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Girl Finds Out Family’s Dead Via Facebook
If you thought all those status reports with the final score of the game you TiVo’d was bad, just wait. A kid who went to Europe on vacation logged onto Facebook to touch base . . . only to find out her entire family had been murdered.
Police now say the trip may have saved her life.
The deaths occured in Brenda Lin’s native Australia, where her mom, dad, aunt and young brothers (one was only nine) were all killed at her home. The crime was so gruesome, police couldn’t even identify the bodies without the help of dental records and DNA. Now home, the girl has been secreted away by police to protect her while they make attempts to solve the mysterious murders.
Either way you put it, you have to feel badly for this kid. She’s the only surviving member of her family. And the natural narcissism of kids means she’s likely to spend a lot of time pondering why she was spared.
But this case also points to the big oversharing issues with Facebook. Did people really have to let this poor kid know she was an orphan via Facebook? The case of the aunt leaking sensitive details of her brother’s custody battle using her status updates pales in comparison.
I don’t need to know everything about your life. But if it’s a choice between the two, I say bring back the “my kid shit up the back of his diaper” updates. Leave the “oh yeah, your mom and dad were bludgeoned to death” news for face-to-face.
Image: Facebook
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4 Comments
Ben commented on Aug 03 09 at 12:20 pm‘Now home, the girl has been secreted away by police…’
I don’t think secreted means what you think it does…
Trix commented on Aug 03 09 at 12:23 pmOh Ben, It has at least two different meanings. 1. To hide 2. to To generate and separate (a substance) from cells or bodily fluids
Ali commented on Aug 03 09 at 1:23 pmMaybe the only way they had to contact her was via Facebook since she was traveling. Surely they did not announce it in such a cavalier fashion. It is really not fair to assume her friend who notified her did so in such a callous manner. Lots of fictional details added to this.
Becca commented on Nov 13 09 at 4:57 pmWhy the little dig on “pondering why she was spared?” Surely any adult who returned home to a mass murder scene where their children or other family members were butchered would agonize over why they were spared too… no need to resort to narcissism.
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