A couple days ago when I was at home for break I was relaxing and watching some of my favorite movies and TV shows, like Law and Order. There was an episode about a catfish and it lead me to a question, how many crimes are occurred because of social media or the internet? After looking this question up on google, this is the response I received:

“Social-media -related crime reports up 780% in four years. Complaints to police about alleged crimes linked to the use of Facebook and Twitter have increased by 780% in four years, resulting in about 650 people being charged last year, figures show”

Although this is shockingly high, I am not really surprised, and I am sure your not either. When you think about it, its crazy how easy social media has made it to gain personal information of someone in less than 5 minutes. For one example, I think sometimes people forget its so easy for someone to just discover your exact location on Snap chat, if you have that feature on. If you are not on private mode on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter its so easy for anyone to discover where you live, where you work, and basic information about you and your whereabouts.

One of the craziest thing I used to hear people talk about in middle school was the dark web. I always heard people talking about these crazy websites on the “dark web” or the “deep web” and if you go onto it, someone from the internet can gain access to your address and personal information and it was really dangerous and stupid to try and go on it, yet I knew of some people who allegedly went on it. Since then, I had never been inclined to research any more about it or be involved in it in anyway, mostly because it scared me to be honest.

After just googling about the dark web for 10 minutes its just as scary as it was in middle school and probably worse because of all the new information I know now. Its scary how much crime can be committed over the internet and people are smart enough sometimes to get away with heinous crimes like selling counterfeit goods, sex trafficking, and selling illicit drugs.

Apparently there is a difference between the deep web and the dark web and I had no idea and that just goes to show how confusing this whole internet crimes thing is.

In case anyone is wondering:

Dark web: the part of the World Wide Web that is only accessible by means of special software, allowing users and website operators to remain anonymous or untraceable

Deep web: the part of the World Wide Web that is not able to be discovered by means of standard search engines, including password-protected or dynamic pages and encrypted networks.

The crimes that are committed on the deep and dark web include murder for hire, sex trafficking, drug sales, child porn, and so much more.

Nevertheless, the internet and social media have so many outlets that can lead to crime and horrible things and it leads me to the question, do we talk about this stuff enough and how can we avoid crime from occurring by using social media and the internet?

In my opinion, I think it was probably a step back in terms of personal privacy and safety when apps like Snap chat allowed for location services to be enabled, and other apps like Instagram and Twitter makes it easy to gain access to information about literally anyone. I think it would be nearly impossible to stop any of this from occurring unless we all understand the consequences. Luckily the apps do have the option for privacy and making accounts more private, so I definitely recommend that and I will be checking mine now too!!!

Sources:

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/dark-web-crimes.html

Until the late fall of my senior year of high school, I still was unsure of what major I wanted to pursue, let alone do with my life at all. This was particularly difficult because I needed to fill out college applications and it was hard to chose which perspective major I wanted. I was stuck between two very different majors: Education and criminology. If you are reading this blog, its pretty obvious which major I have more passion for.

Nevertheless, I discovered a prominent issue in our society during senior year that is often not talked openly as often as it should. I discovered how close and how often sex trafficking occurs. One day I was watching the news, and their was a story about a sex trafficking ring that was located and confirmed almost 20 minutes away from my house. I also live in a neighborhood with an elementary school down the street, and a high school less than a mile down the road. It was scary to me how close it is occurring and how no one has ever spoken to me about it and how to be aware of it. I wasn’t even certain I knew what it was, but I did learn its basically selling people into slavery for sexual exploitation.

I had only heard about sex trafficking affecting young women and children in areas with poverty and very dangerous places in the world. Little did I know, it is affecting a wide range of people of all classes and all races and it is still very prevalent in today’s society, especially in college.

As college students, I think its an important topic to discuss. It is one of scariest true crime scenarios that could happen, and we need to understand how this happens and how to prevent it. An article about sex trafficking on college campuses claims, “…victims who get involved are voluntary at first.” The reason this occurs is because in college, we are in one of the most vulnerable places in our lives. It is the first time we are completely on our own, and we have a wide range of responsibilities- financially.

I was researching online ways to prevent sex trafficking, and one of the top answers I discovered is to raise awareness. I think this is the easiest way to stop the problem, and I personally don’t believe my community where I live in does enough about it.

Discovering this problem and researching it contributes a lot to why I want to pursue Criminology. Its interesting to discover how many communities world wide and in America are actively dealing with this problem, and what we can do to stop it. I firmly believe we will make progress stopping these problems if we just think about it more and talk about it more.

 

https://www.dressember.org/blog/collegestudentsandtrafficking

Like the “clown killer” case, I think its captivating to look into a notorious killers’ lives and uncover why they committed such heinous acts, and how they got to where they are today.

Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer and sex offender who is responsible for the murder, rape, and dismemberment of 17 known boys, is known nationwide for committing these acts between 1978 to 1991.

Dahmer’s criminal acts would consist of luring men, most notably African-American men, from gay bars, malls, and bus stops and promise them money or sex, and eventually he would give them alcohol laced with drugs and commit horrible acts upon them. Dahmer’s acts upon the men and boys got worse and worse the more people he killed. The first few victims were strangled and he would proceed to have sex with the dead corpses before he would dismember them. As the number of his victims increased, Dahmer’s acts would include experimenting with chemicals on the body and brain of victims and consuming the flesh of the deceased, while inflicting torture on them.

Dahmer would take pictures of the victim throughout the murder so he could relive the entire event later. He also kept trophies by keeping the skull and genitals of the victims.

Jeffery Dahmer was finally arrested on July 22nd 1991 when one of his potential victims escaped and he told police a man had drugged him, and they investigated Dahmer’s home and discovered and exuberant amount of evidence he had killed a number of people. Police found polaroids of dead bodies throughout the house, skulls and genitals in the fridge, and many other jars with body parts.

When I learned about the horrible acts he inflicted on people, I wanted to learn about his upbringing and see if there was any indication he would grow up to be a serial killer.

When Jeffery was born, his parents claim he was an energetic, happy child. However, when he was 4 he underwent a surgery for a double hernia. The surgery affected his mood and he became very with drawled from his family ever since then.

When he entered his early teenage years, he had a fascination with killing animals and playing with their dead bodies. Usually this is an indication of a violent person and possibility a future criminal if they have a fascination with killing things, and an absence of empathy for living things.

Because Dahmer was so withdrawn from people in his life and he did not care about living things I think this was what probably drove him to keep following the fascination of dead things. Because he didn’t have much empathy for other people it could explain why he kept inflicting so much pain and torture among all his victims.

I think it would be difficult to stop Dahmer from committing these acts, especially because the signs of a psychopath began when he was very young. I think that if he would have had some therapy or help during his young years it could have helped him.

Dahmer was killed in jail by a fellow inmate after they learned what acts he had committed.

Source:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biography.com/.amp/crime-figure/jeffrey-dahmer

The Lindbergh baby abducting/homicide case is very interesting to me as I studied it in high school forensics class. This case is very complex and interesting because there are many lose ends, that may have caused an innocent man to be sentenced to death.

Charles Lindbergh, the father of the baby that was abducted, was a famous American aviator and he made the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic ocean. He married Anne Morrow, who was a poet and writer. Their first infant son was kidnapped in March 1932.

The baby was abducted from his crib, and the abductor had used a ladder to climb into the baby’s window. A ransom note demanding $50,000 was discovered by the window ledge in order to ensure the baby’s safe return home. The only solid evidence at the initial crime scene was the ladder the abductor used to get the baby, the ransom note, and tire marks were left next to the house.

Investigators found no sufficient evidence to make any arrests or question any suspects. Soon, another ransom note was discovered and the abductor requested $70,000 this time. The robbers soon gave a place and time when the Lindbergh’s should give the money and where the baby could be found. The robbers claimed the baby would be on a boat called Nelly off the coast of Massachusetts, but after searching every port in the area the baby was never found.

On May 12th, 1932 police searched around the Lindbergh mansion again and the baby’s body was found less than a mile away from the home. It was uncovered that the baby was killed the night of the kidnapping. The Lindbergh’s were heartbroken and distraught and quickly sold their house and moved away.

It wasn’t until September 1934 when a marked bill from the ransom notes were found and traced to German immigrant, Bruno Hauptmann. After police searched his home, they discovered $13,000 of the Lindbergh money. Hauptmann claimed his friend gave him the money to hold onto and he had no connection to the crime.

On April 1936, Bruno Hauptmann was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death in the electric chair.

The evidence was not very strong in convicting Bruno, but along with discovering the ransom money, police made Bruno do handwriting analysis and compared his handwriting samples to the handwriting in the ransom notes. Because he learned to write in German, most of the words were spelled wrong. However, the letters written had the same characteristics as the ones in the letters which usually indicate that they are written by the same person.

The Lindbergh baby was one of the wealthiest babies during this time. In my opinion I think the investigation of this case was poorly done and could have potentially caused a man his life. The first ransom note was placed on the window seal, not in the crib. The most important note was placed oddly in my opinion because wouldn’t the kidnapper want the note to be found immediately and not potentially flying out of the window? After looking and researching the evidence, the ladder was constructed by Lindbergh, yet after 400 fingerprint analysis on the ladder the police did not uncover one fingerprint that belonged to Hauptmann. The handwriting analysis was faulty because it was proven that police had tampered with the evidence and the ransom notes, because police already believed it was Hauptmann so they didn’t give him a fair chance. The time-lapse makes this case even more unfair and unjust because eye witnesses stated they saw and heard Hauptmann years ago in bizarre places. One eye witness who was partially blind said he saw Hauptmann, which should have not contributed to the verdict. The trial was a circus and the evidence against Hauptmann in my opinion is not strong enough to give him the death penalty. I do not think Hauptmann kidnapped the baby and killed it, there was little to no evidence that he had ever been on the scene of the crime. However, I do believe that he could have assisted the killer and potentially helped him with the ransom notes and money. 

 

 

Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/body-of-lindbergh-baby-found

Instead of an unsolved cold case, I decided to dedicate this blog entry to a true crime case. 33 teenaged and young men were raped, tortured, and murdered in the span of seven years by the man who would be coined the “killer clown”, better known as, John Wayne Gacy.

Gacy was convicted of 33 murders, and was served 12 death sentences, and eventually died by lethal injection. It’s interesting to look into Gacy’s life and understand what drove him to commit these crimes and how he was eventually caught.

Gacy was born and raised in the Chicago area. His father was an alcoholic and abusive and would beat his children with a razor strap if they misbehaved. Gacy’s mother was also a victim to his fathers abusive behavior as he would often physically assault her. Gacy’s sister would later recall that the children would learn to toughen up against the beatings and eventually Gacy wouldn’t cry when his father abused him. Gacy also suffered a heart condition, and was unable to play at recess or run around with other children his age during his childhood. He also discovered as a young man that he was attracted to men, and this was another struggle to him because he constantly wanted to please his father. Throughout his childhood it is apparent that Gacy felt that he was always letting his father down by being a disappointment because he wasn’t like the other boys he went to school with.

As Gacy grew up, he eventually worked as a fast-food manager and a construction worker. He also was apart of the “Jolly Joker” clown club in Chicago where he would dress as a clown and preform for children’s birthday parties. He was well-liked in his communities and he often was apart of committee gatherings. He also was married and divorced twice with two biological children and two step children.

When Gacy was finally interviewed by police after being convicted for the 33 murders he recalls that sometimes when he killed his alter egos “Pogo the Clown” or “Patches the Clown” committed the crimes. In my opinion, this is the most interesting thing about this case and why serial killers do what they do, and how they do it. It was made clear that Gacy had a difficult childhood and often felt inferior. In my opinion, I think when Gacy began dressing as a clown and being around children it reminded him of when he was a child and how he felt, and maybe when he put the clown suit on, it made him remember memories of how he felt growing up and they were so overwhelming and powerful, they drove him to kill. Gacy admitted that he was homosexual, but to fit into society more traditionally at the time he suppressed those feelings and married women and worked as a traditional working man would do at the time. However, in my opinion he could only hide how he really felt for so long. Therefore, when he killed and raped, he targeted young men.

Through the end of the 1960’s through 1978, Gacy would commit the murder and rape of the 33 young men. He lured them into his home, or promised them an interview for a construction job and then tortured, raped, and killed. It wasn’t until 1978 when a 15-year old boy went missing and the last person he spoke with was Gacy, that the police finally searched his house. Upon searching, it uncovered murder had been committed, along with the findings of various dead bodies dug into a crawl space beneath his house.

This case is important because it shows how much someones upbringing can attract them to certain crimes. In my opinion, I don’t think Gacy would have committed these crimes if he wasn’t raised in an abusive household, that forced Gacy to suppress who he really was, and the only person that came out was a monster.

John Wayne Gacy was put to death on May 10th, 1994. To this day not all bodies were successfully identified, but since the bodies were found police detectives and forensic scientists were able to uncover other identities of victims because of the use of new technology.

Today, Gacy’s house was recently put up for sale. (not sure why anyone would ever feel comfortable living there buttttt i guess that’s a personal opinion)

 

Source:

https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/john-wayne-gacy