To think maybe my NDN is a murderer?

[notanoccultexpert]

Ok, I'm going to try and make this as short as possible, but at the same time, not miss any details out. Lived in our house for 30years - about 16 years ago, a family moved in next door. Mother, Father, 2 sons and 2 daughters (who all appeared to be in their mid-late 30s). 2 daughters drove and worked, 2 sons don't drive and have never worked.

Due to his future behaviour, we nicknamed one of the brothers 'Hulk' (he's also quite stocky), so to make things simple here, we have Hulk and 'Gentle' (his brother).

Incidents when my kids were young:

1. Hulk told me he was keeping a log of when my children made noise in the house
2. Hulk splashed bleach on my ex's car when he parked outside their house for literally a minute whilst picking the kids up
3. Hulk shouted at my young son for knocking to ask for his football, and when I saw him and Gentle next, I had a go at him for it. Gentle was 'holding' his brother back, like he would attack me.

My other neighbours don't like them, THEIR neighbours don't like them.

Over the years though, I got in the habit of saying hello and it became friendly enough. Time passed and the father died, then the mother died, one of the sisters died. I knew all this because they either told me, or, in the case of the sister, they had a big funeral procession, the hearse was parked outside the house for a while, and Gentle told me she died from kidney disease.

ALL through this time, I only EVER saw Hulk out in the garden with Gentle, gardening. Only ever saw Gentle and his sister go to shops, or laundromat. Literally the only time I would see Hulk is if he was with his brother out in the front garden, or gardening in the back garden. None of them go out a lot, but if one of them was walking down the street, it would only ever be Gentle.

Last year my daughter and her partner had a bit of a parking dispute with our other neighbours. They are nice but a bit fussy, and they always asked my daughters partner to move his car when he came over...he never parked outside their house, but they felt like they needed 'more space' for their daughters car. So he would move it, out of courtesy. Until one day he didn't, which resulted in their daughter 'having' to park outside Hulks house (she really didn't need to, plenty of space outside her parents house) - so an argument between them two occurred. A few weeks later, Hulk had asked us about the back yard fence, and we noticed some vines coming through from his side. He denied it, so I opened my back gate to show him. My daughter was also there, as was his sister, and he was stood about a foot away from me (I couldn't back up cos our cat run was behind me). Because he kept rambling, i eventually said, anyway, I've got to get on...and he literally just stood and stared at me, no expression for about 5 seconds....after about the 5th 'I've really got to go', i managed to end the convo and get him the hell out of my yard. Me and my daughter were really weirded out by the way he just stared and ignored me.

But, during this convo, he kept bringing it round to the parking dispute - telling my daughter re our other neighbours 'don't let them dominate you' - not kidding he kept coming back to it, and he must have said this about 6 times...so weird. I mention this because his language was so strange...it was a parking dispute and a small one at that.

So after this strangeness, I realised I hadn't seen Gentle for a very long time. And once I realised it, I started noticing that now only Hulk was doing gardening, and it was only Hulk who went to shops with his sister (they ALWAYS go out together).

And then we (my kids and me) started talking about their back garden. It's not a huge garden, but they already had two sheds side by side at the back. The rest was really lovely flowers. Until Hulk razed the flowers, concreted over and put a massive shed on it. If you look into their garden from our bedroom window, that shed takes up about 70% of the space, then the two sheds at the back as well. There's literally no garden space left, so what he's keeping IN the sheds, no idea.

But where is Gentle? Shed went up after Gentle 'disappeared' because he wasn't helping like he usually would have. I liked Gentle. He would even knock on the door if he needed help with council or anything. I find his brother weird. Now you'd think if Gentle had fallen ill, Hulk would have mentioned it to me during that conversation. The family dynamic is very strange anyway, but I can't stop thinking about what happened to Gentle.

So, what do you think? My kids were saying maybe call the police - but what would I say?

YABU - probably just ill or died
YANBU - he's definitely killed his brother

Wow that’s a v different portrait you’re now painting @notanoccultexpert.

You let a whole thread interpret this family as having specific vulnerabilities that they’ve used to agree with you to justify their agreement that a welfare check is warranted.

And now you realise how reductive & harmful your implications of the protagonists in your little story are . Where the bad learning disabled brother is called Hulk & the good learning disabled brother Gentle. Where the bad learning disabled killed poor innocent good learning disabled Gentle. And buried him under a shed.

No you didn’t say he was “evil” but your title of your thread & assumption that he murdered him doesn’t exactly imply otherwise does it?

You didn’t call it “I haven’t seen my neighbour in some time & I’m worried about them”.

And had zero awareness of how behaviours like staring, social communication differences & what you might see as unusual behaviour, can only too often describe a person with additional needs or disabilities.

Hope if nothing else, your ignorance & stigmatising assumptions have been challenged by this thread & hopefully re-evaluated.

Its not a different portrait at all, in fact, if you re-read that post you're on about, I said I NEVER said they had learning difficulties.

The problem is that people don’t read the Ops posts and then run with a scenario in their heads.

(this happens on a lot of threads, not just this one)

Also, a lot of people are unable to see any point of view other than their own hence ‘well you’re so nosy, you are an aspiring fiction writer, you’re a nasty neighbour so here is another completely different scenario you remind me of which has no similarity to your situation, I’m glad you’re not my neighbour, mind your own business’ style of posts.

It is absolutely fine to say ‘I think you’re overreacting but if you want to report it then feel it’s now in the police’s hands then do it’, people don’t have to be so strident.

Personally, I’m glad you’ve reported it and hopefully you hear nothing more about it which means whatever has happened is explainable and/or not a crime.

Not if he’s buried under the shed 😬

@GustavMunchkin

I think this is a little harsh. Like the OP pointed out, she never made the claim herself that the family had any learning difficulties. That was an assumption made by other people in this thread, and it doesn't seem fair to blame the OP for the incorrect assumptions made by other people. (Reasonable though the assumptions might have been.)

Maybe it would have been better for her to have said something earlier about having no reason to think that the family had any learning difficulties or neurodiversity. But I think it's a stretch to say that she made such implications about them in her earlier posts. She described them as she perceived them, but never suggested it had anything to do with disabilities. If that's what others extrapolated, then that's on them, not the OP.

I wonder if some people have incorrectly thought the ND in your title meant neuro diverse instead of Next-door .

I'm with you OP - you never once said or suggested anyone in the family had any learning difficulties.

Deleted - ( duplicate post by mistake).

Not if he’s been murdered, which is what she’s asking.

You’ve done the right thing. It is part of bringing a responsible member of society to look out for one another.
We had a neighbour who very much kept herself to herself. We would see her occasionally walk to the shop or go out in a taxi and also tending her front garden,
One day my ndn realised her garden was a bit overgrown and that was unusual. He called round and got no answer so let the police know.
Sadly she had taken her own life. But if my neighbour hadn’t alerted the police, her body could have laid there a lot longer.

Very well said!!

Op- please ignore the haters and trolls. They are looking for attention. You have done a sensible thing in reporting your valid concerns to the Police. We need more people like you in the world. Hopefully all is ok

Some people just ARE odd, or neuro-divergent, or whatever the current Phrase Of The Week is. But your story reminded me of something that happened to me and a girlfriend a long time ago near Southampton. Out late and the car started overheating. It was about quarter to one and gone, and no garages open or AA membership or anything like that at our age. We needed water as the temperature guage was deep in the red and saw only one house had a light on, so in the best Hammer Horror tradition we knocked on the door (cue "Say, isn't that a light at the Frankenstein place?")
Door opens and a creepy middle aged man opens it. Fully dressed, but one of those people who smell. Not of anything offensive, but he seemed greasy and that's what he smelled like. There was a hall light on and with the front door open we could hear half a conversation and a woman crying.
Given this was early 1980s there was no TV on at that time of night and in any case, you can tell the difference between hearing someone on TV and a real person in a room.
Being 18ish we couldn't say "Excuse me, but why is that woman crying?"
We never saw her and he offered no explanation. We got some water for the car, put it in and drove away.
But it's always bothered me. What if, what if...?
There are Fred and Rose Wests in real life.

Call 101. It's anonymous. Let the police do what they're paid to do.
Otherwise like me, you'll still be wondering in 40 years time.

Gosh @notanoccultexpert I can't believe some of these responses from people.

I actually fled AIBU yesterday and went over to Relationships to get away from the obviously contrary posters on this board.

I agree that you did the right thing. And anyone who says you should get a life, should hope for a neighbour like you if they're ever in an emergency.

We live in a sort of gated community (not UK) and my 13 year old son had a preteen tantrum and stormed out. I gave him some time to calm down, but then worried that he might leave the gated area, so I contacted the one neighbour that we all know is the nosey lady. She sits on the CCTV cameras all day and will tell you if your wheelie bin falls over in the wind, that sort of thing.

I asked if she'd seen him on the cameras and sure enough she had. Told me where he'd got to and I went and fetched him.

My point is, we NEED nosey neighbours (not that I'm saying you're nosey 😛)!! But I'm grateful that Nosey Kelly is constantly on the cameras. You never know when you will need her 😃.

I'd rather have you as my neighbour, Notanocult, than that twit Gustav.

People who disagree with the way the op worded her post are not haters or trolls.

Maybe I've missed this in another post, but as you're on vague speaking could you not just say "Oh I haven't seen your brother for a while, is he OK?". He's hardly likely to say he buried him under the shed but there may be an innocent explanation. If the parents died reasonably young and one of the sisters died, they might have a genetic condition (happened to one of my neighbours and his partner and adult children had to stop work and all eventually passed away). Not sure all neighbours would divulge that info but mine did. Anyway, I guess it's in the hands of the police now

But she’s explained her wording and so many people are pulling her to bits over it. Anyway, police are aware now so hopefully a good explanation is forthcoming

The feeling’s mutual. I can’t believe how pple posting on a forum are so intolerant of views being expressed that don’t align with their own. Echo chamber ot forum?

I think there are two types of MN responders…

1. people who genuinely want to give advice, ask more questions, sympathize or to say YABU or YANBU
2. people who scan the posts for anything that may be used to provoke an argument. Specifically about ideology or political correctness. They are not really interested in the OPs actual question or problem, they are only interested in ripping apart her choice of words or any implied bias or prejudice.

No 2 with bells on.

I really hope Gentle is ok. Hulks sounds absolutely terrifying

I garden in my back yard (roughly 4m x 10m) but then, as a northerner, I make the best I can with what I've got. It's got a long flowerbed about 2' wide the length of one side wall and deep, long troughs all along the other wall, plus some pots and hanging baskets. There's even the room for an 8x6 shed, no bodies beneath as far as I'm aware!

He prob moved out

unlikely dead and buried under the shed

Have you searched on birth marriage deaths

I have to agree with all of this. Lots of weird posters on this thread.

It's okay Gustav, we have one of you in the neighbourhood. We all know who and what he is. We don't invite him to neighbourhood gatherings and we don't call the police when we see someone dodgy around his house.

Someone I knew was bothed shocked and delighted to be offered a lovely 3 bedroom council house after being on the housing list for just a couple of months.
It meant she and her two young children had a bedroom each after being in temporary accommodation.
She of course accepted the offer and was surprised by what a nice neighbourhood it was too .
Only later did she find out that the previous tenant had been killed in her home by her son. The neighbours hadn't told about this as they assumed she already knew as it had been big new in the city but she had lived elsewhere prior to moving there.
The son who killed his Mom wasn't found guilty of murder but was detained under the mental health act.