People Who Had A Close Call With A Serial Killer Before They Were Caught Share Their Stories

1-

I was a peace officer/Paramedic at San Quentin on Condemned row. We had 415 on my last day there I knew them all. The serial killers were extremely interesting. I had to walk the tiers, deliver medications, escort the inmates to and from medical and dental appointments and of course respond to all assaults, medical emergencies, shootings and stabbings (so many shootings and stabbings). HenryRN

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I was an appellate public defender in Kansas City and we shared offices with the death penalty unit. So my interactions with a few famous killers is in talking to their attorneys and paralegals and listening to their "demands." As a death penalty client you have a huge team working your case (the goal is avoiding the death penalty, not necessarily avoiding conviction).

They are accustomed to getting what they want IRL, so it is a major wake up call once incarcerated. And many of these people are older. They hate the beds, they can't have their dentures, they don't get their preferred whatever. These are not people who adjust well to prison. msscahlett

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I had a regular customer at my shop who would come in and buy cigarettes and beer after his shift. He was friendly and polite enough, helped us to catch a shop lifter on one occasion, however did like to stare a little too much at one of my colleagues.

Then a young woman goes missing in my town. It was all over the news as it was completely out of character for her. There was ribbons scattered in trees and lamp posts all over. One day they pull a body out of the river and it was identified as this young woman. Her family was devastated.

A few days later they announced the name of a man they wanted to speak to who had been spotted in a local shop buying cigarettes and beer and later on CCTV trying to talk to her in a park, however he hung himself and was found dead in a local park a few days later.

It was the customer. The Shop footage they showed was from my shop. The cashier had been blurred so we have no way of knowing who served him that time but it gives me the creeps just thinking about it. Glitch_in_the_pink

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Back in the 40's my grandparents were on vacation down in Florida. One day they were at a cafe and a man approached them recognizing their Chicago accents and asked if he could eat with them being a Chicago native himself. They had a great time chatting and ended up talking for an hour or two.

When they were departing they realized proper introductions had never been done and promptly introduced themselves. The response "Al Capone it's been great talking with you two"

Not exactly a serial killer but certainly responsible for many deaths and too good of a story to pass up. LittleOrangeBoi

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Back in the 40's my grandparents were on vacation down in Florida. One day they were at a cafe and a man approached them recognizing their Chicago accents and asked if he could eat with them being a Chicago native himself. They had a great time chatting and ended up talking for an hour or two. When they were departing they realized proper introductions had never been done and promptly introduced themselves. The response "Al Capone it's been great talking with you two"

Not exactly a serial killer but certainly responsible for many deaths and too good of a story to pass up. LittleOrangeBoi

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I grew up next to a family whose eldest daughter dated the brother of Luke Ferguson, (terrible link, sorry) who wasn't a serial killer but was a murderer and a psychopath. He's since killed an inmate since being in jail for his original murder.

There was a big empty lot on our street where everyone in the neighborhood would play baseball and we always hated it when Luke would come. Guy was such a mess, always whining and trying to bully every one else. My buddy Patrick took two beaners from him one day when he was pitching and after the second one charged him with the baseball bat. Luke stopped coming around after that.

Some years later we see him on the news sitting on a damn John Deere tractor being interviewed about his neighbor's murder, saying "Oh it's a horrible tragedy"... only to find out two days later he was the one who did it. None of us were shocked. Patrick texted me that night and said "I should have ran his fat butt down and launched his skull across the street." ickyspinface

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Not a serial killer, but still a pretty well known murder. My ex boyfriend's older sister was very close with another girl when they were 14-16. They spent a ton of time together and she was always over at their house. Well, that girl ended up murdering her nine year old neighbor and burying her in a shallow grave in the woods. She wrote in her diary that she did it because she wanted to know what it was like to kill someone. She was caught soon after and is still in prison.

Everyone was shocked when it all came out. It messed up both my ex and his older sister pretty bad, and my ex thinks that she at least considered killing him because he was a similar age to the victim and she had plenty of access to him. retromortem

8- 

Not me but my aunt was one of the only ones who wasn't killed when Ted Bundy went to that sorority in Florida because that night her friend asked her to sleep over. She still has never talked about it and I only found out she was in that sorority from a project I did in Psychology and asked my mom about it since I grew up in Tallahassee where it happened. Very wild and still gives me goosebumps, so I can't even imagine how my aunt feels, especially these past couple of years when all these shows and movies came out about him. StarfishBlubBlub

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An old employee of mine dated the Phoenix canal killer for a couple years and didn't find out about him till she saw his face on the news. They were no longer together at this point. She came into work the next morning and told me they had arrested him on suspicion of being the killer. The FBI interviewed her and everything. He was eventually found guilty of I think at least 3 murders. She was pretty freaked out about it. xByeByeBlackbirdx

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This person only killed one person. But he was very quiet at work, we being a gregarious group were always trying to get him to talk. One weekend he went home and killed our CEO's at the time daughter; practically beheading her; and left her infant son in the bed with her body. Saw it on the news afterwards and "jaw on the floor" is a complete understatement. Hellaintsobad

11....

My dad met Charlie Manson at a motorcycle shop (if I remember right) in Venice Beach in the 60s. Said he remembered a really short (my dad's a foot taller) creepy dude with scary eyes. Didn't think anything of it until he turned up on the news. human-foie-gras

12....

When I was 7, a man knocked on our door at about 8:30 at night. My mom and I were in the living room watching TV. My mom answered the door, and he said something about selling newspapers. She said she wasn't interested, and as she tried to close the door he tried to force his way inside.

She always had the chain latch on and she kicked the door closed on his arm as he tried to grab for her. He ran away and she called the police. About a year later Cleophus Prince Jr was arrested for killing 6 women, mostly in our neighborhood. My mom recognized him as the man who tried to force his way in that night. zoupishness7

13....

My grandmother was a neighbor to John Wayne Gacy for a brief time.

My mother used to talk about a photo they had with him completely unaware of what was going on. Of course after his conviction they were floored.

So I just got off the phone with my mother. She said yeah we were his neighbors and my grandmother said he was a nice man it seemed. They have pictures of him in his driveway as well. Mom is gonna try and find them. Also, my grandmother rode the bus to work with Richard Speck apparently. Lol This was confirmed as well by my aunt. I bet it was bone chilling when they started hauling bodies out of the driveway. welldamnbrother

14....

I went to the same church as BTK. He was always very nice, polite, and helpful. I remember how shocked my family was when he was arrested. He had such a firm handshake. I've met so many people in the Park City area who've had a creepy encounter with him.

My friend's aunt was one of the women who got away. She heard the window break in the living room and saw a hand reaching through to unlock the door. She ran away and then moved out of Kansas permanently. Tyle-Walburn

15....

My aunt was a judicial assistant in Florida back in the 1980's. One day, three well dress men came to see the judge. One was particularly good looking and charming and really chatted her up. She found out later that she had been chatted up by Ted Bundy. prairiediva

16....

I have met two while sitting in jail in lock down protected custody. One was a convicted axe murderer who was waiting on a re-trail as the evidence and testimony against him was in question. He was a decent guy as long as you didn't piss him off by changing the channel when football was on or do anything stupid like singing or kicking the doors at night.

He even cut my hair for me when we got the clippers. I remember he had project innocence lawyers so he might not actually be one who knows. His name was Sherwood Brown

The second one was just crazy he threw all his discovery papers out of the bean hole of his cell and they included pictures of his victims.

He would try to sell dried deodorant from the state issue as "drugs" and was supposedly willing to tell people where he buried the bodies to snitch on him but it sounded like a con and I avoided talking to him out on rec. From what I remember he was sitting in jail for a murder in Mississippi and was just waiting on a transfer. I don't remember his name as I avoided talking to him. lividust

17....

When I was 13, I was living on the streets of Lake Elsinore California and had a lady looking after me that was a druggie. She had a John that really liked her and invited us to his place once. He was a real weird bastard. A year later she turned up dead with a whole bunch of other working girls in the area killed by the I-15 strangler.

When they caught the guy I instantly recognized him as the John. His name was William Lester Suff and the Trailer that he took us to was his Kill Shack. 😳 Red_Dog75

18....

A friend of mine worked with Ted Bundy at the time when the police were reporting a man named Ted with a VW bug was committing the crime. The office workers joked with him that he was the murderer. My friend relates that he joked along with it saying something like "Oh, you got me. I'm the guy. Ha ha." cartoonassasin

19....

Elizabeth Whetlaufer. Was my dad's nurse. She disappeared, saw her on the news about three months later led away in handcuffs for killing several seniors over a period of years.

Reaction: "Holy Crap!" then checking dates of when she was still working, and my dad's date of death (about a month later). Exchanges with her never raised any red flags, just typical visitor/nurse talk. Axle13

20....

Not me, but my best buddy's older brother lived off the grid in northern Yukon in the 70's. Comes home to Edmonton once every couple of years. Due to terrible gravel and dirt roads back then it is a 4 day drive. Starting his journey one time he picks up a hitchhiker, it's the code of the North, people help each other. They hit it off and the hitcher even helps out with the driving duties.

One time when the hitcher was sleeping, my buddy's brother hears on the radio a police alert about a multiple murderer in the area, he matches the description of the hitcher. As they are still in the middle of nowhere he turns off the radio and he ends up staying with the guy for 2 more days.

When they finally got into a populated area they stopped at a diner and he called the cops. Provincial cops did a traffic stop 30 minutes later and got the guy.

He had killed his wife, kid and her parents. LOUDCO-HD