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Spam King and Family Dead In Murder-Suicide
Lt.Hawkins was one of many readers sending in word that the escaped spam king discussed yesterday was found dead in Colorado, after apparently killing his wife and 3-year-old daughter. A teenager was injured, and an infant was found alive in the car.
Celebrating someone killing their family. Fuck you.
Psychologically speaking, the very act of going to prison(even if its minimum security)can be highly damaging. There is no telling what caused this guy to snap but its likely that he didn't sit there and stew about it and decide to do it on his own. It was likely a snap decision brought on by q pretty high amount of stress and depression.
Not justifying it, just stating that its not so cut and dry as a simple choice to kill your family.
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
But he was at one of those white-collar resort prisons. That's why he was able to escape.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It takes someone with a minor god complex. "I'm the only thing that matters to my family, so they're better off dead." I know some people here will celebrate the spammers death, but I would have rather seen him in a 8x10 cell.
The guy was in a minimum security farm prison, if you ask me it had a lot more to do with social rehab than vengeance. The guy wasn't going to be able to access an uncontrolled computer in the two years he was there, if they wanted vengeance they may have sent him to a maximum security prison for longer than two years.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Pretty much. Seriously, the US prison system breeds criminals - if you're not one going in, you sure as hell will be coming out.
...and it was such a pleasant Friday morning until I heard this news.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I would be willing to take a lifetime of spam to spare the life of his wife and daughter. The positive news of the story (the spam king is gone for good) pales in the shadow of this tragedy.
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
"He also didn't deserve death for what he did; the jail time and fines/restitution was plenty."
Don't you mean his FAMILY didn't deserve death? Because whether or not he deserved it is moot - he did it to himself.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
That's right - the US penal system killed that little girl and her mother.
Asshole.
You can throw all the pejoratives you want, the fact remains that the US penal system does an excellent job of making petty criminals into hardened criminals. Never mind issues like prison rape. This guy may have been serving in a minimum security facility but he US penal contains a number of penal facilities that are such hell-holes that being sent there could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment.
I know he did, but what I meant was even his death isn't something to be celebrated. The man was obviously deeply disturbed. Implying that someone like him should die (and that implication has been made many times here on /.) is just whacked.
Optimum: 8x10 cell, family alive. Not as good, but tolerable: dead by his own hand, family alive. Absolutely horrible: him dead with wife and his 3 year old child.
As a father of 3, I cannot fathom what drives a person to do that to their own child. An adult can create conflict that may drive you to retaliate. A 3 year old cannot.
There is no telling what caused this guy to snap but its likely that he didn't sit there and stew about it and decide to do it on his own.
If he was still alive and having to defend himself in court, he'd probably plead temporary insanity.
Insanity means without reason or utterly foolish. Something must have really snapped in his head, put him on another plane of consciousness.
That's all I can think of. I can't believe a father would really kill his innocent little child. I want to believe that he would not have done so in even a remotely reasonable state of mind. He must have really lost it.
My condolences to those affected. :(
It's so easy to criticize behind computer screen. No one knows what he's been through. Nothing justifies the killing of his wife (maybe she agreed?) and daughter (this one has no maybes), but we just don't know what really happened, and never will. So I prefer not to judge.
So what you essentially say is that a criminal, no matter how "trivial" or unrelated to homicide his transgression may be, is by the very fact that he broke a law a potential mass murderer?
Good lord! The RIAA is right, the internet is full of potential terrorists!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Email spammers are inherently and universally sociopaths. It is not unreasonable to consider that any given email spammer would, if it could be profitable, commit murder.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
> This wasn't a normal father. He was a criminal.
That's not fair. There are many criminals, who are also fathers, who love and don't harm their children.
"And there be unix which have made themselves unix for the kingdom of heaven's sake." - Matt. 19:12
This wasn't a normal father. He was a criminal.
I agree this guy was a complete selfish asshole, but you're treading on dangerous ground here. There aren't two different types of people: "criminals" and "non-criminals". Someone being a criminal doesn't make them morally corrupt and somehow more able to commit murder/suicide.
With the ways the laws are lately, we're pretty much all criminals. That doesn't make us any more or less likely to do something insane like this.
What this guy did was a not uncommon response to his type of situation. There are psychological factors at work that we should work to understand instead of dismissing this as just the actions of a criminal and sweeping them under the rug. That doesn't help anyone.
It's similar to our reaction to the Columbine shootings. When someone does something that far off from our own moral compass we label them as the Other. They were "monsters" and that's how they did what they did. Well no, sorry, they were human beings. Identifying them as monsters doesn't do anything constructive to prevent similar tragedies in future.
He is self-centered (or rather, more self-centered than the average Joe) because of what? Because he sent out spam emails and didn't care that he got on your nerves? By that logic, every cold calling CCA is also a self centered bastard who's ready to pop any second.
And yes, they're annoying as hell (maybe more than even spammers), but that doesn't make them more likely to go on killing sprees than the average Joe.
I fail to see the connection between being a spammer and being a murder-suicide in the making. Basically, we're all self-centered. Do I care about your wellbeing? Not really. Do you care about mine? I doubt it. Does that mean we will leap at each other's throat the moment we spot each other? Dunno about you, but I won't. Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I was about to say that. If there is money in it and the chance to get caught reasonably small, some company will certainly do it. Hell, if murder was legal you'd have murder agencies pop up left and right, if the money is right.
If it is profitable and either legal altogether or at least the chance to get caught is small enough (or the fines well within the profit margin), a company will do it. The formula for profit is income minus expenses, morals doesn't exist in that equation.
And while every person may have moral concerns, they don't apply as soon as a company can absorb that moral problem. A worker there could have moral qualms because he does something he knows is "wrong", but he has to do it, he has to bring home money to feed his kids. A manager who lays off a worker he knows can't get a new job and thus is threatened with poverty might have moral concerns over it, but he can brush that aside and see that this way he can continue employing those other 10, and if he didn't lay off the one, the company might lose profit and cut the whole branch, making 12 people (i.e. the 11 and him) lose their jobs. The top management might even have moral concerns, but they can shift the blame on the investors who want first and foremost money for their investment, and the managers are responsible that this money is well invested money. The investors in turn don't even know what they invest in, they just hand money to their bank, trusting the bank to multiply that money. And the investors working at a bank might even know that a company is doing "evil things", but they have to put their moral concerns aside, they have promised their customers to do the best investments they could so they have to invest in the "evil" company, because it's the most profitable one.
You see, nobody to blame, no moral problem for anyone. Everyone can shift the blame on someone and morals don't play a role anymore, even if they did for a single person, the moment you can shift it on someone else, it's all fine, after all, you don't do evil, you're forced to, by the circumstances.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.
I think your base assumption is flawed. If this was true then the Red Cross wouldn't exist, neither would other charitable organizations that receive money from everyday people and disperse it to others in need. If people didn't care too much then they wouldn't give too much. But the fact of the matter is that the people of this world care very much about the well being of others. I'm sorry that you don't, but I think I'm speaking for the majority of people when I say that I do.
Basically, we're all self-centered. Do I care about your wellbeing? Not really. Do you care about mine? I doubt it. Does that mean we will leap at each other's throat the moment we spot each other? Dunno about you, but I won't. Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.
Swift one there, Ayn! I guess that those firemen walk into your burning house to pull you away from a horrible death for the pay. Likewise the physicians, therapists and the other adherents to the social compact.
Public interest lawsuits, seat belts, vaccines - yep, you have hit the nail on the head: everybody is exactly like you.
> This wasn't a normal father. He was a criminal.
That's not fair. There are many criminals, who are also fathers, who love and don't harm their children.
Indeed. I admit to being a criminal. I've stopped cracking accounts illegally, I've stopped buying/smoking weed, I no longer brew up explosives/build bombs, etc - I'm a married/employed father now and am no longer willing to accept the risk associated with those juvenile habits. But, I still drive ~10% over the speed limit most times. Most people speed - Cops maybe even worse than the rest of us. I've even been known to jaywalk. Most of us are criminals in one way or another.
But that does not imply that I'm remotely violent with my children. It would take an inconceivable brain fracture for me to ever become an intentional threat to my family. As a matter of fact, the only scenarios where I could envision myself becoming violent would be in defense of them, myself, or another innocent - In that order.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Where as non-caucasian males would, customarily, just walk away with no guilt and no feelings of any responsibility?
... she doesn't. Is that a racist comment?
... I was making an observation.
Why would you say that? The GP is pointing out that when placed under similar levels of stress and feelings of guilt and inadequacy people in other cultures (surprise!) behave differently.
Sounds pretty racist, any way you want to try to advance that argument.
Why do people insist on labeling any perception or documentation of differences between races or cultures as "racist"? People are different, that's why we can make such distinctions as race in the first place! Furthermore, to posit that all races are equal/identical in all ways is ridiculous. For example, I'm a white guy and my girlfriend is African. I have to wear sunblock
This kind of automatic negative reaction to any mention of racial differences immediately eliminates legitimate discourse, because now the dialog shifts from communication to accusation and defense. That, actually, is often the point of crying "racism!", because it puts the other guy on the defensive, even if he happens to be right. Maybe especially if he happens to be right.
If the facts bear out what the GP is stating (i.e., that there are such differences) then his comment is not racist, but informative. And if he's wrong, then he's probably just misinformed. Personally, I saw nothing inflammatory or racist in his commentary. At least, I'll reserve judgment before making any accusations.
Japanese males, for example, tend to commit suicide in silence, alone. Well, traditionally they do: I read somewhere that that has been changing. Regardless, am I saying that suicidal Japanese men are a. inferior or b. superior to their Western counterparts? The answer is c. neither
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I agree this guy was a complete selfish asshole, but you're treading on dangerous ground here. There aren't two different types of people: "criminals" and "non-criminals". Someone being a criminal doesn't make them morally corrupt and somehow more able to commit murder/suicide.
Have you read Confessions of a Former Spammer? These assholes do things like scrape emails from support websites for recovering gambling addicts and then send them invitations to online gambling sites. This is more than just fraud or theft. They prey on the weak and vulnerable for their own profit. And they do it in the most cowardly way possible, where they never even have to meet or see their victims.
You're correct in that these types of generalizations aren't really productive, but I think it's a rather safe assumption that anyone who has made millions off of spam aren't just a thief but truly a sociopath. They know that they're ruining the lives of others; they just don't care.
Usually, people don't care too much about people they don't know.
I think your base assumption is flawed. If this was true then the Red Cross wouldn't exist, neither would other charitable organizations that receive money from everyday people and disperse it to others in need. If people didn't care too much then they wouldn't give too much. But the fact of the matter is that the people of this world care very much about the well being of others. I'm sorry that you don't, but I think I'm speaking for the majority of people when I say that I do.
If people usually cared about people they don't know, there would be no need for the Red Cross and other charitable organizations to exist in the first place.
What he is saying is everything we do is driven from a selfish motivation. Firefighters derive a sense of satisfaction from protecting people and that is why they do it.
This is a rhetorical trick that has always annoyed me. By definition, all motivation for action is at some point internal. To say that all motivations are therefore equally selfish is idiotic.
Let's assume that:
That they are all personal motivations is undeniable. Calling them equally selfish, and saying that therefore people are equally selfish is a trick where you confuse two different meanings of selfish.
We are born with a capacity for compassion, in the same way we are born with a capacity to run. Whether we choose to develop those capacities is up to us.