23 People Share Random Encounters With Serial Killers

Description of 'Multiple Encounters With New York's Most Infamous' in the list '23 People Share Random Encounters With Serial Killers'mhelweg:

Growing up in Poughkeepsie, NY, aged 12-14, one of my brother's friends became very close to our family. He called my mother ["Mom"] and was considered family. He once took one of my sisters to a movie date.

Coming home from work, my brother told my mom the cops showed up where he and Nate worked and arrested Nate. Nate followed girls aged 14-20 in Duchess and Orange Counties. He had already killed six women, strangling and bludgeoning them, and dumped the bodies by the roadside. Nathaniel White was his name.

Six years later, they found Kendall [Francois] two blocks from my house. They arrested him and found eight dead women in his home. He shared the house with his mom, dad, and a 14-year-old sister. The place smelled bad, but no one else in the house seemed aware of the bodies.

My Poughkeepsie Middle School history teacher was Albert Fentress, a known cannibal.

From Redditor /u/FromHereToParis:

My friend and I carpool to work daily. I waited for her pickup late at night. Her cousin drove by, told her she was late, and asked if he could pick me up so I wouldn't wait alone for long.

I met her cousin once, briefly, at a wedding she dragged me to a few months ago. He seemed nice then and now, so I agreed.

I almost got into the car, but I realized I left my purse at work. I told him I needed two seconds to get it. I went back to work and got my purse. My phone rang; it was my friend. She said she was coming to get me. Confused, I reminded her she asked her cousin to pick me up. Silence. She only has one cousin, and he was on a missionary trip abroad. WTF.

This man memorized my life and schedule. He knew I waited for my friend every night. He dressed as my friend's "cousin" because he knew I wouldn't fear him after meeting him, but I did not know him well enough to see it was him.

Cops caught him after a long chase. He had already killed three other women. Poisons, guns, chains, knives, ropes, and masks were in the back of his car.

From Redditor /u/sandyvajina:

At seventeen, I went to Project Akon, an anime convention in Dallas, TX, with a friend. We planned to meet her sister at the hotel and share a room. She did not show up. The weekend became a search until she appeared. The Texas Railroad killer entered her apartment while she packed for the trip and killed her with a pickaxe. This haunts me still, especially since the plan was to drive to her sister's that night and carpool to the hotel together. I will never know if he would have chosen a different victim or ended all of us.

Redditor /u/glassesnw1ne:

My friend's grandma had a close encounter with Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker of Los Angeles. Grandma was mowing the lawn in the back and saw him jump a fence onto her property. She got scared and started hitting him with a broom or something. This stopped him from continuing and he jumped back. Days later, Grandma saw a sketch on the news and knew it was the same man she hit in her yard.

I still fear leaving any floor-level windows open at night, no matter how hot it is outside.

Redditor /u/gogojack:

About ten years ago, I met Randy Hausner. He was a local comic and small-time promoter in Phoenix. He hosted a comedy night where my then-girlfriend performed. I went to a couple of shows; he seemed like a decent guy. If I recall right, he supported "clean" comedy. If you worked in the blue, you did not work for him.

A couple of years later, his brother Dale became the "Serial Shooter." Dale caused eight deaths and at least twenty-nine other shootings in the Phoenix area from 2005 to 2006. He passed a few months ago while awaiting execution. Another brother, Jeff, is serving eighteen years for stabbing someone.

Redditor /u/iDebisschop:

My grandmother attended school with the Boston Strangler. After he made an inappropriate comment, she hit his head with a book.

Redditor /u/2ndChanceCharlie:

Kendall Francois. This guy worked at my middle school. Lunch detention involved Francois. He was the wrestling team's assistant coach. He was nice but intimidating. He also smelled bad—turns out it was the bodies in his attic.

Redditor /u/ohmygodbeckylook:

This is not about me, but my friend's aunt. She heard a knock and thought it was her boyfriend. She wanted to scare him, grabbed a kitchen knife, opened the door, and yelled something. It was not her boyfriend; it was a man asking about plumbing work. He left when he saw the knife. She looked out the window and saw a yellow VW bug. That was Ted Bundy.

Redditor /u/spencerjustsaid:

Three years ago, I camped in the Lake District, UK. A man named Raoul Moat started an infamous shooting spree. We had no idea then—no phone, no internet, nothing. Later, we discovered he hid in bushes only a couple hundred meters from our camp. If he found us, we would all be dead.

Redditor /u/thewire_greatestshow:

Not me, but my half-sister. In middle school, she walked home from school. A guy in an old pickup truck offered her a ride. She refused because our dad always told her never to accept rides from strangers.

Weeks later, a girl vanished from her class. They found her body some time later. They caught the guy: Michael Ross. He assaulted and took the lives of about eight young girls in the CT area. He later received the death sentence.

Our dad and her mother tried to keep the trial details away from her at home, trying not to scare their young daughter. She said, though, the first time she saw his mugshot, she recognized him right away as the man who offered her a ride.

Redditor /u/julieoolie:

I do not know if anyone outside Canada knows this guy, but I live in Scarborough, Toronto. That area is known for the "Scarborough Rapist," Paul Bernardo. My best friend's parents went to a wedding where he was. Paul and Karla, his wife and accomplice, asked to hold her brother, and my friend's parents agreed.

It felt disturbing finding out what he did years later.

From former Redditor /u/anonymous:

BTK was inside my house. He held my roommate as a baby and knew my roommate's grandmother. I walk some of the same streets he used to scout for victims while going to and from school and other places. I asked my roommate if this bothered him; he said, "I try not to think about it. The guy was tied to my family, and that is how it is."

From Redditor /u/zook54:

I picked up Aileen Wuornos one afternoon while she was hitchhiking. This happened before she started her killing spree.

From Redditor /u/down_vote_militia:

I was friends with Nidal Hasan (Fort Hood Shooter) in medical school. I knew him at Virginia Tech because we both wanted to get into medical school—he studied biochemistry and I studied biology.

He dropped by the foosball table at USUHS during my first and second years. I recall one of his parents died, so he took time off. We both got into trouble in internal medicine rotations and had to retake it. We took that rotation together again, but we failed it both times. I was angry because I failed even though I passed the exams, and we talked about it. He said he would sneak away from the DC area for his third rotation to avoid being "targeted" to fail again. I responded, "Screw that, I'm taking it at Walter Reed and screw them if they fail me." He said I was challenging the senior physicians, which I was, and bruising their egos would not work. He was right. He passed and graduated; I failed and left medical school after five years. During that talk—we met for dinner at an IHOP—he asked if my faith helped through those hard times. I told him I "wasn't religious." Nidal seemed to doubt that; I already knew he was a very devout Muslim.

When I knew him, Nidal was soft-spoken and genuinely caring. He stayed close with his family and spent most of his time with them. Sometimes he was philosophical, but he remained friendly and easy to talk to.

After I left the military (USUHS is a military medical school), I listened to the news about the Fort Hood shooter in the car. His cousin called and started talking about him. He served four years enlisted, went to VT, then attended the military medical school. I thought, "I know this guy." Sure enough, it was Nidal. That photo they have of him when he was young—that was the one for medical school. I was there when that photo was taken.

Five to six years change much. I won't defend what he did; it was awful. But he was not all bad.

Redditor /u/rockrod777:

I worked for Robert Pickton, Canada's worst serial killer. He seemed nice. Three or four months later, the truth emerged. I think more people were involved; sketchy people surrounded that farm.

Redditor /u/Glastonberry48:

My mom showed me houses in the Chicago suburb during a funeral procession. She pointed out the house where she grew up. She pointed to a house near hers and said, "That was John Wayne Gacy's house, the clown." This explains why my mom was so protective of me.

Redditor /u/TurnTheTVOff:

I met Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski. I worked for Trenton Emergency Medical Services many years ago. Our response area covered Trenton State Prison; Mr. Kuklinski was there. Earlier, I heard a rig sent to the prison, but I ignored it; it wasn't my call, and we went there almost daily. Soon after, I bumped into the crew that responded to the prison. They told me the patient was The Iceman. I asked how it went. They said he was actually a nice guy. They also said he was HUGE. I didn't think much about it and continued my day. Later, we took an asthma patient to the hospital where Mr. Kuklinski was taken. As soon as we wheeled our patient into the ER, I saw him. I could not miss him. He stood a full head above the stretcher and his feet hung off the bottom by twelve inches or more.

When the prison sent an inmate to the hospital, they always sent two corrections officers. Sometimes they wore sidearms; sometimes they did not. Mr. Kuklinski had six of the biggest COs I have ever seen with him, all wearing sidearms, two carrying shotguns. I never saw this level of protection before, nor did I see it again. I turned over my patient and stood at the nurses' station getting report info. I caught myself looking at him. He looked me in the eye and asked, "What [...] are you looking at?" I answered, "Nothin'. I just never met anyone with three HBO specials done on them before." He chuckled. I left. That was how I met Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski.

Redditor /u/tinyshadow:

I unknowingly handled the clothing of someone who killed multiple people.

I processed a collection at an archive. I made a list of all donated items and put that into a computer for a finding aid. My boss gave me little detail about the collection; it was named after the donor, a law firm.

I put a grey-white sweater from a box into the table. I was confused, so I wrote a description. Looking again, I saw grey-white sweatpants and a white shirt there too.

I searched why there was clothing in the collection. The donation came from a law firm challenging the state's death penalty. The clothing belonged to someone who killed many people and was already executed. I put the clothes back in the box and gave them to the law firm.

The collection mainly contains papers: letters, finances, research notes. Some collections have physical objects, but clothing is unusual.

From Redditor /u/dnvrjeep:

I worked with Kenyon Tolerton, who had multiple victims. I saw him arrested on the news while I was home. It scared me. I didn't know him well, but what I knew about him did not signal he was crazy.

From Redditor /u/k-weezy:

Rex Krebs worked in San Luis Obispo while I lived there. My roommate and I often went to his hardware store (her parents fixed our apartment). He had a great pit bull he brought to work, so I liked petting the dog while waiting. He once offered me a ride home from work at Denny's while he was leaving. I think I made it because I am a redhead and he liked blondes.

From Redditor /u/JPCnp:

I am excited about this statement and hope it stays public. Jeffery Dahmer's father was my physics substitute teacher for a long time. The real teacher was old, and I think I dropped out of high school education. He now teaches at a nearby university. When the current teacher did not show up, we had a teacher named Mr. Dahmer for two weeks. He asked to be called by his first name, and we found out through internet searching that his son is Jeff. He is from the WHS 2004 class.

From Redditor /u/severinusofnoricum:

The Baseline Killer lived near us. We walked past his house nightly while walking the dog. The sites where he claimed his victims showed he lived nearby, so it was not surprising to find out how close he lived.

From Redditor /u/bloo_regard:

My sister dated Israel Keyes. He acted like an older brother to me while I grew up. He moved to Alaska when I was fourteen. I did not hear from him until he appeared in the news after being caught for taking the lives of up to five people.