A quadruple homicide and the stories newspapers can't tell

I was a cop reporter for a few years. So sometimes I find myself doing or thinking things that most people might find gruesome. This week I was obsessed with My Death Space. This is a site that lists the deaths of people who have MySpace profiles. It also lists MySpace members who have killed.

Overall the site paints a picture of youth living and dying violently. Stabbings, shootings, suicides, (accidental) chokings, car accidents. Many had cancer or other medical problems. It's sad, sick and gruesome, but I think the site can teach a lot of lessons and serves as a clearinghouse of grief. I'll explain.

When I was a cop reporter, one of the most frustrating things for me was figuring out how to encapsulate the massive grief at a crime scene or in the home of a family that has just lost someone to violence in 18 inches of copy or less. It's just impossible. Sure, frequently a relative will utter something that you know will make a good quote, that is poignant and penetrating or particularly illustrative of the qualities and memory of the deceased. A lot of times no one wants to talk to a reporter in those situations. But sometimes, family and friends pour out their hearts to reporters, to help them with the grieving process, to give the deceased the airtime or newspaper space that the families feel they deserve. I've spent hours with grieving families, only to go back to the newsroom and have no idea where to begin "summing up" the grief.

A quadruple homicide on My Death Space sucked me in: Jessi Ashton Jephson, a 20-year-old in Winchester, Va., about two hours from D.C. and not close to much else, was accused of shooting to death his 19-year-old girlfriend Amanda Orndorff, her 2-year-old son Christopher, her father Samuel Orndorff, and Amanda's nephew, 17-year-old Travis Putman. He (allegedly) shot them in their home, and police found him hours later with a gun. He was arrested and charged with capital murder, and more charges are likely pending.


Jessi Ashton Jephson's MySpace page says that he liked "chillin wit my boy putman." The same one he (allegedly) killed.

My Death Space sums up what happened and provides links to Jessi's, Amanda's, and Travis's MySpace pages. And what is on these pages tells so much more of the story, and so much more about the grief that these deaths in this small rural town caused, than the local newspaper, or any newspaper, could possibly tell.


Friends still go to Amanda's and Travis's pages to leave comments, nearly a month after the deaths. Travis's girlfriend left a very long comment on his alleged killer's page.


I located the local paper, the Winchester Star, which did a pretty good job covering the deaths. But the newspaper couldn't convey the grief the same way the MySpace pages do, nor could it paint the relationships between the dead, the alleged killer, and all of their friends and families the same way MySpace does.

One of the comments on Travis's page says something about how his mom didn't want anyone from the Winchester Star at his funeral (I know how that feels). That's weird, because you have the funeral which is and should be a private grieving process, but at the same time friends and family grieve openly on MySpace, where potentially millions can read their expressions of love and reverence. The newspaper quotes Amanda's mother as saying the family is poor, but has a lot of love. The MySpace pages, in conjunction with some photos from the Winchester Star, really paint the picture of kids growing up in a poor rural area, with not much to do but drink and smoke pot, hanging out at the mall and going to high school football games for fun.

Another indication that these kids were not the wealthiest (Amanda was a security guard at KMart) is that hardly any national news media picked up the story of two young people, a father, and a baby being shot by a close friend. The Washington Post ran a tiny piece which has already been scrubbed from their web site. The Dallas Morning News also ran a brief, about four grafs. Aside from that, a few local TV stations in Virginia and DC, and the Winchester Star were the only media who cared.

Compare that to Natalee Holloway, a "beautiful" blond girl from a wealthy Alabama suburb. Endless news coverage on her, and it hasn't even been proven that she was killed.

It has bothered me for a long time that people of color, poor people, unattractive people, etc., get less news coverage when they die violent deaths.

MySpace allows the people in the lives of Travis Putman, Amanda Orndorff and her family, to tell their stories -- the ones that mainstream media won't or can't tell.