Yes, It Is a Joke

3/7/07

I have commented on several of these before, but every time I see some internet warning flitting about cyberspace, being forwarded on by wave after wave of paranoia, I can’t help but try to bring a little bit of reality back to the chaos. Several people have posted the following bulletin on MySpace, and I felt it my civic duty to try and rein in the madness. Tell me if this looks familiar:

Subject: Fwd: Fw: Read this if you go online at all.
WARNING FROM THE
STATE POLICE. . USA (Not a joke.)

State police warning for online: Please read this "very
carefully"..then send it out to all the people online that you know. Something
like this is nothing to be taken casually; this is something you DO want to pay
attention to.

If a person with the screen-name of jokerkid613/Ja$on MoNeY contacts
you, do not reply. DO not talk to this person; do not answer any of his/her
instant messages or e-mail. Whoever this person may be, he/she is a suspect for
murder in the death of 56 women (so far) contacted through the Internet. Please
send this to all the women on your buddy list and ask them to pass this on, as
well. This screen-name was seen on Yahoo, AOL, AIM, and Excite so far. This is
not a joke! Please send this to men too... just in case! Send to everyone you
know!
Ladies, this is serious.

Jennifer S. Faulkner Education/Information Specialist Roanoke Fire-EMS

This, my dear readers, is absolute bunk. Of course, on MySpace the closing salutation is “Please repost. Thanks, Tom.” I love how this is a “warning from the state police” of the USA. That just smacks of authority right there. A version of this email with “Slavemaster” instead of “jokerkid613/Ja$son MoNeY” as the handle has been bouncing around the web since 2000. [1] This was the original June, 2000 warning and, as you can see, it’s been beefed up since then:

If a guy by the name of ----- _SlaveMaster ----- contacts you do not answer. He
has killed 56 women that he has talked to on the Internet.
PLZ SEND OUT TO
ALL THE WOMEN ON YOUR BUDDY LIST . ALSO ASK THEM TO PASS THIS ON. He has been on
{{ Yahoo- AOL-- Excite }} so far. This is no JOKE.!!!!

There is actually a very well exaggerated nugget of truth behind this “alert.” At least, there used to be. There was a man by the name of John E. Robinson, Sr. of Kansas who went by the internet name “Slavemaster.” In June of 2000 he was charged with murdering five women he apparently met through chat rooms. He was suspected in 6 other murders, but even with the potential victim list of 11 Robinson falls well short of the “death of 56 women.” Even then it’s odd that this email lark would be related, as Robinson arrested and jailed on June 6, 2000. He was convicted of 3 murders, and admitted to five killings in Missouri. He’s is now awaiting execution in Kansas, although that might be commuted to life since in 2005 the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state capital punishment laws unconstitutional, and they have yet to be rewritten. [2]

I love how we humans are immediately willing to give in to the knee-jerk reaction of believing horrific things like this, as apparently we are sure the next person we meet wants to stab us in the face and sodomize the corpse. I have my doubts that the first I’d be hearing of a serial killer prolific enough to butcher 56 ladies would be through a forwarded email or MySpace bulletin. You’d think at least one news network would have picked that up. You know, in between clamoring all over each other to see who can plummet to the lowest depths of the most recent Anna Nicole “story.”

[1] Urban Legends and Folklore – About.com
[2] John Edward Robinson – Wikipedia