. Apparently there was no abuse and she was just having a psychotic episode. Friend said family gatherings are a bit awkward.

Committed, or been caught?

Asking for a friend . . .

DH’s American cousin, with whom he was very close, was murdered by her ex who then killed himself. He was an alcoholic and had an extensive legal gun collection.

Was here thinking that I don’t know anyone, but then I remembered our window cleaner.

I was starting to get really pissed off that he hadn’t been around to do the windows.

OH was reading the paper and said “he isn’t going to be around to do the windows for a bit, he’s just got 10 years for rape.”

That was a bit of a shock.

Yes, but I lived near him before he moved over there, when he was married to his first wife.

I had a cousin who went to jail for robbery/burglary. It was all drug related and it turned him into someone I don’t really recognise. It actually helped him get clean, learn a skill, and when he came out he had sorted his life out and started his own business, settled down, and didn’t reoffend.

The partner of a family friend was convicted of owning/ sharing CSE images of children. Some younger than school age. Found out the details in the newspaper. He avoided jail though, the sentence was suspended.

I sat opposite a man at work for about a year. He was loud, fun, you know the type. I was a single mum with two young boys. He made out he was a single dad. He asked me to a family do but as he lived 20 odd miles away I said no, didn’t want to take the kids out late even though he said we could get them sweets etc while we did the event altogether. Went with my gut.

Anyway, he disappeared form the company and never came back. About 10 years later he was sentenced to a life sentence. Was a pedophile who prayed on single parents.

Someone I really fancied in Uni received a 15 month prison sentence for a sexual assault (groping the woman and lying on top on her while she was asleep)

Shows how off my creep spotting skills were when I was younger!

Strangely enough, the date of the assault was my wedding day!

I taught a boy at primary school who went on to be arrested at 17 for possessing and, in one case, making, images of child abuse. He was such a nice kid when he was 10 😔

I knew a man through my friend group who became involved with drug dealing as a get-rich thing. He got in with some very serious criminals, including a murderer, and eventually went to prison. A teacher from school went to prison for possession of child abuse imagery. And another acquaintance who became seriously mentally ill and committed a violent assault. The last one ended their own life before trial.

I knew. I said he wasn't right and I hated being left alone with him but no one believed me. He's serving life now.

My H (now XH) for online grooming. That was a shock. When the police said they'd arrested him, my first thought was fraud as he was an accountant. But no worse. It was in the local paper after he was sentenced which was fun, with my address even though he'd moved out after his arrest. There's very little support for the family of offenders though the Lucy Faithfull Foundation has a good forum.

While I was looking up possible sentences for his crimes, I can across an article about someone I knew who'd previously been sentenced for online images and had broken his reporting conditions and sent to prison. I remember him posting on FB about splitting from his wife and thinking he was going through a difficult time, but hadn't occurred to me why.

There was a woman locally convicted of child sexual abuse. She was the bookkeeper at a local nursery and was always a bit odd. It was a teenage boy that she'd abused.

Also another local man that I used to see around a lot was in the paper as the police were looking for him as he'd been charged with domestic abuse but disappeared. He was always looked very mild mannered and smartly dressed.