Hindsight is 20-20, but sometimes you just have a gut feeling that something is wrong. People who knew someone who turned out to be a murderer share the moment that they knew that something wasn't quite right. Stories edited for clarity.
No Stranger To The Store
“Obligatory didn’t know him as a friend, but a regular customer in my shop. He would come in after his shift to buy his Budweiser and smokes, on one occasion he caught and helped us to evict a shoplifter. He seemed friendly enough. Then a local girl went missing and was eventually pulled out of a river a few weeks later. They announced they were looking for somebody in connection with her death and it was him. They had CCTV footage of him tailing her through a park and footage of him buying Bud in a shop, still unconfirmed to this day being our shop as they blurred out the surroundings.
Anyway, as we had a TV in our shop switched to the news channel as it was a rolling story local to us, we started to discuss the guy, if we saw him on the day she went missing, that kind of thing. We hadn’t, but it was at that point when one of my staff, a young girl, who had previously said to management that she didn’t want to work the closing shift anymore because there was ‘too many creepy men around’, told us that he used to stare at her when he came in to the store in a way that made her uncomfortable enough to not want to be on the floor when he came in.
They never got to question him about the murder as he was found dead in a local park a few days later. He’d hung himself.”
On His Own Wavelength
“I sat next to him in choir class. He was always kind of off. He operated on his own wavelength. Constantly in his own world, never really engaging with anybody. People just didn’t really exist on his radar. On a class trip we slept in the same hotel room and he walked around without any clothes on like I wasn’t even there. I always assumed he was autistic, but in hindsight it might have been something much worse, like schizophrenia. He never seemed violent, but nobody ever talked to him enough to ever make that conclusion in the first place.
A few months ago he beat and stabbed his mother to death with a kitchen knife. It was so bad dental records were needed to identify the body. He cut off one of her bosoms and implied in his confession that he ate part of it. He waited until his dad came home from work to show him what he’d done. Claimed he saw a sign from the devil that told him to kill her. (That may have been a lie. From what I heard he was very excited to tell the police what he had done. And from what I do know about him, he might have said it for the attention.) He turned himself in, waived his Miranda rights, and confessed to everything. When the cops found him he was literally soaked in blood. He refused to shower it off, so they had to hose him down before they put him in a cell. He’s looking at 40 years in prison.
His Mom was an amazing woman, she tailored our suits for choir and was constantly volunteering. If there was an event, she was there. She was gonna be her town’s councilwoman next year. She loved her son very much. She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
A Bully For No Good Reason
“I went through primary and high school with a guy in the year below me who seemed a little… distant. We lived near each other and caught the bus from the same stop. He was a bit of a bully, but it was something more. Like you could tell he wasn’t a bully because he was hurting inside or because he felt threatened in some way, he was a bully because he did what he wanted to do and didn’t realize that it hurt other people. Like the kind of kid who enjoyed pulling wings off flies.
Not long after I left my hometown I heard that he had been charged with the murder of a 2 year old. Apparently his girlfriend at the time left her daughter with him for an hour or so while she ran an errand. He couldn’t deal with the toddler crying anymore so he beat her. He caused severe internal bleeding and she died in hospital not long after. He would have been around 22 when he did it. He was sentenced to 36 years with a non parole period of 27 years.”
It Gave Me Chills
“I moved to a new town when I was 19 and was making new friends at my new job. I met this girl at work and she invited me over to hang out with her and her best friend. I went and the best friend’s boyfriend was there and the vibes were waaay off. I was uncomfortable. He was cold, and just seemed angry for no reason. They had mentioned to me before he got there that he was always controlling and had hit the girl before.
Turns out controlling was an understatement. She came home one day and he was digging a hole in the backyard and she asked what he was doing and he replied ‘digging your grave.’ He hit her, said if he can’t have her, nobody could have her, all of that. So eventually she left him and had to get a restraining order and everything. He somehow persuaded her to get in a car with him on her work break and they went missing for a few days. Turns out he stabbed her to death, threw her in a river and killed himself.
I met the girl only a few times and him only the once but the face that I was in such close proximity to someone capable of that gives me chills. She was so young, it was really sad.”
The Voices Said To Do It
“When he said there was.
A teenager, his mother and his step father lived around the corner from me. My mother knew them better than myself, but we all thought they were lovely.
A couple of years ago the son went to the hospital several times asking for help. He claimed he had voices telling him to kill his stepfather, but each time he went he was released and told to come back (they would give an appointment).
A few weeks later during a small argument he stabbed his stepfather to death in the front garden.
He turned himself in the next day, and wasn’t convicted as he sought help before it happened. Instead, he got the treatment he needed.”
She Was The Nicest Person
“I never suspected a thing. She was the nicest woman, I even let her babysit my cousin when I had custody of him for a little while. She was my neighbor (couple houses down) and everyone loved her, she grew gigantic pumpkins, was always outside, so everyone interacted with her a lot. I moved away and a few years later and was shocked to hear everything from my family and friends who still loved in the area.
The story: She was married to a man, I knew him from my time living there too. One day, he was just gone. She was all beaten up. She said he beat her up (we always suspected this happened before this incident) and had left her because he got a woman pregnant a few towns over. We never heard from him again, but didn’t really have a reason to. She would mention every once in a while that he was still harassing her and was even beat up on another occasion after his disappearance. He was self-employed and didn’t really have any family, no one suspected anything. Three years later she was dating another man. While dating this man, the police had been investigating her for stealing money from the grocery store she worked at. They went to the boyfriends cabin, where they both were, to arrest her. She came to the door, said ok, let me go put on some clothes. The police waited at the door (I obviously wasn’t here for this part, so this is what I hear). The police then hear two loud bangs. They run inside and she had poured gasoline and set the house on fire then shot her dog then herself. It took some time to get the house fire under control. Once they did, and began investigating, they found another body in the basement that didn’t die in the fire, but several days earlier. The body in the basement was her boyfriend. Then, they began investigating further, and found a blue 55 gallon drum in her backyard that contained her husband. So, she killed 2 people and her dog, and all she was suspected of was stealing from the grocery store.”
His Eyes Were Dead
“I was running a video game program for kids years ago, and one day an older (19) teen came in. I didn’t want to allow him in, but one of my coworkers had already said it was okay. The other kids were around 12-14 and he kept rubbing their shoulders and making them visibly uncomfortable. When I told him to stop, he did the same thing you described, just stared at me for a few seconds without saying anything. The was NOTHING in those eyes. I went home and told my boyfriend at the time that I’d met someone who would end up forcing himself on some woman or becoming murderer some day. He was dating the sister of one of the kids I worked with and maybe a month after this, ended up breaking into their apartment, killing the boy with a sword, and kidnapping the sister who had broken things off with him. The murderer’s mother ended up turning him in.”
His Mind Was Somewhere Else
“The murderer I know was more of an acquaintance or casual friend – he lived down the hall from me and we hung out sometimes but not like just the two of us. Still, we’d chill at each other’s place regularly.
I passed him one day in the stairwell and I said hi. He said hi back but called me by the wrong name. He was really distracted and kind of awkward. He didn’t make eye contact and kept moving.
I remember thinking maybe we we don’t know each other as well as I thought. Later he was playing Nintendo (yep, my N64 – this was a while ago) with my roommate when I came home. He apologized and said his mind was elsewhere.
A couple days later there are cops all over the building, interviewing people and searching his place. They’d found the guy’s roommate with a bullet in the back of his head in an abandoned lot across town. The next day he confessed.”
He Bought A Murder Kit
“Well this is wild.
I know a guy who murdered a nurse and wanted to be our towns first serial killer. He bought a ‘murder kit’ online and stabbed her over 50 times. Let’s call him Steve.
I knew him through scouts. Now, to preface, our scout troop was pretty laid back. We didn’t tend to bother with badges and the two troop leaders were pretty cool guys. Mostly we played silly games like crab football, built catapults to fire stuff across the hall at each other etc. You get the picture.
We were a little bit a gang of misfits. But Steve was really weird. First time it came out was when he would do this thing where he’d get his butt out and dance around. At first it was like outrageous and funny, and he kept getting told to stop. When he kept doing it got a bit annoying (none of us were keen to see his bare bottom…), then it got boring, then just outright weird when it’s not remotely funny, no one wanted him to do it and he continued.
He also used to bring in print outs of super gross fetish videos (obviously confiscated and thrown away). Again, he was clearly trying to gross people out for his amusement.
A few times he was suspended for a week or so but give we were quite laid back and the troop leaders were good guys, they probably couldn’t bring themselves to bin him off completely.
It was a long time ago so I can’t recall all the details but I recall him being quite childish in mentality but also veeeery creepy.
When I found out I was shocked, but not surprised. Then I remembered I’d played hide and seek in the dark with this guy, in a hall with a kitchen full of knives…”
He Made My Skin Crawl
“Looking back, I should have known immediately, but I didn’t even know what I was seeing.
In 2016, I was working as a server, and one of my coworkers was always complaining about her terrible husband and how they always fought. They were from Chicago, and kind of just always loud and aggressive, so I didn’t think much of it. One night, they both came in for dinner and drinks and sat in my section, and I was looking forward to finally meeting her husband so I could give him a face…I just remember not being able to look him in the eye; feeling super uncomfortable any time I needed to go over to their table, because my friend would try to spark convo—and I wanted to talk to her—but the guy’s presence just sitting there would make my skin crawl. They left that night but soon she stopped coming to work and then, a couple weeks later, news broke about the murder-suicide (husband being the murderer).
It was heartbreaking…and I no longer take lightly word of domestic disputes.”
We Always Knew
“My biological dad ended up murdering my step-mom. Everyone in my family, my mom and two older brothers definitely knew that something was up. He had severe anger issues and was very abusive, some of the earlier memories I have are of him choking one of my brothers. He even almost choked my mom to death a couple of times. Obviously my mom was smart and divorced him as he didn’t want to see him kill my brothers.
Years later I come home from school and my mom and step-dad take us all to the side and tell us he shot our step-mom and was currently in jail. None of us were surprised. If anything I was just so grateful my mom left him.
It’s so strange that I am directly related to a murderer.”
God Will Cure Your Trauma
“I know one and still keep in contact with him. We all knew he had issues with rage, but we never thought he would’ve killed someone. We worked together at this restaurant for a while and we got really close. Like if I wasn’t in a committed relationship at the time I would’ve dated him. He was super chill, down to earth and the sweetest person…until something triggered him. He didn’t get angry often, but he had triggers that would send him into a rage. He was horribly abused as a child by his father, so there was a lot of resentment towards men that looked like his dad or talked down to him. That is where we bonded, because I was abused by my mother. Thankfully, I had the resources to manage my trauma. Unfortunately, he did not. His parents believed that God was going to cure his traumas. It got to the point where his mother left, because his father would pull him out of therapy as soon as they would start making progress and she couldn’t deal with it anymore.
He ended up suffering from a concussion about 6 months after I met him. He was helping a friend move and had a dresser fall on his head. After this he wasn’t the same. He quit coming into work and went almost radio silent. We would still talk, but we weren’t as close as we were before. At the time, I was moving into the city and he lived in the suburbs so we had planned on getting together to catch up! A week later, I got a call from my friend at 7 in the morning saying that he was in jail for hiding a body… I was shook.
After an investigation, they interrogated him and he confessed pretty quick. He beat his dad to death with a barbell and tried to hide the body in the house. Afterwards he ended up trying to kill himself but was unsuccessful, so he just left the house. After he was booked, I sent him a letter to check in on him. He had suffered from a psychotic episode and only remembers moments from the act. He’s now serving 40 years with the possibility of parole after 20. He’s medicated and doing really well! Last I checked he had a few activities he was responsible for managing and he was working through his traumas with a psych.”
Shady Business
“I actually knew a couple. First was the guy who was neighbor to a little girl that went missing. He was visiting the family daily to check on them and volunteered for the search parties. Started to get all shady when they found the body (tortured and murdered) and then disappeared from view when they started to suggest DNA testing all males in the area to find out who had done it. The little girl’s sister was in my year at high school, and the guy is still in prison.
The other incident was two brothers. Used to drive around with my brother when he delivered pizzas. Normal kids who one day went home and found their schoolteacher mother had been murdered. Lot of speculation around what had happened as the father was in the pub at the time so couldn’t have been him.
Anyway, they just kept driving around as normal and weren’t upset or bothered at all. Reason being that it was the two brothers who had killed her at the dads urging, and he was in the pub to give himself an alibi. They all ended up in prison.”
Balls Of Steel
“I just realized that I have 2 scenarios that are similar enough to mention:
1.) I went to the same high school as the chick who gained infamy in the US for convincing her boyfriend to kill himself and then running all these charity events for him before getting caught. The text messages were public record and absolutely chilling. I think she ended up getting off with manslaughter but the case is being appealed and will likely go to the Supreme Court. She was extremely forgettable in high school, nothing remarkable whatsoever. I had a friend in college who lived on the same street as the poor kid who killed himself. I’m sure it won’t be a surprise, but he had a terrible/tough life according to my buddy and that was well known by the people in his neighborhood/town.
2.) While I was in college I worked in the bookstore over the summers. I worked with a guy there who was a decent guy but always a little weird. He’d make inappropriate comments about some of the students that would come in for books etc but seemed harmless. He ended up being charged for attempted murder after stabbing his wife multiple times, I believe an affair was involved. The only reason the poor women lived was because a construction worker saw the attack and intervened……so shout out to that guy for having balls of steel.”
An Emotional Roller Coaster
“We (partner and I) had some neighbors move in across the street, a young couple in their 30s. The guy would come over almost every day to chat with my partner. My partner told me he would say things about being abused by his brother as a kid and that people didn’t care about him. His wife was weird. She just sat on the porch not talking to anyone or doing anything. Just… sitting there. All I knew about her was she didn’t have custody of her kids.
A few months ago, our street was filled with cop cars and ambulances. Being the nosy punks we are we just watched out the window for hours as cops busted down the door, messed with the couple’s lawnmower, and eventually we watched as two body bags were loaded up into a vehicle right in front of our house.
Turned out they’d killed themselves, or I guess one killed both of them with consent. They turned the lawnmower on in their house and died from the fumes. Their dog died, too.
My partner and I felt so bad for them because the landlord dumped their stuff into the street the day after and only one person came by grieving. We also felt angry at them for killing their dog. I tried finding the obituaries but couldn’t.
Months after this happened, I was on Reddit and saw a video (unrelated) of a man beating the daylights out of a registered child abuser/offender who was talking to his daughter. I went to family watchdog just to see, and guess whose mugshot came up? It was her. The wife. And she had a different last name than I thought she did, so I googled her name to see if she got an obituary. She did. There was also a news article about how she and her ex-husband abused and forcibly slept with all three of their own kids and only spent four years in jail. The man who did it with her is still out there somewhere. I knew she was weird but… holy cow.
We didn’t feel AS bad for them anymore. So yeah, that was an emotional rollercoaster.”
My Ex, The Double Murderer
“My ex. We were middle school sweethearts that led into high school. He was sweet and good to me. We drifted apart but stayed friends. His best friend about a year later made a comment while they were drinking about finding me to be attractive which led my ex to attempt to kill him with rat poisoning. He went to jail as a juvenile and got out. He came back with anger issues and we all kind of went our separate ways. The ex moved to Florida. Next we all heard he was in jail for murder.
Like most bad Florida related stories, he got hooked on crystal. Met a girl and in their desperate attempt to keep their habit going, they targeted this elderly couple. They broke into their home, tied them up and raided their home. They gave them pin numbers and anything else they thought of value. In their chemically altered state they decided that this elderly couple saw too much. He dug a huge hole and threw the elderly couple in alive. He buried them. Once they felt the job was done, they took their ATM card and was able to get $200 from it. That was it. That was how they were tracked, too. He is currently on death row for two counts of murder and a slew of other crimes including kidnapping and robbery.
And that folks is the story of my ex, the double murderer.”