MetaChat - Oh, man... My neighbor, the Mummy-Trunk Murderer? Who knew?

MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.

31 July 2009

Oh, man... My neighbor, the Mummy-Trunk Murderer? Who knew? I saw and talked to this guy nearly every single day, for years and years. My husband and I lived one house away from the building that houses the grocery/deli where he worked, and we were in there pretty much daily for seven years. We were casual friends with everyone working there, including him, and he seemed completely (actually, surprisingly - considering that this was the French Quarter) normal. →[More:]

Dang.

We also lived exactly one house away (on our other side) from the building where the murder happened, though I doubt he was living there when we were still there. Maybe he was, but I think I probably would have been aware of that.

Anyway, I never spent any quality time with this guy, but I have to say, if you've ever felt pretty sure you would probably get an unspecified but strong "warning vibe" or creepy feeling from casually being around anyone capable of doing something like this... I'm here to warn you that you really may not. At all. Even if you are more than normally sensitive to emotional undercurrents, etc.

I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong when you get that feeling, but I'm definitely saying you may not always get that feeling when you should. o_0

post by: taz at: 10:00 | 16 comments

Omg! That's scary.

posted by jonathanstrange 31 July | 10:03

if you've ever felt pretty sure you would probably get an unspecified but strong "warning vibe" or creepy feeling from casually being around anyone capable of doing something like this... I'm here to warn you that you really may not.

Quoted for truth.

posted by Miko 31 July | 10:14

Okay, I'm confused. Maybe I missed something in the article, but in what way was she mummified? It sounds like she was just "dearticulated" and stuffed in a trunk. And didn't that smell terrible?

posted by amro 31 July | 10:29

This guy sounds like a textbook psychopath, and they can have very like-able, even charming personalities, but only on the surface. It's a survival mechanism that allows them to pass for "normal" in a social world that's completely alien to them. It's also what makes some of them so very dangerous. (I just finished reading the book Columbine, which touches on some of this. It's good, but very depressing.)

posted by Atom Eyes 31 July | 10:56

Whoah, freaky. My neighbors will probably never amount to more than a chronic masturbator and a scab-picking misfit, but I'll be on the lookout now.

posted by Hugh Janus 31 July | 10:58

Even before the hookers/police stuff of the last few years, I always thought my upstairs neighbour was a creep. Anyone who puts 'anonymous' notes on the cars of 80-odd-year-old neighbours who've lived in the street since it was built telling them not to park outside their homes is a piece of shit.

Yet, it's said, you can never tell. Ted Bundy was handsome, charming, personable.

posted by essexjan 31 July | 11:23

The jurors got a life time exemption from jury duty! The judge can do that?!

(also, I have never been called for jury duty. I am registered to vote...why no for me?)

posted by mullacc 31 July | 11:46

mullacc: not every jurisdiction does it by registered voters; some pull from DMV lists, supplemented by tax rolls and voter registration. Most places restrict summonses for jury duty to once every 3-4 years. But I think the algorithms are all screwed up. I was called once, twenty years ago, and never since, but my aunt (who exercises a disability exemption--she has mental capacity issues) gets a summons every other year. She doesn't have a driver's license or pay property tax, but I do both.

posted by crush-onastick 31 July | 11:58

crush-onastick: Huh! Thanks for the info...I just looked up the jury selection process in Phoenix, and apparently they use voter registration rolls and DMV records. I'm on both now, but I have gone on and off a couple times over the last five years as I've moved around.

I'd like to believe they're saving me for a really interesting case.

posted by mullacc 31 July | 12:04

Don't trust anyone who doesn't act suspicious.

The two times I was called for jury duty, I was headed home by 11 am for having a college degree.

posted by Ardiril 31 July | 12:23

Freaky story taz, but glad to see you around here again.

posted by msali 31 July | 12:40

My neighbors will probably never amount to more than a chronic masturbator and a scab-picking misfit, but I'll be on the lookout now.

Since when did you move into my apartment building???

posted by deadcowdan 31 July | 13:32

Well, the guy down the block who cut up his wife and distributed the pieces in a park ... he was always a little weird. But I think that's the case when you have a psychotic-type disorder versus just being a sociopath.

In the year before he did this, he wanted my dad to help him prepare a lawsuit incorporating himself as God.

posted by stilicho 31 July | 13:53

Yet, it's said, you can never tell. Ted Bundy was handsome, charming, personable.

My boyfriend grew up with Ted Bundy's younger (half-)brother; they all went to the same high school. Apparently he was a perfectly sweet, nice kid, who wound up bearing much of the the social and personal stigma of his brother's crimes -- whenever he dated a girl, her parents would always force them to break up, on the theory that Ted Bundy seemed like a nice guy, too.

posted by scody 31 July | 14:36

Yikes, taz. And stilicho.

Also, The Sociopath Next Door. "Rarely do sociopaths look like a Ferenge bartender of Charles Manson. They look like you & me."

posted by chewatadistance 31 July | 15:50

Jeez, taz, that's really creepy.

When she entered the courtroom Monday, Cela said Morgan greeted her with both a smile and a thumbs-up.

Yeah, that's pretty psychopathic.

posted by Specklet 01 August | 12:39

← Photo Friday: A Room with a View || I Shot a Kid in Kindergarten Just to Watch Him Cry →

HOME || REGISTER || LOGIN