Stronger Laws Needed for Web Threats

This is undoubtedly one case where there ought to be a law. Society must catch up to the malevolence all too prevalent on the Internet. Some should be deemed criminal.

The case in point: Drew and Joyce Kesse have been living a parent’s worst nightmare for the past four years — the unsolved abduction of their 24-year-old daughter, Jennifer, in Orlando. The Bradenton couple’s efforts to secure information about their daughter’s disappearance includes an Internet site stocked with images, appearances on national television and other publicity.

Their determined and admirable efforts have generated a great deal of sympathy, encouragement and leads, especially in postings on the Web at www.jennifer kesse.com.

Compounding their anguish, though, are the miscreants and parasites who exhibit twisted behavior and threatening comments via the Internet — all beyond the pale. “Weird crap,” Drew Kesse told Herald reporter Beth Burger for an in-depth article Sunday on the fourth anniversary of Jennifer’s kidnapping.

One lowlife attempted to extort millions, maintaining he held her for ransom. Another even claimed to have killed her along with more than a dozen others in a YouTube video.

But the veiled threats from one person — posted across some 100 pages on the family’s Web site — are deeply disturbing.

Plus, someone left threatening phone messages, one stating: “You’re gonna pay.” With some detective work by a Webmaster and prosecutors, the Kesses discovered the source of the phone calls matched the residence of the threatening poster’s computer.

Unfortunately, the Kesses have discovered that as abhorrent as all this is, criminal it is not.

The Manatee County Circuit Court declined to grant the family an injunction in the case, ruling the perpetrator’s identity had not been proven and the threat was not credible enough by legal standards.

Florida lacks a law against menacing threats delivered via electronic media. The state’s cyber stalking law requires threats be credible, which means the comments must be explicit about personal harm or death and the perpetrator must have the means to execute the threat.

Apparently, the Kesses’ tormentor has not quite crossed that line. In addition, proving who’s working the keyboard beyond a reasonable doubt is difficult without witness cooperation or a confession.

Come March when the regular session of the state Legislature convenes, lawmakers will be met by a bill that makes online written communication with threats of bodily harm or death a second-degree felony. That would cover e-mail, social networking sites like Facebook and postings on sites such as www.jenniferkesse.com.

In Burger’s report, Bradenton criminal defense attorney Mark Lipinski advocated the legislation include menacing communication as well — which would then cover the Kesses’ case.

Nobody should have to endure that kind of endless and senseless harassment. Florida law needs to catch up to technology and provide protections from these kinds of online threats, which should be considered terrorism of a sort.

original article here

Online Dating -- Dangerous for Your Life

by Jamie Ramirez

Sitting behind a computer, I could be anyone I wish to be. I could be a 13-year-old boy from Kansas who likes to play videogames. Or I could be a 47-year-old woman from another country looking to get married to a single American man. The point is: I could take on any identity and no one would ever have to know.

Online dating is potentially very dangerous. There's no assurance that the person you are talking to is really telling the truth. There's no way of knowing if they have a criminal background, was once or are married or has children.

Blind dates are different. Usually, a friend or an acquaintance has recommended a person who they think would be compatible for you. If someone is referring you on a date with a suitable single, he or she are using his or her judgment and knowledge of what appeals to you.

Online dating services simply use a questionnaire to match up singles through common answers and common interests. A computer does not have the ability to make a judgment call or to decide compatibility for two people. It simply matches answers.

People can also lie about who they are. Behind a computer, anyone could take on any identity they choose. Online dating is dangerous because everyone has access to a computer. That includes rapists and child molesters.

According to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association in August 2004, less than 5 percent of online sexual offenders used force to sexually abuse their victims when they decided to meet.

Victims said they already felt close bonds with their attacker before meeting with them.

People just need an Internet connection. But why put your life at risk for the chance to go on a date? Some would argue that love is worth taking a risk. Call me old fashioned, but I don't think love is worth putting your life on the line.

original article here

After Stalking His Ex on Facebook, he Kills Her

(U.K.) Clifford Mills, 49, attacked Lorna Smith after inviting her to his flat in Brixton, south London, in February last year. He denied murder, claiming he was suffering a mental abnormality at the time, but an Old Bailey jury took just 90 minutes to find him guilty.

Mills showed no emotion as the verdict was passed, but one of Miss Smith's relatives broke down in tears. Another shouted "Lorna lives in us, you murdering b******" as they left court.

Mills stabbed Miss Smith, 45, to death and went drinking for 14 hours before handing himself in at St Thomas' Hospital in central London. He told staff that someone called "Stan" had committed the killing and that "Stan" existed in his head.

Police found Miss Smith's body in Mills' flat, where he had left the Oasis song Stop the Clocks playing on a loop.

Miss Smith had been in a relationship with Mills from 2002 until 2006, and they remained in touch after breaking up. She began seeing another man, Tony Hersey, but Mills remained in "relentless" contact with her, prosecutor Zoe Johnson QC said.

As well as telephoning and sending text messages, he pretended to be someone called Charlie Manning on Facebook to stay in touch with her.

Mills had a "psychological grip" over Miss Smith and asked her to help him with court paperwork at his Brixton flat on the day she was killed.

Within 20 minutes of her arrival he had murdered her, because he was "jealous and angry", jurors were told.

Mills will be sentenced on Monday.

original article here

When Hate Comes to Your Homepage

The suicide of a young teenager shows we must wake up to the crossover between the virtual world and real cruelty

by J. Turner

A psychotherapist friend was explaining why she had forbidden her 12-year-old daughter from joining Facebook. It had driven several of her patients, around the same age as her daughter, to the verge of mental breakdown. But surely these girls were unusually fragile: if not Facebook, wouldn't there have been some other catalyst? Maybe, she said, but few young egos are strong enough to deal with this stuff.

I thought she was being alarmist and somewhat old-fashioned. Our generation merely utilises the internet: our children have it hardwired into their synapses. It is their medium, just as ours was television: our parents fretted similiarly - and impotently - about its new-fangled consequences.

You are supposed to be 18 to join Facebook. But you can lie about your age; no one checks. When my sons signed up I thought it sweet when they befriended their aunties and old babysitters, sent virtual pina-coladas to far-flung godparents. Then I realised they're all on there! The entire lower school, the whole prepubescent lot of them, “poking”, posting preening party pictures and telling each other “u are soooo pretty!!!”.

My friend's warning was amplified this week when a trial with implications for the future of social networking opened in Los Angeles. Megan Meier, 13, was befriended on MySpace by a boy called Josh Evans who flirted and flattered and told her she was “sexi”. When he dumped Megan abruptly, saying the world would be a better place without her, she went up to her bedroom and hanged herself with a belt. It transpired “Josh” was a 49-year-old mother called Lori Drew who, it is alleged, believed Megan was bitching about her own daughter online. Drew is charged with conspiracy and accessing computers without authorisation, not murder. But the prosecution case is that Drew “fully intended to hurt and prey on Megan's psyche” through MySpace.

It is an outlandish and extreme story. Yet what struck me was how Megan's mother's reacted when her daughter came to her sobbing about Josh's cruelty. She told her she shouldn't get into silly arguments and shouldn't have been on her computer anyway. Clearly, she believed her daughter was wasting real emotions on something which was “unreal”, since it took place online. Many parents, I guess, would have been equally dismissive.

It is a quandary we have not yet addressed, despite Britons spending more time online (an average of 14 hours a week) than any other European nation and with half of us now members of social networking sites: can the virtual world cause real pain? Facebook seems so harmlessly middle-class, like an endless online evening drinks party. For us sad, solitary home-working types it is a simulacrum of cheering human contact.

But my friend suggested I look at Facebook with a 12-year-old's eyes. She pointed out the popular “honesty box” application where you ask a question - “What do you really think of me?” etc - which then anyone can answer anonymously. Like a ouija board, evil yet so tantalising. My inner pre-teen came out in a terrified sweat.

Besides, said the psychotherapist, it is the ordinary stuff which devastates her patients, the photos of a sleepover to which you weren't invited, your best friend ignoring you and chatting on someone else's “wall”. And everyone will know, by how many friends you have, whether you're a big, fat loser. It's not even proper bullying, just crude kidult passive- aggression. But, boy, does it hurt.

Even so, her patients cannot stop themselves logging in. They have to look. And so the mean-girl snubs, the whispering behind hands, follow them home and upstairs into lonely bedrooms.

We think as adults we are tougher, that something as remote and notional as a chat room cannot hurt us. Indeed, it is a blast, a liberation, when talking online to say what you really mean for once, to make mischief, to dispense with uptight British niceness, or even assume the guise of an atavar, a pumped-up, better-hung version of our own weedy workaday self.

In the glow of our screens, safely at home, we think our egos are armour-plated. But there is no protection as we step on to the ten-lane superhighway of a billion heartless strangers. It can smart like hell, that withering rebuke from someone you'll never meet. A friend, who frequents a jolly and supportive parenting website, was devastated when another mother posted “I hope your child fails the 11-plus”, particularly when she discovered the woman was a neighbour, who'd always harboured a secret grudge.
We are a fighty nation at present, itching for a scrap like a railway station drunk. Perhaps, because we feel impotent in the face of huge economic forces, we lash out at more accessible targets - Ross and Brand, Haringey social workers, the judges on Strictly Come Dancing. And our anger spews onto the BBC's Have Your Say messageboards, blogs and newspaper websites.

This morning I was forwarded a letter from a reader who berated me about something I wrote last month, with the use of two C-words and sundry other curses. From the handwriting - and by the simple fact it came by snail-mail - I could tell it was written by an elderly person. It had no address and was signed “No Nonsense Norm”. Poor Norm, I thought, with his thin notelet, shaky pen and his probably painful walk to the postbox. With a computer he could have enjoyed the same secret thrill of hate in an instant, and free.

Most journalists, me included, find the honesty box below our words bracing: in the democracy of the web, why should we claim a monopoly on thought? Others, though, find the comments too confidence-destroying to read. (If you blog about us, do we not bleed?) Although few, like the hack hero in Tim Dowling's hilarious novel The Giles Wareing Haters' Club actually track down and confront their tormentors.

Maybe future generations will learn to deal with the strong and confusing emotions engendered by the virtual world. Friends with older teens say that they log into social sites before breakfast, know the etiquette, how seriously to take it, where to complain. And later my friend rings to say her daughter just 'fessed up to having a secret Facebook account. What can we do? Not much. Online we're elderly residents of a new world, just like Norm.

ORIGINAL

Posed as Rock Star on Facebook - Really a Murderer

by Andy Dolan

She met him on Facebook, and was impressed enough to cross the Atlantic to meet him. But Maricar Benedicto’s naive trust was repaid in the most horrific way.

The man who lured her to the UK, David Russell, took her to a forest and persuaded the 19-year-old to wear a blindfold, saying he had a gift for her.

Russell then stood behind her and slit her throat. The terrified teenager tried to escape but the 20-year-old McDonald’s worker stabbed her several times, hit her in the face with a log and headbutted her. Miraculously, she survived.

At Northampton Crown Court, Russell admitted kidnap and attempted murder and was jailed for life. The court was told he had posed as tattooed rocker Oliver Sykes, lead singer in the Sheffield-based metal band Bring Me The Horizon, currently touring the Americas.

Prosecuting, Christopher Donnellan QC said that the day before Miss Benedicto arrived from California last April, Russell had searched the internet for ‘how to kill someone with bare hands’, ‘how to cut skin with a knife’ and ‘the best knife to kill’.

After meeting Miss Benedicto at the town’s railway station, Russell took her to a nearby forest, claiming it held special childhood memories.

Mr Donnellan said: ‘He asked her to sit down on a fallen tree trunk and said he was going to blindfold her. He said she would get a surprise or a present. He stood behind her, blindfolded her, asked her to put her head back, and her arms up. She did so with her palms up, entirely trusting him.

‘Although she did not see any implement because of the blindfold, the next thing she felt was her neck being sliced.’ The court heard that as Russell did it, he shouted: ‘Why won’t you die? You’ve ruined my life. It’s all your fault.’

The court was told she jumped up and the blindfold fell off. She began to run away ‘but he caught up and stabbed her in the back’. A serrated breadknife was found at the scene.

He stopped the attack only when Miss Benedicto told him she had given his name and address to immigration on arrival in the UK. He ran home, where he took a suspected overdose, while she staggered to a nearby house for help.

The pair had met on Facebook last year and ‘engaged in conversations using pseudonyms’. She went by the alias Ruby Townsend. They chatted online using Skype and Miss Benedicto knew Russell was not who he initially claimed to be before she flew to Britain.

Steven Crouch, defending, said Russell was ‘borderline autistic’ but had never offended before. ‘He is a troubled young man, very young, who committed an act in bizarre circumstances, never to be repeated.’

Jailing him on Tuesday, Judge Charles Wide QC said Russell was ‘exceptionally dangerous’ and must serve at least 17-and-a-half years in jail before being considered for release.

He added: ‘The features of this case are truly horrifying. When she was able to escape, you intended to kill her and must have come very close.’

original article found here

How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away

The Dangers of Online Relationships & Stalking:
How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away
The Story of Kerry Kujawa
Author Raymond Chan was a classmate of Kerry Kujawa's for several years in Sugar Land, Texas. Kerry's tragic story serves as a poignant example of the dangers of online relationships with offline consequences.

An Unexpected Phone Call
Late last April I got a phone call one afternoon from a good high school friend of mine who attended Texas A&M University. Not expecting the call, I good-naturedly asked how things were going.

It was not a social call. There was no good news, and things were not going well.

Earlier that day police had identified the body of Kerry Kujawa, a fellow A&M student and an old classmate that we had gone to school with for years. Kerry's body had been found, badly decomposed and unidentifiable, in a field on a remote ranch in the Texas hill country. The story around Kerry's tragic death would come out over the next day, and its nature shocked all of us who had known him.

Kerry had been having an online relationship with whom he thought to be a young woman under the screen name 'kelly_mc', meeting and communicating through an online chat room. Her real name was "Kelly McCauley", and seemed to be a nice pre-law student who was trapped in a destructive relationship, and Kerry was one of those people who wouldn't let her stay in such an emasculating position. They seemed to grow closer and closer over the months, and eventually Kerry started to ask Kelly to meet face to face, so that he could help her. He apparently grew insistent on helping her, and on April 7th, 2000, Kerry left campus to meet her in San Antonio.

A week or so later Kerry's family and friends received an email from Kerry saying that he was ok and would be staying with Kelly for a little longer. Online, Kelly had been telling others in the close-knit chat room that she and Kerry were engaged and would be getting married soon.

In the end, this fairy tale fantasy would prove to have been a terrible tragedy. A couple weeks later Kerry's friends started to worry about his continued absence from school and field a missing-persons report. Just the day before, police had discovered Kerry's body, but had not yet been able to identify it. The news came as a crushing blow to Kerry's family, friends, and all those who had known him.

Who was 'kelly_mc'?
Kerry's online love interest, 'Kelly', was not who he or anybody else thought she was. By interviewing the operators and frequent participators of the chat room, police obtained the phone numbers and addresses that the person had given out to contact her at. Authorities were also helped by carefully examining the computers Kerry had used to send and receive emails from 'kelly_mc'. 'She' was actually 31 year-old, 6' 2" Kenny Wayne Lockwood, a former McDonald's assistant manager who lived with his parents in an upscale neighborhood in San Antonio. He had no felony convictions and described by one neighbor as being the "last [person one would assume] for being involved [in the murder]." Others neighbors described him as "quiet, a real computer geek."

It would later come out that Lockwood had used the persona of 'Kelly' to talk with other young men in addition to Kerry, luring them with an appealing story and pictures of an attractive young woman to further the ploy. To conceal his identity, Lockwood met Kerry under the pretense of being Kelly's brother, then shot and killed him and disposed of his body. To delay the discovery of the murder, Lockwood sent the email purporting to be Kerry and continued to assume the persona of 'Kelly' in the chat room and furthering the story of the two supposedly in love.

Remembering Kerry
To those of us who had known and grown up with Kerry, the news of his death came as a terrible shock. The story of his murder, however, came as an even greater surprise. Kerry was a smart, highly intelligent, and computer-savvy individual. He was not the stereotypical 'computer geek' who spent his entire social life in front of a monitor and kept indoors or a 'jock' who would have been ignorant and not understanding of computers and the inherent risks. Instead, he was a sociable individual, an avid track athlete, and a notable engineering student.

Having talked with him on an almost daily basis throughout high school, I can say that Kerry was not a soft hearted, idealistic, or romantic individual. Furthermore, he was one of the brightest minds at my high school, ranked high in the class and one who took a challenging schedule of AP courses and extra-curricular activities. I would never have guessed that Kerry would be one to be tricked into such a deep and deceptive ploy by someone else; if anything, I can recall some of the joking pranks that he had played on others. All of us who previously had read or heard stories of failed online relationships in the media and dismissed them now had to rethink our beliefs. We had to re-examine our online lives and our hollow belief that we were somehow invulnerable to the situations that these stories presented.

Kerry's death forced all of us in the community and schools to rethink our notions of the Internet and the online world. It is too easy to think of the Internet as a collection of web pages and dot.coms, a resource of information and services that exist in a space parallel but separate from the "real world." However, the Internet is as much a community of people as it is a collection of pages and files, and those people very much exist in the same world that we do. The difficulty one finds in trying to categorize and potentially control the content of static pages becomes exponentially more complicated when applied the mildly analogous realm of miscellaneous interpersonal communication online.

As the idiom goes, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

The World of Online Stalkers
Online chat has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a way for individuals to meet and talk with others in an environment that seems anonymous and open. As Kerry's story illustrates, it's both easy to meet new people online and easy to forget that these people can come from all walks of life. While people are reluctant to chat with a random person on the street, it tends to be considerably easier for people to talk freely and openly online, under the context of being essentially anonymous. However, a certain danger arises when this sense of security lulls online participants into divulging into their real-life worlds.

A common sentiment among the non-tech savvy in the early days of the Internet was that the online world was disproportionately populated with socially deviant individuals; a seamy underground world best to be avoided. As the online presence has grown, people have come to realize that the online population tends, in a general sense, to mirror the general one. However, the real power in the network is its power to connect individuals who previously had no opportunity for meeting in any real life context. The power to connect those with like interests, but also the power for those with socially deviant desires to seek and stalk their prey more easily and to confide in others who would never admit to their tendencies offline. Online stalkers harass and follow those they meet online, sometimes, as in Kerry's case, with tragic real world consequences.

As with all other aspects of the Internet, anonymous people online should be considered with the same suspicion and regard that is accorded to content. Given the ease by which anyone can publish content online, the source of information is often closely analyzed and critiqued before being considered seriously. Likewise, anyone can log on to the Internet and enter a chat room - it is always prudent to know when to trust and distrust another online.

The Scope of the Problem
While it is easy both to under- and over-state the problem, the truth remains - online stalking occurs with enough prevalence to justify caution and preventive measures among the online public. Statistics, given the uncoordinated nature of the Internet, are few, but an August 1999 study on cyberstalking by the US Attorney General for the Vice President paints a disturbing picture on the ease and seriousness of the problem. Given the severity of offline stalking - the report states that one out of every twelve women have been stalked at some point in their lives - the implications of online techniques are troubling. Even lacking direct quantitative measurement, the report cites anecdotal evidence from law enforcement and ISPs to show that "cyberstalking is a serious - and growing - problem." In addition, while it is tempting to dismiss cyberstalking as merely harassing emails and messages that can be easily ignored, it is a serious crime that can often be a prelude to offline offenses. Also, given the growing integration of online services into daily life, stalkers can interfere more and more with everyday activities such as email and online transactions.

Conclusions
Stalking is an issue of considerable concern in the offline world; the Internet serves to broaden their reach and accessibility. People who would normally have to self control to not harass others in public might not think of online interaction in the same vein. Furthermore, this new level of accessibility to questionable and illegal content poses another pressing problem - addiction to online sexual content.

Hire-A-Hitman Online? Go to Jail

A young lady who was jealous and enraged about the fact that her ex-boyfriend had moved on, has been charged for trying to hire a hitman to kill his new lover with stolen credit cards from Paypal: Marissa Mark, 28, from Allentown, Pennsylvania is alleged to have hired Essam Ahmed Eid through his amateurish website www.hitmanforhire.net. She wanted him to kill Anne Royston for $37,000 in 2006. She is accused of paying a $19,000 deposit with three stolen credit cards through website PayPal. Marissa Mark, left, is accused of hiring Las Vegas poker dealer Essam Eid, left, through his website www.hitmanforhire.net to kill her ex-boyfriend’s new lover. The shoddy website said: ‘Whether you are trying to put an end to a domestic dispute or eliminate your business competitors, we have the solution for you’. The hire-a-hitman website, which has since been taken down, said: ‘Assassinations are the most practical solutions to common problems. Thanks to the Internet, ordering a hit has never been easier. We manage a network of freelance assassins, available to kill at a moment’s notice.’ Court documents show that PayPal refused to transfer the money Mark allegedly paid from three stolen credit cards, meaning Eid never received any money. According to FBI accounts and court documents, Royston – who worked as a loan broker – was first contacted by Eid in September 2006 under the pretence of wanting to refinance his house. He visited her officers in Woodland Hills, California with one of his two wives, Theresa Engle, posing as his assistant, and told her ‘Somebody wants your head. Somebody wants you killed and they hate you a lot.’ He said he decided against killing her because she reminded him of his own daughter and she could save her life and see Mark dead by settling the balance of the contract.

In this current case Mark was arrested in Jersey City, New Jersey and transferred to Allentown, Pennsylvania where she appeared in court charged with conspiracy, identity theft and other counts. She was granted bail on a $150,000 bond.

There are rumours that the events could be turning into a movie.

original article here

Hire-A-Hitman Online? Go to Jail

A young lady who was jealous and enraged about the fact that her ex-boyfriend had moved on, has been charged for trying to hire a hitman to kill his new lover with stolen credit cards from Paypal: Marissa Mark, 28, from Allentown, Pennsylvania is alleged to have hired Essam Ahmed Eid through his amateurish website www.hitmanforhire.net. She wanted him to kill Anne Royston for $37,000 in 2006. She is accused of paying a $19,000 deposit with three stolen credit cards through website PayPal. Marissa Mark, left, is accused of hiring Las Vegas poker dealer Essam Eid, left, through his website www.hitmanforhire.net to kill her ex-boyfriend’s new lover. The shoddy website said: ‘Whether you are trying to put an end to a domestic dispute or eliminate your business competitors, we have the solution for you’. The hire-a-hitman website, which has since been taken down, said: ‘Assassinations are the most practical solutions to common problems. Thanks to the Internet, ordering a hit has never been easier. We manage a network of freelance assassins, available to kill at a moment’s notice.’ Court documents show that PayPal refused to transfer the money Mark allegedly paid from three stolen credit cards, meaning Eid never received any money. According to FBI accounts and court documents, Royston – who worked as a loan broker – was first contacted by Eid in September 2006 under the pretence of wanting to refinance his house. He visited her officers in Woodland Hills, California with one of his two wives, Theresa Engle, posing as his assistant, and told her ‘Somebody wants your head. Somebody wants you killed and they hate you a lot.’ He said he decided against killing her because she reminded him of his own daughter and she could save her life and see Mark dead by settling the balance of the contract.

In this current case Mark was arrested in Jersey City, New Jersey and transferred to Allentown, Pennsylvania where she appeared in court charged with conspiracy, identity theft and other counts. She was granted bail on a $150,000 bond.

There are rumours that the events could be turning into a movie.

original article here

Victims & Abusers: Both Use Technology

By Shannon Proudfoot

Technology has moved to the front lines in the fight against domestic violence.

Advocacy organizations are using increasingly sophisticated high-tech solutions in their efforts to keep victims safe, even as they struggle to keep pace with abusers using technology to control and threaten their victims.

"Worldwide, it's an epidemic," says Alexis A. Moore, an abuse survivor and founder of the California-based victim advocacy group Survivors in Action.

"Perpetrators are changing their information and their manoeuvres. Their road map changes by the hour, where our training and education and awareness programs happen on a yearly basis, if that. Laws take years to develop."

GPS devices on vehicles or cellphones can be used to track a victim's movement without their knowledge and abusers can hack into their victim's online accounts to track e-mails or instant-messages, says Cynthia Fraser, a technology safety specialist with the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Advocates first started hearing about high-tech abuse a decade ago, she says, but it's becoming a bigger problem because the technology is so widely and cheaply available. Even abusers who are not tech-savvy can learn how to stalk their partner with the help of the Internet, Fraser says.

The consequences of leaving a digital trail can be deadly. Fraser recalls one case where an abused woman wrote an e-mail about her plans to leave but didn't empty her computer trash bin after deleting the message. Her abuser found the message and killed her.

Fraser works with Safety Net, a project that focuses on technology and domestic abuse, and she's conducted training in Canada with law enforcement, Crown attorneys and shelter workers. Like other advocates, she's careful about how much detail she provides on this type of abuse and efforts to counter it because she doesn't want to "educate abusers."

"Technology has just added another layer to the complexities of women's safety," says Erin Lee-Todd, executive director of Lanark County Interval House, a shelter near Ottawa. "We just have to move with the times."

In Canada, most shelter websites prominently display warnings to victims that their online activities may be monitored, and many have escape buttons that switch to an innocuous website if someone walks into the room. Telecommunications companies have donated new cellphones and airtime to victims who fear their abusers may be tracking their communication or whereabouts with their regular phone.

E-Services, an online counselling program that allows shelters to provide live chat help to clients, is currently being rolled out across Canada by Shelternet, a Toronto-based organization that provides online resources to shelters and abuse victims.

Like those of many advocacy groups, the E-Services website has detailed instructions for clearing browser histories to help victims cover their online tracks, says project manager Tammy Falovo. But the widespread availability of spyware programs that can grab regular screen shots or log every keystroke on a computer and send the information to an abuser means that's no longer enough, she says.

"What we try to do is remind people that no medium is 100 per cent safe," Falovo says.

Many organizations now advise victims to seek help only on computers located in a safe place such as a public library or workplace, and to create a safe e-mail address they only use on computers the abuser has no access to.

The goal is to educate abused women and their children about the high-tech risks without frightening them even more, says Lee-Todd. But while the methods of abuse and stalking may be changing, she says the underlying motivation remains the same.

"The issues are still about power and control, and they're still rooted in that," she says. "Technology has afforded the opportunity to do that more strategically and often in a more sophisticated way."

For Moore, even a professional background as a high-tech investigator didn't protect her when she left an abusive partner several years ago. He began a campaign of "cyberstalking" that involved cancelling her credit cards, emptying her bank account and destroying her credit rating, she says, and like most intimate partners, he knew all the personal information and passwords that allowed him to do so.

Now a cyberstalking expert and founder of the California-based victim advocacy group Survivors in Action, Moore says some abusers will open e-mail accounts and impersonate their victims to seek information or send out naked photos — real or faked — to embarrass them.

"You can't believe what some of them do," she says.*

ARTICLE HERE

(*EOPC can believe it... )

Victims & Abusers: Both Use Technology

By Shannon Proudfoot

Technology has moved to the front lines in the fight against domestic violence.

Advocacy organizations are using increasingly sophisticated high-tech solutions in their efforts to keep victims safe, even as they struggle to keep pace with abusers using technology to control and threaten their victims.

"Worldwide, it's an epidemic," says Alexis A. Moore, an abuse survivor and founder of the California-based victim advocacy group Survivors in Action.

"Perpetrators are changing their information and their manoeuvres. Their road map changes by the hour, where our training and education and awareness programs happen on a yearly basis, if that. Laws take years to develop."

GPS devices on vehicles or cellphones can be used to track a victim's movement without their knowledge and abusers can hack into their victim's online accounts to track e-mails or instant-messages, says Cynthia Fraser, a technology safety specialist with the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

Advocates first started hearing about high-tech abuse a decade ago, she says, but it's becoming a bigger problem because the technology is so widely and cheaply available. Even abusers who are not tech-savvy can learn how to stalk their partner with the help of the Internet, Fraser says.

The consequences of leaving a digital trail can be deadly. Fraser recalls one case where an abused woman wrote an e-mail about her plans to leave but didn't empty her computer trash bin after deleting the message. Her abuser found the message and killed her.

Fraser works with Safety Net, a project that focuses on technology and domestic abuse, and she's conducted training in Canada with law enforcement, Crown attorneys and shelter workers. Like other advocates, she's careful about how much detail she provides on this type of abuse and efforts to counter it because she doesn't want to "educate abusers."

"Technology has just added another layer to the complexities of women's safety," says Erin Lee-Todd, executive director of Lanark County Interval House, a shelter near Ottawa. "We just have to move with the times."

In Canada, most shelter websites prominently display warnings to victims that their online activities may be monitored, and many have escape buttons that switch to an innocuous website if someone walks into the room. Telecommunications companies have donated new cellphones and airtime to victims who fear their abusers may be tracking their communication or whereabouts with their regular phone.

E-Services, an online counselling program that allows shelters to provide live chat help to clients, is currently being rolled out across Canada by Shelternet, a Toronto-based organization that provides online resources to shelters and abuse victims.

Like those of many advocacy groups, the E-Services website has detailed instructions for clearing browser histories to help victims cover their online tracks, says project manager Tammy Falovo. But the widespread availability of spyware programs that can grab regular screen shots or log every keystroke on a computer and send the information to an abuser means that's no longer enough, she says.

"What we try to do is remind people that no medium is 100 per cent safe," Falovo says.

Many organizations now advise victims to seek help only on computers located in a safe place such as a public library or workplace, and to create a safe e-mail address they only use on computers the abuser has no access to.

The goal is to educate abused women and their children about the high-tech risks without frightening them even more, says Lee-Todd. But while the methods of abuse and stalking may be changing, she says the underlying motivation remains the same.

"The issues are still about power and control, and they're still rooted in that," she says. "Technology has afforded the opportunity to do that more strategically and often in a more sophisticated way."

For Moore, even a professional background as a high-tech investigator didn't protect her when she left an abusive partner several years ago. He began a campaign of "cyberstalking" that involved cancelling her credit cards, emptying her bank account and destroying her credit rating, she says, and like most intimate partners, he knew all the personal information and passwords that allowed him to do so.

Now a cyberstalking expert and founder of the California-based victim advocacy group Survivors in Action, Moore says some abusers will open e-mail accounts and impersonate their victims to seek information or send out naked photos — real or faked — to embarrass them.

"You can't believe what some of them do," she says.*

ARTICLE HERE

(*EOPC can believe it... )

Killer Used Facebook to Communicate

By Lori Brown

Prisoners are supposed to get limited contact with the outside world. That's why they're in prison - to be removed from the outside world. But at least one prisoner found a way to stay connected, in real time, through Facebook.

For months, convicted murderer William Joseph Hogan used Facebook to mentally escape prison life, communicating with friends from all over, as well as his mother.

"If the pen gets any better, I might not want to leave," he wrote in one post. "Tattoos dirt cheap, sleep all day, play volleyball, sun tan, workout and read."

Hogan's posts came from behind bars as he serves a life sentence at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

"Hello free world folks, hope everyone is doing well," he wrote in one post.

"Good thing I have a way to stay in touch with my 'friends,'" he wrote in another.

Hogan was imprisoned for murdering Reba Garrett's granddaughter, Wendy Renee Thweatt Hogan, just over two hears ago in Horn Lake.

"He shot her eight times," Garrett said. "We had to have her cremated. We didn't get to say goodbye."

Garrett's three great-grandchildren were in the home as Hogan killed the only parent they had left. Their dad died in a car crash. They now live with their aunt.

"It changed their life forever," Garrett said.

There's been little change for Hogan, though, according to his posts on Facebook. He lists himself as widowed, and interested in dating and relationships with women.

"He's trying to act like he's an ordinary guy. (He posted) Pictures of himself in a boat. Sitting there in a boat like, ''Here, I'm just a regular, Joe,'" Garrett said.

"No, you're not widowed, you killed your wife!"

Hogan has broken the correction center's rules time and time again by using a cell phone. On Facebook, he's even posted swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

One Facebook friend replied, "Lol I didn't know they let u guys use Facebook."In another post, Hogan wrote, "Just got through visiting my mama everything went great..."

His mother wrote back,"I enjoyed my visit with you too. You are a great young man... you make a bad situation the best you can. Love ya."

Action News 5 asked Mississippi's Department of Corrections why Hogan was allowed to be on Facebook. At first, corrections officials thought someone from the free world may have been making posts on Hogan's behalf, because prisoners do not have Facebook access.

But the following day, a spokesperson replied in an email, saying, "Thank you Ms. Brown for bringing this to our attention. When we find instances where inmates have violated the rules, measures are taken. MDOC has reported to Facebook that this is an illegal account."

According to Mississippi State Senator Merle Flowers, with 21,000 inmates across the state, things like this are bound to happen.

"We want to thank Action News 5 for bringing it to our attention," she said. "Certainly, you don't know about some things until people tell you about them."

MDOC placed Hogan on lock down, and transferred him to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, home of the new Operation Cellblock. There, new technology intercepts illegal cell phone transmissions by inmates.

"It could have gone on for months or years," Garrett said.

Before prison officials shut down Hogan's Facebook account, his final post read, "Nothing goin on down here". Maybe now that's a little more accurate.

MDOC says the new cell phone blocking technology marks a turning point. The Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman was the first prison to use the new technology in the United States. During its first month of operation, the state intercepted nearly 216,000 illegal phone calls.

The technology is expected to be in place in all Mississippi State prisons within this fiscal year.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Killer Used Facebook to Communicate

By Lori Brown

Prisoners are supposed to get limited contact with the outside world. That's why they're in prison - to be removed from the outside world. But at least one prisoner found a way to stay connected, in real time, through Facebook.

For months, convicted murderer William Joseph Hogan used Facebook to mentally escape prison life, communicating with friends from all over, as well as his mother.

"If the pen gets any better, I might not want to leave," he wrote in one post. "Tattoos dirt cheap, sleep all day, play volleyball, sun tan, workout and read."

Hogan's posts came from behind bars as he serves a life sentence at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

"Hello free world folks, hope everyone is doing well," he wrote in one post.

"Good thing I have a way to stay in touch with my 'friends,'" he wrote in another.

Hogan was imprisoned for murdering Reba Garrett's granddaughter, Wendy Renee Thweatt Hogan, just over two hears ago in Horn Lake.

"He shot her eight times," Garrett said. "We had to have her cremated. We didn't get to say goodbye."

Garrett's three great-grandchildren were in the home as Hogan killed the only parent they had left. Their dad died in a car crash. They now live with their aunt.

"It changed their life forever," Garrett said.

There's been little change for Hogan, though, according to his posts on Facebook. He lists himself as widowed, and interested in dating and relationships with women.

"He's trying to act like he's an ordinary guy. (He posted) Pictures of himself in a boat. Sitting there in a boat like, ''Here, I'm just a regular, Joe,'" Garrett said.

"No, you're not widowed, you killed your wife!"

Hogan has broken the correction center's rules time and time again by using a cell phone. On Facebook, he's even posted swastikas and other Nazi symbols.

One Facebook friend replied, "Lol I didn't know they let u guys use Facebook."In another post, Hogan wrote, "Just got through visiting my mama everything went great..."

His mother wrote back,"I enjoyed my visit with you too. You are a great young man... you make a bad situation the best you can. Love ya."

Action News 5 asked Mississippi's Department of Corrections why Hogan was allowed to be on Facebook. At first, corrections officials thought someone from the free world may have been making posts on Hogan's behalf, because prisoners do not have Facebook access.

But the following day, a spokesperson replied in an email, saying, "Thank you Ms. Brown for bringing this to our attention. When we find instances where inmates have violated the rules, measures are taken. MDOC has reported to Facebook that this is an illegal account."

According to Mississippi State Senator Merle Flowers, with 21,000 inmates across the state, things like this are bound to happen.

"We want to thank Action News 5 for bringing it to our attention," she said. "Certainly, you don't know about some things until people tell you about them."

MDOC placed Hogan on lock down, and transferred him to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, home of the new Operation Cellblock. There, new technology intercepts illegal cell phone transmissions by inmates.

"It could have gone on for months or years," Garrett said.

Before prison officials shut down Hogan's Facebook account, his final post read, "Nothing goin on down here". Maybe now that's a little more accurate.

MDOC says the new cell phone blocking technology marks a turning point. The Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman was the first prison to use the new technology in the United States. During its first month of operation, the state intercepted nearly 216,000 illegal phone calls.

The technology is expected to be in place in all Mississippi State prisons within this fiscal year.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Raped in Front of Her Son by a Man She Met Online

By Martin Fricker

He lured pair to flat before attack

A mother was raped in front of her young son by a man she met on the internet, police said yesterday.

The victim, 23, and her three-year-old boy were lured to the suspect's flat before she was knocked out and raped.

She had met the alleged attacker - known as "Derek" - on a number of occasions after they contacted each other online.

And she took her son with her when the pair agreed to meet close to the M2 motorway in Kent on Wednesday, September 30.

The woman then went with the mystery man to a block of flats in Sutton, South London.

As she drank a cup of tea, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious before raping her. Police said when the victim regained consciousness she managed to flee the apartment with her son.

Specialist officers worked with the victim to create an e-fit of the stocky predator.

And they hope an unusual "eagle design" on the spare wheel of his Land Rover may help track him down. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The suspect is described as white, in his late 40s and of muscular build.

"He called himself "Derek" and drove an old green Land Rover with a canvas roof. The spare wheel that is attached to the rear of the vehicle had a cover with an eagle design."

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks that have occurred after meetings arranged over the internet.

Last month, Ashleigh Hall, 17, was allegedly killed by a stranger she met on Facebook after telling her mum she was staying overnight with a friend.

And police yesterday revealed the trainee nurse - whose body was found on farmland in Sedgefield, Co Durham, 11 days ago - died after being suffocated.

Durham police said the death was "consistent with smothering".

Homeless Peter Chapman, 32, has been remanded in custody after being charged with the manslaughter and kidnap of the trainee nurse.

He is also charged with failing to give a new address under the Sex Offences Act.

original article here

Raped in Front of Her Son by a Man She Met Online

By Martin Fricker

He lured pair to flat before attack

A mother was raped in front of her young son by a man she met on the internet, police said yesterday.

The victim, 23, and her three-year-old boy were lured to the suspect's flat before she was knocked out and raped.

She had met the alleged attacker - known as "Derek" - on a number of occasions after they contacted each other online.

And she took her son with her when the pair agreed to meet close to the M2 motorway in Kent on Wednesday, September 30.

The woman then went with the mystery man to a block of flats in Sutton, South London.

As she drank a cup of tea, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious before raping her. Police said when the victim regained consciousness she managed to flee the apartment with her son.

Specialist officers worked with the victim to create an e-fit of the stocky predator.

And they hope an unusual "eagle design" on the spare wheel of his Land Rover may help track him down. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The suspect is described as white, in his late 40s and of muscular build.

"He called himself "Derek" and drove an old green Land Rover with a canvas roof. The spare wheel that is attached to the rear of the vehicle had a cover with an eagle design."

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks that have occurred after meetings arranged over the internet.

Last month, Ashleigh Hall, 17, was allegedly killed by a stranger she met on Facebook after telling her mum she was staying overnight with a friend.

And police yesterday revealed the trainee nurse - whose body was found on farmland in Sedgefield, Co Durham, 11 days ago - died after being suffocated.

Durham police said the death was "consistent with smothering".

Homeless Peter Chapman, 32, has been remanded in custody after being charged with the manslaughter and kidnap of the trainee nurse.

He is also charged with failing to give a new address under the Sex Offences Act.

original article here

Ex-Wife Murdered Over Facebook Posts

A chef has been jailed for life for murdering his ex-wife after she taunted him on Facebook about paying child support.

Adam Mann used a hammer to batter Lisa Beverley, 30, before slashing her neck with a knife, the Old Bailey was told.

Jurors heard Miss Beverley's five-year-old son found her body at their home in Plumstead in south-east London, on the day after the murder in September 2009.

Mann, 29, of Welling, Kent, will have to serve a minimum of 24 years.

'Unimaginable horror'
During the trial the court was told Miss Beverley had no chance of surviving after being hit on the face, head, neck and body.

Jeremy Donne QC, prosecuting, said Miss Beverley's five-year-old son was confronted with a scene of "unimaginable horror" when he found her the next day.

The court heard the couple divorced in 2007 and were involved in a bitter dispute.

Miss Beverley was trying to get Mann to contribute towards raising their son, through the Child Support Agency (CSA). She told the CSA he had lied about being unemployed and he had subsequently been sent a letter demanding payments of about £400.

The day before her death, Miss Beverley's Facebook profile was updated to say: "Now whose laughing? U've got done big time by the CS, so now leave us alone for good, your son hates u and so do I."

Judge Paul Worsley told Mann: "This was a truly dreadful killing."

The judge said Mann had earlier that day been arguing with the CSA.

"You desperately tried to avoid responsibility for your son. I have no doubt you wanted to remove any further claim by removing Lisa Beverley," said the judge. "You have shown no flicker of remorse. I reject the suggestion that there was any degree of provocation."

The court heard the couple divorced in 2007 and were involved in a bitter dispute.

Det Insp Brian Mather, who investigated the murder, said: "This was a dreadful and tragic case and one cannot imagine how Lisa's young son must have felt finding his mother dead under such horrendous circumstances.

"The actions of Mann are indescribable, that he could murder the mother of his son and leave him to discover her body."

Ex-Wife Murdered Over Facebook Posts

A chef has been jailed for life for murdering his ex-wife after she taunted him on Facebook about paying child support.

Adam Mann used a hammer to batter Lisa Beverley, 30, before slashing her neck with a knife, the Old Bailey was told.

Jurors heard Miss Beverley's five-year-old son found her body at their home in Plumstead in south-east London, on the day after the murder in September 2009.

Mann, 29, of Welling, Kent, will have to serve a minimum of 24 years.

'Unimaginable horror'
During the trial the court was told Miss Beverley had no chance of surviving after being hit on the face, head, neck and body.

Jeremy Donne QC, prosecuting, said Miss Beverley's five-year-old son was confronted with a scene of "unimaginable horror" when he found her the next day.

The court heard the couple divorced in 2007 and were involved in a bitter dispute.

Miss Beverley was trying to get Mann to contribute towards raising their son, through the Child Support Agency (CSA). She told the CSA he had lied about being unemployed and he had subsequently been sent a letter demanding payments of about £400.

The day before her death, Miss Beverley's Facebook profile was updated to say: "Now whose laughing? U've got done big time by the CS, so now leave us alone for good, your son hates u and so do I."

Judge Paul Worsley told Mann: "This was a truly dreadful killing."

The judge said Mann had earlier that day been arguing with the CSA.

"You desperately tried to avoid responsibility for your son. I have no doubt you wanted to remove any further claim by removing Lisa Beverley," said the judge. "You have shown no flicker of remorse. I reject the suggestion that there was any degree of provocation."

The court heard the couple divorced in 2007 and were involved in a bitter dispute.

Det Insp Brian Mather, who investigated the murder, said: "This was a dreadful and tragic case and one cannot imagine how Lisa's young son must have felt finding his mother dead under such horrendous circumstances.

"The actions of Mann are indescribable, that he could murder the mother of his son and leave him to discover her body."

Secret Facebook Romance Leads to Execution

Jealous ex-boyfriend executed mother and daughter, 4, after discovering Facebook romance

A secret affair started on Facebook may have provoked a shooting which left three
people dead, an inquest heard yesterday.

Andrew Copland shot his former partner Julie Harrison and their four-year-old daughter Maisie before turning the gun on himself.

A coroner heard the 56-year-old painter and decorator may have killed them after discovering Miss Harrison was having a relationship with an old schoolfriend.

The bloodbath was discovered after a neighbour dialled 999 after seeing 40-year-old Miss Harrison desperately banging on the inside of a window.

The inquest heard that she had moved out of Copland’s home in Aldershot into a flat in the Hampshire town.

Her new boyfriend, Lee Johnston, told the inquest he had regained contact with Miss Harrison through the Facebook website.

They were together on the morning of the day she died, December 29, and he had been due to meet her again after she dropped Maisie off at her father’s home.

Mr Johnson said: ‘She had told me Andrew had been violent on a number of occasions. He had punched her and pushed her down the stairs.’

He said he and Miss Harrison had gone to great lengths to keep their relationship a secret from Copland.

She had a mobile phone which she used only to contact Mr Johnston.

He said: 'She did not want Andrew to find out because she was scared of what he might do. She thought that he would be violent to her and any man that she was seeing.’

Mr Johnston, who lives in Northampton, said that when she failed to answer his phone calls he drove to Copland’s home and found it cordoned off by police.

Neighbour Rachel Southon told how she heard Copland bolt the door – and seconds later saw Miss Harrison fall to the floor.

She said: 'I saw the back of Andrew through the glass. Then he disappeared and I saw Julie banging on the window. She fell back as if he had hit her with something. At that point I phoned the police.’

Maisie was found dead in the dining room and Copland in the hallway. Miss Harrison was still alive and was flown to hospital but died the following day.

Coroner Andrew Bradley heard that ballistic tests revealed that all three were shot by a 9mm 1930s Baretta handgun, which Copland had found in a builder’s skip in Surrey in 1998, complete with ammunition.

He ruled that Miss Harrison and Maisie were unlawfully killed and Copland took his own life.

After the hearing Copland’s older children Craig and Keely said their lives have been 'devastated'.

They said: 'We never could have imagined that our dad could do what he has done; to us, he was an ordinary dad who taught and helped and

loved us.

'As well as the grief and anger, there are so many "whys" and "if onlys". If only our dad had never found that gun and kept it hidden all those years.'

Hampshire police will tomorrow launch a two-week firearms amnesty to remove illegal weapons from the streets.

original article here

Secret Facebook Romance Leads to Execution

Jealous ex-boyfriend executed mother and daughter, 4, after discovering Facebook romance

A secret affair started on Facebook may have provoked a shooting which left three
people dead, an inquest heard yesterday.

Andrew Copland shot his former partner Julie Harrison and their four-year-old daughter Maisie before turning the gun on himself.

A coroner heard the 56-year-old painter and decorator may have killed them after discovering Miss Harrison was having a relationship with an old schoolfriend.

The bloodbath was discovered after a neighbour dialled 999 after seeing 40-year-old Miss Harrison desperately banging on the inside of a window.

The inquest heard that she had moved out of Copland’s home in Aldershot into a flat in the Hampshire town.

Her new boyfriend, Lee Johnston, told the inquest he had regained contact with Miss Harrison through the Facebook website.

They were together on the morning of the day she died, December 29, and he had been due to meet her again after she dropped Maisie off at her father’s home.

Mr Johnson said: ‘She had told me Andrew had been violent on a number of occasions. He had punched her and pushed her down the stairs.’

He said he and Miss Harrison had gone to great lengths to keep their relationship a secret from Copland.

She had a mobile phone which she used only to contact Mr Johnston.

He said: 'She did not want Andrew to find out because she was scared of what he might do. She thought that he would be violent to her and any man that she was seeing.’

Mr Johnston, who lives in Northampton, said that when she failed to answer his phone calls he drove to Copland’s home and found it cordoned off by police.

Neighbour Rachel Southon told how she heard Copland bolt the door – and seconds later saw Miss Harrison fall to the floor.

She said: 'I saw the back of Andrew through the glass. Then he disappeared and I saw Julie banging on the window. She fell back as if he had hit her with something. At that point I phoned the police.’

Maisie was found dead in the dining room and Copland in the hallway. Miss Harrison was still alive and was flown to hospital but died the following day.

Coroner Andrew Bradley heard that ballistic tests revealed that all three were shot by a 9mm 1930s Baretta handgun, which Copland had found in a builder’s skip in Surrey in 1998, complete with ammunition.

He ruled that Miss Harrison and Maisie were unlawfully killed and Copland took his own life.

After the hearing Copland’s older children Craig and Keely said their lives have been 'devastated'.

They said: 'We never could have imagined that our dad could do what he has done; to us, he was an ordinary dad who taught and helped and

loved us.

'As well as the grief and anger, there are so many "whys" and "if onlys". If only our dad had never found that gun and kept it hidden all those years.'

Hampshire police will tomorrow launch a two-week firearms amnesty to remove illegal weapons from the streets.

original article here

Teens Arrested for Murder by Bullying Case

While this is a bit off-topic for us, let us hope they do not let these teenagers skate the way they did that murderer, Lori Drew. - EOPC

3 Massachusetts teenagers are due in court next week on charges stemming from a 15-year-old classmate's suicide after incessant bullying.

Seventeen-year-olds Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, both of South Hadley, face charges of criminal harassment, disturbing a school assembly and violation of civil rights.

Mulveyhill and 18-year-old Austin Renaud of Springfield also face statutory rape charges. All three are set for arraignment Tuesday in Northampton.

They are among nine teens charged in what prosecutors call the "incessant" bullying of 15-year-old South Hadley freshman Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide Jan. 15.

Messages were left for Narey's and Renaud's attorneys, and information wasn't immediately available on whether Mulveyhill had an attorney.

original article here

Teens Arrested for Murder by Bullying Case

While this is a bit off-topic for us, let us hope they do not let these teenagers skate the way they did that murderer, Lori Drew. - EOPC

3 Massachusetts teenagers are due in court next week on charges stemming from a 15-year-old classmate's suicide after incessant bullying.

Seventeen-year-olds Sean Mulveyhill and Kayla Narey, both of South Hadley, face charges of criminal harassment, disturbing a school assembly and violation of civil rights.

Mulveyhill and 18-year-old Austin Renaud of Springfield also face statutory rape charges. All three are set for arraignment Tuesday in Northampton.

They are among nine teens charged in what prosecutors call the "incessant" bullying of 15-year-old South Hadley freshman Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide Jan. 15.

Messages were left for Narey's and Renaud's attorneys, and information wasn't immediately available on whether Mulveyhill had an attorney.

original article here