To ask if you’ve met an infamous criminal?

[Anon778833]

Did they seem ‘normal’? Or did you get a strange feeling about them?

@SometimesRavenSometimesParrot what was he like? I used to go to all his concerts as a teenager and we worshipped him. Makes me feel sick thinking about it now

Can you not conflate Murderers with being on the spectrum please. Autistic people have enough prejudice to cope with without the assumption that we're also more likely to be sociopathic (we aren't)

Well if they were autistic and did kill someone, that's just the facts. About those 2 people only.

It's not saying ALL autistic people will murder someone! YOU are the one conflating it to a whole group not Emerald!

Not me personally but a friend of my ex loved unknowingly next door to a very famous criminal (outside the UK). This guy was a kind of mafia leader. The friend at first didn’t know who the guy was though, and they were living in a very nice, rich people area with a forest nearby. My ex’s friend used to walk his dog together with this criminal neighbor because they got along very well. Until one day, he saw his neighbor on the news, someone had made serious plans to kill him, he was on another famous criminals hitlist and apparently the police had managed to arrest the person who was going to carry out the attack before it could actually happen. My ex’s friend then told criminal neighbor that he was sorry, but he couldn’t do the dog walking in the forest anymore, he was too afraid to become collateral damage in case of an attack. The criminal neighbor completely understood and they were on good terms with each other until he was murdered in Thailand, where he was hiding from his enemies, a few years later.

An ex-pupil is serving life for murder, he used to be very involved in school productions and things had a habit of being missing which he then 'found' just before curtain up, he was definitely a bit odd.
OH worked alongside Peter Sutcliffe as a student, it would have been before his murders began, he said he was a nice bloke!

Harold Shipman was my GP from birth until he was arrested, my mum always thought he was lovely.

@HistoricalInsignificance

My uncle was a detective and interviewed Peter Sutcliffe a few times after he was imprisoned. He said he came across as insignificant.

That's interesting because a family friend was on his legal team and said he had never met anyone more chilling. He said he looked into his eyes and they were dead, as if he had no soul. I was a child then and I vividly remember this lawyer, who was usually so jolly, sitting in our living room telling that to my dad. He was harrowed by the case.

@Brollywasntneededafterall
Just googled her. Omg. What did your dm say about her?

[quote LadyOfLittleLeisure]@SometimesRavenSometimesParrot what was he like? I used to go to all his concerts as a teenager and we worshipped him. Makes me feel sick thinking about it now[/quote]
Horrifyingly, he was absolutely lovely. Totally charming, couldn’t do enough for us, really fun and intelligent. Insisted on walking us back to our flat so we weren’t on our own in the dark at silly o’clock (friends boyfriend had drunk too much and been sent home earlier in the night!)

I used to work in a prison, often came across murderers and peadophiles. And the only thing that surprised me is how normal most of them seemed. You really can’t tell by looking at someone or interacting with them ,what they are capable of.

This thread bothers me a bit because it seems to be reinforcing the idea that you can rely on gut instinct to keep you away from trouble, but it’s not a foolproof method.
Of courses there were some inmates who clearly had issues.
Not all criminals come with a neon sign on their foreheads.
And as others said some people fall into crime /accidentally hit too hard.
And once someone has served their time they should be rehabilitated into society. Petty criminals are less likely to steal etc if they are integrated into society and have jobs.

Not exactly famous but I danced with a man at a Xmas do, who murdered his wife 3 days later. Yes he seemed completely normal.

I used to be friendly with Janie Jones, who wasn't a violent criminal but she's definitely notorious! She was lovely. I used to work in a shop in Notting Hill and she lived opposite, and she'd bring in stuff she'd baked for me and little presents. When I moved onto my first flat with exH she gave me loads of furniture and stuff for the garden. She would tell me all about her bonkers but fascinating life, including being in prison with Myra Hindley. She absolutely hated her, unsurprisingly.

Her stories about The Clash were my favourites though!

@MintJulia

Not exactly famous but I danced with a man at a Xmas do, who murdered his wife 3 days later. Yes he seemed completely normal.

wow 😱

so terribly sad 😔

I went on holiday once with a well known SE London gangster. I was a teenager and friends with one of his family. Lovely man, had great chats about women and careers - read a few books about him since and chills me to think it's about the same person.

Not sure about infamous but a member of staff at a boarding school I used to work at has been sent to jail for raping a pupil (at a school he worked at before the one I knew him at). He was strangely popular with some members of staff - pseudo posh intellectual type - but others found him to be a total creep, far too friendly with the kids. He was hiding in plain sight basically.

Not really infamous, but I do know the guy who went down for being in charge of national action. He went out with a friend of mine for a while. None of us had any idea he held such abhorrent views, we all just thought he was a bit odd, he would go round the pub drinking peoples left over pints and making roll ups out of dog ends.

Did anyone meet Arthur Thompson in Glasgow at any point? I’d be really interested to know as have a family connection to him.

My late father in law played in a band in the eastend and very vaguely knew the Krays and their mum. He said that being in the background and keeping your nose clean was the only way of not getting on their bad side!

Everything about Jimmy Savile looked and felt 'off' when I met him at 16.
He visited a supermarket I worked in as part of a charity race around the country.

He was dressed in a filthy shell suit and string vest with his chest hair poking out, and behaved like someone who was used to being fawned over and could do exactly as he wished. He zeroed in on me an a colleague, eyed me up and down, then kissed my hand for longer than was necessary while the store managers fawned round him. 🤢

@ShopTattsyrup

Not me, but a colleague worked with Shipman when he was a junior doctor and she was a staff nurse. She said he was normal but a knob who had a massive superiority complex - she remembered he used to get very rude and annoyed if a lowly nurse pointed out a job he had missed etc. But essentially a normal if unpleasant doctor.

I do a job where I have to speak to GPs daily.

99.9% of them have a god complex and a seriously rude attitude.

I mean yeah it takes a lot of years of hard work but cut either one of us in half and we look the same deep down!

My DH was in the same class at high school as one of the 7/7 bombers. Said he was very quiet and studious and there was not one hint of what he would end up doing!

I know someone who knew the Krays and other criminals in their gang, and won't have a word said against them! Not even whenI point out all their heinous crimes.

Temporarily based in South Africa, accidentally in a lift recently with an ex police officer (Rosemary Ndlovu) accused of murdering 6 family members including her partner, sister, cousin, nephew and attempted murder of her mother, for insurance policy payouts. Police are investigating the mysterious death of her toddler and 3 other family members. She was caught when she tried to hire hitmen to set alight her sister and children inside the sister's house. She was chained, but quite imposing, eerie.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel - and they didn’t just stick to the east end either, they came to South London as I mentioned. I think as others said they “looked after their own” but also other patches too.

@TheseImustsayag

Temporarily based in South Africa, accidentally in a lift recently with an ex police officer (Rosemary Ndlovu) accused of murdering 6 family members including her partner, sister, cousin, nephew and attempted murder of her mother, for insurance policy payouts. Police are investigating the mysterious death of her toddler and 3 other family members. She was caught when she tried to hire hitmen to set alight her sister and children inside the sister's house. She was chained, but quite imposing, eerie.

😳

[quote MrsCardone]@Astrak Denis Nielson killed my friend. I wonder if he was the person you were also referring to?

I shared accommodation with a Senior Staff Nurse on a Children's Ward who burnt her boyfriend's house down with his wife and their two DC inside. All three of them died . The strange thing is, I can find no record of this crime happening. It was in 1983. Does anybody remember it? Oh, and she seemed so normal. And I got to know her well.[/quote]
When I was 6 or 7, a little girl in my class was killed by her mother along with her little sister in a failed suicide/murder. I often think of her and have trawled the internet looking for information on the crime but only ever found one mention where it stated that the details wouldn't be available for so many years. It seems like those little girls have been forgotton completely :(