Can Social Media Tools Catch A Killer?

On Saturday afternoon of September 27th, a 14 year old Canadian girl, popular daughter of a Pastor was horrifically slain walking in the woods near her house in Edson, Alberta. It is believed there may have been two boys as witnesses who ran for help. Sadly, help arrived too late to save her.

The towns residents, understandably, are in an uproar. Many are speaking of tracking the murderer down themselves – vigilante justice. The RCMP are urging the residents to wait and let them work. In an interesting move, the kids have engaged a Social Media tool to try and scare the killer out of hiding. Text Messaging.

Text messages via mobile phones have been traveling around the teens network within the town, according to a story on CBC national radio this morning. The kids are using TXT SMS messages to hopefully scare the murderer with warning messages that the killer would be safer to turn themselves in than be caught by any of the parents on the hunt.

Could a Social Media tool play a key role in catching a killer? Perhaps. It may not be the only way, but it shows that as a society, we are continuing to find innovative ways to use Social Media services to advance our lives and society. Such action is purely ad hoc with no formal organization. A common purpose united a group to use a device and service that didn’t exist 10-20 years ago to participate in a collective action supporting their small community. These teenagers would have had serious limitations on their ability to help in solving the case. Now they are applying peer pressure in the hopes of playing a part in bringing a murderer to justice. Once the killer is caught, perhaps we will learn if this application of Social Media helped?