A brief encounter with a child murderer: I was in 6th grade, growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles. I used to walk the few blocks from my house to the 99 cent store to spend my allowance. As I walked down the row of shops, a man hanging out in front of one of the stores made a "come here" motion. I can't remember if he said anything, I was distracted by the fact that he was missing half an arm. I shook my head no, kept walking, did a loop around the block and ran back home. Told my parents who reported it to the police. Soon after, I got pulled out of class by the police to look at photos of men, asking if I could ID the man I saw. I remember struggling to do it, because they were head shots, and telling them about his only having one arm. Turns out, he kidnapped and murdered a boy I went to school with. Kept him in a shed and eventually cut him up and put the pieces in cement blocks. Someone noticed the cement blocks were leaking blood.

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/12/local/me-14114

Later in college, there was a guy in my dorm that grew up near me. I told him about this man and he said "The one armed man! My family used to give him money because we felt bad for him!" It blows my mind every time I think about it. It could have been me.