Note: This article shares details behind murder cases, which may be disturbing to read.
Recently, Reddit user u/VentSauxe asked the internet, "People who have met murderers, what were they like?" Here are some of the top-voted responses:
1. "He was a grandpa type. He used to take me fishing and taught me a lot about fish when I was 10 years old. He lived with his daughter and her boyfriend in a family house that he bought with his money. The son-in-law was abusive to him, called him useless, and bullied him. So one day, he got fed up with that and shot him."
2. "I have a relative who murdered someone, and I saw him a few times decades before that when we were kids. He was a bully. He cheated on his wife and got the girl pregnant. She was going to tell his wife, so he killed her."
3. "My best friend dated a girl who would go on to murder her roommate years later. There were times I had fun, lighthearted conversations with her, and even times when she was borderline charming, but usually she was aggressive and antisocial. She got into fights (physical and verbal) and was very reclusive, irrational, and not emotionally well balanced. I never would’ve thought of her killing someone, but wasn’t at all surprised when I found out she had."
4. "Someone I went to high school with. He was a stoner, but he was always good to me, and I never saw a violent side to him. He fell into the wrong crowd after high school and murdered someone in what sounded like a drug deal gone wrong. I'm still friends with him on Facebook, I think."
5. "I befriended him, lent a few books, and we talked a lot about bucket lists and cats. He was a kind person who helped me out when I would have to walk home from work. The day he killed his newborn child, he looked sick and pale. Later that week, he was all over the news."
6. "I was in high school with a guy who shot his parents. He was funny, didn't pick on anyone, and didn't get picked on. Seemed like a great guy, but I guess there were problems at home with his mother and stepfather."
7. "I worked with a Bosnian war criminal who was captured years later and extradited. She was rough around the edges but nice enough. The details of the things she did were horrifying. She tortured and killed several people. I worked in an assisted living home."
8. "When I was in school, a girl in my class had Harold Shipman — who turned out to be a serial killer — as a doctor. Her mum said he was really weird and she didn’t like him, so they changed doctors."
9. "People thought he was a regular, normal part of the community. He even did the BBQs at school events. There may have been signs... One day, he accused my dad of having relations with his wife. They had a bad argument and the guy yelled at my dad, “Your name is going on my list.” Well, it wasn’t until after he killed multiple people and was caught that my dad found out there was a list, and he came scarily close to being crossed off of it."
10. "When I was in my first year in college, I took a criminal justice class where we were able to tour a prison. Our tour guide was a female inmate who was in her early 60s. She didn’t mention the reason she was in prison, so I googled her after, and apparently she had been there since the '80s for shooting her ex-husband and his new girlfriend in their home. Wouldn’t have guessed."
11. "He was really nice. He walked through the crowd with his hands out. I touched his left hand as he passed, and then he sat at a table in the mall and signed autographs for a long line of people. I think O.J. was paid for the appearance. Anyway, this was a long time before Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman were killed."
12. "He was quite a bit out there and didn't understand social norms. He was nice but would talk about subjects that made people uncomfortable, and nothing was off limits. He would borrow stuff and never would clean it. It always came back in way-worse shape. He was a habitual liar, so I didn't believe most of the things he said he did. Honestly wasn't surprised that he got arrested for murder."
13. "I worked with someone who had murdered his friend and spent 23 years behind bars. He felt like a totally normal person. He was very humble, tbh."
14. "My best friend in high school had a stepdad. I spent a few nights at their place. A couple of years later, it came out that he murdered a cop and his then-wife in the '70s. He was eventually locked up. My friend then moved in with his biological father in the US, and we haven't spoken to each other since."
15. "Someone I knew dated a man in prison. He got out eventually. He told her a bųllshit story about why he'd been in there, making himself out to be a hero who killed a man because he was beating on a woman. That's not the truth, though. I looked into him. I was worried about her. Turns out he'd murdered an elderly couple, then burned their house down."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.