What’s the most shocking thing to happen in your neighbourhood/home town.

[Choclabratwatowner88]

Had the police around earlier to fill in a quick questionnaire in regard to a serious incident that just happened locally. As we live on the main road they wanted to know if we saw anything, the usual. My mum then pipes up that’s she’s been through this years ago when they were investigating a murder in our home town (not our current hometown) I was shocked as I’m 37 and never heard of this murder in my whole life, granted I was 3 at the time but still… things like that usually spread for years. I then went down a rabbit hole, turns out the murder happened right across the street from our old estate. The woman murdered was called Penny bell. She was found stabbed more than 50 times in her car, they still haven’t caught the killer. I never knew this whole time and it kinda threw me.
what’s the most shocking thing to happen in your hometown?

Sarah Harper abduction and murder by Robert Black - horrendous. I was a similar age to her and it shocked the whole town.

Yes, this too. Though wasn't still living in the area then, was always sure I recognised one of the killers as someone I'd seen around. And having known some of the police around at the time, I wasn't at all surprised at the racism and how badly it was handled, tbh.

Also there was Kenneth Noye and the M25 murder of Stephen Cameron.

Claudia Lawrence

She lived just down the road from the church I was a bridesmaid at,I've drank in the nags head,i used to babysit at a house a few doors down as a teen and I've walked her route to and from work many times as my parents live near the uni,I used to live halfway down and ds used to live in the next street from her

It's weird seeing her on cctv at the post office-i used to collect my child benefit from there and used to live in the street just down the road

On the morning she vanished,my father was walking the same route but in the opposite direction and saw nothing at all (he lives in a street very close to the university and she would have had to pass the end of it)

The spot where she was seen having a row with a male has a church over the road (for some reason it's got a blue jesus on the cross hanging from it) and my father walked past on the church side at about the right time and there was nobody there

He is very aware of lone females and would walk miles out of his way to avoid one which is why he was able to just walk down green dykes lane,onto melrosegate,down past the post office/church,down to the bottom of her street and onto the florist on the small ringroad (he then turned off to the address to was going to) without having to turn off and walk another route to avoid her or anyone else

He (or rather my mother) rang in to tell them and they never got back to him

My ex was her bin man and it took police 5 years to contact him to see if he'd seen anything

Around this time,3 separate murders happened in my street (didnt make any ripples at all) over the space of about 9 months

That's when I decided to move away!

Nicola Payne is the one that always hurts my heart. Her parents always conducted themselves with such strength and dignity and I remember her mum saying once that she had no far of death because it would mean she'd be with Nicola again. I sincerely hope that's what's happened for her.

Tom Cressman's murder (by Sarah Furgeson's aide, Jane Andrews) was a shock because my dad knew his family through work and said both Tom and them were all absolutely lovely people.

Moors Murders and Harold Shipman

It was over 30 years ago now but an elderly woman was found brutally murdered in the bus station toilets ,the murderer wasn't caught for years and was only caught years later when there was a DNA match after he was arrested for a minor crime.

Familicide. Bodies buried in the perpetrators land.

The Plymouth shooting in 2021

At the time I lived a few miles from there and would run in that area. I hadn't heard the news and got what I thought was a rather odd (because we don't talk a huge amount) from a friend asking if I was ok. She knew I lived in Plymouth but didn't know where

This is either a very stupid point of view or very naive.

Lots of "naice" people are rapists, murderers, abusers, child abusers etc. To imagine that such a thing wouldn't happen where you live is insane. It will happen, you just might not always hear about it.

As we were in the middle of buying our house out in sticks ville = middle of know where. A young pregnant teen was brought out here, murdered and dumped. A farmer down the road found her in his field. Very sad.

in my tiny Highland home town, there was a shocking drug fuelled murder - a young man killed over £40. And the very tragic suicide of a woman married to someone I was at school with. He tried to stop her but wasn’t able. 😔

Yes that was a tragic case
Brutal and senseless,I grew up in the same town and went to same school as the two boys albeit many years before.

Quite a few, but Mick Philpott and his 6 children spring to mind as the worst. I grew up not far from there, although moved out many years back.

There have been stabbings in my nearest town including one in a school. Most of the incidents have involved people who knew each other, sometimes 'friends' who had fallen out after taking drugs.

I grew up in a large city and there have been violent incidents on most nearby streets. My brother got mugged about 10 years ago.

Sarah Payne was abducted literally a couple of roads over from where I lived and played outside with my friends.

Sarah Everard was abducted close to where I live - I often drive along that road.

Anthony Arkwright. Absolutely evil horrible man. His grandad & his grandads partner who he killed are buried 3 graves away from my grandad & great grandma.
More recently the young man who was shot and killed in a "gang war" outside of supermarket.

A lad called Daniel Reed

I knew him when he was about 9 and he had a really shit childhood (I met them at a single parent group)

His mother didnt give a fuck about them and his father was just as bad

He and his two siblings where badly abused and neglected-you could smell their house from streets away,it was that bad and his behaviour was off the scale (the other two where sweet kids)

We where so horrified at the state of the kids,we grouped together and called ss

(who where useless and left the family intact for waaayyy too long but finally did the right thing and got the kids out and into foster care)

I said at the time he would end up in prison for killing someone (he just had that air of evil about him-and I still feel awful for even thinking about it,let alone saying it-who says that about a 9 year old?)

I lost touch with them and the mother found God and the father was revealed as a pedophile (he did 7 years)

The mother knew all about it and had borne him a dd so he could abuse her as well (she was almost at the 'right' age for him to abuse-sickening)

Anyway,fast forward about 7/8 years later and my dd had been out with her friends and she texted to say she would be 10 minutes late back (fair enough,this happens and i was fine with it as long as she let me know,it was broad daylight) but she was on her way home

About 6/7 minutes later,she burst through the front door in a real state,sobbing,crying and shaking-i thought she'd been attacked

She managed to tell me she'd been walking home through the local park and a lad had walked up to her,covered in blood and screamed in her face before walking off and laughing

I ran the police and they said they'd got him

Turns out,Daniel had come out of care,made contact with his mother and had told his friends he wanted to kill her

Knowing that would be the end of his mother but wanting to hurt her more than he wanted to kill her,he went for the mothers innocent boyfriend ,Shaun Skelton instead

He'd stabbed him to death,walked out of shauns home and dd had seen him as he was walking to the local taxi rank to tell a random stranger and the staff what he'd done

He'd been arrested as I rang the police

He's now serving life-he is a danger to the public and always will be

His mother went running to a magazine and sold her story about how she was a loving mother and didnt know where she'd gone wrong-she was going to say goodbye to her ds forever and it was breaking her heart

Utter bollocks-i saw the state those kids where in and how she treated them

It was neglect on a massive level and Shaun paid the price

lol tell me you’re privileged and don’t know it without telling me 😂 people get shot on the street about a meter from my son‘s bedroom multiple times a year. It isn’t nice and it is scary, but it’s also the only part of London we can afford to live in, and I still love it.

Growing up in NI during the troubles my dad was shot by gunmen who came to the house (thankfully survived). People I knew shot dead, bombings regularly or having to change your name/ avoid certain areas in case something happened to you

Just seen on today's news that Claire's campaign to get the law changed to repeal the presumption of parental involvement with an abusive parent has been successful.

I have read so many threada on mumsnet from women who are afraid to leave their abusive partners because they don't want to leave their children with them with unsupervised contact, so this law will protect them.

It took over 10 years and 5 governments for this to happen. Our MP helped make this happen.

A child was murdered by their sibling close to where I lived a few years back. I think that's more common than people realise.

Someone I taught murdered one of his parents about 10 years after he left school. He never gave a reason for it. He seemed a completely ordinary lad when I knew him.

Used to live in a dodgy part of town. Discovered that if I'd gone out 5 minutes later I would possibly have witnessed someone being stabbed. Around the corner was a pub where a nan was killed by a single punch

Where my parents live there was a teenager killed by his "friends". His dad regularly appears in the paper because of drug related crime

Fred West.