Internet homicide refers to 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] 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.[4] Some commentators believe that reports on these homicides have overemphasized their connection to the Internet.[6]
Serial Killer Chat Room
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.[7][8] 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.[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, 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]
Online chatrooms are sometimes used by killers to meet and bait potential victims.[2][3][18] For example, the Japanese serial murderer Hiroshi Maeue is known to have found victims by using online suicide chat rooms.[19] The killer Lisa M. Montgomery is reported to have met her victim in an online chatroom for rat terrier lovers called "Ratter Chatter."[20]
Online chatrooms are also used, in some cases, to plan consensual homicides. For example, in 1996, a Maryland woman, Sharon Lopatka, apparently agreed to be killed by torture and strangulation in a conversation with a man in an online chatroom.[21][22] 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, 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.[23]
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.
The following examples are listed by date order of publication or broadcast; three of them predate the arrest in 2000 of John Edward Robinson, thought by law enforcement to be "the first Internet serial killer":[13]
In another factual post, the user wrote: "Of the evidence released, the murder weapon has been consistent as a large fixed blade knife. This leads me to believe they found the sheath." Other members in the chat group were so alarmed they accused the person of talking "like a serial killer."
The Japanese have also embraced the possibilities of Internet death pacts. An October 2002 BBC report details the sad tale of a 46-year-old dentist and 25-year-old woman who met in a suicide chat room and subsequently killed themselves with sleeping pills.
Meanwhile, there are few clues as to the identity of the Wisconsin woman responsible for Edward Frank Manuel's arrest. The original suicide chat room has - unsurprisingly - disappeared, although this allegedly genuine posting appears elsewhere. It poses interesting questions as to her real motives for frequenting suicide chat rooms in the first place:
Originally Posted By Crazy/Suicide Chat Room Girl:Any notions I'd had about serial killers being interesting, complex people went out the window. Aside from Rabbit's sex-death-strangulation fetish, he was quite dull and boring. (He wasn't even as smart as I had expected. I guess I thought all serial killers would be charismatic, bright Bundy types. They apparently are not.)
Actor Michael C Hall from Showtime's "Dexter" arrives at the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles January 28, 2007. Showtime Networks is partnering with Meebo, a firm that fuses video programming and chat rooms, to offer "Dexter" fans additional content after the serial-killer show airs its season finale on Sunday. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Izaya is the Chat Room admin who operates under the alias 'Kanra.' Kanra is first suggested as being the creator and admin when she blocks Saika's IP address after Saika joins and begins spamming during the Saika Arc. Kanra states that Saika reappears using various IP addresses, so blocking them is pointless. Kanra's role as the room admin is also mentioned in the prologue of volume eight of the light novels. It seems Kanra's permission is not required for others to join in the chat as long as they have the site address.
It appears that users can take on others' handle names in the chat room and that Kanra being the admin has the ability to delete previous chat room records. However, both of these abilities may be specific to Kanra only as the administrator for the chat. At one point, Izaya takes on Masaomi's handle, 'Bacura,' to talk to Mikado with the implication that he is Masaomi. He also deletes the chat room records so that Masaomi can not find out that he had been impersonated.
Episode 15: Kanra tells the others about the latest slasher victim. Saika enters the chat, repeating the word 'cut.' Their disconnected words are turning into almost coherent phrases. Setton tries to make conversation, and TarouTanaka wonders if Saika could be the slasher. Saika repeats the name Shizuo Heiwajima until they abruptly exit the chat room.
The transformation of communication globally through the medium of the Internet has also fostered a new form of homicidal interaction, referred to as cybermurder or Internet murder. Historically, murderers have used various approaches to identify strangers as potential victims, including the use of newspaper advertisements. Henri Landru, the French serial killer, placed ads in the lonely hearts columns of newspapers during World War I. Landru first seduced his victims, and having gained their trust, he embezzled their assets and finally murdered them. The term cybermurder is applied to murders that occur as a result of Internet advertisement or connection through chat rooms, dating sites, sex-for-sale sites, online role-playing games, Internet forums or groups, listservs, or bulletin boards. It also has been used to refer to the use of the Internet by persons to solicit their own murder or to induce others to take their own lives.
Batman has a brief scene with Catwoman. This follows her return to Earth after events in Salvation Run, and her own comic. He tries to enlist her help against the serial killer, but she is more interested in finding out about his romances with Zatanna and Jezebel Jet (who has been appearing in the pages of Batman). She dramatically takes off, and Batman knows she wants him to follow her. But tonight he has other concerns.
Cassie decides that they should check out the chat room, but Jake's not sure it's safe, Marco offers to hack the system, but Ax offers to encode Marco's software in a way that will make it impossible for anyone to trace them. Marco reluctantly agrees and Ax sits down and types in a code making Marco's computer hack-proof in just three minutes. In the chat room, the Animorphs watch a conversation that's going on, one person that goes by username "Chazz" talks about how serious the Yeerk threat is, while username "Gump8293" is worried because his dad maybe a Controller. The Animorphs believe this could be a Yeerk scam, but Cassie isn't so sure. She thinks there's something real about the people in the chatroom, especially Gump. Jake also has the same feeling, but Ax couldn't tell, and Marco thinks it's a little of both: the web page was created by Yeerks to help them locate any humans who knows about them, while at the same time, it got a little out of the control. Jake then asks Ax to hack in and penetrate the protected screen name files, but after a few minutes of typing furiously, he is unable to get into Web Access America's central computer. Marco then comes up with an idea: they travel to WAA's main office, sneak in and get the real names behind the screen names from the main computers. 2ff7e9595c
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