craigscrimelist

Yesterday morning I appeared on a Canadian Broadcasting Company radio show called The Current.

You can hear it by using the flash player below.



Thanks to The Current, guest host Duncan McCue, and the CBC for having me on.

Police Issue Warning About Craigslist Thief:
Police in Clinton Township, Michigan are warning people about alleged craigslist thief Elizabeth Knighton.

Police claim that Knighton targets craigslist sellers that are selling electronics;. When she meets with the sellers she pepper sprays them and makes off with the goods.

A picture of Knighton is available at the article.

Three Women Charged With Prostitution Near A School:
First off I have to pick a bone with the headline. It makes it seem as if these women were whoring themselves out in front of the school playground or something. They were actually a mile and a half away from the school. The whatever-free school zone laws are idiotic and do nothing to discourage criminals from these zones. The only purpose they serve is to make politicians feel good and keep criminals in jail longer. I like the last part of that law but like I said they do nothing to discourage criminals. Ok, rant over.

Nashville police arrested four in connection with prostitution after finding their ads on craigslist and Backpage.com. Those arrested were...

Vanessa Hedge, 25, of Goodlettsville
Lauren Hall, 19, of Franklin
Heather Soard, 20, of Murfreesboro
James Howard Malone, Jr., 22, of Murfreesboro

Malone was allegedly the pimp. Think there's no victims here. Take a look at the mugshots of these girls. They look far older than their actual ages.

Craigslist ad lands major prostitution bust:
Police in St. Paul, Minnesota arrested 13 suspects, both johns and hookers, after responding to 1 craigslist ad.

That is an awesome haul for police and the officers of St. Paul should be commended for their work.

Five girls in care have been selling sex on Craigslist, police say:
Five teenagers in the care of British Columbia's children's ministry have been discovered prostituting themselves on craigslist. The teens are 16 and 17 and have been claiming in their ads that they are 18-20.

This is a great article about how the Vancouver area has a problem with child prostitution on carigslist and how it's almost tolerated.

New evidence in Craigslist murder case:
Michael John Anderson may just be the dumbest criminal ever. The suspect in the murder of Katherine Ann Olson actually sent a letter to his parents from jail asking them to pay someone to take the rap for him.

Anderson lured Olson to his home with a phony craigslist employment ad and then shot and killed her once she was there.

Going Postal: Soiled mattresses on Craigslist, tortured lobsters and one dumb would-be mass murderer:
I just wanted to thank Zosia Bielski of Canada's National Post for giving CCL a little link love about the post I did about the sex club mattresses for sale on craigslist.

All this love from Canada is greatly appreciated.

I'm Canada famous...like Chilliwack.

Police: Craigslist Rapist Has HIV:
DeKalb County police in Georgia have arrested 18-year-old Allen Jamar McDowell of Decatur, Georgia for raping two women that he met through craigslist. The article infers that McDowell is also HIV positive.

Detectives say Allen Jamar McDowell of Decatur convinced two women on separate occasions to meet him at an apartment off Kensington Road. The apartment was vacant, but McDowell allegedly gained access and held the women captive while he sexually assaulted them.

Take away the anonymity of craigslist and I doubt this coward would have even struck.

Police think there may have been more victims.

Antioch Woman Allegedly Sold Sex On Craigslist:
Police in Antioch, California arrested Jennifer Cervantes, age not given, on a charge if suspicion of prostitution after undercover detectives responded to her craigslist ad.

Number of Craigslist victims increases:
I originally posted about the craigslist rental scam in Covina, California here. I roginally said that the scammer didn't own the property. That turned out to be false. I just assumed that since that's how the scam normally works. The owner of the property at 5441 Calera Ave. in Covina is Pardeep Singh and police are having trouble locating him.

Also in the last post I mentioned that he had taken $2400 from a dozen people. That total is now up to 50 with some of them now homeless.

That's $120K that Mr. Singh has absconded with.

When they catch him each person who was ripped off by him should get 5 minutes alone with him, in a perfect world.

Craplist.net:
I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of the Grand Theft Auto series of video games. I've played III and Vice City and San Andreas and they're ok. However I love the series now for just some little gem they packed away in IV, which I haven't played yet. According to the blog post I linked too there's an in game 'internet' in GTA IV with it's own version of craigslist called Craplist. Here's how Craplist is described in GTA IV...

Craplist was started in San Fierro in 1995 by some basement dwelling sociopaths with the simple mission of creating a computer-based online forum where users can sell stolen bicycles and meet up at lunch time to give a stranger head. ... Capitalists don't understand us. Newspapers hate us. Stalkers love us. Craplist is here to stay. We are you.

Can it really be called a parody when it's basically true?

Craigs crime scene:
This is an awesome article about the crime problems on craigslist by Patrick White of the Globe and Mail. Why is it so awesome? Besides the fact that Mr. White is an incredible journalist it also features yours truly.

In the United States, Craigslist-related crimes have become so commonplace that one blogger has launched an entire site devoted to them. Up until last August, Trench Reynolds had been posting Craigslist news items on his main site, mycrimespace.com, "but the Craigslist stories got so big they were taking away from all the other stories on the site."

Now he posts a story or more a day at craigscrimelist.org.

In the nine months since the site went live, he's seen his share of bizarre and sad stories.

One of his early posts covered a Minnesota man who allegedly lured a babysitter to his house through a Craigslist posting and killed her.

Law-enforcement officials in Canada agree that Craigslist is not the problem; "It's the people using it who are," Cpl. Robertson said.

But not everyone is so quick to let the company off the hook. Mr. Reynolds recently used a new classifieds site, Flugpo.com, that has more anti-crime measures in place, including a complete ban on erotic-services ads.

"Why couldn't Craigslist follow suit?" he said. "That would go a long way toward eliminating crime on the site. Right now, it's like the Wild West on there. Everything is anonymous and anything goes."

I'm Canada famous now. Just kidding.

Anyway craigslist mouthpiece Susan MacTavish Best had her usual non-response.

"Craigslist is an unwise choice of venue for committing crimes, since perpetrators inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law-enforcement officers can follow," Ms. MacTavish Best stated in an e-mail. "Our staff actively works with police departments, and we even help train officers in using Craigslist."

How about taking the anonymity away and doing away with the erotic services section? If you did that I would guarantee you that inquiries from law enforcement would virtually disappear. And then craigslist might become respectable again.

A Covina rental deal that proved to good to be true:
A dozen families in Covina, California fell for the too good to be true renters' scam on craigslist. Each paid $2400 to a person who didn't even own the property.

So far no one has been arrested.

Mother, Son Accused Of Pimping 15-Year Old Girl. Girl Allegedly Pimped Out To More Than 1200 Men:
37-year-old Lavern Vaughn and her son, 20-year-old Lavor Carter, of Vallejo, California have been arrested for pimping out a 15-year-old girl. The pair posted almost 700 ads on craigslist pimping the girl out in Northern California.

The victim couldn't just leave either...

The federal indictment alleges carter would whip her with a belt and plastic rod, burn her with a lighter, or strike her. She reportedly tried to leave Carter on multiple occasions, but he told her that if she left, she would not leave alive.

In the same indictment, Carter allegedly duct taped the minor to a chair inside an apartment and left her there for 12 hours. Other accusations include pouring boiling water on her leg and chest, and locking her in a garage all night long.

If this story couldn't be any sicker read what the suspects' relative said when confronted by the media...

We asked Gail Vaughn, mother and grandmother of the woman and young man arrested by FBI agents, if they were really pimping out a young girl. "No," she said. "The girl they're accused of pimping [isn't] a kid. She's 16 and has a two-year old daughter."

But she's still a minor under the law. "Yeah, but we didn't know that."

Who the hell doesn't know that minors are under 18 and why is that supposed to make a difference?

And that's right I said victim. You can take your victimless crime and shove it.

Woman Arrested For Craigslist Prostitution:
That lovely vision at right is 22-year-old Patricia Lewis of Omaha, Nebraska. She was arrested for prostitution after police saw her craigslist ad for "exclusive full service". She was asking $175 an hour.

I don't know which is worse the bad dye job or the neck tattoo.