# Have you ever known a truly evil person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 15, 2012, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765 "2012-10-15T11:28:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/21 "2012-10-15T20:20:19Z")
Yes. When I lived in Bogotá, my step-mother’s family (from my dad’s 3rd marriage) became my own. One of her sisters (the oldest) had five children- four of them girls. My aunt’s husband was fondling and sexually molesting all of his daughters. I was particularly close to my cousin who was a year older than me. She was 12 at the time. I always knew that there was something wrong. I recognized the signs because I was going through the same thing with a different adult. I tried to get her to talk about it with me, but the fear and shame was too great - for both of us, I suppose. Years after I left home I heard that my aunt had turned him in and he was actually charged and did prison time. He had been molesting and threatening his daughters from the time they were all really young. The fucker. I hope he rots in hell. In my mind - he is evil. Writing this puts a lump in my throat. I don’t know how I turned out to be the person who I am. I’m giving and loving. My biggest regret is that I didn’t tell after the first time it happened. I have not seen my cousin in years, but we hooked up on facebook and I can see by her photos that she has a lovely family, and that she and her sisters are finally free. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/22 "2012-10-15T20:23:54Z")
> [@Corcaigh](#): > > My mother and my brother. Although he’s far far worse than she is. She neglected me when I was a child and was intentionally cruel to me all my life. He followed her lead and was always nasty to me when we were kids. > > \ > > My brother was absolutely furious at having been cut out of the will, he threatened to have me arrested, then threatened to have me sectioned. When he realised he couldn’t have either things come to pass, he threatened to kill me. Mother thought this was hi-lar-ious. > > He rang up one afternoon to tell me he was coming to visit us (mother and me) and he wanted me to go for a drive with him, out into the countryside, so that he could have a chat with me about my “behaviour and attitude”. Mother wanted to know what he’d been saying to me (apparently my face went a “funny colour”) and I told her. She was quite happy with the idea of my brother driving me into the countryside so we could have a “nice chat”. Haven’t you mentioned in other posts that you and your mother live in the same house? That seems like one of the worst possible living situations for you. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/23 "2012-10-15T20:30:03Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > When I was in high school, I taught third-graders Sunday School. One day, trying to elicit the point that there is some good in everyone, I asked if they knew anyone who was truly evil. In unison, they named a boy in their class. I knew the kid, and knew he was an amoral little bastard (you literally couldn’t turn your back on him–it was a lead pipe cinch he’d be doing something destructive if you did), but I never thought he was THAT bad. > > [He’s serving a life sentence for murder now.](http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_5498c107-a8b8-5d03-a1c9-18fa255bed63.html) There was a kid a few years younger than me in high school who was a vicious little monster. He’d casually attack other kids totally out of the blue. Following his inevitable expulsion he went on to murder his remedial reading teacher for no apparent reason. As far as I could see he had no redeeming features whatsoiever, so I’ve always classed him as totally evil. Oh and a quick google reveals he’s now out on parole. Great. ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/24 "2012-10-16T00:14:27Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > In all of that though, if he hadn’t gotten caught up in his own ineptitude a few times, I think his bottom easily could have been on the level of a serial rapist and/or murderer. Betcha dollars to doughnuts he was already a serial rapist. You know he drugged at least one woman and raped her, you know he had access to LOTS of drugs and enjoyed giving people stuff that would hurt them. He kept lots and lots of naive teenagers around him. But most of it was probably ‘just’ date rape, and why were the girls hanging out with a guy like that anyway, and besides, weren’t they kissing him earlier? ☹ This is classic serial rapist stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/25 "2012-10-16T00:30:52Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Hopefully without anesthesia, but we can’t have everything. If anesthetic is indicated, I offer it. Evil gets standard medical care from me. I’m not going to compromise my own integrity based on my sense of moral outrage. But it’s amazing how ordinary and banal evil looks. And how it suffers just like everyone else when confronted with its own infirmity and mortality. Okay, I’d better quit before I go further overboard with allegory and metaphysical ramblings. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/26 "2012-10-16T00:40:24Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > My mother claims to have met some of the Manson Family pre-Tate/LaBianca. She reports that Charlie didn’t impress her much, but some of the girls were pretty scary. A friend met Squeaky Fromme. She wasn’t evil, just a lost soul who would follow anyone who was nice to her. I did take care of a sociopath in nursing school. Sweet one minute, knife-wielding the next. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/27 "2012-10-16T00:53:32Z")
I don’t think so. I have had some really evil thoughts, but I don’t act on them and I realize they are evil. And despite the fact that 1-4% of the population is sociopathic, I don’t know for sure if I’ve ever met anyone who was a true sociopath. If I have, they were peripheral in my life and unlike the other sociopaths other posters in this thread are discussing, I only saw the phony ‘charming’ side not the amoral side. yay me ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/28 "2012-10-16T01:02:27Z")
I’ve met George Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/29 "2012-10-16T01:23:20Z")
Now if you’d have said you had met Dick Cheney… ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/30 "2012-10-16T01:57:55Z")
Yes. > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > But it’s amazing how ordinary and banal evil looks. And how it suffers just like everyone else when confronted with its own infirmity and mortality. Bad people are bad people. Like other people, they have hobbies, feel pain, want to have friends, and make choices. By and large, those choices are to be bad. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/31 "2012-10-16T02:18:52Z")
Successful drug dealers are an evil breed of human being. I’ve met a few (crack dealers, mostly) that absolutely had no soul. They make their money by sucking the life right out of their customers; and it happens right before their eyes in the most vicious way. And the more the better. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/32 "2012-10-16T02:22:41Z")
Amoral and borderline sociopathic, sure, but nobody that I’d class as straight up, malicious evil. By that, I mean I haven’t met who does/did harmful things for doing it- just because they could, or because it amused them. I have met plenty of people who are/were so self-centered that considering others’ welfare just didn’t come into the picture, but none of them were ever really deliberately cruel or malicious but rather just oblivious or unconcerned with others’ emotions and desires. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/33 "2012-10-16T03:12:03Z")
My sister-in-law married a closet sociopath who came out of the closet after the wedding. ---
**Author:** ![scratch\_llll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@scratch\_llll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scratch_llll)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/34 "2012-10-16T03:18:53Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > But it’s amazing how ordinary and banal evil looks. And how it suffers just like everyone else when confronted with its own infirmity and mortality. Of course evil suffers when the only person it cares about is infirm and mortal. Evil is as banal and simple as total selfishness whether that is taking someones last bite to eat when they are starving for its minor craving or raping a baby to death for its momentary pleasure. Evil is boring in its predictable self centeredness. It isn’t some demon from the pit of hell. Even smart evil isn’t special. It just gets away with it longer because it remembers those things that think they are important too can stop it from getting more pleasure. I once dropped evil on the top of its head from a chair. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/35 "2012-10-16T03:32:38Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > He’d buy rat poison, mix it into jello and sell it as acid, or mix tattoo ink with pot and sell it as some sort of exotic blend for 10x what he paid for it. Clearly his clientele were a sophisticated and discriminating bunch… ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/36 "2012-10-16T13:27:54Z")
Most of my family. Thanks for asking. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/37 "2012-10-16T14:39:49Z")
> [@coffeecat](#): > > Yes. > Bad people are bad people. Like other people, they have hobbies, feel pain, want to have friends, and make choices. By and large, those choices are to be bad. I agree. It irks me when someone automatically labels an evil person as “crazy” or whatever. In other words, they believe there are only two kinds of people: “good” people and “mentally disabled” people; they do not believe some people are inherently _bad_. In my opinion, most evil people are not crazy, nor do they have mental problems. They are simply bad. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/38 "2012-10-16T14:40:23Z")
My evil half-brother is a straight up sociopath, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/39 "2012-10-16T15:19:57Z")
I think my wife’s stepdad is close. A former friend, someone who was probably my closest friend for years is even closer, I think. Outright evil, I don’t know for sure. Quite possible though. Hell, I know for a fact I have some evil in me, and got a tattoo to remind me of that so that I don’t let it make decisions for me. I think all of us have some, but it varies in how we let it affect us. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765/40 "2012-10-16T17:16:50Z")
I’ve met people who were, looking back, probably sociopaths, but weren’t into the whole kill-and-rape thing. Just the don’t-work-and-take-money-from-every-person you can thing. Sociopathic, but without ambition. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-known-a-truly-evil-person/637765.md?page=3)