Have you ever known a murder victim?

My childhood/young adulthood best friend's father was murdered when we were seniors in college. He was welding on a bumper and his murderer poured gasoline on him. My friend's father ran outside of his shop, jumped into a big watery mud puddle and got the fire out, but there was still a lot of gasoline on him ... so his murderer stood there and struck matches to the slick until it re-lit. It was those matches that got the murderer the death penalty, but it got converted to regular life (with the possibility of parole) when S.C.'s death penalty process was struck down by the Supreme Court. The murderer never got parole, though, and he died a very sick old man in prison.

 

A friend/college roommate of mine is bi-polar. He dropped out twice from the college I went to. Crazy as hell in a funny way most of the time and from what I saw, pretty cordial with most folks in day-to-day interactions. I suspect he was probably repressing some things, including some war experiences when being deployed to Iraq. One night five years ago he shot and killed his longtime friend (who I had been chummy with at times) over an argument at a party. He invited me to come, but I was gassed and spent the night at home watching football. Don't know how I would have reacted had I gone. The argument was said to be over a girl though he denies that. It was the first homicide my dinky little hometown has ever experienced.

He’s called and written me from prison a few times and I still consider him a friend. His family is close with mine so I think it’s important to support him and his family.

 

Nobody that I've been close to, thankfully. One woman, who I'd spoken to a couple of times in high school and I was friends with some of her friends, had gone missing about 15 years after I graduated. She'd apparently had gotten into drugs and had been missing for a couple of months when they found her body. It was ruled a homicide, but I don't think they've ever found the killer, even though it's been nearly a decade since she was killed.

 

I don't know a murder victim officially.

Officially, I knew a voluntary manslaughter victim.

But, his family, and mine, have always considered it murder.

This was the son of a family-close friend. His mother and father were childhood -- childhood! -- friends of my mother and father, and we called them Aunt and Uncle. The victim's older brother is my mom's godson, like a brother to us, and we kids have been close all our lives.

The victim was the youngest son of my aunt, and the one of her boys who was closest to me in age (he was about a year older) and I remember him well.

The day he died, he was in his early 20's and his wedding was coming up later that year. He was out riding his bike, while a group of guys was also out and about, driving around, and apparently, drinking. This all came out in the court case:

Unbeknownst to my aunt's son, they decided to play "chicken" with him, friends in the guy's car egging the driver on, and laughing it up, as, several times, they drove as close as possible while not hitting him. Then, finally, they did it again. Only, this time, he didn't miss.

Late that night, someone from the police station called my uncle and asked him to come down, saying only, "We have a problem, and need you to come." My uncle, thinking he was going to have to maybe bail out his kid, who maybe had been arrested for a DUI, or something, collapsed upon being taken to identify his son's body in the morgue.

I still remember my mom receiving an early-morning phone call the next day, from across the country, from her lifelong friend, informing her that her son had been killed, and I recall my mom coming into my room, crying, to tell me about Bobby.

After that, his mother was never the same, and the family raged when the driver in the case got off with something like an 18-month prison sentence.

 

Did not know the victim or the killer, but went to church with them, as well as the woman in the love triangle.

Pastor Admits Killing Church Deacon

 

A guy I went with to grade school. We actually had an 8th grade reunion a while back (yes, weird in itself, but actually kind of fun) where I saw him after I don't know maybe 25 or 30 years. A year later, he was killed trying to buy drugs in East St. Louis.

 

Have a friend who lived down the street from me in junior high school. His mother went missing, then it came out that his father killed her, cut up her body with a chain saw and dumped it in the Mississippi River. Didn't know her well, but knew her.

It was kind of eerie, because while it was still being investigated and no arrests were made, and there were rumors and allegations that he cut her up like that, I went with the kid, the father and the father's "friend" to a haunted house in the area. The father and "friend" stayed in the van (obviously to bang), while my buddy and I went through it. There was a guy in the haunted house with a running chainsaw, and when we got back in the van, the buddy says to his dad: "They had a guy in there with a chainsaw, Dad! They should have had you in there doing that!" and everyone but me got a nice big laugh out of it.

 

My great grandparents were both murdered. Not that I knew them, but ...

A friend from high school is on death row for murdering three people in a pawn shop heist.

 

A childhood friend from grade school was murdered on a vacation trip to Florida by two drifter brothers from Louisiana.

Also, a friend from a bar I frequented started dating a divorced woman. Her ex-husband shot and killed him and then went home and killed himself.

Another guy who was a fixture (bartender, bouncer, jack-of-all trades) at another bar I hung out at was murdered by gunshot in his home. No one was ever arrested.

So I guess that's three people I've known who were murdered. And every case was awful.

 

Several, and a couple who committed murder.

 

At least God didn't kill them with a giant crane at church.