Two degrees of Separation Between Me and a Serial Killer

[Science Friction]

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation, the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction,from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.

 

I can name that tune in just two steps. Here's mine. I am just TWO degrees of separation from this guy.

 

 

I have a friend(in fact, he was at the house just last night) that lived in the same neighborhood as Gacy and considered him a friend. He said the neighborhood kids liked him. One of my friend Tim's best friends as a kid, in fact, was a boy named David Talsma. Talsma disappeared in December 1977 and was never seen again until his body was discovered in the crawlspace of Gacy's house.

 

My friend Tim recounted to me the day back in the 70's when, as a 15 year-old boy, Gacy invited him to go to the park with him. When Tim asked his mother if he could go she said no. Tim believes that if he had gone with Gacy that he would have been one of 34 victims of the "Killer Clown."

 

 

Does anyone else have connections to anyone famous (or infamous) with just a few degrees of separation?

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Had a best friend named Jack when I was a kid. Jack's family moved into the neighborhood when I was 5, and their previous home had been immediately across the street from the Dahmer family home.

[75center]

In the late 20's my aunt took a train from Lexington to Chicago to visit friends and family. While there she was introduced to Bugsy Siegel who was also visiting the friends. She said he was very polite but no one called him Bugsy. When they went out to the nightclubs with him they were treated like royalty.

[SnottieDrippen]

Took lessons At The Yard with Chris Hook, who was a former teammate of Barry Bonds.

 

I chat with Roger Harden frequently throughout the winter, who spent some time with the Showtime Lakers, and Magic Johnson, who played on the Dream Team with the other MJ.

[rjs4470]

He's probably not well known here, but I used to manage a sporting goods store in South Philly, and regularly talked with and got merchandise for Philadelphia mob boss, Joey "Skinny" Merlino. I guess that would be just one degree of separation.

 

Joey Merlino - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[BigVMan23]

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the concept of six degrees of separation, the theory that everyone and everything is six or fewer steps away, by way of introduction,from any other person in the world, so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.

 

I can name that tune in just two steps. Here's mine. I am just TWO degrees of separation from this guy.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]56863[/ATTACH]

 

I have a friend(in fact, he was at the house just last night) that lived in the same neighborhood as Gacy and considered him a friend. He said the neighborhood kids liked him. One of my friend Tim's best friends as a kid, in fact, was a boy named David Talsma. Talsma disappeared in December 1977 and was never seen again until his body was discovered in the crawlspace of Gacy's house.

 

My friend Tim recounted to me the day back in the 70's when, as a 15 year-old boy, Gacy invited him to go to the park with him. When Tim asked his mother if he could go she said no. Tim believes that if he had gone with Gacy that he would have been one of 34 victims of the "Killer Clown."

 

 

Does anyone else have connections to anyone famous (or infamous) with just a few degrees of separation?

 

Our federal training institute's old site was located very close to Gacy's neighborhood, and I went through there looking for the address just to satisfy my morbid curiosity. The actual house no longer exists, was torn down many years ago, not actually sure if anything sits on that lot now but I passed by what should have been the address several years ago when up for a class. I will be going back up the week after next, might have to try and find it again.

[mcpapa]

The younger of the two Boston Marathon bombers attended high school with my daughter-in-law's sister (who was living with my son and DIL) in Boston. He was found a couple of blocks from their apartment.

[Science Friction]

Here's another two degrees of separation for me. My dad, as a teenager, was a desk clerk and night auditor for a small motel in downtown Corbin. Dad would regularly call over to the motel across town in North Corbin to see if they had any vacancies. The owner of the motel was, of course, Harland Sanders, Corbin's most famous resident. Sanders moved to Corbin in 1930. His motel and restaurant was destroyed by fire in November 1939 but the Colonel rebuilt the motel , along with 140 seat restaurant in 1940. He left his mistress, Claudia Ledington-Price, as manager of the motel and restaurant. Occasionally, however, dad would have the opportunity to talk with Sanders when he would call the motel.

 

So, that's my finger lickin' good two degrees of separation story.

 

[Jumper_Dad]

Orville Lynn Majors lived a few houses from me when he was arrested. We took son trick or treating to the house at least once, he lived with parents.

 

He used to walk within 20 feet of my house when he walked to work at a local florist, after he lost his job as a nurse and before he was arrested.

 

Convicted of 6 murders...suspected in 130.

[Science Friction]

I hate to keep connecting myself to serial killers but here's another. When I was just a little boy of three or four, daddy would take me over to the Wilbur hotel in Corbin. It was commonplace for folks to hangout there back in the sixties. There was a black man(yes , there was actually a black man in Corbin in the sixties) who was the doorman at the hotel. He would often sit outside the hotel waving and chatting with folks as they passed by. Sy became my buddy. I would often asked daddy to take me to the Wilbur so that I could see Sy. He was so friendly and I loved him to death.

 

My buddy Sy was killed in 1971 by Donald "Angel of Death" Harvey when he was forced to use a faulty oxygen tank. Harvey was working as an orderly at London's Marymount Hospital at the time. He was later convicted of killing thirty-six people but claims to have killed 87. Harvey received twenty-eight consecutive life sentences. His first chance for parole is in 2043, at which time he would be 91.

 

Here's a short bio on the "sicko" nurse and his crimes:

 

Dating as far back as the age of eighteen, Donald Harvey worked in and around the medical profession, beginning his career as an orderly at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky. It was at this time that marijuana became a very important part of his life. He used the drug into his forties, when he stopped due to his frequent heart palpitations. He later confessed that during the ten-month period he worked at this hospital, he killed at least a dozen patients. Harvey is insistent that he killed purely out of a sense of empathy for the sufferings of those who were terminally ill. He has also admitted that many of the killings he committed were due to anger at the victim. Harvey is notable for having kept his crimes from coming to light for over 17 years. The true extent of his crimes may never be known since so many were undetected for so long. Harvey is also notable for having used numerous methods to kill, such as arsenic; cyanide; insulin; suffocation; miscellaneous poisons; morphine; turning off ventilators; administration of fluid tainted with hepatitis B and/or HIV (which resulted in a hepatitis infection, but no HIV infection, and illness rather than death); insertion of a coat hanger into a catheter, causing an abdominal puncture and subsequent peritonitis. Cyanide and arsenic were his favorite methods, with Harvey administering them via food, injection, or IV. The majority of Harvey's crimes took place at the Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, the Cincinnati V.A. Medical Hospital, and Cincinnati's Drake Memorial Hospital.

 

Harvey did not limit his victims to helpless hospital patients. When he suspected his lover and roommate Carl Hoeweler of infidelity, he poisoned Hoeweler's food with arsenic so he would be too ill to leave their apartment. He poisoned two of his neighbors—sickening one, Diane Alexander, by putting hepatitis serum in her drink and killing the other, Helen Metzger, by putting arsenic in her pie. He also killed Hoeweler's father Henry with arsenic.

[MentschTrachtGottLacht]

I was friends with Tony Law and he "murdered" a million dudes in the gas station parking lot next to Mr K's....does that count?

[Clyde]

I can go one degree to a serial rapist.

[hoops5]

Jeffrey Dahmer:

He was dismembering bodies while living with his grandmother in West Allis, WI while I co-oping at Siemens-Allis in West Allis.

Later he moved downtown Milwaukee where the body count rapidly increased. During my senior year in college I was living in a house just 10 blocks from Dahmer's house where they eventually made the most gruesome discovery.

[Science Friction]

I can go one degree to a serial rapist.

 

Damn, you know Cosby?

[Godot]

When I was teaching in Monroe County I had Charles Manson's niece and nephew in class.