This is nuts:
A woman in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, as well, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker in her home last week.
Neal Falls showed up at the woman’s home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com, according to police. He showed up with a “kill list,” 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, according to Fox affiliate KPTV.
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, according to the Daily Dot.
Now investigators are trying to determine whether Falls, 45, was responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada, the station reported.
Wow.
redshirt
What’s really to say about psychopaths, Cole?
piratedan
jaysus, the sex hangup thing is obviously yet another thing we have to talk about…. so many other people pissed off about people using what they have to enjoy themselves. Have always wondered if that’s what one of the major hangups some folks have about abortion, the “root” of their issue is that someone else had sex and they want them to “pay” for it.
JPL
I saw this earlier on CBSnews.com. How absolutely horrifying for her and I’m glad that she was able to kill him.
Steve from Antioch
Subaru drivers ….
cmorenc
The creepy thing about psychopaths is that they’re like the shark attacks along North Carolina beaches this summer – relatively rare events which any individual bather in the ocean has a vanishingly negligible chance of ever being a victim of any time during their life. And like the shark attacks, they tend to come without much, if anything in the way of warning that you’re in the presence of one that’s about to attack you until it happens. (Ted Bundy comes to mind here). And so – as with protecting yourself from potential shark attacks, there are some common-sense things you can do to further minimize taking unnecessary chances of becoming the victim of a psychopath. Nevertheless, you are are still left with two fundamental choices: 1) go about your life without without being afflicted by a constant fog of fear about other people around you, or 2) go about your life in a perpetual fog of paranoia that cripples your ability to enjoy life.
Hal
I live in upstate NY and their have been two dismembered bodies found in the past few months in Niagara Falls, so now people are talking about a serial killer. Apparently the women were distantly related. If there is ever a third I think folks are going to freak out.
Bobby B.
I can think of some good new state mottoes for you but I don’t want to be tasteless.
Benw
@Steve from Antioch: lesbians from New Hampshire?
MattF
Apparently, she grabbed the guy’s gun and blindly shot behind herself– and got him. Yikes.
redshirt
@Benw: Lesbians from Vermont, actually. Sanderites.
Pie a Happens (opiejeanne)
Scary! Story needs more details.
Redshift
@piratedan: Oh, absolutely. Some of them aren’t even subtle about it. It’s the only motivation that fits with being opposed to both abortion and birth control. (Other than being generally opposed to autonomy for women, which encompasses being opposed to sex without “consequences.”)
A guy
He’s dead. And that, it seems, is a good thing. Lending credence the the phrase ” not all lives matter”. I wonder if the victim was expecting money from the guy?
Roger Moore
@MattF:
She did the only thing you really can do in a situation like that: fight back and hope for the best. She got lucky, and a good thing, too. This guy could have murdered many more women before another one got lucky.
Sherparick
“Fundamental difference between the sexes is that one of them can kill the other with their bare hands.” Ani Bezzirides from True Detective Season II (It sounds like Charleston and Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia could be the back drop of Season 3.) I am one of the few people who kind of enjoys Season II. Perhaps because I have been watching so much film noir on TCM this summer (almost every episode has shout outs to Noir classics – except for the “femme fatale” since I don’t think Ani is the femme fatale type). Colin Farrell’s character is a shout out to “Kiss Me Deadly'”‘s Mike Hammer, in that he is almost as bad as the bad guys he is pursuing and seems to enjoy beating the shit out of people..
Pogonip
So, does this change anyone’s opinion about guns? Or would the occasional dead hooker be an acceptable price to pay to disarm the citizenry?
I think Cole earned a round of applause for being honest enough to post this.
gbear
Kind of presents a dilemma for gun humpers: She used a gun to save herself from a home intruder, but the gun’s actual owner was killed with his own weapon.
A good woman with a rake (who may wind up as a hero for killing a mass murderer) takes out a bad man with a gun.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
Scary story. Off to find more details.
gbear
@A guy: You’re in luck! You’ve got a real live survivor to play ‘blame the victim’ with! Please proceed…
Suzanne
@Pogonip: She used the dude’s gun, not her own.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
Not really. The deceased was shot with his own gun, and that doesn’t convince me we should let murderers carry handguns on the off chance their victims can turn the tables on them. That statistics say guns are more likely to be used against their owners than to defend them, and any one incident doesn’t change that big picture.
Pogonip
@Suzanne: And she’s alive.
For the last few years there has been a series of murders in Chillicothe, Ohio; they weren’t all prostitutes, or at least they didn’t all have records, but most of them were. I hope they’ve been stopped.
Pogonip
@Roger Moore: Well, I gotta admit, the statistic was certainly true in this case! Grin.
Jordan Rules
@Pogonip: Why would this change people’s opinions on guns?
And Cole’s interest in this story makes sense given the proximity to him, why are you lauding him for being honest?
I’m confused on a number of fronts.
Pogonip
To clarify, my point is not that we should all be packing, but that the question is not as cut and dried as liberals think it is. (Americans in general, not just liberals, seem to have difficulty with nuance and complexity, so don’t think I’m just picking on you.)
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@A guy: Rex, is that you?
Villago Delenda Est
@A guy: Speaking of lives that don’t matter, there’s you.
MattF
@Pogonip: Right. Serial killer with a gun gets killed with his own gun. The moral is…
mai naem mobile
He looks like an older heavier version of Mark Zuckerberg. And the Chattanooga killer looks like a famous politician – I can’t put my finger on who. Inhofe?
gbear
@Roger Moore: Exactly. She’s alive because she was smart and quick-witted. She grabbed a rake to disrupt the attack and acted immediately when the attacker made a mistake. Her survival has NOTHING to do with having a gun in the house for her own protection.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
If there’s a question, I’m more inclined to think it’s about decriminalizing prostitution. Prostitutes have long been a popular target for serial killers, and a lot of that is because street walkers are inherently very vulnerable and can disappear without upsetting anyone important enough to do something about it. Getting sex work out of the shadows would do more to protect prostitutes against murderers- as well as all kinds of other criminals- than arming them.
Pogonip
@Jordan Rules: Liberals are generally uncomfortable with news items in which citizens use guns to defend themselves. So Cole gets a round of applause for posting this one.
Cole’s grouchy, profane, and stingy with pupdates, but by God, he’s honest. I have great respect for him.
Pogonip
@Roger Moore: This is an interesting point. Prostitution has long been legal in Nevada. Perhaps lawmakers should look at whether murders of prostitutes are less common than in other states.
Villago Delenda Est
@Pogonip: We’re uncomfortable with them because we know that they are exceptional, not the rule. As all crime stories are. However, with this shit being beamed into your living room every night around the dinner hour, people draw very bad conclusions from these reports.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: You have the wrong end of this story.
The person who owned the gun wasn’t the one who used it to defend herself. The gun owner had his own gun turned on himself.
dedc79
@Pogonip: tell us again how what happened speaks in favor of gun ownership. I still don’t get it. Seems more likely you read that she shot him and piped in before you realized she shot him with the gun he was gonna kill her with.
Pogonip
I wonder if the woman did have her own weapon at home? She certainly thought quickly and put his to good use, which hints at some familiarity with them, and people involved in illegal trades usually are armed, though not always with guns–hookers tend to prefer edged weapons.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
I can’t get over the fact that she agreed to meet him at her home. In her home. If she hadn’t she might well have died because of the lack of a rake (trying to think why I’d have a rake inside my house) or other familiar items to grab as a make-shift weapon.
But agreeing to entertain a client inside her own house? If I were in that business the last thing I’d want is for clients to know where I lived, even if they are harmless.
Pogonip
@dedc79: Nope, read the whole thing. I believe you missed my point, which is that citizens, even ones who are not escorts, do defend themselves with guns, that liberals prefer to ignore such incidents, and that the issue is not cut-and-dried.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: She had a rake.
Origuy
@Pogonip: Prostitution in Nevada is limited to a few rural counties. Reno and Las Vegas are in counties where it is illegal. The legal prostitutes have to work in licensed houses where there is a least some security.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: Hookers tend to prefer edged weapons.
You have experience with this aspect of their lives?
Pogonip
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): OK, who wants to make a tasteless joke about how there should be a waiting period to buy rakes?
I wondered too–why did she have a rake handy? Mine lives in the laundry room as I don’t have a garage or basement.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: We did read the entire article. You missed the part where the gun owner was killed with his own gun. She used a weapon, called a garden rake, to distract him. Nothing in this story suggests that she is familiar with guns, other than knowing how to pull a trigger and not point it at herself.
Bill Murray
@Pogonip maybe you should learn what happened before insulting all liberals. Stronger gun control laws would likely have made the woman less likely to be attacked and much less likely to need to shoot her attacker, which seems like a win-win to me but then maybe I have difficulty with nuance and complexity
RonzoniRigatoni
May the gods bless all our hard working
sex workers. This girl warrants a statue.
Belafon
@Pogonip: How to use a gun at close range:
1. Pick up gun
2. Pull trigger.
She shot in the opposite direction she was looking and managed to hit him. Since the purpose of a gun is to kill, it did its job.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: My point was that she used what was at hand, which in this case was a rake.
I assumed she let him in at the front door and that the attack took place there, but we don’t know the layout of her place or what kind of housekeeper she is, or what her facilities are for storing garden tools. We used to have a couple of Rubbermaid tool lockers that were left by a previous owner. They eventually fell apart, but had already we stopped using them because the black widows really liked them and we got tired of fighting with them.
Pogonip
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): It’s pretty well known on the street and at truck stops. Prostitution is usually a misdemeanor or at most a lesser felony. Having a gun in your purse when you are arrested could turn a routine bust into a serious felony rap. Also, they are frequently robbed by other street folk. Also, no pimp in his right mind is going to allow any of his girls anywhere near a gun. So they have good reasons for sticking to knives; it’s dangerous work, and knives are better than no weapon at all.
Goblue72
@Pogonip: Some sensationalistic bit of news item is what we in the reality based community refer to as an anecdote. It is proof of nothing.
Which is why we in the reality based community prefer to rely on actual data and statistics. Which clearly demonstrates this sort of thing is a complete fluke compared to the number of people who are killed with their own firearm.
But, you know, thanks for playing. Better luck next time.
Laertes
@Pogonip:
So let me get this straight:
Some douchebag gun owner goes out to murder. His intended victim uses the douchebag’s gun against him, killing him. And you think liberals are going to have a problem with that?
Brother, you do not understand the people you hate as clearly as you think you do. You need to yap less and listen more.
Pogonip
@Origuy: Thanks for the correction. So you could also sample two in-state groups of hookers against each other.
My opinion, which is worth what you pay for it, is that prostitution would never go away and as such should be licensed and controlled.
forked tongue
@Pogonip: Apparently for you, “nuance and complexity” means finding an anecdote that might conceivably be construed as ambiguous and turning it into a straightforward argument for your own ideogical bias.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Pogonip: What does your first sentence mean?
Pogonip
@Laertes: I’m not a brother. I don’t hate you. I was only inquiring if this changed anyone’s view on guns. In your case, the answer appears to be No.
Your courtesy is appreciated. The Internet is full of assholes who take everything personally and become highly indignant when questioned. I’m glad you’re not like that. Please continue to set a good example.
I am now off the clock.
somethingblue
@Pogonip:
“The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging. When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.” –Tom Friedman
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Goblue72: This story agrees with statistics, the stat that says the gun owner is more at risk of being shot with his own weapon, which is exactly what happened in this story.
scav
@Goblue72: Pogonip@36 was venturing off into pure speculation to try to continue make his (or her) point, so I’m not exactly sure why he even bothered starting with a real event — at best a token nod to the concept of reality. The reduction of “all liberals” to holding a single, simplistic position of gun control is another sign that it’s rather a fencing of cardboard stereotypes round gazillion rather than new information gained from new evidence from this event.
Goblue72
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne): true nuf
Doug R
@Pogonip: She shot him with His gun.
A guy
@villego
Speaking of live don’t matter, I bring you abortion. I think we at least ought to wait to see if a fetus rapes and kill a person before it’s killed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Doug R: I’m finding it very difficult to understand how this point eludes Pogonip.
Villago Delenda Est
@A guy: Always with the bullshit distraction. Those fucking sluts.
A guy
I like sluts as long as they don’t kill me
WereBear
Good for her!
Can’t complain about this death penalty situation.
gogol's wife
@Bill Murray:
Thank you.
gbear
@Pogonip:
It wouldn’t have helped her at all. She would have had to answer the door with the gun in her hands. She survived by being smart.
Good chance that if she had guns in the house (which she may indeed have), they would have become part of her killer’s arsenal.
Belafon
Maybe we should make start making a pro-gun argument that way: It’s ok if bad guys have guns, because most people are killed by their own weapon.
Aimai
@Pogonip: that is profoundly stupid.
Mary G
Good for her. She should get a medal if this guy is indeed the serial killer, but somehow I don’t think that she’ll be given one.
Cervantes
@Pogonip:
Yes, life is complicated — but you know, unless you can be more specific than that, you’re not really saying anything.
Question: are you trying to draw some inference or conclusion from this incident, or is it that you want others not to? Or … neither?
Scott S.
@A guy: Republican troll says what?
Cervantes
@Belafon:
In this “pro-gun argument,” are you defining “bad guys” as “people killed by their own weapon”?
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Cervantes: It was very muddled. My first reaction was that Pogonip hadn’t read the article and discovered that the woman did not own the gun she used to defend herself, and then just continued to dig the hole deeper rather than correct his/her understanding of the situation.
Cervantes
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
“Pie Happens?”
A guy
@scott s
A republican troll says democrats love sluts as long as the vote democrat
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Cervantes: An old signature from a forum where most of us knew each other in Real Life. I tended to show up at events with a couple of pies, and there was a resident troll whose signature was “shit happens”. My sig line confused her a bit.
I decided to change my nym here because of an incident on a sports forum last night. It worried me that the nut might bring his craziness here because the incident was completely political in a “no politics, ever” forum. He’s been on that forum forever, acted like a jerk sometimes before, but this was Extra Special and very specific.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@A guy: Sluts?
Just go away; you’re not very good at this.
A guy
She put herself in that position. Does anybody deny that?
ruemara
Hmm, about the only weapon related takeaways are: 1. your best weapon is to not freeze up and react quickly. 2. the second best weapon is what’s at hand used to it’s utmost.
Can’t really say that this is something liberals would be against. It’s not that being liberal means you’re against guns, it just means you’re against worshiping guns.
@A guy: You do know just existing puts you in a dangerous position. Like in your case, some karmic deity might allow a massive electrical error to go through your keyboard. You put yourself into that position by your fancy computer talking.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@A guy: There you go, blame the victim.
And the dead guy put himself in that position.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@ruemara: that’s my take on it.
Cervantes
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
Sorry to hear it — but how effective is the “change” if the old name is included?
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Cervantes: I considered that, thought I’d change it gradually so people here still know who I am when I drop the old name, but from what he said to me I wonder if he googled my nym.
I have not solved the issue of changing my name but letting people here know who I am. I also need a better nym than Pie Happens.
And of course I thought of all the things I could have said after it was shut down by the admins.
RSA
@Pogonip:
Are conservatives generally uncomfortable with news items in which citizens use guns to commit mass murder? I’m curious about this, because to be honest it’s hard to tell.
Cervantes
@A guy:
Are you trying to say she took risks?
Difficult to disagree.
Is there something else you want to say beyond that?
Cervantes
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
I notice that “pie” was in the “old name,” too.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Cervantes: I have a great great grandfather named Theophilus. His nickname was Opie. A distant cousin nicknamed me Opie Jeanne. The “pie” is somewhat incidental. or maybe coincidental.
Cervantes
@Pie Happens (opiejeanne):
Yes, I figured.
Have a great evening.
Pie Happens (opiejeanne)
@Cervantes: You too.
A guy
As the father of 5 kids, 4 of them girls, oh and all kids born to same woman to whom I have been married for 26 years I can say “beyond that”, nothing.
Patrick
@Pogonip:
Not all. They are so rare that they are worthwhile to mention when they happen. Stats don’t lie, there are far less gun deaths in countries with strong gun control.
Cervantes
@A guy:
Fair enough. We agree as far as that goes.
Enjoy your evening.
slag
@Pogonip:
I think you earned a round of “What are you stupid?”s for each and every one of your comments to Cole’s post.
The Raven on the Hill
Springfield, Oregon has some of the craziest right wing churches in the country. I wonder if there’s some connection.
redshirt
And I’d like to close this thread by pointing out there’s no point engaging a psychopath on the internet – or in real life, obviously.