Here’s what they had to say, along with some responses from theoriginal Reddit thread.
NOTE: There are mentions of violence, abuse, sexual assault, and murder ahead.
I knew the killer since I was 15.
He was a good kid, did very well for himself, and held a good job.
I met his girlfriend (who eventually became his wife) through him in our late 20s.
She and I became best friends, and I was even in their wedding.
He was hard working, a great dad, and a family man.
They bought a new house and youd have thought they were living the American dream.
Some years ago, he started acting out of the norm and seemed more miserable.
My best friend couldnt take it anymore and had a plan to leave once the timing was right.
But when she put it into action, things got way worse.
Its as if something snapped."
“Hidden cameras, GPS trackers, phone hacking apps, and more.
Everything we spoke about, he seemed to know about.
We resorted to Snapchat, but he even knew about those conversations.
I didnt get a response back, which I thought was odd.
I followed up next day and still nothing.
I got a call from a mutual friend telling me she was in the hospital.
He had stabbed her dozens of times the night she texted me.
She held on for a few days, but passed.
Its sad but true.
Anonymous
2.
He had seemed just quiet and serious.
There was a lot of really obvious sexism in their family.
I always felt bad for them and how strict the parents were.
There was a lot of pressure on all of those kids to be high achievers.”
He asked if he could come see her and ended up shooting them both.
I went to his funeral to support my friend.
… To this day its the saddest funeral Ive ever been to.
When they lowered his casket into the ground, his mother wailed so hard she passed out.
“I knewJeremy Strohmeyer,who raped and murdered 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a Nevada casino bathroom.
We went to high school together and weren’t friends, but acquaintances.
He was on the football team (JV), and a little weird, but nice to me.
I heard rumors that he didn’t treat the girls he dated very well.
He left our school, supposedly because his family moved to another country.
We were both on dates.
“In Italy, high school lasts five years.
I was in my fourth, and this guy was in his first.
He somehow resembled Kurt Cobain, and since he studied music, we kinda knew him by that name.
I would talk to him a little, sometimes, but nothing more.
I don’t know what happened to him after.
More than 10 years have passed, and the fact still shocks me.”
The dad’s brother who was a lawyer in California did it.
He was mad about his brother getting the family farm.
… Scott Caweltiwrote a bookcalledBrother’s Blood.”
“I met my ex-husband at an amusement park when I was 14 and he was 16.
But over the following two years, things changed dramatically.”
And he just didn’t stop.
He drove all over the place with our kids in the car without a care in the world.
He picked me up from work drunk four out of five days a week.
They’d pull him over drunk with the kids in the car and send him home!
Come to find out, he was also a serial cheater and nursing a newfound love for heroin.
He eventually moved, too.
Three restraining orders, two nasty divorce trials later, and I was (almost) free.
Then the judge mandated 50/50 visitation.
Of course, this was a secret I learned about later.
She tried to save him from himself heroin, meth, booze, schizophrenia.
… His sister funded a lawyer for me so I could (FINALLY) afford to finalize the divorce.
Six years later and we’re still waiting for the murder trial to commence.
I’ve worked myself to the bone to provide for our kids all this time.
Guess who they can’t get enough of?
Life is not fair."
“My grandfather was an avid hunter.
He would travel frequently to Alaska because he liked hunting big game.
He became friends with this man who owned a bakery up there.
My grandpa described him as being very nerdy and mild-mannered harmless, even.
One day my grandpa received a call from someone in the FBI.
His friend turned out to be Alaskas most prolific serial killer.
His name was Robert Hansen, the Butcher Baker of Alaska.”
They hired a guy named Jason to run deliveries.
Jason was a skinny white dude who tried VERY hard to portray a thug lifestyle.
It was annoying, but whatever, he seemed chill.
I made a joke about slowing down so the other delivery guy would get it.
I laughed then I felt something at my temple.
Turns out he thought it would be funny to point his gun at me."
Jason was instantly fired, but to be safe, I took some time off work.
It was all very sad."
u/AkuraPiety
10.
“My boyfriend’s brother was a…teddy bear one minute and beast the next.
… Anyways one night we went to the club, and my boyfriend and I went into the bathroom.
We didnt pay them any attention.
Well, by now we had caught on to their joke.
It didnt take my boyfriend’s brother any time to figure out what was going on.
The guy’s teeth were falling out and hitting the floor, sounding like Tic Tacs hitting the ground.
Then my boyfriend’s brother said, ‘Now you’re a toothless Forrest Gump.’
My boyfriend and I looked at each other with our mouths wide open at what we had just witnessed.
Apparently one of the men in the bathroom had a brain hemorrhage and died.”
He had a good sense of humor.
I never saw him drunk.
He didn’t even smoke pot.
About 10 years after graduation, he killed his wife, kids, and himself."
“My friend from high school.
He was always a great dude.
It was because he was arrested for murder.”
sgodwin47
13.
“I shared the backseat with a future murderer.
First murder in that town in over 100 years.”
saraho4a20298d2
14.
“Not only did I know a couple murderers, but I unknowingly walked upon two crime scenes.
My grandma’s next-door neighbor was a man living with his nephew.
My cousin (being raised by Gram) and the nephew were dating.
Across the street lived a friend from school, his sister, and his mom.
His mom had been engaged to the uncle but broke it off.
We rushed to the uncle’s house and found blood everywhere.
We called 911.”
“The friend from across the street walked into his own house asking what was going on.
He screamed from inside.
The uncle had beheaded his mom.
He then went back home and tried to kill himself.
It was incredibly tragic.”
goety
15.
“My tattoo artist got away with killing a guy back in NYC, like, 10 years ago.
In return, this guy had her sexually assaulted.
“He was never questioned by police or arrested, and now lives a thousand miles away.
Hes a really amazing guy, though.
Super fun to hang out with, and a very loving husband and father.
Hes also an amazing tattoo artist.
“An ex partner from decades ago told me he thought he might have killed someone.
He was in a car riding around with his friends when he threw a beer bottle out the window.
This is the first time I have ever mentioned this to anyone anywhere.
To this day it still haunts me.
u/ThaloGaze
17.
“I sat beside him in math class for two years and played table tennis with him.
He dropped out in the final year of school to work full-time at the supermarket.
He was released back to his parents' place, five minutes away from her home.
No support, no meds, or anything.
Only family to supervise him, and they all worked.”
“A while later, he stabbed her on her back deck until the knife bent.
Her Mum came home to find her.
He’s locked up in a mental ward now.
Apparently, he got on different meds and is much better now.
It really fucked up our year’s group at school.
Some people still want to kill him for what he did.
I see it as a failure of the justice and mental health system.”
u/chullnz
18.
“A friend was camping when he and another guy got into it.
The other guy left, came back with a screwdriver, and attempted to stab my friend.
My friend got arrested, and the other guy died in the hospital.
My friend went to jail, and did five years.
Canada has no self-defense laws.”
u/Strofari
19.
She also went to our school but was new to the area, so I didnt know her.
He came to take the SATs under police escort.”
u/NoNefariousness104
20.
His wife was going to leave him and then just vanished one day.
They found her car out in the desert, her purse and belongings all inside.
No trace of her.
He did have a mysterious barrel of acid in his garage, though.”
u/Euphoric_Light6444
21.
“A guy I went to school with killed someone about two years ago.
He’s someone I could have foreseen getting into drugs or legal trouble, but nothing like what happened.
(Keeping some details vague for privacy.)
It didn’t take too long for the cops to put the pieces together.
In addition, it turned out he’d been sexually abusing his (partner’s?)
“Last I heard, he was being held in the local regional jail, presumably awaiting trial.
I remember a bunch of our former classmates posting about it on Facebook, and everyone was shocked.
I hope he rots in his cell.”
“I used to work with juvenile delinquents.
We had a kid that was almost impossible to deal with.
He never should have been sent to our facility.
He needed some serious mental health treatment.
His father had committed suicide, and his mother was always on the run from the police.
His uncle who took him in blamed him for his father’s death.
He had been through every jot down of abuse.
I quit working there a few years ago.This is himtoday.”
pepper314
23.
“I went out with a guy twice when I was senior in high school.
A year after I graduated, he killed three of my former classmates while on dates.”
u/MobilePurple4894
24.
“TWO clients at the vet clinic I work at have been charged with murder.
One was charged with second degree murder for killing her son.
She was convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter.
She claims it was accidental.
I kinda believe it.
Her son was not okay; he had terrible addiction/mental health problems, and he was abusive to her.
She will be sentenced this month.
The other has been charged with first degree murder of her mother.
Obviously, we have no idea if either is true…but we can’t help but speculate.”
“The first lady I’ve interacted with multiple times.
She seems very nice, if maybe a bit troubled.
u/joojie
25.
“I know three.
One was a manslaughter charge.
He was driving drunk and hit a woman.
Otherwise, he would have gone to jail for MUCH longer.
He’s now out, sober, and has really turned his life around.”
“The second guy…was a genuinely dangerous person.
He’s in a state mental hospital for the rest of his life.
The third guy was an ultra-Christian who didn’t believe in divorce.
He started cheating on his wife and decided he didn’t want to be married anymore.
But divorce is a sin, so somehow, it made sense to murder her instead?
Anyway, he got a first degree charge and will never walk free again, thank God.”
u/CaptainFartHole
26.
Super outgoing, funny, SO friendly.
He had two kids he loved dearly and spent a lot of time with.
problematik
27.
“An old member of my family.
No one liked him, he was incredibly abusive to my aunt and her kids.
u/c0rps3wh0r3
28.
A guy pulled over and gave me a lift (very common in villages across the region).
He dropped me off in front of the house that was getting rebuilt and drove back to his house.
Everyone looked at me and asked, ‘Why did you get in the car with him?’
I go, ‘Why?’
He still lives in the neighboring village (unless he’s died since).”
u/VeezusM
30.
“My friend was sexually abused by his father.
The father made advances toward the younger siblings, and my friend snapped.
He killed his dad to protect his siblings from also being sexually abused.
His parole ends in December.
One of the best people Ive ever had the pleasure to call my friend.”
u/Crocolyle32
31.
“He was a close coworker as we worked on a lot of special projects together.
He was a tough but smart guy to work for and with.
We hung out after work and partied together.
We then lost touch a little when I moved to the west coast.
The middle kid called [the] cops.
u/2_Spicy_2_Impeach
32.
“My uncle went on trial for murder after he shot and killed a guy.
He was found not guilty due to evidence he was fired upon first.”
His friend was high off his gourd and ended up blaming my uncle for his misfortunes.
He said he would kill him then beat my uncle bloody.
There was another guy there, but he was too scared to do anything.
The dealer sat my uncle in a chair and aimed a revolver at him.
They didnt hit my uncle because he was curled away basically half off the chair.
The dealer calmed down a bit and told him to go clean himself up.
My uncle decided to fight him and positioned himself where he would be behind the door when it opened.
The guy came in, my uncle fought the gun away from him and shot him dead.
The thing that saved my uncle during the trial was the chair (witness could not be found).
He eventually recovered, but for a long time, it was rough.”
u/Asslord_Supreme
33.
“Ex-boss of mine from Walmart beat his ex-girlfriend and strangled her to death on her front lawn.
He has always been a piece of shit.
He used to beat his ex-wife when they were married.
He cheated on her with an underage girl.
He avoided jail time because his parents have money.
He was fired from Walmart for stealing several grand from the cash office.
Again, rich parents got him clear.”
u/Faux-Foe
34.
“A woman that went to my church got her son to murder her husband.
To be fair, I do believe she was being abused by her husband.
He was caught right away running away from the crime scene.
Even the daughter knew of the plan.
She saw her father and didnt say anything.”
“The mom skirted prison for a long time, and is currently serving eight years, I believe.
My mom is friends with her and is going to prison soon to see her.
I lost respect for my mom because of it.
But to forever ruin her sons life and probably also fuck her daughter up a bit is just wrong.
I cant believe a20/20hasnt been made about it.”
u/DJssister
35.
“I knew a guy who worked as a correctional officer.
He was HUGE, like 67 and 300+ lbs.
While he was at work, an inmate tried to jump him.
He climbed on the officer’s back and attempted to choke him out.
Big guy was not having it.
He flipped the inmate over his shoulder and punched him in the chest so hard it stopped his heart.
Inmate died, big guy went home.”
36.And finally… “My good friend’s ex-boyfriend.
He had a temper, a drug problem, and liked to beat up anyone weaker than him.
After my friend escaped him, he murdered an old man seemingly for no reason in a rage.
He’s still in jail.”
u/An-Empty-Road
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
