Note: Varies by jurisdiction. Internet homicide , also called internet assassination , refers to killing in which victim and perpetrator met online, in some cases having known each other previously only through the Internet. Internet homicide can also be part of an Internet suicide pact or consensual homicide. Serial killers are murderers who target three or more victims sequentially, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.
According to Paul Bocj, the author of Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet Age and How to Protect Your Family , "The idea that a serial killer may have operated via the Internet is, understandably, one that has resulted in a great deal of public anxiety. Online predators , participants in internet suicide and suicide-homicide pacts , and internet killers may seek out victims through internet forums , chat rooms , listservs , email , bulletin boards , social networking sites , online role playing games , online dating services , Yahoo groups , or Usenet.
Online chatrooms are sometimes used by killers to meet and bait potential victims. Online chatrooms are also used, in some cases, to plan consensual homicides. For example, in , a Maryland woman, Sharon Lopatka , apparently agreed to be killed by torture and strangulation in a conversation with a man in an online chatroom. In a case that might be regarded as a quasi-consensual homicide, "John," a teenage boy from Altrincham, England , allegedly tricked another teenager into killing him using long conversations in an online chatroom.
The other teenager, Mark, apparently believed he was being recruited by a female Secret Service agent. The suicide-by-homicide failed and on May 29, John pleaded guilty to inciting someone to murder him and was sentenced to three years supervision.
Mark pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to two years supervision. The boys were forbidden to contact each other. As an article in the New York Daily News explained in , "Long before there was a craigslist or dot-com dating, there were places where men and women who were too shy or busy to meet face to face could find romance.
