My childhood friend was likely a serial killer...

I am in my early thirties and, until recently, I had considered Drew my closest childhood friend. We met in kindergarten and were the best of friends for easily fifteen years. I had recently reconnected with Drew on facebook. I had not seen him in quite some time and had even lost track of him for a while but I remember being genuinely pleased to reconnect with him on the social networking site. I remember joining his friends list and noticing many female profiles with dates of death listed in the profile. I naturally inquired and he explained that he was a photographer specializing in missing persons and crime scene photography. He went on to explain that he had to join the profiles of missing persons to obtain information such as photos, height, weight, etc. I remember that his profile was listed as female and had a female name and photo. I prodded for more information and then I was sent more than 600 photos of new stories of missing persons, arrest records of him picking up prostitutes for the three years prior to my reconnecting with him, photos of his arrest warrant sheet, which showed a height, weight, and age, etc. I was honestly taken aback at the amount of information that he sent but I didn't think too much of it. I'm not sure why he sent all the photos of his arrest records, but I didn't look through them all. I don't know why he sent as many as he did. I never even considered it until now. I imagine there may be some relevance but I don't know what to think. We would text message each other on a daily basis and I remember him always inquiring about my job, as I am a police officer in a large city. He seemed to enjoy that I was a cop and he would always say stuff like "you're cool, man. I would never mess with you." I remember laughing out loud and asking "Who would want to try?" It was all joked about and nothing more. I am embarrassed to admit that it took me this amount of time to become leary of Drew but I finally woke up, if you will. He had always been a shady person. We got in a lot of mischief as kids and teens and even into our young adult years. I am so lucky to have made it into my mid-twenties alive. Last summer, he told me that he had met a girl on facebook and she was going to fly down to visit him and he was concerned that she was going to be mad at the state of the house that he lived in. He told me that he was going to clean the house and then he inquired if it was illegal if he were to obtain some drugs and/or alcohol for her visit. I told him that it was illegal but I would not bother calling the police. I told him that I suggest he not give her any drugs though. That the consequences are not worth it. A day or two later, he sent me a link to a local news article out of town. The article explained that a young woman had gone missing. It stated that she was supposed to fly out to visit friends in our state but her flight had been delayed and she would be flying out the following day. It stated that she was supposed to call her mother when she got to the airport to let her know she was safe but she never did. It went on to say that her mother received texts from her daughters phone in the early morning hours after she was initially supposed to fly out stating that she had gotten scared of her ride and had gone back home. The mother was quoted stating that her daughter would never do that and she was worried that something had happened to her daughter. I thought it was funny that it seemed like her visit lined up with the time he was expecting company. I brought it up to him and he said "I'm sure she'll turn up." I asked if he had anything to do with it and he simply stated "nope." I didn't think much of it and forgot about it until a few weeks later. I'm a flight instructor in my free time and was flying a student in the aircraft when I received a notification on my cell phone. I wasn't paying much attention to the notification but it stated that the body of the young woman from the news article had been found at a rest stop about two hours from our airport and that she had been dead for several days. I thought instantly about Drew and almost cried because I felt that I had done nothing to stop her disappearance. I had no reason to contact the authorities about anything that Drew had done but I felt like I should have done something more than simply inquire if he knew anything about it. A month or two later, I received another link to a missing persons article from him. I didn't read the article and simply asked "another one?" He didn't respond. I feel that I have just now connected the dots after receiving another article about a young woman who was missing. I don't know what to do. I have an urge to contact law enforcement and tell them to look into my friend but I don't want to be the one to end his life. I know that it is wrong to feel that way, but he was a good friend of mine, even though I have not seen him in years. I would feel terrible if I were to cause his execution. I don't even know what to think. It's absolutely possible that he is simply a conspiracy theorist or someone who is overly interested in missing persons. Or maybe he is a serial killer. I don't know. I do know that I will not be rekindling anything with him and I suggest to anyone who is currently his "friend" on facebook to steer clear of him. His name is Drew Peterson. Edit: Oh my. I didn't expect this to blow up. Thank you for the support everyone! I am truly humbled and I am glad that I decided to do the right thing. I will be sending all the screen-shots that I took of our chats to the authorities. Thank you again. I will update this post as I am able to.

My childhood friend was likely a serial killer...

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