Inspired by an earlier thread, I decided to start this.
Who knows someone that has created a heinous crime? The definition of heinous shall be left up to the person posting.
When I was converting to Judaism a few years ago, I met with a rabbi weekly. We met in his study at the synagogue, alone, with the door closed, an hour at a time, for about six or seven months. Then one day, I got a call saying the appointment for that day had been canceled and I would be called later to rescheduled. When I got home, I saw the news… My rabbi had been arrested for sexually assaulting two young girls and two female teachers at the school at the synagogue. He eventually pled guilty to avoid his past from being dredged up. Apparently, he had a history and had been shipped from synagogue to synagogue. He also had five girls. I always wonder if he ever did anything to them. There were a few times I got skeeved out by him, but I brushed it off. Now I know why…
One of my male high school students brutally raped and beat one of my female students. She didn’t report it; we found out when she showed up for school one day with huge bruises, a dislocated shoulder, and the most frightened look I’ve ever seen on a human being. About six weeks later, he did it again–more injuries, more trauma. Eventually she dropped out of school, while he stayed. I had this boy in class for the rest of the year, and it was one of the hardest years I’ve ever taught–to ensure her safety, we couldn’t acknowledge what we (teachers) knew, and watching him swagger around was just about more than I could stomach.
I left teaching the next year, and I’m sure this incident had something to do with my decision.
As a follow-up, this young man attacked and nearly killed another man with a baseball bat about a year later. I don’t think he’s in prison yet, but it’s only a matter of time, and I guess we’ll all be safer for it when it finally happens.
Back in the mid-'80s, I was hanging out with my best friend overnight on a weekend. His brother-in-law and his girlfriend were bothersome people, and alcoholics to boot. They had just got their welfare check, and were going on a bender. My friend got tired of him calling every 10 minutes, so he unplugged the phone. About 8 the next morning, he plugged the phone back in, and it was ringing. Guess who it was! He listened to the other end in a sort of stunned silence, and hung up. I said, jokingly, “What’d he do, kill her?” The reply came back, “Yes, that’s what he did.” They had both consumed so much alcohol that the guy went into blackout mode. During this time, he had no knowledge of what he was doing. In the morning when he came out of it, he looked around and there was blood everywhere, and she was lying on the bathroom floor, dead. He had kicked her to death with steel-toed boots. He ended up doing about six years for it, and I never saw him again, not that I minded.
Around the same period, I had got to know a guy from hanging out. We got temp jobs together, hung around some, I’d been to his house. I’d been to visit him on one day, and the next day I saw the headline in the paper - the picture was his. He had stabbed his mother to death. :eek:
Yes. A man who was good friends with our family one day admitted his past and turned himself into police. He had molested his neices, my good friends.
While some may say it was a noble thing for him to do, turning himself in like that, I was never able to look at him again, or be in the same room as him. I never spoke with him again. He died a few years ago and I never have to look at him again.
I knew a guy in high school on a passing basis, he was mainly in my sister’s circle of friends. A couple years after graduation he was arrested for beating and raping an 83 year old woman in her home. They caught him because he went out the back door and ran to his house, leaving extremely clear footprints in the 3" of fresh snow.
There was another boy, who hung with me and my friends (we were kinda the freaky loser-types, shocking, I know) that was a total sociopath. When he was younger (12-13) he and a friend were playing on a frozen over creek when his friend fell through. Socioboy walked away, went home, ate his dinner, watched cartoons and didn’t mention a word until hours later when his friend’s mother called asking if they’d seen her son. “I think he fell in the water” :o The boy died.
One night we were all pretty intoxicated and he was talking in a way that made me think the friend falling in hadn’t been entirely accidental. I still don’t know if that’s true or just him trying to sound like a badass, but I would not be at all shocked if it were the truth.
One of my cousin’s friends was murdered by her boyfriend and he burried her body in the grave of my Uncle’s, business partner’s mothers grave to avoid detection.
I met the guy a couple of times before my cousin died.
In grad school, my father was good buddies with the Unabomber.
Does that count?
Seriously, when the news of Ted Kaczynski’s arrest was first broadcast on TV, my father sat there with the most remarkable expression of stunned silence… I know I shouldn’t laugh, but my father’s expression really was priceless. It had probably been almost 25-30 years since they’d last seen each other, but my father was just dumbfounded. I had never full appreciated the term “dumbfounded” until then.
In the late 70’s a good friend of mine dated this guy for several months. He seemed pretty nice and they broke up quite civally. A couple of years later I was listening to the radio and heard his rather unusual name. He’d stabbed his mom and stepfather to death! I knew he was on bad terms with the stepfather. Apparently, they finally got into it one night. I’m not sure who had the knife first but his mom tried to get between them and he accidently got her. Then he went for the old man. Too bad.
Another guy we’ve known fairly well for many years is currently in for murder too. I haven’t heard all the details on that one yet.
My friend Trudy grew up with our first local serial killer, Clifford Olson and another friend, Dianne, knew Willy Picton, our current one.
(zoogirl, who knows all the best people… :rolleyes:)
When I was in 1st-4th grade, I had a good friend who was part of a rather unusual and high-achieving family. Her dad was from Kenya, and taught in the African Studies program at the local university; he used to come to our grade school and volunteer to tell us African folk tales, and teach us about African culture and music. I always remember him smiling, warm, happy…a joy to be around. Her mom was from the Deep South, and her family had cut her off when she married a man from another race. Sad, sad situation; my friend and her siblings grew up with no contact with either side of their extended family.
But they were an extraordinary bunch…they all excelled at everything. Academics, music, sports…my friend was a year older than me, so after 4th grade she went ahead to the middle school without me, and I sort of lost touch with her. My high school was huge, so I would hear about what she was up to, but I didn’t otherwise have much contact with her.
So flash forward a few years, and my friend had just started college where her dad taught, meaning I was a HS senior. One day I came home from my part-time job and flipped on the news…a woman had been stabbed to death and left in the basement storage locker, and the murder had been called in by the perpetrator. The victim and criminal were my friend’s mother and father, respectively. Her father shot himself in the head and washed up on the beach a few days later, leaving my friend and her 4 younger siblings orphans…the youngest was something like 6 or 7 years old.
There was a big spread on the story in the paper a few weeks later…apparently her mother had asked her father for a divorce, and he flipped out and killed her. It was horrible; the community took up a collection for the kids, but as my friend was attending college nearly tuition-free because her father taught there, I believe she had to drop out and take care of her younger siblings. I’ve always felt guilty about this, that I should have contacted her since, but I just haven’t been able to make myself do it…I have no clue what to say to her. I still cannot believe that her father, that dear, sweet man, could ever have done such a thing.
A smart-ass guy I knew in high school got drunk and plowed into a group of preschoolers the year after we graduated. Killed a couple of them if I remember correctly. Over 20 years later, I wonder what became of him, whether he’s done his best to do good or what. Maybe he’s still in jail or in jail again.
I worked with the guy who volunteered to be killed and eaten by Armin M. in Germany, Bernd Brandeis. Unless suicide is a crime in Germany, this may not count I guess. I know assisting suicide is illegal, but I never met Armin M. (thank Christ).
I don’t understand… teachers are under OBLIGATION to report this kind of thing at least thats what I was told in my limited years of college teaching courses.
Was it something that was already reported to police that you wernt supposed to speak of?
I was friends with a SWEET, NICE and lovable girl that I worked with several states and moves ago… She was 18 years old when her father killed her mother and then himself with a shotgun leaving her and her siblings orphans.
Suddenly and violently no parents at the age of 18…
she was always such a sensitive and caring soul… I pray she is doing well often.
A guy I went to school with repeatedly stabbed a priest in a carpark. Luckily he didn’t kill him. I’m not sure whether it counts as a “crime” though, it wsa totally unprovoked and pointless and the guy who did it ended up in a psychiatric hospital.
We had a contractor at work who I used to talk to every day while we were outside having cigarette breaks. One day he stopped coming to work and it turned out that he had murdered his best friend, driven around for days with the body in the boot (trunk), including going out to play golf, before finally dumping it.
One of my best friends from Kindergarten to Sophmore year (where we drifted apart due to his budding drug use) was arrested when we were in our 20s for murdering a woman. She had the same surname as his wife, he was selling insurance for a living, so they altered a policy she had purchased, naming his wife as beneficiary. I told his defense team I would do more harm than good; I loved him but he’d always done exactally as he pleased. Last I heard, his wife is in Tehachapi and he is in Folsom, life without parole
Spent one summer when I was 12 being “counselor” for a young girl of 8 who didn’t understand why her dad wasn’t allowed to visit her in the hospital without his “friend” when she had to stay overnight.
He was on parole for molesting her step sister (his step daughter) and wasn’t allowed to - nor was I allowed to tell her why.