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Mass Shootings: Driven by Evil or a Desire for Celebrity Status?

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If all a gunman, who opened fire and randomly killed nine people, wanted was 15 minutes of fame, he could have achieved this running naked into the field at a major league baseball game.

At least one criminologist believes that the driving force behind mass shootings is a desire for celebrity status. According to Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama, they want to be famous.

But this theory has holes. You don’t have to kill people to be famous, and since when are murderers treated like celebrities? Since when does celebrity treatment include prison food?

If it all came down to wanting to be famous, then why do these mass murderers always have troubled pasts, particularly a history of being victimized by bullying?

However, many criminologists do believe that most shooters are seeking infamy – even though, certainly, anyone who’s planning a shooting spree knows there’s a good chance they’ll get killed in the process – in which case, they won’t be alive to revel in their infamy.

In an attempt to prevent future mass shootings, the media has decided not to mention the killers’ names more than once, such as with the 2012 movie theatre slaughter in Colorado and the 2017 Las Vegas concert massacre.

This tactic has proved futile, given the shootings that occurred the first week of August 2019 in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, plus many additional (smaller) shootings since 2012 and even 2017.

Nevertheless, supposedly the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter kept a journal detailing decades of mass shooting events.

If a man has suffered a corrupt childhood and is seething with hatred towards people, feels no hope for his future and knows how to get an AK-47, or AR-15, do you really think that he cares whether or not his name is mentioned after a killing spree?

Sure, he’d like to gain a lot of notoriety – as long as he’s going to commit the deed. But notoriety isn’t the reason he wants to kill people.

Are killers born or made via childhood environment?

These killers may have come from “privileged backgrounds,” but a big house, a swimming pool in its backyard and tennis lessons can still be part of a childhood environment that’s conducive to creating a soulless, evil person who hates humans so much that he one day decides to shoot into a crowd.

We can argue till the cows come home whether or not years of bullying led to the Columbine massacre, or if while growing up El Paso murderer Patrick Crusius frequently heard his father rant that Mexicans didn’t deserve to live.

But at the end of the day, it really makes no sense that wanting to hear your name on CNN would make a well-adjusted man go on a homicidal rampage.

Robert Siciliano personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention: Your Guide to Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft and Computer Fraud. See him knock’em dead in this Security Awareness Training video.

Woman Murdered after Man Tricks Her with Lost Puppy Ruse

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This entire post is brutal and for some, hard to read. But if there is a woman or girl in your life that might benefit from being freaked out, read it, forward and share it.

We’ve all heard about the man approaching a child, showing her a picture of his “lost” puppy, asking the child to help him look for “Truman” or “Roxie.” The child goes off with the predator – never again seen alive.

You’d think that no ADULT could ever fall for this scheme. But at least one woman, 36, did. Now maybe Kimra Riley, mother of a toddler, had never heard of the lost puppy ruse.

But according to ID Channel’s “Swamp Murders: A Dark Place to Die,” there were several blaring red flags that Rodney O’Neal Hocker was a predator.

  • Take note of these red flags.
  • Teach them to your kids.
  • Teach them to YOURSELF!

In March 1996, Kimra’s decomposed body was discovered near the shore of the Tennessee River after being reported missing two months prior. Tied to the body were bricks. An autopsy revealed that she had been alive when forced into the water; she had drowned.

Lost Puppy Trick

The docudrama depicts Kimra telling her boyfriend she was headed to the Bama Club to meet a female friend. There, she ran into Rodney, who recognized her as his server at a diner several days prior.

After small-talk, he asked if she wanted to see his puppy which was in his truck outside.

  • RED FLAG: What adult asks a stranger in a building to come outside to see his puppy?
  • When in doubt: Ask yourself if it’s easy to imagine the man asking another man if he’d like to see this puppy!
  • What to do: Tell the stranger to bring the puppy inside “so everyone can see it.”

Kimra went to the parking lot with Rodney. Rodney, 27, said the puppy had escaped the back of his pickup truck. He asked if she’d like to get in his vehicle to help look for the alleged yellow lab.

  • RED FLAG: The man immediately wants to drive around to search for the puppy. If a puppy jumps out of a parked vehicle, the first place to look is the parking lot, on foot! A puppy won’t get far!
  • What to do: Run back inside the building. Never mind hurting the stranger’s feelings.

Once Kimra was in the truck, her fate was sealed. He stopped the vehicle, came onto her; she resisted. The investigation determined he had rammed her head into the windshield, incapacitating her. Sexual assault was suspected because her body had on only a shirt, but was too decomposed for a rape kit.

If You Love Puppies…

  • Don’t ever go off with ANYONE to see an unseen
  • Tell the suspicious individual that you get enough puppy fixes with your neighbors’ dogs.

Robert Siciliano personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of Identity Theft Privacy: Security Protection and Fraud Prevention: Your Guide to Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft and Computer Fraud. See him knock’em dead in this Security Awareness Training video.

Woman Chained Like a Dog, Man Killed

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Back in August, 2016, Kala Brown and Charles Carver arrived to a 100-acre property in South Carolina for a cleaning job. Charles Carver never made it off the property, and Kala Brown spent more than two months in a metal shipping container, allegedly held captive by Todd Christopher Kohlhepp.

10DIn November of 2016, detectives were searching the property of Kohlhepp when they heard banging coming from the inside of a shipping container. When they opened it, they found Brown chained “like a dog.” According to Brown, she saw Kohlhepp shoot Carver, killing him, and then he took her hostage, chaining and locking her inside of the crate.

Carver’s body was found on the property, and Kohlhepp is suspected of being involved with six more murders.

Brown described her captivity as “hard,” and she said she remained chained for the duration of it. She also says that he did let her walk around a bit, and he fed her one time each day. She was finally found when authorities were searching the property after she was reported missing. Her cell phone was pinging on the property, but it took about two weeks before they could get a search warrant.

Police reported that they had no indication that there was foul play when they began searching. The cargo container was located on the middle of the property next to a garage. After finding the body of Carver, the investigators brought in cadaver dogs to search the property. Additionally, ATV’s, backhoes, and even a helicopter circled the property. The cadaver dogs picked up some scents, and the excavation of the property, began. The investigation found two more bodies, that of Meagan McCraw-Coxie and Johnny Coxie, who had gone missing in 2015.

Since his arrest, Kohlhepp has admitted to killing seven people in total.

Public records show that Kohlhepp is both a licensed pilot and real estate agent. He does, however, also have a record. As a teen in Arizona, he was convicted of kidnapping and crimes against children, and he spent some time in prison for these crimes. He is also on the sex offender registry in South Carolina. This is due to a kidnapping in 1986, which coincides with the incident in Arizona. In total, Kohlhepp served 14 years in prison. According to sources, Kohlhepp kidnapped a girl, aged 14, took her to his home, bound her with duct tape and raped her. He was released in 2001.

As is the case with many serial killers, most people who knew Kohlhepp were shocked by these allegations. One real estate agent that worked with Kohlhepp said that she had known him for a decade, and they had met in college. They had even been study partners for a statistics course. She was in disbelief when she heard that he had admitted the murders.

She also said that most people in the area knew that he was a registered sex offender. However, he told people that it was due to exaggerated charges after he and a girl had gone joyriding and the girl’s father, who was a local official, became angry.

Kohlhepp also had a second home in the area, and neighbors describe his as “private” but “pleasant.” He was also described as “a likable guy.”

All in all, Kohlhepp was charged with a total of seven counts of murder and two counts of kidnapping. He was also charged with three counts of possessing a weapon while committing a violent crime. The relatives of other victims will reportedly file wrongful death lawsuits against Kohlhepp, and Brown has said that she will file a civil lawsuit. Kohlhepp is due in court on January 17th.

Oh, and Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, was an American serial killer and sex offender, who committed the rape, murder, and dismemberment of seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991. Apparently he was a likeable guy too.

Robert Siciliano personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen. See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video.

Home Invasion Murder Happens Close to Home

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All this scribbling I do about home security cameras and home alarm systems is actually part of a business I run so it requires me to have an administrator to perform certain duties that she’s better at than I am. Earlier this week I reached out to her via text and briefly she wasn’t responding.

Then I get this text: “I’m in New Hampshire at a friend’s. My girlfriend was murdered Saturday night by her fiancés son. Then he shot himself. The kid that killed her broke into the neighbor’s house and tried to shoot him”

Eeesh. When people hear these stories happening in their backyard they say “I just didn’t think it would happen here”, whereas I expect it, and so does my admin.

Reports say police responded to a call about a home invasion at 5 am on a Sunday. The neighbor whose home was invaded got a knock on the door and opens it to an 18 year old sticking a shot gun in his face. He pulled the trigger and the gun misfired. The father ran off to get something to defend himself with and the intruder fled.

This was after he killed his father’s fiancé. Man O’ man. Just like that a 41 year old mother of 3 is dead because of a young man’s actions. Nobody will ever know why he did it. But there were probably signals leading up to it.

On the CDC’s website they state Violence is a serious public health problem in the United States. From infants to the elderly, it affects people in all stages of life. In 2007, more than 18,000 people were victims of homicide and more than 34,000 took their own life.

People who act out in extreme violence like this often say and do things prior to the event over the course of days/weeks/months/years that indicate they will eventually unravel and hurt someone. Some reports say the teen was quick to anger, that he wasn’t someone you messed with. While that’s not enough to go on, it can be considered a red flag.

Visit the CDC for more information.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist to Home Security Source discussing ADT Pulse™ on Fox News Live. Disclosures