To all Sgforumer,
I see a lot of Sgforum gathering. It is ok because people here
know each other for long time. However, beware don't trust new
people you meet so easy. See the story from Wikipedia below:
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Internet homicide refers to a killing in which
victim and perpetrator met online, in some cases having known each
other previously only through the Internet.[1][2][3]
Also Internet killer is an appellation found in
media reports for a person who broadcasts the crime of murder online or who murders a victim
met through the Internet.[4][5]
The first known murder of a victim met online was in
1996.[6]
Depending on the venue used, other terms used in the media are
Internet chat room killer,
Craigslist
killer, Internet serial
killer. Internet homicide can also be part of an Internet
suicide pact or consensual homicide.[4]
Some commentators believe that reports on these homicides have
overemphasized their connection to the Internet.[7]
Serial
killers are murderers who target three or more victims
sequentially, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and
whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological
gratification.[8][9]
According to Paul Bocj, the author of Cyberstalking: Harassment
in the Internet Age and How to Protect Your Family, "The idea
that a serial killer may have operated via the Internet is,
understandably, one that has resulted in a great deal of public
anxiety."[10]
In Harold
Schecter's A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial
Killers, the entry for "Internet" reads in part: "If the
Internet has become a very useful tool for people interested in
serial killers, there's some indication that it may also prove to
be a resource for serial killers themselves."[11]
Maurice Godwin, a forensic consultant, argued that "There are some
sadistic predators that rely on the Mardi Gras Effect ["the ability
to hide one's identity on the Internet"] to lure and murder
repeatedly."[12]
The first serial killer known to have used the Internet to find
victims was John Edward Robinson, who was arrested
in 2000 and was referred to in Law Enforcement News as the
"USA's first Internet serial killer" and "the nation's first
documented serial killer to use the Internet as a means of luring
victims."[13][14]
Online
predators and paedophiles, participants in internet
suicide and suicide-homicide pacts, and internet killers
may seek out victims through internet forums, chat rooms, listservs, email, bulletin boards, social networking sites, online role playing games, online
dating services, Yahoo groups, or Usenet.[15][16][17]
In the 2006 book Killers on the Web: True Stories of
Internet Cannibals, Murderers and Sex Criminals, the author
Steve Morris and his co-writer Christopher Berry-Dee examined what
they called "the darkest recesses of the world wide web," and reported cases
ranging from "cannibals ordering a human meal by email to mail-order
brides whose quest for better lives end in grisly
murder." Among the cases they covered was the consensual murder of
Bernd Jürgen Brandes by the so-called "Internet cannibal" Armin
Meiwes; the two met at a web site called The Cannibal
Cafe, where people described their fantasies of cannibalism, and
where Meiwes openly advertised for a willing victim.[3][18]
"Internet homicide" has been described as crime that occurs when
a killer succeeds in "luring a person from a chat room to an actual
meeting," which "can turn deadly."[2][3][19]
In 1996, a Maryland
internet entrepreneur named Sharon
Lopatka arranged for her own torture and strangulation over the Internet.[20][21]
The man who killed her was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. A
murderer who found victims via suicide chat rooms and/or web sites
was the Japanese serial killer Hiroshi Maeue.[22]
One internet killer, Lisa
M. Montgomery, met her victim in a rat
terrier fancier's chatroom called "Ratter
Chatter."[23]
In June 2003, a teenage boy in Altrincham, England, identified in the
press only as "John," used protracted chat room conversations with
another teen, "Mark," to entice Mark to murder him. This was not a
case of consensual homicide, because Mark did
not know he was being set up to kill John, but rather thought he
was going to be killing a female secret service agent. John's
intended internet chat room suicide-by-homicide failed when Mark
only succeeded in seriously wounding him and then called the
authorities. On May 29, 2004, John pleaded guilty to inciting
someone to murder him and was sentenced to three years supervision;
Mark pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to two
years supervision. The boys were forbidden to contact each
other.[24]
As an article in the New York Daily News explained in 2009,
"Long before there was a craigslist or dot-com dating, there were
places where men and women who were too shy or busy to meet face to
face could find romance. Calling themselves "matrimonial bureaus,"
these organizations were known mostly as the "lonely hearts clubs,"
and they flourished through the middle of the 20th
century."[25]
It was in venues like these -- print media such as newspaper classified ads and personal or
lonely hearts club ads -- that 20th century murderers
such as
Harry Powers, the
so-called "Matrimonial Bureau Murderer,"[25]
and Harvey
Carignan, "the Want Ad Killer"[26]
met their victims.
Electronic advertising has gradually replaced printed ads and
the internet is now a venue where murderers who employ a similar
modus
operandi can meet their victims; in Schecter's
Encyclopedia, the entry for "Ads" mentions internet dating
and the use of internet ads by the so-called "Internet Cannibal"
Armin
Meiwes.[11]
Since 2007, several accused and convicted killers have contacted
victims through advertising services such as Craigslist, a popular classified advertising website. These killers are sometimes
referred to in the media as "Craigslist killers";[27][28][29]
the first use of the term Craigslist killings may
date to October 31, 2007, when the phrase appeared in a headline in
the Saint Paul Pioneer Press in Minnesota, in reference to the murder
of Katherine Olson by Michael John Anderson, who was then dubbed
"the Craigslist killer".[30]
Since 2007, several suspected and convicted perpetrators have
met their victims or solicited murder through Craigslist. Of these,
two were convicted for crimes in the three-month period
encompassing February to April 2009 and a further four were accused
of crimes during the 11-month span of March 2008 through April
2009.[27][28][29][31]
Although, by definition, Craigslist will have been the initial
contact point and a killing will have taken place in order for the
suspected, accused, or convicted perpetrator to be dubbed a
Craigslist killer, the actual motivations of these criminals are
varied. The victims' deaths may result from a robbery or a sexual encounter that turned violent.
Some of these perpetrators may not have intended to commit murder,
but killed their victims during the course of a struggle or to
prevent capture. Each case is different.
According to Michael Largo, the author of Final Exits: The
Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die,[32]
"Internet dating is becoming very popular, but since 1995, there's
been[...] over 400 instances where a homicide has been related to
the person that [the victim] met online."[33]
Several legal and technology experts have questioned the idea
that there is a phenomenon of "internet killings". A legal theorist
pressed for an "internet angle" on a murder by a journalist related
that "I asked her whether, if I called her up and asked her out on
a blind date and murdered her, she would think it was a
"telephone-related murder"?".[34]
Leslie
Harris, CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology
said of the term "Craigslist Killer" that "A great many of the
tragic incidents that tangentially involve the Internet have little
or nothing to do with the Internet itself. The Craigslist case is
the latest example of that phenomenon. Craigslist is an innovative
and valuable resource, which frankly, is being unfairly smeared
because it is an Internet site."[7]
The book Hypercrime argues that "The more one looks, the
more these widely circulated instances of 'cyberkilling' appear to
vanish into the smoke of a 'cyberspace'."[4]
Susan Brenner, a professor of law and technology wrote that "Is it
a cybercrime for John to meet Mary on the Internet, correspond with
her and use e-mail to lure her to a meeting where he kills her?
News stories often describe conduct such as this as a cybercrime,
or as 'Internet murder.' But why is this anything other than
murder? We do not, for example, refer to killings orchestrated over
the telephone as 'tele-murder' or by snail mail as 'mail murder.'
It seems that this is not a cybercrime, that it is simply a
real-world crime the commission of which happens to involve the use
of computer technology," but she conceded that "there may be
reasons to treat conduct such as this differently and to construe
it as something other than a conventional crime."[35]
The following individuals have been arrested and/or convicted of
crimes in which police claimed that Internet services such as chat
rooms and Craigslist advertisements were used to contact victims or
hire a murderer. Despite sharing a similar method of contacting
victims, they apparently have varied motivations. In the list
below, the victims' deaths may have been premeditated, especially
if the perpetrator is a serial
killer, but they may also have resulted from a robbery, insurance fraud, or a sexual encounter that turned
violent.
