To ask if you’ve ever become obsessed with a murder case?

[sheknoedidhitit]

I was watching a true crime podcast on YouTube and it finished and went to a random suggestion and it was a 2 minute video of a crime scene inside a subway from the 80s on an ordinary news channel.

I looked into the case and there’s nothing on it apart from a one column blurb in the newspaper at the time and the victims photo being sold on Amazon. It’s so weird .. and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Anyone else?

Not obsessed but think of Jason Swift semi regularly. He was my age and we lived not far from each other. I remember seeing his missing poster on a bus stand in the area. One of my teachers was his home tutor before he went missing and I knew people who lived on his estate. I think we may have know each other had circumstances had been different.

I think it’s natural and normal to be interested in this stuff. We are hard wired to finding solutions, so crimes without a solution really get to us.

However I listened to a podcast that talked about the effect of true crime shows on relatives and loved ones (particularly those in near history) and the fact that often no permissions are sought or even a “just to let you know were airing this” takes place - interviews are often carried out with the z list of people involved (neighbours/distant friends etc). The first traumatised people know about it is when their loved one’s face is broadcast for entertainment.

I’ve looked on crimes shows in a different light since then and looked more into historical crimes. Recommend the Bad Women podcast covering crimes against women in WWII London

The Columbine High School killings probably because I was the same age as them at the time. 25 years later, I still can't get my head around it. Planning it for two years together, making bombs in the house - its all just so far away from what I was thinking about at 17.

I agree, I think that they reveal something about the darkness of human nature. And they can serve as warnings to us. I would never say that they are enjoyable but there is an underlying fascination with the capacity for people to carry out such horrendous and cruel acts. I think you can be respectful to the victims at the same time as being interested, or at least, I hope so.

JonBenet Ramsey. Never been solved.

Nope, and now mum is deceased.
It's so sad. Lots of debate about pageants, etc.
And brother gossip etc, etc.
Awful x

The Clydach Murders in Swansea.

No idea if there was a miscarriage of justice - definitely some dodgy police work - but lost behind all the debate was a young mum, her disabled mother and 2 little girls. Horrific. Don’t suppose the truth will ever be known.

Someone knows what happened that night - but it will never be solved.

Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a French woman who was murdered at her holiday home in west Cork, Ireland, in the 1990s.

There was a Netflix documentary about it last year. Nobody was ever charged with her murder, and the main suspect died a few months ago.

Chris Watts too @sheknoedidhitit I think it’s because there was so much footage recorded by
Shannan. The viewers felt like we knew her
It just didn’t make any sense… how someone who appeared so normal could do such a thing.

Yes, the murder of Rachel Nickel who was murdered in Wimbledon. Her little boy was with her at the time. I still think about it sometimes when I’m walking with my little girl. Truly horrifying. There was a miscarriage of justice too with one man being wrongly convicted of her murder.

Angelika Kluk's murder, and the subsequent finding of Vicky Hamilton and Dinah McNicol, gripped me because I previously briefly met Peter Tobin.

Not the usual "knew he was evil" or had an instinct type thing though. Just a man I crossed paths with through my Grandad's job who seemed entirely normal and it's only because both my cousin and I commented that he was familiar that we pieced it together.

I also feel sad for the inevitable other victims of him who haven't been found. I simply don't believe a man who kidnapped, murdered and hid two women in 1991, and appeared to have got away with it, simply didn't kill anyone else until 2006.

Yes.
To the extent that I asked MN to establish a True Crime board, as I didn't want us to be continually called tricoteuses.
Over the years, I have followed rabbit holes/done deep dives into these cases:
Noah Donohoe
Meredith Kercher
Stuart Lubbock
Madeleine McCann
JonBenet Ramsay
Reeva Steenkamp
and also the proceedings against Jonty Bravery/Valdo Calocane/Ian Stewart.

I have also taken a huge interest in the activities/timelines of:
Prince Andrew
Russell Brand
Fiona Harvey
Philip Schofield

Finally, I became consumed by:
The disappearance of Rebecca Coriam 2011/cruise crime stats in general
Riots 2011
The Grenfell Fire
The unexplained/conspiracy theory threads (within reason e.g. death of Gareth Williams, Jill Dando etc)

I think it's human to want to unravel things and work out the whys - it's also why so many young people are interested in criminology and psychology at college - it only becomes an issue when libel/hearsay/insensitivity/trial by media/live trials being affected or crowd sleuthing en masse occur (e.g. Nicola Bulley).

Yes, there's loads more.

Do you think he is Bible John?

I agree - it's so tragic. His mum is in a massive sense of denial. And his sister. I think it must be awful for them, but they still talk about how it was so awful for him !
What about Shanan'an and her beautiful girls and unborn son ' can't get my head around it.

Edited: this was in response to @Summerx. Quote feature fail!

Is it truly awful that the first thing springing to mind about the Casey/Caylee Anthony case is Nancy's Grace's never-ending parrot cry of TOT MOM!

This trial was interesting because I was WFH at that time and able to stream the trial in its entirety: a thing we in Britain never get the chance to do.

It's safe to say that the operation of the law in Florida and the nature of the evidence admissible into the court is very, very different from the way things are done in the UK. Quite the eye-opener.

Trial by media is a very real risk with the transparency of every aspect of the proceedings, including the freedom of the jury to talk about their deliberations later if they so choose. In this case that doesn't seem to have affected the outcome. No one ever expected that Casey Anthony wouldn't be found guilty of at least one of the more serious indictments.

That whole family were weirder than the line-up of a Wes Craven movie. Poor little girl.

Jon Benet Ramsey. But I think the Dad and possibly the brother will take it to their graves.

The Emma Caldwell podcast really got to me. Still think about it.

India Chipchase.
I was a year or two older than her, but I was out that particular night in the same town (but in a different bar on the same street) but I had been in that particular bar hundreds of times before.

I was really into true crime prior to that, but it just made it all hit home for me, and I had to distance myself from true crime following it.

baby star. I had a DD around the same age and was just so upset by this case.

The Tobin = Bible John theory has been completely discounted. He didn't resemble the descriptions of surviving witnesses, and more importantly, he wasn't even in the Glasgow area for much of the timescale of the BJ murders.

Oh my goodness I need to follow this thread, I’m obsessed with all things “Murder Sh.t”, as we call it in our house.
Chris Watts murders had a profound effect on me. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, since I watched that Netflix doc back in 2020. I cried watching it, in a packed gym. Must’ve looked a right loser.

@AccidentallyWesAnderson

Yes, there's loads more.

Do you think he is Bible John?

It's awful to think those families may never get the finality of knowing for sure.

I don't think so. The police ruled him out and I don't think they'd have done that if they didn't have proof he was elsewhere.

That said I might be swayed by the fact my Nana and her sister (who went to the Barrowland, but not at that exact time) were both convinced that one of the women wasn't killed by Bible John. In a documentary I watched once that seems to be a not uncommon belief. They believed there was two killers.

Ah ok, thanks for clarifying. Hideous man.

God how scary.