A third victim, Harold "Oink" Cook, age 39, survived a gunshot wound to his buttocks. No media alarm should have been raised. Brilliant. "Skilled writers of fiction would struggle to conjure up a plot such as arises here." John had always been "a very gentle, slightly withdrawn personality," his lawyer, Jonathan Goldberg, would inform the prominent Manchester judge David Maddison in his courtroom, but harbored, despite his introversion, dreams of someday becoming a barrister himself. According to Janet, John was the single most important person in the country, as he knew the code to access a secret safe hidden at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean that only a few countries knew about. He said that under normal circumstances, the offences committed would have resulted in extremely lengthy custodial sentences. A man has been arrested in Kent on suspicion of murder after a boy died in north Manchester. For days he lay on a respirator, treated with painkillers and antibiotics, saying little. John yearns for strangers to recognize him for the celebrity he almost was. Judy Bachrach is a Vanity Fair contributing editor and the author of Tina and Harry Come to America: Tina Brown, Harry Evans, and the Uses of Power (Free Press). Another element the teenagers had in common: a Webcam, which allowed them to view each other and any other chat-room member who had one of the cameras. If John was being eaten away by his passion for the Internet world, Mark was devoured. He had "a buzz," he told one of the innumerable experts who would eventually interview him. ", Practically everyone I speak to about this singular boy and his case demonstrates toward him a high level of antipathy, with the notable exception of Goldberg, who compares this story to Romeo and Juliet. "The continuity and his memory were phenomenal.". Police were able to link all the fictional characters back to John because Ms Hogg's analysis discovered common features in the typing style, such as the misspelling of "maybe" as "mybye", of all the characters. Police continue to investigate at the scene on Bednal Avenue. Just a few well-chosen words typed into Google are enough to call up some media stories identifying John as a stabbing victim last year, as well as other articles, more recent, revealing that in fact the victim incited his own attempted murder. Most views are considerably less indulgent. The Internet did something like that to him, said John. It was out of fear. Mark was given the number 47695 and ordered to "terminate" his friend. "Call an ambulance!" "He manipulated him," says Hogg. Both pleaded guilty and received, to their patent relief, probation. Whilst the chat included usual teenage topics such as sports, movies and clothing, sex and masturbation was often the focus. But it wasn't just the virtual Mark whom John loved. All rights reserved. Two years ago, she found another companion, a plumber who moved in with them, and it seemed to John that this newcomer was receiving more attention than he was. Sally Hogg went directly to the prosecutor with the news. thats wot ur asking me? He was given a three-year supervision order, banned from contacting Mark or using the internet without strict adult supervision. Crime news across America. 2003 June 29 Historical Events Sports History US Senior Open Men's Golf, Inverness Club: Bruce Lietzke wins by 2 strokes from Tom Watson Golfer Tom Watson Famous Deaths Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003) American actress (Adam's Rib, On Golden Pond), dies of natural causes at 96 2003 Highlights About June 29, 2003 Day of the Week: Sunday No mention of sunken treasure, fatal tumors, or Tony Blair. But that was because police had possession of the computers and were bound to find out about her anyway. There's no supervision on a lot of these chat rooms. For another, John, writing under his own name in a more adolescent style, sent Mark careful confirmation of his supposedly fatal condition: "I got a letter today, from my doc, when i went in a few weeks ago cos i was depressed and shit i got a brain thingy tumour but its big.". Other characters emerged and were killed off, one even came back from the dead. Police are investigating after a boy who admitted killing his friend took a video of himself in a toilet during his murder trial making stabbing actions. He found he was never tired. To lose that world meant losing his friend. Janet: Could you stab someone?Mark: I haven't really thought about it. Janet: Well think please.Mark: OK. Then the stepfather packed up when John was seven, and he, his mother, and his younger sister had to move to a smaller house. Minutes passed, perhaps as many as 20. Various characters shared the same last nameor, alternatively, although claiming to be siblings, didn't share the same last name. He was told that his reward would be money, a job as a British secret service agent and sex with the spy, whom he believed was a middle-aged woman. Mark was told by her that he must commit various tasks and that John was dying from a brain tumour. As Hogg sorted for clues through the stacks of transcripts of Internet chat, however, she noticed a repetition of a certain word. By April 3, 2003, Mark had grown so smitten with the character Rachel, whom John had equipped with her own e-mail address (Rachel_@hotmail.com), that her creator grew alarmed. John, too, had his suspicions about the degree of his friend's credulity. (As things turned out, John would never utter the abort code to Mark: "Well I knew that he had to do it because I sort of told him," he later told police.). The unidentified male corpse was discovered around 11 a.m. at the edge of runway. He did reasonably well at school, although he wasn't the most academic person. 'It's a show that I'm passionate about': Will Mellor on 'Cops Who Kill', communicating with via an Internet chat room. "It's a hard life!" It will not allow anyone else.". These messages included the following exchange: 'Spy' (in reality Boy B): could you stab someone? A man has been arrested in Kent on suspicion of murder after a boy died in north Manchester on 9 June 2022. In the meantime, Dobinson added, Mark was to make sure to buy the right type of knife. 3-min read. Suddenly the "postman, ice cream man, teachers, drivers" were all revealed to be secret agents, checking to see if he, Mark, might be smart enough to join their ranks. In Wythenshawe Hospital, where he spent more than a week, John asked to see a psychiatrist, but this was Britain, home of the dilatory National Health Service. They had desires they expressed frankly, ardently, threateningly, as the occasion warranted. Access to that chest was available only through John, who had the combination. A character's most improbable revelations would, inevitably, be confirmed by another. On 26 July 2020, 4 people were stabbed in Moss Side in Manchester, England, 17-year-old Mohamoud Mohamed died at the scene. His motive? Boy A: ok erm well i watch a lot of films, 9.57pm Spy: change of plan dnt wear glove pull knife out and say you took it out. There was to be no further communication with the peculiar Janet Dobinson, allegedly of the British secret service. The final internet chatroom exchange took place on 28 June last year. The beautiful Rachel West, whom he had loved, wooed, and honestly mourned, was Johnas was Kevin, who reveled in the bloody details of her gang rape and murder. "This was a seemingly unprovoked attack," he told the media, which were directed to inform the public of the knife-wielding monster, "and we have no idea why this happened." But once Mark began expressing interest in her as well, she, too, evaporated, ostensibly killed by the British government on April 27, 2003. Posing as the spy on the internet, and promising him sex and cash, Boy B sent messages to Boy A to stab him to death. What appeared on the screen was a revelation of flattering significance: "This is the UK's biggest secret I CAN TRUST YOU WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO LOOK AT YOU WHILE I TELL YOU?". The answer as to why is still up for debate but some claim he loved John to the point where he knew Mark would not reciprocate if the truth were ever revealed. "Yes, I'm not aware of any other case where somebody's incited somebody to murder themselves," Nicholas Clarke, the prosecutor, declares in his Manchester office, each syllable clipped with derision. The modem was removed from John's laptop and the computer itself exiled to her room. Objects in his bedroom must be arranged in neat, parallel lines, toiletries and desk items perfectly aligned. Lyndsey East, who had briefly enchanted him and then disappeared without a word of good-bye, was John. By all accounts he too, like Mark, was an ordinary teenager, nothing in his history would suggest hed be involved in something so terrible. says Goldberg, John's lawyer. Mark was, he told John, falling in love, ceaselessly trying to arrange a rendezvous with the girl. It is clear he doesn't have much sympathy for the boy whose brush with death prompted the unprecedented charge. Jakub Szymanksi died in hospital after he was found with stab wounds at an address in Miles Platting on Thursday night. Being middle-aged, she is "not with teenage talk," Dobinson admonishes Mark in the chat room, and she requests communication in more adult language. document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) Not at home: "It doesn't suit me, being part of a family environment, being sucked in," he says. Then Mark pulled out the knife and called an ambulance. "No offence but wot does she do neway?" He was given a three-year supervision order, banned from any contact with Mark and was told he must only access the internet under adult supervision and must not enter chatrooms. (His Lordship, as it happened, did not.). "I love you, bro," Mark told his younger friend as he plunged in the knife. The word was "mybye," and it was used by John, Kevin, Dobinson, and Lyndsey. 3 in the hierarchy of the British secret service, as she informs correspondents), on whom John clearly lavished special effort. No man in his life had ever meant much to him: he had no recollection of his biological fatherwho had, John's mother later told her son's therapist, not only abducted their son when he was a baby but also abused her physically and sexually. Over a nine-month period before the attempted murder, John began presenting himself as a 16-year-old girl in search of a cyber relationship, then "introduced" himself as the girl's step-brother. "It has to be big to stab him and make him bleed to death.". Something had to be done to forestall the moment of truth. His own murder. Some of it? It's staggering to be dealing with a case that arises out of a 14-year-old boy's invention of false personalities, false relationships and events arranged for his own killing." "And sometimes it would be a week or a few weeks before that character came back," always without a hitch, Hogg says. It was from this injury that the teenager almost died on the operating tabletwice, police tell me. "My life was on the Internet. This is a legal novelty in Britain, and very likely throughout the world. Boy A: and just leave him 2 die in the trafford centre? School bullies who had previously targeted the younger boy? "Yes," came the reply. He brought into play Janet Dobinson"a spy, said John. For the past six months, Mark had communicated with a variety of people on the chat room, a site dedicated to Manchester teenagers. Very busy, this thing with the royal party being disturbed, u will know about it " ), she was always available to Mark. U werent there for her. Yousef Makki, 17, a pupil at Manchester Grammar School, was stabbed by his friend, Joshua Molnar, aged 17 at the time, during a fight in upmarket . The police officer who led the investigation said the boys' lives and the lives of their families had been devastated. "IM NOW IN A POSITION TO TELL YOU WHY," Dobinson wrote back. But the problem was Mark wasn't the only one in love. "How cud I have been there when i didnt kno where she woz," the bewildered adolescent wrote back. "In fact, I think MSN themselves should perhaps take some responsibility. The female creations came across, police decided, as archetypes of femininity, and not simply to a 16-year-old mind. Manchester Hartford County Connecticut Arrests, Warrants & Most Wanted. "So we said, 'Fine. If he were dead, he told his therapist much later, then nothing more could happen to him. After the investigators had poured through the thousands of lines of text from the chat room, they realised most of the people on there were fake. Mark then grew close with her stepbrother John, even meeting up in person and hanging out. Not in Britain, however. If he completed his mission hed become a member of the British Secret Service, receive 80 million, meet Tony Blair (the then PM), the Queen and receive sexual favours from Janet, a 44-year-old married woman who lived a double life for Queen and country. Eventually, the time came when Janet asked Mark to carry out his mission. A great deal of thought went into her gestation. "I haven't really thought about it," Mark replied. There was blood coming out." A 15-year-old boy who died after he was stabbed in Miles Platting has been named by Greater Manchester police as Jakub Szymanski. Detectives launched a murder inquiry after a mother and son were both stabbed at a house in Miles Platting at around 9.30pm on Thursday. The virtual universe John had so carefully constructed was fast slipping out of control. A ring of pedophiles? He was never in any trouble and was close to his family. "It was incitement to commit murder - his own murder," said Detective Chief Inspector Julian Ross of Greater Manchester Police. This is the story of two ordinary Manchester teens whose extraordinary friendship led to one of the most unusual and bewildering criminal cases in British history. This delay had also been an order Janet had provided, as it would have given John enough time to bleed to death. Murderers? At first, the investigation was like any other. Manchester. The older boy's gullible nature stirred in him conflicting emotions: love foremost, but very likely also a shade of contempt. Advertisement The only way it could end in his head was suicide. "So when he'd gone through the humiliating task of masturbating on the Webcam, 'Kevin' then abducted his girlfriend. With each passing day, the fantasy Janet was creating became even wilder, even more unbelievable, yet Mark did not question it. Moreover, he was not to stray from her explicit instructions, because: "4 Agents watching you now ", "Each style of conversation was totally differentI really believed it," marvels Sally Hogg, the police analyst. Early 20s, wearing a black hooded jacket and black jeans. There he wielded control over everythingespecially his laptop. Detective Chief Inspector Alicia Smith said: 'This attack has left a community. The following day the two boys met and went to the Trafford Centre where they bought a kitchen knife. Indeed, for all his love for Mark, who was languishing in confinement for eight months while John recuperated at home, the younger boy remained rigidly unforthcoming about his own participation in the scheme. This time the order came from Tony Blair himself, via Janet. "Take him [to] a quiet place," advised the British agent. At school his geography teacher saw a change in her pupil. As Clarke spoke about how John had manipulated the older boy, deploying a stream of imaginary virtual characters to lure Mark into carrying out his murder, he sneaked a look at Mark's face. We let social media get away with murder. The second was John himself. Stunned and uncomprehending, she reported her observations to John's mother, who agreed that her son's behavior had been very strange recently. A 14-YEAR-OLD boy has been stabbed in the neck in front of horrified teachers and classmates at school. As they poured through the copy, they initially believed they were looking for a paedophile pretending to be Janet and grooming Mark. Around the time of this incident, she slipped into her son's room and checked his laptop, where she found that Mark was a frequent on-screen presence. The prosecutor thinks otherwise. But the court was told that in reality Boy B had fallen in love with Boy A, conned him into performing sex acts on a webcam, and tricked him into stabbing him twice in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. Mark was to carry out oral sex on John to complete the test Another test was given. If converted into a paper pile, she adds, "it would stretch, I think, 46,000 feet high. Victoria Police previously said the boy was 16 years old but made a . The mere thought of Mark reduces the boy to tears. People will hear, please be quiet," the older teenager told him. They arrived on the scene to see a 14-year-old teenager fighting for his life, bleeding to death after receiving multiple stab wounds. He has told his therapist about his lies to his girlfriend. Almost nothing consequential came out, as the lawyer representing the Manchester Evening News, the Daily Mail, and The Sun complained. His friend John marveled at such a trusting, suggestible nature. Four weeks later, the boy went missing from school, his first act of truancy ever. "And that caused us some major concern," Ross says. After reviewing the tape, the police arrested Mark for attempted murder. . Once John had introduced himself as Rachel's brother, the two boys just clicked, John was later to explain. ("Wud u h8 me if i told u that i pretended to be rach 1nite?" Authorities allege she fatally stabbed John Glennon on Friday in Manchester, New Hampshire. On the one hand, the teenager was, as he would later acknowledge, "loving it." It lies off Stamford New Road, close by a shopping mall in the prosperous Manchester suburb of Altrincham, where random stabbings simply don't occur. "But these could not be described as any normal circumstances," he said. He routinely washes parts of his body in a precise, unvarying order, no part cleaned more than once. Then she again vanished, to be succeeded by the flashier secret-service agent Janet Dobinson, a doting mother but love-starved, married (unhappily) to an ogre from whom she was eager to escape. In his head. Off you go.'" He couldn't imagine, he says, being stuck with the same person his whole life. "I would say, of the two teenagers, John was the more wicked and more criminally culpable.". A murder investigation has been launched after a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Manchester. Paramedics had treated the boy at the scene but he was taken to hospital, where he died around an hour later. "The amount of data on those two computers was about 133 gigabytes, masses of data," Sally Hogg, a police analyst, tells me. "And jus leave him 2 die . Eight months later he began spending a lot more time on the Internet, the teenager said. One final thing, both mothers told their sons. "He would become withdrawn. Who was she really, anyway? Police. But to the authorities who later analyzed and re-analyzed what was written, none of this was ordinary. The house, which is estimated to be worth $400,000, lies in a slightly more prosperous neighborhood than the one inhabited by Mark's family, where each brick structure is an echo of its modest neighbor. They were empty of hope. I didn't like it, I couldn't undo it, it was all fake, taking someone else in." The ice-cream vendors and shop assistants engaged in ceaseless surveillance of Mark: all John. Nor do the multiple therapists appear to have noticed it.). Mark, who is also from a middle-class family in Greater Manchester, was given a two-year supervision order for attempted murder. He took a cocktail stick and scraped it against his wrist. ", As for John, he, too, was getting what he wanted from his friend, as Dr. Smedley would later recount: "He described a feeling of emotional intimacy he had never experienced before.". It was "like feeding a dog," John would later explain. Jakub Szymanski was taken to hospital with stab wounds but later died after officers were called to an address in the Miles Platting area of Manchester on Thursday. It is this demand that catches my eye when I open the 15 pounds of chat-room text that I had received. Even when John passed his exams (much to his surprise) and gained entrance to a prestigious grammar school, the names continued unabated. Detectives launched a murder inquiry after a mother and son were both stabbed at a house in Miles. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Boy, 14, 'posed as spy to arrange his own murder', Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off and extra perks with Booking.com Genius membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 15% off orders over 15 with this eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK February 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this February, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. Only a part of this amazing story was ever revealed to the British public. John screamed. He doesn't think he will ever get married, much less have children. This, however, made little difference; at night the boy would manage to retrieve and re-assemble the laptop and modem. | And they shared his mission: to keep Mark perpetually in contact with their creator, John. These documents sketch a different, complex picture of John, victim and criminal. "I don't think it's an exaggeration to say he brainwashed my client," says David Hatton, Mark's attorney, who has nothing but compassion for the boy. As Mark would discover on the chat-room site, Rachel, along with her "brother" John, were in a state of ceaseless peril, threatened with abduction and rape by a self-proclaimed homosexual stalker named KevinJohn's fourth character. In the months since the stabbing, he had been working out regularly at the juvenile-detention-center gym; he had grown muscular, hard. Mark's worlduntil then packed mainly with soccer, passable grades, and admiring schoolgirlswas alight with these passionate intruders. To this day, a British media Web site carries a picture of John, his engaging, shy smile shadowed by a tender hint of mustache. A 16-year-old boy has been stabbed to death in Manchester. Nicholas Clarke, prosecuting, told the court, This case serves as a stark warning of the dangers of the dark side of the internet..
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