True Crime Online

by HITCHCOCK J. A.

  “The calls came in so fast that call rollover couldn’t handle it,” Robert said. “Nobody could get through. The hospital couldn’t call me. [Patients] couldn’t get through. AT&T’s solution was ‘just change your number.’ Not exactly easy to do for an office.”

  The doctor traced the events to a business trip he took to the Bahamas just weeks before the phone calls began. He believes someone put a Trojan horse (a destructive program that masquerades as a benign application) on his laptop to obtain private information about his finances and his accounts.

  While Robert was answering the calls, withdrawals were being made from his TD Ameritrade account that ranged from $18,000 to $100,000 for a total of $399,000. When he found out, he put a freeze on all of his accounts.

  “They knew all my phone numbers, all my credit card numbers,” Robert said. “I’ve been saving for 30 years of working and they wipe me out in a matter of weeks.”

  Authorities were able to trace the withdrawals to New York City, but the doctor was told that he would probably never see his money again. Robert also discovered that he might have to pay taxes on the money because of the early withdrawal penalty from his retirement account. But he was lucky: In May 2010, all of his money was miraculously returned.

  “Following that first incident in November 2009 [Robert’s scam], we’ve seen an increase in this activity targeting our customers across the country,” said Adam Panagia, associate director of global fraud management for AT&T. “We urge anyone who suspects they may be the target of a TDOS attack to immediately contact their telephone provider after notifying their financial institutions.”

  The FBI joined forces with the Communications Fraud Control Association in June 2010 “to analyze the patterns and trends of telephone denial-of-service attacks, educate the public, and identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

  Law enforcement is using the same tech tools the scammers are using to apprehend these internet-savvy criminals. If the FBI has an unsolved crime where photos or surveillance camera footage is available, many police departments are posting them on Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace along with the question, “Can you ID this armed robbery suspect?” The Boynton (FL) Police Department tried this tactic in June 2009, using social networking to find criminals.

  “It’s an easy way to reach people very quickly,” said Seamus Condron, community manager of Mediabistro.com, an online media and training website. “This is a really large set of eyes and ears that police can call into action.”

  The police in Boca Raton, Florida, credit social networking with providing an anonymous tip that led to the arrest of 20-year-old Darrien Downey for grand theft. The tipster recognized a photo posted on the police department’s Facebook and Myspace pages of a man in a black-and-white-checked flannel shirt stealing a $600 TV from a local mall in February 2009. The tipster’s information led police to Downey’s Myspace page, where he was wearing the same shirt in many of the photos.

  If it hadn’t been for Myspace and Facebook, “that kid would probably be out there watching (the stolen) TV right now,” said Boca Raton police spokesman Mark Economou.

  In June 2010, after the Los Angeles Lakers became NBA champs, police were dealing with citywide property damage from overzealous fans. The police force posted surveillance video from local businesses and TV coverage on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. By the end of the first day, the YouTube video had been viewed nearly 250,000 times, and as a result, dozens of people were recognized, identified, and arrested on vandalism charges.

  “In the age of phone cameras and digital video devices, it has in essence deputized the public in fighting crime,” Lt. Paul Vernon told the Contra Costa Times. “It has added to the maxim that police are the public and the public are the police.”

  Other law enforcement agencies also keep track of Twitter feeds as well as Myspace and Facebook posts from gang members.

  “You find out about people you never would have known about before,” said Dean Johnston of the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. “You build this little tree of people.”

  In February 2010, a gang member was released from prison and other gang members believed he had cut a deal with police. Posts and tweets appeared warning that there was a snitch among them. Authorities watched these messages and gathered enough incriminating evidence to arrest three gang members on drug charges. Many gang members and criminals enjoy bragging online about their crimes, making threats, and sharing information about rival gangs.

  “We are seeing a lot more of it,” Johnston said. “They will even go out and brag about doing shootings. Once you get into a Facebook group, it’s relatively easy. You have a rolling commentary.”

  Keri McMullen and her now husband, who shared their vacation plans on Facebook, resulting in the robbery of their home [Courtesy of Keri McMullen Pendleton]

  Surveillance footage of the burglary of Keri’s home [Courtesy of Keri McMullen Pendleton]

  Darrien Downey, a thief captured thanks to social media [Courtesy of Boca Raton Police Department]

  Matt Chapman, also a robbery victim after revealing on Facebook that he would be out of town [Courtesy of Matt Chapman]

  The Killer Inside

  Mark Drybrough of Coventry, England, had a long history of depression. In July 2005, the 32-year-old was so despondent that he began looking for information online about how to hang himself. That’s when Mark encountered 48-year-old William Melchert-Dinkel, a former nurse who was posing as any one of several alter egos with the names “Li Dao,” “Cami,” or “Falcon Girl.”

  “If a person is less than 6 feet tall, you can easily hang from a door using the knob on one side to tie the rope to, sling it over the top of the door, attach the noose or loop to yourself and then step off and hang successfully,” Melchert-Dinkel wrote as Li Dao. “A sturdy knot is very much all one needs.”

  Melchert-Dinkel trolled websites and chat rooms on Google and Yahoo! pretending to be a female nurse. But instead of offering compassion and support, this Minnesota man developed a relationship with his victims and then offered them step-by-step instructions on the best way to commit suicide. Sometimes he made a pact with the victim that he would commit suicide at the same time.

  When Melchert-Dinkel found Mark online, they exchanged email until they’d established a seemingly trusting relationship. Melchert-Dinkel, masquerading as Li Dao, offered his usual rounds of compassion and concern, followed by a push to end it all. Although Melchert-Dinkel tried to convince Mark to hang himself in front of a webcam so that he could watch the suicide, Mark refused.

  In Mark’s final email to Li Dao, he wrote that he was scared and “holding on to the hope that things might change.” Four days later on July 27, 2005, Mark’s sister found his body hanging in the doorway of his apartment.

  Melchert-Dinkel’s second victim was 18-year-old Nadia Kajouji of Brampton, Ontario, Canada. She encountered Melchert-Dinkel, assuming the role of Cami, in March 2008. Nadia confided to Cami that she was planning on committing suicide by jumping into a river, adding that “if drowning doesn’t get me, hopefully hypothermia will.” Cami reached out to Nadia with a proposition: If Nadia couldn’t commit suicide by herself, they could make a suicide pact to kill themselves at the same time and be linked together in their final minutes via a webcam. Cami offered her support and encouragement.

  On March 9, 2008, Nadia was reported missing by campus security at Carleton University where she was a student. It took Canadian authorities 3 days before they started a search for her whereabouts. Her body was discovered 6 weeks later in the Rideau River; she was wearing ice skates, which most likely weighed her down, making it more difficult to find her.

  Melchert-Dinkel didn’t get away with his actions for long. Other members of the chat rooms and websites he frequented grew increasingly suspicious about the online communication between Melchert-Dinkel’s aliases and the suicides of Mark and Nadia. An unnamed woman from the U.K. con
tacted authorities at the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in St. Paul, Minnesota, because she suspected someone who frequented the same chat rooms as she did was encouraging people to commit suicide.

  After receiving this tip, a 2-year investigation ensued as police reviewed the extent of Melchert-Dinkel’s chat room conversations. It was only a matter of time before they discovered his connections to Mark and Nadia. When police contacted the victims’ family members, they were more than willing to cooperate and turn over what information they had, including computers and printouts of messages between Melchert-Dinkel and his victims.

  By April 2010, the St. Paul police arrested Melchert-Dinkel and charged him with two felony counts of aiding suicide in the deaths of Mark and Nadia. Melchert-Dinkel admitted in court that he participated in online chat room conversations about suicide with as many as 20 people and had entered into fake suicide pacts with at least 10 of them. Five of those who made a suicide pact with him eventually killed themselves, but the police could link him with definitive evidence to just two: Mark and Nadia.

  Melchert-Dinkel credited the decision to act on his dark urges as the “thrill of the chase.” He admitted that what he did was morally wrong, but he still believed that conversations about suicide such as those he had with the victims were protected under his right to free speech and therefore not illegal. He told police he had an obsession with suicide and death that triggered his behavior. Rice County (MN) district court judge Thomas Neuville decided otherwise.

  “The court does find that what you did was stalking, or soliciting people to die,” Neuville said. “I think that what you did was calculated, intentional. It was fraudulent. When you use speech in this manner, it’s not protected. It’s criminal.”

  On May 4, 2011, Melchert-Dinkel was sentenced to 320 days in jail (with work release, which lets him work during the day but return to prison each night). He was ordered to spend an additional 40 days in jail for 2-day stints during the following decade on the anniversaries of both his victims’ deaths, 160 hours of community service (8 hours during the month of each of his victims’ deaths over the next 10 years), and a 15-year probation. As part of his sentence, he is prohibited from having internet access (except for work) and can never be employed in the healthcare profession or work with vulnerable adults. He was also ordered to pay $18,000 in fines and about $30,000 in restitution costs to Nadia’s family. Mark’s family did not seek restitution.

  Nadia’s brother, who attended the hearing for the sentencing portion of the trial, told CTV Toronto, “A guilty verdict isn’t justice. Punishment is justice, and a year in a jail with work release doesn’t really seem like justice.”

  However, Mark’s mother, Elaine Drybrough, was satisfied with the sentence. “When I look at it all together, I think it’s quite good really. For someone who hasn’t been in prison before, I should think a year in prison will make an impression,” she stated. “Somebody said to me, ‘you must hate him,’ but I don’t know really—it’s difficult. I think he has learnt his lesson. It gives a message if there’s other people doing that as well, that they don’t necessarily get away with it.”

  ***

  In September 2010, the suicide of a student who had recently started classes at Rutgers University in New Jersey made national headlines. Eighteen-year-old Tyler Clementi was proud to be one of the incoming students at Rutgers that semester. He lived on campus with his roommate Dharun Ravi, and life was good, or at least he thought it was. Ravi was pleasant and helpful to Tyler when they were together, but Ravi displayed quite different behavior online and behind Tyler’s back.

  On September 19, 2010, Ravi tweeted about Tyler’s after-hours activities: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into Molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

  Molly was Molly Wei, one of Ravi’s friends. While Ravi remotely accessed his laptop webcam in the room he shared with Tyler, Ravi and Wei watched Tyler’s intimate moments with another male student.

  According to a report first published on the Gawker gossip website, a post made on September 21 in a gay-themed chat room appeared to be from Tyler going by the screen name “cit2mo.” He described how he had found a webcam that had captured his encounters with another male student and then read the tweet on his roommate’s Twitter feed. He wondered about what he should do and the best way to handle the situation.

  The person posting the message, who was later assumed to be Tyler, wrote: “don’t wanna report him and then end up with nothing happening except him getting pissed at me.”

  Two days later, Ravi was back to his old tricks. He tweeted, “Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it’s happening again.”

  Although it appears that no one actually watched the second webcast, Tyler posted in a chat room that he had unplugged Ravi’s computer and searched for any possible hidden microphones, thinking he was safe. He also asked his resident advisor to assign him to another roommate, but Tyler grew more upset just knowing that people had seen the first webcast and perhaps the second one, as well.

  On September 22, Tyler posted on his Facebook wall via his cell phone, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” Tyler jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge the same day that Ravi’s Twitter account mysteriously disappeared.

  After authorities interviewed students in Tyler’s dormitory, the crime was deemed more than just a suicide. By the end of September, Ravi and Wei, both 18, had been charged with two counts of invasion of privacy for using “the camera to view and transmit a live image” of Tyler, carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years. Ravi was also charged with two additional counts of invasion of privacy for the second webcam broadcast.

  Tyler’s family issued a statement to the media that read in part, “Tyler was a fine young man, and a distinguished musician. The family is heartbroken beyond words.”

  On April 20, a New Jersey grand jury indicted Ravi on hate crime charges for streaming the webcast of Tyler’s romantic encounter with another man. That meant he could face 5 to 10 years in prison if convicted, which is a harsher sentence than if he had been convicted of the earlier charges. In addition, Ravi was charged with a cover-up (by deleting his Twitter account to mislead investigators) and trying to convince witnesses not to testify.

  “The grand jury charged that the invasion of privacy and attempt to invade the privacy of T.C. [Tyler Clementi] and M.B. [Clementi’s romantic interest] were intended to intimidate them because of their sexual orientation,” prosecutors said in a statement.

  Although not indicted, Wei was charged with invasion of privacy. At a hearing on May 6, she pled not guilty to two counts of invasion of privacy. She was accepted into a pretrial intervention program, which led to a dismissal of all charges against her, wiping her criminal record clean. She also completed 300 hours of community service and received counseling for cyberbullying, as well as testified against Ravi on May 23, 2011.

  After the hearing, Rubin Sinins, Wei’s lawyer, said, “Molly Wei is not a bully. She has cooperated from the beginning and will continue to cooperate with the investigation and the prosecutor’s office.”

  On March 17, 2012, Ravi was found guilty on all counts, and a few days later, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, of which he served 20. He was released from jail on June 19, 2012. Ravi was also sentenced to 3 years probation and 300 hours of community service, and he must attend counseling for cyberbullying and acceptance of alternative lifestyles.

  Tyler’s suicide was only one of many reported during September of 2010. He joined at least eight other young men who committed suicide after being taunted online and offline for allegedly being gay:

  Billy Lucas (15) September 9, Indiana

  Cody J. Barker (17) September 13, Wisconsin

  Seth Walsh (13) September 19, California

  Asher Brown (13) September 23, Texas

  Harrison Chase Brown (15) September 25, Colorado


  Raymond Chase (19) September 29, Rhode Island

  Felix Sacco (17) September 29, Massachusetts

  Caleb Nolt (14) September 30, Indiana

  On October 1, 2010, Arne Duncan, secretary of education for the U.S. Department of Education, addressed the pervading problem in a press release, acknowledging the deaths of two of the victims, Tyler and Raymond, who hanged himself in his dorm at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.

  “This week, we sadly lost two young men who took their own lives for one unacceptable reason: They were being bullied and harassed because they were openly gay or believed to be gay,” Duncan said. “These unnecessary tragedies come on the heels of at least three other young people taking their own lives because the trauma of being bullied and harassed for their actual or perceived sexual orientation was too much to bear.

  “This is a moment where every one of us—parents, teachers, students, elected officials, and all people of conscience—needs to stand up and speak out against intolerance in all its forms. Whether it’s students harassing other students because of ethnicity, disability or religion; or an adult public official harassing the President of the University of Michigan student body because he is gay, it is time we as a country said enough. No more. This must stop.”

  Nadia Kajouji, who took her life after making a suicide pact with someone she met online—in reality, William Melchert-Dinkel [Courtesy of Alex Schadenberg]

  Melchert-Dinkel, eventually convicted in connection to Nadia’s case as well as the suicide of Mark Drybrough [Courtesy of St. Paul Police Department]

  When Revenge and Hatred Are Fueled Online

  In the early morning of December 11, 2010, Mark Madoff emailed his wife, Stephanie Madoff, who was vacationing in sunny Florida with their 4-year-old daughter. He was at their apartment in New York City with their 2-year-old son and their dog, dealing with the Northeast’s seasonal chill.