Ian On The Red Dot

I started watching the series Dexter over the last weekend. Lead investigator FBI agent Lundy taught me something - every serial killer has a pattern. Which is interesting considering there has been a spate of murders linked to Facebook.

Recently, there was a spate of murders where the victims were tertiary educated early 20s ladies. Investigators had been able to approximate the time of death for these victims when they realized the killer(s) was updating the Facebook status of the victims just after the murder.

For example, after Melody Chen was murdered, her status was updated to, “Melody is so dead…”. Her friends showed the customary concern by twittering, smsing and posting wall messages like, “hey babe, you ok? hang in there k, things will get better…..

“Funny he should say that, ” Detective A said about the wall message by John Lim, “considering that the killer strung her up from the ceiling fan with a rope around the neck and tried to make it look like she had committed suicide.”

Some other choice Facebook statuses:

“Celine is lying on her desk feeling like a knife has stabbed her in the back.”

“Christina is on her bed. She feels so suffocated.”

“Jamie is in great pain. She is dying inside.”

The two detectives while checking out the laptops found at the scenes realized a pattern. The murder victims were real Facebook junkies.

“Don’t these girls realize that they should set a password for their screen saver?” asked Detective B.

Which is so besides the point, considering they were dead. What the detectives did learn which was noteworthy was that the murdered victims all had two friends in common.

The suspects were narrowed down to a guy and a girl. Or so the detectives thought.

It turns out both suspects had rock solid alibis.

Damn.

Further investigations on the logs contributed by the Facebook admins led to the case breaking clue - there was a particular female user which had been heavily visiting the profile pages of the murdered friends of the female suspect.

The detectives and the Facebook admins decided to monitor her activities online. They noticed a sudden spike in this user’s viewing of the profile page of another friend.

“I think I smell a murder, ” says Detective A.

They laid a trap for the murder suspect using the potential victim as bait. They were right and apprehended the suspect just as she was about to slit the throat of the bait.

The trust of these ladies was so easy to gain. Everything about them is online on their Facebook page. I know their birthdays, their hobbies, their likes, their dislikes, the relationship statuses, their friends…

I’ve seen their photos. I know where they have been, who they hang out with. Gaining entry into their room, their homes was so easy. All I had to do was use Jane (the original female suspect) as a conversational starter.

Damn that Jane. I killed all these people cos of her. Friends she calls them. FRIENDS!

You know what are friends. Friends are people who have been there when your dad died. Someone who accompanied you for every single hospital visit. Someone who has bled with you, cried with you, laughed with you, experienced every fucking roller-coaster emotion with you and more. Friends are those who will be there with you.

Friends aren’t the people who cam-whore with you. Not the ones who just follow you because you’re showing your fucking cleavage in every single photo. Not the ones who post wall messages just to keep some fucking trivial tenuous connection with you.

Friends are the people your parents know. The ones you trust enough to open up your family to.

Friends…. I killed those girls because damn it, they are the kind of people that debase the meaning of friendship.

Everyone is a fucking friend now. What happened to the word ‘acquaintance’.

“She has a point, ” said Detective A to Detective B, “we’ve worked together for like 3 years and you haven’t even met my family. I don’t know a thing about you.”

“So what are you saying? We aren’t friends?”

“I’m saying you and your family is invited to dinner this Saturday, ” said Detective A.