A case of Justice by Blog
From the
Florida Sun-Sentinel comes this story of a fatal car crash and the evidence that nailed the person who caused it -- an entry in their personal Blog...
Teen's blog confession forces him to plead guilty in fatal crash
"I did it."
Blake Ranking was a Eustis High School senior and still aching from a horrible crash three days earlier when he posted those words on blurty.com, a site for Web logs.
"It was me who caused it. I turned the wheel. I turned the wheel that sent us off the road, into the concrete drain...," he wrote as his best friend, Jason Coker, 17, lay in a coma at Orlando Regional Medical Center. "How can I be fine when everyone else is so messed up?"
Coker never awoke from the crash Oct. 3, 2004. He died Jan. 11.
Although Ranking later retracted his words -- deleting them from the blog and penning an explanation -- they came back to haunt him, forcing him Monday to plead guilty to DUI manslaughter.
And his 'retraction'
Ranking's blogs hosted by three Web sites, blurty.com, xanga.com and myspace.com, reveal a range of emotions, from rage for friends who blame him for the fatal crash to the joy of his 18th birthday. ("YAY," he wrote. "Now I can get a cool job, buy cigarettes, get a credit card, and order stuff off TV.")
Of his blog confession, he wrote: "People say I 'contradict' myself since I 'already admitting pulling the wheel.' I didn't 'ADMIT' anything. I went on a guilt trip, and I posted the story that I WAS TOLD . . . Nicole told me I pulled the wheel, I believed her."
The cops pulled a screenshot before Ranking thought to delete the post. I love his quote:
"YAY, Now I can get a cool job, buy cigarettes, get a credit card, and order stuff off TV."
Spoken like a true American Product. Stamped from the mold just like every other consumer. Jack in the 'individuality' chip to make them think that they are a trailblazing creative genius and set them on their way to bankruptcy and 3.7 failed marriages.
And where have the parents been for the last 17 years?
Posted by DaveH at December 21, 2005 10:43 PM