Surprises

Surprises

by Mike Masnick


Print


Filed Under:
edward davidson, murder, spam, spammer, suicide


Escaped Spammer Found Dead In Murder/Suicide

from the wow dept

Earlier this week, we had mentioned that convicted spammer Edward Davidson had escaped from a minimum security prison, where he was serving 21 months. Now the news is coming out that apparently he has apparently killed his wife and toddler before killing himself. Yikes.

47 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Awful

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 12:16am

    Just terrible.

    /sarcasm on/

    Perhaps some good can come out of this by convincing Congress to pass the death penalty for spammers so as to “protect the children”.

    /sarcasm off/

    God I'm troll. :-/

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Not his wife

    by Charming Charlie - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 12:19am

    His wife is rather specifically refered to in the beggining of the article as someone who helped him, then last saw him driving away. The victim near the passenger seat is a "woman," most definitely not the wife.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. It was his wife

    by Charming Charlie - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 12:43am

    Although according to another source it was his wife.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. More than one wife, perhaps?

    by Peet McKimmie - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 1:59am

    SPAMmer and bigamist?

    I feel sorry for his family, but not for him. I'm sure many people would have offered to wield the gun in his case.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 2:55am

    freaking coward

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. by anne - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 3:26am

    I am sorry for the death of his wife and baby. What a loser! 21 months in minimum-security Club Fed, okay it's no country club, but real men have endured far worse. I can only hope that he had the joy of being a play toy for the big guys during the short time he was behind bars, and I hope it hurt like hell, too.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. dangerous

    by sendeth - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 3:30am

    sooooo, spam.......kills??

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Mike - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 3:55am

    ... we focus on things that do not matter - like making celebrities out of Spammers or Hackers - and we think that is the ultimate claim to fame. But yesterday a little girl, a woman, and a deranged man all left this earth. As I read some of the comments, people are arguing about "what is it his wife or ..." - c'mon, do you think that matters? What matters is the total destruction of a man's life and the dreadful sin tat was done to innocent victims. We live in a society that intellectualizes depravity, feels entitled to everything, has no conception of consequences, and clearly makes this material world their god. I for one am deeply saddened at the loss of these lives. I can only pray that they are in the hands of God - I am not sure whose hands he is in (or was)...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 4:24am

    "I for one am deeply saddened at the loss of these lives."

    If I were "deeply saddened" every time an innocent lost their life I wouldn't have time to feel much else. Yes we intellectualize depravity, But we live in a depraved world and giving full emotional attention to the tragedies of strangers is not going to help us deal with that any better. In fact it would probably make things worse. Why do we care if its his wife? Well we don't really but his wife helped him escape. She risked a jail sentence to help someone that she obviously cared about, temporarily avoid a mild punishment and she was repaid with her death and the death of presumably her daughter. Instant Karma with a moral lesson.

    Now climb down off your soap box please. No one is happy about the way this ended.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. I am sure the people

    by Richard Ahlquist - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 4:31am

    ...so willing to blame Lori Drew will be happy to point out its all the courts fault and they should be held liable for this heinous act! ../sarcasm

    Is it just me or dont you love the spin the media is putting on this in some spaces "he forced his wife" yeah because a wife never does anything wrong for the man she married. Sick bastard, too bad he was given the opportunity by bleeding heart justice to be allowed to do this.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  11. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 4:53am

    So he took the Darwin award by removing his material from the gene pool. Some people will do anything to win.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  12. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 4:56am

    How exactly did he 'force' his wife to help him escape? That isn't made clear at all. Wasn't the guy in prison? They make it sound like he put a shank to her throat and said 'drive me out of here' but that doesn't sound like it fits the facts.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  13. Old West

    by An ISP - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:15am

    Lets put em in a pine box with a sign on his neck ... "Spammer" ... and lean him against the front of the Saloon door jam.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  14. Re: No one is happy???

    by An ISP - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:18am

    I am, lets kill him again.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  15. Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Devil's Advocate - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:24am

    Sure, that's all well and good, but fact being that this "man" took his own life and decided to do so only after killing a child and a woman.

    He lived life as a coward and human garbage.

    He went out the same way. Cosmic Balance is funny that way.

    To actually be genuinely surprised this happened would be naive. I was kind of expecting he'd hang himself in "prison" but it seems that I was half wrong.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  16. by Alexio - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:31am

    Misearble life, miserable death.

    I only wish the rest of the spammers would self-eliminate like this.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  17. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:45am

    Because death is such a fitting punishment for spam. That is like an ingrown hair for a testicle type justice.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  18. Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Your Gawd and Master - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:58am

    Screw that. Fuck that guy and his crotch fruit. Less of that shit in the gene pool. It's women who can be "forced" to help someone escape that enable these asshats to do this type of shit. He obviously wasn't a decent human being or else he wouldn't have been a spammer, or a murderer so fuck him.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  19. Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:03am

    And comments like that put you on the same level as him. Congratulations.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  20. Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Your Gawd and Master - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:22am

    Really? I don't recall spamming millions of people OR killing my family and myself because I'm a coward so I'm guessing you're full of shit.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  21. Re: Re: No one is happy???

    by Your Gawd and Master - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:24am

    That's what I say. Deliver fingers to his other spammer buddies to let them know what's next for them. You know Godfather style.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  22. Sad...

    by PaulT - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:40am

    This is very sad but, this is one of those things that annoys me about the media in some ways. The guy committed some crimes, escaped prison then killed his family. But, everyone seems to be emphasising the "spam king" angle. This is irrelevant, of course. The crime he was incarcerated for is nothing to do with his actions afterwards.

    I fear this will be yet another case where the real problems (investigation of how he escaped, why he took such drastic action and what measures can be taken to stop a future occurrence) will be swept under the carpet in favour of a fad issue. My thoughts are with the innocents who lost their lives here, not the fact that I had to delete a few unwanted emails this morning.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  23. Huh?

    by Fungo Knubb - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:41am

    Let me see if I got this straight.

    1. A convicted SPAMMER commits suicide.

    2. He makes sure none of his family will become SPAMMERS and follow in his footsteps.

    Is there a down side to this?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  24. Obituary

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:55am

    I am not emptying my spam folder today in his memory!

    fukking coward!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  25. Re: Huh?

    by PaulT - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:00am

    You're probably trolling, but yeah I consider the life of an innocent child to be more important to me than the 5 minutes a day I spend clearing out my spam folder.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  26. by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:06am

    Did he send a suicide note via e-mail???????

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  27. Re: Sad...

    by John - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:42am

    It has everything to do with what he was convicted of... He had no respect for others rights or privacy, as long as he profited from it as the spam king... He had no respect for his family's right to live, their right to exist without him, so he killed them... A normal reaction in a world where enforcing morality is frowned on...

    :(

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  28. Hmm...

    by James - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:42am

    Well all spammers deserve to die so he had it coming.. why couldn't he just shoot himself instead of others?

    Guess he couldn't get anyone to OPT-IN. :=P

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  29. Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Paul` - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:54am

    I'm sure religious people have committed murder too.

    And making this material world a God is about as sensical as making an immaterial superhero one.

    Anyway, sad news. Coward should have shot himself first.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  30. Unreal

    by The disapointed porkchop - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 7:59am

    I can not believe that he would choose to kill himself, wife and child.

    21 month Camp snoopy trip was too much? What a loser. Prayers for the wife and child. Hope he rots in hell.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  31. Re: Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Paul` - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 8:00am

    You my friend, have the moral fortitude of a grapefruit.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  32. News site wonkiness

    by Anonymous Cowherd - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 8:05am

    I don't suppose you could use a better news site as a source in the future? This one has some ... issues.

    Most notably, the article is polluted with irrelevant links. The description of the vehicle was made a link to the manufacturer's web site, and the manufacturer's stock symbol is linked, both of which seem gratuitous, and may not provide the manufacturer with the kind of publicity they'd want, either.

    News content is supposed to be focused on the actual news story. The make and model of a vehicle used in connection with a crime is a matter of legitimate interest, but a link like that one does not add anything to the story and looks suspiciously (whether or not it *is*) like paid advertising or "product placement" in a very inappropriate place (a news story!)...(it would be different if it was, say, the getaway vehicle of suspects still at large and they embedded an image of the make and model of vehicle, perhaps from the manufacturer's web site; that would add to the story and serve the public interest by helping people possibly spot the getaway car and phone in tips to the police.)

    The stock symbol is even more pointless. The stock symbol for a given company only belongs linked in news stories where that company plays a significant role in the story as an active participant in the events discussed. In this instance, Toyota merely manufactured a car that later was connected with a criminal activity. This is not active participation. Toyota's stock symbol belongs in news stories where Toyota actually did something, such as laid off 4000 workers or announced a merger or whatever. Toyota is peripheral to this particular set of events, however. Even whatever spamming company the spammer worked for is peripheral in this case.

    That news site is, at best, guilty of poor focus and irrelevant meanderings in mid-stream, and at worst of actually adulterating the content a news story in return for money.

    Find a better one to use for future citations, please.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  33. Re: Re: No one is happy???

    by Paul` - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 8:08am

    No one who matters.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  34. Any thought to the idea that it may be a murder?

    by PRMan - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 8:08am

    With the others killed to cover it up?

    He was pretty unpopular, and several people were commenting that they were going to hunt him down and kill him when he escaped (most were probably joking)...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  35. Suicide note

    by Andy man - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 9:27am

    His suicide letter must have read something like this:
    "Goodbye cruel world! Increase the size of your penis!"

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  36. Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Your Gawd and Master - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 9:41am

    Funny you used the word moral which involves a judgement by a single, external entity as opposed to ethics which are agreed upon by all involved.

    I don't care about morals or any of your judgements that go with them because morals don't achieve anything but hypocrisy. I'll happily admit the deepest darkest secrets of my life because I'm not afraid of being judged. You seem to think that hiding those evil thoughts makes them go away. It doesn't and you'll be tortured with yours till the day you die but mine are here for everyone to see.

    The guy was a scumbag through and through and I'm glad he's dead, if he took some people with him, so be it. In terms of costs vs. benefits, we won.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  37. Re: Re: Re: No one is happy???

    by Your Gawd and Master - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 9:44am

    You're right, Paul, you do not matter.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  38. Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 11:53am

    Cost of a human life? Also you sound like a scumbag.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  39. Re:

    by Nobody - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 2:21pm

    He sent it to the entire Eastern Seaboard. Check your Spam folder.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  40. Re: Re: Sad...

    by PaulT - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 5:01pm

    Sorry, but that is incredible amounts of bullshit. You're equating people's privacy and right not to read Viagra adverts with the murder of a small child. Your moral compass might need a little adjustment if you honestly think those things are equal. The child is in no way responsible for the sins of the father.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  41. Re: Old West

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 6:57pm

    Can we put quarters down his throat? cuz if we can then I definately in!!!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  42. thank you edward davidson...

    by Anonymous Coward - Jul 25th, 2008 @ 10:42pm

    for doing mankind a favor by cleansing the gene pool.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  43. Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Moral? - Jul 26th, 2008 @ 7:02am

    What does moral have to do with it? Unless I missed something of the story - was no morals being displayed. You need to get your head out of your butt

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  44. Re:

    by YIKES! - Jul 26th, 2008 @ 7:04am

    What was the moral lesson in this? Take a life because your life is miserable - great lesson...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  45. Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Get our heads out of our butts...

    by Scumbag too - Jul 26th, 2008 @ 7:06am

    Hey scumbag - one to another. You see the real scumbags are the ones that don't know they are - look in the mirror ass wipe...

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  46. Re: Re: Old West

    by Old West - Jul 27th, 2008 @ 8:37am

    Yes you can... quarters, viagra pills and a bigger penis... it can all go down his throat... still interested?

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  47. Murder Charge

    by Rose M. Welch - Jul 27th, 2008 @ 2:30pm

    We need to charge everyone who said bad things about him on the Internet with harrassment, and murder, also, if the wonderful Lori Drew-inspired bills go through.

    The Internet harrassment drove him to murder others and then kill himself, just like that poor girl, Megan Meyers...

    /sarcasm

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

Add Your Comment

Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
  • Plain Text: A CRLF will be replaced by break <br> tag, all other allowable HTML is intact
  • HTML: No formatting of any kind is done without explicitly being written in
  • Allowed HTML Tags: <b> <i> <p> <a> <em> <br> <strong> <blockquote> <hr> <tt>
Close
Get Techdirt’s Daily Email
Plain Text HTML Save me a cookie
Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Related Stories
Close
E-mail It