“I have a picture of my friend’s father with John Wayne Gacy. They were in a clown troupe together.”

I'm a Senior Staff Writer based in New York City, where I've been covering classic BuzzFeed-style content since 2020.

"The police officer said that the gun they used to kill the previous driver was in the luggage I’d put into the (covered) back of the wagon, so they couldn't get to it, or they would have murdered me. One of the two eventually turned state's witness, and the other was convicted of murder after the trial (where I was a witness). So, don't pick up hitchhikers, but if you do, be nice and help with their luggage."

"Aaaand he then moved to my old neighborhood (in Pendleton)! He was MUCH older than me (graduated and moved away before I was born), but I know people who went to Starpoint with him. I've heard that he was one of those guys who were bullied for no obvious reason. I've always wondered if it had any contribution to the horror he perpetrated."

"Bundy said he was working for a farmer in a town about 20 miles away, which struck my father as odd because Bundy was wearing a long wool coat, and his hands were baby-soft, smooth...not the hands or attire of a farmhand. After seeing my mom, my father drove around with the local sheriff looking for him at several restaurants to no avail.

Today, my father can't stand watching documentaries about Bundy, as he is often shown in that same wool coat and the same smug smile. My parents protected us kids from feeling like evil could be that close."

"In a flash, it went tight for a few seconds and broke, leaving quite the burn mark around my neck. He just blew it off like it was a prank. I remember walking home crying due to the pain. My dad wanted to call the police, but I guess I convinced him not to. Again, I was a dumb girl.

So anyway, a week later, a schoolmate, another 15- or 16-year-old girl, went missing. Later that week, they found her dead in a creek, stabbed and strangled to death. My friend working at 7-Eleven had seen her with my ex the day the girl went missing. She knew about the choking incident with my ex and told the cops, so they came to my house to ask some questions. They took pictures of my neck, which was still visible. They also wanted me to walk them physically through what happened. So we went to the creek, jumped the fence, and I was able to show them the cord as well as other evidence from my story.

Anyway. He pleaded guilty after the preliminary hearing, at which I testified. He was sentenced to 25 to life. He's still in San Quentin. He won't be released until he takes full responsibility for what happened. He was convicted of murder and attempted murder of me. This was in 1983."

"As the days went on, his amiable mask slipped a few times, and I was wary of the way he would switch. He came into the reading area when I was on my own one day and asked if I had bad thoughts. I said I did, but he said, 'No, bad ones, really bad, worse thoughts than anyone in the unit,' and 'all the doctors do is say I might have an anxiety disorder, possibly, and give me diazepam.' Another day, he got aggressive toward me when I (politely) said I didn't believe in God. Then there was an incident on the minibus when he kicked the seat of a sweet, nervous older lady who was talking to the bus driver and snarled at her. 'You like talking, don't you? You don't shut up.' I would usually stick up for people, but I was hesitant because I knew something was a bit off about him. 

He made friends with a young girl on the unit, and he'd always be late when it was time to leave, because he was taking her on walks.

He left before me, and I never saw him again. This was in the summer.

Later on that year, he went on a Christmas Eve date with a young teacher, murdered her, assaulted her body, and dumped her in the grounds of a hotel in the same area where we lived. He eventually ended his life in prison after repeatedly attacking staff there.

Turns out his ankle monitor was for stalking and making threats to kill his ex-girlfriend's young sister. He had repeated urges and fantasies of doing to her the same things that ended up being done to the teacher. Those were the dark thoughts he had briefly mentioned to me. The hospital staff knew this and let him be in the unit and walk around freely with the young girls, then let him go with a pack of diazepam.

I was traumatized and still am. I will never forget that experience and know I was right in my gut instinct. I feel frustration over how he was allowed to take a bright young life before he ended his and how the system failed."

"The dad got them alcohol. The girls were, like, 11 and 13. It came out after that the dad had been abusing the kids, especially the younger sister. So, not sure it started out as a plan, but it ended with murders."

"In a nutshell, I was outside playing catch with a friend. A dude stopped and asked if I wanted to make some money doing honest work, and I said yes. I had been doing odd jobs around the neighborhood to make money to buy a bike; I figured somebody had told him about me.

He was well-spoken and polite, and I didn't suspect he was up to anything nefarious until we drove about 10–12 miles total, but he kept making left-hand turns. We eventually wound up right back in front of my house. He did a California rolling stop at a stop sign, and I bailed. I was shaken, initially thought he was weird, and soon forgot. What had happened really didn't sink in until I saw a news broadcast sometime later about him, his arrest, and what was found at his house. I think I must have turned pasty white as I watched.

The only thing that I can figure out that may have saved my life was our small talk during the drive. He found out where I lived and who I was connected to, and it likely caused him to rethink his initial plan. Given his arrest timeline, I think he may have been a suspect at that time; whether he knew that, though, who knows?"

Scottie's parents were HEAVILY involved in a white power group, and as an initiation at age 13, Scottie fatally beat the hell out of some stranger. Throughout his childhood and post-initiation, he had killed TWO other people who had crossed his family or shorted them on meth or whatever. Also, at age 13, he kicked a man’s skull in, and at 15, he 'helped' his father throw someone out of a car.

Both of his parents were long dead by the time my dad met Scottie.

It was basically all he knew as a kid, and he got sober in prison, where he served eight years as a juvenile until age 23. When he was released, my dad sponsored him in AA, and he always said my dad was the only father figure he ever had. Years later, I asked my dad if he ever heard from Scottie, and he said he had on and off throughout the years. He struggled with alcoholism, but at the last check-in, Scottie was 20 years drug-free.

I hope Scottie is out there somewhere and doing well. Not an excuse for his crimes, but sometimes people are dealt the WORST hand at life. So yeah, a murderer watched out for my dumb teenage ass and saved me from potentially terrible situations more often than I care to admit."

"We ended up going to different high schools and losing touch — and then one day I saw the Facebook article from our local police scanner page.

He killed his ex-girlfriend's mom — broke into their house over an Xbox he left there, and stabbed her to death when she caught him. He'll spend the rest of his life in prison, rightfully so.

I still wrestle with who I knew him as and what ended up happening. I guess my teacher was right, but I always wonder what he could've been if he had a different life. I feel awful for that girl's family."

"This guy had apparently been cheating on his wife, and the woman he was cheating with broke it off, and he shot and killed her new boyfriend. I had to give an official statement and everything because that two-minute conversation I had with him at the register while selling him his beer was the last time he spoke to anyone before doing it."

"The next day, the police knocked on my aunt's door, asking her if she had seen anything weird. She said she hadn't, but she told them her sister had.

It turned out that a man down the road had been shot and killed by his wife and her lover. The man on the wall was the lover waiting for somebody to supply him with a gun.

My parents had to give evidence in court; it was a whole thing."

"Oh, and I met a man who stabbed someone the day after I met him. I was buying street tamales, and a man came up and offered to pay. I was like, 'I am buying a lot of them,' and he was like, 'Nah, I got you.' And he was so, so sweet. He didn't ask for a single thing in return. I talked to him for a few minutes, and I took my tamales home.

I saw on the news the next day that he had stabbed someone. It was weird. I didn't get a single bad feeling about him, and I do have some intuition."

Melissa Turner was found guilty of the second-degree murder of her boyfriend, Matthew Trussler, in 2022 and is serving out a 20.5-year sentence. Turner still claims she acted in self-defense, stabbing Trussler after he strangled her. Audio from a neighbor's camera revealed the two had fought just before he died, with Turner audibly shouting, and ADT footage from inside their home showed Trussler "walking calmly, unarmed" while Turner was "hunched over angry," according to prosecutors.

"Thankfully not. It was a tough situation, and the woman was dying any day. I personally don't think it was the wrong move. 

I'd want someone to do the same for me. 

After quite a long court case and a bit of a media circus, he was acquitted."

Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.