Possible Killer On My Street

[jaedmc]

So....Someone is randomly murdering people near my house. Two in two days. My kids play at the parks near where these men were murdered. Up until this week I was letting my 10 year old son run the three blocks to his cross country practice, and he would have crossed at least one of the crime scenes on his way there.

Tonight there were about 5 cop cars outside my building and an ambulance. It looked like they were arresting someone. My wife was walking home at the time with our 4 year old.

I'm a little spooked out right now, and didn't really know where to express it. So I thought, hey how about that message board I've been posting on for over a decade. Anyway. Not sure what to do right now. You know, besides move.

Link to article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-lakefront-bike-path-shooting-20181002-story.html

Picture of the guy:

[Michael Sweetser]

I don't know what to say other than stay safe, man, and don't hesitate to call 911 at the first hint of anything.  Wishing you and yours the best.

[odessasteps]

Too serious a situation for the Rellik gag? 

[OSJ]

What Sweetser said, man. Hopefully that was the guy that they were taking away. Stay safe.

[NikoBaltimore]

Holy shit that's awful.  Stay safe and hopefully they got the guy.

[Lawful Metal]

He need a lawyer?

[Raziel]

3 hours ago, Lawful Metal said:

He need a lawyer?

 

this is in jest.

[The Natural]

Thinking of you, @jaedmc. Stay safe xxx

Years ago there was a serial killer where I lived.

[Tabe]

Holy crap, that's awful.  Hopefully the guy is caught in a hurry and your family stays safe.

Growing up, I knew two murderers.  Both came to my house (sort of).  One was good friends with a good friend of mine.  My friend got a ride to my house from the other guy one time and the guy stayed in his car while I talked to my friend.  The guy was later part of a duo that kidnapped, robbed, and murdered a middle aged couple.  Was a big, big story in Pontiac for awhile.  He was convicted and is still in jail, I think.  The other guy was actually a friend of mine and come over many, many times.  He was one of a pair of twins and I was very good friends with the other twin.  He eventually killed a guy and did some time.

 

[J.T.]

Holy fuck.  Keep safe, Jae..

[jaedmc]

thanks folks for the well wishes and jokes.

There's a neighborhood meeting tonight. Hopefully there will be some answers to some questions. The fella who I thought was arrested last night, I don't think was "The guy". He just happened to have a nervous breakdown on the sidewalk and stripped himself of his clothes, while yelling "I'm not him, I'm not the shooter." He wasn't arrested but he and his mother who live across from me took a ride in the ambulance to hopefully get him some medical help. Poor guy.

Feels strange here today. Lots of people gathering and speaking in hushed voices while looking at everyone who comes near with suspicious glances. People in stores ring you up and tell you to "stay safe out there" as you leave. People are hanging out talking about when the "police are going to catch that fucker." It's like this October I've been transported into a fucking horror movie. It's like that first thirty minutes of Scream were people are like "Yeah well I heard they found her liver in the mailbox."

It warmed up today, which makes me think he won't come out again until the weather cools and he can put on his mask. So now I'm looking at the weather channel to see when the temp will drop. Hopefully he's caught by then.

My imagination goes nuts in situations like this.

[Ryan]

My friend and her husband used to live in a building right there as well. They knew never to go near the beach after a point, but that's usually as bad as it got beside the occasional junk you'd see anywhere. I'm not sure Orlando's an upgrade for various reasons. Mostly weather and turtles digging up your yard.

[Ryan]

On 10/3/2018 at 4:24 PM, Tabe said:

Holy crap, that's awful.  Hopefully the guy is caught in a hurry and your family stays safe.

Growing up, I knew two murderers.  Both came to my house (sort of).  One was good friends with a good friend of mine.  My friend got a ride to my house from the other guy one time and the guy stayed in his car while I talked to my friend.  The guy was later part of a duo that kidnapped, robbed, and murdered a middle aged couple.  Was a big, big story in Pontiac for awhile.  He was convicted and is still in jail, I think.  The other guy was actually a friend of mine and come over many, many times.  He was one of a pair of twins and I was very good friends with the other twin.  He eventually killed a guy and did some time.

 

It always happens in threes. What have you been doing in overalls in a mask with a shovel every night?

[Ryan]

It goes without saying, but since I mostly kid around I'll make it clear and say stay as safe as you reasonably can, @jaedmc. There's not much else one can do.

[Tabe]

21 hours ago, Ryan said:

It always happens in threes. What have you been doing in overalls in a mask with a shovel every night?

Nighttime post hole digging, what else? 

[Eivion]

Wow, sorry to hear about this, jae. Have there been any updates on the case? Hope you and your family are staying safe.

This does remind that I met both a murderer and his eventual victim in grade school. Both were Asian. Not sure about the why of it though I know multiple people were involved. The murderer was someone I had in one of my classes for semester or two during I want to say middle. Can't remember about what, but I did used to talk him and was on semi-friendly terms with him. The victim was in a high school class I had to eventually drop out of. It was very weird learning later that semester that he was killed and one of the people who had killed him. It wasn't a situation you could have really seen coming from from the points I had met both guys at.

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, Eivion said:

Have there been any updates on the case? 

The press has given him a proper sensationalist nickname, The Rogers Park Killer.

He still remains at large and there is an $18K reward for information leading to his arrest.

[Pete]

So weird. My bubbe lived in West Rogers Park right off Devon... I always loved visiting her, and it's hard wrapping my brain around the idea of something like this happening there.

Then again, she also hired a contractor by the name of John Wayne Gacy to do some work at the drugstore she owned across from Cabrini Green, so...

[Control]

I taught a student last term who was arrested for murder about three weeks into class. That was weird.

[Zimbra]

When I was a senior in high school my friends threw a party in an especially shitty motel.  We were in front of our room smoking and struck up a conversation with the dudes from the next room who were doing the same.  My drunk mess of a friend invited them in to come have a beer and they declined, saying they had to get on the road early.  I saw them on the front page of the paper two days later; it turns out they had committed a number of murders in the KC area and were in the process of fleeing to Texas.

I was also a kid during the tail end of when BTK was active and as a result was sure I was going to get murdered every time I went in the basement.

[Contentious C]

Look on the bright side: it beats waking up every morning and thinking to yourself, "Hey, I don't recall being woken up by a gunshot a few blocks away at any point last night" (aka, how I spent 2012-2015 in Baltimore).  OK fine, 2016 and 2017, too.

Other upsides to this happening in Not-Baltimore - the police who see that photo will actually look for someone, rather than shrug and say, "Eh, he's wearing the Baltimore Uniform, could be anybody" and go back to their usual job of ignoring people who run red lights.

 

[jaedmc]

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

The press has given him a proper sensationalist nickname, The Rogers Park Killer.

He still remains at large and there is an $18K reward for information leading to his arrest.

No real updates. We're kind of continuing on with our life. Last week I took my son to watch the amateur boxing matches at the park where the second man was killed. We walked there together. Everyone's head was on a swivel. Cops were everywhere and continue to be everywhere. 

It made me wonder about other murders that have happened in the city and whether any other neighborhoods get this kind of attention. A week or so before this started a young man was caught in the cross fire of a shoot out and died. We didn't get 40 detectives working on that. Wards on the southside don't get his kind of attention.

I'm not sure what it is. Rogers Park is incredibly diverse, and we have tons of refugees and immigrants who live this way from allllll over. My son goes to a school that has like 46 different languages spoken. So I pause before thinking it's simply racial. Gang violence gets treated differently than some guy walking around shooting people, I guess, and I don't know all the particulars as to why.

Not sure what we're doing for Halloween. Seems like a shit time to wander around in costumes at night. Might hit up Evanston for that rich folk candy this year.

[Michael Sweetser]

1 hour ago, jaedmc said:

Not sure what we're doing for Halloween. Seems like a shit time to wander around in costumes at night. Might hit up Evanston for that rich folk candy this year.

 

[Spritenaut 32]

3 hours ago, Zimbra said:

When I was a senior in high school my friends threw a party in an especially shitty motel.  We were in front of our room smoking and struck up a conversation with the dudes from the next room who were doing the same.  My drunk mess of a friend invited them in to come have a beer and they declined, saying they had to get on the road early.  I saw them on the front page of the paper two days later; it turns out they had committed a number of murders in the KC area and were in the process of fleeing to Texas.

I was also a kid during the tail end of when BTK was active and as a result was sure I was going to get murdered every time I went in the basement.

I must be unlucky.  I've known (in passing) 3 murderers and seen one dead body.

My first job out of college was with KPMG Peat Marwick, a large accounting firm.  One day, a project supervisor (who I knew but wasn't in charge of the department I worked in) walked in and mentioned that his wife had left him and moved away.  What he meant to say was that he killed her with a shotgun and hid the body.  He was arrested a few hours later.

When I lived in Pittsburgh 20+ yeas ago, someone in my building was gunned down out front of a grocery store on our block.  I barely knew the person and was at work when the incident took place.  Still, it was one of the things that made my wife want to move to a smaller town.

My college-age nephew had his first date with a murderer.  He went to a middle school dance with a girl who was arrested for murder a couple years later.  The girl and a friend of hers went out to the woods with another "friend" and stabbed the third girl to death and hid the body.  Apparently, it was just some sort of teenage mean girl squabble.

Not murder, but a few years ago, a neighbor and I went up to complain to my next door neighbor that his dog was out in the rain again.  Dude had a habit of neglecting his dog and leaving him out in terrible weather unattended, and we were tired of it.  First neighbor goes to ring the front doorbell while I walk over to unchain the dog and get him moved to the porch out of the rain.  Next thing I know, neighbor #1 is screaming.  The homeowner didn't answer the door but if you looked in the window, you could clearly see the homeowner slumped on the floor with a vacant expression on his face.  We broke into the house but he was pretty obviously dead when we got to him.  OD'ed.  Kinda shocking because we lived in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood and had no idea anyone was using drugs in the neighborhood.  While we were on the phone with 911, the guy's teenage daughter came home and walked in the front door, and I started wishing we had pulled the needle out of his arm.  Watching the girl break down as she realized what had happened was one of the lower points of my life.