Years ago I had another true crime blog where I did a lot of blogging about the Caylee Anthony case. What fascinated me about the case was not the factual basis of the case, but the people who were following it online. There were A LOT of wingnuts who joined true crime forums to discuss their theories about what happened to Caylee Anthony. Some offered psychic visions of where they thought she was and some would make posts claiming that they had seen her in airports. Reading some of their posts was both hilarious and frightening because they actually believed some of this stuff. It was a lot to digest because these were grown men and women acting like this.

One of the craziest things that I saw during that time was a group on Websleuths who were using food coloring and glue to put on paper and the paper would be folded in half with the colored glue in the center. When it was unfolded, the colored glue would make patterns. They would then theorize about what the pattern of the colored glue was “saying” and would discuss possible places that Caylee’s body might be found. It was harmless crazy talk and there were plenty of forums that sprung up to discuss the case. However, after Casey Anthony was arrested and charged with murder, the online discussions became full blown hate fests. Anyone who defended Casey was harassed, and no one wanted to hear about her constitutional right to a fair trial or that she was innocent until proven guilty. They wanted her dead. Many of these types of discussions continue to this day. One particularly fanatical Facebook group headed up by a woman who calls herself @Blaiss, still stalk and harass Casey Anthony by posting her address online or driving by and taking pictures of her home. If there is even the hint of rumor that she might make a media appearance, these women spring into action and harass media outlets on Twitter. Many have had to block them because of their overly zealous desire to starve Casey out. They have even tried to interfere into her photography business, because why should someone found not guilty be allowed to freely walk the streets and live a normal life in the USA?

The Anthony case is how I came to know of William Murtaugh aka Murtwitnessone. He had been involved in another high profile missing child case a few years before, and found himself in front of a news camera when he claimed to have information on Trenton Duckett’s case. He spent numerous hours online on the Court TV/InSession forums telling members he was not only close to LE, but at one time insinuated he was LE. Murt told people on the forums that he had inside information regarding the case. His claim to fame with regard to this case is when he told people that on January 12, 2007, “something big” was going to happen that would break the case wide open. In true Murt fashion, NOTHING happened on January 12. He obviously did this to gain attention and credibility from his true crime peers. When people started realizing that he was full of crap, he posted this letter to Trenton’s “caretaker”:

To Trenton’s caretaker

Hello my friend:

I now know why Melinda trusted you to take care of Trenton.
I know that you are monitering the discussion forums.
You know time is running out.
Listen to your soul mate. Things are going to work out.
It is time to return Trenton to his family.
Take Trenton to the larger hospital or take Trenton to the fire station on the main road near your place.
Do it now.
Do it while you still can.
If you need help, contact me. You know how.

MURT

When Caylee Anthony went missing Murt put himself right smack dab in the middle of the case - online and off. It was when his “news van” was seen parked outside of the Anthony residence during a CNN live report that someone contacted me with their concerns about him inserting himself into this case and causing trouble like he did during the Duckett case. We watched him for a few weeks, and I have to admit in the first few weeks I thought that he was just a harmless old man who had an odd interest in missing children’s cases, but that thought was soon replaced with the reality that he was a manipulative old man who was charming the dollars right out of his fan’s wallets. Murt soon went from live streaming searches for Caylee to requesting that his followers send him money for tires, cell phone data invoices, windshields that owls busted through in the broad daylight, and other things.

I ended up writing a blog post about Murt warning people that he was taking advantage of their kindness and if they felt compelled to donate to the search efforts, they should give their money to a reputable organization such as Texas Equsearch instead. Needless to say, when a grifter has their donation pool meddled with, they don’t take kindly to it. Murt immediately went on the offensive and proclaimed my website to be filled with viruses and warned the little old ladies not to go there because their computers would be destroyed. It was his attempt to keep them from finding out about his scam. He spent a lot of time in his online live streamed chatroom trying to instill fear into his members about the website, and made accusations that we had hacked his bank accounts and all of his computers, even going so far as to claim that he called the FBI and they came to his house to install monitoring software on his computer and phone lines to catch us. LOL This video is comedy gold! A quick summary of his claims during the filming:

• We hacked his bank accounts and by doing so this was considered denial of financial funds which is a felony;
• The FBI came to his home and one of the FBI agent was a notary and he held up his right hand to sign sworn statements for his hacking report;
• They were charging us with theft by deception; wirefraud; 7 counts of theft of intellectual property;14 counts of conspiracy to commit identity theft; 14 counts of commission of identify theft; and 23 counts of distribution of pornographic material;
• He was locked out of an account holding $70,000 and anything over $10,000 falls under RICO statute;

Have a peek. LOLOL

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

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