Don’t think for a second that just because you’re a man that it’s safe for you to meet that online hot babe in person!
You may end up as dead as a door nail.
So one day, Jason Rodrigues, 19, got a Facebook friend request from “Ty-Ann.” He had no idea whom this was, but she told him she had seen pictures of him online.
Her avatar was stunning, luring Jason to her Facebook page. They began corresponding via Facebook and texts.
This was too good to be true: This gorgeous gal out of the blue is showing an interest in Jason, who by the way was quite the lady’s man.
He had a girlfriend in his hometown but he was seeing different women while a student away at college. His last fling had been with a needy woman named Grace, but he had broken that off.
Soon after Ty-Ann entered the picture, but Jason had to know for sure she was real, so he requested a Skype session.
Lo and behold, a beautiful blonde appeared, and Jason was so relieved that she was for real. She was as eager to meet him as he was to meet her, and she invited him to her house for a date night. Jason accepted.
Fatal Decision
Shortly before Jason departed for Ty-Ann’s place, he began having funny feelings about the situation, so he texted a buddy the address and time of this date.
Soon after Jason arrived in front of the address, at night, in the dark, he was shot by a masked man—a witness had seen the shooting. He died a week later.
“At first glance most people begin to view this as a technology or Internet issue and often put partial blame on the various social sites for facilitating such heinous acts,” says Robert Siciliano, CEO of Safr.Me.com and an expert in fraud prevention and personal safety.
Siciliano continues, “However, horrible crimes like this happen because humans possess traits such as anger and jealousy. This is a people problem, not a technology issue.
“Crimes like this are so successful because they prey upon the victims emotions, luring them into almost impossible situations to get out of.”
How Did All of This Happen?
The shooter had staged everything, having gone through an elaborate scheme to create “Ty-Ann” and her phony Facebook account.
The picture of Ty-Ann was actually that of a female friend the killer had known for years named Raquel Duvall. The killer had tricked Raquel into posing as “Ty-Ann” to play an innocent prank on a buddy.
Raquel fell for the ruse. The killer had instructed her to invite him to the phony address. Raquel had no idea that it was a murder setup.
Who was this killer? He was Israel Nieves, the ex-boyfriend of Grace!
It’s Dangerous for Men to Meet Online Women in Person
Why didn’t Jason insist on a daytime first-meeting in a people-frequented public location? This is the same safety advice that women are given who want to meet a man they met online in person.
• Daytime
• Popular café with lots of people around
• If Miss Gorgeous refuses, then you know it’s a dangerous setup.
What if Jason had insisted on a daytime public meeting? This would have thwarted Nieves’ plan.
Is it safe for men to meet a woman from the Internet for the first time in a remote spot?
Didn’t it strike the young man as wildly odd that a woman would feel safe inviting him—a total stranger save for two weeks’ worth of Internet communication—to come over her home at night?
This alone should have gotten Jason thinking, “Gee, either this woman has the strength of two men and wears an anti-strangle collar around her neck, or I’m being set up.”
Jason passed up on numerous chances to save himself. Blame human behavior, not technology.
Though Jason could not have connected “Ty-Ann” to the ex-boyfriend of Grace, the very fact that Ty-Ann was pushing for an immediate meeting alone at her house at night should have set off a screeching alarm.
“In war and conflict, covert government operations, as leverage to perpetrate blackmail and even to determine a man’s fidelity or lack of, women and sex have been used as ‘bait’ to lure men into traps since the beginning of time,” explains Siciliano.
“Anonymous and virtual communications make it even easier to pull this off. Men will probably never learn to control their impulses which is why this ruse is successful today.
“All one can do is recognize these risks by in hindsight, learning from others mistakes and beware when you are being pulled in an emotional and sexual direction that preys upon your manly impulses as it must be “too good to be true.”
Men, just like women, should NEVER agree to meet an Internet date at a remote location, but instead, a well-known location such as a café that everyone knows about — even something like Starbucks will do.
Robert Siciliano
