25 Stories From Real People Who Personally Knew A Coldblooded Killer

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These people from Ask Reddit actually knew a murderer before they got caught — but only some of them saw warning signs.

1. My cousin shot two people and dumped them in my grandmother’s woods

“My cousin shot and killed two people over his friend’s drug debt. Cousin is in prison and probably will never be released. He’s got the possibility of parole after 25 years but I doubt he’ll get it, even though he behaves himself in prison.

Cousin, his then-fiancee, the friend, friend’s roommate, and roommate’s girlfriend are all incarcerated for various lengths of time for their roles in the dumbest murder plot in the world.

My sister told me. She texted, several days after it happened, and says, “Did you hear what [Cousin] did?”

I’m expecting her to say that Cousin eloped, or got in a car accident, got popped for smoking weed while driving, literally anything else, but no.

‘He shot two people and dumped their bodies in [Grandma]’s woods.’

WHAT. I called her, she gave me the rundown. I was just shocked. We all were. I knew Cousin was a spoiled shit with an idiot mother who protected him from most consequences and made excuses for his behavior. I knew he enjoyed recreational substances (as do I). I knew he thought the world revolved around him.

But not this. I never expected this. Obviously every murderer has some family somewhere. But actually being a murderer’s relative is just surreal. It’s been a few years and I’m still not used to it.” — ThumpersOlLady

2. During my time in jail, I met a man who murdered his parents

“I was in jail with a guy and I met him when we were being sent to court and he told me all kinds of details of what he was being accused of. He had killed his parents and stabbed his dad in the chest but that wasn’t killing him quick enough so he started stabbing his leg. Then after he killed him, he ripped out an eyeball, and was playing with it while on the phone with a friend, telling him how it felt squishy. Of course he denied this and was telling me in perspective of a witness that had testified against him that morning.

He was an odd man, I believe he did it. It felt really weird sitting next him after hearing this, felt very morbid and spooky.” — -tRabbit

3. My brother still brags about getting away with the murder of his friend

“I felt for years that my brother, who is 10 months younger than me, would end up killing someone. He just absolutely doesn’t care about other people and had been in and out of jail for violent offences all his adult life.

In 2011 he had a fight with his friend and beat him over the head with a tire iron in his own house because he was imposing there and the friend told him he should leave. He only served 8 months in jail for this because of legal bullshit that blamed the hospital for not saving the guy’s life. Manslaughter with intent. He has bragged ever since about getting away with murder.

I hate him and avoid him and my family as much as possible (get most info about them off Facebook). I honestly wasn’t surprised at all, I just hoped that he would go to jail and not be let out this time. He is currently in jail now for punching his 8 week old baby. The baby is ok and the mother takes her to visit him in jail. Yes I have called CPS, several times.” — holdnofear

4. She killed a little girl and dumped her in the water

“I went to school with a chick who ended up raping, beating, and killing an 8 year old girl. Then she stuffed the child’s body in a suitcase and dumped it near water.

It wasn’t something I would have expected from her when I knew her. She was always so friendly and nice. One of my best friends even dated her at one point and he was just as shocked as I was when we saw her in the news.

Anyway, she’s a piece of shit now. I’d kill her if I was allowed to.” — RawdogginYourMom

5. A college classmate beat, choked, and stabbed a girl to death

“I went to college with a guy who was friendly and funny when he was sober. Always polite and easy to converse with on most any topic. Well liked by guys and fancied by many girls. When he was drunk… different story. He would get this dead behind the eyes look and seek out fights. Not stupid bar room brawls but extremely violent encounters where he would get people on the ground and try to stomp their head in. My friends and I avoided him (he tried starting fights with many of us) and we all said that he was going to kill someone some day. Well that happened in 2007 when he took a girl back to his apartment after a baseball game. She apparently didn’t do what he want and he beat, choked and stabbed her. I was shocked when I heard but not surprised (if that makes sense). He’s currently in jail serving a 35-year sentence.” — Tex623

6. A coworker murdered his sister after she refused to fuck him

“I worked with a guy who wanted to have sex with his sister, when she refused he killed her and hid her remains in a cave.

I always thought he was strange but not this whacked out.” — Call_me_Tom

7. A kid from my small town murdered his entire family

“A kid I grew up with murdered his entire family, aside from his older brother who had already moved out. He had been caught filming his sister showering and then killed his mother, father, little brother and the sister he was filming. I’m from a small town so it shook the community pretty heavily. He was a nice kid, so it left a lot of us dumbfounded. The surviving brother still visits him in prison to this day. Sad story all he way around.” — PolaMAULyou43

8. An old classmate killed his girlfriend’s son

“I went to high school with a guy who killed his girlfriend’s son. I guess the kid was too slow going up the stairs and he punched him and kicked him. The boy died from internal bleeding in the night.” — t_bonium119

9. He brutally decapitated a woman’s head with a saw

“I did drugs a couple times a long time ago with a guy. He had a roommate. The guy decapitated the roommate with a saw while she was still alive, because he thought the roommate was sleeping with his wife. The kicker: the roommate and the wife were siblings. They only ever found the head.” — thetannenshatemanure

10. My good friend murdered one of his own children

“When I was in culinary school, I worked with a future psycho in a restaurant. We were both servers. We became good friends and hung out after work all the time. After I graduated, I got a job cooking in a very nice restaurant, and I got him a job there because he was an excellent server. I eventually left that job, and we drifted apart. Fast forward 15 years. His name randomly pops into my head, and I wonder “What ever happened to him?” I google his name. First search result was a news headline. He was about to get a life sentence for murder of one of his kids, and attempted murder of his other kid and his wife. Turns out he had moved to Middleofnowhere, Indiana and got heavy into meth. When I knew him, he was a nice, ‘normal,’ hard-working guy. Very sad.” — more_vodka

11. The next door neighbor killed a little girl and hid her beneath the floorboards

“My mam lived next door to a guy who ended up killing a little girl and hiding her under his floorboards. She said that as a kid he was always a creepy guy and he would do and say odd things do she wasn’t that surprised to hear he was arrested for murder. My grandparents lived next door to his dad for many years after his son was charged and jailed for the crime and they always felt bad for him – but the family was quite poor and ,for lack of a better phrase, they were ‘dragged up’ rather than brought up.

The murder was of a 9 year old girl who had gone missing and the whole region were searching for her. He apparently knew the family. He’d taken the girl, sexually assaulted her and ended up killing her, panicked and hid her body under the floorboards. The girl was from a rough family too and social services ended up involved with her mother who had several kids.

My mam always felt uncomfortable around her neighbour. She was friends with his sister too and the kids on her street used to hang together a lot but he was always the outsider.

The most annoying thing is he only got 23 years for the murder and he’s due for parole in 2023.” — rachelcabbit

12. He beat her dog to death — and then she married him

“I went to high school with a guy who beat his girlfriend with a pipe, and then beat/stomped her new puppy to death. The girl was from our high school as well. It was crazy. The girl survived, and ended up going to the police to report him. After he was arrested, though, she started posting all over Facebook about how she couldn’t wait for him to be released, and she couldn’t wait to marry him. I couldn’t believe it.” — SydneyDavisJrJr

13. My coworker shot and killed his girlfriend, brother, and mother

“Dunno if cold-blooded is the right word to describe this person. He was someone I worked with in a crappy job. Bit of a pervert in that he was always talking about strippers, massage parlors, hookers and which coworker had the best ass. Most of the female staff found him creepy, but I thought he was alright.

Didn’t hear from him for almost a year given that we both left the company. Next thing I knew, he was on the news. He had shot and killed his girlfriend, brother and mother, before turning the gun on himself. From what I understood, he found out that his brother had slept with his girlfriend and he freaked out. His mother tried to stop him and that’s how she wound up getting shot.

The saddest part was that the girlfriend had two small children, so now, they have no mother.” — TastyDuck

14. My ex-boyfriend’s brother stabbed his baby mother to death

“My boyfriend from high school’s brother. He had a baby with a girl, apparently she told him she was cheating, he stabbed her like 20 times or something. Baby was covering in mom’s blood. the kid went and destroyed his computer and phone. and called their sister and told her what he did. sister called the cops to my knowledge. I can’t believe I was in the house with the guy growing up. And I only found out the whole story years later from the sister’s best friend, who is now one of my closest friends.

Like I heard about the brother killing, I read the stories. I found out so many more details from our mutual friend. But like we hung out with this kid and now he has life in jail. It blow my mind. I hope my ex is doing ok. I know the sister is. And she adopted the baby. Hopefully the little doll will not remember this.” — Jaci_D

15. My brother-in-law dragged a man into the water and drowned him

“My brother in law killed a guy.

He suspected the guy of breaking into his mother’s house. Not sure if it was true or not but he and another guy saw the future victim at a bar. They proceeded to start a conversation, get him really drunk and coaxed him to go to a ‘party’ from there.

They take him to a local lake to the boat launch area. Drag him from the truck and start to attack him. Drag him into the water and drown him.

Got away with for 10 years. The guy he did it with was locked up for something else and was bragging to a cellmate about a murder he got away with. Cellmate snitched and he caved under questioning and implicated my brother in law. It was confirmed he was there because they had a cigarette butt from the scene that they had in evidence. Once DNA technology evolved, they found it belonged to him. Since he had been arrested previously for other stuff, his DNA was in the system.

He is doing life, been locked up for about 12 years now.

My reaction, not surprised that much. He was always a POS.

Feel bad for my sister and his kids though.” — JohnnyDrama68

16. A firefighter burnt his wife to death and got away with it

“My dad was a firefighter. One of his co workers murdered his wife by burning down their RV on a vacation. Most of the department is convinced it was intentional but there was not enough evidence to convict the guy and he continued to work with my dad.” — acaciaroo

17. My father’s friend killed his wife to collect her insurance money

“My dad was good friends with a guy who killed his wife to collect life insurance and get out of debts. He is currently serving something like 40 years.

My dad was shocked. This guy was at church every Sunday and gave no signs of being a complete psychopath. I guess my dad found out when it made local news.” — _TotallyChuckNorris

18. There were FIVE different murderers that I personally met

“Oddly enough, I actually know five murderers. Damn, reading that skeeves me out.

The one I knew best grew up around the corner from me. He was a few years younger than me, but the same age as my brother, so we played together fairly often. In 1996, he murdered his girlfriend with a shotgun. Apparently he went to her house (she lived with her parents) and shot her to death while she was in the bathtub. He claimed they had a murder/suicide pact, but if they did, he certainly failed on his end of the bargain. I was surprised, but then again not really…he was a STRANGE kid, but I never envisioned him a murderer.

The second one was a guy I grew up with that stabbed a kid at a pool hall when we were all in high school (1991 or 1992). The kid died, and my friend pled guilty to manslaughter. Not sure that this was really ‘cold blooded’. I can’t find any articles to link though. This one did really surprise me, because I genuinely like the guy. Back then, I was a kid myself, so it was CRAZY to me that one of my peers could have killed someone. He’s been in and out of trouble since then (mostly petty/traffic stuff), but we are Facebook friends.

The third was a kid my brother used to play little league with. In 1998 or 1999, he and some other guys apparently beat a man (I believe the man was homeless) to death with a garbage can. That one surprised me a lot because he was a REALLY quiet kid. I do remember him being SUPER lazy on the ballfield…my dad (who coached) would always stick him in the outfield because all he did was play with the grass, etc.

The fourth was a former roommate of my brother’s. I only met him a couple of times, but he was REALLY a nice guy. My brother swears that he must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught up with the wrong people doing the wrong thing, because apparently Tim wouldn’t hurt a fly. He and two others were charged with second degree murder for beating a fisherman to death.

Finally, a guy that my brother knew in high school beat a girl to death with a rock. Apparently they had dated years ago and reconnected, and she flew back here to see him. He dumped her in the bay behind his house, and when the sheriff showed up to search the house after her body was found, he shot himself in his yard. I only knew the guy by name, but it was still a surprise just because of how violent the killing had been.

That’s enough cold-blooded killers for one lifetime, thank you very much!” — Penge1028

19. He slit a man’s throat right in front of his wife

“I went to school with someone who later in his life had a man killed because he wanted to hook up with the man’s wife. He paid some lowlifes 10k, who then went to the man’s house, dragged him outside, tied him up and slit his throat in front of the wife.

Then he played ‘shoulder to cry on’ for the wife, and they actually hooked up a couple of months later. He only got caught because he stupidly boasted about it in a pub.

The police suspected that wifey was in on it too, but they could never prove it.

When I heard it on the news, I was shocked but also not really surprised. Something was always a bit off about him. He wasn’t too bright, had a mean streak and was spoilt rotten.” — SpaceCadet2000

20. A classmate pulled out a gun and started shooing after an argument

“Guy we all (classmates) grew up with since kindergarten got into an argument in front of a mutual friend’s house one night, mutual friend’s older brother (also our friend, he was a year older) goes outside to break up the fight, since it was literally on his front lawn.

Guy pulls out gun, shoots blindly into the group in the pushing and shoving, hits older brother in neck, he bled to death gasping and choking on his own blood in his yard we played in since we were 5, in front of his mom and little brother and us.

Guy is almost out of prison, and I doubt he lives longer than a year on the outside.

Just going to start the cycle again though.” — Dragonslayer_Berserk 

21. A woman who was invited inside my house killed a man with the help of her ex

“It’s crazy to me I actually have an answer for this. A family member dated and almost married a girl that killed a man with her ex. She did this previously to meeting my family. I didn’t know this bit of information until MONTHS of knowing her. Before I knew this she stayed with me frequently and legitimately seemed very nice. I couldn’t process it. I felt sick. I ended up googling her and found the whole story which was WAAAY worse than I could have imagined. I cried and felt insane. It made me feel gross. She helped us decorate our Christmas tree and then days later I found out. I dunno how to describe the feeling. It’s just… weird.” — whoismaymay

22. My brother’s friend brutally beat his mother with an iron pipe

“My brother was friends with someone who falls in this category, we’ll call him ‘V’. Nothing ever stood out of the ordinary with ‘V’, just a normal charismatic guy.

One night my brother was at a party with his friends drinking. It was late at night, like around midnight. He received a call from V, he was asking my brother for a ride somewhere. My brother was drunk so he said he couldn’t do it.

The next day, we heard the bad news. V had brutally beaten his mother with an iron pipe and tried to make a run for it. It wasn’t long until he was found and arrested for murder. We still have no idea why he did it either.

If my brother had not got drunk that night, he could have been involved in something he had no idea about.” — misterkyler

23. A former cop caught his wife with someone else and shot them both to death

“My mother works as a records clerk for the Sheriffs Dept. where she lives. Next door to her office is the county jail, where inmates either awaiting trial or on short sentences for non-violent crimes sit. Every couple days a group of inmates with a proven record of good behavior comes to moms office to do janitorial work. Most of them are guys in for back child support.

For the entirety of my childhood I knew one of those inmates. He was the nicest guy. Got along with the staff, the officers – it was easy to forget he was an inmate.

Turns out it’s because he was a former cop. Came home one night and caught his wife in bed with another guy. Took them outside, shot them and turned himself in. I couldn’t believe it the first time I’d heard the story. Nicest guy I’d ever met killed two people.

Still not sure why they let him stay at the jail instead of sending him to prison somewhere, but there he stayed and he worked every day until they released him.” — DarthFlaw

24. A coworker killed his entire family after remarrying

“I worked with a guy that killed his family.

He moved to our state from a state pretty far away. He seemed to be a nice guy. I sat next to him for well over a year. He had pictures of his kids at his desk and would talk your ear off about many subjects but would get weird and vague if you asked about his family.

One day he just doesn’t come in to work. He never returned. Boss and coworkers have no idea where he went. He left all of his personal belongings at work. Then we see on the news that he was arrested for murder.

He had several kids with his ex wife and she was looking to get child support out of him. He had remarried and didn’t want to pay so he killed her and his kids that he had with her and fled the state. He had managed to avoid the law for that year but then stupidly decided to try to get a new license in our state with his real name. He was found pretty quickly after that.” — Lizpuff

25. John Wayne Gacy was a groomsmen in a friend’s wedding

“The brother of a friend I used to work with had John Wayne Gacy as one of the groomsmen in his wedding. He told me it messed his brother up pretty bad for quite some time. They used to hang out in Gacy’s house and the thought that there might have been somebody trapped or dead there really freaked him out.

Also he never looks at his wedding photos and there aren’t any up in his house.” — rustheap99