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.

Comments

I understand running away from prison... but

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

I can't believe someone would be so upset over being institutionalized (for their own actions, no less!) that they'd feel the need to kill their family as well as themselves.

What a sad state of affairs.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[ShieldW0lf]

Personally, I think the whole thing stinks. Who goes to all the trouble to escape jail so they can kill themselves when they succeed? It's not like there isn't a long list of people with motive to kill him and tidy up the witnesses. If the teenage girl was shot but escaped and is coherent enough to talk, why do the authorities talk about the "apparent" gunman? That seems to me the sort of language you use when all you have is circumstantial evidence.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[TheRealMindChild]

It isn't just prison, but institutionalization in general.

Once upon a time, I was put into a "mental health facility" (loony bin) after a drawn out period where I started seeing spiders coming at me in all directions (an extreme phobia of mine). Today, we have found out that this condition only emerges when I don't sleep at least 6 hours a night, and stress contriubutes largely to my ability to sleep. Well, about a day into this place, I was literally going nuts. They had TVs, but you weren't allowed to watch them... ever. The only game they had was a deck of cards... with 35 cards. They took away your shoes and most common clothing, where most of us had to wear a hospital gown... the place was at a constant 60 degrees F. There was one hallway... 84 steps from end to end. The only thing to do there was drink coffee and smoke. I never did either before I went there, but when the coffee cart came out, you grabbed one. There was nothing else to do. When smoke break came along, you smoked one. There was nothing else to do.

I started coming up with games to play with myself around the place to try and keep what sanity I had left. I got locked into solitary for playing "Die Hard" and being too "loud and obnoxious, which stirs up the other patients" I was told. The first visitation from my wife I was allowed to have, I had her get a lawyer and get me the hell out of there.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[Xtravar]

How do we know someone else didn't do it and then make it look like a murder/suicide?

That was my first thought when I saw the headline.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[jcr]

He had every right to do himself in, but killing his wife and daughter is beyond the pale. This kind of thing makes me wish I believed in hell.

-jcr

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[TheRealMindChild]

I was not self-admitted, else I could have signed an AMA (Against Medical Advice) waiver and gotten out. I had been working 16+ hour days at work for a month and I was cracking hard. I was actually doing a paid research study for people with psychosis, and I was doing a test in an MRI machine. The spiders started coming out of every crack and I couldn't move, obviously. I couldn't help but panic and I trashed and screamed, everything I could do to get out of there away from the spiders/ They had me admitted because I was "a probable danger to myself and others".

I also have to add this little bit, because it is hard for people to comprehend situations like this if they never have experienced it... When you have a psychotic episode, you can not tell it isn't real. You can even try and reason with yourself that "This can't possibly be happening", but ultimately, every other part of your brain is telling you it is.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[GooberToo]

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.

So what does this statement say about the majority of CEOs in corporate America. Keep in mind, several studies have show CEOs sociopathic behaviors in regard to their decisions.

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[Dun Malg]

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.

Jesus, let's have a little reading comprehension here, can we? That's not his logic at all. His logic is that the more a self-centered bastard someone is, the more likely they are to commit a few murders before committing suicide, IF they reach the point of suicide.

I've worked in telemarketing. About half of them are just regular schmoes, but the other half, well, let's just say that if they were suicidal, you wouldn't expect them to stick a gun in their mouth at home, they'd more likely bring it in to work first and "share".

Re:I understand running away from prison... but

[Psmylie]

I had a friend who was committed a few times because she would hurt herself. We would go to visit her, and each time I couldn't help but think that, if I got stuck in such a place, whatever my mental state was on the way in, I'd be insane on the way out.

It's not anything like a normal environment. Adults get treated like misbehaving and retarded children. Inmates fight over the stupidest things, probably out of boredom... What TV show was on could lead to actual violence. While I don't doubt that being in a place like that encourages people to leave as soon as possible, I don't see how it can possibly help someone with a real problem.

Hopefully, there are places that are better than the one I visited.

Re:This quote says it all

[tsstahl]

As in 100%? Of course not. But I think "innocent man sent to jail" is very, very rare.

Now

How about a 10% error rate? Gov. Ryan commuted the sentences of all Illinois death row inmates after DNA testing exonerated ten percent of them.

Personally, I don't consider a ten percent error rate on death sentences 'rare'.

I'm also willing to bet that you are not an American black male of average build and average height living within 5 blocks of a Martin Luther King Drive.

In my experience, the more heinous the act, the more desire exists for SOMEBODY to pay for it, the higher likelihood of someone being made the fall guy.

Re:This quote says it all

[tb()ne]

2 minute showers?!? Living in dorms?!? Waiting to shit?!? That's outrageous!

Or maybe that's why it's called punishment - it's not supposed to be pleasant. I won't defend the deplorable conditions in PMITA federal prisons or deny that they're just making bad people worse or deny that they make no significant effort to reintegrate prisoner with law-abiding society. But you haven't convinced me that there's anything deplorable going on in the "farm system." Most of your description sounds like boot camp in the military

That's not rehabilitation, it's life structure enforcement. Rehab means breaking a person down into their individual pieces, examining all of those pieces, finding out what's wrong, and then learning to live life with the knowledge that you have a problem.

Oh, so we should have just turned him over to the Scientologists?

The "problem" that a lot of these people have is simply that they are criminals and they will happily break the law if they think they can get away with it, not that they have some psychological problem that will be cured by counseling or psychotherapy. And fear of consequences is more of a deterrent than realizing you didn't get enough attention from mommy. I would be interested to see some statistics on repeat offenses for white collar criminals who spend time in Club Fed, as opposed to those who spend time in PMITA federal prison.