Have you Ever Personally Known a Murderer?

[Malthus]

The question came up in another context. For me, at first I thought the answer was "no', but then I remembered that a friend of my dad had confessed to me to murdering a guy during his WW2 service - so, if he wasn't lying, that makes one.

[Barrister]

Well that would make him a killer, but not a murderer.

For me it depends on what you mean by "personally".  I've dealt with several in court, even had brief conversations.

[syk]

Yup. Work related of course. Including an axe murderer. And one who stuck a firecracker up someone's ass after beating him up. Victim bled to death.

[LaCroix]

i don't know how true or not this is, but my history advisor might have killed someone who she saw beating his girlfriend/wife. i'm going to ask her when i get back home. it's one of those "my friend told me.." cases

[Caliga]

I'm sure we'll end up having some arguments about what a "murderer" actually is in this thread, but in perhaps the broadest definition of the word, yes.  Both my grandfather and Princesca's great uncle actually personally killed people during WWII--my grandfather was a navigator on a B24 at the beginning of his USAAF service, and participated in bombing raids on German cities.  He didn't personally drop any bombs, I don't think, but his actions led to German deaths.

Princesca's great uncle George was in the USMC and personally killed Japanese troops--IIRC he manned a heavy machine gun on Okinawa and has talked about "mowing down Japs".  He has a bunch of gold teeth he extracted from dead Japanese, which I think he thinks is really cool but strikes me as really macabre.

Now, if you mean murder in the "civil" context of intentionally causing death to another during peacetime, then no... never known one of those sorts of murderers to the best of my knowledge.

One of Princesca's college boyfriends was the son of a murderer--he actually did hard time for that.  I have no idea what the details are and I never met the ex-boyfriend nor his dad.

[HVC]

Not that i know of. Though at the place i work they emmployed a guy who turned out to be a seriel rapist/murder. Apparently cops came here and interviewed people and everything.

[DGuller]

Well that would make him a killer, but not a murderer.

I assume Malthus meant that he fragged the guy, not killed him in battle.

[Ed Anger]

I never met my relatives from the Bloody Harlan days.

[DGuller]

One of my grandfathers also reportedly killed Germans during the war, directly (and he was shot a couple of times as well).  He was a very severe man, though I'm not sure if he was born that way or became that way due to his war experience.

[Malthus]

Well that would make him a killer, but not a murderer.

For me it depends on what you mean by "personally".  I've dealt with several in court, even had brief conversations.

No, he confessed to murder - not killing in the line of duty.

What happened was this.

When I was in grade 10, my biology class teacher assigned us the project of interviewing a real-life scientist. This was easy for me, because my dad was a scientist. Of course I thought it would be lame beyond words to interview my own dad, so I asked him to recommend someone he knew to interview. He recommended a fellow who was a teacher of his many years ago - a guy on the verge of retirement, who he said was "quite a character".

I went to interview this guy, and he was, indeed, quite a character. We hit it off very well (of course he knew my dad well), and we ended up talking for hours.

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.

[LaCroix]

Well that would make him a killer, but not a murderer.

I assume Malthus meant that he fragged the guy, not killed him in battle.

collateral damage 

[Admiral Yi]

One degree of seperation.  I know a woman who's father was a college professor and got convicted of killing a bunch of coeds.

[Barrister]

Interesting story.

Incedentally the murderers I've known have tended to be dreadfully ordinary.  Or at least dreadfully ordinary as far as criminals go.

[DGuller]

Interesting story.

Incedentally the murderers I've known have tended to be dreadfully ordinary.  Or at least dreadfully ordinary as far as criminals go.

[Ed Anger]

One degree of seperation.  I know a woman who's father was a college professor and got convicted of killing a bunch of coeds.

hott