Not going to get involved in this stupid debate, but I’ll say that a lot of people would have felt a lot better if (say) Charles Whitman had had a frying pan in his hand on top of the University of Texas tower rather than an M1 carbine. Multiply this by thousands upon thousands of incidents hardly even noticed since then, and yes, I think a lot of of people would feel a lot happier if frying pans had been substituted for guns in the killers’ hands.
When I was living in Austin, my best friend lived in half of a duplex. The other half was rented by a guy who happened to work in the same office as my wife. He was gay and about once a month would go out and pick up some other guy and bring him back for a weekend of hot whoopy.
He brought home somebody one weekend who killed him and stuffed his body in a closet.
I knew Lee Baker, Jr., a Memphis blues guitarist who was featured on an early Living Blues Magazine cover, playing with Bukka White. He and his mother were murdered.
I also knew Doc Pete, a volunteer blues DJ for WEVEL, also in Memphis. Also murdered.
I know Charlie Musselwhite, whose mother was also murdered in Memphis.
Is there any other better reason why I got out of that town?
There were also probably a few musicians murdered in Chicago that I knew … tough biz.
And, no, I did not know Robert Johnson 
or Sonnny Boy Williamson (John Lee Williamson).
I considered myself friends with Big Walter Horton and heard some really suspicious, creepy stories about his demise …
And, no, I did not know Robert Johnson or Sonnny Boy Williamson I (John Lee Williamson).
I considered myself friends with Big Walter Horton and heard some really suspicious, creepy stories about his demise …
Holy fucking shit. I opened this thread out of curiosity and now I just kind of feel sick. I think it’s because so many of you have discussed how the murders took place. On the news it’s just a report, next story. Human beings are fucking miserable dirtbags at times. I’m really sorry for the losses that all of you have suffered at the hands of some truly horrible people. (And the souls of the departed.)
I’ve known so many people in so many contexts that I’m certain I do know someone who has been murdered, but I just don’t know it yet. I recently found my first crush on the internet, and in reconnecting with her (as a friend of course) I learned that her sister was killed in an accident and a few years later, her surviving son was also killed. I do not want to ask my friend how either death happened, but I suspect it had something to do with her husband. Either alcohol or abuse. My friend, unbeknownst to me, had a horrible home life. I went to birthday parties at her house and thought they were the Cleavers. She’s had a really difficult life - her dad committed suicide, the deaths I’ve mentioned, and she’s struggled with alcoholism up until very recently.
I’m also shocked to see that so many people have been personally affected by violent crime.
Yeah. A client - not someone I knew really well, but we’d attended some of the same project meetings. Ex-boyfriend, shot her in the stomach; she made it to a neighbor’s house for help but died of the wound anyway.
Fortunately her kids were not with her at the time, they were with her ex-husband.
The thing is, it is a small fraction of a percent of the population that is capable of doing this; they just impact the rest of us way out of proportion. Any most offenders are repeat if not habitual actors who will are recidivists even when they are “corrected” by the penal system, because most are sociopaths who care nothing for the harm they cause others. This has nothing to do with weapons (though access to firearms does multiply the ability of some dirtbag to do harm, just as it amplifies the ability of a defender to protect herself); it is largely an innate or inculcated propensity toward abuse and violence, unalloyed by the normal social inhibitions that most people absorb in childhood.
Stranger
A friend of mine had a three year old son who was the victim of a murder/suicide by his father.
Another friend had a 22 year old son that committed suicide.
I didn’t until recently.
We used to play in a band in HS. He was an amazing drummer. Hopefully they find out who did this. It’s a small town so it shouldn’t be too hard.
I went to a tiny village school until I was ten. One of my best friends had a small brother, who was in the infants class when I joined the school and was maybe six or seven when I left. I remember him as a very small, very cute, round little boy with a round little blond head and round little glasses. We used to play together. He was a sweet little fellow of whom I was always fond. I went away to school, then they moved away and I didn’t see him again. He was beaten to death for no apparent reason a couple of years ago - walking home from a night out, and then… no walking, ever again. Little blond Joseph. Horrible.
You aren’t kidding. I opened the thread because I don’t know of anyone close to me who has been murdered and wanted to know if anyone did, and the sheer number of folks who’ve posted telling their stories is very heartbreaking. I thought those sorts of responses would be much less numerous.
While I’ve never known anyone personally who was murdered, I have handled the remains of at least a couple who had been. The stories their bones told were often very brutal. Human beings do some pretty terrible things to each other.
One person - a high school classmate of mine. His parents were going through a divorce I guess and his father strangled my classmate in his (the father’s) car. I was told at school that the classmate was not coming back and only learned the details by reading the newspaper a few days later.
P.S. Where I went to high school (Switzerland) the people in your high school class took all the same classes with you, so our small group of about 20 students spent about 30 or 40 hours a week together. A closer relationship than I think you get in American high schools.
Last Thursday, the ex-husband of one of MrWhatsit’s co-workers killed himself and their two daughters, aged 11 and 15, while he was having his regular visitation with them. We bought Girl Scout cookies from those girls. I am still completely unable to process this event.
We believe my 17 yr old cousin was murdered earlier this year.
It looked like suicide at first, but a lot of things just didn’t add up over the next few days as the family and friends started piecing everything together. Autopsy came back inconclusive, which means there’s an open investigation… but it’s been long enough now that I know it’s unlikely the police will ever come back with a conclusive answer.
Either way, it was a bloody waste. He was a smart, talented, funny, athletic, outgoing… everything you want a 17 yr old to be. Unfortunately, it seems he chose to rebel against his strict parents by running with the wrong kind of kids, and one way or another it ended up killing him.
When I was applying to prep schools, the routine was to go spend a weekend on campus to get a taste of student life. So I head down to a place called George School in Newton Pa, and upon arrival was greeted by my student guide, Ennis Cosby. We spent the entire weekend together connected at the hip as I toured the place. I gotta say he was one of the nicest, most grounded individuals I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.
It boggles my mind that he was executed on the side of a road. RIP, son of funnyman.
I missed this thread until today. One of my closest friends was killed trying to defend a woman from her attacker. Here is a link: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-67772888.html. Sucked pretty bad.
Southwest
I’m not asking you to go into details if you don’t want, but I would be curious to know a little more information.
i.e. Is there a reason you’re in a position to know “four of them, right off the top” of your head? Is it because of your line of work, for example?
Yeah, Southwest Philly can be pretty brutal.