One of my first nights on shift, I was put on cell watch. I thought nothing of it and went to relieve the officer on shift before me, I peered to the hatch to see a guy sat on the floor smiling at me, not in a creepy way just a 'how'd you do?' Sort of way, I smiled back and the proceeded to sit outside this cell door. At one point the desk Sargent came and asked if I would be OK to get the guy in the cell to the print room to get his fingerprints and to completed some other questions.
I puffed up my chest ready for a fight but the bloke just walked calmly didn't put up any sort of fight and was extremely polite. Once in the print room the three of us got chatting and I found out his mum actually worked with my mum. We had a few jokes and it was all very pleasant.
Once back in his cell, I needed a pee so whilst one of the detention officers stayed by the door, off I went. On my way back the custody Sergeant said to me
'well that was all a bit weird weren't it?'
'What was?' I replied
'What he was saying about his mum.'
I looked back puzzled trying to remember any weird phrases the prisoner might have said.
'You don't know who he is or what he's done, do you?'
I shook my head
The Sargent then went on to explain that the gentleman in the cell was there on suspicion of murdering his mother and chopping her body up into tiny pieces and keeping it all in bin bags in the garage. The reason he did it- because she had found out he had been arrested two weeks before for creating a distributing child pornography and she was not happy and had told him to leave and never contact any of the family again.
I learnt a valuable lesson that night: Criminals look like humans, humans look like criminals.