Were you ever friends or somewhat close to someone who had a murdered loved one?

I went to elementary school with a kid whose father owned a bar in town. One night, a guy robbed the place and shot and killed the kid's father.

I went to high school with a guy whose dad was an FBI agent and who was killed in a workplace shooting.

I was friends with a girl in college who was found dead in her car off campus one night. About a year later, her boyfriend was arrested for her murder. I was shocked. I had met the guy and he was quiet and nice, and she never indicated she had any problems with him.

Apparently, she had told him she wanted to break up with him and he went berserk and strangled her.

I went to high school with a girl who, years later was murdered by her husband, something to do with his business losing money and it was about to come out. No kids thank god. Sad, she was a really nice person and had gone back to teach at our old high school where she was a popular teacher.

I was friends with a boy in HS who was murdered in his senior year. He was a handsome smart jock and very nice. There is a novel based on the crime. The killer was a HS teacher in another district, and a nazi cannibal, and unknown to the victim. The murderer ate my friend's junk. It was all too much for all of us. Absolutely horrific and lurid.

By the way the novel is only loosely based on the crime. They didn't know each other and how it happened they met has never been discovered.

Two kids part of our neighborhood group were Jay and Joe. Their mom was a very nice, bubbly woman. Went to all her two son’s sport events, cheered them on. Their dad was a nonentity. Never really talked, was just seen in the background. No personality.

We all went our own ways as we got older, of course. But right after I graduated college, the father murdered the mother. They were separated but then and he was jealous she was dating a guy. He waited for her to come home, stabbed her to death and shoved her body under the bed in her bedroom. One of the sons came home, got ready for bed and went to sleep not knowing his mom’s body was in the next room until the police came after the father confessed.

Not quite murder, OP, but close, as your first paragraph contains such a bounty of Oh, Dears that I felt my soul fleetingly exit my body.

Here’s a photo of the man who killed your lunch table’s mother.

Adjacent: An acquaintance in h.s. (later to come out as gay and become a hair stylist). His half-brother murdered a taxi driver in a graveyard.

Then his sister's drug addict bf gave her AIDS and she died.

Robbers abducted the mother of a friend of mine from a mall parking lot to provide cover during their getaway. Then they murdered her out in the forest. There was some delay before it was all sorted out, and my friend and some other members of his family were initially suspects in her disappearance.

My kindergarten teacher and her former high school sweetheart bludgeoned her husband to death in the basement of her home while her kids were asleep. It happened sometime when I was in late elementary school. She's been in prison for decades now and her children have fought against her appeals.

Former neighbors...

This couple killed the wife's ex-husband and his new wife over a custody battle.

A friend and lover of mine who was murdered on the freeway a few years ago. It was a random attack by some psycho who started blasting at the car he was in on the freeway and shot him to death.

I have an ex co-worker and friend who a few years ago had her husband killed in the same way.