A digital storytelling angle has morbidly appeared, as the new Long Island serial killer case develops. Some people are creating Facebook accounts for the deceased victims, giving them posthumous life stories.
Facebook pages have been created for all eight women, along with missing New Jersey native Shannan Gilbert.
The strangest connections are among the Atlantic City victims. All four profiles are "friends" with one another on Facebook. One of them, Molly Jean Dilts, is also friends with Amber Lynn Costello, a Long Island call girl who was found in a shallow grave on Gilgo Beach in December. The Costello profile's only friends are Dilts and a profile named "Jane Doee."
This follows the classic blog/Facebook digital storytelling form of character-based narration.
Sometimes there's only minimal work, like this one:
There's also a related form, extending the single-character model across others, a kind of extension and remix strategy:
Someone, or a group of someones, is taking creepy role-playing to the next level, though, by using their fake profiles to comment on a memorial page for another local murder victim, Anne Marie Fahey, who was killed by her lawyer lover in 1996. ...:
"we were all killed by the Capano's.""We are still waiting for justice. We were found in November 2006 in Mays Landing, NJ," the posting read.
Immediately beneath Dilts' comment, a blank Facebook profile with the name "Colleen Marie" said the following:
"They should also be looking at them in connection with 4 . . . girls found in Babylon NY. If something happens to me it is because I knew what they did back then and I know what did to you girls. I think I'm next."
It's like Lovely Bones, but more closely anchored to the real world.
There are other social media responses to the killings, including a rap video (described) and a blog.
(via Steven Burnett)
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