I figure there’s a lot of older people here from California and out West and New York. I’ve been bored lately and listening to documentaries and podcasts about infamous serial killers.
Anyone ever have a run in with a famous or semi-famous killer or have a relative or friend of a friend that did?
California had some real crazy ones: Ed Kemper, the toolbox murderers, really too many to mention. New York had Joel Rifkin and Richard Cottingham.
Even if it’s a third-hand story it would still be interesting. What the hell I’ll allow spree killers and well.
In 1991, my sister and her best friend were in their early 20s, and living in an apartment in suburban Milwaukee. They were working temp jobs with Manpower, and one of their assignments was to spend several days at the Ambrosia Chocolate Company, a chocolate processor, to help clean up the manufacturing plant prior to a health inspection.
The two of them noticed that there was this quiet guy who worked there, who would sit by himself in the cafeteria during lunch break, and stare at people. My sister and her friend teased each other: “hey, that’s your boyfriend!”
A few weeks later, my sister was at their apartment, when the phone rang – it was her roommate, who was over at a friend’s house. “Omigod, you gotta turn on the television! Remember the ‘boyfriend’ from the chocolate company? He’s a mass murderer! He EATS PEOPLE!!”
It was Jeffrey Dahmer.
Later, when Dahmer went on trial for the murders, one of his defense attorneys was the older sister of one of my childhood friends.
Nice, interesting story. I like hearing those little details like him staring at people on his lunch break that kind of fits what I’ve read about the guy. Pathologically shy and not too interested in interacting with people in a back-and-forth sort of fashion.
I went to Junior High with the youngest victim of the Tool Box Killers. I knew who she was, but I didn’t know her personally. She disappeared in the summer between junior high and high school. The speculation at the start of the school year was she ran away from home, as her body wasn’t found until the following February. She’s buried in the same cemetery as my parents, and her grave is pretty close to my parents’ ash niche.
Same high school: My history teacher told us about how Squeaky Fromme, who had been in his class, always seemed a little off, and he wasn’t surprised that she fell in with the Manson family. He said she was always writing morbid poetry. He said that in retrospect, she most likely suffered from depression, but in the mid-60s, teachers weren’t trained to recognize that (or do anything about it). (I had him in the early 80s)
Brooke occasionally went to Las Vegas to “take care of her mother.” One day the Las Vegas police arrested her on suspicion of having murdered her mother years earlier, stuffing her body into a plastic bag, and leaving it in her storage unit. She’d been cashing her mother’s social security checks all those years as well.
Though some sources say Brookey is a serial killer, I believe her missing brother subsequently showed up alive. But her ex-husband was found murdered in the desert and that case was never solved.
Interestingly, she’d bought a large meat freezer for the house while she lived with my friend. He didn’t want it, but she insisted he keep it. It may be just a rumor but a prison snitch said Brookey had intended to kill my friend and put him in that freezer. I have no idea if that’s true or not.
I never met her, but she said “hi” to me in the background when I was on the phone with my friend.
When I was a kid, I lived just up the road on Fort Benning, Georgia from where Calley’s court-martial was happening. I know you said serial killer, but I guess mass murdering war criminal should count for the purposes of this thread.
I had a couple of close calls with John Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, the Beltway Snipers. Most of their appearances were at places in the Washington and Richmond areas where I had lived, and my nephew and I were at the Bailey’s Crossroads Shopping Center the day before one of their last shootings. Seriously, I expected the police to call me at some point. Muhammad had some serious grievance with Michael’s Art Supplies that went unresolved. It was obvious to me that he was unfamiliar enough with the Washington and Richmond areas that he wanted clear and easy access to I-95 and the Washington Beltway from all of the shooting sites.
I think so, but of course I can’t be 100% positive about the identity of a man I had an encounter with in the early 80’s. However I’m pretty sure it was Christopher Wilder who followed me on the beach then hid out in a grove of trees near where I parked. I was definitely aware of his odd behavior as he tried to make contact with me as I walked along Hollywood Beach broad walk, but I completely ignored him. He looked like he was a construction guy, bearded, tanned, wearing shorts and the odd thing were his boots, yellow timberland type lace up construction boots. Yet he was acting as if he was out for a jog on the beach. He’d jog by and stick his face in mine with a crazy grin trying g to be charming? Then jog backwards while smiling and goofing at me as I walked along. Then he was gone.
Returning to my car I hesitated in front of the wooded area deciding if I should take the shady path that lead through to the parking area when I thought I saw a figure moving furtively in the shadows. Nah my spidey sense was tingling so I skirted the edges of the wooded and headed to my car when all of a sudden bearded construction guy popped out and made a lunge for me but my skinny suntan oiled up arm slipped out of his grab and I ran. He didn’t follow me and I got it my car. I thought he was an asshole playing games, maybe dangerous who knows I ran into a lot of those types as a young 20 something living in S Fla.
Then the news that some girls were missing from the Miami Gran Prix, and more news of a cross country murder spree that ended badly. Finally a picture was put up in the news and I about croaked as I recognized the tanned bearded face as the same guy who stalked me on the beach.
We were watching some Ted Bundy doc, and my sister all of a sudden got all creeped out. She’d never paid much attention to what he looked like, but she thinks he was this weird guy who was behind her in a bank line years and years ago. She had long straight center-parted hair then, and he kept commenting on it. Hair that nearly all his victims had. This was in Marina del Rey, and apparently Bundy was in the area for a short time around when this happened. Might not have been him at all, but she said her memories of the encounter stuck with her because he was “off.”
Of course, this is nothing like her co-worker who claimed to be a almost-victim of the Hillside Strangler. She fought him off! She was an almost victim! But she was also a serial fabulist, so nobody believed her.
I worked at one of the hospitals where Michael Swango plied his trade, although he’s not known to have killed anybody there.
Some of my long-term co-workers knew him, one of them fairly well (or so she thought).
In the meantime, there was another medical serial killer at that facility who AFAIK has not been found out, yet. He was a heart surgeon who would make patients crash so he could “rescue” them, and when word got out, people stopped coming to this hospital for their cardiac care. Of course, you know it was the loss of revenue that led to the investigation, and him getting pawned off on another hospital.
In a city close to my hometown my sister-in-law’s best friend was viciously murdered in high school by a potential serial killer in the making (he was caught). This was in the mid 90’s. As far as they know she was his first kill.
The killer dissected her body then labeled and pinned parts of her female anatomy for display like you might butterflies. I don’t believe the story has been widely covered by true crime bloggers, likely because she was a minor and it is so gruesome. At least, I’ve never seen the story told on Youtube. My wife is big into it and watches true crime videos all the time.
As you might imagine it had a hugely negative effect on my SIL. She became a different person after that. She still keeps all doors locked all the time in her house to this day.
