These are the stories of people (mostly youths) who were kidnapped or seriously abused. In researching a couple of entries I added to this submission, I was horrified to find that this type of thing is quite common. For obvious reasons, this list is in no particular order.
Masha was living in a Russian orphanage when an American man was allowed to adopt her. He was divorced and no background check was done on him; also no follow-up visits were ever conducted by the New Jersey based adoption agency. He began sexually abusing her almost immediately, and shortly thereafter, using her in internet child pornography. So much so that the police began a task force to find this poor child who was all over the internet. The search was profiled on CNN, where police digitally removed the girl’s image leaving only her surroundings in the hopes someone would recognize her location. One picture people were able to identify was a bedspread from a hotel at a Disney theme park. After several years of this incomprehensible lifestyle, Masha was rescued by police.
Elizabeth Fritzel’s father Joseph kept her locked in a secret basement compound in Austria for 24 years with three of the seven children he fathered with her. Fritzel and his wife, Rosemarie, raised the other three living children Joseph Fritzel fathered with his eldest daughter. Upon finding out what was going on in the cellar, the Fritzel family as well as their community were apparently shocked by the news, completely unaware of Joseph Fritzel’s evil tendencies. Regarding the three children who lived their lives entirely in the cellar, Kerstin Fritzel, 19, and her brothers Stefan, 18, and Felix, five, have been alone in the cellar for so long that they developed their own type of communication via growls, grunts and animal like sounds. Elizabeth Fritzel had tried to teach them and let them have a normal life in the cellar.
David Pelzer is the author and subject of the gut-wrenching true story “A Child Called It.” He spent his childhood enduring unimaginable abuse at the hands of his mother, while his father and siblings simply watched. David’s mother was apparently relatively loving and caring to his siblings, but had a deep, unfathomable hatred for David that lead her to put him through increasingly creative and shocking punishments. He was eventually rescued by concerned school officials.
Genie was a girl born in California in 1957 who spent nearly all of the first 13 years of her life locked in her room. Born to mentally unstable parents, at a very young age Genie was diagnosed as developmentally delayed and her father took that diagnosis and decided on his own treatment for Genie. Genie spent the next 12 years of her life locked in her bedroom. During the day, she was tied to a child’s potty chair in diapers; at night, she was bound in a sleeping bag and placed in an enclosed crib with a cover made of metal screening. Her father beat her every time she vocalized, and he barked and growled at her like a dog in order to keep her quiet. He also rarely allowed his wife and son to leave the house or even to speak, and he expressly forbade them to speak to Genie. By the age of 13, Genie was almost entirely mute, commanding a vocabulary of about 20 words and a few short phrases (nearly all negative), such as “stop it” and “no more”. Genie was discovered at the age of 13, when her mother ran away from her husband and took her daughter with her.
Steven Stayner was an American child who became famous after he was kidnapped as a seven-year-old and held captive by his abductor, to be reunited with his family seven years later. The kidnapper, Kenneth Parnell, sexually abused Steven, but also enrolled him in school and convinced Steven he had legal custody of him. It wasn’t until Parnell kidnapped another, younger boy that Steven escaped, taking the boy with him. A television movie was made about Steven Stayner’s ordeal called I Know My First Name is Steven. Ironically, Steven’s brother Cary Stayner felt neglected as his parents grieved over the loss of Steven and later went on the become the Yosemite serial killer.
Colleen Stan is a woman who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by Cameron Hooker in Red Bluff, California in 1977. On May 19, 1977 Hooker kidnapped Colleen Stan a.k.a. “Carol Smith.” Cameron’s wife, Janice Hooker, assisted in the kidnapping. Stan was held in captivity for the next seven years. During her imprisonment, Colleen was tortured, sexually assaulted, and led to believe that she was being watched by a large organization called “The Company”. Hooker had her sign a “slavery contract” supposedly from “The Company”. He assigned her a new slave name, “K”, causing comparisons to the Story of O. She was also led to believe that members of her family would be harmed if she attempted to escape. She may have experienced Stockholm syndrome. Hooker kept Stan locked in wooden boxes that he had made. One of the boxes was located under the bed that he shared with his wife. Hooker was sentenced to consecutive terms for the sexual assaults, which totaled 60 years. He also received 1 to 25 years for the kidnapping, plus a 5 to 10 year sentence for using a knife in the process.
Natascha Kampusch is an Austrian woman who was abducted at the age of 10 on 2 March 1998, and remained in custody of her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006. During the eight years of her captivity, Kampusch was held in a small cellar underneath Priklopil’s garage. For the first six months of her captivity, Kampusch was not allowed to leave the chamber at any time, and for several years after her kidnapping she was not allowed to leave the tiny space at night. According to Kampusch’s official statement after her escape, she and Priklopil would get up early each morning to have breakfast together. Priklopil gave her books, so she educated herself, and according to a colleague of his, she appeared happy. The 18-year old Kampusch reappeared on 23 August 2006. She was cleaning and vacuuming her kidnapper’s BMW 850i in the garden. At 12:53pm, someone called Priklopil on his mobile phone, and he walked away to take the call because of the vacuuming noise. Kampusch left the vacuum cleaner running and ran to the police. Priklopil, having found that the police were after him, killed himself by jumping in front of a suburban train near the Wien Nord station in Vienna. He had apparently planned to commit suicide rather than be caught, having told Kampusch that “they would not catch him alive.”
Michael John Devlin is a convicted American child molester currently serving 74 life sentences. He is known for his confessed kidnapping of two boys, Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby. On January 12, 2007, Devlin was taken into custody and charged with the abduction four days earlier of 13-year-old William “Ben” Ownby, whom police found that day. Upon his discovery, law enforcement officials found another missing teenage boy, Shawn Hornbeck, who disappeared on October 6, 2002, at age 11 while riding his bike to a friend’s house in Richwoods, Missouri. The 2002 abductee lived with Devlin, masquerading as father and son. He was separated from his family for a total of four years and three months. Devlin was charged in federal court with four counts of producing child pornography and with two counts of transporting a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity in both Arizona and Illinois. He was sentenced to 170 years (in addition to the sentences for kidnapping and rape) for making pornography of one of the boys while in captivity. Hornbeck is pictured above.
Fusako Sano is a Japanese woman who was kidnapped at age ten by Nobuyuki Sato (a 28-year-old mentally disturbed unemployed Japanese man), and held in captivity for nine years and two months from November 13, 1990 to January 28, 2000. In Japan, the case is also known as the Niigata girl confinement incident. The house in which he kept her for the entire time is only 200 meters from a koban (police box), and 55 kilometers from the location where she was kidnapped. While Sano was initially scared, she eventually just gave up and accepted her fate. Allegedly, the kidnapper kept her tied up for several months, and used a stun gun for punishments if she did not videotape the horse racing on TV. Sano was also threatened with a knife and beaten. Upon her rescue Sano was found to be healthy, although extremely thin and weak due to lack of exercise: she could barely walk. She was also dehydrated. Due to the lack of exposure to sunlight, she also had a very light skin tone and suffered from jaundice. While her body was that of a 19 year old woman, mentally she acted like a child.
Jamelsek is an American serial rapist-kidnapper who, from 1988 to his apprehension in 2003, kidnapped a series of women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in DeWitt, a suburb of Syracuse, New York. His story was the basis of the character Jamie Gumm in Silence of the Lambs. Jamelsek raped each of his victims and inflicted cigarette burns on them. After the discovery of the dungeon, police also found several video recorded entries with at least one woman on the tape. In the tapes, the viewer can see Jamelske dancing, singing, and also exercising with the woman. He prefaced each rape with a Bible study, in which after a review of a certain passage and discussion he would then begin to rape the victim.
This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from Wikipedia.
Contributor: rushfan
Awesome list. Horrid but awesome none the less. I enjoy hearing stories and what nots about horrible things. Not to sound wierd but I like it because it offers, to me at least, insight to the mind of the disturbed. I have in my family tree a feel real crazies the likes such as murderers and such and I am horribly paranoid of becoming one. Not that I think I would it’s just I over *****yze things when I can’t sleep at night. ^_^ Nicely written!
i remember reading “a child called it.” it was so sad.
Interesting list, but horrifying stories! well done rushfan, keep em coming!
CJ: I wonder if guessing has a higher probability of being right over Sylvia’s “psychic work”.
Great work rushfan! What a horrifying bunch of animals (sorry, I don’t mean no insult to animals)…monsters. I watched a video about Genie a while back on youtube its really disturbing.
There is no denying that as we speak there is somebody very nearby in our neighborhood being abused/assaulted/raped/mutilated without us realizing by a sick and disturbed mind. I wonder if you can figure these tendencies (of a sick mind) out at a very early age and then take measures before it blows out of proportion. May be laws could be made more stringent to put kids with disruptive tendencies in an asylum (for a longer period) or something or may be guide them to vent their angst in arts and stuff. By the way I mean to include all those of the likes who did Columbine/Virginia as well as likes of Ted Bundy, Ed Gein etc. for a screening as well.
I appreciate more practical/fun lists. This stuff just isn’t interesting.
I can definitely believe people do this ***** to others. Coming from a country in which people used to be kidnapped, raped/abused all the time, it’s not surprise.
Every time I read things like this, I realize why my mother is always scared to let my brother and I out of her sight, even though we’re both old enough to do things on our own.
I can’t even imagine what a mother, a father, or the person who was kidnapped has to go through.
Cedestra: You must be from Central Mass. I remember the Holly Piranian case. Her family lived on the same street as me. It was sooooooooooooo sad and horrible. I think she had been in Sturbridge visiting a friend and went down the street to see some puppies?? She was taken from there, poor girl.
Cedestra: probably. It makes me so mad that even after all of her incorrect predictions, people continue to believe what she says.
Gary Heidnik should be on this list as well. He kidnapped several women in a twisted effort to form a harem and kept them in a pit in his cellar. The story is interesting as a sort of study in varying reactions to a crisis; one woman gets pretty buddy-buddy with Heidnik, one fights him tooth and nail, and the rest seem to endure to varying degrees. Link to the story: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/heidnik/index_1.html
Twinkle, I think the Japanese have no right to complain considering what they did to China and Southeast Asia.
Such sickness in the world today. One can only pray for the safety and well being of all our children.
So, listen. I doubt this request will be honoured, but I still fell impelled to make it. I already know some idiot will try to argue ‘well you can find it anywhere else on the internet, so it’s ok’ but I don’t think they get the point, or are even intelligent enough to try refuting.
Anyways, what I wanted say was, don’t you think it is disrespectful to place pictures of the victims on the list? I find it very repugnant, not in an ‘I am the white knight’ way, but in that it continues to perpetuate their victimization: by never letting them be free of the crimes commited against them, and turning them into spectacles and less humans. We all know there are faces to the victims- did you get their permission to put them on parade?
Someone who suffers so horribly should not be subject to the whims of voyeurism- the pictures should be of the criminals or scenes, not of the people who were so horrendously treated and possibly (I know of at least some) still alive today. Perhaps who may have just seen this list and cringed or started weeping again. that terror never ends; at least give them privacy. They deserve as much.
It’s not that I disagree to the subject matter: studying all of the extents of human achievements and failures are fascinating; I find it reprehensible to engage in the same shallow spectacle mongering that so many trash media sources happily do so to garner followers.
You don’t put pictures of rape victims and *****ual molestation victims up for random voyeurs to peruse, not even if others have and they are considered property of the common pool. These are people’s children, mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers. If I have to explain to you why, then I am definately at the wrong site and don’t belong here ever again.
I wanted end with a sarcastic strawman about posting the Bernardo rape videos for a top ten real life torture list ‘now with the sounds of victims screaming’ but I can’t bring myself to associate it without the prerequisite logical refutation that I know it is an extreme slippery slope. At some point, though, you can study and document horrible crimes without perpetuating the alienation and victimization and the compartmentalization of the victim into nothing more in their lives than the subject of our gawking and bored-housewife and religious fundamentalist nutjob commentary.
Maybe I’m wrong; if I am, I would like to stay wrong and not be part of a world that thinks the alternative is right.
Mr.Graves: Would you make an exception for David Pelzer? As an author, he must be prepared for some degree of public recognition.
I second (or third, or fourth) the comment about #1 not possibly having anything to do with Silence of the Lambs. Also want to point out that the character’s name is Jame, not Jamie. The book makes a big deal about it being Jame, and I still remember it more than a decade after reading it, so it can’t be *that* insignificant. At any rate, where did you get the reference from the book in the first place? It seems way out of left field and disputable logically, even without research on our side. I ask mostly because it casts a stain on the general integrity of the list.
Otherwise, great list. Fix that!
I already know some idiot will try to argue ‘well you can find it anywhere else on the internet, so it’s ok’ but I don’t think they get the point, or are even intelligent enough to try refuting.
Mr Graves – and perhaps other “idiots” aren’t “intelligent enough” to do a couple of minute’s research before moralising to others.
Examples :
Steven Stayner had a movie about his life and appeared in it himself (and was paid to do so). Stayner, BTW, is dead. He died in a motorcycle accident.
Shawn Hornbeck has his own website, complete with detail of his ordeal (and attendant photographs) http://www.shawnhornbeck.com/
David Pelzer has his own website. Like Hornbeck’s, his is complete with detail of his ordeal (and attendant photographs) http://www.davepelzer.com/
Natascha Kampusch has already participated in a globally-broadcast television interview.
Colleen Stan has appeared in public making statements on behalf of Women’s Refuge etc. From memory, I think she also participated in a tv documentary of her experiences.
Similarly, the following are hardly giveaways :
The Fritzel photo was taken maybe 25 years ago; not to mention, it has been published worldwide in all major newspapers; and the only information we see about Genie is her first name and a blurred photo taken nearly 38 years ago.
Mr.Graves:
I’m inclined to agree with you. I haven’t commented previously because I didn’t know quite what to say. Oh that’s terrible seems glib & redundant. There’s something that makes me uneasy about the way 10 cases like this are presented so superficially on what is largely an entertainment website. As you say, this is a facile way of perpetuating their victimization. (OK, Pelzer excepted: he made his choice.)
Kiwiboi:
Fair points. And I haven’t done any further research on the cases. But then again: why would I want to?
I think it’s the effect of having 10 brutal cases briefly summarized in this context that makes me uncomfortable.
ciunas – I agree; there’s nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable about this particular subject matter.
Where I take issue is with Mr Graves making what, in many circumstances, might be a reasonable point but not in this case.
If he wants to moralise, he should be sure he has the ammunition to take the high-ground. I would normally ignore comments like this, but I thought this list was a good one, presented in a reasonable manner – and, moreover, I don’t consider that this makes me an “idiot” or a “voyeur”.
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
Vicious Kidnapping Murderers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Homolka
’nuff said
According to a lengthy piece published in 2002 in the New York Times Magazine, Dave Pelzer made the whole story up. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404E4DE1538F93BA15754C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
There is absolutely no proof to Pelzer’s tale. None.
Great list. But it’s not true, that the Fritzel children communicates with growls and grunts. Actually they all turned out to be as normal as one could possibly expect.
Perhaps they are confused with those to siblings they found living in a small dog-house-like house. Who actualle crawled an slept like dogs. They didn’t have an actual language.
All those poor kids. Can’t belive that grown people could be that evil.
Witch reminds me that the Madeline case perhaps should be on the list too? Or is it just me?
Dee,
I take it then you have not read his books. There is no way on this earth that someone would make up the abuse that he underwent just for fame so to speak. There is hatred in these book for what his mother did and the need to help those today so that they may not suffer what he did and to help those who have suffered make something of themselves.
Witch reminds me that the Madeline case perhaps should be on the list too? Or is it just me?
Louise – so, tell us…who kidnapped and abused Madeleine?
Actually it doesn’t say anywhere on the list topic or description, that the case had to be solved to get a spot. Thank you for your “point”:-)
Louise – indeed, it doesn’t. But it is about kidnapping and abuse.
So…how do you know Madeleine was kidnapped? And, who did it?
Also, how do you know she was abused?
I’ve read a large number of the lists (and ensuing comments) on this site, but nothing has moved me as much as the line: “By the age of 13, Genie was almost entirely mute, commanding a vocabulary of about 20 words and a few short phrases (nearly all negative), such as “stop it” and “no more”. ”
That’s going to stick in my head for days to come.
Jamie, I was going to complain about someone pretending to be someone, but I see you’ve dealt with it.
Good man.
#87: BristolFish: I agree completely.
What perplexes me is the fact that some of the people who tortured and abused these innocent people are AWARDED with light and easy sentences for their crimes. It is pathetic, disrespectful and unjustified to those who were abused. The abusers are cowards. If you want to pick on someone then pick on someone your own size!
In my opinion, ANYONE who harms a child or a person who is less defensive than themselves deserves to have the same punishment delivered to them 10 times over.
Burn all these f’ers!
Kiwiboi: You got a ponit there:-) I don’t know any of theese things. But I still belive that a highly exposed case like this deserves some sort of mentioning in a list like this. But every persons has their oppinions.
BrotherMan: I hear you. But if you think these senteces are easy, try looking at the danish court. It’s even more stupid. And so sad for the victims. Poor kids. I feel sick just thinking about it.
nanr93 ~ I just read the article you linked to and it saddens me. I read that book about nine years ago and if he’s lying, I fell for it. I never heard any of the stories of him lying, but that article did not make a good case for the validity of his story. Sadly, only he and his mom can really know for sure, but I now have my doubts. Thanks for the info.
For those questioning about Dave Pelzer. He did write 2 more books after “A Child Called It.” The first one he wrote was his experiences as an adult, his failed marriage, adjusting to adult life, etc. This book was entitled, I believe, “A Man Called Dave.” He then went back a few years later and wrote a book (which for the life of me I can’t remember and it is at work so not accessible at the moment) which detailed his life as a teenage. He put in the missing years between when “A Child Called It” and “A Man Called Dave.” It spoke a lot about his time in and out of foster homes and those families which really he grew close to. They were both very inspiring books and I would recommend them to anyone.
omg i didnt know his marriage failed!!!! whats the names of his books after a man named Dave
I read A Boy Called It when it first came out, and I cried.
I just read the link @ 81. nanr93.
I’d heard rumors, but this pretty much did it for me. The guy is just an attention seeker.
Sad in another way. Sad for everyone he conned.
I knew Dave Pelzer is gonna be in this list!
94. segue- me too even though I’m a guy
you do some interesting researches, Rushfan.
note how none of these freaks played video games
#98. Mark
note how none of these freaks played video games
****
And this is relevant how?
I think Mark was commenting on how none of these people seem to fit the video gamer stereotype (the one that says people who play video games are more likely to commit violent crimes – the guys who carried out the Columbine shooting are often used as an example of this).
Ah, Tempyra, thank you.
These horrible crimes have been committed for as long as people have lived in proximity to one another, a long time before video games have been around. I’ve read much of the literature (criminal psychology, and juvenile criminal psychology) and the psychological type is similar in *almost* all cases.
There is, certainly, a triad of early childhood warning signs.
Do we hustle kids off to the nearest locked juvenile facility just because they display the triad?
Good God, what a bad idea!
Getting them early childhood psychological help is a great idea, because yes, you can almost always spot these people before they hit puberty…way before.
Does intervention work? Thats the big question! If it does, we’ll never know, because you can’t tell if something that might have happened, didn’t happen.
If you don’t intervene, and something does happen, then your back to asking the question, “What if I had only…”
It’s amazing, the biggest case of kidnappings is not even mentioned here. What about the Africans? THey were kidnapped from their homes by the white savges, never to ben seen by their families again. Millions upon millions of them. I am sure the people of that time were crying their eyes out looking for their sons, daughters, mothers , fathers, cousins and friends. THese kidnapped Africans were enslaved, raped, castrated, beaten, stripped of everything for 400 years.
THAT THE MOST TERRIBLE CASE OF KIDNAPPING….EVER!
GOD…i could’nt imagine my kids experiencing this nightmare..goosebumps..may they all rot in HELL!
Kiwiboi:
I debated internally whether your comments were even worth replying to; in the end the only justification I could come up with had nothing to do with you, but for the sake of anyone else who might be gulliable enough to be mislead by your deceit.
You see, you are correct. I have no ammunition to argue against your argument.
This is because your argument HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POST.
Your statements are sad testaments to the fact that you obviously have never attended the education system past an average level, because your Quixotic response is the type easily identified and mocked by first year university philosophy and logic students. You actually embodied the exact role of how to expose yourself as someone who has an agenda that predicates loyalty to a stance before loyalty to a truth; thus your intellect and observations are invalid and nullified. Nothing anyone will say will change your mind because your ego cares more about convincing yourself you are right and denying any thought that disagrees with you out of fear, and thus you need to attack it, but lacking the intellect to actually dissuade a valid argument, you create imaginary ones and deceitful implications that the original writer did not produce, attack those, and try to hide behind them.
Let me print this is ‘idiot’ or ‘stupid’ since I didn’t address the terms to anyone but you specificaly seemed inclined to make sure everyone knew they were meant to describe you, as you behaved exactly as predicted. I will explain this simply and slowly:
Your entire refutation is based upon what is called ‘straw man hypothesis’ and the ‘prosecutor’s hypothesis’, which are basic logical fallacies that are easily identified by anyone with any critical *****ysis skills. This is the type of thing you learn just coming out of high school…. like around 16 years of age.
If you ACTUALLY READ what I posted you would realize that your reply doesn’t have anything to do with it. You are chasing windmills, and calling yourself a mighty dragon slayer. Unfortunately, everyone else can see that your underwear are hanging out of your ass while you are claiming a throne.
Your arguments ignore basic observations so you can prop up imaginary stances that I never did represent, attack those stances while claiming that you are refuting me, never ever touch upon the actual points I was really discussing, and then try to claim victory after convincing yourself that you presented a valid point when in reality the only validity to your point exists in your imagination, because the connections and explanations you use to create your stance are all false and you take the liberty of ‘telling’ me and everyone else that my argument is something I had never said it was.
So instead of actually having a point, you painted a picture of a boogeyman on a wall, scratched on it with a pencil, wrote my name underneath, and then went and claimed you had vanquished mighty dragon after climbing the highest mountain in the world.
Try actually reading posts, or perhaps learning what critical *****ysis is, before you make such a fool of yourself. Your post had no relation to what I typed, and you only end up looking like the idiot you seemed to so strongly want to identify with, even though my writing did not aim itself at any particular individual.
Perhaps I am being too harsh; perhaps you are only 13 or 14 years old and I expect topo much of you. If you aren’t, don’t blame me because you can’t read.
If that scares you too much for the forums, you can always contact me privately to continue the conversation. I don’t need to embarass you in front of people, but your ego brought it upon yourself.
Oooh big words
Mr.Graves, you do realise that not only are you saying kiwiboi’s post had nothing to do with yours but your last comment has nothing to do with the subject being discussed?
Disturbing indeed…..
You see, you are correct. I have no ammunition to argue against your argument. This is because your argument HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POST.
Mr Graves – Gee, what an excitable little fellow you are. I always love it when, in response to a reasoned posting, the original commenter fells utterly compelled to resort to hysterial rantings in order to vainly defend his or her original position.
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
So, my points have nothing to do with your post? Ok, let me begin by quoting your original comment (#73) :
what I wanted say was, don’t you think it is disrespectful to place pictures of the victims on the list?
and :
Someone who suffers so horribly should not be subject to the whims of voyeurism
and :
You don’t put pictures of rape victims and *****ual molestation victims up for random voyeurs to peruse
See the common thread here? You are questioning whether it is appropriate to publish the photos of the victims of the crimes detailed in the list.
And, don’t try and argue that this was not the point you were making, because you also say this about the victims :
Perhaps who may have just seen this list and cringed or started weeping again. that terror never ends; at least give them privacy. They deserve as much.
Note that bit about “at least give them privacy”? Good…
Because my response pointed out that out of the 7 photographed victims, 5 had already – of their own volition – placed themselves in the public domain by way of either publishing their own stories on their own websites or by voluntarily appearing in public talking about their experiences (in at least 2 of these cases, being paid for it). I also mentioned that in the case of the other 2, the photos were both more than a quarter of a century old, and therefore “hardly giveaways” with respect to their identities.
Do you comprehend, Mr Graves? I can hardly make it more plain. I have no problem with your general approach (protection of victims identities), but am saying that – in this case – your argument is flawed, because most of the photographed victims have already voluntarily given up their right to privacy, and that the age of the photos undermines your argument with respect to the other 2.
In fact, if you read my comment in #94 you will see that I say : “Where I take issue is with Mr Graves making what, in many circumstances, might be a reasonable point, but not in this case.”
Got it? Good. Let’s move on…
You preface your original comment (#73) by stating that :
I already know some idiot will try to argue ‘well you can find it anywhere else on the internet, so it’s ok’
and :
Someone who suffers so horribly should not be subject to the whims of voyeurism – the pictures should be of the criminals or scenes, not of the people who were so horrendously treated
Note the words “idiot” and “voyeur”? And you’re surprised – given the facts that apply in the case of this list – that I call you on your moralising?
Finally, Mr Graves, I tried (I *really* tried) to make sense of the rest of the body of your comment (#104). I have to confess, however, that I have concluded it to be utterly pointless, meandering gibberish (and I did not even deduct marks for the poor spelling and atrocious grammar). Also, continually repeating the mantra that my post had nothing to do with your original point will not alter the fact that my post was *entirely* relevant and to the point.
Perhaps I am being too harsh; perhaps you are only 13 or 14 years old and I expect topo much of you.
Well, you got me here! I’m 13, and my little sister (she’s 10, but very smart) having also read your post (#104) said I should inform you that that you seem to be vainly presenting a position that her pure math friends (following orthodox philosophical dicta) might term a vacuous truth, tinged with a good measure of flawed synthetic proposition…whatever all of that means!?!
I was shocked when she told me that this was the view of “a Kant”…until she explained that she was talking about Immanuel Kant (some philosopher chappy)…and not about you!
She also said that she doubted – based on your comments – that you have any deep knowledge of logical fallacy, because reading the oft-quoted Damer’s views on reasoning on wikipedia, or Taleb’s seminal work, does not an expert make. However, she did say, having perused your words, that you sound very mature…perhaps 14 years old.
If that scares you too much for the forums, you can always contact me privately to continue the conversation. I don’t need to embarass you in front of people, but your ego brought it upon yourself.
LOL!! Well, I thought about this…for about a half a second! And I decided that I’d rather have you “embarass” me and keep me “looking like the idiot” in the open – right here where everyone can see it and judge for themselves.
I am laughing
Dave Pelzer’s brother, Richard, also wrote a book about being abused by their mother. Richard Pelzer’s book is called A Brother’s Journey.
I live 20 min from the house in number 5
Wow kiwiboi, very eloquently said!! Believe it or not I had Mr. Graves pegged for some angry 10 year old. Really I think he missed the point on your original comment. The rest of his comments were just angry reviews on how us “idiots” missed the point. He could learn a thing or two about accepting constructive criticism.
kiwiboi, I’m sorry it took me so long to offer you my congratulations on your intelligent, thoughtful, and eloquent response to Mr. Graves.
I could point out many grammatical flaws in his post, but I am sure you have already noticed them.
kiwiboi,
To join the trend. You appear to have buried Mr. Graves. Little mourning, it would appear.
#44 Molly Bish was found 3 years later. Her bones were found a few miles from the pond.
Elizabeth Fritzl’s last name has no “e” in it. Also, it’s untrue that they speak in grunts and growls – their lawyer said in a public statement that many reports were wildly exaggerated and that they “spoke normal German”. Maybe that rumor arose from comparisons to a fictional Austrian novel that has a lot of parallels to the Fritzl story.. in the novel the abused character couldn’t speak properly.
oh my god!! This is like… disturbing… I’ve heard of some of these… But rape??? Dude, that’s not the answer!!!
these stories are too scary 2 read!! i think i might get nightmares from them!!!
i’ve read a child called it
its sooooo sad his mom was so mean
also i dont know if anyone watches the show supernatural
but a couple weeks ago they did a show and the plos is almost exactly as number 1′s crime is descreibed
i know alot of the shows episodes are based on folklore
but that one was super creepy then i read this and it just uped the ante
its sad and scary stuff liek that happens
I only have one thing to say…
Junko Furuta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete-Encased_High_School_Girl_murder… Read and cry.
so sad