We are constantly being warned about on-line scams: fake e-mails, phishes, trojans...but there is a far bigger danger out there. Over the past few years a number of people have been lured to their deaths by predators. We have yet to see the first Internet serial killer, but...
Here are a few recent victims:
In July 2012, Tony Bushby was convicted at St Albans Crown Court of the murder of 19 year old babysitter Catherine Wynter. He met her through Facebook, setting up a series of fake friends through multiple accounts, and using these to dupe her into thinking he was a right-on guy. The victim was stabbed to death suffering over twenty wounds. Why he did this remains to be seen, it is possible she rebuffed his sexual advances, but whatever the reason, his crime was incomprehensible.
In October 2007, Michael John Anderson lured a young woman to his parents’ house with an advertisement on Craigslist, and then shot her, apparently simply to experience what it felt like to kill someone.
This month, another (alleged) case of a Craigslist murder has come to light with the arrest of Miranda Barbour. She and her husband met a man on-line and are said to have lured him to his death. Shocking though that may be, Mrs Barbour is also said to have claimed she is part of a Satanic cult, and that she has killed at least 22 people. Most people, including the authorities, are skeptical of this claim, and it may be that she is attempting to “work her ticket” for when she stands trial.
Another very recent case is that of Breck Bednar, a boy of 14 who appears to have met his killer through Facebook. A man has now been charged with his murder.
Should we be concerned? Yes, but we should keep a sense of proportion.Two years ago, a woman named Carol Kemp was given a life sentence for the murder of a man she met on-line, through a dating site. Martin Rusling was stabbed through the heart at his home in Dorset. However, this appears to have been a regular relationship. When he decided to break it off, she snapped.
It is possible you may meet your murderer on-line. It is also possible you may be murdered in your own home by someone you have known for years, and trust, but the vast majority of us are not murdered. We should take the same sensible precautions on-line that we would in the real world. Though there are predators out there, we should never forget either that the on-line community brings us all closer together, and this is not simply a case of making “friends” on Facebook. On social media sites especially there are people queuing up to enrich our lives with everything from music and vintage films to magic tricks. We should not allow a few predators to make us paranoid.
[The above article was first published February 22, 2014.]
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