Letters to the Editor
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Tips
Whenever I go to check out a room in an apartment, or to buy something from someone in a private home, I try to:
1. Take someone with me.
If that's not possible:
2. I call someone (usually my boyfriend) and tell them the address, and say that if he doesn't hear from me in half an hour, to start calling and/or come looking.
These obviously aren't perfect, and might not have helped this poor woman. But it's something.
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Thanks for posting this.
It's a good reminder.
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I meet strangers in a bank.
There are lots of cameras, someone has a gun and it's hard to be crazy. It's a good place to transact post-online business.
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No, the murderer wasn't AIDED by Craigslist for cripes sakes!
Craigslist was not necessary for this murderer to achieve an end -- murder.
The murderer would have used another means to "achieve" his goal if there had been no Craigslist.
That sensational headline is not useful, except to get readers sucked in to the story to read the safety reminders.
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Craigslist - that the forum for anonymous gay sex isn't it?
I can't recall any other know use for Craigslist. A nanny? What's that a codeword for?
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Pardon me?....
It's sort of surprising to hear that folks (including 24 year old actresses) need to be told these tips.
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Bad things do happen to smart people sometimes
It's sort of surprising to hear that folks (including 24 year old actresses) need to be told these tips.
You know, sometimes really really bad things happen to smart people. The overwhelming majority of people on this planet are not psychopaths, and people are usually quite safe, even if they take minimal (or no) precautions. But occasionally, intelligent people can do all the right things and still wind up on the wrong end of a gun. Crazy is crazy, and if you have the dire misfortune to encounter crazy, your survival has as much to do with luck as it has to do with whether or not you met someone in a public place or had a cellphone in your possession.
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Did he use some kind of laser weapon, or bludgeon her with an iPhone?
I'm finding it hard to grasp what this story is doing on a tech blog.
Craigslist is an incidental part of the story -- it hasn't a thing to do with it, beyond the uninteresting fact that it happens to be a popular place to post free ads. So why am I reading about it in relation to this murder?
Is there something about the nature of Craigslist that has any bearing on the crime? Would things have gone any differently if the killer had lured his victim via an ad in the Star Tribune or the Pioneer Press?
I'm not getting it, Farhad. There was a murder -- that's awful. The guy posted his ad on Craigslist -- so what?
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What Kitchengirl said.
Look, it's human nature when hearing of a case like this, to make yourself feel safer by saying "This won't happen to ME because I do a, b or c".
The truth is what Kitchengirl said.
While I haven't read anything to suggest that Kathy -didn't- meet her killer in a public place; (didn't Ted Bundy meet most of his victims in public?) I'm willing to allow that she probably didn't.
It seems fairly clear to me that she DID tell people where she was going and who she was meeting (suspect already in custody).
If she'd taken a friend with her, she might be alive today; or we might be reading about multiple victims.
Lessons? It's all a gamble, but the odds are on your side.
I like the idea of meeting people in a bank, but please don't clog up the lobby when I'm in a hurry. Sure take precautions; but in the absence of glaring stupidity, blaming the victim makes you look like a big scaredy-cat.
Finally, one murder in 450 million ads? Outstanding!
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What the cop said
I'm just laughing at what the cop said: "We're confident we have the suspect in custody." The suspect? You mean you're sure the guy you arrested is the person you think did done it? Way to be on the ball. "We're confident we arrested our suspect, not his next door neighbor or something." (If they had said "we're confident we have the perp in custody," then that would make sense, but they probably can't say that until after the trial.)
By the way, as for whether this story should be on a tech blog or not -- well, maybe not, in the strictist sense. But I like the variety.
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What MICKI said!
This had nothing to do with Craigslist!!! It had to do with a creepy person placing an ad and an unfortunate person who answered it.
The ad could have been on a local bulletin board or in a newspaper or on neighborhood flyers or any other sort of public medium that people have used for decades if not centuries to seek services.
For goodness' sake, we all know that the answer to your question, Farhad, is NO!!
Please don't fall victim to the hysterical headline pandering just because it is easy.
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Which Craig
Craigslist - that the forum for anonymous gay sex isn't it?
You're thinking of Larry Craig's List, which is something entirely different. ;)
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YASH! (Yet Another Sensationalist Headline)
The murderer was "aided" by Craiglist?
By that logic, he was also "aided" by the computer manufacturer of the computer that he used to make the posting. What's DELL's murder count?
You see where this is going...
I know you need to write sensational headlines to pull people into the column, but you're really stooping low here.
Every time some journalist or editor chooses to write a headline like this, I lose a tiny bit of respect for the publication.
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Even Worse
I think we can take the headline for this story as an open question, with Farhad Manjoo's answer being no, of course not. Meanwhile, on the train this morning I noticed a headline including the words "Craigslist killer" in one of those ubiquitous morning Metro rags. Now THAT was despicable.