Have you ever admired any real life killers, criminals or thieves?

Bad Santa

Apart from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid I mean.

Half joking there as while we all watched that movie and most of us would sort have looked up to these men while watching the film, I don't think anyone would genuinely support the actions of Robert LeRoy Parker, Harry Longabaugh and the Wild Bunch and Hole in the Wall gangs. Or perhaps you do as some have argued that they only killed those that either deserved it or had it coming to them.

Would seem also that The Krays have never been short of admiration, which I find rather bizarre considering they were both psychopaths that carried out and were responsible for some heinous crimes. Have even heard some say they were resonsible for keeping order in the East End at one point and instilled ethics and rules in the areas the controlled. More out of fear than any sense of respect I'm thinking but maybe I'm wrong.

Ned Kelly is another. A cold blooded killer to many and yet a folk hero to others. Boyd Gang also became folk heros. John Dillinger was even known as "Gentleman Johnnie" and of course our own Martin Cahill also seemed to be one Irish criminal that for whatever reason, had his admirers despite him being yet another ruthless psychopath. Masterminds (a Canadian TV show) even devoted one show to him centering on the art heist.

To answer my own question, yes there are, as I have always been fascinated with non-violent jewel thiefs. While perhaps not respecting all they have done and / or all their actions, there are some that I do have some admiration for. Bill Mason would be one. The guy stole over $35m worth of jewellery mainly targeting celebrities. He once stole Johnny Weissmuller Gold Olympic Medal but felt so guilty, he posted it back to him. Jack MacLean would be another. He was a master cat burglar in the 70's whole stole over $150m worth of jewels and would leave sarcastic notes behind like when he robbed one mansion beside a police chief's house, he left a note on his car that read: “Glad to see you’re doing your job”.

Frank Abagnale would be another. That was the guy the film Catch Me If You Can was based on.

So, do you have any admiration (even if reluctantly) for any killers, thieves or criminals, living or past? And if so, why so.

danniemcq

Aaron Swartz

celticcrash

Robin Hood and his band of merry men.

The King of Moo

Red.

Shankill Butchers.







Seriously though, the thread title made me think of D.D. Cooper instantly...if he even existed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Db_cooper

harry Bailey esq

great thread. id have to go with Ned Kelly.

BBDBB

Frank Abagnale

the sheer balls it took him to perform his deceptions right in front of people and the simple psychology he used to con them. He is still a very credible and charming man when public speaking today

shanec1928

fritzil :cool:

admiralofthefleet

im sure the ex staff of o connors jewellers in harolds cross think Martin Cahill is a hero:rolleyes:. he was low life scum

shanec1928

stankratz wrote: »

Shankill Butchers.







Seriously though, the thread title made me think of D.D. Cooper instantly...if he even existed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Db_cooper

i take it you never seen prison break then..

Duvetdays

DB Cooper, who was he, did he live, did he die on impact from his jump. So many questions that I doubt will ever be answered but what a fascinating thief he was!

castletownman

I wouldn't go as far to say that I've had genuine admiration for real life killers, criminals or thieves, but I find it thoroughly fascinating reading up their wikipedia pages. Makes for some interesting, if not creepy, reading finding out what goes through someone's mind.

Oscorp

I'm not particularly patriotic, but the men and women of the 1916 rising and the War of Independence, along with the numerous failed and slightly less notable attempts at rebellion earlier in our history, would have to be admired.

slim223

Sean Fitzpatrick

GiftofGab

Have to admit Frank Abigale was inspirational. The film doesn't portray what a great conman this guy was. He was so young too. From being airline pilot, to a doctor, to a college professor to an attorney. The book is a great read. He admits that fraud is alot easier in today's age with access to the internet.

I'd never admire a murderer. Read the book the Ice Man. The story about Richard Kuklinski the hitman for the mafia. A chilling read.

michael999999

Fianna fail.

SureYWouldntYa

Sean Quinn

SEPT 23 1989

Howard Marks

Wereghost

I can't relate to the admiration given to the likes of Jesse James or Ned Kelly. However, many of history's more progressive political figures have, directly or indirectly, been responsible for the deaths of others, even if it may have constituted the lesser of two evils. Pretty much every US President who was worth his salt would qualify (as would one or two who weren't).

Biggins

In terms of criminals:

Nelson Mandela
Aung San Suu Kyi
Nathan Hale (America's first spy)
Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde (if you need to ask who they are or have to Google them - you not deserve your full membership Nerd card! LOL )

solas111

A definite NO.

Used to think that some of that stuff was somehow justified in some cases but not anymore. Thieving is thieving; crime is crime and is never right in my opinion. Of course, life is not black and white and the uncertainty comes when you enter the various shades of grey.

These guys can look like heroes when they’re stealing from somebody else or destroying the lives of some strangers. Are they still so admirable when it’s your stuff they’re stealing or your life they’re wrecking? Turn them in and lock them up.

wendell borton

Bonnie Parker of bonnie and clyde fame, although it's probably got to do with faye dunaway playing her.

McChubbin

Martin Cahill.

GiftofGab

solas111 wrote: »

A definite NO.

Used to think that some of that stuff was somehow justified in some cases but not anymore. Thieving is thieving; crime is crime and is never right in my opinion. Of course, life is not black and white and the uncertainty comes when you enter the various shades of grey.

These guys can look like heroes when they’re stealing from somebody else or destroying the lives of some strangers. Are they still so admirable when it’s your stuff they’re stealing or your life they’re wrecking? Turn them in and lock them up.

Not admiring a petty theft here. We're admiring the sheer balls, intelligence and hard work put into these jobs. There are some aspects of these jobs there's a part of you that sits back and says "fair play to him, that was a difficult thing to accomplish".

Frank Abigale put in alot of work into his jobs. He could stand up in front of a whole uni class and give a lecture on physiology. Which was all self educated. He worked in a hospital for 9 months as a doctors consultant and got away with it. Where he went home and studied medicine every night. He spent nearly a year as an airline pilot. He worked side by side with other pilots and had indepth conversations about planes with these pilots. He even got a fellow pilot to vouch for him when the FBI thought he was a fraud. Is there nothing there that you find ballsy or inspirational??

BillyMitchel

Nah not really but Mark Brandon "chopper" Reed is loved and adored through out the world, I've read some of his books and he is a stone cold killer but you just can't help but laugh along at some of the stuff he comes up with.

McDermotX

Bad Santa wrote: »

........

Would seem also that The Krays have never been short of admiration, which I find rather bizarre considering they were both psychopaths that carried out and were responsible for some heinous crimes. Have even heard some say they were resonsible for keeping order in the East End at one point and instilled ethics and rules in the areas the controlled. More out of fear than any sense of respect I'm thinking but maybe I'm wrong.

"Cockney is an area in London where criminals live.The police don’t arrest them because, and they’re very strict about this, because they only slaughter their own. And they have funerals with horses and floral tributes that say things like 'Mum' and 'Stab'."

Bad Santa

One I forgot was Henri Charrière.

I admire him if his story is true and if not, well then I admire him twice as much.

If you haven't read his book, do.

DEFTLEFTHAND

wendell borton wrote: »

Bonnie Parker of bonnie and clyde fame, although it's probably got to do with faye dunaway playing her.

Yeah that movie certainly glorified them.

Allyall

No.

But loads did/do. Dev.

Possibly Victor Lustig

tommyombomb

Pablo Escobar, just because if your going to do something, be the biggest and best

Ruudi_Mentari

Maybe someone who justifiably dealt with scum, that's about it. Sometimes the punishment doesn't fit the act but they were up to no good, the seed was sown... behead that ali baba for thievin the loaf!! potential murderer

Anyone who deserved to die, you know who they were!!

shanec1928

shanec1928 wrote: »

i take it you never seen prison break then..

Yes I've seen that fictional television drama, it was pretty cool the way they incorporated the legend of D.B. into the show, must actually get around to watching the last season of it.

ShooterSF

Slightly different but I was a huuuuggggeee fan of Chris Benoit the rassler. I had tshirts, posters, dvds and even shed a tear when the company finally put the title belt on him at wrestlemania 20 and I still have the special edition DVD of it. Nothing like your idol turnng into a murderer to **** up your shoite.

Scruffles

castletownman wrote: »

I wouldn't go as far to say that I've had genuine admiration for real life killers, criminals or thieves, but I find it thoroughly fascinating reading up their wikipedia pages. Makes for some interesting, if not creepy, reading finding out what goes through someone's mind.

same here.

woud never admire someone for their pyschopathy traits,such as how well they manipulated and took advantage of someone; personaly find their targeting of vulnerable/weak people or children; sickening to the core,the only way to actualy admire any traits of theirs woud be to drop all morals and sense of decency which woud never be able to do in the same way pyschopaths cannot turn on morals and a sense of decency.

they are very interesting to read about what they were like growing up and how it coud have affected them,why they do things,their reasoning behind things.
these are ones that always find interesting-
albert fish- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish
john straffen- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Straffen
richard chase- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Chase


had been the long term target of a pyschopath online and left with two severe permenent mental illnesses as a result,its a good job for that rotten piss streak it was over the computer.
maybe people who admire pyschopaths shoud write to ones on death row through the prison pen pal services,but just remember the group woud be dealing with,they will say anything if it benefits them.

DazMarz

Henry Hill. (1943-2012)

The original "Goodfella". He might not have been the most admirable of blokes, but he had one helluva story. His two books (Wiseguy and Gangsters and Goodfellas) are enthralling reads. And of course, the former spawned one of the greatest gangster films of all time, Goodfellas.

One aspect of him and his criminal entrepreneurship that was not in the film was that he served in the United States Army. One of his big things there that made him a small fortune was when he saw how much wastage there was in the kitchens of the army base; they always over-ordered and perfectly good joints of meat or bags of vegetables would not be used and would be thrown out once they had gone off. Hill started 'liberating' said foodstuffs (in addition to packets of ketchup and sauces and other more non-perishable foods) and selling them back home when he was on weekend leave. This may have helped result in his expulsion from the Army.

As he was not pure-blooded Italian (his father was Irish-American), he could never be a "made-man" in La Cosa Nostra, but he was unique in that he moved with the upper echelons of said organisation, despite not being an official "member".

His well-documented downfall was of course his desire to make more money and his ventures into the narcotics trade, more specifically cocaine. He also broke the cardinal rule of "Never get high off your own supply" and was soon a coke-fiend. He was busted by the FBI in 1980 and given a choice between 30-to-life in Federal Prison or turn state's witness against his mafia cronies, he chose the latter.

He testified and entered Witness Protection, and as the film said, "lived the rest of my life like a schnook".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO_XnBm4PfE

Real Life

I wouldnt really say admired but i find the stories of many serial killers fascinating, in particular Ted Bundy and Richard Kuklinski.

brimal

Colton Harris-Moore aka The Barefoot Bandit

Cienciano

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

im sure the ex staff of o connors jewellers in harolds cross think Martin Cahill is a hero:rolleyes:. he was low life scum

I agree, he was a complete scumbag and a prick. Ordinary Decent Criminal me hole.

Matt_Trakker

Che
Michael Collins
Jules Bonnot
Wolftone
Napoleon Bonapart
Al Capone
Wild Bill Bickok
Jesse James
and even though he's not real....
Tyler Durden

Mr Benevolent

I've never understood why so many people are interested in murderers and psychopaths.

Rasheed

Confab wrote: »

I've never understood why so many people are interested in murderers and psychopaths.

Really? I find them fascinating. A morbid curiosity, I suppose. I could read about them all day. Finding out what made them tick, what reason had they, if any.

FunGoose

Rasheed wrote: »

Really? I find them fascinating. A morbid curiosity, I suppose. I could read about them all day. Finding out what made them tick, what reason had they, if any.

I'm the same. Curious and slightly fascinated but I don't admire or respect the murderers, serial killers etc. that I'm always reading books about.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should. 'The Night Stalker - Richard Ramirez' (by Philip Carlo). It's brilliant the way it looks into his very early years, his crimes and his killing spree, right up to his trial and a little after.

The evil, crazy things he has done are unreal. What is really hard to understand is the amount of women that are mad for him since he's been caught. Many of them fantasize about being one of his victims, writing to him and even visiting him -he even got a wife out of it! (Some of these emails from 'fans' are in the back of the later edition of the book). He even said himself that women weren't interested in him at all until he became 'The LA Night Stalker'.

Don't even read the wiki page or whatever, just go straight for the book, brilliantly written.

Real Life

Rasheed wrote: »

Really? I find them fascinating. A morbid curiosity, I suppose. I could read about them all day. Finding out what made them tick, what reason had they, if any.

i feel the same way, i read about them all the time, i find it fascinating to think about how their minds worked. What i find most fascinating is when i come across the ones that nobody ever expected because they seemed so nice but really were living a double life.
As ive mentioned already Ted Bundy and Richard Kuklinski are good examples

AnarchistKen

John Haas - Liverpudlian heroin baron back in the day.

Got locked up for 18 years, read law books and found out about a thing called a Royal Pardon.

11 months in he planted a gun on another fellow inmate, told officials it was there. Bing bang boom got released for "saving" a prison officers life.

Total scumbag though but clever all the same.

ejmaztec

The Healy-Rae Hole in the head gang have their admirers.

checkyabadself

Interested, concerned, intrigued yes. Admired no, although i suppose anyone who reads the Sunday world or similar newspaper might . I can never understand how they sell newspapers featuring front page stories that are irrelevant to 99% of the population in place of national/global interest stories.

orestes

Confab wrote: »

I've never understood why so many people are interested in murderers and psychopaths.

Morbid fascination with "evil" people is pretty much a part of human nature I think, just look at the size of true crime, history or biography sections of any bookshop. I read somewhere a while ago that having a picture of Hitler on the cover increases the sales of a book by two or three times over. And that's before the academic interest of learning about the psychology/sociological issues involved. There's a lot to be learned from them if they're studied, and a lot of regular people just like staring into the abyss.

Rasheed

FunGoose wrote: »

I'm the same. Curious and slightly fascinated but I don't admire or respect the murderers, serial killers etc. that I'm always reading books about.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should. 'The Night Stalker - Richard Ramirez' (by Philip Carlo). It's brilliant the way it looks into his very early years, his crimes and his killing spree, right up to his trial and a little after.

The evil, crazy things he has done are unreal. What is really hard to understand is the amount of women that are mad for him since he's been caught. Many of them fantasize about being one of his victims, writing to him and even visiting him -he even got a wife out of it! (Some of these emails from 'fans' are in the back of the later edition of the book). He even said himself that women weren't interested in him at all until he became 'The LA Night Stalker'.

Don't even read the wiki page or whatever, just go straight for the book, brilliantly written.

Oh I must get that book, thank you! I only ever saw a documentary on him. Very interesting.

I've often wondered what drives those women to become attracted to such criminals. Even on Death Row, the more infamous you are, the more female attention you'll get. It's quite fascinating too really.

Rasheed

Real Life wrote: »

i feel the same way, i read about them all the time, i find it fascinating to think about how their minds worked. What i find most fascinating is when i come across the ones that nobody ever expected because they seemed so nice but really were living a double life.
As ive mentioned already Ted Bundy and Richard Kuklinski are good examples

I've only recently heard about Richard Kuklinski.

I also find (don't laugh!) Criminal Minds very interesting. I know it's only a programme, but it got me interested in profiling and that science. Maybe I'm the weird one for reading about such evil people, but it's addictive.

RATM

tommyombomb wrote: »

Pablo Escobar, just because if your going to do something, be the biggest and best

This.

The scale of what Pablo Escobar did was truly staggering. But he was clever with his profits from crime too- he donated a lot to local schools and hospitals.This meant that he got the locals on his side and they would never rat him out.

Up until his death he had over 3,000 men dedicated to hunting him down.He evaded them for several years, that feat alone is deserving of attention.

premierstone

Bobby Sands.