I worked with this guy, Lloyd Riddle, for about three years at Madison’s community college. Then I learned he was a hit man (at least one time, though he’s also a suspect in the disappearance of his daughter’s boyfriend, and his former roommate). I spoke to him nearly every day, and I also worked daily with a guy named Ralph, who ended up wearing a wire for the cops.
When I heard he was arrested, I thought, “Yeah, he could do that”, but I didn’t believe he did do it. Now I do – the evidence was overwhelming. Lloyd is now serving a life sentence in Michigan.
Known any really bad people in your time? What was your reaction when you found out?
Let’s skip the drug users and small time dealers, unless they shot somebody :).
How about my father, who seemed incapable of functioning outside of prison? Or my uncle (his brother) who was a convicted rapist? Or his two sons (my cousins) who followed in their father’s footsteps? Do they count?
I dated a guy (Bill) for a short while who was obsessed with his ex. I guess he’d had enough so one day he parked himself outside the daycare center and shot and killed her, her new husband, and her and Bill’s infant daughter in front of the new husband’s nine-year old son.
I dumped him because he was so creepily obsessed, but even then this shocked me.
I’m not sure how he escaped capital murder, but he’ll never see daylight again except what comes through that little 1’x1’ window.
A busniess partner of my dad’s had Henry Lee Lucas as a childhood friend. Said Lucas’ mother was a total b*tch, and not surprisingly about ten years later Lucas offed her.
I wkred with a guy here in Singapore called, Anthony Ler. Very wierd guy, and full of so much bravado. Turns out lates last year he organised to have his wife killed (by a fifteen year old boy, cos the kid wouldn’t get the death penalty! -go figure!). Turns out Anthony was doing this to get his wife’s life-insurance payout and custody of their child before their divorce was finalised. (yeah, like they’re give him this after having his wife killed).
He’s currently awaiting the death sentence (he just failed his first appeal) and the fifteen-year old is being, ‘held at the president’s leisure’ (this means he is in prison until the president decides he’s served enough time, but he can’t be re-tried and re-sentenced).
This was very very scary for me, cos Anthony worked directly under me, and has an extremely beliigerent attitude all the time. I was not in the least surprised when this story broke (nor were any of the other ex-colleagues), but it still rattles me to think how close I was to such deep evil-ness!
The saddest part of this whole thing is the four-year old daughter who now has no parents. And I might point out how rare murder is in Singapore.
Former co-worker was convicted & sentenced to prison for smuggling & other things. It seemed sad because the guy always appeared nice to people. Not worth it when the loss of liberty/freedom is likely.
When I was 18, my “boyfriend” was, unbeknownst to me, cheating on me constantly as well as doing a lot of cocaine (I was very naïve…my dad, brothers, and other men in my life were all pretty nice guys – I thought all guys were like that, I think, and gave everyone the benefit of the doubt…). Apparently he took a knife one night and decided to break into a neighbor’s house to get some money - when he got in and saw a girl in a nightgown in there, he decided to rape her at knifepoint. After he did it, he called my parents’ house in the middle of the night (I had actually been mugged near my apt. about a week earlier and was staying at home while changing apts – another criminal story, I guess) and asked to talk to me. I got on the phone. He said he needed me to pick him up, right away. I asked him where he was, and I thought he said that he was at my old apartment, but he had really said he was at his apartment. So I went to my apt. and waited for about 5 minutes, but he wasn’t there, so then I realized he must have meant his apartment. I drove over there (less than 10 minutes away) and there were police cars all over the place. I drove by a couple of times, but didn’t see him and didn’t know what was going on. He was already in the back of one of the cars, and told me later he saw me driving by. For some reason I was too afraid to stop and find out what was going on, so I went home. The next day I came over to his apartment and found out from his two roommates that he had raped a girl. Imagine my shock/humiliation/rage/embarrassment. And he had called me so I could be his getaway method/accomplice after the fact! I was so grateful that I had misunderstood him and gone to the wrong place. I don’t think he would have hurt me, but who knows what kind of mess I would have been in. His roommates and I played his answering machine and I heard numerous messages from girls calling for him…that was pretty humiliating too. We divided up his clothes and possessions, trying to get back what we could, since he owed all of us money. I went to see him, just once, in jail, before he was sentenced, to see if he would somehow deny it or something. He neither admitted nor denied it, but the case against him was strong and there was not much doubt. He pleaded guilty and got 10 years. That was over 10 years ago, and I don’t know where he is now. Anyway, it was pretty terrible to be and to be known as the (ex) girlfriend of a guy who raped somebody. He was handsome, charming, and my parents liked him. I guess he had us fooled.
After my parents split, my dad dated a woman that eventually torched his car in the driveway and set the house on fire while no one was home. We later found out that she had been a conspirator with Blanche Taylor Moore, the last woman executed in NC, who killed three husbands.
Then there was the “Spooter” the guy who ran the local tavern. Our band was playing there, I was underage, sneaked out to my truck for a beer and witnessed “Spooter” shoot a guy three times in the parking lot. Funny thing was, I just thought he was shooting at him. The guy never flinched. Next day I heard he had been shot and I just didn’t believe it at first cause I Saw it. But sure enough he had been shot three times.
I’ll just do murderers, since I’ve known countless lesser criminals.
A serial killer, did not know he was a murderer until months after he moved away. He was a neighbor, I talked to him on a number of occasions.
A drug dealer who I know killed one person and probably killed others in the past. I bought product for personal use from him, sold for him once, and he dated one of my close friends for some time.
A friend’s girlfriend who, with the aid of her brother, killed her father. Only the brother did time.
A fellow student at my high school who murdered a guy and buried him in a shallow grave - I never talked to him, but I knew who was being talked about when it came out.
And finally, there is the possibility that I know my sister’s murderer - there are a number of suspects and a few are family members.
Jay Churchman
He was a boarder, but we treated him like family. Mom’s home cooking, Dad’s help getting a job, computer access, the works. When he was sick we loaned him money (never returned) for the doctor.
He snuck out in the middle of the night, oweing Mom & Dad $1200, and stole Dad’s power tools to boot.
Yes.
My former brother in law.
He and my former husband went out intending to restrain this acquaintance, steal his stereo equipment and sell it.
Guy pulled a gun, brother-in-law got it from him, shot him, tied him up, left him to bleed to death.
This was in 1991.
He got 15 to life.
He hasa chance of parole in 2006.
My Coke Dealer in College.
I stopped personally associating with him a few years ago when I quit doing blow, but I’ve gotten reports from friends that stayed in contact with him. It seems he stole roughly $20,000 from some other dealers who then kidnapped another former friend of mine who had acted as a go between for them. Last I heard he was stealing cars and trying to stay one step ahead of the guys he ripped off, who are still looking for him. Needless to say, I’m quite happy I decided to clean up when I did and spare myself the chance of getting further involved in his dealings.
I went to high school with a girl named Ashley. She seemed pretty nice, and she was very quiet.
I graduated from high school, and she dropped out. Her mother was a very controlling woman, and Ashley usually did anything she could to get out of the house. One night she called me and asked me if I could come pick her up. So, I stopped by her house, picked her up, and took her downtown with me. I found out later that she was supposed to be on restriction, (she was 16) and her mother called the cops and said I kidnapped her. Everything got straightened out, but her mom still hated me.
Fast forward a year. Ashley starts dating Jamie, a guy that hung out with us. She starts doing a lot of drugs and drinking with him, and they both ran up to me downtown, telling me they’re getting married. I tell them they’re just crazy kids (she was 17, he was 19), but we all go hang out and have a couple of beers. Two days later, I find out that in some freak drug-induced frenzy, they robbed a store, and ended up getting in a shoot-out with the cops, during which she and Jamie were both killed. The news kept saying how they imitated “Natural Born Killers”, because they loved the movie so much. They were in the news for a couple of days, and a lot of the radical churches pushed it as a reason to censor movies, that kind of thing. After about a week, it all died down.
That’s my closest brush with a criminal of some noteriety. Well, except for the fact that my mother’s maiden name is Riddle, so the OP really freaked me out!
Man, I must have lived under a rock my whole life. The most trouble anybody I know has gotten into was a friend from Detroit who was expelled from Canada “for life” because he got drunk and stole a park bench.
He was in New Brunswick or someplace on a student visa attending boatbuilding school and went out with a classmate. He and this guy took a park bench and put it in Erik’s room. Later that night the RCMP showed up and he was asked to leave Canada. Forever.
I have met a bunch of criminals over the years, but only enough to say hi to at a party. And I suppose that several people I knew in high school are probably in jail. I don’t keep up with them and I don’t have anybody specific in mind, but it was a blue collar town in Michigan…the odds are in favor of having a few convicts in my graduating class.
I was friends with a guy named Shawn back in my teens, about 8 of us hung around all the time together, I kind of drifted out of that circle after about 2 yrs. He was a perfectly nice guy, friendly, funny (and pretty hot too!) So imagine my surprise when 1 year later I spot him on America’s Most Wanted for the torture and confinement of a 70 yr old retired minister and his elderly wife!
FYI: The RCMP did nab him soon after, now I do love my country, but knowing the Canadian legal system he probably served three days! :rolleyes:
(But that’s another thread…)
In 1980, Akron Judge James Barbuto was sentenced to prison for trading lenient sentences to female defendants for sex. I don’t know how long he served, but in the mid-90’s we both worked out at the same club and had a few conversations.
I didn’t know him, but my dad grew up with a guy named Henry Hepee (also in Akron). Thirty-some years later, Hepee was found in his home (about 2 blocks from mine, actually), lying in bed with his mother’s corpse. Well, kinda. He had killed her (because she was a “psychic vampire,” apparently) and to stop her evil once and for all he had chopped her into pieces, eaten some of them, and, uhm, had sex with others.
When I was a little kid (4 or 5, maybe) I lived two doors down from a guy named Barry. As far as I can remember, he was a perfectly nice guy. Anyway, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder; I was so young I’ll probably get some details wrong, but he had been hired by some guy to kill his (the employer’s) brother. Instead of doing it himself, Barry asked some jogger he saw on the street. IIRC, the jogger agreed but either let the story get out or couldn’t go through with it, and they all went to jail.
Yes, have known several who went on to kill, a few who were/became notorious locally, in my personal life, we have:
many of my former inlaws (including one who killed a woman during firearm deer season :rolleyes: ),
the most notable, was a guy I went to high school with, who became a drug dealer. Well, not just a drug dealer, he was like the guy flying the plane in from Columbia sort of level.
when the DEA busted him, they confiscated several million in cash, slots, race cars from his house alone. His life style included racing cars (with Paul Newman), was featured on the cover of the Sunday Supplement magazine in the Detroit Free Press. etc.
When I was thirteen, my friends and I used to go to the local candy store every day after school. The owner was a kindly old guy named Benny. He didn’t speak much English and addressed us all as “Boy” (Hey boy, come-a here. Come. You-a-try this-a chock-o-latt. Is good. Come). He would have fit anybody’s image of the doting Italian grandfather.
I was mortified when he was arrested (and convicted) as being the ringleader of Canada’s largest ever heroin smuggling ring. Mama mia!
I worked the night/graveyard shift at a Circle-K a couple of semesters of college. One of the other employees was an older guy, 40-something. Seemed nice enough.
One night the cops came in–the same cops that hung out on the wilder nights (we were right off campus near a bunch of bars). Arrested the guy on the spot–went off in cuffs.
Turned out he had molested and raped a 5-year-old girl from one of the apartment complexes nearby where they both lived. The thing was, he videotaped the whole thing and the cops had the evidence. I think he had more sick stuff as well. Anyway, it was an easy conviction. I wish I could remember the exact sentence, but I would have to go through my storage area (I saved the newspaper clipping somewhere). I know he got a long prison term. Hope he rots in hell. Makes me sick to think I was nice and friendly with him for several months.
