Who's the scariest person you know?

[Argent_Towers]

@Svejk_1

If you don’t mind me asking, did you confront Swango with, let’s say, some of the moral implications of his deeds? Is the man remorseful, or resentful for being put in prison? When you say that he was ‘powerless to help himself’, are those his words or your impressions - and insofar as he said this or might agree to it, to what extent do you reckon he would say ‘I wish I was able to help myself’ (something that Nietzsche’s birds of prey sure as hell are not saying).

I hope you don’t mind me bombarding you with questions, I am genuinely interested in your views and your insights.

I don’t mind it at all. It’s interesting. Anyway, I have not “confronted” Swango about that stuff, not yet, anyway. I’m trying to work up to it. Part of me feels that if I go straight in with those kind of questions, he’ll clam up and maybe stop communicating with me.

On the other hand, I think of it this way. Imagine you’re a serial killer and you’ve been killing for years. It’s the only thing that you truly love doing - it’s your favorite thing in the world. Yet you can never talk to anyone about it. It’s something that you have to keep a secret from the rest of the world. Even disregarding the stress of a secret and the worrying that you might be found out - can you imagine how frustrating it must be to not be able to talk to ANYONE about your favorite thing in the world? Maybe Swango is tremendously relieved that his whole game is up and he was finally put away, because it means that now he can finally discuss his killing with other people?

So I’m trying to figure out a way to get to those questions. I don’t think he feels remorseful for what he did even if he claimed that he did; he’s only sorry that he got caught.

[Beware_of_Doug]

Jim was a hardcore alcoholic who used to frequent the bar my band played at. He didn’t get physical or anything but he was 3 things drunks are very good at being: loud, arrogant, and paranoid.

Jim always told us - loudly and repeatedly - that he liked the music, but he would frequently get riled up around me. If I find you obnoxious or intimidating, I don’t necessarily say so, but I give off cues. That really pissed off the paranoiac in him. He would always ask - loudly and repeatedly - why the hell I didn’t like him, and I always had to play at reassuring him.

I often wonder what Jim might have been capable of if he really got going. He bragged at length that he was engaged to be married. I sort of hope that fell through.

[slowlearner]

my big brother and all his street fighter friends in the 60’s and 70’s were like the kids in clockwork orange (the book not the movie, though the movie’s pretty govoreety too). any fight had to end with blood and disabling injury, and it only took a wrong look to start a fight. i’ve always been a pacifist and learned how not to fight from all those crazy son of a bitches. me and my sister were sitting around the other day and she looks at me and says, everybody we grew up with is dead.

[CanvasShoes]

@Argent_Towers

OK, since enough people seem to be interested: it’s Michael Swango. I’ve mentioned him here before but not that I’ve communicated with him.

After reading Blind Eye and being enthralled by the bizarre story, I was disappointed to find barely any attempt at a psychological profile of the man - nor any quotes or interviews with his own words. Figuring I’d just find out for myself, I wrote him a letter, and started communicating back and forth with him.

It’s been a very interesting experience.

I’ll bet! As scary as they are, serial killers are a fascinating topic, most particularly, what makes them tick.

[brittekland]

My mother. The first time she saw me with a cigarette in my hand she just said, “Why?”, and nothing else. I didn’t have an answer. She did the same when she saw me with a drink in my hand for the first time (she comes from a long line of highly puritanical religious family). She’s always scared me like the “Alien” from the movie. When I was little, even the times I had to go use the bathroom terribly bad as I’d be holding all the way home from school yet I did not wanted to get in the house, because just the look of her stare was so scary.

I’d be scared shitless if I saw one of those evil person with crazed eyes standing in the corner of my kitchen in the dark with a kitchen knife, like on one of the stories in the “I survived…” episodes. That show makes me think about things I might never have thought about and be extra careful… unfathomable freaky things happen to people everyday.