Internet homicide
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Internet homicide refers to killing in which victim and perpetrator met online, in some cases having known each other previously only through the Internet.http://www.napavalley.edu/Projects/189/Chapter_022_4th_ed__handout.pdf Napa Valley College teaching text: Chapter 22, definition: "Internet Homicide: Luring a person from a chat room to an actual meeting. May turn deadly."''Killers on the Web: True Stories of Internet Cannibals, Murderers and Sex Criminals'' by Christopher Berry-Dee and Steven Morris, John Blake Publishing, 2006. '' Also Internet killer is an appellation found in media reports for a person who broadcasts the
crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
of murder online or who murders a victim met through the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
. Depending on the venue used, other terms used in the media are Internet chat room killer, Craigslist killer, Facebook serial killer. Internet homicide can also be part of an Internet suicide pact or
consensual homicide Consensual homicide refers to a case when one person kills another, with the consent of the person being killed. Assisted suicide The most common form of consensual homicide is assisted suicide, most commonly as euthanasia, in which terminally ...
. Some commentators believe that reports on these homicides have overemphasized their connection to the Internet.


Serial killers

Serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
s 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. Such killers have used forms of social networking to attract victims long before the advent of the Internet. For example, between 1900 and 1914, Hungarian serial killer Béla Kiss lured his 24 victims by using personal ads published in newspapers. 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."''Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet Age and How to Protect Your Family'' by Paul Bocj,
Praeger Publishers Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...
, 2004
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." 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." The first serial killer known to have used the Internet to find victims was
John Edward Robinson John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943), also known as the Slavemaster, is an American serial killer, Confidence trick, con man, embezzlement, embezzler, kidnapping, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders comm ...
, 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."


Venues

Online predator Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet. Conceptions Internet-facilitated crimes against minors involve deceit and begin with adults communicating with children over the Internet ...
s, participants in internet suicide and suicide-homicide pacts, and internet killers may seek out victims through
internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s,
chat rooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
, listservs,
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
,
bulletin boards A bulletin board (pinboard, pin board, noticeboard, or notice board in British English) is a surface intended for the posting of public messages, for example, to advertise items wanted or for sale, announce events, or provide information. B ...
,
social networking sites A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
,
online role playing game A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...
s,
online dating service Online dating, also known as Internet dating, Virtual dating, or Mobile app dating, is a relatively recent method used by people with a goal of searching for and interacting with potential romantic or sexual partners, via the internet. An onlin ...
s,
Yahoo group Yahoo! Groups was a free-to-use system of electronic mailing lists offered by Yahoo!. Prior to February 2020, Yahoo! Groups was one of the world's largest collections of online discussion boards. It allowed members to subscribe to various grou ...
s, or
Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
.


Chat rooms

Online
chatrooms The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
are sometimes used by killers to meet and bait potential victims. For example, the Japanese serial murderer
Hiroshi Maeue was a Japanese serial killer who lured his victims via the internet and killed three people in 2005. Also known as the "Suicide Website Murderer", Maeue suffered from a paraphilic psychosexual disorder that translated into being unable to achie ...
is known to have found victims by using online suicide chat rooms. The killer
Lisa M. Montgomery Bobbie Jo Stinnett (December 4, 1981 – December 16, 2004) was an American 23-year-old Pregnancy, pregnant woman who was murdered in Skidmore, Missouri, Skidmore, Missouri in December 2004. The perpetrator, Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36-y ...
is reported to have met her victim in an online chatroom for
rat terrier The Rat Terrier is an American dog breed with a background as a farm dog and hunting companion. They share much ancestry with the small hunting dogs known as feists. Common throughout family farms in the 1920s and 1930s, they are now recognize ...
lovers called "Ratter Chatter." Online chatrooms are also used, in some cases, to plan consensual homicides. For example, in 1996, a
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
woman, Sharon Lopatka, apparently agreed to be killed by
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
and
strangulation Strangling is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain. Fatal strangling typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and is one of two main ways that hangin ...
in a conversation with a man in an online chatroom. Robert Frederick Glass pleaded guilty to killing Lopatka and later died in prison while serving his sentence. In a case that might be regarded as a quasi-consensual homicide, "John," a teenage boy from
Altrincham, England Altrincham ( , locally ) is a market town in Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, south of the River Mersey. It is southwest of Manchester city centre, southwest of Sale, Greater Manchester, Sale and east of Warrington. At the United Kin ...
, allegedly tricked another teenager into killing him using long conversations in an online chatroom. The other teenager, Mark, apparently believed he was being recruited by some female Secret Service agent. The suicide-by-homicide failed and 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.


Online advertisements

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." It was in venues like these—print media such as
newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
classified ads Classified advertising is a form of advertising, particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals, which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements used ...
and personal or lonely hearts club ads—that 20th century murderers such as Harry Powers, the so-called "Matrimonial Bureau Murderer," and
Harvey Carignan Harvey Louis Carignan (born May 18, 1927) is an American serial killer serving a life sentence at the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Faribault for the murders of two women. He had been previously convicted for a 1949 rape and murder he commi ...
, "the Want Ad Killer" 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 Armin Meiwes (; born 1 December 1961) is a German former computer repair technician who received international attention for murdering and eating a voluntary victim in 2001, whom he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointl ...
.''The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers'',
Harold Schechter Harold Schechter (born June 28, 1948) is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism ...
,
Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing ...
, 1997, Revised Updated edition July 4, 2006
Since 2007, several accused and convicted killers have contacted victims through advertising services such as
Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark began the ...
, a popular classified advertising
website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...
. These killers are sometimes referred to in the media as "Craigslist killers"; 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 The ''St. Paul Pioneer Press'' is a newspaper based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It serves the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the east metro, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, ...
'' in
Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, in reference to the murder of Katherine Olson by Michael John Anderson, who was then dubbed "the Craigslist killer". Since 2007, several suspected and convicted perpetrators have met their victims or solicited murder through Craigslist. Of those cases, 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 13-month span of March 2008 through April 2009. 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 Sex is the biological distinction of an organism between male and female. Sex or SEX may also refer to: Biology and behaviour *Animal sexual behaviour **Copulation (zoology) **Human sexual activity **Non-penetrative sex, or sexual outercourse ** ...
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.


Internet dating

In 1995, Match.com was launched as the first online dating application. In the following decades internet dating has become the second largest paid Internet industry. However, often people suffering from relatedness frustration will seek affection and care online, but find their needs are not met. The self-esteem enhancement was found to produce problematic usage of internet dating apps due to the sex motive. According to Michael Largo, the author of ''Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die'', "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
he victim He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
met online."


Criticism of the concept

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"?". Leslie Harris, CEO of the
Center for Democracy and Technology Centre for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for pu ...
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." 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'." 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."


Notable Internet homicides

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 A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
, but they may also have resulted from a robbery, insurance fraud, or a sexual encounter that turned violent. * Robert Frederick Glass, a computer analyst from
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
killed Sharon Lopatka by torture and strangulation in a case of apparent
consensual homicide Consensual homicide refers to a case when one person kills another, with the consent of the person being killed. Assisted suicide The most common form of consensual homicide is assisted suicide, most commonly as euthanasia, in which terminally ...
on October 16, 1996. Lopatka used the Internet, where she also advertised pornography related to unusual
sexual fetishes Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has ''a fetish'' for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regard ...
, to locate Glass, who was later convicted of
voluntary manslaughter Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of a human being in which the offender acted during ''the heat of passion'', under circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed to the point that they canno ...
for the crime. *In 1998, Chris Dean, a truck driver from Indiana, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 17-year-old Chris Marquis from Vermont. Marquis operated a scam in which he would pose as the 27-year-old proprietor of a fictional shop called the CB Shack, and offer to trade merchandise with people online. When people sent Marquis their goods, he would either not send anything back or would send something old or broken. Dean fell victim to this, built a
pipe bomb A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively huge explos ...
and mailed it to Marquis, killing him and injuring his mother. * The murder of Ofir Rahum was a shooting attack which occurred on 17 January 2001, in which Palestinian militants from the
Tanzim ''Tanzim'' ( ar, تنظيم ', "Organization") is a militant faction of the Palestinian Fatah movement. Overview The Tanzim militia, founded in 1995 by Yasser Arafat and other Fatah leaders to counter Palestinian Islamism, is widely consider ...
faction of Fatah killed 16-year-old Israeli high school student Ofir Rahum on the outskirts of Ramallah. The murder was planned and initiated by a Palestine Liberation Organization collaborator, 24-year-old Mona Jaud Awana from
Bir Nabala Bir Nabala ( ar, بير نبالا; he, ביר נבאלא) is a Palestinian enclave town in the West Bank located eight kilometers northeast of Jerusalem. In mid-year 2006, it had an estimated population of 6,100 residents. Three Bedouin tribe ...
. Awana conducted long private conversations in English with Rahum on the internet via ICQ, during which she masqueraded as a Jewish Israeli girl. Awana managed to gain Rahum's confidence and to get him to meet with her in
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, supposedly for romantic purposes. When he arrived for the meeting, she drove him through the border control into the Palestinian-controlled territory and towards a secluded area on the outskirts of Ramallah where Palestinian terrorists shot him at close range, with Awana standing aside and watching. Awana was tried and convicted of murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. * The consensual murder of Bernd Jürgen Brandes by the so-called "Internet cannibal"
Armin Meiwes Armin Meiwes (; born 1 December 1961) is a German former computer repair technician who received international attention for murdering and eating a voluntary victim in 2001, whom he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointl ...
; 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. * On December 3, 2002, 13-year-old Kacie Woody was abducted from her Holland, Arkansas home by 47-year-old David Leslie Fuller, who had befriended her in a chat room while posing as a 17-year-old boy named David Leslie Fagen. The following day, law enforcement found the two deceased inside Guardsmart Storage in Conway. Woody's body was inside Fuller's rented minivan, where he had chained her to the van's floor before raping her and shooting her in the head. Fuller, who was sitting in one of the van's removed back seats behind the van, shot himself in the head when law enforcement arrived. *
John Edward Robinson John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943), also known as the Slavemaster, is an American serial killer, Confidence trick, con man, embezzlement, embezzler, kidnapping, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders comm ...
, known in the media as "The Internet Slave Master" and "the first Internet serial killer", met most of his victims in online chat rooms. He was convicted of murdering five women via blunt force trauma to the head. * Edward Frank Manuel, arrested in January 2003, was dubbed the "Internet suicide
chat room The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...
killer" by
United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...
and other news sources. *
Hiroshi Maeue was a Japanese serial killer who lured his victims via the internet and killed three people in 2005. Also known as the "Suicide Website Murderer", Maeue suffered from a paraphilic psychosexual disorder that translated into being unable to achie ...
was known as the "Suicide Website Murderer". According to an article in ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'', this killer utilized "suicide websites san aid to murder". Although he posed online as someone who wished to carry out internet suicide pacts, he choked his victims to death when they met in person. * Garry Francis Newman, a 50-year-old man, was convicted of the murder of 15-year-old Carly Ryan in 2007. He posed as "Brandon", a 20-year-old musician, and began an online relationship through online platforms MySpace and VampireFreaks.com. He eventually lured Carly to a secluded beach in the suburb of
Port Elliot, South Australia Port Elliot is a town in South Australia toward the eastern end of the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. It is situated on the sheltered Horseshoe Bay, a small bay off the much larger Encounter Bay. Pullen Island lies outside the mouth of t ...
where he subsequently murdered her. During his arrest, a search of his house revealed a notebook detailing some 200 online personas. In the wake of the arrest and trial of Newman, a nationwide bill, nicknamed "Carly's Law", was introduced to criminalise acts done using a carriage service to prepare or plan to cause harm to, procure, or engage in sexual activity with, a person under the age of 16. * Thomas Montgomery, a 47-year-old married man, was convicted in 2007 of murdering a workmate in a case called the "Internet Chatroom Murder". He posed as "Tommy", a 21-year-old marine, and began an online relationship with a 17-year-old called Jessi. A workmate of his, 22-year-old Brian Barrett, subsequently began an online relationship with the same girl after Montgomery's deception was revealed, and Montgomery shot him in their work
car park A parking lot (American English) or car park (British English), also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface ...
. "Jessi" was actually a middle-aged woman who had been using pictures of her daughter. A police officer said of Montgomery: "he became a completely different person online". Another commented that: "It's very odd that someone would take another's life over jealousy of a person you've never laid your eyes on". A documentary about this case titled '' Talhotblond'' (Jessi's screen name) was released in 2009. * Michael John Anderson was convicted of murdering Katherine Olson in
Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
in October 2007. According to an article in the '' St. Paul Pioneer Press'', "The 19-year-old Savage man used Craigslist to lure Katherine Ann Olson to his home for a fictitious baby-sitting job, then shot her in the back." *Bernard George Lamp, a 51-year-old resident of Troutman, North Carolina was charged with murder and first-degree kidnapping on March 22, 2008 in the death of a woman from Cornelius, North Carolina; according to news reports, she had "agreed to meet the man accused of killing her after encountering him on Craigslist." *Ann Marie Linscott, a 49-year-old Michigan woman, was arrested in January 2008 for soliciting murder on Craigslist, where she offered $5,000 "for someone willing to kill the unsuspecting wife of a man she'd begun an affair with online"; in February 2009, she was found guilty of attempted murder-for-hire and sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison. *In 2008, Hughstan Schlicker, a 15-year-old from Mesa, Arizona, shot and killed his father, Ted Schlicker. Hughstan had threatened suicide in a Myspace post, and Ted—worried that his son might kill himself—banned Hughstan from the Internet, angering him. Ted also had hidden the family shotgun. However, after Hughstan played hooky from school, he found the gun hidden in a shed, waited at home for his father, and then shot him in the back of the head as his father entered the house. Hughstan then planned to kill himself but was unable to follow through. *Christian Grotheer, known as "Germany's First Internet Killer," confessed to two murders in 2009. According to an article in ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...
'', he admitted to "murdering women he met in online chat rooms." * David Heiss, a 21-year-old German office worker, became infatuated with a British girl, Joanna Witton, 20, who along with her boyfriend Matthew Pyke, 20, was an administrator of the ''
Advance Wars series The ''Wars'' series, also known as and is a series of military-themed turn-based strategy video games, usually developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series debuted in Japan in August of 1988 with the original '' Famico ...
''
fansite A fansite, fan site, fan blog or fan page is a website created and maintained by a fan or devotee about a celebrity, thing, or particular cultural phenomenon. Fansites may offer specialized information on the subject (e.g., episode listings, bi ...
, Wars Central. After his advances were rebuffed, including two visits, Heiss traveled to the UK once more and stabbed Matthew Pyke to death. He was jailed for life in May 2009. A police spokesman noted that, "While this is an extremely unusual case, one thing is clear and that is that Heiss used the internet to
harass Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...
and stalk Joanna and Matthew. He eventually found out where they lived and other information about them that enabled him to carry out his plans. We should all consider the amounts of personal information we share on web systems like MSN and on internet forums." * John Katehis, a teenager, was arrested and indicted for the murder of ABC radio news reporter George Weber in New York in March 2009. The two had met through Craigslist, and journals such as '' The Advocate'' called the suspect an "Alleged Craigslist Killer". * Korena Roberts was arrested in June 2009 for allegedly killing 21-year-old Heather Snively—who was eight-months pregnant—and her fetus, by cutting open her abdomen. They were reported to have met on through an advertisement by Roberts on Craigslist for the sale of baby clothes. *In 2009, Anthony Powell, a 28-year-old student at the
Henry Ford Community College Henry Ford College (HFC) is a public community college in Dearborn, Michigan. The institution, established in 1938 by the Dearborn Fordson Public Schools Board of Education, is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. The institution was ...
in Detroit, shot and killed fellow student, 20-year-old Asia McGowan, before fatally shooting himself. Powell had a history of mental illness and used his
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
account to make hate videos against black women and
atheists Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no d ...
. McGowan also had an account at YouTube. Powell became obsessed with McGowan through her account, and began
stalking Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The term ...
her on both YouTube and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
. He had decided that black women like McGowan were naturally
promiscuous Promiscuity is the practice of engaging in sexual activity frequently with different partners or being indiscriminate in the choice of sexual partners. The term can carry a moral judgment. A common example of behavior viewed as promiscuous by ma ...
, and had made videos with titles such as "Black Women Don't Deserve Respect", shortly before killing McGowan. Many of Powell's videos were so concerning that numerous YouTube users contacted the Detroit police about them. *
Philip Markoff Philip Haynes Markoff (February 12, 1986 – August 15, 2010) was an American medical student who was charged with the armed robbery and murder of Julissa Brisman in a Boston hotel on April 14, 2009, and two other armed robberies. Markoff main ...
, known as "The Craigslist killer" in numerous news reports, was arrested and
indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of ...
in April 2009 for the murder of Julissa Brisman and for other attacks against women that occurred in
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
and
Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
; he had met the women through their online advertisements in Craigslist, where they had advertised erotic services. Markoff committed suicide in his jail cell on August 15, 2010, several months prior to the scheduled trial. *20-year-old Richard Samuel McCrosky from California began an online relationship with 16-year-old Emma Niederbrock from Farmville, Virginia. In September 2009, while visiting Emma and her family in Virginia, McCrosky attacked and murdered Emma, as well as her parents, Debra S. Kelly and Mark Niederbrock, and Emma’s friend Melanie Wells at the Niederbrock home. He was arrested, convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. * David Russell, a UK McDonald's worker, impersonated
Bring Me The Horizon Bring Me the Horizon (often abbreviated as BMTH) are a British Rock music, rock band formed in Sheffield in 2004. The group consists of lead vocalist Oliver Sykes, guitarist Lee Malia, bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls and keyboardis ...
singer
Oliver Sykes Oliver Scott Sykes (born 20 November 1986) is a British singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Bring Me the Horizon. He also founded the apparel company Drop Dead Clothing, and created a graphic novel. Early ...
to seduce a California woman he met on Facebook before slitting her throat and repeatedly stabbing her. Russell, 20, has been jailed for life after admitting to the kidnap and attempted murder of Maricar Benedicto, 19, whom he met online in 2010. * In 2013, Richard Beasley, a 53-year-old from Summit County, Ohio, was convicted and sentenced to death for luring three men to their deaths using a Craigslist ad for a non-existent job in 2011. Beasley was convicted in March of kidnapping and killing David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of
Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...
, and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of Scott Davis, 49, a
Woodruff, South Carolina Woodruff is a city in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States, located in upstate South Carolina. The population was 4,333 at the 2020 census. Geography Woodruff is located at (34.740530, -82.032580). According to the United States ...
man who answered the ad and was shot in the arm while escaping after meeting Beasley and his 16 year old accomplice, Brogan Rafferty. *In 2013, newlywed couple Miranda and Elytte Barbour were arrested and charged with the
murder of Troy LaFerrara Troy LaFerrara was a Port Trevorton, Pennsylvania man murdered on November 11, 2013. Miranda Barbour and her husband, Elytte Barbour, were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in September 2014. The murder is notable because of the unsubstan ...
. The Barbours allegedly met LaFerrara after he answered the couple's
Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark began the ...
ad offering "companionship" and conversation in exchange for payment. *In February 2014, Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old boy from Redhill, Surrey, was murdered by Lewis Daynes, an 18-year-old unemployed software engineer who groomed him online on a gaming site. Bednar was found dead in Daynes' flat in Grays, Essex, and had been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times. Daynes also sent pictures of Bednar's corpse to mutual friends. Lewis Daynes was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 25 years. *In February 2015, attorney David Messerschmitt was murdered in a hotel room in
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According to police records, he had posted a listing on Craigslist requesting a sexual encounter, but was answered by two women who planned to rob him. The suspect, 21-year-old Jamyra Gallmon, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Gallmon's accomplice, 19-year-old Dominique Johnson, pled guilty to
conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...
to commit robbery and was sentenced to one year in prison.


In popular culture

The theme of internet homicide has proven popular in fiction, with examples seen in books, television shows, and movies, in a number of which the murderer is referred to as "the Internet Killer" by other characters. The following examples are listed by date order of publication or broadcast; three of them predate the arrest in 2000 of
John Edward Robinson John Edward Robinson (born December 27, 1943), also known as the Slavemaster, is an American serial killer, Confidence trick, con man, embezzlement, embezzler, kidnapping, kidnapper, and forger who was found guilty in 2003 for three murders comm ...
, thought by law enforcement to be "the first Internet serial killer": * The third-season episode of ''
The X-Files ''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who ...
'' titled " 2Shy" featured as its
monster of the week "Villain of the week" (or, depending on genre, "monster of the week", "freak of the week" or "alien of the week") is an antagonist that only appears in one episode of a multi-episode work of fiction. A villain of the week is commonly seen in Brit ...
a fat-eating mutant named Virgil Incanto who seduced overweight women online and killed them upon meeting in real life. * The second season of the TV series ''
Millennium A millennium (plural millennia or millenniums) is a period of one thousand years, sometimes called a kiloannum (ka), or kiloyear (ky). Normally, the word is used specifically for periods of a thousand years that begin at the starting point (ini ...
'' featured an episode called "The Mikado", about a serial killer based loosely upon the
Zodiac Killer The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. The case has been described as the most famous unsolved murder case in American history. It became a fixture of popular c ...
. The killer would contact people on internet chat groups, kidnap them and then broadcast their death live via a
webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...
once the site counter reached a certain level. * The fifth season of the TV series ''
Criminal Minds ''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was revived in 2022. It ...
'' featured two episodes involving Internet serial killers. The first, "Risky Business", was about a killer who set up a website encouraging teenagers to engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation in a particularly dangerous manner, tricking them into committing suicide. The second, "The Internet Is Forever", is about a serial killer who sets up hidden cameras in women's homes and strangles them to death while the whole act is being broadcast live on the web for his "fans" to see. * '' Strangeland'' was a 1998 film written by Dee Snider about a schizophrenic sexual sadist who lures victims via the Internet, forcing them to submit to ancient tribal rituals. "I came up with the idea of Internet crime before anybody had ever committed Internet crime," Snider has said. * '' Homicide: Life on the Street'', a
television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...
police drama The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on eithe ...
, featured an extended multi-week storyline in May 1999 in which a character named Luke Ryland was known as "The Internet Killer." * ''
FeardotCom ''FeardotCom'' is a 2002 horror film directed by William Malone and starring Stephen Dorff, Natascha McElhone and Stephen Rea. The plot details a New York City detective investigating a series of mysterious deaths connected to a disturbing web ...
'' was a 2002 movie about a killer internet web site. *'' The Card Player (Il cartaio)'' was a 2004 film made in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
; written and directed by Dario Argento, it tells the story of a policewoman from
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who teams up with a British
Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
agent to track down an internet serial killer who abducts and kills young women and broadcasts the crimes via Internet web cam. * ''
Untraceable ''Untraceable'' is a 2008 American psychological thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, and Joseph Cross. It was distributed by Screen Gems. Set in Portland, Oregon, the film involves a seria ...
'' was a 2008 Sony Pictures film starring
Diane Lane Diane Colleen Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut at age 14 in George Roy Hill's 1979 film '' A Little Romance''. The two films that could have catapulted her to st ...
in which
FBI agent The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
Jennifer Marsh was tasked with hunting down a seemingly untraceable serial killer who posted live videos of his victims on the Internet. * '' Downloading Nancy'' was a 2008 film starring
Maria Bello Maria Elena Bello (born April 18, 1967) is an American actress and writer. Her film roles include '' Permanent Midnight'' (1998), '' Payback'' (1999), '' Coyote Ugly'' (2000), ''The Cooler'' (2003), '' A History of Violence'' (2005), '' The Mumm ...
in which unhappy wife Nancy Stockwell decides to end her life by meeting a man over the internet and forming a consensual agreement that he will kill her. * In March 2015, during the first week of ''
The Late Late Show with James Corden ''The Late Late Show with James Corden'' (also known as ''Late Late'') is an American late-night talk show on CBS. It is the fourth and current iteration of '' The Late Late Show''. Airing in the U.S. from Monday to Friday nights at 12:37:28a ...
'', host James Corden listed several dozen ways to connect with the show via social media. The list started with "Follow me on
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, Like me on
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
, ..." and ended with "or murder me on
Craigslist Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums. Craig Newmark began the ...
." * American Monster an
Investigation Discovery Investigation Discovery (stylized and branded on-air as ID since 2008) is an American multinational pay television network dedicated to true crime documentaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. As of February 2015, approximately 86 million Amer ...
television series documentary-drama episode titled: ''The Craigslist Killer'' aired: September 2017, dramatizes the serial killer Richard Beasley's online enticing of multiple men to their deaths.


See also

* Assisted suicide * Computer crime *
Consensual homicide Consensual homicide refers to a case when one person kills another, with the consent of the person being killed. Assisted suicide The most common form of consensual homicide is assisted suicide, most commonly as euthanasia, in which terminally ...
*
Eamonn Walker Eamonn Roderique Walker (born 12 June 1962) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. In the United States he is known for playing Kareem Saïd in the HBO television series '' Oz'', for which he won a CableACE Award, and (since 2012) ...
* Internet suicide pact * Lonely hearts killer (or want-ad killer) *
Online predator Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet. Conceptions Internet-facilitated crimes against minors involve deceit and begin with adults communicating with children over the Internet ...
* Red Room Curse


References


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Internet Homicide Internet safety Cybercrime Killings by type