If You Were a Cannibal, What Would You Wear to Dinner?

Submitted by Andrew Nusca on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 1:07pm.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that you might not get that fabulous job because of a handful of un-PC comments on your MySpace, now you can get tossed in the slammer for posting your answer to the above question online.

Kevin Ray Underwood is the kind of 26-year-old guy that wanted more from life. A lonely guy who confessed to planting himself in front of the computer for 14 hours a day “barely moving” from his chair, it wasn’t too hard for police to accuse the Carls Jr. employee of killing a 10-year-old neighborhood girl after they found meat tenderizer in his kitchen and a body in the bathroom.

The catch is, Lecter-isms aside, authorities recently found his online diary, with Underwood confessing that he wanted “to be able to live like a normal person,” yet battling with a darker side: “If people knew the kinds of things I think about anymore, I’d probably be locked away. No probably about it, I know I would be.”

As a major legal player, the blog can help us unearth the unknown about a cannibal's psyche. While this particular case was already in motion before the blog was discovered, it’s both interesting and condemning (as if skewers as evidence weren’t enough) to read a motive like this. While it’s no tell-all, the blog is becoming a triple-edged sword: one side can be an opinionated release, another side can be the evidence that can arrest you, and the final side can let us into the mind of a killer.

I’m sure people disagree whether he’s guilty or not – after all, the trial’s still happening – but we can all agree that his blog was surely in bad taste. By the way – his answer to the question?

"The skin of last night's main course."

Tracy Wong @ Mon, 04/17/2006 - 7:50pm

I've read about this story. My concern is whether some blog entries that are fantasy will be taken as fact. Although Eminem rapped about murdering his then ex-wife, he never did it. Also, cute analogy, but I've never heard of a triple-edged sword.

Andrew Nusca @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 1:00pm

That's because if you've heard of a triple-edged sword, you're probably already dead from it.

Just a [morbidly humorous] thought.

Leslie @ Mon, 04/17/2006 - 8:26pm

I wanted to apply to get on NBC's Deal or No Deal show and the application asks for you to list any websites you have ever posted material on. This may be different from what you're talking about but eventually our internet personalities will be judged and will affect our (negatively, in this case) "real" lives. While I don't plan on killing or eating people anytime soon (that was sarcasm), my main concern is being able to get a job with supposed "equal opportunity." Good-bye free speech, hello self-censorship.

Andrew Nusca @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 1:03pm

I think that's ludicrous. Could you imagine? I'd have to sit down for hours to think of a comprehensive list of sites I've signed up for or posted on.

I mean, do they really want to know that I posted on SE-R.net forums to troubleshoot the installation of my car's clutch?

Very 1984.

Jacqueline Colozzi @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 12:07am

This was the most interesting read all semester. It was like... a story... disturbing yet flowing, informational yet creative--how can I post now?

Ivan Pereira @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 3:49pm

Playing devil's advocate here, there is no guarantee that the "powers that be" use the information of a person's blog site to judge them. For example, when I first saw the Facebook profile of one of my dorm neighbors during the beginning of my sophomore year, which included a really weird profile picture, I was at first skeptical of him. However, after meeting them face-to-face for the first time, I learned that he was not a crazy guy and that his profile was just one big joke. Maybe that is how some of the "powers that be" use the information.

Companies, authorities, and governments, the so-called democratic ones anyways, usually judges a person with a number of characteristics not just one. How many times have you heard about a student with good grades not end up at Harvard? Given time, hopefully, the general public will accept blogs and online communities differently and learn that it’s how much you know about the person away from their blog or profile that counts.

Andrew Nusca @ Wed, 04/19/2006 - 9:24am

While I agree that not everyone should be taken seriously on blogs and other online outlets, my point is that it's certainly eyebrow-raising that it can be brought up by law enforcement - or what's worse, a court of law - as evidence or relevant material.

I find your assumptions about companies, authorities, and governments to be without base. You make generalized statements on the actions of these institutions - do you really know how they work? This has nothing to do with Facebooking roommates - this has to do with First Amendment rights, and is more akin to the federal government's surveillance of protest groups than to what kind of student ends up at Harvard.

I agree that to be arrested you must satisfy a level of "beyond a reasonable doubt," but you're missing the point: If we start linking online forums to reasonable cause for arrest, it's more than your job that's at stake - it's your right to say whatever you want without the Pentagon breathing down your mousepad. In this post, I'm stressing the possibility of this occurring - not whether it's justified. That is an unanswered question. Clearly, the link is justified regarding our murderer's case - but only in hindsight. Quid pro quo, Ivan - what kind of precedent does that set for someone who has a cannibal persona online, but has never committed any crimes?

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A group blog exploring our media world. Produced by the Digital Journalism: Blogging course at New York University, Spring 2007.

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