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

[the4thdimension]

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.

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

[ShadowsHawk]

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.

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

[Trigun]

He got tired of having his box filled with unsolicited male?

(Shamelessly stolen from Fark)

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

[jank1887]

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.

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

[Tiber]

if only he had used canadian antidepressants! I am sure I could find the mail somewhere which had extremely good rates from a company called International Pharmacy.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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. :(

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

[b0ttle]

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.

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

[Noexit]

I spent a week in a loony bin myself once. We had the same problem with the cards. Apparently nobody in there ever played with a full deck...(wait for it)...

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

[Opportunist]

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!

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

[Dimensio]

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.

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

[Chris Burkhardt]

> 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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Canadian antidepressants tend to require the use of an inordinate amount of Visine and Oreos, he may not have had ready access to these suppliments.

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

[ODiV]

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.

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

[Goobermunch]

I can't believe a father would really kill his innocent little child.

This kind of murder-suicide is a relatively common experience (murder-suicides being highly uncommon events in the first place). Customarily, they are committed by Caucasian men. The shrinks and the profilers believe that this particular type of murder is an insidious relative of a "vanilla" suicide. The male figure feels shamed due to personal and professional failings and feels that he is unable to provide for his family. In a state of depression he determined to kill himself. However, the basis for the suicidal impulse is the fear of being unable to care for the family, a result guaranteed by the suicide. Therefore, the perpetrator, as "patriarch" decides to commit suicide for the entire family. That way, he can prevent them from dealing with the consequences of his failings and his suicide. These cases often appear in connection with financial failures.

--AC

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, am sorry to hear about Spam King's passing. I never read any of his books, but I watched "The Shining" once on TV. America has lost one of its most prolific horror writers. ....

What? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.

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

[Opportunist]

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.

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

[Opportunist]

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.

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

[bryce4president]

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.

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

[grolaw]

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.

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

[gnick]

> 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.

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

[ScrewMaster]

Where as non-caucasian males would, customarily, just walk away with no guilt and no feelings of any responsibility?

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 ... she doesn't. Is that a racist comment?

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 ... I was making an observation.

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

[tobiasly]

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.

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

[Mr Abstracto]

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.

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

[dubl-u]

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:

• Attila the Hun liked killing people.
• Torquemada liked torturing people.
• Mother Teresa liked helping people.
• Gandhi liked making the world more just.

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.

beware

[appleLaserWriter]

spam kills

This quote says it all

[iamhigh]

"What a nightmare, and such a coward," U.S. Attorney Troy Eid said. "Davidson imposed the 'death penalty' on family members for his own crime."

Re:This quote says it all

[hansamurai]

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.

Re:This quote says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much. Seriously, the US prison system breeds criminals - if you're not one going in, you sure as hell will be coming out.

Re:This quote says it all

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This quote says it all

[LordKaT]

Have you ever been in the "farm system" (as you so daintily put it)? Let me tell you what life is like behind the bars at the "farm system":

Dorm living with fully grown men. These "dorms" are sometimes the size of a gymnasium. A gymnasium full of grown men. Fully grown, under enormous stress, living in close quarters. Honestly, you'd have much less stress living in a car.

2 minute showers, enforced.

Scheduled bathroom times. Gotta shit? Hold it until shit time, which is usually at the start of the day and the end.

Forced labor. They don't even bother matching you up with work from your skillset. Too fat? Go work in the yard. Too stupid to know how to kill someone with a knife? Kitchen work.

This "farm system" isn't about rehabilitation, it's about "serving your time" and getting the fuck out.

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.

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:Woo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Celebrating someone killing their family. Fuck you.

Re:Sad...

[Hognoxious]

I guess that's what happens if you get into a pound-in-the-ass federal prison. You'd rather die than to ever return there.

But he was at one of those white-collar resort prisons. That's why he was able to escape.

So this is the guy that inspired the name...

[insomaniac]

SpamAssassin

The sign on the way out

[the4thdimension]

"Attention: You are now escaping. Please turn back immediately."

Re:Coward.

[Bastard of Subhumani]

You're just jealous because he went one better than you. Right, Hans?

TGIF

[Wiarumas]

...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.

Re:Jackass

[R2.0]

"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.

Re:Coward.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an atheist, it does make me wish there really was a hell for guys like this.

The christians have it so easy sometimes :)

Re:Jackass

[dreamchaser]

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.

Re:Coward.

[bsDaemon]

I always say that I'd like to meet the Atheist who doesn't say "god damn it" or "go to hell," and he lesbian that doesn't use a dildo... but they both seem to be very elusive specimens.