I have a friend who is a little older than me who was acquainted with a guy who went on to become a serial killer.
My friend and this person went to the same school and lived in the same neighborhood. As is typical with young people, sometimes they were cool with each other and sometimes they were at each other’s throats in high school. This guy went on to kill three women and is now serving a life sentence in prison.
My point: people who became serial killers and murderers once had friends in the outside world just like the rest of us.
Let’s dive into these stories from folks on AskReddit.
1. I worked with a guy…
“I worked with a guy who killed his wife and drove her car through a few states with her body in the back (it was an SUV) and their youngest son in the front. I live in Texas, he got caught in Ohio after his wife was reported missing and they tracked her car via the Onstar system.
They found him at a woman’s house he apparently met online, a fight ensued and he got arrested just before the police opened the trunk and found his wife.
He and I were on a small team of six people training for the new job we got hired on at, so I’d think I knew him well enough. Used to eat lunch together sometimes and I would joke with him about how much he worked out because the dude was just completely jacked.
He talked about how he and his wife moved to our city from a number of hours away because she got some position she couldn’t get where they lived, she was a specialized nurse of some kind. He talked about how much he loved her, and always showed pictures of their youngest child together. To me he seemed like a good dad that wanted to give the world to his family.
Then I guess they started fighting after a few months of being here. He would come in slightly late, stare at the wall with a deadpan expression and wouldn’t lighten up or talk to anybody until lunch. I took it as he just stopped being a morning person, but he talked to me and another teammate about the fights he had with his wife.
Then the fights got worse, she kicked him out at one point and he was living out of his car, working out at the gym in our office at work and showering there as well. In the morning he’d often stare at the keyboard of his computer and wouldn’t respond to anyone’s jokes or comments. Coworker and I bought him lunch one day and he opened up to us.
He told us that his wife threatened to take his son away and that he’d never see him again, and said “I swear, I’ll kill or die before that happens.” And of course, we thought nothing of it. It’s the kind of thing people just say, you know? After this talk, we set up a group text where we’d share memes and bullshit videos.
The last text I got from him was him telling us he “needed to get out,” and asking us to get drinks or something with him. Both of us were busy that day, so we couldn’t. Next day back at work, he isn’t there.
Two more days pass, nothing. I ask our trainer if he’s heard anything, as he wasn’t responding to texts, and the trainer gave me a look and said he couldn’t discuss it. I found out what happened when I googled his name.”
2. Notorious.
“One of my professors “Mr. Anderson” sat near Ted Bundy in a college course due to the proximity of their last names in alphabetical order. My grandmother in law had a store next to a serial killer from Montana (can’t remember his name now) but in both cases the people said they were just nice as could be. No suspicion of being a killer at all.
That’s what scares me the most, they aren’t the weird quiet kid. They’re the charming funny guys.”
3. Wild emotions.
“Very high energy.
Emotional. Bit of a problem kid. But he was funny and had friends. When his GF broke up with him, he snapped. Hed always had trouble with his emotions. Just too happy, too sad, too angry. Extremes in every directions.
And he shot her at her bus stop, then killed himself.”
4. Drug deal gone bad.
“A classmate murdered two men in one night with a fireman’s axe, apparently it was a dispute over drugs in exchange for sexual favors.
The kid was pretty normal, kind of ADHD when we were in school, but an overall okay, yet troubled kid. He once got busted for stealing a credit card at our town’s local grocery store.
He came from a large family that was notorious for having their kids resent the parents, many of them dropping out of school to move away, and they often turned to drugs/crime.
It’s honestly really sad how those people neglected their kids (they adopted like 22 children over the years), and at the same time, no surprise that their children developed such issues.”
5. Scary stuff.
“I worked with a guy who killed his wife and her new boyfriend (they were separated) and then himself. He broke into his wife’s apartment (she called cops but they didn’t get there in time) and lined them up along a wall, including their kids.
Didn’t shoot the kids thankfully but they witnessed this all, and were part of the lineup probably thinking they were next.
He was the world’s nicest, most easy-going guy. Never had an unkind word for anyone. Hard to believe he could do something like that. I think he bottled it up inside until he just snapped.
I think losing your temper and spouting off at people who deserve it, once in a while, is probably good for you. Don’t always pretend to be happy if you’re not. Someday it might be too much for you.”
6. A high-profile case.
“It was somewhat high-profile in the US so I don’t want to go into too many details. Ex friend helped to kill a teenage girl.
Honestly, she was like any other person with seemingly normal mental health issues. I knew she had depression, but a lot of people do and don’t kill people. She was a high achiever in school and her extra-curriculurs.
She had loving parents and a fluffy dog. She was goofy and had a naiveté about her. The freaky thing is that I sat next to her in psych class, learning about all these abnormal disorders and I thought that I’d never meet anyone who had them, and it turned out she was a future murderer.
She later got diagnosed with a number of psychological disorders.”
7. Totally normal.
“Friends with him in high school.
Normal kid. Smoked drank like usual delinquents nothing terrible. One day someone was picking on his friend in a park and he beat that dude nearly to death with a bat. Went to CYA for 4years , cal youth authority, until like 18 or 19. Saw him on his 2nd day back. He just sat there and watched porn like it was the godfather. Not jerking it or alone in a room. But just sat there quietly and watched porn.
Anyways fast forward few years he moved to Minnesota or Michigan i forgot. Started some gang had some followers and went on like a 2 week rampage killing cops and store owners and shit. I think 10 people in 2 weeks. His whole crew got caught and sentenced to hundreds of years.
I knew he was busted for murder but disnt see the whole story until.it was on some NBC show. Im like thats @#$$@
Shit was sureal.”
8. Roommates.
“Was roommates with one, He was a cool guy. Serial killer in the sense that he was born in crime and killed multiple people in his “career”. He went to multiple prisons in multiple countries.
He made a 180 and bettered his life in the way that he sits at home, watches tv all day and enjoys cooking. I was in a dark place during that time and him being able to better his life was a huge motivation to change my life for the better.
Cool guy. Last I heard he was still on the right path. I still think about him sometimes, only wish him the best.”
9. Crazy.
“My high school health teacher killed her ex-husbands new girlfriend while I was still in her class. Coincidentally we were in the middle of our mental health unit and she was always telling us about how psycho her husband was, and how she had to mostly raise their preschool aged twins herself.
She also happened to be the leader of the school suicide prevention team. One day we showed up to class and she just wasn’t there. Our principal comes on the intercom, and just says “We want all of you students to know that we love you.”
A classmate checks the news and we come to find out that she had forced her way into her ex-husbands apartment while he was watching the kids. She claimed that she needed to give them cold medication. The ex-husband was out in the parking lot and his new girlfriend was inside making christmas decorations with the kids.
The teacher proceeds to lock herself in the bathroom and refuses to leave. Once the girlfriend gets the door open she gets brutally shot 7 times by a pistol the teacher had been carrying in her coat. Happened right in front of the two kids. Can’t imagine how horrible it would’ve been for them.
Crazy to think that someone you have daily interaction with is hardly the person you believe them to be.”
10. Cold blooded.
“One of my best girlfriends in highschool ended up murdering another girlfriend of hers in cold blood. (Honestly I wouldn’t doubt it if she’d killed other people and never got caught for it.)
She was SUCH a nice girl, almost eerily TOO nice. Everyone else thought she was an angel but I could definitely see through it, but she was so nice to me that I just went along with it and tried not to strike any nerves just in case. She was a model, prettiest girl I knew and acted very caring towards everyone if they needed help. (Let them stay at her house if they got kicked out, etc.)
She had a very short temper, though. One time a kid threw an egg at her window and blamed me and some other guys, ended up putting out a hit on us for it, they showed up at my buddy’s house with guns and searched it. That’s when I knew she was crazy.
A year later she ended up strangling her friend to death with a belt and left her on the side of the road, cops found out it was her because she had posted a Facebook pic the night before with the victim while wearing the belt they found with her body.
I saw her in court accidentally about another year later (I was there for my own reasons) she was in hand and leg cuffs being escorted by multiple cops and struck up a conversation with me like everything was normal “OMG hey girl!! How have you been!?”
Gave me the heebie jeebies, but in a way I still miss her because she was so nice to be around.”
11. Hit man.
“Best friend’s dad turned out to be a hit man.
I stayed at her house all the time because my parents were pretty bad. He was so nice, he even took us to driving school together so I could get my license.
I remember her saying at one point “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have dysfunctional parents.” They had a seemingly fairytale marriage with four kids and two dogs. Then he randomly got busted for being a hit man and went to prison our senior year of high school.
Everybody was shocked.”
12. That’s a lot…
“I’ve met three actually. One was my “best friend.”
When I was 16, a 32 year old woman started attending our church. We’ll call her Ellie. She was married to the nephew of an elder of the church (we’ll call her husband Fred).
Ellie and I both volunteered to be in several plays being put on by the theater club and really hit it off. Only now do I realize how inappropriate that was to begin with. A 16 year old boy and a 32 year old woman literally becoming best friends. I’d spend the night at her house when Fred was out on “business.”
She really appeared to be the most religious person I’d ever known, and I really was going about the friendship platonically. I had no attraction to her whatsoever. She had always hinted at a dark past, but I thought she was just on drugs at some point.
One day we were on our way back from the gym (we got memberships together) and she randomly mentions the first time she killed a man. My heart sank. She was talking as if she was remorseful, but her smirk and tone said differently.
She was proud of it. She wanted that glory. She said it was all just business and her victims were just people in her way. Fred was just an accomplice in the same organized crime syndicate and that’s how they met. She described sexual acts they would perform in the presence of the dead. Swore they didn’t do that sort of thing anymore though.
Told me to never tell anyone or Fred would be very angry. Also found out that Fred was never actually on business but was “taking out his frustrations” on prostitutes in a nearby metro. I wanted to jump out of the car but they knew where I lived so it wouldn’t help.
I rode back to their house and after she was asleep that night I snuck out and hid in a neighbor’s tree (in a pretty rough part of town) until a friend could pick me up. That was 7 years ago and they’ve both been in prison for over 5 years now.
Only now do I realize how absolutely fucking horrific that entire period of my life was. I was a gullible little church boy and she was a nice church lady that wanted to help me get into shape and find a suitable young wife.
I’m a normal human being now, after some multicultural exposure, and I too look back and think “what the flying fuck.”
The third killer was one of my dad’s business associates (my dad buys and sells tractors in the South) who was exposed as having hunted and murdered multiple African- American men during the Civil Rights Movement in the ’60s.
I didn’t know him too well, but I met him maybe 3 times and he was, no surprise here, a heinous prick.”
13. This is creepy.
“Lived with a guy for a few months and knew him for a while before and after that ended up being a murderer. Killed two of his girlfriends. Technically not a “serial killer” but in fairness, he easily could have killed more people that couldn’t be traced to him.
He only got caught at all because of one tiny slip up on the second one, but he’d been off the hook for the first for like 2+ years before the second and they didn’t nail him for either until a year or two after that.
As far as knowing him and what he was like, he was scary, but most people wrote it off because he was so good at acting emotional and vulnerable. I was never fooled, but I didn’t have a choice in living with him, or interacting, so I just kept it to myself and didn’t let my guard down around him. He was mostly chill, really, but you could see the lack of empathy in his eyes.
One time he invited me to go to the burger joint around the corner and offered to pay. I went with him since I could literally walk home in 5 minutes and it was public. We talked and ate, then he offered to drive to this party our circles were going to. I decided to accept the offer because I didn’t want to offend him and he knew who I hung with and lived in my house, so there want any avoiding him.
We get in his car and start going. He waits a bit and says he needed to take a detour for some reason I can’t remember. Maybe he just wanted to drive around and kill time since it wasn’t even 10pm yet, I really can’t recall.
Anyway, he’s driving and I wasn’t paying too much attention to where we were going because I didn’t have glasses at the time and I’m near sighted. Also was trying to be mindful of his state, body language, general demeanor, etc so I could be ready if he decided to try something weird.
When I decided to try looking around, I realised we were in a really desolate, shitty side of the city (this was in KC,MO btw). Like, the type of area where you don’t go unless you have a reason, know somebody, or live there. This had me on edge and I did my best to play it cool and not make him think I was suspicious.
I’m convinced he was testing me somehow. I don’t remember what we talked about, but we got kinda deep on some things and he seemed very detached. In retrospect, I think he knew I knew he was a psychopath and that he wanted me alone to be himself, oddly enough.
At the time, I was worried we were going to get out in some place I didn’t recognize and he was going to get into some shit I didn’t want to be party to, which was a greater concern than him directly harming me because he would have been the last person I was seen with is anything happened, but I knew he had a lot of secretive business he was into that he didn’t talk about unless he saw an opportunity to make some money.
I truly feel like he was testing me to see if I’d be a problem for him. I’m positive he knew I saw through his facade and wanted to evaluate me alone, but ultimately decided he was simply comfortable around me and didn’t need to front because I knew, anyway. Also, I would have been no match for him at the time, anyway. I was bigger, but very weak for my size and he was quite fit, which is ultimately why I think he was trying to let me know we saw each other.
After about an hour of driving around, we got to the party, he put his mask back on and we went about our night. Ended up having to catch a ride with someone else because he ended up disappearing from the party without anybody knowing he left. Shit was wild.”
14. Drinking buddies.
“I can’t remember much but my dad used to tell me stories about his drinking buddy Ricky Lee Green.
They were buddies, would hang out, go drinking, pick up girls. Dude turned out to be fucked up and killed between 4-12 women and men, even castrating some of the guys.
He knew his father and grandfather, who raped Ricky and beat him when he was younger. Obviously he didn’t know what they were really like at the time. Think he stopped hanging out with him when he started talking weird shit when hammered.
There’s a book about him called Blood Rush.”
15. Sad and sickening story.
“I grew up around him and his family, they were poor but were usually able to make ends meet. He was known to have previous drug addictions, and was overall a very weird guy.
He was the type of guy that sent alarms off in your head when you’re around him, I always tried to avoid him. He and his wife had two kids together, but they always had a very rocky marriage. She left him numerous times, but they always got back together.
She ended up moving out of state to take care of an ill family member and left him. He showed up at their door insisting on talking to her, and she eventually let him in. They got into a very heated argument and he turned a gun on her and shot her, right in front of their young two kids.
He tried to turn it on himself but I believe the oldest wrestled it from him and held it until the cops showed up. It was an incredibly sad and sickening story, no one could believe he would do such a thing.”
Now we want to hear from you.
Did you ever know any criminals or anyone notorious before they committed their crimes?
If so, tell us all about it in the comments. Thanks!
