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?

So, so many posts on this thread follow the same pattern - work colleague or neighbour, very close, seemed lovely, turned out he’d abused a child or possessed images of children being raped and tortured. Just think, the vast majority of rapists and abusers are never caught, and even those who are arrested generally get off. So for every person who is convicted, there must be dozens who take their secret to the grave. How many of us know a man who has done terrible things? I had a guy tile my kitchen, for example. An ordinary man in his 60s, who made a fuss of the dog, chatted about his car, etc. As he was leaving, he said he was off to Thailand the following month. I later mentioned his name to someone who pulled a face and said “Ugghh, he got drunk in the pub one night and told my friend he goes to Thailand for the underage girls.”

I should think there is an abuser or a viewer of indecent images in every street. God knows what secrets are hidden behind closed doors. If you could have access to the laptops and desks of every man in your street, god knows what you’d find.

A decade of abusing her own kids, in the worst way. You really can't tell by looking at a person.

Yes, it makes me feel very wary . We knew a solicitor who was a pillar of the community. Kept offering to babysit for us. Gave my husband a lift to work and had a lovely young daughter. Turned out to be abusing both his stepson and his friend.

One of our neighbours was done for fraud - a large sum from her employers. Interestingly, virtually everyone who knew her put it down to the influence of her new partner who was a guy with a serious gambling habit.

My BiL is now a convicted paedophile.
He was a 'tower of the community' prior to his arrest.
He was actually caught when the underage girl he had been grooming told her father about it. When my BiL turned up to the hotel he'd booked, the police and her dad were waiting for him.

I worked with a murderer who had done his time and been released. The company didn’t do CRB checks as no exposure to vulnerable people etc but he didn’t disclose it on his application and was sacked when it came out after someone googled his name. Would never have guessed it, came across as a really nice guy.

A man I had worked with was charged with grooming, harassing and stalking a vulnerable 14 year old girl with learning difficulties after he retired. She was a friend of his granddaughter so often went to his home. He gave her an expensive present.

He seemed to have completely lost the plot over her -- trying to entice her into his car and shouting up to her bedroom window during the night. Her family suspected he had done far more with her, given a few things she had said, but couldn't prove anything. He got off with a community sentence.

At work, he had come across as just an ordinary guy - nothing like this was suspected. We worked in education and he would have been in contact with many vulnerable young people. I shudder to think what else might have gone on.

I do feel I have been lucky in where I’ve lived and where I’ve brought up my DC. Very little crime. Not sure our local cops would have any idea how to deal
with a murder even as there hasn’t been one in my area to my knowledge for at least 10+ years.

The most exciting thing round here for years was when the farmer’s ride on mower got nicked and taken for a joy ride down the country lanes.

Exactly why I never trust anyone with my kids!

I will be nice to everyone but I don't trust people as easily as I used to especially with my kids. The nice people may well be nice but not one person on this earth is 100% good, we just don't know what part is bad until it's too late.

I have just googled her. Fucking hell, what an absolutely terrifying person. What are your memories of her?

Sadly a few.

A guy I went to school with turned out to be a peadophile and had assaulted kids. Never would have guessed.

a friends dad murdered his wife (my friends mum)

I’m sure more less serious crimes

Yes, I knew someone who murdered her son. It was a huge shock. She’d always been so kind and nice.

An acquaintance of dh’s son murdered his girlfriend. His mum and dad deny he did it despite him admitting it and blame the victim regularly.

A member of dh’s family and her husband are currently serving 20 years each for s*xually abusing her kids.
I would say she was easily led and had mental health issues and alcohol issues rather than evil, but I have no doubts that she did it. Social services were involved for neglect a long time before she was arrested for this so wasn’t a complete surprise.

Also a football coach now in prison for abusing boys. Had a feeling he was a bit dodgy but not to the extent which came out in court.

I went on a date or two with a guy who went on to murder someone after bungling a burglary. He’s in jail still I think.

I work in retail
One day a family (mum,dad and 5 kids) walked in
Both parents where loud,entitled,gobby,demanding and just a pain in the neck
The kids just sat there,totally mute
Not a word or sound out of them
They left and I said to a colleague how unusual the kids where-they hadn't made a noise between them
About 10 days later,the family where in the news
They'd smoked a lot of cigarettes and one had 'caught' and set the house on fire
The parents and one child got out but the rest died
They gave a sob story to the papers (with a landlady from the local pub getting involved for some reason) but it all came out that they'd given social services the run around for years and the kids should have been removed a lot earlier
They kids hadn't made a noise because the younger ones couldn't,they'd just grunt and I guess the older one had learned that nobody would talk back with them
Poor little things,they deserved better

Yes 2 people. I was shocked, I never ever thought they would be capable of their crimes.

someone Dh knows murdered his wife and dumped her body in a lake in the Lake District. The body wasn’t discovered for another decade and at some point after her husband was charged. Terribly he got off with manslaughter and only served 4 years. Apparently he was a nice enough, normal person. He was in the same sports club as Dh and came back to the club after getting out of prison.

i used to work with someone who was charged with historical sexual crimes against children from when he was in his late teens. Didn’t surprise me, total oddball. He was found not guilty though. Guess hard to prove.

Have an family friend whose uncle has dementia and has been talking about the "good old days". I remember the uncle as been a bit dodgy when I was little but friends wife tells me she thinks he could've actually committed murder! a fact she's gathered from his ramblings, and hubby has said to just ignore and carry on?! All seems more common than I ever thought

I’m a lawyer. I was always disappointed to discover that the most charming people could be complete wrong ‘uns. When I was a junior lawyer looking after the local criminals they were, in the main, such a charming bunch, even as they were planning to burgle your house, steal your car or duff up your nephew. This was rural crime though. I suspect city criminals have a harder, less charming edge. Fortunately I’m no longer a criminal lawyer!

• Our ex boss stole £26k from the jewellery Cº we worked for and went on the run, handed herself in a few years later, she did 6mths in prison.

• TW - My sisters, now ex-friend, drugged her own daughter (8yrs old) and streamed her live on the dark web being SA'd by her then bf. Made national news. Would never have thought it of her, very friendly and fitted in so well. She's now doing a long prison sentence, I hope her fellow inmates have made her life unbearable!

• Cousins wife (whilst drunk) suffocated her own terminally ill & bed bound mum with a pillow. She called the police straight afterwards to tell them, the rest of the family were downstairs eating a family dinner. She was convicted and also did a long time in prison.

• We've recently learnt that my husband's best friend took the life of another person in his teen years, he didn't want us to know, a person told us up the pub when they'd had a few beers. We've not bought it up since, he's a great person and as we understand it, he had his reasons & was never 'caught'?

I feel I’ve heard the Lake District story on a podcast! I think they were linked to other murders too.

My cousin who I grew up wearing almost everyday, he moved down south as u did but different areas, I moved back home and I found out that my cousin and his best friend of over 30 year had been bringing class A drugs and I’m not talking silly amounts, it was serious amounts, about 5 year ago one night I heard someone had been shot dead with a sawn off shotgun in his house infront of his Mrs and it was my cousin who was shot dead by his childhood best friend and all because when I bloods down to it, there’s no friends in that kind of business, my cousins so called friend is now serving life

Might be a different one then, I’ve certainly never heard of him being suspected of other murders. It was thought very much it was a “crime of passion”. He flipped , I can’t remember if his defence was she was having an affair/or she was about to leave him….something like that.

Really oddly when we moved to our current house in the early 2000s we took the aincent dining room carpet up and they’d used newspaper as underlay. The newspapers were around 20 years old and were full of the trial. We sat there transfixed reading it all!

No.. no-one..

Yes I used to work with a very notorious criminal. He was arrested in 1991 and is still inside.