This was originally posted to the Usenet newsgroup alt.suicide.holiday and several related mailing lists on January 2, 2001 by Susan Smith

Predators amongst us

I have a very strange story to tell. It is long, and is likely to be disturbing and somewhat disgusting to some of you.

Due to some problems with some of the regulars on another IRC channel (since resolved), one night I founded #alt.suicide.bus.stop as an alternative place for ASHers to hang out on dal.net. At the time, I was chatting with a few regulars about the problems going on, and immediately gave both of them SOP status on the new channel. One of them, Euthanasia44, was the one who suggested the name of the new channel. Another has become a close friend of mine in real life as well as online life. Since then, many other people whose judgment I trust have been given SOP status as well.

The channel is run a bit unusually. Everyone who has been there a few times is given op's, sometimes even if they haven't been there much. Anyone even semi-regular who has a registered nick is given AOP. My intention has been for this to be a fairly democratic channel - it's for ASHers, not for *me.* It has, however, been wonderful for me - I have met many very cool people whom I have grown very close to. The channel has become very popular and the regulars there have been a real comfort to me - a safe space to chat about serious things or silliness - without shiny-happy crap.

One night, an ASHer was supposed to stop by my house on the way back from a long drive which took him through my neighborhood. I was anxious to meet him because we had chatted a few times and I liked him a lot. He had plans to catch the bus within a few days. He didn't show up, didn't call and didn't email. I checked with people in the channel a few times - none of them had seen him online. So the folks there were fairly aware that I was worried about him, kind of grieving over him, as I thought he had caught the bus.

I got a terribly sweet and thoughtful email from Euthanasia about this. He was very comforting, and I logged on to IRC next hoping to run into him, feeling very warmly towards him. Before I ran into him, the other original SOP PM'd me to tell me that he had gotten complaints from women who said someone online had offered to kill them. He had gotten this complaint from 3 women, one of whom was willing to talk to me about it. He said it was Euthanasia.

I found this rather hard to believe in my warm-fuzzy state - and at least one of the complainants was someone I considered fairly flaky, so I began investigating. I began PM'ing the various women and girls on the channel asking them if anyone had ever offered to kill them. I never gave the name of the person suspected first. I found 8 women who had had this offer made in less than a couple hours online. Seven of them told me it was Euthanasia. Two of them told me they were frightened to tell because he had threatened him. One of them told me he intended to get women alone in this cabin in the woods to use them as sex slaves. Two of them told me his reason for being so helpful was because he wished to cannibalize their corpses.

Needless to say, I found this seriously disturbing. I felt that this person was behaving like a vulture towards ASHers and it sickened me. It made me ill that I had given him SOP status, thereby implying to several of the women that I approved of him. It really angered me that some of them were genuinely terrified. I have a 17 year old daughter myself, and some of my fellow ASHers are very young also - and while I respect them as people and don't think of them as children at all, the idea of this sicko terrorizing them brought out all the maternal instincts in me. It was imperative that they be protected from this beast.

I discussed this with several close friends, mostly ASHers, but a few outside of ASH as well. We wanted to figure out how to protect the channel. We wanted to figure out how to protect ASH: headlines about cannibals murdering and eating suicidal people in the tabloids is *not* what we need. And... we didn't want to hear years from now about the latest Jeffrey Dahmer in his area and know we hadn't done anything. We weighed the options carefully - we discussed how to best protect the channel, ASH as a whole (I include the newsgroup, associated mailing lists, web sites and IRC channels in the ASH community) - who we were responsible to, what was best to do. What was *imperative* was that no one who had spoken to me or the other original SOP in confidence be outed. Anonymity is important to a lot of ASHers and I couldn't see breaking confidence with anyone who had trusted us.

I spoke to one of the IRCops on dal.net, she asked me to get time-stamped logs. However, I got the impression from talking to her that she considered the appropriate course of action to be reporting him to his ISP. Given that he had a cable modem and fixed IP, this might be more annoying than the regular account cancellation, but annoying him was not what I had in mind. It seemed to me that much more was needed than canceling an account. Someone needed to investigate this sicko. Someone needed to *stop* him. And this was sure as fuck beyond anything *I* could handle. I must've been absent the day we covered "what to do when you meet a cannibal" in school. That's what I get for skipping so much.

After many discussions with trusted ASHers, a close friend, and my therapist, I decided the thing to do was... lure him into having these conversations with me so I could ethically report him without involving any other ASHer. The first chat went innocently enough, he only offered to dispose of my body. During the second chat, he offered to kill me. By the third chat, I had him confessing his sexual fetish of cannibalism.

I called my local office of the FBI and forwarded them all chat logs. Another ASHer who was willing to work to trap him called some cops she knew and also forwarded chat logs. We continued with this charade, while the case was transferred to the FBI in his jurisdiction, who decided not to pursue it. The other woman conned his phone number out of him, and called his local police. I forwarded all chat logs to the detective she had first spoken to.

I learned much about him. I learned he was on BOTH ASH mailing lists as well as the ASH and ASM newsgroups, that he had read everything I had ever posted since back in May. When I first delurked on the SM-methods mailing list, he discussed my post with me, so I knew he was subscribed to that as well. I received email from him from several different email addresses, all "Euthanasia" with a number at hotmail. He had me on IRC notify so he could see whenever I logged on to IRC. #alt.suicide.bus.stop ceased to be a safe place for me, I found myself shaking all over in terror when I logged on.

Most of the women he approached had no idea about the sex and the cannibalism. He approached women as an altruist, someone who was willing to help. If they were too cynical to buy that, he explained that he wanted money. For the majority of the women, he didn't explain that graphic stuff he said to me and the other woman who were purposely trying to draw him out. This is why I am posting this here and asking the ASH webmaster to post it to his site, with all the relevant logfiles. People, be *VERY* damned suspicious of anyone who wants to "help" you die. Read the damned methods file, read Geo Stone's info online, both inert gases and soft hanging look like fairly easy and painless. I would remind all ASHers - there *ARE* things worse than death. Being in the clutches of a sicko in a cabin in the middle of the woods at Lake Tahoe just may be one of them.

Frankly, after getting over the original gross-out factor, I have personally decided that cannibalism, in-and-of-itself, doesn't ethically disturb me. I mean, if both parties consented, and the death were a genuine suicide or assisted-suicide, and both agreed - well... whatever. I don't figure I care much what happens to my body when I'm not using it. If both parties agree, fine.

But a guy hanging out on suicide channels, emailing and PM'ing women to offer to kill them, when they are in a very fragile, distraught and sometimes desperate frame of mind - that fucking bothers me. Claiming you plan to "help" someone out of altruism or for a financial motivation when what you really want is a week or two of sex followed by defiling their corpse without their consent - that fucking bothers me. When he has confessed too much of his sexual fetish to them and scared them, threatening to hunt them down and kill them painfully if they ever tell - that fucking bothers me.

This went on for WEEKS as we tried to get law enforcement interested. And my feelings changed from terror to outrage. Anger that he was doing this to ASHers, angry that he was preying desperately on the pain and suffering and desperation of women for his sick fucking gratification. I got to the point where instead of shaking with terror that anyone was saying this to me, I was shaking in anger that anyone would speak this way to an ASHer.

And anger that women were asking me what was going on with him, while I was trying to keep a low profile while leading him on, hopeful that the god-damned authorities would get off their asses and go after this sick fuck. Luckily, that was relieved. One day, I called to ask the detective at his local cops what the fuck was going on - we've got a fixed IP, a phone number and a god-damned scanned picture of this fuck, plus time-stamped logs that are horrifically disgusting from two witnesses willing to go public and testify in court... what the HELL are you going to do about it? I have to leave this guy online, not tell people what is going on, leave him with SOP status so he doesn't get suspicious and continue talking to him about how he gets off on eating my various body parts. This is not OK. And I was told my detective wouldn't be back until the Tuesday after New Year's.

Luckily, Euthanasia resolved his presence before that. One day in channel, he started egging a guy on who was immediately thinking of catching the bus. Several people found his comments disturbing. I explained to him that we are pro-choice, not pro-suicide. He was upset that I had contradicted him in channel, felt I was misusing my power as "channel founder." We went into private chat and argued. I said this was an ASH channel and was here to support the values of ASH. I asked had he ever actually read the ASH website. He told me that he was one-third of the group who founded the channel and had even given me the name and his values mattered too. He didn't give a damn about ASH values. I explained that the entire *purpose* of starting this channel had been to have a place for ASHers to hang out. He said this wasn't ASH, that was just the newsgroup. I said I considered the newsgroup, mailing lists, web sites and any ASH-named IRC channels to be part of the ASH community. He said providing methods info to someone who asked was the same as egging someone on to kill themselves already. I explained that it was not. He bitched that I gave too many people SOPs and AOPs and ops - that the channel wasn't run properly. And then after telling me I gave other people too much power, he accused me of running it as my own little dictatorship. Later, I got email from him saying if I would not apologize, he would never come back to the channel. Gosh, what a dilemma, if I don't apologize, some sick fuck preying on ASHers won't come back. Big problem. POOF! No more SOP status for you, d00d. No more disgusting conversations. No more utter, shaking rage at you terrorizing girls my daughter's age.

Later, someone told me he had founded a channel called #alt.suicide.methods on dal.net. Unless you wanna troll the cannibal, I highly recommend not hanging out there. Given that the time-stamped logfiles are going to the IRCops, I doubt the channel will be there for long.

As I write this, it is Monday night. Next, I will reformat it in HTML and attach all relevant logfiles to it, also formatted in HTML for the ASH webmaster. If you wish to see the logfiles, check in a couple days when I'm sure he'll have them up. Finally, tomorrow morning I am calling my detective bright and early, and if the SOB isn't going to do anything about this, this post is going out on the newsgroup, all mailing lists, and a nice zipped file ready for the ASH webmaster is going out. Then, this post is going directly to those who run the mailing lists. Finally, this post will go to the IRCops with all the original time-stamped logfiles, so she can get his sick ass offline at least for a while.

My sincere apologies for waiting so long to come out with this - I really thought this was a matter for law enforcement. Apparently, protecting suicidal women is not high on their list of priorities.

People, this guy may be back. It's not hard to change a userid and get a new ISP. He has been trolling all ASH spaces he can since at least May, maybe earlier. Again, let me reiterate, there *ARE* things worse than death - please be very, very careful with any one who offers to "help" you achieve your demise.

POSTSCRIPT TO EUTHANASIA: If I *ever* find out you fucked with any other woman or girl on ASH, I will hunt your sick ass down, cut off your balls, run them through a meat grinder and feed them to you raw. Eat THAT you sick bastard.

Yeah, I threatened your ass - but I seriously doubt, all things considered, that you're terribly interested in pressing charges. And I even more seriously doubt that the cops will be interested, given that they're not interested in rape, murder and cannibalism.

I am ONE HELL of a nasty bitch, don't you even THINK of fucking with me - or anyone I care about. You will regret it for the rest of your life - which will *NOT* be anywhere *NEAR* the peaceful, painless death you promise, you lying sack of shit.

Logfiles

logfile 1
A log of one of the original complaints to the other original SOP of the channel; the complainant cuts-and-pastes parts of her convo with Euthanasia into the chat. She later went on to assist in leading him on in hopes of catching him.

logfile 2
My first set of conversations with Euthanasia after polling women to discover most of them had complaints about him. These conversations occurred on December 6th in which he first offers to help me dispose of my corpse and then offers to kill me.

logfile 3
Conversation on December 7th in which he first confesses cannibalism to me, admits to having seen me post on the three ASH mailing lists since May, and discusses relatively normal sex (he wants blowjobs before dinner!). After these conversations, I decided I definitely had enough to call the FBI.

logfile 4
Conversation in which I logged on specifically to inform Euthanasia that I had a weekend guest and therefore could not discuss our plans further for a few days. I really did have a weakened guest, though it turned into a 5-day weekend - I asked him to come visit specifically because I was completely terrified due to my conversations with Euthanasia and didn't want to be alone. Using his visit as an excuse not to discuss my body parts as potential meals for a few days was just a bonus.

logfile 5
Logfile of conversation with the other woman who was also trying to trap him on December 7th.. She is the "sugar momma" he has refused to identify in conversations with me. This is not a time-stamped logfile and is one of the few this woman was able to capture as she hadn't fully figured out mIRC yet. She was good, she got his phone number *way* before I managed it. She didn't manage to get him to confess to having done this before, and neither did I ever extract that confession from him.

logfile 6
Conversations that occurred on December 14th (I have not included innocent conversations we had while my guest was visiting). Euthanasia betrayed the trust of the other woman in this conversation. I had several purposes in this conversation: to get him to leave her alone (as she was very emotionally distraught without cannibals chatting her up online), to get him to leave all other ASHers alone, and to get him to confess to any previous murders - unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in all three purposes. He suggests some really ridiculous alternate methods to me, indicating that the d00d has never looked at any methods files. Later in the evening, he tries to get me and the other woman together in the plotting - I give him permission to tell her my nick.

logfile 7
Other conversations that occurred on December 14th when he used a different nick (Euthanasia45). In these he expresses some fear of the consequences of his plan and discusses alternate methods with me. He also expresses some concern for the people he has gotten to know on ASH, but somehow I am unable to muster any sympathy for him - as he also mentions a third woman, a woman he has been voicing from Canada who has no idea of his plans, just that he will "help" her. This gave us a brand new worry - finding this chick and letting her know what she is dealing with.

logfile 8
This is our online threesome on December 15th - the other woman and I are desperately trying to figure out who the third woman he is talking about is. We know we have no intention of being barbecued, but want to make sure we have a chance of warning her. The other woman was successful at guessing the nick of the woman involved.

logfile 9  
This logfile covers my conversations with him (from home only), from Dec 15 to Dec 19. There is some conversation about stuff going on in the #alt.suicide.bus.stop or #alt.suicide.holiday channels and a long bit where I try to get more information about the third woman.

Postscript to logfiles:

Further conversation was limited. I went back to my job and could not access IRC through their firewall except using MSChat - if it has a logging function, I don't know how it works. The few conversations I had with him from at home are included here. During this period of time, I also voiced him - using a pre-paid calling card from a payphone.

Luckily, I later ran into the Canadian woman online, had a brief chat with her about methods other than partying with sicko perverts in cabins on lakes, and referred her to the methods files and another user I trusted to talk with her.

Due to the lack of interest by law enforcement in following this up, I lost interest in keeping him on the hook. Later, the incident in which I criticized him for egging a suicidal person on occurred while I was at work; he sent me the email threatening to leave the channel unless I apologized, and I gave up all interest in further conversation with him.

Last update: Thursday, January 04, 2001 22:10