"I Grew Up With A Murderer": This Guy Is Opening Up About What It Was Like Sharing His Childhood With A Convicted Killer
In r/AMA (short for Ask Me Anything), Redditors invite people to ask them literally anything they want to about some unusual situations and life experiences. Recently, a guy who grew up with a murderer hosted his own AMA, and the questions and his responses were truly chilling.
He wrote, "I was raised in the same household as my cousin ever since he was 7 and I was 4. Currently, we're 30 and 27, respectively (both males). He committed a murder in 2017. For the sake of respecting the privacy of the victim, his family, and my family, I won't mention any names or where in the United States this took place. Other than that, please ask away."
Here are some of the most interesting questions and answers:
1.Q: I understand if you don’t want to answer this one in case it breaches the privacy of his victim, but I’m curious about the circumstances of the murder. What happened and why?
A: I wish I could give you the absolute truth with zero risk of inconsistencies or falsehoods, but I can't because my cousin has always been the type to lie to get out of trouble. He is not a reliable narrator. There was compelling evidence at the crime scene (the victim's home), and I know the character of both my cousin and the victim enough to believe what investigators concluded about the murder. But this isn't the same as having seen it myself. I'll state the circumstances as we know them:
The victim is a distant friend of the family. We weren't close, but everyone knew him as a genuinely good guy. He'd loaned my cousin hundreds of dollars in the months leading up to the murder while he got back on his feet.
The first big discrepancy between my cousin's story and the evidence is why he went to the victim's house that night. My cousin claims he went to pay our family friend back a portion of the loan, but that our friend became angry because it wasn't the amount of money he was expecting and began a physical alternation. However, when police found our friend, it was noted that his house looked ransacked. My cousin was found with a lot of jewelry on him at the time he was arrested. A large amount of jewelry you keep at home in a drawer, not in your pockets.
The next big discrepancy lies with the motive. My cousin claims our friend attacked him first and that he fought back without realizing how hard he was punching him. Except our friend was found with blunt force trauma to his head, wounds on his arms consistent with self-defense, and a bloody hammer at the scene. Why would there be a bloody hammer if it was 'just a fist fight'? My cousin has a history of criminal activity that includes assault. Our friend did not. It was agreed upon that my cousin did not 'accidentally' hit our friend too hard, hence the second-degree murder charge instead of manslaughter. Nor does anyone believe that our friend started the altercation.
So the general consensus is that my cousin went to ask our friend for more money, became angry when he was denied it, and robbed him. The only thing my cousin's claimed that I'm willing to believe MIGHT be true is that the murder was not premeditated. But again, unreliable narrator.
2.Q: Why did he kill this person?
A: My cousin claimed that the fight was over a disagreement about how much he owed the victim, who'd loaned him money. He claims the victim got angry, attacked him first, and that he didn't realize how hard he'd hit the victim back until it was too late. Evidence at the scene strongly proved otherwise, so we figure that my cousin was lying in hopes of getting a manslaughter charge instead of second-degree murder. My cousin's stuck to his story as far as I know, but we believe my cousin attacked the victim because he wouldn't loan him more money.
3.Q: Was it a premeditated murder?
A: My cousin was convicted of second-degree murder because, as far as anyone can prove, it was not premeditated. But the victim was someone my cousin had conflict with before, so I think there's a possibility it was premeditated. (Mostly one-sided conflict; I want to point out that the victim did not do anything to deserve what happened to him).
4.Q: How long is he serving?
A: He was sentenced to 99 years originally. He assaulted a prison guard, so his sentence was increased, though I forget by how much.
5.Q: Do you look at him differently?
A: I do see him differently in some ways, but in some ways not. I already saw him as a criminal because this wasn't the first crime he'd committed. It's just the direst one. However, the murder happened to coincide with my second year of college, which was my first time living away from my family, so I finally gained a frame of reference for what is/isn't normal. That's how I had the means to finally realize just how abnormal my cousin is.
6.Q: Were there any traumatic events that happened to him or are all these storylines victimizing killers nonsense?
A: He and I both had an unhealthy childhood and were abused in the same ways. I have siblings, too; they're significantly older than I and they moved out of the house by the time I was a toddler, so I have zero knowledge of what their lives were like growing up (they won't talk about it), but two of my brothers were incarcerated for bank robbery and drug dealing. It raises an interesting question about nature vs. nurture: why did some of my siblings grow up to commit crimes while the rest of us didn't? Were some of us predisposed to do so? Who knows.
Anyhow, I disagree with storylines that use someone's trauma to excuse something horrific they did. But I agree with storylines that acknowledge and assess how that trauma could've played a role in why they did something horrific. It's a part of understanding the human psyche. I hope such assessments can help us understand why some people who fit the criteria for psychopathic lead normal lives while some do not. But that also leads us to complicated questions about psychopathy vs. sociopathy and questions about psychopathic people who did not experience traumatic events.
7.Q: Why do you think he was capable of this? Did he grow up any differently than yourself being from the same households and similar ages?
A: We grew up the same way, abused in the same ways, unfortunately. As for why he turned out the way he did, and I did not, I'm not really sure. I'm diagnosed with a few mental illnesses, but the worst illegal act I've committed is speeding on the highway. I mentioned this in another reply, but it brings up interesting questions about nature vs. nurture and psychopathy/sociopathy.
I am by no means an expert in psychology and am not armchair-diagnosing my cousin; I don't even know what, if anything, my cousin's been diagnosed with. But I will say that when I read about traits common in psychopaths, I see most of them in him.
8.Q: Looking back, were there any signs/behaviors that you thought were strange about him?
A: Absolutely. I didn't always see how strange my cousin was because a) my family, in general, is strange, and b) I was very sheltered until age 19, so I had no frame of reference for what is/isn't normal up until then. But in retrospect, my cousin was a troublemaker since our childhood and he was calculating about it too. Pulled dangerous 'pranks' that physically harmed people, started committing crimes as a teen, in and out of juvie, knew how to be charming when it suited him, and in retrospect, his morbid curiosity about death was unhealthy even by "true crime fan" standards.
9.Q: You mentioned in another comment that he was a fan of dangerous "pranks" when younger. Was he kind to you growing up, or were you the victim of many pranks? If he was kind, what sort of things did you enjoy doing together when you were younger?
A: I wasn't a primary target of his "pranks," normally, they were classmates or kids in our neighborhood. But I had my fair share of them. I guess I should stop calling them pranks because while that's what he claimed they were, that's a tame word for shooting fireworks at me, slipping bleach in my drinks, and hiding knives under my bedsheets, to name three of the "pranks."
He was kind to me ~60-70% of the time, but in retrospect, it was very superficial kindness that didn't come across as genuine once I got old enough to notice that sort of stuff. When we played together, it was usually video games, playing catch, riding dirt bikes, tag, coloring. Typical stuff. I guess the thing I enjoyed doing most with him was video games though.
10.Q: How did it impact and change the lives of you and your folks, and how do you feel about it?
A: It motivated some of my family to take a look at ourselves critically (our feelings, history, dynamics, way of living, etc), and that's how we came to accept how unhealthy our household was. None of us used the environment to excuse what my cousin did, but we did accept that it played a role in who he became. One doesn't come out of an abusive household normal.
My parents, albeit with some stubbornness, finally realized that they were abusive to my cousin and I growing up, and they've since apologized to me, seek psychiatric help, and started changing their ways. It isn't easy or a fast process, but at least they're trying. I'm in therapy too. I still have some family members, such as my aunt and some siblings, who haven't quite accepted the abnormality of our family, but I come from a culture that doesn't believe in mental illness per se. You can't convince everyone, unfortunately.
11.Q: I grew up in a family with extensive military engagement. So, like you, I grew up with murderers. Except they weren’t perceived that way. There are many myths about murderers and soldiers. Few want to admit each one of us is capable of committing a murder. How were you affected because you grew up with someone like that?
A: Your comments about your family's history are thought-provoking. I've rarely stopped to think about the correlation between extensive military engagement and the capability to commit horrible acts (except for in the case of war criminals).
My current diagnosis is OCD, MDD, and C-PTSD. I struggle with anxiety and distrust a lot, but I've been getting better since seeking psychiatric treatment. It's hard to say how much of it is directly my cousin's fault and how much is directly my parents' fault. I'm sure much of it can be chalked up to both.
Something I do believe was directly caused by my cousin is my interest in true crime. My cousin was always oddly invested in death. He'd read about murder cases in the news and tell me about them, engaging me in detailed conversations about how these victims were killed, how they must have felt in their final moments, ponderings about whether or not the culprit had fun doing it. He'd also look up pictures of dead bodies (both from movies and real life) and show me; this was followed by conversations about how the deaths occurred. But for the record, I do not have and have never had the same disturbing level of interest in true crime that he does.
12.Q: Do you go and visit him?
A: I don't. I haven't seen him since he was sentenced, because I don't want to see him again.
13.Q: What is your life like now? Did you go to college? What kind of work are you in? Are you married? Kids? I’m just curious if you were able to break the cycle of toxicity in your life and are able to lead a more "normative" lifestyle.
A: My life is good overall and is steadily getting better, but I certainly have a lot of healing left to do. I still struggle with mental illness, but I don't think anyone's mental health journey ever truly ends. I'm not married and do not have kids because not only am I still solidifying my career, I have a hard time maintaining romantic relationships (I am the proud father of four pets, though!).
I'm in college now because I went back to school for nursing after losing my passion for software engineering for an assortment of reasons. I work as an RN-ASN and am earning my BSN. Breaking the cycle of toxicity in my life/family is an ongoing and difficult challenge, but it's a challenge we're facing head-on.
Can you relate to any of his experiences, or were you surprised by any of his answers to these questions? Share your thoughts in the comments!
