# Anyone ever known the perpetrator of a really horrific crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 9, 2000, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678 "2000-08-09T05:31:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sophie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Sophie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophie)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/161 "2001-01-03T17:53:30Z")
If anyone knows anything about Memphis, then they know about the local strip clubs. The man who owns the clubs is in prison right now; I’m fairly certain that the charge was tax evasion. But see, he had a son named Blake who was as bad as they come. He ran a little gang or mini-mafia. This was in my senior year, 1993. Anyhoo, Blake was in his twenties somewhere but his gang consisted of the BAD kids from my high school, including a boy I “dated” (but that’s another story). The kids in his gang had ultimate protection and no one f\*cked with them one bit. Until the boy I “dated” (Casey) tried to leave the gang, everything was fine. But when he tried to leave, Blake ordered that the gang kidnap Casey. They sodomized and beat Casey within an inch of his life. He was found running down the road with no clothes on after a very daring escape. The kidnapping charges actually came out at the same time of Blake’s father’s conviction. It was weird to think that I had a boyfriend who ended up in the federal witness protection program, but from what I heard, Casey is now someone else living somewhere else. I guess the really creepy thing to me about it is that I knew all of the bad kids in Blake’s gang. Heck, I worked very closely with one of them a few years later; he was on strict probation for a grand larceny charge (don’t ask how that happened). But the other members of the gand were kids that I tried to be bad with and failed miserably. I even heard one boy, before anyone realized that Casey was missing and had not just run away, say in the cafeteria at school that Blake had Casey locked up. Of course, how much crap comes out of the mouths of the bad kids? Oh, I have stories, too. See, there’s nothing else to do in Mississippi but get in trouble. Ask anyone who grew up here, in any part of the state. ---
**Author:** ![mikehardware](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@mikehardware](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikehardware)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/162 "2001-01-03T22:13:50Z")
Hi Klepto in Hickman County, seems like it’s pretty much the same as when I lived there. I also had some family friends get messed up in a drunken wreck way back in 1975. Unfortunately, I can add another tale to this thread. Back a little over a year ago, I was at work when I got a call from my wife. There were police with guns drawn surrounding a neighbor’s house (looking out our back door, and diagonal to our house) and more cops arriving very quickly. Of course, I did the sensible thing to figure out what was going on. I called the local TV news folks, who were very interested in talking with my wife. Seems the neighbor (I only knew him from seeing him mow the yard) had been in a messy divorce and had financial problems. He had his two kids over the weekend, and had left a message on his ex’s answering machine that suggested he was going to kill the kids and himself. I got home in time to hear the police break into the house. They found the body of the teenage daughter upstairs, shot in the head. The neighbor was stopped by police about a day later, and he shot and killed himself. The son’s body was discovered in a remote area about a week later. ---
**Author:** ![richman2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@richman2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richman2)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/163 "2001-01-03T23:12:29Z")
I once knew an auto repair man casually, from chatting while he’s worked on my car. He was snarling at a customer one time and said, “He’ll be sorry he crossed me when steps on his brakes tomorrow”. It was clear he set up an accident somehow, maybe by draining the brake fluid. That someone or several people could get killed didn’t seem to trouble him. And he and I would never know. I never went back there, specifically because he was the perpetrator of a really horrific crime. ---
**Author:** ![Hedda\_Rosa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hedda_rosa/32/1204_2.png) [@Hedda\_Rosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hedda_Rosa)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2001, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/164 "2001-01-03T23:35:29Z")
Not so freaky as some of these tales, but here’s mine. About 10 years ago - just before Christmas - a neighboring family was murdered. Mom, dad, a son and daughter, even the dog. The murderers attempted to burn down the house, and that’s how the bodies were discovered. After a long investigation (which mostly consisted of waiting for the murders to use the credit cards they had stolen) they were caught, along with a couple of accomplices. Turns out one of the accomplices had been our cleaning lady for a few years, and one of the murderers was her (son? brother?) who had actually been in our house once or twice. My dad, a life long pacifist, actually considered getting a gun. ---
**Author:** ![SoulFrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f07891/32.png) [@SoulFrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoulFrost)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/165 "2010-08-10T22:45:54Z")
> [@SoulFrost](#): > > Now, on to the really sick stuff: > > Bernie Tiede. > > Great guy! > > Bernie was the pastor of a local church. He loaned money to people who wanted to start their own business. He played the organ at my girlfriend’s aunt’s funeral. > > Nice guy–everybody loved him. > > One of the special things that he did for the community was helping the elderly and homebound. He visted them, brought them meals, played handyman when things broke, and generally gave them a friend that they could count on. > > One of his favorite friends was an old recluse lady, who just happened to also be a multi-millionaire. > > The lady was a true recluse–she never went anywhere. No church, no friends, no local family, no PTA or American Legion. > > She did, however, have a son. He lived far away, in Phoenix (I think.) > > After 10 months of trying to contact his mother, only to be told by Bernie that she was vacationing in Mexico or at therapy in Houston, the son came here to check things out for himself. > > Police questioned Bernie, finally getting him to crack. He confessed that he had shot the old woman in the back, twice. > > She had become domineering, he said. > > She had a demon inside, he said. > > Police found the old lady right where Bernie had kept her for almost a year–in her deep freezer, nestled in among the deer sausage and spring peas. > > He was convicted last year, sentenced to life, and I think that “Court TV” even followed the case. > > Makes one hell of a bedtime story, doesn’t it? > > -David **BRAAAAIIIIINNNNSSSS** Turns out that they’re about to begin filming on a movie called _Bernie_, starring Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine. > [@](#): > > Movie Producer Richard Linklater is schedule to begin production of the movie “Bernie” in Austin and Carthage, Texas beginning in October of this year. Jack Black will be starring in the film as Bernie Tiede II, and Shirley MacLaine is slotted to co-star with Black as 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent in the movie which is based on the true story of the events that took place in Panola County in 1997. > > The film will be a dark comedy about the Carthage mortician who befriended the wealthy widow, killed her and kept her in her own deep freezer for nine months as he went to great lengths to convince everyone she was still alive. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/166 "2010-08-10T23:44:26Z")
Duka Aonghais/Paul Serio, one of the people who actually committed the murder of [Susan Hamwi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gordon_Purvis). ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/167 "2010-08-11T08:03:22Z")
Apropos of nothing, I noticed this was a zombie thread when I saw Satan was banned 😃 And it’s exactly ten years old! ---
**Author:** ![Ibanez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a4c791/32.png) [@Ibanez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibanez)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/168 "2010-08-11T13:42:00Z")
My father was friends with a guy who one night got into an arguement with his wife they were both drunk. The wife took a hatchet to his hand and cut off two of his fingers. He took the hatchet from her and killed her with it. He called my father from prison asking him to come see him. My father refused. The local neighbourhood delinquent one night got high on every drug in the book at once. Went to the local pizza parlor to hold it up at two in the morning. She screamed it freaked him out stabbed her multiple times killing her. The cops found him wandering around a local field naked. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678/169 "2010-08-11T14:19:22Z")
**Soul Frost** , as you note, this is indeed a zombie, and a quite ancient one. It seems to me a new thread could be started, with a link back to your initial post, and we could begin a new discussion about horrifying people we have known. As it is, people are who want to discuss some of these older posts might be frustrated, with so many original participants no longer around. Please, feel free to open a new thread. I might want to chime in with the story my high-school classmate, whose murder trial I covered for the newspaper in one of my first reporting jobs. **Ellen Cherry IMHO Moderator** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-ever-known-the-perpetrator-of-a-really-horrific-crime/28678.md?page=8)