Social Media Monsters: Internet Killers (True Crimes Collection RJPP Book 16) Read online

  SOCIAL MEDIA

  MONSTERS:

  Internet Killers

  Authored by

  RJ Parker

  JJ Slate

  Edited by: Hartwell Editing

  Cover design by: Jacqueline Cross

  Copyright © 2014 by

  RJ PARKER PUBLISHING, INC

  United States of America

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Armin Meiwes

  Chapter 2: Michael John Anderson

  Chapter 3: John Steven Burgess

  Chapter 4: Christian Grotheer

  Chapter 5: Thomas Montgomery

  Chapter 6: David Russell

  Chapter 7: Robert Frederick Glass

  Chapter 8: John Edward Robinson

  Chapter 9: Ann Marie Linscott

  Chapter 10: Brian Horn

  Chapter 11: Anthony Powell

  Chapter 12: David Heiss

  Chapter 13: Lisa M. Montgomery

  Chapter 14: Edward Frank Manuel

  Chapter 15: George Bernard Lamp, Jr.

  Chapter 16: Hiroshi Maeue

  Chapter 17: John Katehis

  Chapter 18: Peter Chapman

  Chapter 19: Korena Roberts

  Chapter 20: The Long Island Serial Killer

  Chapter 21: Christopher Dannevig

  Chapter 22: Philip Markoff

  Chapter 23: David Kelsey Sparre

  Chapter 24: Chris Dean

  Chapter 25: Lacey Spears

  Chapter 26: Kyle Dube

  Chapter 27: Mark Andrew Twitchell

  Chapter 28: Miranda Barbour

  Chapter 29: Richard Beasley

  Chapter 30: Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III

  Chapter 31: William Francis Melchert-Dinkel

  Chapter 32: Derek Medina

  Chapter 33: Brady Oestrike

  Chapter 34: How Law Enforcement Uses Social Media to Hunt Criminals

  Chapter 35: Internet Safety

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the authors and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of both the Authors and Publisher. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written authorization from RJ Parker Publishing, Inc. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

  Introduction

  Murder. Kidnapping. Cannibalism. Suicide. All of these themes can be found in the following thirty-three true stories about various killers who have used the internet to locate, lure, stalk, or exploit their victims. As you read through the case files of this book, you will learn about the shocking lives led by online predators from all around the world.

  This book is written in a way to help you understand the killer better by exposing his or her background and, if the information is available, the reasons that led the killer to commit the murders. These types of murderers are identified as people who are motivated by a psychological factor: some murderers are triggered by anger or jealousy, others kill as a way to seek attention, and some are merely in it for the thrill of the kill. Unfortunately, sometimes the real reasons behind the murderous acts you will read about in this book are not always known or understood.

  These stories bring to light that any person can fall victim to an online killer, even if the perpetrator is living on the other half of the earth. How can you protect yourself from such dangers? In the last chapter of the book, we’ll talk about the importance of online privacy and how to avoid sharing personal information online, a potentially dangerous and deadly act.

  You will learn how killers are using all sorts of online networks to lure their victims, such as Craigslist, Facebook, chat rooms, and other social media sites. You will also learn about some cases where people have teamed up together to commit the murders.

  At the end of each story, you will find the outcome of the stories, including their arrests, trials, and sometimes deaths. Thorough research has been made, drawing on many various resources, to come up with an accurate string of events defining the background, the crimes, and the aftermath of the killer’s life. As you continue reading, keep in mind that these are real people and real events.

  While this book focuses on killers who use social media to assist in their killing, it’s important to note that the era of the internet didn’t create these types of killers; they have always been around. The internet and the many variations of social media may have just made it easier for today’s killers to find their victims. A few of the more notorious killers of this nature are briefly highlighted next.

  The Lonely Hearts Killers

  In the era before the internet, killers were known to use want ads in the newspaper to locate their victims. Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Beck were a serial killer couple dubbed the “Lonely Hearts Killers,” or the “Honeymoon Killers,” who killed as many as twenty different women during 1947 and 1949 they met through the Lonely Heart ads they posted in local newspapers. Raymond was born on December 17, 1914. He served as a merchant marine in World War II, but on his return home after the war, he suffered a skull fracture in an accident aboard the ship. He spent three months in the hospital and when he was sent home, he was a changed man. Some believe it was this head injury that turned him into a cold-blooded murderer.

  After the war, he began writing letters to women who had posted ads in the Lonely Hearts section of the newspaper. When he met the women in person, he would rob them of their money, jewelry, and other belongings. The women would often be too ashamed to call the police on Raymond and he was able to con many vulnerable women this way.

  It is believed Raymond’s first murder was a woman he dated for a brief time. Jane Lucilla Thompson was found dead in a hotel room in Spain after the couple traveled there together. Police were unable to determine her cause of death. Raymond was able to obtain all of her money and belongings by forging her signature on a will.

  Raymond also met Martha Beck through a Lonely Hearts ad in the personals section of a newspaper. The two wrote letters together while Raymond lived in New York and Martha lived in Florida. They met for the first time in 1947, when Raymond traveled to Florida to visit her. Raymond told Martha about how he often met women through the Lonely Hearts ads and robbed them. The two teamed up and began scamming women together, with Martha posing as his sister or sister-in-law.

  The crimes soon escalated into murder. They began killing together and discovered they enjoyed it. Their first victim was Janet Fay. Martha hit Janet in the skull with a hammer after catching her in bed with Raymond, who then strangled her to death. The murderous couple went on to kill as many as seventeen women, as well as the infant of one of their victims.

  Thanks to the quick thinking of a suspicious neighbor living next door to one of their victims, the police zeroed in on the killer couple squatting in the house and brought them into the station for questioning on February 28, 1949. There, they admitted their crimes and signed a seventy-three-page confession.

  Th
e couple put to death on the same day by the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in New York on March 8, 1951. Raymond was executed first, and his lover was executed shortly after.

  The Want Ad Killer

  Harvey Carignan was born on May 18, 1927. He lived a troubled childhood, compounded with behavioral problems and bedwetting. When he was eight years old, his mother sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, who quickly sent him back home. When he was ten, he was sent to live with his grandmother, who soon sent him to another aunt’s house. When he ran away to live with his mother again, she attempted to put him in an orphanage. He was finally sent to a reform school at age twelve, where he remained until he was eighteen years old. He later claimed that female employees at the reform school sexually abused him. As soon as he turned eighteen, Harvey enlisted in the army, where he was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska.

  In 1949, he was sentenced to death by hanging in Alaska for raping and murdering a woman named Laura Showatler. His death sentence was reversed, however, after his lawyers were able to convince the courts that his confession had been coerced. He was released on parole in 1960, where he continued to get into trouble with the law for various crimes, such as burglary and assault. In 1973, Harvey posted an ad looking for employees to work for him at his service station. A young girl named Kathy Miller responded to his ad. Her remains were found a month later, wrapped in a sheet of plastic and discarded in an Indian reservation in Washington State. Her head had been bashed in with a hammer. It was this killing that later earned Harvey the nicknames “The Want Ad Killer” and “Harv the Hammer.”

  He fled the state after this crime and over the next year, Harvey kidnapped several women and picked up female hitchhikers, attacking them with a hammer and sexually assaulting them. He released some of them when he was finished with them and several women were actually able to escape. Others were not so lucky. It is believed he killed at least five women and raped ten others before 1974, when he was finally caught.

  At his trial, Harvey pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He was ultimately diagnosed with severe antisocial personality disorder. He was found guilty of sodomy for the brutal attacks of two women, Jerri Billings and Gwen Burton, and received a total sentence of sixty years in prison, but due to Minnesota’s laws he was only ordered to serve forty of those years. He was later indicted for the murder of three more women, Kathy Miller, Eileen Hunley, and Katherine Schultz. He pleaded guilty to those murders, racking up 150 years in prison in all, but ultimately he will only serve forty years and could be paroled as early as 2015. However, he developed prostate cancer in 1997 at the age of seventy-two, and it has been reported he is in fairly poor health.

  The Classified Ad Rapist

  Bobby Joe Long was born on October 14, 1953 in West Virginia. Before the age of ten, he had been hit by a car on two separate occasions, both times suffering major head injuries. He was born with an extra x chromosome, which reportedly led to his developing of breasts during his teenage years. He also had an unnatural relationship with his mother, who worked as a bartender, and he slept in her bed with her until he was thirteen years old.

  In 1981, he began answering classified ads placed by women selling various appliances and furniture. When he entered a home and could determine that the woman was home alone, he would rape her. He later began contacting women through the Penny Saver and other classified ads and raped at least fifty different women in this manner. He also liked to prowl neighborhoods, looking for women home alone with “For Sale” signs on their front lawns.

  In 1984, Bobby went on an eight-month killing spree, killing at least ten prostitutes and hitchhikers he had picked up. He was arrested in November 1984 and received two death sentences. He remains on death row in Florida to this day, awaiting execution.

  While the Lonely Hearts Killers, the Want Ad Killer, and the Classified Ad Rapist Killer all committed their crimes long before the internet became available, the types of crimes they committed and the methods they used to locate their victims are very similar to some of those you are about to read.

  Chapter 1: Armin Meiwes

  The internet has made everyday tasks so much easier. For example, with only a few clicks, you can shop for clothes, groceries, and even order a meal to be delivered to you. Armin Meiwes used the internet to order an unusual kind of food: human flesh!

  Armin Meiwes was born on December 1, 1961 in Kassel, Germany. His parents were rarely interested in their son, so Armin grew up as a lonely child. When he was eight years old, his parents broke up and his father left him alone with his mother. Growing up, Armin was a good boy, obsessed with the story “Hansel and Gretel” by the Brothers Grimm. His favorite chapter was when Hansel was being fed up in preparation to be cooked and eaten.

  Armin’s mother was controlling. She would accompany him everywhere and would often yell at him in public. However, she was not really interested in her son’s life, so Armin created an imaginary brother whom he named “Franky” and with whom he discussed his thoughts. Franky, unlike his mother, would listen to him. At age twelve, Armin developed the unnatural desire to eat his friends so they would stay with him forever.

  In 1999, Armin’s mother passed away when he was thirty-eight. The computer repair technician was left alone in the large family mansion in Amstetten. In the house, Armin made a shrine for his mother. Her room was left untouched and Armin placed a mannequin made of plastic in her bed to pretend she was still there with him. During that time, Armin became interested in pornography, especially the type that included torture.

  Armin’s obsession with torturous pornographic videos on the internet led him to a site called The Cannibal Café. The people participating in the site’s chat rooms were interested in cannibalism. Although the site had a disclaimer that made it clear that it was all just fantasies, for Armin it was the perfect place to meet his victim.

  In the year 2000, Armin posted one message in which he stated that he was searching for “a young, well-built man aged 18 to 30 years old to be slaughtered and then consumed…If you are 18-25, you are my boy…come to me, I’ll eat your delicious flesh.” Armin received many responses to the post, but most of them did not go all the way. One of them was from a man named Borg Jose. Borg met with Armin, but as he lay on the table waiting to be slaughtered, he suddenly asked to be released because he felt sick. Armin let him go.

  The last man to reply to Armin’s post was a forty-three-year-old engineer named Bernd-Jürgen Brandes. Bernd was openly bisexual. On February 14, 2001, Bernd contacted Armin and agreed to volunteer to be eaten by him. Bernd posted, “I offer myself to you and will let you dine from my live body.” Over the next few days, Armin and Bernd exchanged messages as they discussed how Armin should eat Bernd and what Armin should do with his body afterwards. Bernd gave many suggestions; one of them was that his skull could be used as an ashtray. Bernd asked if he was the first one to be killed and eaten by Armin, and Armin told him that indeed he was.

  On March 9, 2001, Bernd went to Armin’s house. They kissed, had sex, and then Armin gave Bernd sleeping pills, Vicks cough medicine, and some alcohol. Then, Armin tried to chew off Bernd’s penis but couldn’t, so Bernd put his penis on the table while Armin cut it off. Bernd tried to eat his own penis raw, but determined it was too “chewy.” This was when Armin put it in a pan in an attempt to fry it with garlic, salt, pepper, and some of Bernd’s fat so the two could dine on it together. However, he burned the dish, making it inedible, so Armin instead fed it to his dog. During this time, Bernd’s injuries caused him to lose a tremendous amount of blood. Armin put him in the bathtub and read a Star Trek book for the next three hours as Bernd slowly lost more and more blood. Bernd stayed alive for the next ten hours. Finally, Armin stabbed Bernd in the neck several times and killed him, ending his pain.

  Death was not the end for Bernd. Armin hung his corpse on a meat hook and began cutting it into smaller chunks. He even tried to grind the bones of his victim into flour. The entire body was dismem
bered and the pieces were stored in his freezer. For the next ten months, Armin defrosted and ate pieces of Bernd’s flesh. He had also videotaped himself murdering Bernd and dismembering his body.

  By the month of November of 2002, Armin’s supply of human flesh was almost finished. He started looking for another victim. Like the last time, Armin posted on the site a message detailing his request, this time adding more details about his intentions. An Austrian student saw the post and reported it to the police. On December 11, 2002, the police burst into Armin’s house where they found the remaining flesh of Bernd along with a video of the murder and cannibalism and many pictures of pornography and torture. Armin was arrested and immediately confessed to the murder. For seven months, the police worked on constructing a case against him, while searching Armin’s computer for more evidence.

  On July 17, 2003, Armin was charged with murder. It was a controversial trial, as many believed since Bernd had volunteered to be killed and eaten, Armin hadn’t forced him to do anything. On January 30, 2004, Armin was convicted of manslaughter. He received a sentence of eight and a half years in prison. However, in April 2005, the court ordered a retrial. Prosecutors argued that Armin should be convicted of murder. During the retrial in January 2006, they highlighted how Armin’s motives satisfied his sexual desires. They also argued that Bernd was not able to make decisions since he was drunk and under the effects of drugs. On May 10, 2006, Armin’s sentence was changed to life imprisonment.

  Chapter 2: Michael John Anderson

  Since the internet came into being, many have used various websites to find employment. Craigslist is a classified advertisements website that includes many sections for jobs, wanted items or services, housing, and much more; that is why it came as a huge surprise to the public when, in October 2007, Michael John Anderson ordered a murder victim through Craigslist. He was the first murderer to be referred to as the “Craigslist Killer.”