This brings me to Porter Russo, the third year student at Pettiwick who met his unfortunate demise in the knife attack. He had been a promising baseball player, handpicked for the Junior City Mainers baseball team and well liked among his classmates. That was at least what the family had thought. No one had expected Deborah to go mad. But then her daddy joined a cult so what did they know? Porter was always online so his sister requested the memorial page. It comforted their mother to see the well wishes flood in from his schoolmates. They posted pictures of themselves with Porter. The coach from the baseball team too left some comments on how he would be missed.
The day before the funeral, the sister, Pamela Russo, had woken in the early hours. She couldn’t sleep so she logged on to Porter’s memorial page to post some final arrangements to those who were coming along to bid him farewell in real life.
Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed someone calling themselves PINDROP25 had posted a picture of Porter. The picture had been doctored to show blood streaming from his neck. Cecil Mouse was looming behind him holding a knife.
IT’S HOT IN HELL BUT I’M HANGING ON. SEE YOU ALL SOON.
Pamela was understandably upset. She contacted @hangoutmod and the comment was removed. Such is the way with these things.
Within hours more pictures had been posted. Other people had seen the comment before it was pulled and were starting to respond. Most were calling PINDROP25 a vile troll. PINDROP25 flooded the feed with laughing faces and more doctored photos of Porter, showing him being molested by a cartoon Satan. These comments were pulled too. The HANGOUT admin jumped quickly on deletion of comments but PINDROP25 kept popping up in various other forms. Iris’ team were kept busy trying to contain the fall out. She could have just deleted the page but she felt that wasn’t fair on Porter or those who had come genuinely to share their memories. Pamela Russo was of the same mind. Why should a stupid troll be allowed to ruin outpouring from family and friends? The troll seemed to multiply and the day after the funeral the memorial page had become a hot mess. It was flooded with mockery to Porter and his family. Even the young girl he had been going steady with became a target. She had been in the class at the time and the mental health trouble she had suffered as a result became perfect troll feed.
Eventually PINDROP25 took a step back. Their job was done. Other trolls jumped on the bandwagon. When Pamela confronted one calling themselves SOULDIGGA13 they told her they were merely highlighting the ridiculousness of the memorial page concept. According to them it wasn’t a show of genuine concern. It was an outlet for egos and fakers.
STAY OFF MY BROTHER’S PAGE! Pamela had responded.
Pamela connected with Iris herself through chat. She still insisted that the page wasn’t pulled. She wasn’t going to be strong armed by trolls. Then a DM was sent to Pamela and Porter’s mother. It was a picture of Porter’s coffin.
ONE DOWN. ONE TO GO it teased.
When Pamela found out her mother had sent her life savings to them trying to make them stop she was furious. She and Iris had another chat. Iris collected all the data she could. It was now up to CPD to find the trolls. The search for PINDROP25 continued.
COMING SOON
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