Official News page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: WHEN ONLINE RELATIONSHIPS GO BAD

by Hazed

Online communities like Fed2 can provide a way to make new friends that transfer to real life. Sometimes, online romance blossoms and when a couple meet in the real world, they get married and live happily ever after.

But not always. Sometimes, an online relationship can have catastrophic consequences in meatspace, as this story of love, loss, betrayal and a kidnap plot show.

We start out in Second Life, the massive online community which has always seemed to me to be like a game environment without the actual game there. Kimberly Jerrigan from North Carolina met her one true love (who masqueraded as a lion), whose name hasn't been publicized due to the fact that he ended up the victim in all this. In real life, he was a 52-year old man. Having falling in love online, they arranged to meet, but it didn't work out and the man/lion person dumped poor Kimberly.

That's when she did what any grieving lover would do: she turned into a raving bunny boiler, drove to his Pennsylvania workplace, and attempted to kidnap him at gunpoint. He got away, but she wasn't going to leave things there: two weeks later she posed as a postal worker and managed to find out his home address.

Armed with handcuffs, some duct tape, a taser, a BB gun, and a dog named Gogi, she broke into his apartment while he was out. When he got home he "saw someone pointing an object at his chest that was projecting a laser beam" - presumably this was the taser with a laser sight on it.

He called the police, she ran - leaving behind her handcuffs, duct tape, BB gun, and dog. Yes, she left Gogi, having put him in the bathroom with duct tape around his jaw to stop him making noise during the break-in.

An hour later, her vehicle was spotted at a highway rest stop and after a brief struggle she was arrested. She's being charged with attempted kidnapping, burglary and aggravated menacing. She's lucky they aren't throwing in cruelty to the dog, too!

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