Mail

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since we dipped into my sack...of mail that is.

I received the following e-mail twice yesterday from a supporter of the West Memphis 3.

User Name: John O'Bryan

To whom it may concern,

I'm a little curious to know why you're so adamant about the guilt of the West Memphis Three? Especially after the lack of DNA evidence. I grew up in Memphis and remember very vividly when the crime took place. The way the news media handled the case was ridiculous, and every southern baptist idiot within 200 miles was saying "obviously these are the guys who did it".

Can't you at least admit they didn't get a fair trial? I understand you don't want to be labeled a "follower", but sometimes being a stubbornly obtuse contrarian can be even worse. What do you have against natalie Maines anyway? If you're still a Bush supporter, that might go a long way toward answering ALL of my questions.

I find this e-mail kind of ironic because the whole basis of the West Memphis 3 movement is that the WM3 were allegedly judged unfairly yet Mr. O'Bryan goes on to make a lot of judgments himself, but I digress.

Like I've said before I've been writing about school shootings for going on 8 years now. Over the years I've developed sort of a profile of school shooters. Damien Echols and company fit that profile to a T. Also like I've stated before if the WM3 were born 10 years later they would have been school shooters instead of child killers. Do I say that because they dressed in black and listened to heavy metal? No, because that describes me at the they were when they were convicted. Hell, it describes me now except now my black clothes are a suit and tie instead of an Iron Maiden T-Shirt and I'll be metal until the day I die.

Can I admit that they didn't receive a fair trial? No I can't. I believe the movies and books made about them were heavily biased. The authors and filmmakers already had their goal in mind when they started. Not only that but they left a lot out of the whole story from their respective works.

As far as the DNA evidence or lack there of goes it proves nothing. The flip side to none of their DNA evidence being found at the scene is that Mark Byers' DNA wasn't there either. For years the WM3 supporters have called for the head of Mark Byers claiming that he was the one that actually committed the murders. I could then say that since his DNA evidence wasn't there that he couldn't have committed the murders either. Let's not forget that their bodies were found in a creek which could have washed away any DNA.

What do I have against Natalie Maines? Let me count the ways. She insulted the office of the President while overseas. I don't care who is in office at the time have some respect for your country. She's a member of PETA which is only a few vegans short of being an eco-terrorism organization. She fell for the hype of the Paradise Lost movies. And lastly her music sucks.

For the most part West Memphis 3 supporters remind me of Ron Paul supporters and members of the so called 9/11 Truth Movement. Just because you're big on the internet you think you're more important than what you actually are.

Personally I think you've all given Echols exactly what he wanted, fame and a following that was bigger than Manson's.

Every once in a while I get the opportunity to talk to a reporter. Whenever I tell them that there are "fans" or sympathizers of school shooters they sometimes find it hard to believe. Well wonder no more you journalistic types. Here is an e-mail I received from someone calling themself Gill. I'm assuming it's in reference to Kimveer Gill, the Dawson College shooter from Montreal. This is one of the more mild e-mails I've received…

Why do you start a website called trenchcoat if you're not sympathetic to why these kids do school shootings? You call Gill's pain "adolescent." I guess it's okay to do it if you're George Bush, huh? Nobody calls a military funeral "juvenile," to belittle it, do they? Fuck arguing with you, I just don't know why you bother with it at all.

This is a popular tactic with the mutants, comparing school shootings to the war in Iraq. That's like comparing the proverbial apples and oranges. Hell, that's more like comparing apples with chickens. Now I'm not here to debate the merits or the lack thereof of the war in Iraq however typically in a war zone two separate factions are armed and shooting at each other. At Dawson College Gill was nothing more than a coward shooting at unarmed people. And usually in a war the goal is some greater good. In Gill's case the goal was only death. I not only call his "pain" adolescent and juvenile I also call it selfish. What about the pain of the family of Anastasia DeSousa? You know, the promising young girl that Kimveer Gill killed. What about their pain. I think their pain is a lot more important than some gun wielding psychopath. Kimveer Gill was a 25-year-old living with his mommy. He was a loser in life and an even bigger loser in death.

As always it was your pleasure.

It's time to take a dip into the mail sack. THis is from my entry on the Columbine Rampart Range tape...

DISTURBED BY SCHOOLS Jul 11th, 2006 at 5:38 pm

im not american n when this shit happened i got put into a SPECIAL CLASS so i think DEATH TO ALL JOCKS its because of the im so cool im in the football team they did all u ppl who think down on some one cause there diffrent should wake up.FUCK if it wasnt for ppl being who they r n not what others want where would the world be. i say KILL ALL JOCKS. they ant ppl there SCUM :mrgreen: HAVE A SUPER DAY

My spellcheck just went on strike. It refuses to work until these kids start writing in proper English. The commenter is from Australia in case you were wondering.

Anyway for one second let's just say that you were put into a special class because of Columbine. Why are you blaming the jocks? You should blame the two little cowardly scumbags from Colorado.

And I'm guessing that special class didn't work.

And remember, I'm not picking on you because you're different. I'm picking on you because you're stupid.

As always it was your pleasure.

Let's dip into the mail sack today shall we?

Today it's from a mutant that escaped gfrom the cornfield on my entry about the Columbine death photos...

Vodka & Reb Says:

June 16th, 2006 at 2:54 am

Check out Super Columbine Massacre RPG. It’s a game with crummy graphics, but it’s a game about the columbine shooters. Super cool. They’re actually making games about these Heros, One day they’ll make a game, with graphics like Doom 3, but it’ll be just about that day April 20, 1999. The whole game. Can you imagine.

Hope a gaming company makes the game soon.
That would rule :twisted:

Is that the kind of dialog you were hoping for Danny?

It's been a while since we read the mail from the mutants so let's get started shall we?

This one is from my entry on the Columbine Rampart Range Tapes...

jacob Says:

fuck all u white haters out there im not that racist but when it comes to niggers tryen to get at us that pisses me off u niggers have enough problems so fuck off…. by the way that was are ancestors thatdid that shit to you so dont pull that shit on inasent ppl by the way ur not african americans its africans in america

o and marcus and dante get a fucken life.. you stuped ass niggers probaly have an ique of 50 u fucken idoit and come in to my school and pull that shit ill fucken but ur thick skulled head in u bitch ass niggers

If they have an ique of 50 it's about 50 points higher than yours Klanboy. And I love how he says he's not a racist except "when it comes to niggers". I hate to break it to you Spunky but that is the textbook definition of racism.

Then we have this comment about the Columbine RPG designer being outed...

Lay-Z-Boy Says:

This may be off topic or whatever but i dont give a fuck. Anyways i just wanted to say that Eric and Dylan what they have taught me is that i can do anything i want. They may have been bad guys to you but to me they were in a way heros they opend my eyes and took my mind to another level beyond all this do what society tells you sheep bullcrap. And what the hell all your post are really stupid all you see is a couple kids that killed some people. I think that you gotta open your eyes and take a look at the world around you and not always see things just for what they are. It’s something youll never understand. To me your the fucking mutant and your the one that should be non existent. Mutants? You are a fucking asshole,it’s people like you bringing everyone who has differnt veiws down.
Your just a fucking number your useless i dont evan see you as the same species. You got alot of evolving to do buddy,suck my balls.

REB and VODKA thanks for showing me that i can do anything whether it be good or bad.

I remember when I was young and idealistic and I thought society's rules didn't apply to me. Then I grew up and got a job. With that whole "I'm the rebel and you're all sheep" bit I see only one option of employment in your future...



Making my fries.

As always it was your pleasure.

I received comments today from someone claiming to be Columbine survivor Richard Castaldo on my entry about Dylan Klebold's car being up for auction. I have no reason to doubt that claim. Here's what he had to say...

i saw some shit on the news about people having websites paying tribute to the assholes that did this shit, and it bothered me for obvious reasons. so i hope people would be disuaded to do fucked up shit by this site and others like it. And its completely fucking ridiculous to admire what they did in any way. In contrast to popular opinion a lot of people that were shot didn’t do a god-damn thing to these fucks (me included). I have no idea why you’d admire dipshits wwhod kill people over absolutlely nothing. snd what thy did was definatley in no way noble and in no way brave, as they claimed. it doesn;t take shit to kill someone who isn’t expecting ir and with no armor. so i dont know what the hell that proves other than what pussies they really were. REal men would never think of doing something like that. And they brought being nade fun of on themselves, i saw them a couple times and they acteed like they were above it all. oh, and its also moronic to blame games and music and whatnot. cause i play and lisen to the exact same stuff, and am not negatively effected in any way.

I hope the mutants were paying attention.

It's been a while since we dipped into the mail sack. All the mutants just seem to be repeating themselves so I haven't been inclined to respond. Until today when I received an e-mail that made my jaw drop from the sheer stupidity of it. It's from someone that calls themself Rogue. Rogue has been previously banned for saying that they should give back a would be school shooters weapons. Anyway, you're not going to believe this one...

Hi

Cool page. Like what you do here. But I find you only look at the story one way. Not once have I read a comment you've made, about even one of these school shootings being acceptable, or needed.

Did you use to be a police officer or something?

I'm not even going to respond to that one. I'm just going to let it stand on it's own merits, or lack thereof.

I've had a lot of new readers recently ask me what is a mutant. Now when I say mutant I'm not talking X-Men, I'm talking more along the lines of C.H.U.D. Anyway I got a comment today from someone who represents the textbook definition of mutant. It was a comment from my entry about the Columbine documentary, Zero Hour: Massacre at Columbine High...

Bloody Lip Says:
April 11th, 2006 at 2:07 pm

You mother fuckers have got to be the dumbest fuckers I have ever had the privilage to laugh at. They DID kill themselves. And I am glad they did what they believed in, instead of doing what you do, hiding behind your falseness, blinded by your own insecurities. On 4/20 we will rejoice. You call me sick?, we’ll don’t you christian fucks rejoice because some guy was nailed to a cross? FUCK YOU bitches… All Hail Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

Notice the inability to make a point without using profanity. Also notice how they "hail" their heroes Columbine killers Harris and Klebold like they were some kind of revolutionaries instead of spoiled selfish mass murderers.

However lately there has been an evolution in the mutant form. Recently I've had conversations with pro-Harris and Klebold supporters who can actually carry on a conversation without resorting to the above characteristics. Which requires us to come up with a new classification of mutant. One that is not as insulting but not really complimentary either.

Any suggestions?

It's been over 2 months since we dipped into the old mail sack. Don't worry, this one is mutant free. It's just a nice little e-mail I got from someone named Fynn. The subject read "My Apologies".

I have been reading comments left on your brilliant website, but I'd like to apologise on behalf of other readers. They dont know how to spell, they use abusive language and I think it brings down the tone of the good writing that you create.

Thank you for the compliment Fynn but no apologies are necessary. The abusive language just shows that they lack the intelligence for a legitimate argument. Thanks again for your e-mail.

Let's dip into the old mail sack shall we? Today's offering is from one of my banned mutants named Edgar...

Enough of the Defense-Attorney bashing

This is from: Ed

they're just doing their job. Besides, there are worse things than a greedy lawyer. Like, how about, a blogger who makes a living by being a cyber-bully? Yeah, I'm talking about you.

I'll take this in order. First, I'll stop bashing soulless defense attorneys when they stop trying to get murderers released into the custody of their parents. Secondly I am hardly making a living doing this. It would be nice if I did but I'm not. I got my first payment from advertisers last week for a whole $19. Considering how much I've paid over the years for web hosting and domain names it's not even close to making a profit. And lastly how am I cyber-bully? Have I threatened you? No, of course I haven't. You're pissed because I've banned you. That's my prerogative. I own this site. I pay for it so I can do with it what I want. Think of it as any business you might go to during the course of your day. Most businesses have the right to refuse service to anyone they choose within reason. And with some of the comments I've received I'm well within reason. If you don't like it you can always go somewhere else. Hell, you can even start your own blog and you can ban whomever you want.

As always it was your pleasure.

I've said before I don't do this for the recognition. Every time I get some kind of national recognition it's usually bad. I don't do this to become a Higher Being on The Ecosystem. I'm very happy being a Flappy Bird. I do this mostly to get a message out. A message to parents to be mindful of their children’s' activities, on line and in the real world. How many stories have we seen from Columbine to present day where the parents had absolutely no clue what was going on in their own house? That's why I switched the site from the black background to the beige background to make it more appealing to parents. Some days I feel like banging my head against the wall after reading story after story where it seems like parents were oblivious to their kids' activities. But then every once in a while I get an e-mail like this...

I discovered your site after the recent murder of the parents by the 18 yo in PA. I read their online blogs, which I then followed their links to other online blogs and discovered a very frightening world used by todays youth. My only thought is the same i have read several times in your writings...where are their parents? As a parent of young children this has left me feeling a range of mixed emotions from extreme saddness, to anger, to disgust, to utter hopelessness. I have always known these things existed but to read personal diaries and blogs from first hand perspectives of todays youth really brought it front and center for me. I have read things about drug use, girls with eating disorders, sex....you name it. And not only the words....but the images!!! These kids actually have their pics up!!! I would never keep a diary growing up because I KNEW my mom would find it....not "IF". I am just thankful to have found this now....my kids computer use is still limited to the Jumpstart games thank God! But not knowing is no excuse for parents. This is their JOB as PARENTS!!

I gave up my career to be a full time mom to my kids and after reading this I feel insanely guilty by gambling with their lives everyday that I send them off to school.....to SCHOOL for crying out loud!! It is not supposed to be this way.

Anyway, my main reason for writing this is to APPLAUD you for what you are doing. People need to be informed and as painful as reading these stories are they need to be read and burned into EVERY parents brain....they certainly are mine.

Thank You!
Gina

No Gina. Thank you. Thank you for letting me know what I'm doing is actually making somewhat of a difference and that I'm not doing this in vain. Hopefully your e-mail can serve as a wake up call to even more parents.

This time the pleasure was all mine.

Just one to speak of this time and it's from my entry on the Columbine Rampart Range Tapes...

Fan Says:

You know, i wish there is a hell, just so i can shake their hands and thank them for what they did. People are so fucked up, that they think they can mess with someone for years, and then flip out when they kill some1. That racist POS that posted is the reason things like this happen. I just wish i could have the balls to do what they did, they are my fucking hero. So if you dont like them, then dont wast your time talking bad about them

Saturday Oct 8, 2005 @ 11:37 pm

Of course he or she is talking about Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as his or her heroes.

Just think, that's someone's son or daughter. I wonder what those parents think their kid is up to.

Yesterday was not a good day in my little empire. It seems that I went way over my bandwidth allotment in just 5 days. It turns out then when I started doing the podcasts I left the test mp3 file on my server and forgot about it. It was only 418kb in size. However some unscrupulous persons, which traced back to several IP addresses in Germany, downloaded the file repeatedly over and over and over again until it generated 13GB of bandwidth. At that point between trying to deal with the spammers and what was basically a denial of service attack I was real close to packing it all in. Then after I got all the sites up and running again I received an e-mail from someone by the name of Mike. The subject of the e-mail was "Credit to Society" and it went a little something like this...

First off, I want to thank you for debunking and debating the rumors spread by so many medias today regarding Goths, trenchcoats, and their connection to school violence, and a crumbling society in general. I myself cannot stand labels, but am commonly given the label of "Goth", just because I choose to wear what I like. It's not a means of expressing angst, or hatred, or a desire to be different. I just wear what I think looks good. It's a relief to see someone that can appreciate an opinion such as mine, and agree with it, to any extent. Granted, I know my style of dress invokes such harassment from those that consider me awkward or different, but that doesn't make it right. Thank you so much for voicing your opinion in the face of those who disagree. you are a real credit to Freedom of Speech, and society in general. People often don't listen to me, or my beliefs and morals, being that I'm only going on 17, and it's great to have someone to relate to, regardless of how much older you may be, or that I've never met you. I want you to know, for what it's worth, that regardless of how many people may call you a menace or scum to society for having the will to disagree with them, you'll always have me as an avid reader and supporter. Keep on voicing your feelings, and I'll keep reading. Thanks again, for making life that much more livable. Keep on living, my friend. =)

Mike, it is I who should be thanking you. You single-handedly restored my will to keep this site up and running for a long time.

I got an e-mail today from the webmaster whose site I got the quotes from for both Birthdays in Hell entries which can be found here and here. Here is the e-mail in most of its entirety...

Hello Trench,

My name is Chris and i'm the owner of (URL of mutant website).
I received a note that you posted some text of my homepage:
http://www.thetrenchcoat.com/archives/category/the-watchlist/

You didn't ask for my permission to post whats on my website.
I am copyrighted so therefore you must delete what you\ve taken from my website.

Please put this stuff you copy off

Thank you

Chris

First off I wonder which mutant sent him a note. Like I need to ask. WMD.

Anyway, as to your request, um....

NO!!!!

Why should I? Are you ashamed of your own content? You should be.

So your site is copyrighted. So what? So is mine. That doesn't stop a certain mutant from posting excerpts of my site in the mutant message boards. You don't see me whining about it.

You want me to take excerpts from your site off my site which you didn't even write? Then do something about it.

Until then grow a set.

I received an e-mail today from one of my usual mutants. For those of you new to the party there are two breeds of mutant. Today we're going to deal with the most predominant form of mutant, the school shooter-worshipping mutant. This particular mutant by the name of Edgar has a problem with the way I run things around here. He's been previously banned for...well...being a mutant so he sent me the following e-mail...

This is from: Ed

I just want to let you know, trench, that I'm deeply offended by some of the things you and your supporters say about the shooters. They were the only inspiration in my life and just because I am a 'mutant' as you childishly call us doesn't mean I'm inhuman or less deserving of respect than any of you.

Ok Edgar I want you to argue your point of view with me. For a limited time I have rescinded your banishment to the cornfield in order to participate in this thread and this thread alone. Post in any other thread and your ban will be reinstated. I also want my regular commenters to participate as well except there will be no name calling. No patronizing. We're all going to discuss this like adults.

My first questions to you Edgar are...

Are you still in school?
If so what grade?
Why are two mass murderers your only inspiration in life?