Have you ever known personally anyone such as Charles Starkweather,

[raccoon]

Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, Dick Hickok, Perry Smith, etc.? And if you did, what was your impression of him/her?

[treestar]

1. No and I imagine that's pretty rare, but Ann Rule's book on Ted

Bundy might shed some light. She actually knew him and before it was known he was a murderer.

[htuttle]

2. I think I gave Jeffery Dahmer a ride(s) in my taxi

After his picture was splashed all over the news, I thought he looked an awful lot like a fairly regular passenger I had from time to time when I worked in Milwaukee.

Don't remember much at all about him. The rides I suspect were him, I usually just took him to the bar in the early evening. Thankfully, I do not remember ever giving him a ride home with a 'guest' in tow.

[Bucky]

50. You know what? This is the best DU thread *ever*. I'm recommending it!

Not to seem sick or anything, but more people really ought to read this entire thread.

[NWHarkness]

3. A guy I went to high school with killed 4 people

He had been fired from his job. On the day of his grievance meeting, he shot his wife and then went to the meeting and shot and killed his union rep and two management representatives.

It's a classic "he was such a quiet man" situation. He just seemed normal, like any other kid. Of course, most people who develop serious mental problems don't do so at such a young age.

Oh, I also worked with a guy who killed his girlfriend. He was a complete idiot. He shot her and then threw her in the dumpster BEHIND HIS OWN HOUSE and set it on fire.

[chatterboy]

4. Yes

The man's name was Clayton Fountain; he died last year in federal prison while serving five life terms. Four of those slayings happened while he was in the federal prison in Marion, Ill.

Extremely smart. Helluva speller. Poor impulse control, as one might suspect.


http://chatterbyrondavis.blogspot.com

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

10. I'm confused. He killed 4 people while IN prison? They didn't put him in

isolation after killing one? :shrug:

[chatterboy]

17. Correct

He killed his drill instructor while in the Marine Corps. While in Leavenworth, he acted out so much they wound up deep-sixing him in Marion, where he killed four other men, including a prison guard.

After that last killing, the Bureau of Prisons built a two-cell chamber for him at the Fed Med in Springfield, Mo. Fountain existed there for the next two decades, in complete isolation, until his death in 2005.

As I mentioned before, an extremely intelligent man. He did have a curious habit of using hand-drawn smiley-face icons to punctuate his writings. Somewhat creepy, given his history.

http://chatterbyrondavis.blogspot.com

[Blue_In_AK]

29. I knew someone who spent time at Marion...

He was always suspected of some unsolved Teamsters murders up here in the '70s, but since they could never pin them on him, they hammered him for everything else they could come up with, including revoking his parole for a prior offense even after he was acquitted of the crime he was charged with.

[Kingshakabobo]

31. Extremely smart. Helluva speller. Poor impulse control........

Sounds like some DUers I know...........I keed Ikeed.

[theboss]

47. Oops

Wrong place

[librechik]

5. Yes, sort of

I knew a guy who killed his roommate, cut up the body and hid the parts in various dumpsters. What was so remarkable is that he was a paraplegic, in a chair since being stabbed in prison after an earler crime. I didn't know him well or privately, but he used to patronize a coffeehouse I worked at, and would sit and play chess for hours with some of the other SSI dependents who hung out there incessantly.

I don't think he was allowed to become serial because of the spinal injury. I hope I never know one of those. But I can't say for sure that I haven't.

[kestrel91316]

6. I knew a guy 20 years ago, a real rough, white trash, cigarette pack

rolled into the t-shirt sleeve sort of guy, who later was convicted of murdering a teenaged girl and drugging and raping her friend.

His son and daughter were my clients, and were sort of trashy, but not as bad as him, and she was sweet. HE came in with them sometimes when they brought their dog in.

His name was Roland Comtois. He hooked up with some chick and they were seriously into drugs, and went around camped out on the streets of LA in their RV. They lured a couple of Jr HS girls into the RV, drugged them, raped them, murdered the one, and when they passed out from the drugs/booze, the other one managed to escape, badly injured but alive. He and the woman were both convicted, him of murder and her of accessory, I think. He is on death row still, IIRC, but he might have died there in the past few years.

I knew a murderer. Scary.

[argyl]

7. Met Charles "Tex" Watson shortly before he went to California and met up

with Manson.He just struck me as being a hick from McKinney,Texas. My friend who had brought him over reminded me of the meeting after the Manson Family was all in the news after the Tate/LaBianca murders.

Nothing in the guy's demeanor suggested he'd be capable of being involved in anything like that.

[givemebackmycountry]

8. I worked with a guy once...

He was an Oilers fan back when they still played in Houston.
We both worked out of a office in Lenexa, Kansas.

I used to like to talk to him because he was an avid football fan.
Just guys talking sports, that's all.

One Friday, I swung past his desk to see him, because his Oilers were playing my beloved Broncos that Sunday.

We laughed and teased each other.

That night he went home after work and he shot his wife and his three kids.
Then he shot himself.

There was no indication from anyone who knew him, that he was capable of doing something like this.


"You think you know somebody, you think they know you, you think you know somebody, but man you never do"

Todd Snider

[raccoon]

11. Your post, and several others, do show that most of the time,

you just can't tell about people.

There are some exceptions--Pat Sherrill comes to mind--but it appears they are few and far between.

Patrick Henry Sherrill (went postal and killed 15 people), who lived and worked in Edmond, Oklahoma, was nicknamed "Crazy Pat" due to his unusual behavior...Pat was often seen, "sneaking around at night in combat fatigues, tying up dogs with baling wire, peering into neighbor's windows, (and) mowing his lawn at midnight." His bizarre behavior was also observed at the many jobs he held throughout his life and by his neighbors.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/work_homicide/4.html

[tenshi816]

9. No serial killers, but

when I was a child my father's younger sister was married to a man that I knew was crazy (in the way that kids do sometimes). Whenever he was at my grandparents' farm when I was there, I gave him a wide berth. I didn't understand why the grown-ups didn't pick up on it - you could practically smell the "wrongness" coming off this guy.

When I was 10, my aunt left her husband after years of abuse, took their children and moved back in with my grandparents. One morning as my grandfather was driving my aunt and grandmother to work, my aunt's husband (I never thought of this man as my uncle) ambushed and shot all three of them. He shot my aunt 8 times, my grandmother 3 times and my grandfather once in the arm. He then loaded my aunt in the back of his pickup truck and drove himself to the local police station. When he gave his statement to the police, he apologized for shooting my grandfather - he said he was aiming at my grandmother and missed.

My aunt and grandparents all survived, BTW, but my aunt still has 3 bullets inside her that were too dangerous to remove.

My aunt's husband went off to prison but served less than 2 years before he was released. He subsequently married again and had a baby with his new wife. When the baby was less than 3 months old, he came home from work one day and, out of the blue, killed his wife and then killed himself.

When I was growing up, I thought all adults were insane.

Edit: typo

[raccoon]

13. Less than 2 years! That's outrageous. nt

[tenshi816]

15. Ain't that the truth.

All they did was turn him loose to eventually murder someone. All the signs were there. I could see it and I was only 10 years old.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. No, but I think one lives at 1600 Pa. Ave., Washington DC.

[Bucky]

51. OMG! That's where the president lives, too!! Someone needs to warn Bush!

That could be a real security threat.

[charlie]

14. Knew a kid in high school

Gangly, goofy kid, nice guy. Fresh out of high school, sitting in a bar one night, he announced that he was going to shoot the place up. No one took him seriously, his "joke" caused a lot of chuckles. Went to his truck, got a rifle and emptied it in the bar. 5 people dead. Immediately afterward, he was struck with horror at what he'd done and spent the time until the cops showed exclaiming "oh my god" over and over. Sentenced to 20 years. Weird story.

[raccoon]

16. Was he mentally ill? Or was his excuse that he was drunk? nt

[charlie]

19. He was just a seemingly happy

easygoing guy and has made no excuses. No one, least of all he, knows why he did it. He's been unrelentingly remorseful since the moment the bullets ran out. It's a very strange story.

[raccoon]

40. IMO, he should've gotten a stiffer sentence.

20 years for 5 murders? Go figure.

[johnnie]

18. Met one once

He was a serial rapist here in Cleveland. His name is Ronnie Shelton and I met him once while he was with my sister and her ex husband at a bar. My sister knew him well and hung out with him and had no idea he was raping all those women.
I only met him once though, and he just seemed like some other guy. Of course my sister freaked because she was with him alone on many occasions.

Here is the book about him:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743460553/ref=pd_sxp_f/102-8877707-3800140?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

From the site:

"Between 1983 and 1988, Ronnie Shelton raped at least 30 women in the Cleveland area. Neff (Mobbed Up), a senior editor of Cleveland magazine, discovered, after Shelton's conviction, that he had committed rapes before 1983 and estimates the total number of his victims at nearly 100. In the course of his spree, Shelton was stopped or picked up by the police 15 times for offenses like peeping into windows, but the connection to the rapes was never made. In faulting the police, Neff's chief target is Lt. Lucie Duvall, head of the Sex Crimes Unit. Yet the book is less about the rapist or inept police work than about the phenomenon of 30 victims bonding together to support one another and to testify in court about their experiences. As an outcome of their action, the judge determined that Shelton should never be released and sentenced him to 3198 years in prison. For this vivid and memorable account, the author interviewed survivors, the police and Shelton himself.

[justice1]

20. Starkweather had a big influence on my mother-in-law.

She was born in a small town in the Philippines, she married a navy man, and moved to a farm in Nebraska. Shortly after her arrival, the Starkweather murders happened. Her husband worked a lot, so she was often home alone. She didn't know how to drive and didn't have a phone at the time, she was so scared, not knowing what she got herself into. She was always afraid something might happen to her.

Oddly enough, she died under questionable circumstances 3 years ago this month. We've never been able to get an investigation into her death.

If you wouldn't mind, one day I would like to post some documents, and get some objective feedback from posters.

[raccoon]

39. Do you mean documents relating to your MIL's death? nt

[justice1]

43. Yes

I was in poor health prior to her death, and this has really taken it's toll on the both of us. We've hit so many brick walls, that it's left us feeling overwhelmed and alone. I think it's time for a fresh perspective on the situation.

[raccoon]

44. Bring it on. My suggestion would be to start a thread on the subject. nt

[cmkramer]

21. Two friends

I knew one guy who murdered three little girls when he was a teenager. It was the typical weird kid getting teased all the time finally loses it story. He ended up committing suicide (I don't remember whether he was in prison or a state mental institution). I didn't know him well, he was the younger brother of a guy who I was friends with in high school.

Another guy I actually was better friends with raped and murdered his girlfriend's two year old son. He was convicted but the case was overturned on appeal because of the pre-trial publicity. When I knew him, he was a great guy -- very funny and smart.

And not really in the same vein, but I also knew the woman who sold the Donna Rice/Gary Hart story to the tabloids. She was a friend of Donna's who was also on "The Monkey Business". I knew her in grade school but we were never friends.

[raccoon]

41. Now that is scary.

"Another guy I actually was better friends with raped and murdered his girlfriend's two year old son... When I knew him, he was a great guy -- very funny and smart. "

[LeftyMom]

22. I met Dorthea Puente a few times when I was a kid

She used to come into my mother's bar a lot to collect a few of her boarders who would go there to drink. She was just some nice old lady who was friendly to my mother, I had no idea that whe was killing her boarders and burying them in her yard.

[maveric]

23. Two co-workers from the Shipyards.

One of them, the boss's brother, a real asshole of a guy, killed his gay lover over $200.00 and stashed the body in a storage unit that was in HIS NAME! After a few days a horrible smell was present. Escondido police opened the unit, found the body, then arrested this twit. He got life.

Then this guy. Just a nasty personality and a meth habit. He married this woman, another meth freak, who had 4 young kids. He'd give her money and meth, then send her off to the casino while he "babysat" the kids. As it turned out he was giving the kids meth, booze and barbituates, then sexually abusing/raping them. The kids ages ranged from 3 to 12. This went on for years while the Mom was out tweeking away at the casino. The 12 yr old girl finally told a school counsellor who called the police. They got a warrant to search the house where they found shocking photos of the kids being abused/raped by this monster.
He was convicted and got the longest prison term in CA for a non capital offense. 329 years.

[SmokingJacket]

24. Not that I know of!

The phenomenon fascinates me, though: what makes a person totally unfit for society? How much is biology, and how much environmental factors? I read the memoir written by Jeffrey Dahmer's father. It seemed like Dahmer was somewhat fucked up from the beginning, but having a weird and distant relationship with his parents didn't help. One wonders if it could have been prevented, and how.

[Rowdyboy]

25. I had a handsome defense attorney friend who turned out to be a big fan

of child pornography and a molester of teenage boys. I knew he was gay, but there were no other indications that he was anything but a great guy. He was brother-in-law to one of my best friends and was a guest in our home several times.

He's doing 25 years.

[Vinca]

26. When I was a cop I was put in charge of guarding Audrey Marie Hilley,

the "Black Widow," for a few hours. It was weird because she was actually quite a nice person to talk to. I found it hard to imagine her knocking off a bunch of family members, but apparently she did.

[Nay]

27. Not personally, thank god, but I walked past Ted Bundy's apt.

EVERY DAMN DAY on my way to class at Florida State. Scary thing was that I fit the profile of the girls he loved to pick up and kill -- long brown hair parted in the middle, med height, I looked just like the girlfriend who jilted him -- so I truly have no idea how I escaped. He must have just never seen me, never fixated on me. Yes, I was in town when he murdered the 3 girls in the FSU dorm and the one in her little house. The one who was murdered in her house lived about a half-mile from me.

The town went nuts. It was a Sunday when the murders were discovered, and there was not a knife, gun, bullet, machete, tear gas canister, or baseball bat left unsold in any store for a hundred miles around. By Monday, there were no dogs left at the pound to be adopted.

Wanna know the scary part? Ted had taken off in his car (a VW, I think) to repeat his crimes elsewhere when he was stopped by a cop for going a bit over the speed limit or something. Ted pulled out a driver's license he had stolen from an FSU ballplayer. The ONLY REASON Ted was detained was because the ballplayer whose ID this was was a personal friend of the cop who stopped Ted.

[Blue_In_AK]

28. I was a paralegal for criminal trial attorneys

for six years and worked a year as a corrections officer, so, yes, I've known a few psychopaths -- but most of the guys I dealt with just did really, really stupid -- and sometimes horrendous -- things when they were drunk. When they were sober, they seemed pretty much like the rest of us.

[Kingshakabobo]

30. I knew a guy who turned out to be a serial cat killer....

It was really creepy. He was arrested in Champaign, Illinois where I was a student at UofI. Apparently, he was breaking in to homes, stealing cats and doing all kinds of awful things to them. His excuse was that a cat caused him to have an auto accident so he was exacting revenge.:crazy: :scared:

We used to use his van to pick up kegs.......I think it doubled as his "laboratory.":scared:

I always wonder if he moved on to people.

[AlienGirl]

32. I chatted a self-confessed serial killer into a trap a couple years back

I spent probably an hour a day chatting with him for several months, and got to participate in the sting operation to arrest him. (Texas Dep't of Public Safety paid for me to fly down for it and everything.) I even wrote out my own victims' report.

My impression of him was that he didn't fit the stereotypical mould of charismatic, brilliant hunter. He was shorter than I'd expected him to be, and when he met me at the bus station and hugged me, all I could think was, "This guy wants to kill me and now he's TOUCHING me!" After he was arrested, he passed out from fright, and I wasn't at all scared of him anymore.

Tucker

[progressivebydesign]

35. OMG.. that is really frightenting. n/t

[AlienGirl]

36. I had a lot of armed police officers guarding me, it was pretty safe

They don't normally let civilians participate in undercover stuff like this, but they made an exception...I was in no actual danger, it was just kind of unnerving!

On edit: and it was not long after I'd gotten done beating cancer, so my fear threshhold was a little higher than normal!

Tucker

[3waygeek]

33. When I was in college

back in the mid 80s, I used to see this one Comp Sci grad student just about every day. He seemed fairly normal, except that he always had a goofy smile on his face. One night, he set the house of his faculty adviser on fire, killing the adviser's wife and at least one of his kids.

[progressivebydesign]

34. met a murderer who is now on death row.

he used to go to a local pub where we all hung out years ago, and he befriended a group of us girls.. and would ask all the time for us to go with him to a park so he could take photos of us. He would show us his photos that he took, portraits, of other girls our age. Turns out he was a murderer with a thing for young blondes. Glad our parents taught us well, and we never trusted him, nor would agree to meet him somewhere. He was friendly, not overtly creepy, but more annoying than anything. Something obviously struck us as creepy, because we never went off with the guy... nor trusted him.

[PassingFair]

37. Airborne Delivery Guy.

Smart. Sharp. Real ladies' man.
He was ALWAYS checking out the women where
I worked. I used to think it was funny. He
would duck into the office looking for one
sales rep or another he had seen coming into
the office.
He flirted outrageously.

Watching the news one night. Damned if his
picture didn't flash across the screen. He
had THREE "baby mommas".
Apparently, one of them was squeezing him
for too much child support, and he was not
making enough to continue with his lothario
lifestyle, so he GRABBED his kid from her
arms and killed it by throwing it on the ground,
then he went after the mother.

I still cannot believe he did it.

[phylny]

38. No but...and I'm ashamed to say this...I once knew a kid who I predicted

would one day be a serial killer. I did not do this to make fun of him, nor did I think it was in the least bit funny. This was several years ago, and he was only in 3rd grade, if you can believe it.

It was the way he tried to manipulate people (his parents most of all), the way he would try to stare me down when he was angry at me, and the sweet/sugary way he'd snap out of being mad - too quickly, he'd turn his anger off and smile a fake smile.

I hope like hell I'm wrong, of course, but it was chilling.

[raccoon]

42. Sure would be interesting to know what became of him.

He might've become a high-level exec at Enron or someplace similar.

[World Traveller]

45. Cousin who was a child molester

Married, very smart guy, good talker, not violent. Molested daughter. The whole thing was just WEIRD. He had everything going for him and lost everything. Must have been some deep-seated psychological motivation that the rest of us will never understand. Not that that would excuse his behavior. His poor daughter, meanwhile, has trust issues...

[noonwitch]

46. Only because I was a delinquency worker

Most of the kids I worked with were petty criminals, or status offenders (minor in possession, school truancy, etc.).

There was always the occasional really dangerous kid-either one who had committed a particularly henious sex offense or who killed someone at a young age (before age 15). There's a couple I check every once in a while to make sure they are still in prison. I can't name names because of confidentiality. Out of the 150 or so kids I worked with in 5 years in the program, I'd say that two of them had serious serial killer potential ( and one of them is in prison for life) and 3 more had serial sex offender potential.

[Bucky]

48. It's sad, but a couple of my students, I've thought: "someday he'll be..."

It's a vibe and it's probably not 100% accurate (I hope) and I'm sure I miss a few. But sometimes I'll have a student and he's just so so angry, so morally shut down, that I can just see him turning out to be a rapist or wife beater. There is, of course, not a damn thing I can really do about it.

[Bucky]

49. Oh, and I'm friends with several people who support Bush. Does that count?

In fact, if I pay taxes, isn't there blood on my hands too?

[raccoon]

54. "Does that count?" Afraid not. nt

[bleedingheart]

52. Two people I went to high school with committed murder

one was a terrifying jerk from high school who fancied himself a real bad ass...he went to jail for life for luring a gay man out of a bar and beating him to death.

another one...one I went to school with for 12 years...and played at his house...he went on to murder his wife in cold blood and cut her body up in pieces on a military base...and then called the MP's and shot himself in front of them...why did he do it???? people claim that night his wife was all over a bunch of men an the NCO club...and he left with her really pissed off...

[peacebaby3]

53. I work in criminal defense, capital cases so I have met some supposed

serial killers. I think most of them are mentally ill and I doubt any of them were truly serial killers. I can honestly say that I have never met anyone that is not redeemable though. I know some people don't really want to hear that, but it's the truth from my perspective.

[AlienGirl]

I agree with you about redeemability

There are no monsters, just terribly broken human beings who have acted monstrously. I believe everybody has the potential to change.

Tucker

[elehhhhna]

55. I lierally walked into John Ramsey (JonBenet's Dad) in the Caymans.

He was polite.

I recognized him but said nothing.

Hubs later told me I was insane, but 2 weeks later there they were on the cover of the Globe (Enquirer?)w/ an article on their trip to Cayman AND how BROKE they were. I'll bet they were very broke after they took that private plane to Cayman...in on Monday, out on Thursday...

do ya think they were stashing their cash? I do.

[Sequoia]

56. Gotta love that license plate!

This has been one chilling thread. Just the thought of Ted Bundy scares me still.

[MadHound]

57. Well, I damn near went to work for Ray Copeland

Copeland was arrested, tried and convicted for murdering five men that he had hired on as temp workers on his farm during the 1980s. I think that I was almost one of them.

I was living down in Springfield Mo during the mid '80s, and was unemployed. The local Salvation Army ran a day labor place above their store, you come in and wait for people needing workers to show up. Sometimes the jobs became permanent, sometimes not, pay wasn't great, but it made ends meet until a real job came along.

Anyway, I went down there one morning looking for work. This was a "first come, first serve" type of place, and my name was up next when in walked this big farmer type, older man in overalls, with car doors for ears. He was looking for a worker to help him around his farm for the next couple of weeks, was offering pretty decent money, room and board thrown in. A pretty good deal all told, but something somewhere was setting off an alarm in my head. I don't know what it was, the dead eyes, the man's story, but I passed on the offer and the next fellow in line took it. I didn't know it at the time, but the poor fellow's name was Jimmie Dale Harvey.

Life went on, I got regular employment, and moved out of Springfield in '87(best move of my life). In the fall of '89 I was watching the local evening news with my girlfriend and the lead off story was about the arrest of Ray and Fay Copeland, for multiple murders. Apparently they had been luring drifters, transients and other men down on their luck out to their farm, and then killing them after forcing them to participate in a check forging scheme.

I saw the film of Ray and chills went down my spine. There he was, a few years older, but still with those big ass ears and the time worn face with the deep set beady eyes. This was indeed the man with whom I had almost gone to work for a few years earlier. Even worse came, the news started flashing pictures of those who were believed to have been killed by the Copelands, and whose picture should appear but that of Jimmie Dale Harvey, the guy who took the "job" instead of me.

I immediately called the police who were investigating these murders, and the next day they sent a couple of officers to interview me. One of them commented as they left that apparently I had a guardian angel who whispered in my ear that day. I couldn't agree more.

Link to the Copeland story, for those interested<http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial%5Fkillers/partners/copelands/>

[raccoon]

58. Thanks for the link. I wasn't familiar with the case. nt