Common Sense

I got a reply from the good people at Snopes.com regarding my post on the Myspace rapist alert. It seems that, like many urban legends, this one has at least a kernel of truth.

The original version of the story involved someone with the screename “slavemaster” on AOL.

John Edward Robinson Sr., 56, was arrested on 2 June 2000 and charged with sexual assault on two women in the Kansas City area. Robinson lured the women (as he had others) into participating in sadomasochistic sex by contacting them over the Internet under the name “slavemaster.” The two women filed charges after Robinson “brutalized them in a way that went beyond what they intended.” …

In October 2002, John Robinson was convicted of the murder of three women, the two found in the barrels on his land, and the third disappeared mother of the child he placed with his brother. In January 2003 he was sentenced to death for these murders. He has also been charged in the deaths of the three women found in Missouri.

The “slavemaster” is monstrously real, but so far he’s well short of the 56 victims claimed for him, and he remains behind bars, not out trolling the Internet for additional victims.

So it started out as people misinterpreting an actual news item, then, as so often happens on the Internet, was warped to involve numerous other people and a never-ending chain letter warning of something that never happened.

The fact remains that it is not a good idea to forward this or any other bogus bulletin or email on.