23 People Who Knew A Killer Before They Killed


A few years ago I hired a father-son handyman team to help me get my house ready to put on the market. Among other things, my outside doorknobs were in bad shape so they installed new ones. The dad seemed pretty nice, even did a little bit for free. On their 3rd and last day at my house, he was pretty fired up about a big job they were starting the next day. Three days later he killed his new clients because they were unhappy with his work. A neighbor saw what happened and ran into her house and hid. He kicked her door in and shot her too. I was terrified until he was caught.


He was really nice and I had gone to K-12 with him. Never knew him to be the kind of person that would even get upset. Then I get a text a couple years ago asking “Do you know about X? Him and his brother killed their parents”


My little sister dated a guy when she was in high school who ended up murdering a couple he owed money to for heroin. This dude beat them with a fucking baseball bat and hammer. He almost got the death sentence, but ended up with life in prison with no possibility of parole.

He was a seemingly nice, polite teenager. I used to drive him and my sister around for various dates and things. He was quiet, but not oddly so. He just seemed like a normal teenage boy.


I graduated high school with Dr. Death, Chris Duntsch.

He was an asshole. He was charming with teachers and people who could benefit him. He was awful to everybody else. I didn’t see it, but one or more awkward and vulnerable classmates said he bullied him relentlessly, and I believe it.

He was easily irritated and if you got on his nerves he would really lose his cool. Remarkably mean. And people would just shrug their shoulders and say that’s just how Chris is.


The younger brother of a girl I was friends with in middle school and high school. They had some struggles growing up and I know their mother was an abusive relationship because we gave her some help getting away from her husband.

Are we connected many many years later and found out that the younger brother had murdered someone. Initially it sounded pretty gruesome but when I actually read Court reports I kind of felt bad for the kid.

he had some mental illness issues but as a teenager apparently he had been groomed by a much much older man into a sexual relationship where the man provided money shelter and of course drugs. He was extremely controlling and abusive.

Eventually the kid tried to get away and was trying to start a new life with a girl he met but this guy tracked him down and blackmailed him.

Eventually kid snapped and murdered him. I think I felt worse for the kid because a lot of people can’t get away from their abusers.

Edit: for those who asked, he was 16 year old runaway with a history of drug problems when he started seeing the more than 20-years older guy who used to film him. He struggled with drugs but was doing well and he met with the man to tell him he loved someone else and he want going to see him again.

His story is that the guy attacked him saying he’d rather he died than break up. He had injuries consistent with fending off a knife attack and said he killed the man in self-defense. What probably really screwed him over is that he didn’t call the cops He hid the body instead.

Despite all of the evidence pointing to him bring preyed on, he got a sentence that is longer than the average human lifespan. He committed the crime in a place where being gay or bisexual isn’t really acceptable. a lot of the stories in the news refer to him as a hustler and say that he killed one of his patrons.


In my first semester of college, I had a computer science professor I really loved. Near the end of the semester, he told us he may be taking time off and finding a replacement for the semester. His severely autistic son had died in a ‘tragic pool accident’. He noted that the media was trying to make him look bad. I created a GoFundMe for funeral expenses; he appreciated it and shared photos to use on the page.

Fast forward half a year. I get calls from news reporters asking what my thoughts are… He had been arrested on suspected unintentional manslaughter. It turns out, he had left his son outside in the cold by the pool, unsupervised, when he left for work. His son was never supposed to be unattended. His son was outside for who knows how long before the professor’s daughter found the boy face down in the pool.

Further research into the case revealed the boy was living in an unfurnished basement, feces all over the walls, often left alone. The police were at the home frequently; CPS had made various safety requirements for them that they never followed.

He’s being charged with unintentional manslaughter and various forms of child abuse. Him and his wife are being charged for filling the boy’s Ritalin prescription for many, many months after the death.

I still believe it was intentional. Texts revealed the daughter discovered the boy when the professor texted her, asking her to check if ‘Freak’ was okay.


He was an asshole. I’m not surprised he killed somebody. He killed a 65 year old man in a revenge/drive by shooting. He shoot at the wrong house.The guy he intended to kill didn’t even live in that neighborhood.


I spent 3 months on a study abroad with a special forces, ex-FBI, guy named ‘Joe’. We were a small group of mostly students whereas Joe was older and there as part of foreign immersion training for the military. He was a little odd/awkward at times and didn’t share too much about himself which we mostly attributed to the age difference.

I’d describe Joe as very intense but kind-hearted. The military was very important to him and he always seemed very focused on that. But occasionally he’d make a dry joke or let his guard down for a moment with the group. He was very into photography and shared lots of great photos from the trip.

He was also somewhat the protector of the group and we always felt completely safe with him. One story I’ll share was when he was walking over a bridge and spied some guys in the trees waiting to jump down and rob him. He pulled out a large knife he carried on him and casually brandished it as he walked by. The guys smartly decided not to mess with Joe, but after he crossed he saw them sprint across the bridge and hide behind a building. Two policemen showed up shortly after and Joe showed them where the guys were hiding so the police could arrest them.

Anyways, a few years after we got back I heard the news that he had killed someone and took his own life. He had been training for a new position and his commander deemed that he wasn’t physically fit enough for the job. The judgment effectively ended his career and he felt he had been unfairly judged. He brought a gun into the base and shot his commander dead then killed himself.


My family bought a house from a man who flipped houses for a living back when I was growing up. He was a nice man, married with grown kids. He would often come over for dinner and help with minor repairs around the house.

We moved away a few years later and he wanted to buy the house back. Luckily, it was a cash deal because soon after it all went through, he was arrested for child porn. When the cops raided his house, there was no sign of his wife. Upon looking into it, no one had seen or heard from her in months.

Turns out, he had murdered her and buried her in their backyard.

I sat next to that man at the dinner table as a child. Still haunts me.


I went to High School with a girl who poisoned her father. No one knew until she confessed a year later watching a Shakespeare play in College. She was a little weird in school, but I didn’t think she was capable of that..


There was this kid that would sit next to me in Chemistry during my sophomore year of HS. Some days he’d be totally out of it with his head down, other days he’d be answering every question in class. On the worse end he’d sometimes get up and run out of the classroom. Our TA would then spend most of the period trying to find him. His life was definitely shit by the looks of it.

Fast forward a year later it turned out he got hired by some kid outside of school as a hitman (kid wanted his parents dead). He brought a hammer to the kid’s house, injuring his mom but he got fought off by the kid’s dad. He ran off but got caught at a nearby gas station. He got a sixteen year sentence about two weeks ago.


Yes. Was hired at the same time as him. WOrked right next to him for several years. He was one of those stoner guys always bragging about the parties he went to. He was a little obnoxious in a “bro” sort of way so I always skipped hanging out with him after work.

After I left that job a little while later he killed his ex girlfriend while her 5yo was in the apt watching tv, took the kid on a road trip to Texas, and smothered her on Christmas Morning and left her in a suitcase on the side of the road.


My sister was killed by her fiancé. He was, well, normal. Took good care of her during recovery from surgery. A bit weird , but nothing stands out. Weird as in opposite interests and shy where my sister was outgoing. Never would have expected it from him. Until o had to clean out their place and found a bunch of guns and crap load of knives and shit.


My best friend’s older brother killed her step mom. Strangled her and burned the house down. He was just like any other teenage older brother. A bit rebellious but nothing out of the ordinary. He was kinda goth and liked heavy metal and had dark humour. He played Goldeneye with us and always let me use the see-through purple controller. He teased his little sister just like any brother would. One time he took us for a car ride and did donuts in a church parking lot while blasting a Big Shiny Tunes album, and it was really fun. Nothing ever indicated what he would do later in life.


I played basketball with a guy a few years ago in high school.

Tried to find him on Facebook and turns out he was being tried for murder.
Apparently he and some of his friends were looking for pot money so they broke into this guys house and somehow they guy ended up dead.

Everyone in his group said he pulled the trigger but he denied it. Maybe he did it maybe he didn’t but I can say that he was a genuinely nice person when I knew him. Never would have expected him to kill someone but I guess my mom was right about hanging out with the wrong crowd.


Boy a couple years my minor in high school. he was always the outcast in his classes. he dressed funny, talked funny, and said disturbing things that some recall as threats (mostly to the girls of the school).

after graduation, he ended up butchering a homeless woman he was.. i cant say living together or in a relationship with… im not sure what their status was. either way, kitchen knife, drained her into the tub. in court he showed no remorse and was proud to have “finally ended someone’s life”.

his father was my professor in university. he took it very hard.


Before, like, literally the night before the crime, he was at my house talking about a new job he thought he’d gotten, how he was going to be able to take better care of his daughter, a new tattoo he was going to get, just random stuff.

Some backstory, he had a brain tumor when he was I think 9 or 10, not sure what kind or where but he was a ‘make a wish’ kid, I think he went to Disney or something, but they did manage to get it out with surgery. So he was a little, well, he wasn’t stupid or disabled but I’d say ‘slow’, basically. He was a little shit through his teen years, big pants, loud music, fast car, “Yo I’m gangstah!” kind of thing, but when he met his girlfriend and then especially when his daughter was born, he seemed to change a lot for the better.

He was the younger brother of a friend of mine. I went from “You can NOT bring Eddie to my house and I don’t even want him to know where we live,” to “Sure, Eddie and you can come for dinner,” so yeah, lots of change.

The night it happened we played D&D that evening and he was as boringly normal as he ever was. Actually he’d never expressed any anger or anything toward the girlfriend’s mother, at all. He’d said how happy he was that she was letting them live there and helping with the baby.

After, we only saw him once more, in court, when he was sentenced. We went with his mom, who we knew, and at the end, he turned his face and wouldn’t even nod to us.

I just don’t get it, I don’t think I ever will.


My coworker had work done on his house (he owned a large house and was quite well off). Whatever work he had done, he was not happy with and was arguing with the repairman over the work done. Apparently he took the guy to court to pay for another repairman to come in and redo all his work.

Some time passes, an one night this co-worker gets up in the middle of the night, (not sure if he heard something, or was getting a glass of water or something) when the garage (attached to the house) explodes setting the house on fire. He runs up and gets his wife and kids up and out of bed and tells them to get out of the house immediately. They get out safely and watch their house burn to the ground. Luckily he had cameras set up, and they were able to retrieve the footage from them which clearly shows this guy coming onto the property. Apparently he doused the cars in the garage with gasoline or something and lit them all on fire and ran. The cars eventually exploded.

I believe he went to jail for attempted murder, not sure.


I worked with a guy that murdered his gf. He was a cool dude. I sat with him a lot on my lunch breaks. We talked about football, school, life etc. Pretty normal stuff. Never would think he was a killer. He was not an aggressive person at all.


One of my best friends when I was stationed at Fort Bragg ended up getting into some sort of drunken altercation later on in his career at Fort Hood, went back to his house to retrieve a pistol, went back to the party and shot a dude.

It was absolutely insane to me when I heard about it because he had never shown any tendencies towards violence when I hung out with him pretty much every day for over two years. Probably drank a little too much, but he was always just a good dude raising a good family.

Last time I talked to him was three days before his trial. He ended up changing his plea to guilty to receive 25 years instead of life. He’s at Leavenworth now, going on probably seven or eight years now.

Feel bad for the family of the guy he shot. He was a medically retired vet and didn’t deserve to be gunned down like that. As much as the murderer was my friend, he gets to go home one day. The guy he shot never will.


One of my parents friends use to come around all the time. He was probably only 21. Nicest guy ever. Type of guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

A couple of years later he moved and we seen him on the news for murder. Turned out he got on the ice and his girlfriend convinced him to kill her ex with her. They then buried him in concrete.

Only reason they got caught was because they wrote their fucking names in the concrete.


I was friends with a guy who was accused of physical abusing his son. He went through the courts to fight it. The ex girlfriend finally admitted she made it up because he cheated on her .

He ended up killing her then himself.


My neighbors father murdered his entire family and then killed himself shortly before he was to be indicted over a ponzi-esk scheme. I knew the whole family well. The Dad was always a little weird and would do things like wear a full 3 piece suit to a child’s soccer game. Never showed any signs of being violent though. The mother and 2 daughters were wonderful people, it was a real tragedy.


Read more: https://thoughtcatalog.com/emily-madriga/2020/02/23-people-who-knew-a-killer-before-they-killed

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