Bizarre tale of boy who used internet to plot his own murder

The final internet chatroom exchange took place on 28 June last year. “U want me 2 take him 2 trafford centre and kill him in the middle of trafford centre??” said one message. “Yes,” came the reply.

Less than 24 hours later, a 14-year-old boy was critically ill in hospital with stab wounds in the chest and stomach. At first it seemed as though a brutal, but straightforward, robbery had gone wrong. But yesterday the young “victim” became the first person in this country to be convicted of inciting their own murder. —Helen Carter —Bizarre tale of boy who used internet to plot his own murder (Guardian)

There’s a postmodernist seminar paper in this news story. Talk about “death of the author”. Definitely a made-for-TV movie, since it confirms all the worst fears that the traditional media like to stoke regarding the Internet.

This detail stuck out to me:

Police were able to link all the fictional characters back to John because Ms Hogg’s analysis discovered common features in the typing style, such as the misspelling of “maybe” as “mybye”, of all the characters.