Front Page of The Times Very Disturbing

When I went to timesonline.co.uk today, the front page was plastered with murder. Headlining was "Eight die as school murder comes to Europe" and right beneath it was "I heard Meredith's dying screams, says suspect." At first, I thought these two stories were related because of how they were layed out on the page. But they are, in fact, to separate tragedies.

You can read the "Eight die" story here. Pekka-Eric Auvinen (the killer), 18, began by posting a video to Youtube wearing a shirt declaring "Humanity is Overrated" and points his gun at the camera and says, “I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit.” Within hours, he went to Jokela High School in southern Finland and shot dead five boys, two girls and the headmistress and wounded about a dozen more. He later failed in his suicide attempt.

The "Meredith's screams" story is here but the part I want to focus on is here. A friend of mine from high school is quoted in it, so it makes this whole mess a little personal. For anyone who's tried to even follow this event, it's a huge, nasty mess. I'm not sure what elements of it are more scandalous than others. Essentially, an American Amanda Knox is a suspect in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Italy. There is a lot of evidence that Knox and her boyfriend had been lying to the police about their involvement (or alleged lack thereof) in the murder. Knox and her boyfriend have posted several MySpace stories about rape, fetishizing and glorifying it--which makes them bigger suspects in this investigation since there is evidence Kercher was held down by one person and raped by another before she was killed.