Social Media Homicide Confessions: Stories of Killers and Their Victims

209 Pages·2018·21.561 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Yardley

Social media
homicide
confessions
Stories of killers and their victims
Elizabeth Yardley
SOCIAL MEDIA
HOMICIDE CONFESSIONS
Stories of killers and their victims
Elizabeth Yardley
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

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The right of Elizabeth Yardley to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her
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This book is dedicated to the memories of
Jennifer Alfonso, Emily Janzen,
Laurel Janzen, Shelley Janzen,
Charles Taylor and other victims, who are
all too often absent from the stories of
their own homicides.

Contents
Acknowledgements vi
one From ‘happy slapping’ to ‘Facebook murder’: 1
networked media in violent crime
two Homicide and media: ‘realities’ and ‘representations’ 9
three Media in homicide: from consumption to participation 25
four Approach to the study 45
five The murder of Jennifer Alfonso 55
six The Janzen familicide 83
seven The murder of Charles Taylor 115
eight Discussion: the complex contexts of social media 149
homicide confessions
References 167
Index 195
v
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people and organisations, as
this book would not have been possible without their support and
assistance: Mum and Dad and Michael and Cheryl Hughes for their
unwavering belief in me and their ability to convince me to occasionally
step away from the laptop; Professor David Wilson for showing me
what real, applied criminology means and being the best mentor
and role model any academic could wish for; Victoria Pittman and
Rebecca Tomlinson at Policy Press, who saw the seeds of an idea and
provided the encouragement and advice that I needed to develop it
into something real; Barb McClintock of British Columbia Coroner’s
Service and Cindi McCoy of the Court of Appeals of Virginia for their
helpfulness and efficiency in providing me with access to information
in the Janzen and Taylor cases respectively; and staff and students in the
Department of Criminology and Faculty of Business, Law and Social
Sciences at Birmingham City University for creating such a dynamic
and inspirational place to be a criminologist – I am privileged to be
among you.
Thank you also to the anonymous reviewers who took the time
to offer thoughtful and constructive comments on the proposal and
drafts of this book.
vi
ONE
From ‘happy slapping’ to
‘Facebook murder’: networked
media in violent crime
This book examines three cases in which perpetrators confessed on
social media to committing homicides. The confessions included text-
based content justifying the killings and, in two cases, images of the
victims’ dead bodies. Such cases might be interpreted as anomalies,
extreme examples of individuals desperate for attention and notoriety
in a time in which to be is to be seen. However, within this book,
the author argues that these cases evade such a simplistic explanation.
While narcissism is indeed a piece of the puzzle, it is simply one
factor among a messy combination of others. Making sense of such
acts requires criminologists to acknowledge the complex contexts
in which they occur. It demands that we draw on our existing
understandings of homicide, but it also requires that we venture into
new territory. One of the most important stops on this journey is the
media and communications literature, within which scholars have
developed innovative and fruitful approaches to better understand the
contemporary social world, its digital culture (Miller, 2011) and the
mediatised construction of our realities (Couldry and Hepp, 2017).
Within this introductory chapter, the author explains how the topic of
media in homicide first came to her attention, identifies the foundations
on which the research in this book was built and provides an overview
of the content and cases explored therein.
In recent years, the role of networked media in violent crime has
emerged as a prominent popular cultural concern. Over a decade
ago, a Guardian journalist expressed significant concern about a
phenomenon termed ‘happy slapping’ (Honigsbaum, 2005). Happy
slapping is an orchestrated attack, in which perpetrators physically set
upon a victim – often an unfortunate stranger in the wrong place at the
wrong time – film the assault on their mobile phones and then share
it with peers via networked media (Mann, 2009; Chan et al, 2012;
Palasinski, 2013). This is essentially a crime enacted for the camera – a
concept that Surette (2015a) has recently termed ‘performance crime’.
In the years that followed, the author came across further references
to networked media in violent crime. The mainstream media were
1
Social media homicide confessions
increasingly drawing attention to particular online spaces in cases of
homicide. Of note was the social networking site Facebook. One
article, entitled ‘Teenager jailed for Facebook murder’, reported on the
2009 killing of 18-year-old Londoner Salum Kombo by a 14-year-old
with whom he had exchanged insults on Facebook (Hughes, 2010).
Another told the story of Hayley Williams’ killing at the hands of her
former partner Brian Lewis after she changed her relationship status
on a social networking site to single (Hughes, 2009). A further piece
described how sex offender Peter Chapman posed as a teenage boy
on Facebook to lure, rape and murder 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall in
2009 (Carter, 2010).
As a result of the author’s interest in these cases, she embarked on
a study with a colleague to explore homicides involving Facebook
(Yardley and Wilson, 2015). The 48 homicides examined within
the study were in many ways typical of homicide in general – most
perpetrators were male and there was a close social relationship
between the victim and the perpetrator. However, female victims
and homicide-suicides were overrepresented and there appeared to
be associations between particular types of homicide and the ways in
which Facebook had been used. For example, perpetrators of domestic
homicide were often ‘reactors’, angered by Facebook content posted
by their intimate partner. In newer relationships, ‘fantasist’ perpetrators
used Facebook to support a self that was unrepresentative of reality.
There were multiple cases of ‘informers’, who had used Facebook to
announce that they were going to commit a homicide, that they had
just committed a homicide, or both. The informer-type incidents
included domestic cases where an intimate partner or child had been
killed, confrontational ‘honour contests’ among male strangers or
acquaintances (Polk, 1994) and instances of intense jealousy or revenge
encompassing several victim–perpetrator relationships. These findings
suggested that networked technology meant different things to different
perpetrators of different types of homicide. Facebook played a role
in their presentation of self (Goffman, 1959) and the establishment
and maintenance of their relationships with others – particularly
their victims. These self-presentations were socially and culturally
rooted, symptomatic of broader currents of meaning. Informers were
particularly interesting to the author, given the way in which their
acts served as attempts to assert power and take control of the narrative
around a homicide, while simultaneously silencing the victim.
The study into ‘Facebook murder’ highlighted the necessity of further
enquiry around networked media in homicide. Such research would
have to better understand the meaning and significance of networked
2
From ‘happy slapping’ to ‘Facebook murder’
media in these cases by exploring the wider context. Individuals use a
unique blend of networked media in their everyday lives – often termed
‘polymedia’ (Madianou and Miller, 2013). The more intimate people’s
social relationships, the more complex the media blend becomes
(Baym, 2010). Given that homicide most often occurs between
individuals with close social relationships, the need to understand these
repertoires becomes even more important. How were the individuals
affected by homicide using networked media in their everyday lives?
To what extent were their actions around the homicide consistent or
inconsistent with this? What role did networked media play in their
performances of self, connections to others and sense of being in the
world? How should criminologists take account of networked media
in their research around homicide?
In order to address these questions, criminologists must draw on
broader conceptual frameworks. Making sense of ‘media’ is a key part of
this. In particular, it is necessary to appreciate that while criminologists
have only been analysing networked media for a decade or so, media
has been intricately threaded into the fabric of everyday life for
centuries. As such, it is important to briefly explore contributions
of media and communications scholars in making sense of media in
social life in general.
From clocks to telegraphs to radio and television, new
media have always woven themselves into everyday life,
interfering with existing patterns of spatiotemporal life,
generating new rhythms and spaces. The migration of
computer technology from industry and research laboratory
to the home over the past thirty years or so has intensified
these processes ... over time, some new digital media have
become unremarkable due to their familiarity and ubiquity,
and others have been refashioned or displaced, we see not a
Narnia or Matrix-like division of virtual and actual worlds,
but rather a complicated interweaving of mediated, lived,
time and space ... (Lister et al, 2009, p 237)
The past three decades have seen significant shifts in media. Advances
in networked technology have built the foundations for further
developments such as social networking sites like Facebook and
Twitter, content-sharing platforms like YouTube and Reddit and
video-calling facilities like Skype. Innovations in computer hardware
enable us to engage with media on a range of devices including the
traditional desktop machine, the portable laptop or tablet and the ever-
3