News from The Roanoke Times-E-mail message opens up a Pandora's inbox

This monkeyman935 hoax sure is creating a ruccus again. I posted on this back in November, post here. Apparently it has taken on a whole new life. What is also interesting is how easily people forward emails and messages that they do not even research for truth. If you do a search for Monkeyman935 on Google you will come up with several sites which identify it as a hoax. Snopes has the whole story here. It is interesting how this thing has stayed alive for so long. This hoax and online forward may be here when I retire. I should have known the hoax was heating up, I have gotten numerous hits from searches for "monkeyman935".


News from The Roanoke Times-E-mail message opens up a Pandora's inbox:

E-mail message opens up a Pandora's inbox

Warning: Do not talk to Monkeyman935 -- and do not call or e-mail the Roanoke Fire-EMS about the hoax.

Andrew Kantor

"I'd like to take the person who did this, and ..."

Roanoke Fire-EMS Acting Chief David Hoback didn't finish the sentence. He simply pounded the table once, and he didn't smile.

"This" is an e-mail -- the "Monkeyman" message -- that has been making the rounds since 2000. It's Fire-EMS' own urban legend, and it's convinced thousands of people to call, e-mail, fax or write to the department.

The message (Hoback likened it to a virus) has now made the leap to MySpace, the ultrapopular Web site and online meeting spot. And that means a new round of messages for the good -- and aggravated -- folks at Fire-EMS.

The missive causing all the trouble is, like many urban legends, a warning.

"If a person with the screen name of Monkeyman935 contacts you, do not reply," it reads. "Do NOT talk to this person; do not answer any of his/her instant messages or e-mail. Whoever this person may be, he/she is a suspect for murder in the death of 56 women (so far) contacted through the Internet."

And then the kicker -- what's causing Fire-EMS all the trouble: It's signed by the department's former spokeswoman, Jennifer Faulkner, and includes her real phone number, real fax number and real e-mail address.(Read More)

From Snopes.Com:

John Edward Robinson Sr., 56, was arrested on 2 June 2000 and charged with sexual assault on two women in the Kansas City area. Robinson lured the women (as he had others) into participating in sadomasochistic sex by contacting them over the Internet under the name "slavemaster." The two women filed charges after Robinson "brutalized them in a way that went beyond what theyintended."

After Robinson's arrest, law enforcement authorities discovered two 55-gallon industrial barrels, each containing a woman's body, on land Robinson owned in Kansas. A few days later, they discovered three more bodies in barrels kept in a storage space Robinson rented in Missouri. All five women appeared to have been bludgeoned to death.(Read More)

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