iPod knife-man stalks Boise through Craig’s List?
By David Cassel
A man advertising a free iPod on Craigslist asked to meet a woman at the park late Friday night. Police told her later he was wearing a ski mask and waiting with a butcher knife.
The woman apparently tells her side of the story in an email circulating through Boise. Its subject?
RE: Re: FW: Important please read - predator in Boise Area
Friday at 3 p.m. she’d responded to the post of a man who identified himself as “Terry.” His reply contained phrases like “don’t want anything for it,” “hardly ever used it” and “had to hide it in a public place.” “He created a sob story about his wife cheating on him,” she says, “and that he needed to hide the iPod from her.”
Later news stories revealed the man used a Japanese web site which offers anonymous email accounts. “By law AnonymousSpeech.com only reports to official Japanese government agencies,” the site boasts. “This makes it extremely expensive and troublesome for foreign private parties to obtain information about our subscribers…”
Seven hours later, the woman received his response, offering her a free pink Nano iPod, directing her to a secluded public park. “You head west on McMillan… The second driveway you’ll see. Turn right into the driveway, and head all the way…”
He said it would be waiting for her on top of the paper towels in the porta-potty.
But according to her story, Boise police later told her “they found the guy in his car with a black nylon mask on. He also had a pair of black gloves, a BB gun, and butcher knife in the seat.” Also with him was the same laptop he was apparently using to lure victims to the park…
Several people responded, but he’d told her “he was waiting for someone who could go at a ‘certain time’.”
Unfortuantely for him, she’d completed the police department’s “Citizen’s Academy.” In March she thwarted a burglary attempt at her home — and was commended by the local police chief. And when she read his emails, she told a local newscast later, “It sounded a little weird.”
Her email explains the steps she took. “I purposely fed right into his luring type responses, interested in what information he was going to give me.” She never had any intention of meeting him; but she wanted to challenge his scheme. “My husband and I told some friends exactly where we were going and programmed the Boise City Police non-emergency phone number into our cell phones.”
So what did she see?
When we got to the area, we drove past the park, but noticed a red-colored car parked by a porta-potty in the park. We pulled into a nearby business and tried to get a better view of the car.
The headlights on the car then went out…
She and her husband remained suspicious. They continued driving around the park — passing the car — for 20 minutes. Then she drove into a supermarket, and called the police. “Fortunately, the dispatcher took me seriously and sent some officers.”
She handed the officer printouts of the emails she’d received. 15 minutes later, an arrest had apparently been made. The police called them from the park — and asked them to come sign a statement. In her email, she remembers that they’d had an additional message for her. “The police told us that we saved someone’s life by calling for help. Had we not gone, and someone else more gullible had, there could have been a horrific accident.”
And according to local newspapers — there was no pink iPod.
“We followed a hunch that something wasn’t right.”
Craig Newmark — the founder of Craig’s List — read about the incident Tuesday on a crime web-log. Reached for comment today, Newmark said that Craigslist would have responded had any targets of the scam contacted them.
The man was charged with two misdemeanors, according to local newspapers — for being in the park after hours, and for carrying a concealed weapon. But a local news station reports that though the case is now under investigation, the suspect — Stephen Donald Newman — was released after posting bail. “Detectives conducted a thorough investigation and did not find evidence of any other crime,” a Boise police spokesman told a local newspaper. But yesteday Boise’s police chief added that if there is a similar case, the police department “will remember this…”
And newspaper accounts say the woman now fears retaliation. During a local TV interview she insisted on being filmed in silhouette.
The story about internet danger has apparently drawn a strong reaction — both online and offline. Though the woman couldn’t be reached for comment, a family in Idaho with the same last name complains that in the last three days, they’ve gotten phone calls from over 25 reporters!
And back on Craig’s List, posters discussed the case, one saying they’d even identified the perpetrators MySpace page.
The quote in its profile?
“You can’t change the past. You can only change the future. But you have to start somewhere.”
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August 3rd, 2007
Beware of creeps offering free pink iPods… or any coloured iPods for that matter