Death of Emily Sander Posted Online Before Official Police Discovery

On November 23, 2007, an 18-year old girl by the name of Emily Sander was reported missing in her hometown of Olathe, Kansas. Six days later, her dead body was found 50 miles from El Dorado. Investigators refused to give any details to the media on how her body was found or the condition of the body.

Emily Sander's death, at the time, led to significant immediate attention. In fact, she was an internet porn model under the name Zoey Zane, and hosted a website to increase her popularity. Her family, according to her grandmother Shirley Sander, knew nothing of her hidden life until police had hypothesized this.

However, one crucial piece of evidence seemed to be missing. How had the investigators found the body? The answer seemed to lie at one of the most popular section of http://www.4chan.org, the /b/ (or random) forum.

The /b/ forum is infamous around the web. The users, anonymously known as /b/tards, have created such internet memes as lolcats, rickrolling, the popularization of "Chocolate Rain," and other e-words like "lulz." Other incidents have also contributed to /b/'s infamy, like declarations of school shootings before they happen or the planning of terrorist attacks. Child and other pornography also riddle the forum. With this in mind, the /b/ forum is one of the most popular forums on the internet for its user anonymousness, randomness, and creativity.

But how does the /b/ forum relate to the death of Emily Sander? The connection belongs to this image, soon released after her death. Make sure to maximize the image before viewing it. It takes a while before you finally understand the significance of the image, a seemingly hodgepodge of pictures at first glance.

After a few moments, you quickly find out what the image means. In the top left of the image, the first poster says, "If anyone can correctly guess their own post number, I will tell you where she is buried." Immediately, posters start guessing their own post number. Within 9 minutes, a person correctly guesses their number. The thread starter, as promised, gives the location of the Emily Sander's body at 1:16; it is at 37.76 N, 96.21 W. In the bottom left of the image is a news article. It states that one hour later, at 2:20 p.m., investigators had found the body of missing college student, Emily Sander. In the bottom right of the image, another news article says the body was found 50 miles from El Dorado, which the image in the top right confirms. From this collection of images, it seems all too clear that the person who initiated the thread, saying where the body of Emily Sander was, was in fact her murderer.

Events like these aren't unexpected on 4chan. It now makes sense that the reason investigators refused to say how the body was found was because its location was posted on 4chan one hour before police had found the body. After six days of searching, police used the information on 4chan to finish the investigation. To the majority of us, it is too shocking to know that people will commit murder only to post it on a forum in an attempt for attention. However, clouds still hover over the case.

While the current suspect has a history of murder, rape, and aggravated sodomy, he currently lives in Mexico and needs to be extradited. In addition, it's possible that time zones may have contributed to the shocking value of the image. It could be that the first poster had actually read the article and posted it immediately after he read it, with the time zone difference making it appear that he actually had posted it one hour prior. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that the location he gave would be so accurate.

The case of Emily Sander simply reinforces the danger of 4chan. People will commit insane and heinous crimes solely for attention. While I don't advocate the termination of the site, it may be important to institute greater moderation of the site to limit the adverse effects that it can cause.

Source:
"Murder of Emily Sander. Wikipedia.
"4chan." Wikipedia.