A teen suicide in St. Louis suburb Dardenne Prairie, allegedly provoked by taunts from a hoax My Space page, is producing a vigilante style response... A sad but fascinating story..
YAHOO/AP STOPY:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/...oUh8cV8Fus0NUE
LA TIMES FEATURE:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...adlines-nation
The incident recalls the famed Skidmore, MO case of Ken McElroy, a controversial and disliked farmer-businessman shot dead in the town square in 1981. That murder was witnessed by many yet no one would come forward with any information to assist police in their investigation.
Northwestern Missouri was also the site of the Raymond Gunn lynching in 1930.. Gunn, who was black, had been accused of raping and murdering a white school teacher. He was caught with a great deal of evidence including blood on his clothes, bite marks on his hands and a blood stained shoe. A large mob of Missouri residents did not wait for him to go to trial.
The Dardenne Prairie case, and those that have proceeded it, urge the question of why Missouri has such a pronounced history and predilection for this type of justice.