# Anybody ever known someone that did something so wrong it made the news? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 21, 2001, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339 "2001-08-21T14:32:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/121 "2014-04-15T17:03:48Z")
I know two guys who hit the news. One was just a teenage drunken driving spree, here in Rhode Island something like that will be on the news. The other was much more serious. He was the brother of a friend and I didn’t meet him until after he served his time. He was also a teenager at the time of the incident, and an accomplice, not the guy who pulled the trigger. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/122 "2014-04-15T17:38:45Z")
Back in the late 90s there was a string of armed robberies in the uber-rich area of Potomac, MD. The perpetrators spoke with British accents and were, by all accounts, extremely polite, thus known as the “Gentleman Bandits” (or the “Brit Bandits” depending on what news source you read). I went to high school with one of them and knew the other ones’ brother. The one I knew, he was kind of a douchebag. When they were caught I was surprised to hear the name of someone I knew, but considering who I knew him to be, it wasn’t really all that shocking. ---
**Author:** ![Eutychus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/123 "2014-04-15T17:58:21Z")
Ahhh, Rhode Island. There used to be a used furniture dealer in North Kingstown named Zeke. He was one of those people who everybody loved and nobody could say anything against. Turned up murdered in his shop one day after what was thought to be a robbery attempt. The murderer turned out to be a person that I delivered papers to every day on my paper route. ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/124 "2014-04-15T18:20:30Z")
Friends of mine claim to have known Ted Bundy. I never knew if it was true. From what I could tell they wouldn’t have run in the same circles. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/125 "2014-04-15T18:32:08Z")
[Matthew Solomon](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/20/nyregion/drama-at-the-solomon-trial.html). We went to high school together. While I wasn’t very close to him personally, we hung in the same larger group. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/126 "2014-04-15T20:20:16Z")
I rented an apartment from a guy who had a duplex in California. A couple years later, when I was 3.500 miles away in New Brunswick, I read in the paper (a news-wire filler at the bottom of a column) that the landlord’s dog had attacked and killed his son in the driveway. My own son was four at the time, and I reflected that we still could have been there. He was a nice, regular guy, by the way, and as I recall, just kept a hunting dog, so I can’t say he “did something so wrong”. I knew Rush Limbaugh before he was famous, does he qualify as somebody who (almost daily) does something so wrong it makes the news? I hung out with film critic Rex Reed when we were in college, and he got in the news for shoplifting a CD. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/127 "2014-04-15T20:47:41Z")
I knew a guy in elementary/middle school (we drifted apart in high school) stabbed his father to death a few years ago. He had been diagnoses as paranoid schizophrenic and had been in and out of jail/mental institutions for years. A music teacher who had taught both my sons was arrested recently for possession of child porn and it was discovered he had taken pictures of little girls at the school. His has been covered extensively in the Washington Post. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/128 "2014-04-15T21:45:25Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Did the crew think of them as incompetent prior to this incident? The crew thought the Engineer was incompetent, the XO was semi-competent but insufferable, and the CO was competent but had very poor social and leadership skills. Which pretty much fit the incident. The CO was asleep at the time (it was the middle of the night, which is the time when the CO generally sleeps), the Engineer was the Officer of the Deck (OOD - equivalent to “Mr. Spock, you have the conn” for non-Navy types), and the XO was the Command Duty Officer [CDO], which means he acts as the CO while the CO is asleep (and therefore makes any big decisions about what we need to do). But the CO approved the watchbill (the schedule of when each officer stands watch), and put the poorest OOD on watch in the middle of the night, which is the most dangerous time while transiting on the surface for a submarine. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/129 "2014-04-15T21:46:40Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > I knew Rush Limbaugh before he was famous, does he qualify as somebody who (almost daily) does something so wrong it makes the news? Ooh, tell us more. What was he like? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/130 "2014-04-16T02:35:53Z")
Quite a few for me: Neighbors and friends, husband kills wife when she was trying to leave abusive relationship. Kids placed with my parents for a few days. I was in college, still living at home when all this went down. I was called home by my parents from my part time job to help deal with the crisis. We knew the family quite well, am still in touch with the kids 25 years later. Was all over the local news for a while. CEO of the company I worked for perpetrated a fraud involving over $10 billion (yes with a B). Was national news for days, then occasionally for a few years, until the CEO, CFO and a few close associates were convicted. I didn’t know the CFO all that well, but I did know the underlings who were involved. I was fired for refusing to participate in a small way. I had no idea the actual fraud was in the billions. A classmate of mine abducted his kids and tried to take them out of the country. He thought Islamic law gave his custody in the divorce. His US passport was confiscated by the judge pending trial. He managed to get passports issued by the country of his birth. He spent a couple of months in jail. Again was in local news for a while. Finally, a friend got a job as a trucker. Ignored a clearance sigh, got stuck under an overpass on I-90 near Cleveland. Got sideways. Traffic was at a standstill for hours. It was on the TV news in Washington DC. Amazingly he was working as a limo driver last time I heard from him. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/131 "2014-04-16T02:58:59Z")
> [@Inna\_Minnit](#): > > Friends of mine claim to have known Ted Bundy. I never knew if it was true. From what I could tell they wouldn’t have run in the same circles. I used to work at one of the hospitals where Michael Swango (medical serial killer) did his thing. He’s not known to have killed anyone there, but there were cases of employees who got sick after eating things he’d brought in. I worked with one woman who knew him; she had liked him a lot and was very surprised when he was arrested. ---
**Author:** ![PeacePlease](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/71c47a/32.png) [@PeacePlease](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeacePlease)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/132 "2014-04-16T04:29:13Z")
> [@kopek](#): > > One of the first was having dinner with Jeffery MacDonald a couple months before the murders. Wow! This case has always fascinated me. Can you elaborate? Do you think he’s guilty? What did you think of the book ‘Fatal Vision’? Oh…so many questions! ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/133 "2014-04-16T16:37:14Z")
This is a fascinating thread! There are just too many tantalizing entries to pursue all of them. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/134 "2014-04-16T17:30:08Z")
This happened decades ago, but one guy who was in my circle of friends was the perpetrator of a murder/suicide involving his girlfriend. Horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/135 "2014-04-16T17:40:12Z")
Dumbo-eared [Quincy Javon Allen](http://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/allen-quincy-javon.htm) was a waiter at a local restaurant. Waited on me a few times. If you overlook the murders and such, he was actually one of the best wait-staffers that restaurant ever had. His story was chronicled on the Investigation Discovery series “Fatal Encounters” episode “Closing Time.” ---
**Author:** ![Batistuta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/58956e/32.png) [@Batistuta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batistuta)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/136 "2014-04-16T19:21:23Z")
Well… I used to go to school with this girl and her younger brother. Word around the school was that their family was a mess, but no-one really understood how exactly. So last year, big news in my home-town: an 18-year-old boy (my classmate’s brother) got together with a friend he met playing Call of Duty, and built a weapon using a wooden stick and nails. They then proceded to kidnap the boy’s father, tie him to a chair, and beat him to death with their improvised weapon. Apparently, this was a response to years of abuse by the father, who had already been abandoned by his wife, sister and daughter. So yeah, when something like this happens in a small island, **everyone** ends up knowing. This poor childhood friend of mine will leave the story behind her even though she wasn’t personally involved. Crazy stuff ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/137 "2014-04-16T19:53:02Z")
I knew all the principals involved in this story: [Observer-Reporter - Google News Archive Search](http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19700212&id=WsddAAAAIBAJ&sjid=bV4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=906,1950274). I had finished my PhD there 8 years earlier and this guy had been a graduate student even then. Incidentally, the thesis advisor died a week or so later. He was shot in the chest and apparently so many organs were mashed that he actually had no chance of surviving. Or so I was told. The department chair lost a finger but was otherwise undamaged. I didn’t know the student well. ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/138 "2014-04-16T20:20:29Z")
[David Hulstedt is a close relative of mine.](https://www.google.com/search?q=david+hulstedt+shooting&hl=en&gbv=2&oq=david+hulste&gs_l=heirloom-serp.3.2.0l2j0i30l3j0i8i30j0i30j0i8i30l2.1921.9343.0.13873.18.13.2.0.0.1.541.2922.0j2j1j1j1j3.8.0....0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-serp..10.8.1892.noqHqBqr83g) There are a few friends of my husband and I that have have ended up on the news for various things - I’m not going into details though. Some have involved shootings and or drugs, some have involved white collar crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/139 "2014-04-17T02:52:53Z")
Well … I used to know a convicted murderer who showed up in the Weekly World News. Which proved to me that there is at least a nugget of truth behind some of the stories they publish. The WWN version of the story was generally correct, they just got things out of order a bit. The gist of their story was that this guy had killed his first wife, and then, after getting out of prison he married his second wife and then later attacked her with an axe. Actual story: The “second wife” in the story was actually his first wife, with whom he had three sons. His oldest son was my age, and we attended the same church and high school. He and his first wife had divorced many years earlier (for reasons unknown to me), and he had remarried. He second wife ended up cheating on him. He got wind of this, and while his wife was out on a date with her lover, he found out where they were. He loaded his shotgun and waited outside the restaurant, intending to kill his wife’s lover when they came out. He missed, and shot and killed his wife instead. At that point, he sat down and just waited for the police. At his trial, he pled (pleaded?) guilty, and did his time. When he was eventually granted parole, he reconciled with his first wife and sons, and they remarried. Then, some years later, after my family had moved to a new city, we got word that he had started drinking again (apparently that had been a problem for him before he went to prison), and ended up attacking his wife with an axe. He didn’t seriously hurt her as far as I know, but it effectively got his parole revoked and back to prison he went. ---
**Author:** ![JpnDude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@JpnDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JpnDude)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339/140 "2014-04-17T04:58:05Z")
As a high school student, I worked at a Southern California cinema with the killer and younger victim [in this crime](http://articles.latimes.com/1990-06-18/local/me-104_1_union-station). > [@](#): > > Richard Moon, 23, was convicted Feb. 8 on two counts of first-degree murder by a Superior Court jury that also found the special allegations of multiple murder and murder while lying in wait were true and recommended the death penalty. > > Authorities said Moon killed his former girlfriend, Melitta Greig, 22, and her mother, Rose Greig, 53, at their home in Walnut on June 16, 1990, apparently after the younger woman confronted him during a theft. Sheriff’s investigators found the women’s bodies in the trunk of the family car. Moon was arrested the day after the murders at Union Station, where he was attempting to catch a train to Seattle. When we had our company football games, he was our quarterback and I was the center. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anybody-ever-known-someone-that-did-something-so-wrong-it-made-the-news/77339.md?page=8)