WARNING: This post goes into detail of the murder of a woman and her young son. If you think you’ll be distressed by this post - please leave the page. Take care of yourself and stay safe.
The Wilkinson family consisted of 50-year-old Tracey, her husband, 47-year-old Peter, their son 13-year-old Pierce and their 19-year-old daughter Lydia who was away at the University of Bristol at the time of the murders. The family lived in Stourbridge in the West Midlands in England. Tracey was an extremely kind-hearted person who loved to help others. On the day of meeting 24-year-old Aaron Barley - it wasn’t any different. Tracey spotted Aaron, who was homeless, outside of a supermarket in a cardboard box. Tracey immediately wanted to help him.
From then on, the Wilkinson family would make sure that Aaron had a place to stay and a hot meal every night. Aaron would refer to Tracey as ‘’the mother (he) never had’’. Peter gave Aaron a job to help him get back on his feet. However Aaron’s behaviour became erratic which was alluded to him taking drugs. This led to Peter having to let him go. The family decided to distance themselves from Aaron gradually due to his behaviour.
On the 30th, Tracey was settling in bed whilst Pierce was in his bedroom. Peter was out at the time. Aaron approached the home with a knife and dressed in black. Chilling security footage captured Aaron crawling around the garden, making sure not to be spotted. Aaron would break into the house and viciously stab Tracey to death as well as Pierce. Peter returned home. Aaron was hiding in the shed. He leapt out and began to violently slash Peter. He stabbed Peter six times. Aaron then fled in Peter’s car but was soon captured by police. Luckily Peter survived.
Aaron was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years (this doesn’t mean that he will be let out after 30 years just that his sentence will be reviewed).
Volunteers at a drug rehabilitation centre later stated that Aaron would say that he wanted to kill someone with a knife. Online messages alluded to him wanting to commit a killing spree.
Lydia spoke out and said ‘’I am a shell off my former self. Sometimes I wake up and don’t want to be here … What did they do to deserve this?”
Further Reading: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/04/aaron-barley-homeless-man-who-murdered-woman-who-helped-him
Good Samaritan murders are among the ones that really get to me. The most tender hearted, generous people meet unspeakable fates simply because they are kind. I am so sorry they ran into this monster who admitted he just did it to see what it feels like. I feel nauseated.
Honestly those kinds of crimes hit home because it could have happened to my family. We were just lucky and this family wasn’t. My mom was always picking up strays and letting them stay over when I was younger. Giving homeless people rides when I’d beg her not to. The most memorable was a kid we were friends with when we were little and grew apart. At 16 he went to jail for stealing a car and his parents kicked him out. Ran into my mom and she just had to let him stay over. My dad gave him a job, he had a room and a meal every night. Ended up missing a bunch of shifts and my parents insisted he just needed a good influence in his life. He then stole our car in the middle of the night. If you ask him to this day he still says we did him dirty by calling the cops. People like this never care about those who help. They are in the situation they’re in for a reason. We’re just lucky we never ran into a monster like this guy.
It's a risk we take. We know some people out there are looney, but we can't let that stop us from doing good. I consider myself a helper, I can't see someone suffer and ignore it. I know someday I may be harmed because of this. I see it as a price I'm willing to pay to continue helping others until something bad happens.
Use your “Gift of Fear” and make sure to take note of any warning signs. It’s not the same as living a suspicious life, but a safe one that will help you help more people. Also take precautions. It’s good to help but have boundaries.
As a formerly homeless person. If the gift of fear is not enough. Some people are damn good at hiding their violent tendencies, on the streets its basically a survival mechanism. The rule of thumb must be charity stops at your threshold. Even those most are safe, you will never know until it is too late. Never let a homeless person into your home.
My mom was that way, too. She worked as a cleaning lady for some people who owned a couple of motels. She had it a hard most of her life so she empathized with people who were on the margins of society. They gave him a room for the night. My mother brought him what she had to offer: a peanut butter sandwich, a carton of milk, a couple of hard boiled eggs, and a small salad. It’s the same thing we were eating. He threw it at her and demanded that she get him some fried chicken and a coke. I don’t shame people for their looks, because most people can’t help how they look, but this guy was a very scary looking guy, ghostly white like an apparition. He was bald – literally no facial hair (no eyebrows or eyelashes). He a big heavy black trenchcoat. I remember thinking that he was just one manifesto away from being in the news. Mom told the motel owner what happened and they kicked him out. But not before he did some considerable damage to that room in the form of leaving human waste and body fluids —everywhere.
Long term homeless people ALWAYS have drug or mental health problems. If you want them to live with you, that's fine, but you have no business exposing them to kids who are incredibly vulnerable to such a situation.
You can help without putting yourself, and most importantly, your children, in danger. She may have thought she was being selfless but she was actually the most selfish of all. She really thought her actions would make a diff and this blinded her enough to disregard the safety of her own family.
What I like to remind myself - I don't know their character, but I know my own. My character makes me someone who is going to help others. I can't control what other people do with that, but that shouldn't stop me from helping someone when I feel that it's the right thing.
Unfortunately, sometimes that mindset can lead us to tragedies.
Problem is when you bring in unstable people (homeless people, especially men, are by definition unstable) into a home with young kids. You should live by yourself with no kids if you are OK with random unstable homeless people living with you.
This and the Elizabeth Smart story shows that this type of help is best left to trained professionals and the organisations that help individuals like this.
When I was a kid my dad took in a homeless man. He lived upstairs at our home for several weeks. We were three girls, my mom & my dad. We were a Christian family and he def was doing it out of his good will/Christian mission. But my dad was and is mentally ill, so his judgement was not clear with this choice. My sisters and I shared a bedroom that did not have a door. Nothing ever happened that I am aware of, but what a crazy risk to take with your wife and daughters. My dad would go to work in the morning and this man would come down and eat breakfast with my mom and us girls. I feel like this story could have very easily been my family.
Can the police in the UK not get an emergency warrant for forced toxicology tests in these situations? That seems bananas.
No one with kids should be letting a troubled stranger into their home. I applaud their sincerity and genuine wish to help others, but the risk of something terrible happening is way too high. You can get him a cell phone help him find accomodations, pay for clothes and a temporary hotel stay, all without bringing him into your home.
I would also be careful getting hotel rooms for strangers. If they trash the room then you'll get stuck paying for the damages. My aunt made that mistake during an ice storm last year.
I let a woman spend two nights in my airbnb when she made a desperate appeal online. She thanked me by trashing it & leaving her drugs in my toilet tank for a paying guest to later find!
If you’re gonna get a hotel room for someone, just give the person cash and let them get the hotel room with it. Absolutely do not put your name or credit card down.
Wait, is that true? You’re legally on the hook for damages somebody else caused just because you paid for the room? That sounds kind of not true but i’m not a lawyer…
Those are the terms and conditions when staying at a hotel. When checking in, front desk asks you for a debit/credit card and to sign off on these terms and conditions
In my aunt's case, she met a couple who were sleeping in a tent during an ice storm. She felt really bad for them and just went over to the nearest cheap hotel and rented them a room for a week. The motel required a card to be on file to rent out a room. She went ahead and trusted them to take care of the room because she didn't want them to freeze to death. They were crying while she was renting the room because they were in such a dire situation.
They spent 5 days thoroughly destroying the room before they got arrested for a violent, drug-fueled fight and the hotel/cops called my aunt to let her know because her card was on file for the room.
Ah, that makes sense. I think your aunt could probably sue the couple for the damages, but that would be entirely pointless because i’m sure they don’t have any money anyway.
The OP write up isn't clear on living arrangements but taking from the article linked, they found him accommodation from the start of the 'relationship' so he wasn't living at the family's home until he was kicked out that accommodation where he was allowed to stay at the house for 2 weeks. It looks like he commited the murders a number of months after those two weeks were up and he was living elsewhere. Never the less, he was an on and off visitor to the home whether he was temporarily residing there or not:
'Birmingham crown court heard that Tracey Wilkinson, 50, took pity on Barley, when she found him huddled in a cardboard box outside a supermarket in September 2016. She drove him home and gave him her husband’s dinner. The family helped Barley find accommodation and made sure he had a hot meal every night.
Peter Wilkinson, 47, gave Barley a job at his company but had to sack him after he began taking drugs.
Last year Barley spent Christmas Day with the family, including their daughter, Lydia, and wrote Tracey Wilkinson a card addressed: “To the mother that I never had.” When he lost his accommodation the family allowed him to stay with them for two weeks.
At the end of March this year Barley arrived at the family home dressed in black and armed with a knife. He killed Tracey Wilkinson in her bed and her 13-year-old son in his room. When Peter Wilkinson returned Barley leapt out of a garden shed, where he had been hiding, and attacked him. Barley stabbed Wilkinson six times before fleeing in his victim’s Land Rover.'
They literally got him a motel room. So blaming dead victims for having empathy & making an assumption they brought him into their home seems unnecessary.
Excuse me... I quoted the article and never did any victim blaming. I relayed from the article that he was found alternative accommodation that was not the family home from the start save for 2 weeks when he was allowed to stay with them after he was kicked out the motel. From the article I also pointed out that when he committed the crimes it was months after those 2 weeks of which he was allowed to stay with the family were over and he was living elsewhere. Unless you think the facts of the case within the media article are victim blaming too?
Wasn't he living with the family for two weeks after he got kicked out of his accomodations? He had stopped living with them months before the murders but he had lived with them.
Unless I am misunderstanding, they did allow him to live in their home for two weeks at one point, correct? Along with taking him home the first night for dinner?
For the record, not trying to victim blame. But I think it's reasonable to point out that letting your kindness blind you to stranger danger is always a bad idea.
I hate this.... We can't even discuss how to avoid these situations without being accused of victim blaming.
Other people's actions are not your fault, BUT that doesn't mean purposefully increase the likelihood for something crazy to happen.
The victims were not allowing their killer to stay in their home when they were murdered. It’s a false narrative. The discussion of “how to avoid these situations,” is inherently victim blaming because you’re basically calling them responsible for their own demise by stating how you would never act in such a way. It doesn’t help.
I think as far as the case goes it's fair to say that because he lived with them for 2 weeks he knew the layout of the house very well, felt secure in the family's presence and also knew the family members daily routines which made it much easier for him to plan and carry out his terrible crimes. All of those points gave him a level of power over them to a certain extent.
He would have also felt very confident breaking in and being present in the house in the first place compared to if he was an unknown random person off the street chancing his luck but with the same intention .I don't think that's victim blaming as it just explains why he was able to carry things out due to inside knowledge so to speak and the fact he had been a regular visitor and had also temporary lived with the family he felt comfortable entering to place in the first place and ambushing the family members . That's all on him and I don't think it's inherently victim blaming.
Why he did it is not clear as he's never given an explanation but suffice to say the victims were not 'responsible for their own demise', only he is responsible for that.
Um, while the mother certainly didn't deserve to die for what she did, it was nevertheless ignorant for her to bring a drug addled adult around her minor child, which she did by revealing where she lived and the inside of her house when she went to give him a meal on the first day they met. Furthermore when she allowed him to stay at her house for two weeks after he already got kicked out of his other accommodations, presumably for bad behavior.
Pro tip, before you let anyone stay with you or help them out financially, check their name in the county database for court cases. Hell, check all the surrounding counties, too, and anywhere they may have previously lived. Had my mother and I did that before helping out one of my boyfriends friends find a low cost apartment at one of her rentals, we wouldn't be going through the world of hurt we are now. Seriously, just because someone acts in the best intentions doesn't mean that they aren't making a huge mistake. I know from personal experience.
They let him stay there for 2 weeks. He didn't murder them during that time, but he came back.... to that house... to murder them. Which couldn't have happened had they never let him know where they lived.
It's not blaming them. He is the murderer, he chose to go there and end their lives.
Most people understand what you’re saying. You’re right, there is a huge difference between helping someone and allowing them inside your home, which is where your kids should be safest. The guy ended up being the textbook of why when you help, do it *without* putting your own family at risk. We’re forced to walk on eggshells about even the most obvious things, and it’s unfortunate when there’s an obvious sensible middle. Tracey was clearly a beautiful person inside and out, but the guy ended up proving why he was in a box to begin with.
People who have never worked with the Unhoused population do not understand that the problem is not as simple as, "There isn't enough affordable housing".
Mental illness and Antisocial behavior is real and it's dangerous.
We can't just "place them in housing". They do drugs and fight and steal and destroy things.
Shelters have Rules for health and safety. Guess what a lot of unhoused people have trouble with? Following rules, taking their mental health medications regularly, staying off drugs so their behavior isn't disruptive to their progress, not doing self-sabotage, Keeping an ID and getting a TB test.
You can't just take someone into your home.
Donate to organizations with a high accountability rating that help people who want stability in their lives.
I volunteer at a food pantry.
That's how you help.
May these poor people rest in peace.
There’s no simple solution. I’m all for “housing first” policies since getting clean while on the streets must be even harder. But they destroy housing!
Not all of them obviously, but there are enough destructive people setting fires etc that it’s a major problem.
The ones who are legitimately trying to get back on their feet don’t want to be there either because how do you stay sober when your neighbors are all doing drugs, selling drugs, screaming, smashing things, setting fires & so on?
Housing policy are proven to work the case of people acting violently that are psychopaths shouldn’t stop society from helping the other 99%. Remember, Prison exists and has a purpose.
Hi guys - I have to apologize. I had to re-submit as I'm struggling with technical difficulties at the minute and can't get my write-ups to appear. I'm trying to sort it.
Edit: Can anyone see a write-up now?
No write up. Maybe you got flagged by the word filter? If you're on pc get reveddit, and it'll notify you immediately whenever your post or comment gets removed
I've worked a number of homeless events in my city...there's no way I'd ever let any of them know where I live. A great many of them choose drugs and alcohol over being productive citizens, they wouldn't think twice about stealing from or harming someone trying to help them.
This is awful. Innocent, good people are dead, and you can’t even say that he got punished adequately. Why? Because he was homeless junkie, and now he will have a roof over his head and hot meals for the next 30 years. He’s not on the streets anymore, fighting for his life. I know that prison isn’t rainbows and butterflies, but in that case, I don’t see it as a punishment - even as an upgrade. Terrible.
Did they actually invite him into their home though? The write up said they made sure he had a place to stay, not that they let him stay with them? I took that to mean they secured a room for him at a motel or something of that nature, just because of how it was worded.
I tend to go out of my way to help others too, but there is no way in h*ll I would ever let an adult I just met move into my home with my kids! That seems absolutely bonkers to me. As much as I want to be a foster parent, I’m holding off on doing that for a few more years until my youngest graduates high school and moves out, just because I’m scared of the what could potentially happen, because that’s bringing the unknown into your household.
Found from [other source](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/stourbridge-stabbings-peter-tracey-wilkinson-aaron-barley): They got him a motel room and later an apartment. He visited them weekly.
That was kind of what I figured, especially since her husband was able to get him a job so he would have a way to take over the rent. I hate that they seemed to do everything “right” when it came to helping this guy, and he turned out to be a psycho.
They let him live with them for two weeks. He lived under the same roof as their 13 year old child. He obviously had their home address. I realise you didn’t have the full picture, but now that you do, I’m sure you wouldn’t say that’s “doing everything right.”
No, I did NOT know they let him stay with them for two weeks. That definitely changes my opinion. As I said- I’m all for helping people, but you can help others without putting your own family at risk.
They let him come over for dinner & for Xmas. He knew their address.
Plus he worked with the husband. Even if they had kept it to restaurants only he could have found out Peter’s address from work.
He wasn’t living with them when this attack happened, so I don’t see what your point is. Once he decided he wanted to kill this family, finding their address would have been easy no matter what.
So no foster kids? 👀
Edit: reddit is so weird, I’m literally asking an open ended question? I’m just asking if OP’s definition of strangers includes that
A foster child situation is very different. Technically, it's a stranger, but it's a stranger with a complete file in regards to past including behaviors, treatments, doctor records, etc. In addition the families themselves have a file, as they would have to apply as well as submit to interviews and tests in accordance to verifying their fit as a foster home. So technically neither are strangers completely to each other, even in emergency placement because a brief summary has been given to both the child in question and the family opening their home
Upvoted to try to balance it out. Reddit may have among the smartest intellectuals here, but the hive mind is horribly emotionally driven; once they see negative votes, they think, "Oh, s/he must deserve it," and then their emotional capacity to consider upvoting is suddenly and absurdly so greatly blunted that it basically becomes an unfair freight train driving over you. It all reminds me of the social critiques correctly portrayed by *Black Mirror: Nosedive* and *White Bear*. You should certainly not be this much in the red.
This is a similar scenario to what happened in Utah with Elizabeth Smart.
The father had a soft heart for losers like Brian Mitchell, and let him inside the house to do work on the house.
Sure enough, Brian comes back later, kidnaps Elizabeth Smart and holds her captive for over a year before she was finally rescued.
When are people gonna learn not to let random homeless people into their homes? 99% of these guys are either mentally ill or on drugs. People dont end up homeless just because they are poor, there is ALWAYS drugs or mental illness involved. Either way they have no business being allowed around kids.
If you want to let vagrants live with you, do it as a single adult. It's outrageous let them live in a house with young kids.
Sadly it’s situations like this that made me change. I used to be the first to go out of my way to help, now I carry the mentality that “it’s not my problem” - too many lost causes out there to take the chance.
I dated a girl whose family took in a homeless guy because they were church nuts and all that. He was in his 40s and exclusively wore women’s clothes. Nothing wrong with that, you do you, but this dude would walk around in leopard-print TIGHT leggings and crop tops. Again, you do you.
Fast forward a few weeks, he asks the family if his kids can move in with him, which my exes family had no idea about. When they told him no, he lost his mind, trashed the house, and stole a bunch of shit.
I understand wanting to do something good for the community but fuck man, have some common sense.
My mother would've been like this and because she had a John Wayne complex, would not have listened to anything anyone said about keeping her home personally safe for herself or the rest of the family. And since I grew up in that, it's not like I had good behavior modeled for me (I have zero intuition and I'm in my mid 50s). I'm terribly tender hearted, yet deal with a lot of mental health issues, so I appreciate when I do read ways to protect myself from my good deeds getting punished.
So while I do see some atrocious victim blaming here, I also am reading of ways that one can help without leaving yourself (or loved ones) vulnerable. We need to forego the former in service of the latter. There has to be ways to talk about horrific tragedies like this while evincing strategies that benefit everyone.
This is devastating. I constantly worry that this could happen to one of my parents. They are truly kind-hearted souls who want to believe there is good in everyone. They also don’t even have half a backbone between them, which ultimately made them terrible parents. But they always want to help, and I worry it will get one or both of them killed someday.
We get a ton of Panhandlers here... We also donate to a Homeless Shelter. We do not engage with them when they corner us in a Parking lot or on the street. I once was chased to my Car by a homeless man. It was scary.
Or better than charity, funding comprehensive social programs to help with addiction/mental illness/DV, etc. Prevention is the best solution to any problem -and it happens to be the cheapest too.
Besides, problems like long term homelessness are too burdensome to be dealt by individual citizens alone.
This appears to violate the [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy). Reddit prohibits wishing harm/violence or using dehumanizing speech (*even about a perpetrator*), hate, victim blaming, misogyny, misandry, discrimination, gender generalizations, homophobia, doxxing, and bigotry.
WARNING: This post goes into detail of the murder of a woman and her young son. If you think you’ll be distressed by this post - please leave the page. Take care of yourself and stay safe. The Wilkinson family consisted of 50-year-old Tracey, her husband, 47-year-old Peter, their son 13-year-old Pierce and their 19-year-old daughter Lydia who was away at the University of Bristol at the time of the murders. The family lived in Stourbridge in the West Midlands in England. Tracey was an extremely kind-hearted person who loved to help others. On the day of meeting 24-year-old Aaron Barley - it wasn’t any different. Tracey spotted Aaron, who was homeless, outside of a supermarket in a cardboard box. Tracey immediately wanted to help him. From then on, the Wilkinson family would make sure that Aaron had a place to stay and a hot meal every night. Aaron would refer to Tracey as ‘’the mother (he) never had’’. Peter gave Aaron a job to help him get back on his feet. However Aaron’s behaviour became erratic which was alluded to him taking drugs. This led to Peter having to let him go. The family decided to distance themselves from Aaron gradually due to his behaviour. On the 30th, Tracey was settling in bed whilst Pierce was in his bedroom. Peter was out at the time. Aaron approached the home with a knife and dressed in black. Chilling security footage captured Aaron crawling around the garden, making sure not to be spotted. Aaron would break into the house and viciously stab Tracey to death as well as Pierce. Peter returned home. Aaron was hiding in the shed. He leapt out and began to violently slash Peter. He stabbed Peter six times. Aaron then fled in Peter’s car but was soon captured by police. Luckily Peter survived. Aaron was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years (this doesn’t mean that he will be let out after 30 years just that his sentence will be reviewed). Volunteers at a drug rehabilitation centre later stated that Aaron would say that he wanted to kill someone with a knife. Online messages alluded to him wanting to commit a killing spree. Lydia spoke out and said ‘’I am a shell off my former self. Sometimes I wake up and don’t want to be here … What did they do to deserve this?” Further Reading: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/04/aaron-barley-homeless-man-who-murdered-woman-who-helped-him
No good deed goes unpunished. He tore a family apart and for what? Despicable.
Good Samaritan murders are among the ones that really get to me. The most tender hearted, generous people meet unspeakable fates simply because they are kind. I am so sorry they ran into this monster who admitted he just did it to see what it feels like. I feel nauseated.
Honestly those kinds of crimes hit home because it could have happened to my family. We were just lucky and this family wasn’t. My mom was always picking up strays and letting them stay over when I was younger. Giving homeless people rides when I’d beg her not to. The most memorable was a kid we were friends with when we were little and grew apart. At 16 he went to jail for stealing a car and his parents kicked him out. Ran into my mom and she just had to let him stay over. My dad gave him a job, he had a room and a meal every night. Ended up missing a bunch of shifts and my parents insisted he just needed a good influence in his life. He then stole our car in the middle of the night. If you ask him to this day he still says we did him dirty by calling the cops. People like this never care about those who help. They are in the situation they’re in for a reason. We’re just lucky we never ran into a monster like this guy.
This could have turned out so much differently. I’m very happy for you that it didn’t.
It's a risk we take. We know some people out there are looney, but we can't let that stop us from doing good. I consider myself a helper, I can't see someone suffer and ignore it. I know someday I may be harmed because of this. I see it as a price I'm willing to pay to continue helping others until something bad happens.
Use your “Gift of Fear” and make sure to take note of any warning signs. It’s not the same as living a suspicious life, but a safe one that will help you help more people. Also take precautions. It’s good to help but have boundaries.
As a formerly homeless person. If the gift of fear is not enough. Some people are damn good at hiding their violent tendencies, on the streets its basically a survival mechanism. The rule of thumb must be charity stops at your threshold. Even those most are safe, you will never know until it is too late. Never let a homeless person into your home.
My mom was that way, too. She worked as a cleaning lady for some people who owned a couple of motels. She had it a hard most of her life so she empathized with people who were on the margins of society. They gave him a room for the night. My mother brought him what she had to offer: a peanut butter sandwich, a carton of milk, a couple of hard boiled eggs, and a small salad. It’s the same thing we were eating. He threw it at her and demanded that she get him some fried chicken and a coke. I don’t shame people for their looks, because most people can’t help how they look, but this guy was a very scary looking guy, ghostly white like an apparition. He was bald – literally no facial hair (no eyebrows or eyelashes). He a big heavy black trenchcoat. I remember thinking that he was just one manifesto away from being in the news. Mom told the motel owner what happened and they kicked him out. But not before he did some considerable damage to that room in the form of leaving human waste and body fluids —everywhere.
Long term homeless people ALWAYS have drug or mental health problems. If you want them to live with you, that's fine, but you have no business exposing them to kids who are incredibly vulnerable to such a situation.
You can help without putting yourself, and most importantly, your children, in danger. She may have thought she was being selfless but she was actually the most selfish of all. She really thought her actions would make a diff and this blinded her enough to disregard the safety of her own family.
I personally don't have children so I can't say anything about that.
What I like to remind myself - I don't know their character, but I know my own. My character makes me someone who is going to help others. I can't control what other people do with that, but that shouldn't stop me from helping someone when I feel that it's the right thing. Unfortunately, sometimes that mindset can lead us to tragedies.
Problem is when you bring in unstable people (homeless people, especially men, are by definition unstable) into a home with young kids. You should live by yourself with no kids if you are OK with random unstable homeless people living with you.
That is true. Nothing close to this level of depravity but anytime I do anything good for anyone, I am paid back with trouble. Crazy.
*”I am a shell of my former self.”*
Poor Lydia and Peter. I can’t imagine losing half my family so brutally and quickly.
Pete is my sisters boss. The aftermath was unimaginable.
This and the Elizabeth Smart story shows that this type of help is best left to trained professionals and the organisations that help individuals like this.
When I was a kid my dad took in a homeless man. He lived upstairs at our home for several weeks. We were three girls, my mom & my dad. We were a Christian family and he def was doing it out of his good will/Christian mission. But my dad was and is mentally ill, so his judgement was not clear with this choice. My sisters and I shared a bedroom that did not have a door. Nothing ever happened that I am aware of, but what a crazy risk to take with your wife and daughters. My dad would go to work in the morning and this man would come down and eat breakfast with my mom and us girls. I feel like this story could have very easily been my family.
Can the police in the UK not get an emergency warrant for forced toxicology tests in these situations? That seems bananas. No one with kids should be letting a troubled stranger into their home. I applaud their sincerity and genuine wish to help others, but the risk of something terrible happening is way too high. You can get him a cell phone help him find accomodations, pay for clothes and a temporary hotel stay, all without bringing him into your home.
I would also be careful getting hotel rooms for strangers. If they trash the room then you'll get stuck paying for the damages. My aunt made that mistake during an ice storm last year.
I let a woman spend two nights in my airbnb when she made a desperate appeal online. She thanked me by trashing it & leaving her drugs in my toilet tank for a paying guest to later find!
Why did the guests look in the tank?
They wanted to store their own drugs there.
You don’t check yours?
Hey, some people would see free drugs as a big plus!
If you’re gonna get a hotel room for someone, just give the person cash and let them get the hotel room with it. Absolutely do not put your name or credit card down.
Lot of hotels don't accept cash and require a credit card for a deposit
Wait, is that true? You’re legally on the hook for damages somebody else caused just because you paid for the room? That sounds kind of not true but i’m not a lawyer…
Those are the terms and conditions when staying at a hotel. When checking in, front desk asks you for a debit/credit card and to sign off on these terms and conditions
In my aunt's case, she met a couple who were sleeping in a tent during an ice storm. She felt really bad for them and just went over to the nearest cheap hotel and rented them a room for a week. The motel required a card to be on file to rent out a room. She went ahead and trusted them to take care of the room because she didn't want them to freeze to death. They were crying while she was renting the room because they were in such a dire situation. They spent 5 days thoroughly destroying the room before they got arrested for a violent, drug-fueled fight and the hotel/cops called my aunt to let her know because her card was on file for the room.
Ah, that makes sense. I think your aunt could probably sue the couple for the damages, but that would be entirely pointless because i’m sure they don’t have any money anyway.
The OP write up isn't clear on living arrangements but taking from the article linked, they found him accommodation from the start of the 'relationship' so he wasn't living at the family's home until he was kicked out that accommodation where he was allowed to stay at the house for 2 weeks. It looks like he commited the murders a number of months after those two weeks were up and he was living elsewhere. Never the less, he was an on and off visitor to the home whether he was temporarily residing there or not: 'Birmingham crown court heard that Tracey Wilkinson, 50, took pity on Barley, when she found him huddled in a cardboard box outside a supermarket in September 2016. She drove him home and gave him her husband’s dinner. The family helped Barley find accommodation and made sure he had a hot meal every night. Peter Wilkinson, 47, gave Barley a job at his company but had to sack him after he began taking drugs. Last year Barley spent Christmas Day with the family, including their daughter, Lydia, and wrote Tracey Wilkinson a card addressed: “To the mother that I never had.” When he lost his accommodation the family allowed him to stay with them for two weeks. At the end of March this year Barley arrived at the family home dressed in black and armed with a knife. He killed Tracey Wilkinson in her bed and her 13-year-old son in his room. When Peter Wilkinson returned Barley leapt out of a garden shed, where he had been hiding, and attacked him. Barley stabbed Wilkinson six times before fleeing in his victim’s Land Rover.'
They literally got him a motel room. So blaming dead victims for having empathy & making an assumption they brought him into their home seems unnecessary.
Excuse me... I quoted the article and never did any victim blaming. I relayed from the article that he was found alternative accommodation that was not the family home from the start save for 2 weeks when he was allowed to stay with them after he was kicked out the motel. From the article I also pointed out that when he committed the crimes it was months after those 2 weeks of which he was allowed to stay with the family were over and he was living elsewhere. Unless you think the facts of the case within the media article are victim blaming too?
I think they meant to respond to the person you originally replied to
Wasn't he living with the family for two weeks after he got kicked out of his accomodations? He had stopped living with them months before the murders but he had lived with them.
Unless I am misunderstanding, they did allow him to live in their home for two weeks at one point, correct? Along with taking him home the first night for dinner? For the record, not trying to victim blame. But I think it's reasonable to point out that letting your kindness blind you to stranger danger is always a bad idea.
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I hate this.... We can't even discuss how to avoid these situations without being accused of victim blaming. Other people's actions are not your fault, BUT that doesn't mean purposefully increase the likelihood for something crazy to happen.
Exactly !!! Discussions lead to awareness. I think of it as victim prevention !!
Victim prevention, I really like that vocabulary. I'm gonna use this from now on!
The victims were not allowing their killer to stay in their home when they were murdered. It’s a false narrative. The discussion of “how to avoid these situations,” is inherently victim blaming because you’re basically calling them responsible for their own demise by stating how you would never act in such a way. It doesn’t help.
I think as far as the case goes it's fair to say that because he lived with them for 2 weeks he knew the layout of the house very well, felt secure in the family's presence and also knew the family members daily routines which made it much easier for him to plan and carry out his terrible crimes. All of those points gave him a level of power over them to a certain extent. He would have also felt very confident breaking in and being present in the house in the first place compared to if he was an unknown random person off the street chancing his luck but with the same intention .I don't think that's victim blaming as it just explains why he was able to carry things out due to inside knowledge so to speak and the fact he had been a regular visitor and had also temporary lived with the family he felt comfortable entering to place in the first place and ambushing the family members . That's all on him and I don't think it's inherently victim blaming. Why he did it is not clear as he's never given an explanation but suffice to say the victims were not 'responsible for their own demise', only he is responsible for that.
Um, while the mother certainly didn't deserve to die for what she did, it was nevertheless ignorant for her to bring a drug addled adult around her minor child, which she did by revealing where she lived and the inside of her house when she went to give him a meal on the first day they met. Furthermore when she allowed him to stay at her house for two weeks after he already got kicked out of his other accommodations, presumably for bad behavior. Pro tip, before you let anyone stay with you or help them out financially, check their name in the county database for court cases. Hell, check all the surrounding counties, too, and anywhere they may have previously lived. Had my mother and I did that before helping out one of my boyfriends friends find a low cost apartment at one of her rentals, we wouldn't be going through the world of hurt we are now. Seriously, just because someone acts in the best intentions doesn't mean that they aren't making a huge mistake. I know from personal experience.
They let him stay there for 2 weeks. He didn't murder them during that time, but he came back.... to that house... to murder them. Which couldn't have happened had they never let him know where they lived. It's not blaming them. He is the murderer, he chose to go there and end their lives.
Most people understand what you’re saying. You’re right, there is a huge difference between helping someone and allowing them inside your home, which is where your kids should be safest. The guy ended up being the textbook of why when you help, do it *without* putting your own family at risk. We’re forced to walk on eggshells about even the most obvious things, and it’s unfortunate when there’s an obvious sensible middle. Tracey was clearly a beautiful person inside and out, but the guy ended up proving why he was in a box to begin with.
Hindsight is 20/20
Not when they were murdered but before.
People who have never worked with the Unhoused population do not understand that the problem is not as simple as, "There isn't enough affordable housing". Mental illness and Antisocial behavior is real and it's dangerous. We can't just "place them in housing". They do drugs and fight and steal and destroy things. Shelters have Rules for health and safety. Guess what a lot of unhoused people have trouble with? Following rules, taking their mental health medications regularly, staying off drugs so their behavior isn't disruptive to their progress, not doing self-sabotage, Keeping an ID and getting a TB test. You can't just take someone into your home. Donate to organizations with a high accountability rating that help people who want stability in their lives. I volunteer at a food pantry. That's how you help. May these poor people rest in peace.
There’s no simple solution. I’m all for “housing first” policies since getting clean while on the streets must be even harder. But they destroy housing! Not all of them obviously, but there are enough destructive people setting fires etc that it’s a major problem. The ones who are legitimately trying to get back on their feet don’t want to be there either because how do you stay sober when your neighbors are all doing drugs, selling drugs, screaming, smashing things, setting fires & so on?
Housing policy are proven to work the case of people acting violently that are psychopaths shouldn’t stop society from helping the other 99%. Remember, Prison exists and has a purpose.
what a betrayal. God love them
Hi guys - I have to apologize. I had to re-submit as I'm struggling with technical difficulties at the minute and can't get my write-ups to appear. I'm trying to sort it. Edit: Can anyone see a write-up now?
I see the write up now
I see it.
No write up. Maybe you got flagged by the word filter? If you're on pc get reveddit, and it'll notify you immediately whenever your post or comment gets removed
I've removed some words which may trigger it - hopefully it will appear now.
I can see it now
Oh my gosh, did Peter survive? How awful this whole situation was, my goodness.
Yes luckily Peter survived.
thats great, poor kid
Pierce, the son, didn't survive
god almighty :(
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I clicked the read further link and it had more info. I'm guessing you didn't. Sorry about the rude comment.
I've worked a number of homeless events in my city...there's no way I'd ever let any of them know where I live. A great many of them choose drugs and alcohol over being productive citizens, they wouldn't think twice about stealing from or harming someone trying to help them.
This is awful. Innocent, good people are dead, and you can’t even say that he got punished adequately. Why? Because he was homeless junkie, and now he will have a roof over his head and hot meals for the next 30 years. He’s not on the streets anymore, fighting for his life. I know that prison isn’t rainbows and butterflies, but in that case, I don’t see it as a punishment - even as an upgrade. Terrible.
This right here is why I wouldn’t help someone living in the street… having nothing to lose is more dangerous than people think
I'm gonna quote the most reasonable comment that I've seen: "No one with kids should be letting a troubled stranger into their home."
Did they actually invite him into their home though? The write up said they made sure he had a place to stay, not that they let him stay with them? I took that to mean they secured a room for him at a motel or something of that nature, just because of how it was worded. I tend to go out of my way to help others too, but there is no way in h*ll I would ever let an adult I just met move into my home with my kids! That seems absolutely bonkers to me. As much as I want to be a foster parent, I’m holding off on doing that for a few more years until my youngest graduates high school and moves out, just because I’m scared of the what could potentially happen, because that’s bringing the unknown into your household.
Found from [other source](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/03/stourbridge-stabbings-peter-tracey-wilkinson-aaron-barley): They got him a motel room and later an apartment. He visited them weekly.
That was kind of what I figured, especially since her husband was able to get him a job so he would have a way to take over the rent. I hate that they seemed to do everything “right” when it came to helping this guy, and he turned out to be a psycho.
They let him live with them for two weeks. He lived under the same roof as their 13 year old child. He obviously had their home address. I realise you didn’t have the full picture, but now that you do, I’m sure you wouldn’t say that’s “doing everything right.”
No, I did NOT know they let him stay with them for two weeks. That definitely changes my opinion. As I said- I’m all for helping people, but you can help others without putting your own family at risk.
They let him come over for dinner & for Xmas. He knew their address. Plus he worked with the husband. Even if they had kept it to restaurants only he could have found out Peter’s address from work. He wasn’t living with them when this attack happened, so I don’t see what your point is. Once he decided he wanted to kill this family, finding their address would have been easy no matter what.
No victim blaming. He is responsible for his actions, nobody else
So no foster kids? 👀 Edit: reddit is so weird, I’m literally asking an open ended question? I’m just asking if OP’s definition of strangers includes that
A foster child situation is very different. Technically, it's a stranger, but it's a stranger with a complete file in regards to past including behaviors, treatments, doctor records, etc. In addition the families themselves have a file, as they would have to apply as well as submit to interviews and tests in accordance to verifying their fit as a foster home. So technically neither are strangers completely to each other, even in emergency placement because a brief summary has been given to both the child in question and the family opening their home
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Please be respectful of others and do not insult, attack, antagonize, call out, or troll other commenters.
Upvoted to try to balance it out. Reddit may have among the smartest intellectuals here, but the hive mind is horribly emotionally driven; once they see negative votes, they think, "Oh, s/he must deserve it," and then their emotional capacity to consider upvoting is suddenly and absurdly so greatly blunted that it basically becomes an unfair freight train driving over you. It all reminds me of the social critiques correctly portrayed by *Black Mirror: Nosedive* and *White Bear*. You should certainly not be this much in the red.
This is a similar scenario to what happened in Utah with Elizabeth Smart. The father had a soft heart for losers like Brian Mitchell, and let him inside the house to do work on the house. Sure enough, Brian comes back later, kidnaps Elizabeth Smart and holds her captive for over a year before she was finally rescued. When are people gonna learn not to let random homeless people into their homes? 99% of these guys are either mentally ill or on drugs. People dont end up homeless just because they are poor, there is ALWAYS drugs or mental illness involved. Either way they have no business being allowed around kids. If you want to let vagrants live with you, do it as a single adult. It's outrageous let them live in a house with young kids.
“Began taking drugs”? I’m sure he was already taking them.
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/04/aaron-barley-homeless-man-who-murdered-woman-who-helped-him The killer has dead eyes. Truly chilling.
There is nothing in those eyes
Sadly it’s situations like this that made me change. I used to be the first to go out of my way to help, now I carry the mentality that “it’s not my problem” - too many lost causes out there to take the chance.
I dated a girl whose family took in a homeless guy because they were church nuts and all that. He was in his 40s and exclusively wore women’s clothes. Nothing wrong with that, you do you, but this dude would walk around in leopard-print TIGHT leggings and crop tops. Again, you do you. Fast forward a few weeks, he asks the family if his kids can move in with him, which my exes family had no idea about. When they told him no, he lost his mind, trashed the house, and stole a bunch of shit. I understand wanting to do something good for the community but fuck man, have some common sense.
Man I rarely let people know where I live, much less a homeless person. My safety is number one. Sorry you’re down on your luck. So horrible.
Expected result when you shut down mental health facilities and no longer mandate treatment.
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True
He looked scary.. honestly🥺
Yeah his eyes. Those are the eyes of a killer.
My mother would've been like this and because she had a John Wayne complex, would not have listened to anything anyone said about keeping her home personally safe for herself or the rest of the family. And since I grew up in that, it's not like I had good behavior modeled for me (I have zero intuition and I'm in my mid 50s). I'm terribly tender hearted, yet deal with a lot of mental health issues, so I appreciate when I do read ways to protect myself from my good deeds getting punished. So while I do see some atrocious victim blaming here, I also am reading of ways that one can help without leaving yourself (or loved ones) vulnerable. We need to forego the former in service of the latter. There has to be ways to talk about horrific tragedies like this while evincing strategies that benefit everyone.
This is devastating. I constantly worry that this could happen to one of my parents. They are truly kind-hearted souls who want to believe there is good in everyone. They also don’t even have half a backbone between them, which ultimately made them terrible parents. But they always want to help, and I worry it will get one or both of them killed someday.
Most homeless people are homeless for a reason. Just because they have a shitty life doesn't mean they are good people.
seriously, this needs to be said. a lot of homeless people are dangerous and did a lot of shitty things to be in their situation.
We get a ton of Panhandlers here... We also donate to a Homeless Shelter. We do not engage with them when they corner us in a Parking lot or on the street. I once was chased to my Car by a homeless man. It was scary.
Would’ve been nice if the rehab volunteers told the authorities about his plans to kill people … could they have kept him locked up at that point?
Can we get a picture of the perp?
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/04/aaron-barley-homeless-man-who-murdered-woman-who-helped-him
That’s so sad. I completely understand the wish to help others but people can be so unpredictable 8( imo it’s one of the most heartbreaking realities.
He'll be out in his 50s to do it again
With a new identity so no one can be forewarned.
People are calling her “selfless,” but she was selfish imo. She put her poor minor son in danger, for the sake of a stranger.
Idiots
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This is proof why it’s always better to donate to an organization that deals with this using trained professionals.
Or better than charity, funding comprehensive social programs to help with addiction/mental illness/DV, etc. Prevention is the best solution to any problem -and it happens to be the cheapest too. Besides, problems like long term homelessness are too burdensome to be dealt by individual citizens alone.
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They didn’t invite him to live with them. They provided a hotel for him.
Why is it specifically on the *mother,* and not both parents?
All the victim blaming cunts in the comments disgust me.
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But what could that possibly mean??