I once got a really sweet deal on a mobile home. As part of the disclosure, I found that the previous resident had been murdered in it. I lived there for years, and was always secretly disappointed that no ghosts ever showed up to haunt the place.
I ran into bodies a few times back when I was homeless and squatting, but no murders, just overdoses and/or suicides.
E.g. Wikipedia: “Homicides can be divided into many overlapping legal categories, including murder, manslaughter, justifiable homicide, killing in war, euthanasia, and capital punishment, depending on the circumstances of the death. These different types of homicides are often treated very differently in human societies; some are considered crimes, while others are permitted or even ordered by the legal system.”
Pretty damn close, and more times than I’d like to admit.
What?..
Oh, “…A homicide”… n/m.
Not close, but kinda famous - I knew the second victim of Ted Kaczinski and had talked to him the day before the bomb killed him. My first wife had a co-worker who was killed by her husband (and tried to bury her up on their mountain property); we’d socialized with them the week before.
All deaths at the hands of another person are homicides. That it’s usually used as a synonym for “unlawful killing” doesn’t invalidate the base, broader meaning.
I witnessed a fatal car accident where the other driver was charged. I was called to give a deposition, and they asked me if I’d be willing to testify in court, but eventually the driver plea bargained. She totally ran a red light. T-boned someone turning on a green arrow. I think she was speeding too, but I’m not a good judge of that.
There was also a shotgun murder in the apartment complex across the street from mine. I wasn’t home, but there were still some police there when I got home, although I think the body had been removed. The police still weren’t letting anyone leave or go into the building, though, because they were doing door to door. Some woman was freaking out because her son was with his father in one of the apartments, and he wasn’t answering his phone, and they wouldn’t let her go in-- she was supposed to be picking him up then.
The mother of one of my second cousins on my mother’s side-- that is to say, my mother’s cousin’s wife-- was murdered (rather horribly-- at least they got the guy, and he’s doing life). It was in another state, but I went to the funeral, so I have been to the funeral of a murder victim.
My day care provider was murdered by her husband (who called all the parents and told them not to bring us in that day). I think my parents were much more traumatized by that than I was though – I was only 2.
I don’t know that I’ve ever been close to a murder.
But a suicide, yes. One winter night I was home and heard a gunshot, not too far away from my house. Less than a minute later I heard a man’s voice crying “Ricky, why did you do it?” I saw police and emergency vehicle arrive, without sirens though, and with lights I could see, from my back windows, a body lying on the ground in the snow, in a yard that did’t quite connect with my own.
I was standing a few feet away from a woman who was gun downed by her ex in front of a night club. It happened so fast I just froze while about 3 shots rang out.
My first night out of the house and in a hotel after my divorce the man next store was murdered in his bed and the bed was started on fire. I heard furniture banging around but no screams. Our beds shared the same wall back to back. All the furniture had been piled on the body and set on fire. The fire went out before it was noticed and the body was discovered the next day.
Afterthought, not counting the ones in the OP, I’ve seen maybe half a dozen stiffs in situ, working news beat, only one of which was a murder victim. Teenage girl left behind a convenience store near an Indian reservation. She looked very peaceful.
About 4 seconds.
My band partner and I were just packing up our instruments after a practice session when we heard gunshots. It was police across the street killing a mentally ill 20-year-old, who may or may not have been brandishing a knife. (Cops say yes; his mother, who called the cops in the first place, says no.)
I responded to a murder after a shots fired call went out and got there in less than a minute - before the marked units. The victim, who I knew, was shot in the head on his front porch. Family members inside didn’t even know it had happened. I was standing over the body when someone looked out the window to see what was going on. Needless to say, she freaked out. But I wasn’t that close when it happened.
Weirdly, I’ve seen two homicides out of the corner of my eye, without really processing what I was seeing. The first time I was in college, walking across campus very early in the morning. I passed one of the facilities staff arguing with someone (her ex-boyfriend, as it turned out) I didn’t really take much notice of it, and kept walking. Later, I crested a hill some distance away where I could look back, and though I saw her fall and he catch her. It didn’t look terribly violent or anything, so I kept waking home. Later found out he’d actually stabbed her to death. (he immediately turned himself in to the police, and there were several witnesses close by, so there wasn’t much of an investigation).
The second time I was in a building across the street from a Chinese restaurant. I saw some commotion through the heavily tinted windows of the place, and thought I heard a noise, but it was garbbled enough by the traffic and intervening walls that I didn’t really process it as gunshots. A minute or two later someone ran out the front door, and was chased down and tackled by two other men. Found out later it was a disgrunteld employee who had shot the owner and his wife.
Moral of story: I’m not very observant when it comes to murders. Like an anti-Sherlock Holmes.
Every second I’m closer than the last…
Every time I drive, I edge a little closer…
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I was coming home from work and I saw a Medical Examiner van speeding to a boat yard . A body was just found by some fishermen and there were police cars all over the place . A guy killed his g/f and dumped her body in the ocean but he didn’t weight the body down very good. The guy used tape on the body and he wasn’t wearing gloves and left this finger prints on the sticky side of the tape. Not very smart thank goodness !
I’ve had a lot of people convicted of homicide/murder as patients, and treated a handful of homicide victims while they were in the process of expiring, but that’s about it.
Timothy McViegh’s death was a homicide.
I was about five blocks from the Boston Marathon finish line when the bombs went off. I did not see any smoke, so I thought an 18-wheeler had crashed full speed into a cement piling on the Massachusetts turnpike 200m away.
Monday, March 30, 1981. I was in 5th grade. I and a handful of other students were bused to a nearby school across town a little ways for a special program. Anyway, when our special class is dismissed, we were walking back to our bus. Normally it would be recess and we’d walk past the other kids out doing recess things, but there was no recess that day and the teachers were speaking in hushed tones. On the way back, we heard the driver talking to dispatch and I remembered hearing that the President had been shot. So anyway, we get back to our school, and the vice principal meets us at the door and hustles us inside. I thought all the extra precautions had something to do with the President being shot, even though that was in Washington and I was in Springfield, Illinois.
It wasn’t.
As I would later learn when I got home, what had really happened that day (inasmuch as it affected me and the kids at the school where the program was) was this: someone had gone into a nearby hardware store and murdered three people with an axe. This would have been about six blocks from the school where I’d been for the day program. Truthfully, the school kids were never in any danger, but, you know, an abundance of caution and all that.
Oddly enough, the case has never been solved.