7.20.2010

Not THE Killers. Singular, as in Killer.

As if this month couldn't get any weirder.
Last week I received an email about an old online buddy of sorts, who used to blog alongside a few other tragically bent souls (including myself), every day on a social networking site called Tagworld.

Rewind: Takin' it back to ol' 2005, holla.
For a time, a handful of us who joined this site would chat, email, write, draw, paint, create and create and create ABC and XYZ, outdoing the next guy, nudging the next guy, challenging the next guy, onward, upward, let's see what else we can do. We uploaded photos, poetry, blogs, artwork, asked each others opinions and collaborated on as much as possible. It was one of the more creative times in my life. This wasn't Facebook where you knew who your "friends" were. It was a small site still in it's infancy and none of the people whose blogs I read every day, did I honestly, in real life, know. I liked that anonymity. With those of us on the same war path, there was a lot of communication outside of your normal comment and reply. Online identities to the wayside and you share more than ideas, you share names, hopes, dreams, secrets, personal information that you are sometimes surprised you volunteered to what is essentially, a stranger. I chatted in invite only groups, formed coalitions with other like minded individuals; exclusive clubs of fools. All of this interaction and after a time you get a sense of those you contact and who contact you every day. A type of friendship, one might say, develops.

A few times in my life, I have met some of the people that I began talking to strictly online. After Tagworld sort of fell apart, and this group of dedicated bloggers went their separate ways, I kept in contact with a few of the people I felt kinda lucky enough to have crossed virtual paths. Any of them I would have had lunch or dinner with had we ever been in each others time zones and five years later, I would still say the same thing. We still talk. We still talk about meeting.
Well. Maybe not now.

So, back to the email.
It wasn't from him, it was about him. The him who had been my buddy. At first I did not reply because after my other experiences communicating online (which were not sunshine and happiness but filled with intimidation, hatred, and anger) I tend to keep my distance and default to paranoia before I even get past the greeting portion of any new unprovoked letter.
Yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah NOTHING I thought I knew about this "friend" was any where near the truth for the entire five years we kept in contact as revealed in a short conversation I had with an actual friend of his who sent me the email.
But that's not the weird part.
First Degree Murder Charges. That's the weird part.
Rather than fluff about it anymore, I present to you ladies and gentlemen, the online buddy I thought I knew.

Mugshot

She was 15 weeks pregnant. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend.

For me, I think the creepiest thing about it all is that last week his Facebook status messages were about going to confession after 20 years of not stepping anywhere near a church. In typical me fashion, I joked about his moment being like Chunk from The Goonies movie; I even blogged about it, my image of his snotty nosed, whining to a penguin clothed Fratelli brother more than amusing.

I am not so amused anymore.
so. fucking. weird.

5 comments:

  1. Whoah.... Have you heard from Dozer?

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. No, it's been a long, long time gone with that one. I would love to have emails for a few other people who would find this article interesting but I don't and the site was so different the last time I went hunting for someone out of curiosity.
    I read the court documents for the above, and wow... the evidence reads pretty strong. Officially, from the home office, I am no longer allowed to meet people off the interwebz any more.
    C.Razy.

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  4. He posted on something, somewhere recently... remember? And then someone was all "whoah... I once ____, dozer?" and then he was gone.

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  5. He mentally borked at some point (?). I started to question the stories he was telling me when he relayed the FBI coming over in the middle of the night to analyze child porn someone had sent him after visiting Thailand.
    uh, WTF

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