57 People Share Their Horrifying Real-Life Encounters With Famous Serial Killers And Mass Murderers
"The guy runs off and they don't think too much of it. Sometime later my Grandma sees the guy on the news and it's Richard Ramirez."
1. RICHARD “THE NIGHT STALKER” RAMIREZ
“When my mom was 16 she was sleeping and woke up to someone trying to open her bedroom window. She ran to my grandma’s room and told her someone was trying to break in. My grandma (being the crazy awesome lady she is) grabs a bat and runs outside and confronts this guy and starts swinging. The guy runs off and they don’t think too much of it. Sometime later my Grandma sees the guy on the news and it’s Richard Ramirez. My mom told this story over and over when I was growing up. She easily could have been one of his victims, I’m so grateful she wasn’t especially since she was pregnant with me at the time :)”
2. ADAM LANZA
“I met Adam Lanza as a kid. He played magic the gathering at a comic book shop bear a teen center I went to concerts at. He was nice enough but always wore a button-down shirt and carried a briefcase as a teenager. Your run of the mill bullied, possibly autistic kid.”
3. PETER “THE YORKSHIRE RIPPER” SUTCLIFFE
“Not me, but my mum. She was walking home and a man drove past an asked her if she wanted a lift. My mum refused of course, even though back then it wasn’t so risky to accept lifts. He drove off, and my mum forgot about it. A while later, Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper was caught. This is a guy who killed 13 women and attacked a few more over a period of 5 years. My mum recognized him as the man who had offered her a lift.”
4-5. JEFFREY DAHMER
“I don’t know if it’s true but, one of my old teachers claimed she taught Jeffrey Dahmer how to speak German. Claimed he was a nice kid, and good student.”
“I’m going to do the best I can on recollecting this event as I was in the military when this happened. This initially happened in the late 80’s.
1st cousin of mine and his friend(s) were in a park when they saw a guy masturbating by a bridge. Being young teens, they started making fun of the guy. I believe he tried to get them to come join him, but eventually he chased them and vowed if he caught them he would kill them. They went home and told my uncle, who is probably 6’5″ and was pretty buff. He came back to the park and looked for the guy with them. I don’t recall exactly what happened after, but the cops were called, the guy was found and charged with enticing a child and sexual assault, something along those lines.
As my aunt told me, in 1991, she and my uncle started getting calls from reporters. They were asking about charges against a guy in the news, if his name was familiar, and what occurred with their son. You see, my aunt, uncle and their 3 kids lived in West Allis, Wis. at the time. The guy my cousin and his friend(s) ran into was none other than Jeffrey Dahmer. Cousin ended up on an episode of ‘The Phil Donahue Show’ with Tracy Edwards, the guy who was intended to be a victim but escaped and ended up getting Dahmer caught.
Now I am curious. I need to call them to get a refresher of events since that was almost 30 years ago. And to see if they still have the VHS tape from that show or if there is something on YouTube. I remember my cousin talking about this on the Donahue show and being so nervous I think he confused ‘mimicked’ and ‘mocking’ him (Dahmer). I felt bad for my cousin.
Interestingly enough, on July 26, 2011 Edwards was arrested and accused of throwing a man to his death off a Milwaukee bridge.”
6-9. JOHN WAYNE GACY
“I’m from the Chicago area and my family grew up in the city. My dad’s friend was offered a ride by John Wayne Gacy (he declined), and my art teacher was in boy scouts with his last known victim. He even put up missing child signs and everything. Oh, and my aunt once lived down the street from Ted Kaczynski, (The Unabomber) before he went to live in the woods.
Moral of the story, stay away from Illinois.”
“This didn’t happen to me, but it actually happened to my father. During the 70s I believe, when he was in his late teens, early twenties, he was walking home from work late at night in the middle of winter in Chicago. A car pulled up alongside of him and with a very distinctive voice said “hey do you need a ride somewhere?” My dad replied “no,” and kept walking. He walked a few more steps, and the car pulled up next to him again and the man inside said “Are you sure you don’t need a ride? It’s really cold out I don’t mind dropping you off somewhere.” My dad replied once again, “No, but thank you anyway.” The car drove off and my dad didn’t think much of it until a few months later when he was watching the news and heard that very distinctive voice once again. The man who offered him a ride was John Wayne Gacy, one of the most notorious, brutal serial killers of all time, killing and sexually assaulting around 33 young men in the 70s. When my dad heard on the news that they had caught the killer, and that it was indeed the man who offered him a ride that one night, he couldn’t believe it, he had literally looked in the face of death.”
“My mother and her ex-husband met John Wayne Gacy. Apparently, my mother’s ex-husband, before my father, was a very shady character. He was on his way to becoming a junkie and was big time dealer. But mom says that she isn’t 100% that this story was concerning drugs, I digress. Mom’s ex hub is all around criminal, and told mom that they were going to go collect on a debt. They get to his house, and no shit he has the basement blocked off and has concrete mix and construction shit everywhere. They go into his office where he sits behind his desk, the whole time mom says he is very stereo-typically trying to stall her ex, who was increasingly growing impatient with the situation. Then, John gets a phone call, and without hesitation answers it and kind of starts blowing off my mom and her ex. I should add mom’s ex was super dangerous individual, who was a bouncer and bona fide ass kicker, so from the jump mom is worried that he is just going to beat the fuck out of this guy. So Gacy is on the phone looking away, and mom’s ex slowly walks up and dramatically takes phone out of Gacy’s hand, and slams it on the receiver. And says something cool but I can’t remember, along lines of “give me the money NOW you motherfucker”. Gacy is startled at first, but then gets this really weird look on his face, like he was TRYING to look crazy. Tilts his head down while looking at ex-husband, then without saying anything quickly grabs checkbook from a drawer and writes a check. They leave without incident, and scene. She says after they left they were talking about how the guy gave them the creeps, how they could tell he was dangerous even though he didn’t look or act like it.”
“Not me, but my dad once told me he was working on a house in the late 70s when a neighbor came by. He asked him if he could come over to his house to give him a quick appraisal for some work. My dad got a weird feeling and told him that they didn’t operate that way and he needed to call the office to schedule something. Not too long after that, the police caught John Wayne Gacy. My dad swears it was the same dude.”
10. DAVID “SON OF SAM” BERKOWITZ
“Never met one, but my great aunt was the original owner of the dog that David Berkowitz said talked to him.”
11-13. JAMES “THE JOKER” HOLMES
“Not technically a serial killer but a mass murderer. James Holmes did a presentation at my middle school to teach us about the brain and nervous system. He seemed really smart and he joked around really well with all of us. He was the guy that let us hold a preserved brain, if that makes sense lol. Yeah, would have never known there was anything wrong with him but I only interacted with him briefly.”
“I worked at university of Colorado at the same time as James Holmes (Aurora theater shooting). Had a couple friends that worked closely with him and met him once in passing. I remember thinking when I met him that there was something definitely weird about him. However, when I found out I was still flabbergasted and terrified. We’d all like to think we would be able to tell just by meeting someone that they’re a monster but the truth is you can’t. Seemingly normal people are capable of atrocious things.”
“Played on the same sports team as James Holmes, the Batman movie theatre shooter known as The Joker. My mom would sometimes give kids rides home from practice that lived nearby—he was consistently the only one that would thank her for the ride home. He was a nice, quiet, smart guy. Sometimes people just snap.”
14-15. CHARLES MANSON
“My dad met Charles Manson in Yosemite. He says that’s where a lot of runaways in the 60s went so he was probably out there trying to find vulnerable people. Was walking around with a guitar. Offered to sell my dad and his buddy weed. Also told them that he sold his soul to the devil, and that any man he pointed to right then and there could be dead in a second, if my dad (and his friend) wanted them to be. They were a little freaked out and were quick to get out of Yosemite entirely. My dad says that they drove for a while and saw Charles at a stop sign and it made no sense that he could’ve gotten there that fast, but I’m not entirely convinced that my dad wasn’t just super baked haha.”
“My father in law was involved in the music scene in the late 60s and went to a party where he met Charles Manson. He said he was leaving with a friend to go get cigarettes when Charles came up and started talking to him. My father in law was wearing a cross around his neck and he said Charles reached out and grabbed it and kind of twirled it around his fingers and asked him if he knew who Jesus Christ was. Needless to say, they didn’t go back after getting their cigarettes and he said when he heard about the murders he wasn’t too surprised.”
16. ED GEIN
“My grandpa’s aunt bought meat from Ed Gein and served it to the family on more than one occasion. Was probably normal meat, but super creepy still. Apparently, he was just a loner guy in town, but not threatening or anything.”
17. TIMOTHY “THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBER” MCVEIGH
“Tim McVeigh. His mom (maybe dad) lived across the street from us when I was a kid. He would’ve been high school age. I played with him once or twice, my parents told me not to, didn’t like him. His sister babysat me and my sister once or twice. On the day that his name came out in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing, my parents both let out a loud ‘oh shit.’ Odd part is, there were way worse and more violent and destructive kids in that neighborhood, too.”
18. AILEEN WUORNOS
“Aileen Wuornos, an executed serial killer in FL, killed a bunch of men. She and her girlfriend used to come into this dive bar/liquor store I was assistant manager of. I had to kick her out of the bar one night because she was throwing glass ashtrays at the Barmaid accusing her of trying to hook up with her girlfriend. She was always causing problems but that was the last time I saw her, thankfully. Found out about her on the news when she was caught. Blew my mind but I could definitely see how she was capable of doing that having known her as a bad customer for about 5 months.”
19-27. TED BUNDY
“My next-door neighbor’s friend worked at a ski resort. There was a regular guy, he was always friendly and polite, he would make small talk with her. He was a good-looking guy, too. He made an impression. Some years later she saw him on the news, turned out he was Ted Bundy and that he had abducted one of his victims in the car park of their resort.”
“I had a teacher at my college who was hitchhiking and got picked up by THE Ted Bundy. She only found out about who he was after the fact when she saw his face in the newspaper later. I can’t even imagine how she must have felt after finding that out.”
“My mom was asked out on a date by Ted Bundy. She got his description blonde hair blue eyes, she was studying law school at the time. Fortunately enough for me, she was dating her current ex-husband at the time.”
“My mom gave Ted Bundy a ride, she was young and blonde, very pretty. She said he was handsome and polite but she got an extremely odd vibe from him. He asked her some questions about her job, life, kids, then asked to be let off a couple blocks away. She said she recognized him on the news a couple years later.”
“I live in Salt Lake, UT. During the early seventies, around 71 my mother moved here with some friends. About three months after moving here she found my father and was truly smitten. But, a few weeks later she met a very charming man whom asked her out on a date. She politely declined, saying she was already seeing someone. The man was Ted Bundy.”
“A family friend was a 20-something and living in Seattle in the mid 1970s. She and a friend were walking home from a bar one night and her friend had to run back to grab his wallet, so she was waiting for him on the sidewalk. She says a man in an old white VW Beetle pulled up and tried to get her to come in so he could give her a ride home. It was dark and she didn’t get a good look at him, but she told me she had a bad gut feeling about it and refused. Her friend walked up and the guy in the car immediately sped away. Apparently that encounter stuck out in her mind and years later, she found out about Ted Bundy. Obviously she can’t prove it, but she strongly suspects that she would’ve been one of his earlier victims had she gotten in that car.”
“A bit late and also not my personal experience, but my friend’s mom. She was living in the Portland area of Oregon at the time and was in a rough patch during her life. She was hitchhiking and she said that a man pulled over and asked if she needed a ride. She hops in his car and during the trip he started asking very weird questions and just behaving odd. After a while she started to feel very uncomfortable and then asked if he could pull over and let her off. He then went ballistic and tried locking the door, but my friend’s mom escaped and ran like hell. He didn’t chase her, but instead drove off. A few years later she saw his name and picture on the news. Turns out that she had narrowly escaped being killed by Ted Bundy.”
“So this is third-hand, but an old boss went to the University of Utah and was in a sorority. One day she was waiting for her date in front of her sorority house with a girlfriend who was also waiting for her date. Her girlfriend’s date pulls up, but her girlfriend forgets something and runs back in the house. My former boss chatted to the man for a few minutes, she noted that he was polite and handsome. Her girlfriend comes out and they leave in his VW beetle, my former boss gets picked up by her date a short while later, and she thinks nothing of it. The next day she sees her girlfriend and asks how the date was. The girlfriend says that they started driving in her date’s VW Beetle and all of a sudden she got a splitting headache. She thought it was really strange but she felt nauseous. She apologized and asked him to take her home. He was a little upset but he dropped her back off. They didn’t go out again. Years pass, and my former boss is watching the news one night and sees a familiar man on the screen. It was Ted Bundy.”
“Back in 1976, my mom worked for the City of Pensacola, FL, during the graveyard shift. She worked with the computers that did the utility billing and finances. One computer, which handled the utilities, was in the main City Hall building, but the finance computer was in the Finances office, which was in a separate building across the parking lot. She would have to cross the parking lot frequently to go from one computer to another, as networking as we know it now was just a pipe dream in those days.
Nobody parked in the rear parking lot at night. She parked in the front lot. One particular night, there was a VW Beetle parked in the lot that she didn’t recognize. She saw the driver of the car sitting behind the wheel. He appeared to be asleep, so she thought nothing of it and headed on to the Finance building.
She came out of the building an hour later, and he was still there. However, he noticed her as she was coming out of the Finance building. He got out of the car and walked towards her. She noticed he had a cast on his arm, like he’d been injured. He was also limping.
He called out to her and asked, “Can you come help me with something for a minute?”
She had that feeling of dread. Her defenses went up. She said she had to clock back in, but would come right back out. She quickly went up the stairs to City Hall, unlocked the door, and got inside just as he had approached the bottom of the stairs. She locked the door back. When she looked out the window in the door back at him, something seemed…off…about him. He had this sinister glare on his face. He seemed to catch himself and reset his facial muscles into a more relaxed state and gave a big, friendly smile. He just waved at her and said, ‘Take your time, I’ll wait.’
She got to a phone, called the Sheriff’s office, and reported a suspicious person outside of the City Hall building in the back parking lot. She asked if they could escort her to the other building and make him leave. They obliged and within a few minutes a deputy arrived to the front door. They went out the back, and when the guy saw my mom coming out with the Sheriff’s Deputy, he hauled ass out of there.
The next day, that same VW was pulled over at a nearby popular restaurant known for their pancakes (local place, not IHOP) for running a Stop sign.
And that’s how my mom one of only two women who got away from Ted Bundy.”
28. LEONARD LAKE
“This was the early 80s. I was about 13 and just getting into Dungeons and Dragons and other interests that would stunt my social life for years to come. A renaissance fair rolled into town and billed a “real unicorn” as one of its attractions. I was disappointed to find the unicorn was a poor goat with a cow horn grafted to its forehead.
The goat’s owners were a trio of hippies, two women and a balding white guy with a beard. I remember getting a sinister vibe off the guy.
Decades later, I’m reading an article about Charles Ng and Leonard Lake, partners in serial killing.
Turns out, Lake used to run a goat-unicorn hustle at renaissance fairs. Guess a guy who tortured and killed up to 25 people had no problem mutilating a goat.”
29-32. PAUL BERNARDO
“My aunt went to high school with Canada’s most notorious serial killer, Paul Bernardo.
She still has the yearbook he signed:
‘See you at the bus stop—Paul’
For those who don’t know, before he started murdering girls he was the ‘Scarborough Rapist’ who stalked and raped dozens of young women and teenage girls, many of whom he stalked out at bus shelters in the neighborhood.”
“My mom taught Paul Bernardo while he was in University. She had him switched to a different class due to him eying her down constantly (my mom was a young blonde at that point). She made sure not to go near him. Good call on her part.”
“So this was in early 1980’s Scarborough before the Paul Bernardo case was made public.
One night my mom was walking home from a party alone and was approached by a car with what she said was a pretty attractive guy. He tried to give her a ride home and kept trying to get her in the car. She started walking away and he followed in the car getting more aggressive.
Finally the guy got out of his car and was trying to get her into the passenger side. As soon as he touched her arm she kneed him in the balls and ran across Lawrence Ave into a gas station. Eventually he got back in his car and left and my mom continued home.
Now, my Papa was a member of the 53rd precinct for City of Toronto and was 100% aware of the Scarborough rapist at that time. How the fuck could he not tell his young daughter about it? She found out who it was once she told my papa and he knew what kind of car it was. He then told her what was going on.”
—workreddit212
“In 1990 I was home visiting my parents with my new born daughter. My sister stopped by with her friends to see me and she introduced me to them. The most polite one I met called me ma’am. His name was Paul. I thought it was kinda odd that he called me that. I was only 23. I was in the military at the time. So I just figured he was being polite because of being in the military. A month or two went by. I found out the Paul I met was Paul Bernardo. What a shit show that was.”
33. MARK “THE BASELINE KILLER” GOUDEAU
“This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to my mom. I’m not sure if anyone remembers but back in 2005 there was a guy going around Phoenix killing, raping, and kidnapping a total of 35 women. At the time, my mom was a professor at ASU. The building that she was working in was under construction. Just so happens that this guy used to work in construction. One day, as my mom was walking to her car she noticed a guy in a construction outfit and he had weird hair (the baseline killer was known to wear wigs so he most likely had a wig on). Luckily she was around 3 feet from her car when she noticed him. She told me the smile that he gave her sent a chill down her spine and something in her head told her to get in her car as fast as possible and lock the doors. She told me of this when she got home from work, I didn’t think much of it at the time. A couple of months (almost a full year) later when his identity was discovered she froze and said “that’s the guy, THAT WAS HIM…I remember that face”. It also turns out that the killer grew up with my basketball coach and they were best friends in high school. Fuckin small world.”
34. CARY STAYNER
“He had already committed the murders at this point, but Cary Stayner tried to rent my neighbor’s house. Me (12 at the time) and my 17-year-old sister would’ve probably been prime candidates for his next victims. He was found at the nudist colony down the street.”
35-36. GARY “THE GREEN RIVER KILLER” RIDGWAY
“I lived next to Gary Ridgway, aka the Green River Killer. Odd guy and overly friendly. Found out from my mom, who called me minutes before it broke on the news. It was so surreal. The killings were an unsolved mystery for years almost to the point of supernatural.”
“My friend lived across the street from the Green River killer (Gary Ridgway) when he was a child. He said he has few memories of him, but he seemed like a nice, normal man. Serial killers are generally good at not standing out too much.”
37. HENRY LEE LUCAS
“OK, so this is weird, but my mom ran into Henry Lee Lucas years ago. She was a social worker in a super rural place, and she used to pick up candy for her kids (clients) before meeting with them. She worked with kids with disabilities, and getting them services, and she would often stock up on candy, because the families were pretty poor and didn’t get sweets often. She would get enough for all the kids to get a piece. So she had a lot of candy in her cart!
This guy was talking to her, and was super nice and talkative, and was asking about the candy. She told him what it is was for, and being super friendly herself, kept the conversation going. He told her he wished he had someone like her around when he was a kid, and laughed.
She looked at his face, and she says she can’t explain it, but it just changed. Like it was something else for a minute and then went back to his regular face. She suddenly got this super nauseous feeling, and started feeling just generally terrible. She started being kind of short with him, and they parted ways.
She told my dad about it, and said she didn’t know what was wrong with her, and how she might be losing her mind. A few months later, he pops up on screen for some reason or another. She freaked out and told my dad it was him.
My mom is not into making things up, or fantastic attention seeking behavior. My dad certainly is not into that either. So it was a weird situation, and they both claim it happened to this day. I know it sounds out there, but I always figured maybe it was some supernatural thing? OR maybe she subconsciously caught on to something weird going on that she couldn’t quite process, and it came out this way instead? Like, you know people talk about having bad feelings and attribute it to something telling them something is off? Some people speculate that many times we catch on to things on some level, like some animal level, that we can’t totally process in our conscious mind, so it comes out in ways like “hair standing up” or “skin crawling.” So who knows if it was some unseen force, or simply her lizard brain picking up on something being “off” and that was the way her mind chose to process it? Whatever it was though, she swears up and down it happened, and since she has never made things up or acted hysterical before, I believe something happened for sure.”
38. DERRICK TODD LEE
“In late one summer 2002 night my girlfriend called me crying. She ran to the supermarket and had someone following her for a few minutes on her winding trip home around the LSU lakes. She was housesitting for her Aunt in a large home, and got to the point where she did a lap around the lake and her follower was still there.
My roommate and I jumped into his car and raced over. She described the vehicle as a white pickup truck and when we got there, parked on the street one house away from her aunt’s home was the vehicle. She was still crying and recounted being followed, the elaborate path, etc.
I looked and there was a man sitting in the vehicle. My roommate snuck up in the bushes to back me up and I walked about 25 feet from the vehicle, standing up on the curb and shouted “something I can help you with?” and they cranked up, turned on head lights and drove off, giving me a brief glance.
I didn’t see him in person, but did see him again the following year when he was arrested for a series of murders in the greater Baton Rouge area and his name was Derrick Todd Lee.”
39. KARLA HOMOLKA
“Karla Homolka was the veterinary technician at the vet we took our dog to. I was super young and barely remember her, though my parents said she was sunny, vibrant. You’d never expect a thing. Paul Bernardo was the same—sunny disposition. The two of them earned the nickname of the Ken and Barbie Killers for this reason, they both seemed lovely and you’d never expect a thing.
This veterinary clinic was the same place she stole tranquilizers, with which she drugged some of the victims.”
40. FARYION WARDRIP
“When I was a teenager, my church youth group visited another church in Olney, TX. One of the worship leaders there greeted us and led us in some songs. His name was Faryion Wardrip.
A few years later, he was proven to have killed at least 5 women in our small area of North Central Texas. He’s currently serving consecutive life sentences.”
—Yerok-The-Warrior
41. LARRY EYLER
“When I was in elementary school I had a girl I played with who had 2 things she talked about all the time; the family’s pet monkey and her big brother Larry. Years later I figured out big brother Larry was Larry Eyler. Larry Eyler: The Highway Killer. Thankfully there were no sleep overs. Fast forward to adulthood. Worked with a nurse who was a gay gentleman. Turned out he lived with and was lover to Orville Lynn Majors. Through a twist of fate, my now husband and his ex-wife used to play euchre with Lynne Majors and his partner, that I worked with. Too close for comfort and really chills me that serial killers are that common.”
42. ROBERT “THE KANSAS CITY BUTCHER” BERDELLA
“I met Bob Berdella in his shop in the Westport Flea Market. He didn’t really stand out in any way that I can think of, pretty much what you’d expect someone who sold useless crap for a living to be like.”
43-44. DENNIS “BTK” RADER
“Me and my mom lived in Park City, KS through the 90s. BTK (Dennis Rader) was a compliance officer for the city. Basically wrote citations for property compliance and handled animal control.
He came to our house to write us up for not having our front lawn mowed to city requirements. Of course that was on me, my chores included keeping the grass mowed. Looking back, it definitely seems odd as the front yard grass wasn’t super out of control or anything. At the time, it just seemed like a guy who was serious about his job.
I know when he worked as a security installation professional that he used those opportunities to scout for potential victims. Not sure he used his position as compliance officer to do the same sort of scouting but my guess is that he did. His last victim was in Park City in 91, though his visit to us was after that.
Didn’t think anything of it until he was arrested and my mom and I eventually realized that he had come to our house.”
“During a family get together some years back my second cousins start talking about their 40th high school reunion. They bust out the pictures that show themselves sitting next to this friendly looking guy. The area had been on edge again this with a serial killer’s letters detailing some murders showing up at the cop shop.
As it turns out they graduated in the same class as Dennis Rader, the park official, who dubbed himself BTK.
My cousins said he was a friendly and sociable man – a little awkward – but disarming.
It was not long after the reunion his arrest made national headlines for his 30-year killing spree.
On another note, a quick Google search a few months back turned up that a childhood playmate is serving 35 to life for gun, drug and burglary charges. This came as less of a surprise to me.”
45. PETER MANUEL
“Not me but my grandma and she herself never met the man, but she grew up in the place and time that Peter Manuel was killing. Her parents knew the family and a friend of her own family was even frequently threatened by Manuel. Interestingly, apparently everyone was very aware that Manuel was a serial killer.
For the record, Manuel was eventually caught when he was found using money he had stolen from someone’s home after gunning down all the inhabitants including one ten-year-old boy. He had then stayed in their house for a week and even gave a ride to a police officer, who was investigating one of Manuel’s killings, in the car of the people he had just killed.”
46-48. HAROLD SHIPMAN
“When I was young my family doctor was Harold Shipman who was the most prolific serial killer in UK history. I was too young to remember ever visiting him but my parents always tell stories of how he came across as a nice guy and seemed a massive part of the community. He killed elderly women which was part of the reason he wasn’t caught for years as the families didn’t find it suspicious. He was eventually caught as he altered the will of one lady he murdered. Many people didn’t believe it at the time and some believed he was doing at as a form of euthanasia. He was found guy and it’s believed that he killed 250+ people over his lifetime. Scary to think that I’ve been in the same room as that man.”
“I ‘encountered’ Harold Shipman, I guess, but being only nine months old at the time I don’t remember much about it.
My mother tells me he was very irritable and snapped at her when she asked about getting me onto solid food. Obviously he was impatient to get her out of there so he could kill some more old ladies.”
“My grandma (who was an estate agent) was called by a doctor explaining he’d have to push back their meeting to sell his surgery. He told her he was being questioned by the police but advised ‘it was silly season’ and he’d re-arrange for the week after. The doctor was Harold Shipman who was charged with the murders of over 300 patients.”
49. WESTLEY ALLAN DODD
“I had a run in with Westley Allan Dodd at a campground in Leavenworth WA, He was running around the camp ground naked, openly masturbating and basically scaring the shit out of everyone. Stole my Levi’s out of my tent when we went to call the police. I chased after him and was going to beat him but he was too fast. He was later arrested by the sheriff who declined to return my jeans as they were all he had on. They hung him in Walla Walla 5 years later for killing three little boys.”
50. LEE “DC SNIPER JR.” MALVO
“I went to high school with DC Sniper Jr. There was the dad, John Muhammed, who stayed at the all men’s homeless shelter. And then there was the kid, Lee Boyd Malvo who went to high school like a normal kid. He was actually pretty nice. I wasn’t the coolest cat in town, and I dropped my books and papers one day and he helped me pick them up. I didn’t have too much of an interaction with him except that he was an OK dude. Some of my friends knew him better and said the same.
Malvo left my home town and went around murdering people with his weird surrogate dad for a while then he got caught. It was the week before Halloween, and my video productions class was filming an ‘investigative story’ about this ghost clown who lived under the stairs but was actually just a homeless guy. It’s a little chilly out and there’s a perfect layer of fog covering the parking lot we’re filming in, kinda helping it look spooky. In the climactic scene, the ghost clown/ homeless guy jumps onto the hood of a car and is screaming ‘I WANT SOME BEANS’ as loud as he can.
All of a sudden, a news van from the major market just south of us pulls up and we were all thought someone had called the cops or the news or something to report a crazy clown costume guy who really wants beans running around the high school. It turns out they just want a yearbook so that they can verify that Malvo went to this high school. We hung around for a while—finished our shoot. The camera man wanted to interview the guy in the clown getup but the douchey news guy wouldn’t let him.”
51. ROBERT PICKTON
“When I was a kid around 10-11 my dad and I would go to livestock auctions on weekends. We always saw a lot of the same people and I remember seeing this guy every single time. I remember him because he was just so gross. He had greasy looking hair that was balding on top and it was thin and shoulder length, dirt stained clothes, and he sat in front of us all the time and he had plumber’s butt. Sometimes he would make small talk with my dad if he was near us in line to pay or to get coffee, and I don’t remember any of the conversations but I remember him just being a creepy guy. Anyways, fast forward a few years and we are watching the news and this guy’s picture shows up. My mom turned the TV up and she was so baffled because she also recognized him. She went to school with him and was good friends with his sister. It was Robert Pickton. For anyone who isn’t familiar, he is from Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada and he is Canada’s biggest serial killer. He admitted to killing 49 sex workers and feeding the remains to his pigs.”
52. KENNETH “THE HILLSIDE STRANGLER” BIANCHI
“Kenneth Bianchi came into my apartment when I was about 2 1/2. My mom was home with me. He asked if my father Mike was home. Mom said no, let him in, dads work friend, 1978/9, small town.
The old folk neighbors across the courtyard kept staring out their large window and into ours. So oddly, my mother noticed, and Bianchi was getting super nervous.
He told my mother he would see my dad later, and left his name. He took off. My mother told my father when he got home, and he didn’t know anyone by that name at work.
My mother didn’t put things together until after the capture.
My uncle also got close to a fight with Bianchi at a Laundromat. He ended up going outside, or something, and two federal agents came up and warned my uncle to let it go, and leave. That the guy was a dangerous man under investigation.”
53. MAURY TRAVIS
“Little late to this. But, my mom and I asked directions from Maury Travis. We were lost in East St. Louis, pretty high crime rate, and my mom stopped to ask a young man for directions. My mom looks super white (imagine Miss Frizzle with black hair) but is not fully. She also has zero fear of anyone or anything. He said, ‘lady you crazy white b#### asking a n##### for directions. I could kill you and that little girl back there s#### I could do worse than that’. He said some other scary stuff that I don’t remember exactly,just remember being scared of his tone.
My mom scolded him…yes scolded him and told him he shouldn’t say that word or call himself that. Called him young man. Told him he shouldn’t disrespect himself, stuff like that. Asked what his mother would think etc. She also said he should not call a lady the ‘b’ word. He looked scary as fuck for a few seconds. Then just started laughing for a solid minute. He told my mom how to get out of the area and that she needed to quick because some ‘shit was about to go down.’ He ended up chatting with her for a few more minutes. About food and I think the traffic. He ended the conversation by telling her to have a nice day mam. Then he tapped on my back window and told me to be careful. I was like five so I replied with some silly five-year-old thing about him looking like some guy off Sesame Street. He smiled and shook his head. A couple years later his face pops up on the TV. Murdered (most likely) 17 to 20 women.”
54. IAN BRADY & MYRA HINDLEY
“According to my mum her brother was picked up by Ian Brady before he and Myra Hindley started killing children. My nan letting my mum and her siblings wonder around towns and even take the train/bus to others. Ian came up to my uncle (Not sure what age he was at the time but mum said they were children so I’m guessing about 10ish) and offered to drive home around the moors on a motor bike. My uncle accepted and they drove around for a while but he asked to go back so Ian took him back. I’m not sure if it was him but if it was him then it would have been when he was sussing out/practicing how to pull of the abductions and murders.”
55. DONALD HARVEY
“In the 80s, I worked at a VA hospital down the hall from Donald Harvey, and used to see him all the time. He seemed okay, if a little flamboyant. He could get really pissy with people that crossed him. Some of his coworkers developed mysterious illnesses. I heard later one was tested and arsenic was found. He resigned after some problems rather than be fired. It’s said they found specimens from the morgue in his locker. He was hired by another medical facility and was later convicted of ‘mercy’ killings there, and also others.”
56. IVAN MILAT
“Not really a cool story or anything but my dad used to live up in the same block as Ivan Milat, the famous Australia backpacker murderer, and his family before all those murders happened. I’m not sure exactly what years he lived there. Nothing interesting that I’ve been told though, apparently my dad didn’t see all that much of Ivan around but would mostly see his brother Richard come and go. If I remember correctly he had briefly spoken to his brother, but probably just a friendly neighborly ‘hello’ from time to time.”
57. PAUL EZRA RHOADES
“Not me but, my dad was in cub scouts in the late 60s early 70s with a guy who later became a serial killer. Paul Ezra Rhoades who killed 6 people in Idaho and Utah between February and March 1987. My dad has talked to me about him a couple times over the years. Rhoades was kind of a weird kid. He apparently started drinking when he was still a teenager and later got addicted to meth. He dropped out of school so my dad didn’t see him much, at least on a regular basis, after 16 or so.”
