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?

I was out in the town the night that Barry Wallace went missing. Later established he was murdered by William Beggs, the "Limbs in the Loch" killer.

Fred and Rose West happened to my home town.

Bedsit Murders (I didn't live in the town then)....and of course Fuller did a lot more than that as well. Disgusting, appalling, evil man.

My choirmaster (also the church organist) was a convicted paedophile (convicted long after I left the choir!). Apparently he was part of a paedophile ring that was from Kent and South London, and would take kids back to his place for him and his vile gang to abuse. First I knew of it was when I wanted to contact him to see if he'd be the organist at my wedding. I found out that he'd committed suicide some years before, but also all the other news. I remember he'd hold loads lovely family events in his beautiful house in the country (right out in the sticks) for the choir kids and their families. The same house that he took those poor kids to. We (my brother and I) used to go there often, along with the other kids in the choir. Makes me sick thinking of it now.

The abduction and horrifying murder of a small child in the 80s.

Until then, I don't remember anything of interest happening. I was in my teens and we'd all grown up thinking the town was basically safe. As children, we used to wander happily for miles during the summers. No-one worried as long as we were home by dark.

It was like the end of innocence. People's daily behaviour changed. They stopped trusting each other. Lots of people moved away.

Live in a really small town, but it’s very run down, drugs and gangs are rife.

A few years ago a 20 year old man was shot in the head and killed in a planned drive by shooting. All gang related. The shooter was only 17 and is currently serving 30 years in prison.

We have the same hometown - I was going to mention that case

Amelie Delagrange, murdered by Levi Bellfield on Twickenham Common. Just down the road from where I used to live.
Hopefully he'll never be released.

This was before my time, before even my mother's time, but it will never be forgotten.

Paisley in Scotland, The Glen Cinema Disaster - 71 children dead.

At the matinee performance on Hogmanay 1929, a reel of film started smoking so badly, the smoke leaking into the auditorium caused a panic, the children thought there was a fire so rushed for the exits. But the exit doors opened inwards not outwards, the crush of the children panicking meant the doors couldn't be opened.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I remember being told that the Glen Cinema Disaster is why it is now the law that exit doors must open outwards. TBH, it seems absurd to me that they opened inwards then.

A shooting outside a hotel, and a shooting in an office block. In the space of about 9 months. Both targeted.

Believe it or not, where I live has strict gun laws and I feel pretty safe!

He was living 3 blocks from me at the time of the murders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeonardFraser

Poor Millie Dowler, abducted up the road from here. The gap in the hedge where she was pulled in, and path to the flats is still there, but the residents recently put a security gate there. Chills every time I walk and drive past.

I guess the acid bath murderer John Haig, is the most notorious from my town, but more recently, Roy Whiting, Sarah Paynes murderer lived and worked in the town, he used to work at a play centre which my ex husband attended as a child, also closer to home, one of our neighbours who lived 3 doors down from me was arrested for molesting his daughter, I wont say names but it was on the news. He was in his 70s when they arrested him and seemed like a normal grandpa, this was historic abuse that his daughter only had the courage to report, her brother and mum took his side even though he was found guilty and sent to prison, he did get released in his 80s and the family moved away.

Leslie Mahaffy went to a party my cousin hosted. I grew up in a different country, but this was always something discussed in my family as an example of horrible things that happen

Did you grow up in NZ? If so I think I know the one you're talking about.

For me it was the tiny village where I spent the first years of my life. A young boy was beaten to death in the streets by his parents after he went to a school dance. They thought he had been possessed by the devil, and they were beating it out of him. Everyone knew the family, The parents were found to be temporarily insane, and the evangelical church they were part of disbanded, but the community was rocked.

This from my childhood village.

https://www.westmercia.police.uk/news/west-mercia/news/2022/july/man-jailed-for-18-years-for-murdering-his-wife-in-1982/

And Fred West, where I now live 🤢

My home town is the location of at least two current channel 5 police shows. Unfortunately people being stabbed in broad daylight is a common occurrence, even school children.

A little girl went missing in my small California town about 20 years ago, maybe a little longer.
It was HUGE NEWS because, I guess, little girls from small California towns just didn’t turn up missing.

The police went door-to-door and searched everybody’s back yards. I remember thinking how young the police officers looked.

Anyhow, they found her - murdered, in the kiln at her mother and stepfather’s home, the home where she lived.
I can’t remember if they overlooked the kiln or if her little body was moved.

This can see where it happened from my window there was a documentary made about it as well

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-65199907

also loads of rapes and stabbing happen near daily in Edinburgh

When I was 16 and living in Berkshire, I remember asking my mum if I could go to the funfair that was in town and she said no, she didn't feel comfortable with me going. At the time I wondered what her problem with it was - this story makes it a lot clearer. Poor, poor lad. Also didn't help that my grandfather worked on the Moors murders case.

I always thought that emergency doors opened outwards after the Victoria Hall Disaster in my home town of Sunderland.

Unfortunately, shocking things happen all the time now.

The closest to home - literally - was a private charter plane taking off from the small airport 2 km from my house, hitting a powerline while trying to turn back due to an engine fault & crashing into a street in the industrial estate at the end of the runway. It cartehelked down the cul decsac & burst into flames. 9 people in the plane died. Miraculously it didn't hit any buildings & stayed on the street, so no one else was hurt.

It stays with me as drive past that end of the runway every day, about 50m from the crash zone, & the accident happened in the 15 minutes since I drove past & arrived at work.

Ever since there's been an ongoing campaign to move the airport. I think they'll win soon

Replied here by mistake and don't know how to remove it 😑

My Dad was supposed to be there that day. He was 6 years old and an older girl upstairs had agreed to take him to the pictures that afternoon so that his Mum could get on with the New Year cleaning. But at the last minute her mother needed her to go on an errand for her Gran and so there was no time for the Glen Cinema.
Whatever the errand was, it possibly saved my Dad's and the girl's life.

Were I live, we have had a male who set fire to a house,which killed his ex partner. A mother who killed two of her own children.Then recently another mother who killed two of her own children.All In the last 3 1/2 years.Outcomes of a society that is not working as it should.Very sad!