MI - Girl's MySpace Mideast Meeting Plot Foiled

[opme]

If a kid is going on a trip with another family, don't you get phone numbers? Schedules? Contact information? Ask about money, help them pack? Find out from the parents what is provided, what is not? I can't fathom just dropping her off at the bus station. That's not permissive parenting, that's just ignorant.

This must not be the first time the girl lied if she was that good at it.

This is beyond being permisive.. this is neligence..in this day and age you can;t afford as a parent to be so completely oblivious to your child, their whereabouts, their friends, to know what they are doing when online.
I just can;t fathom a parent not meeting the parents or having multiple conversations regarding this "trip". To know the logistics, the contact numbers the agenda etc..

Then again I amazed at the sheer number of parents that let toddlers and preschoolers wander around the park with no supervision and are ont he other side of the park and paying no attention to thier child... maybe its just me or maybe I just have read too many horrific stories here to be that far removed/out of touch with my child and their life. I understand kids eing alowed to be kids, the need for trust, play, etc.. but this is scary that these folks were so out of the loop on this child and the true nature of her trip.

 

[bbmcrae]

Many suicide bombers might be teenage recruits (drawn from within their own culture), but that doesn't make this the case. This is a creepy and inappropriate relationship definitely, everything else is conjecture. I think if the man was Canadian, no one would say he was trying to recruit a bomber. But since he's Middle Eastern...well, hey, obviously he's a terrorist suddenly, right?

 

[ljwf22]

From a Detroit Free Press story:

"Initially, Wood said, the teen did not want to return to Gilford Township, a small rural community of 800 people. Katherine appears to have logged on to her MySpace.com account as recently as Sunday, according to the Web page, which tracks when it was most recently accessed.
Wood said she and Katherine's family still do not know how old the man is -- whether he is 25 as he claimed on the Internet or 20 as he told a reporter from WNEM-TV in Saginaw on Saturday. Wood said she could not discuss rumors that Katherine met with the man's family in Michigan before she left to see him.
Wood also said she did not know how the teen got from her home in Gilford Township to New York or how she paid the hotel bills. Tuscola County Sheriff Thomas Kern said Katherine left her house in a taxi.
Lester returned to the United States late Friday, with television footage showing her waving as she walked across a tarmac at Bishop International Airport in Flint.
The teen had been working as an intern with a Caro radio station for at least the past three months. Jon Sicotte, a sports director at WIDL-FM/WKOY-AM radio, said Monday that there had been suspicion that Katherine was accessing her MySpace account while at work. Her older sister Mary Lester also works at the station, Sicotte said.
Sicotte said that everyone at the station has a MySpace account."

Wood is the mother's attorney. The radio station manager has since said Katherine did not use the station's computer to log on to myspace.

Link:http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060613/NEWS06/606130364&SearchID=73247631067556

 

[beakiebean]

Many suicide bombers might be teenage recruits (drawn from within their own culture), but that doesn't make this the case. This is a creepy and inappropriate relationship definitely, everything else is conjecture. I think if the man was Canadian, no one would say he was trying to recruit a bomber. But since he's Middle Eastern...well, hey, obviously he's a terrorist suddenly, right?

Very true-although the media is fond of showing us pictures of the "rabid muslims" the majority of the people in the middle east are not terrorists-they are ordinary people like you and me.

 

[Fang]

Teens have the amount of money, passports etc for this? My, have times have changed from when I was...nevermind! Continuing the story:

Ummm, mid eastern family is reported to be heart broken. Continues the saga.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-myspace-bride_x.htm

 

[LinasK]

Teens have the amount of money, passports etc for this? My, have times have changed from when I was...nevermind! Continuing the story:

Ummm, mid eastern family is reported to be heart broken. Continues the saga.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-myspace-bride_x.htm

My reaction is still:sick: :sick: :sick: . This girl had no business running away across the world to elope. She probably has no idea what she is getting into or even what the Muslim religion and their views on women are about. I still think he could have easily recruited her to be a suicide bomber. She was willing to convert to the Muslim religion.

 

[Montana]

She is still communicating with this guy? Has her mother learned nothing? Why isn't she restricting her daughter's internet access (I would totally take her computer away) and monitoring where she is going?

 

[Fang]

My reaction is still:sick: :sick: :sick: . This girl had no business running away across the world to elope. She probably has no idea what she is getting into or even what the Muslim religion and their views on women are about. I still think he could have easily recruited her to be a suicide bomber.

I do agree with you that this 16 year old is essentially clueless, which in itself I normally find odd in today's world but not so when it comes to a completely different culture. Altho she managed to escape from home showing a good degree of knowledge in her plan to do so, she and the man of her dreams are continuing to communicate and aren't giving up, according to the USA TODAY url I posted. I can only hope that this young lady is required by her parents to be able to financially take care of herself for a minimum of 2 years before marrying. That won't happen, I am pretty sure but is what I think all young ladies should do before marrying anyone at all, domestic or foreign. I suspect unless she is watched like a hawk, she will abscond again. Suicide bomber? I have no idea one way or the other.

 

[cathieq]

I get so lost going back over posts, so if this has been posted before I apologize. His myspace:

http://tinyurl.com/qszn2

She's message'd him..i think she is you are my ---

 

[Fang]

She is still communicating with this guy? Has her mother learned nothing? Why isn't she restricting her daughter's internet access (I would totally take her computer away) and monitoring where she is going?

Lol, I am assuming Mom basically approves of the relationship because otherwise, she would have, at a bare minimum, done as your common sense states.

 

[hoppyfrog]

From cnn.com http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/14/jericho.romance.ap/index.htmlThe family of a West Bank man whose 16-year-old American girlfriend flew to the Mideast to marry him after they met on the Web is distraught that she has returned home and says they still hope to bring the couple together.

Last week, Katherine Lester slipped out of her mother's house in Gilford, Michigan, and boarded a flight to Israel, where the mother of her prospective groom was waiting to pick her up and take her to Jericho.

The wedding is off -- at least for now.

Sana Jinzawi, Abdullah's mother, said her son is heartbroken and insisted the two are in love.

"She was going to sign a marriage contract as soon as she got here," she said, adding that she told Katherine to "bring a pink dress for the engagement party and a white dress for the wedding."

"She wanted to convert to Islam and wear the head covering and live with us and adopt our culture," she said.

Jericho, a dusty backwater of 17,000 people, is a place of relative calm in the strife-torn West Bank, where Israelis and Palestinians frequently clash.

Abdullah, who works in his father's business delivering goods to mini-markets, is no longer giving interviews.

In a phone interview Saturday with WNEM-TV in Saginaw, Michigan, he said he met Katherine on the social networking hub seven months ago, that he was a wealthy businessman, and that he wanted to marry her.

Sana Jinzawi, who holds an Israeli identity card, said she traveled to Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv to greet the would-be bride last week.

"When she didn't arrive it was a sad day for us. All kinds of thoughts went through our heads and we asked the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, and they told us she went back to the U.S. from Jordan," she said.

Sana Jinzawi said her family was taken aback by all the attention the case has received, and is afraid the FBI would become involved.

Family members insist they didn't want to hurt the girl and had no idea she acted without her parents' consent.

Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all of them now live with their wives in the U.S.

Sana Jinzawi said her son and Katherine have been in touch since she returned to Michigan.

"Neither of them are giving up on each other," she said.

 

[LinasK]

But since he's Middle Eastern...well, hey, obviously he's a terrorist suddenly, right?

He's a 20-year-old Palestinian, from the West Bank, who lied about his age. Prime target. I'm not making bigoted assumptions about him based on nothing! I've spent time in Israel, and I've been to Jericho. There were Jordanian terrorists setting off bombs while I was there. Israel lives in a continuous stage of seige. Armed soldiers ride the busses. Suicide bombers don't not set off their bombs just because Americans are present.:bang: Their favorite targets are public places like busses, markets, restaurants, and movie theaters.

This little twit, only 16, is playing with fire and she will probably get burned! Besides, anybody can say I love you in writing, doesn't mean they do.

 

[Fang]

I get so lost going back over posts, so if this has been posted before I apologize. His myspace:

http://tinyurl.com/qszn2

She's message'd him..i think she is you are my ---

My goodness. I sorta feel like I should get some popcorn. Drama played out. However, this is a very serious matter IMO for the girl and also for her family.

 

[Cypros]

The discussion of this case provides some insight into cultural sterotypes of criminal behavior.

It is interesting that when a female teenager runs off to meet with her older ARAB Internet Pal, many Americans immediately jump to the conclusion that the man is a terrorist and intends to indoctrinate the girl into his terrorist cell or to torture her as an American. However, when, as in most of such cases covered here at Websleuths, the female teenager runs off to meet her older AMERICAN Internet Pal, the immediate assumption is that he is a pedophile who intends to molest, rape and murder the girl -- or kidnap her and sell her into sex slavery. One culture is stereotyped by rampant violence and death for political and religious agenda, the other is stereotyped by rampant violence and death for sexual gratification.

...Israel lives in a continuous stage of seige. ...

Actually, it is Palestine that is in a "continuous stage of seige" (anyone who has visited Jericho can plainly see who is occupying whom).

 

[LinasK]

The discussion of this case provides some insight into cultural sterotypes of criminal behavior.

It is interesting that when a female teenager runs off to meet with her older ARAB Internet Pal, many Americans immediately jump to the conclusion that the man is a terrorist and intends to indoctrinate the girl into his terrorist cell or to torture her as an American. However, when, as in most of such cases covered here at Websleuths, the female teenager runs off to meet her older AMERICAN Internet Pal, the immediate assumption is that he is a pedophile who intends to molest, rape and murder the girl -- or kidnap her and sell her into sex slavery. One culture is stereotyped by rampant violence and death for political and religious agenda, the other is stereotyped by rampant violence and death for sexual gratification.

Actually, it is Palestine that is in a "continuous stage of seige" (anyone who has visited Jericho can plainly see who is occupying whom).

Sorry, as I already stated, I've been to Jericho. Tell your theories to the innocent Israelis, and Americans who were victims of suicide bombers whose sole intention is to wipe the existance of Israel off the map!:furious:

 

[TisHerself]

He's a 20-year-old Palestinian, from the West Bank, who lied about his age. Prime target. I'm not making bigoted assumptions about him based on nothing! I've spent time in Israel, and I've been to Jericho. There were Jordian terrorists setting off bombs while I was there. Israel lives in a continuous stage of seige. Armed soldiers ride the busses. Suicide bombers don't not set off their bombs just because Americans are present.:bang: Their favorite targets are public places like busses, markets, restaurants, and movie theaters.

This little twit, only 16, is playing with fire and she will probably get burned! Besides, anybody can say I love you in writing, doesn't mean they do.

Little Twit? well that's cute. And yes you are making bigoted assumptions about him, His mother was at the airport to meet her, she knew about her, they had been corresponding for 7 months. Because there is unrest in Israel and Palastine does not mean that everyone who lives there is a Terrorist or a suicide bomber. There are decent hard working honest people who live there just the same as here.

The problem here is not with this young man HE told his family about her, he and his family thought her family knew. Who knows how old she told him SHE was, the problem is the girl and her family. She is the one who lied to her faimly, and her family was way to neglectful in not knowing what she was doing on the internet.

There is no way at 16 yrs old she should have been able to have a 7 month relationship with a guy who lives half way around the world. Take off fly half way around the world to meet him without her parents knowing, No way.

 

[hoppyfrog]

I know I'd appreciate it if we could keep this discussion on topic and take political discussions elsewhere. Thanks.

 

[Tricia]

Hey Kids,

Mom here. I agre with Happy Frog. Let's not take on the tinderbox of the middle east on this thread please.

Thanks,
Tricia

 

[Fang]

Hey Kids,

Mom here. I agre with Happy Frog. Let's not take on the tinderbox of the middle east on this thread please.

Thanks,
Tricia

I hope I am not stepping where I shouldn't but I do take note that the age ole marry an american, which ususally means a young naive girl, just might be part of this whole scene. Five other men had girls come to Jericho and all of them now live in the U.S. according to the article.

I agree with the majority here that the 16 year old is to young. Why teens think they know it all until they reach about 18 or so (time to go out into the world) amazes me but seems to be a universal condition. Why her mother allows this young lady total control of her own life at 16 is also amazing. I wish the family well.

 

[Cypros]

Sorry, as I already stated, I've been to Jericho. Tell your theories to the innocent Israelis, and Americans who were victims of suicide bombers whose sole intention is to wipe the existance of Israel off the map!:furious:

As have I..... and as I predicted, the whole family was aware of the girl's arrival and looking forward to meeting her. They are talking openly with the media. Their intent seems to be love and marriage, as other of their friends have accomplished -- not terrorism nor sexual molestation. I think TisHerself says it best. The real source of the problem in this case is the lying American teenager and her parents who do not seem to have any real communication or relationship with her.