SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Washington Post reports that an internet escort in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker who showed up at the woman's home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com. Neal Falls showed up with multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes. In Falls's pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage. Investigators are trying to determine whether Falls is responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada. "We are entering his DNA profile into CODIS, which is a national crime DNA database, to see if it matches any previous submissions from anywhere in the United States," says Steve Cooper, the Charleston Police Department's chief of detectives. "If his DNA has been located in any other crimes and his profile was entered into CODIS, there will be a match."
From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, he turned violent. "I knew he was there to kill me," says the victim who asked not to be identified. Falls pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. "When he strangled me he just wouldn't let me get any air. I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me." Local authorities are treating the shooting as an act of self-defense. According to Cooper, "when we find multiple sets of handcuffs, a machete, an axe, a bulletproof vest and container of bleach, the first thing that comes to an investigator's mind is, 'This is a serial killer kit.'"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:50AM
Planning to commit murder is a crime and it is more serious than obtaining a gun illegally.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:32PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:32PM
There is no crime until you actually act on it. "Attempted murder" requires actually attempting. How do you prove that somebody was planning a murder before they actually commit it? Mass surveillance? Thoughtcrime? The point is, while technically there may be "breaking more serious laws" before mass-murdering (in that they commit the murder of one person before they can kill masses of people), there is no way to actually catch or stop somebody until they actually begin their mass-murder spree. Thus, khallow's point about the "anyone could be a mass murderer" argument failing is not true, because there's no way to catch a potential mass murderer before they start murdering. Nobody is a mass-murderer until they become a mass-murderer, but everyone could potentially be one.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:38AM
In theory you are correct, however real life doesn't work that way. You can be convicted of "intent" to commit any number of crimes. Possession with intent to sell, for example, carries a significantly harsher penalty than just possession. They simply assume that if you have over a certain amount you must be intending to sell.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:42AM
"Possession with intent to sell" is just bullshit nonsense form the ridiculousness of prohibition. Do you have a non-prohibition example of somebody being convicted of intending to do something but not actually doing it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:44AM
I should include further proof for this. "Intent to sell" does not have anything to do with showing intent to sell, if you have over a certain amount, you're automatically guilty of "intent to sell". There is no intent ever proven, just that if you have over a certain amount, you obviously must be intending to sell it.