The Blog Connection
If you watch cable news or the Today show you're probably aware of a new "disappeared" girl in Richmond, Virginia: a VCU student named Taylor Marie Behl. Behl, a 17-year-old freshman, has been missing for more than two weeks. Over this past weekend her car turned up on the far end of the neighborhood from which she disappeared - but with Ohio tags in place of the vehicle's Virginia tags. There are a number of credible rumors swirling. Some still maintain she's run away, others suspect she was abducted or is the victim of another variety of foul play. I have no sense of what really happened to her - I wouldn't even hazard a guess.
The case is rapidly degenerating into a Heart of Darkness story about the Richmond goth and skateboard underground. One "person of interest" in the case is a 38-year-old photographer who calls himself "Skulz". Skulz had what's been characterized as "a physical relationship" with the missing girl. In addition to being a rather prolific blogger, Skulz is an accomplished license plate thief/collector. The Ohio plates that showed up on Taylor's car were stolen in Richmond three months ago.
Skulz' ex-roommate is from the same town in Northern Virginia as Behl, and they met through him. His name is Mike, and I believe he is referenced as the boyfriend of a Suicide Girls model in this mini-blog Skulz set up last month, to complain about how said Suicide Girls model screwed him over. Skulz' main LiveJournal blog is here.
The day after Taylor went missing, Skulz filed a police report claiming that he'd been abducted, beaten, transported outside the city and dumped on a dirt road, from which he hitchhiked back. According to his lawyer, Skulz believes the Suicide Girls model was behind it.
Like Skulz, Behl has made prolific use of free web services - here's her LiveJournal and her MySpace page. Incredibly, the cirumstances leading up to the disappearance are partially documented across a handful of blogs, like one of those mystery books with the postcards. The whole affair seemed dark and creepy enough before the involved parties' angst-ridden blogs came to light. Now it's like the Denton/Calacanis feud, except with poor people and sex - dark territory, indeed.
I'm casually following events in the case at my Richmond blog, R804, but a blog called The Dark Side... is covering the matter in far greater detail. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is doing a good job, despite its normally lackadaisical approach to crime coverage. A columnist named Mark Holman (whom I have nicknamed "Fabio" for reasons that will be obvious) has done some really great work on it. Also check the original Websleuths forum thread, and the entire board that has been spawned to deal with the huge surge of attention.
The case is rapidly degenerating into a Heart of Darkness story about the Richmond goth and skateboard underground. One "person of interest" in the case is a 38-year-old photographer who calls himself "Skulz". Skulz had what's been characterized as "a physical relationship" with the missing girl. In addition to being a rather prolific blogger, Skulz is an accomplished license plate thief/collector. The Ohio plates that showed up on Taylor's car were stolen in Richmond three months ago.
Skulz' ex-roommate is from the same town in Northern Virginia as Behl, and they met through him. His name is Mike, and I believe he is referenced as the boyfriend of a Suicide Girls model in this mini-blog Skulz set up last month, to complain about how said Suicide Girls model screwed him over. Skulz' main LiveJournal blog is here.
The day after Taylor went missing, Skulz filed a police report claiming that he'd been abducted, beaten, transported outside the city and dumped on a dirt road, from which he hitchhiked back. According to his lawyer, Skulz believes the Suicide Girls model was behind it.
Like Skulz, Behl has made prolific use of free web services - here's her LiveJournal and her MySpace page. Incredibly, the cirumstances leading up to the disappearance are partially documented across a handful of blogs, like one of those mystery books with the postcards. The whole affair seemed dark and creepy enough before the involved parties' angst-ridden blogs came to light. Now it's like the Denton/Calacanis feud, except with poor people and sex - dark territory, indeed.
I'm casually following events in the case at my Richmond blog, R804, but a blog called The Dark Side... is covering the matter in far greater detail. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is doing a good job, despite its normally lackadaisical approach to crime coverage. A columnist named Mark Holman (whom I have nicknamed "Fabio" for reasons that will be obvious) has done some really great work on it. Also check the original Websleuths forum thread, and the entire board that has been spawned to deal with the huge surge of attention.
posted by Sterling at 1:15 AM
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