OU student left suicide message

The Oklahoman ^ | Sun October 16, 2005 | Nolan Clay

[MizSterious]

It sort of does, not the big white blinking one that DOS used to have. Maybe that's what they were talking about.

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

I watched Heartland with John Kasick (sp) last night. He had the brother of Joel on and an OK congress critter on. The brother said Joel did not believe in GOD and had been picked on at school all his life. The congress critter said the FBI assured him is was a suicide, not anything else.

I felt John was a little short on information for the show and was knocking the Internet way to much.

[MizSterious]

I heard they never once mentioned the words "ammonium nitrate" either. (Order up another batch of that whitewash!)

[Eastbound]

Isn't Kasich an old buddy of Gary Condidit, Senate Intel committee, same as the university president? Circle seems pretty tight.

[hummingbird]

I don't know all the ins and outs of computers

Same here, but can't those "computer forensics" people look at the hard drive and at least determine when the message was written, and if the computer's clock had been tampered with?

As another poster noted above, I recall that the spokespeople at the time said that there was no suicide note. Time to put on our "google goggles" and have a look!

[maggief]

In the name of Allah, "someone has to kill the (bleeping) infidels, and I'm going to blow myself up and take a bunch of them with me." ;-)

The blinking cursor makes no sense to me. We're to assume he left the message on a live screen without saving or printing? BS

[weegee]

I would have thought that the computer would have been in the possession of criminal investigators as a result of his public demolition (which resulted in his death) and his attempts to buy "explosives" (through ebay and in person at a fertilizer store).

But I guess they left it turned on in the home.

Also it is possible to hit the backpace key and remove text that may be incriminating. "The message said this". Well is that ALL he typed?

If you look at Charles Bishop/Bishra's note, the word "terrorist" has been crossed out in "terrorist act I am about to commit". I'm not willing to believe without a doubt that he is the one who crossed that word out. He had only begun writing his letter. I would have started over if I made an editorial decision so early into say a love letter (or something equally emotional/high profile).

[brytlea]

I saw that too (mentioned it in another thread). I thought John did one of the worst interviews EVER. Asked no tough questions. Just let these two say their piece, and then yes, knocked the bloggers, and said he wanted to put this story to rest (or to bed).

[hummingbird]

tinfoil aside, was this in Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word, was it at a DOS-prompt?

Hi, F15Eagle, now I have to do an experiment. When my computer is left unattended for a period of time, it goes black. One can change the length of time before it puts the monitor in standby, but I guess we would need to know more about whether they are saying they went to the computer and it was black and they moved the mouse and that is what came up (maybe) of if they saw it when they first got to his apartment (probably not).

[brytlea]

I thought maybe they could tell when it was written, but I'm not positive.
I wonder what color google goggles go with my nice tinfoil hate?? ;)
susie

[MizSterious]

Oh, silver, I'm sure. Or red. Great for google goggle ogling.

[hispanarepublicana]

How utterly convenient. If this was found as soon as the LEOs entered the apartment, then why all this time have they said "no suicide note".

[brytlea]

ooops....hate should be hat!
susie

[hispanarepublicana]

Yes.....it's a shame that an "isolated suicide" took the one young man who was going to tell us all how to grow several hundred acres worth of corn in a 2 bedroom apartment (that's the only other use I know of for ammonium nitrate).

[weegee]

Same here, but can't those "computer forensics" people look at the hard drive and at least determine when the message was written, and if the computer's clock had been tampered with?

If it was Word, there is an autosave feature (may not have been on) that keept some of a draft. Does it rewrite the file even if there are no changes?

There are all sorts of details that are stored (including last accessed documents) and recent web cache.

Everyone leaves a virtual paper trail of their thoughts now.

[1rudeboy]

Or Microsoft Word?

[MizSterious]

Well, Kasich said it last night--it's time to put this story to bed, as far as the PTB are concerned, and now it appears they're trying to tie up a lot of loose ends. They still haven't explained, though, just how that roommate lived in that small apartment and never had a clue that all that stuff he kept stumbling over and into were explosives. You think he really believed it was Avon?

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

Unless, of course, one believes that a typical American youth would commit suicide by sitting outside a stadium with explosives in a backpack and not with guns, knives, pills, bridge jumping or a car crash.

The two kids at the school in Colorado had bombs set up that did not go off.

[MizSterious]

Were they wearing them?