what was the first true crime story you remember hearing about?

[BrickPoet]

it was Damilola Taylor for myself

Moors murders. I was 13 in 1987 and went round the block on my gran´s bike without warning her, that´s when she told me about the Moors murders and Myra Hindley and there was a documentary on TV and we watched it. Pretty scary stuff. I had grown up in Spain and had never heard of them before.

Moors Murderers and the Yorkshire Ripper

We must be the same age @Fernticket

I remember reading in the paper that Christine Darby had a six inch wound in her private parts and it horrified me. I mean it really frightened me. I thought about that for years.

It shouldn't have been reported like that, but I didn't know that at the time.

The first really horrific crime that was openly discussed with me was Jamie Bulger. The first true crime podcast I listened to was Serial as it was recommended by my law lecturer

No, that was exactly my response. 'True crime stories' are media representations of crimes, whether on podcasts, TV shoes etc. These are actual crimes, and I find it incredible people don't seem to understand the distinction. And frankly distasteful.

It's probably not the first crime I've heard about but it's the one that had a profound effect on me

Yes, that was another one which was on my radar, as Mary and I are about the same age.

Not much was reported at the time. The judge placed restrictions on the media.

Like others, James Bulger. I was primary age and the headmaster spoke about it in assembly, in the context of not talking to strangers even if they were kids and seemed like they would be fun to play with. Some other children were talking about it and I vaguely remember my parents being shocked and following it closely on the news. I mainly remember the attitudes of the adults around me, very somber and shocked. Obviously, being a child and not one for the news (or even Newsround!) I had only a very limited understanding, but I remember the shock of the adults around me. It really did affect the nation very greatly in a way that's hard to explain.

I sort of wish there were more restrictions on big crime cases now. Some of the details are so upsetting, they really strip the victim of all dignity in death eg the details of little April Jones for example.

I grew up in a big SE Asian city in the 90s and there were a spate of kidnappings of foreign/wealthy local kids for ransom by gangs, so I was mainly trying not BE the true crime story 😅😂

The kidnapping of Lesley Whittle. Ginette Tate.

I knew about the Moors Murders of course, but these were the first I remember hearing about at the time.

And Pottery Cottage because that was near where I lived and one of the victims worked with my mum's stepbrother and actually met the victim with the murderer when they went to the company to get some money or sth.

James Bulger for me too. It was a complex and disturbing case. I am a year or two older than the boys who murdered him.

Fred and Rose West. All the times my Dad parked in that road or the adjacent one. Walked past that house loads of times on the way to town before it all came out. They knocked the house down and it is a large alleyway now.

Tate/LaBianca murders (Charles Manson)

Genette Tate. Mostly because I'd been out with my mum on the bus that passed the road to the village at roughly the time she would have been out on her bike and I often wonder if I'd seen something that might have been relevant without knowing it.

Also the Moors Murderers, but I was very very young so I only remember the general air of horror it caused.

The Moors Murderer's

I think I was about 15 as a classmate loaned me the book Beyond Belief. Circa 1980.
I asked my Parents about it and they said it had, Indeed, been National News at the time of their arrest, charge and Trial but I had only been 1 then so obviously would have no idea.

Oops I misread, thought it was what book .

The first true Crime I recall (probably seeing on the news) was the Lord Lucan murder/disappearance. I was 9 then.

For me it was probably the Moors murders but I didn't really understand much. Then the IRA bombing in Warrington and Jamie Bulger.

I also just want to add thanks to this thread I learnt about The Pottery Cottage murders. I am surprised I'd never heard about it before but what a crazy and horrific story,

Before I was born but my sister was at junior school then, we live in the area, and she and my Mom have both talked about how everything changed.

Lesley Whittle’s kidnapping and the IRA bombings in Birmingham.

I also remember news reports about letterbombs being sent by the IRA and being terrified every time the post was delivered.

Peter Sutcliffe. I was five years old, living in Halifax, W Yorkshire and had three teenage sisters when he started killing. My Dad took them everywhere and brought them home. We didn’t have a car so he’d go on the bus or walk miles to pick them up.

I can still hear every word of that tape. You couldn’t get away from it.

Likewise Peter Sutcliffe. I lived in an area where he had struck and my Girl Guides session on a Friday evening was cancelled. All women and children were told to stay indoors after dark and that continued until he was caught.

Must have been terrfying to leave near the area where the Yorkshire Ripper targeted.

Dunblane was another one of my earliest memories of crime. That was so shocking.

name has slipped by mind but that poor pregnant lady who broke down on the motorway and left the the phone in the car to get help but when the breakdown got there she had gone, the phone was left dangling and she was found murdered. It was just by where I was living
the other was I was listening to a documentary on the Moors Murders which happened around time I was born, but I always remember hearing the Lesley recording of her pleading for her mum before being killed. such a heart breaking sound crying for her mother while those monsters were assaulting her, Little Drummer Boy was playing and like one policeman said can never listen to that song again
after that it was the Yorkshire Ripper I was homeless at time nowhere near him but it made me aware of who actually was out there

name has slipped by mind but that poor pregnant lady who broke down on the motorway and left the the phone in the car to get help but when the breakdown got there she had gone, the phone was left dangling and she was found murdered. It was just by where I was living
the other was I was listening to a documentary on the Moors Murders which happened around time I was born, but I always remember hearing the Lesley recording of her pleading for her mum before being killed. such a heart breaking sound crying for her mother while those monsters were assaulting her, Little Drummer Boy was playing and like one policeman said can never listen to that song again
after that it was the Yorkshire Ripper I was homeless at time nowhere near him but it made me aware of who actually was out there