Have you Ever Personally Known a Murderer?

[katmai]

A twist to the question: How many registered sex offenders do you know?

I know 1 personally, the brother of one of my friends. No, I won't give a link to his registration on the county website.

None

All the criminals I know are more respectable like drug pushers and muggers.

[Berkut]

One of my wife's friends husband was convicted and serverd time for manslaughter related to a drunk driving incident in which someone was killed.

I guess that technically qualifies as "murder"?

[DisturbedPervert]

None that I know of.  Though I honestly wouldn't be surprised if one guy I knew in college turns out to be a serial killer and has dozens of bodies stored in an underground freezer in his backyard.

[Drakken]

One of my wife's friends husband was convicted and serverd time for manslaughter related to a drunk driving incident in which someone was killed.

I guess that technically qualifies as "murder"?

Not really, mens rea is lacking.

[sbr]

No sex offenders but I remembered another murderer I knew.

http://www.tdn.com/news/state-and-regional/article_e0fffa3c-9e8c-5391-bb4b-4593e1c86511.html

This guy and I grew up in the same town; we weren't friends but knew each other.  He was a pretty well know youth soccer player so I probably "knew" him more than he knew me.  We had a class together in high school when he was arrested (not at school).  He just disappeared from school, then the rumors started to spread.  We knew he killed someone at the ice cream store.

SALEM — Led by a convicted murderer, members of the Latino inmate club at the Oregon State Correctional Institution are handing out Easter baskets to children visiting loved ones at the Salem prison.

"Everything about it is positive," said club president Pepe Rivas, 34, serving a life term for a murder committed when he was 17.

"To have this occur after the lives that a lot of us have lived is just an incredibly powerful feeling. It's the right feeling."

Rivas and other inmate members put together 95 Easter baskets, filled with chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and more.

The baskets bring smiles to children in the prison visiting room at the medium-security prison.

"There was a need for it," Rivas said.

"We strongly support it," said Levi Bunnell, public information officer at OSCI. "It goes right along with our new Oregon Accountability Model, ultimately trying to reduce recidivism, create less victims and thereby saving the state a whole lot of money. ... One piece of that is keeping inmates close with their families."

About $300 for the project came from sales of inmate artwork. Another $300 came from outside contributions.

For Rivas, who has no children, the project fits with his desire to lead a positive life behind bars. "As far as inmates go, he's a model inmate," Bunnell said. "He doesn't have any disciplinary problems. He's considered, in a good way, to have a leadership-type role."

"When I was in my teens, I was pretty materialistic, selfish, arrogant and angry," he said.

A 1987 murder during a robbery at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store in Tualatin sent him to prison for life.

Rivas was arrested after his roommate and co-defendant turned himself in.

In prison, Rivas came to grips with what he had done and what he had put his family through.

"I saw the damage I had done to them and the pain I had brought to them," he said.

Rivas works as a prison electrician.

Rivas and other members of the club already are looking ahead to their next project. "We're already brainstorming on what we want to do next," he said.

Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[Admiral Yi]

How about suicides?  I can think of one.  I was pretty good buddies with the guy in jr. high (he was older).  My very first wargaming partner.  We played France 1940 while listening to...ABBA!  Later he kind of flipped out.  Was a hard core stoner, dressed every day in a tie dye shirt, aviator glasses and a little stash bag hanging from his belt.  Joined the Marines out of high school and next thing we heard he had blown his brains out.

[Jaron]

What about Grallon? Under the right circumstances, he would qualify as a sex offender.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

I know a few people capable of it. None of them are stupid enough to tell me about having done so, though.

[Ideologue]

Yeah, a girl I knew pretty well in high school killed her mom while she (her mom) was asleep.  I was actually in her house the day afterward; the chick was acting pretty weird, but at the time I didn't give it much thought, and certainly didn't take it as an indication that there was a dead body in the next room.  Freaked me out pretty badly.

[jimmy olsen]

Wow, Korea has some hidden depths I wouldn't have guessed.

[Ideologue]

Wow, Korea has some hidden depths I wouldn't have guessed.

Tim has the zinger.

[Korea]

Wow, Korea has some hidden depths I wouldn't have guessed.

Oh ha ha ha. 

[jimmy olsen]

Wow, Korea has some hidden depths I wouldn't have guessed.

Oh ha ha ha. 

Just kidding

[Jaron]

Ide threatened to murder me once.

[jimmy olsen]

Somehow, the topic of his WW2 service came up - he had been a volunteer in the Canadian navy, serving on the ships escorting convoys across the Atlantic. He talked about this for a while, then for some reason I do not understand he told me that, while serving on the ships, he'd killed a man. Allegedly he thought the other fellow was making a sexual advance to him, so he'd hit him - knocking his head against the steel bulkhead. In a panic, he'd pushed the unconcious guy overboard. It was at night in the middle of winter in the North Atlantic, and he wasn't spotted. The guy was reported missing and that was that.

Well, this was more than a bit freaky, and certainly not what one could report for a grade 10 biology project. I asked my dad about it and he said that yes, he'd heard that story before. Apparently, sort of like the ancient mariner, he had this urge to confess his crime over and over again. His guilt must have been consuming him all those years.

Sad story. 

But, if he confessed it so many times I'm surprised no one ever reported him for it. In fact that may have been what he was looking for by confessing over and over like that.