The SlaveMaster e-mail has returned to stalk the Internet, this time donning the persona of “MonkeyMan935” in an attempt to scare uninformed men and women.
Like its predecessor, the MonkeyMan935 e-mail is a hoax.
To date, we’ve captured two versions of the new hoax:
Date Captured: Nov. 6, 2002
The state Police are warning all women that if they receive any internet message from Monkeyman935 DO NOT REPLY or communicate. He is currently wanted for 56 murders so far for women he has contacted on the internet. This is no joke. It is for real to please get the word out to all your friends!!
Date Captured: Dec. 8, 2002
WARNING FROM THE STATE POLICE PLEASE READ THIS
I Subject: WARNING From STATE POLICE ..USA (not a joke) State police warning for online: Please read this “very carefully”…then send it out to all the people online that you know. Something like this is nothing to take casually; this is something you DO want to pay attention to. Think of it as a bit of advice too.
If a person with the screen-name of Monkeyman935 contacts you, do not reply. DO not talk to this person; do not answer any of his/her instant Messages or e-mail. Whoever this person may be, he/she is a suspect for murder in the death of 56 women (so far) contacted through the Internet. Please send this to all the women on your buddy list and ask them to pass this on, as well. This screen-name was seen on Yahoo, AOL, AIM, and Excite, so far.
This is not a joke! Please send this to men too…just in case! Send to everyone you know! Ladies, this is serious.
For completeness’ sake, here’s the orginal SlaveMaster e-mail:
If a guy by the name of SlaveMaster contacts you, do not answer. He has killed 56 women that he has talked to on the internet.
Please send this to all the women on your list. Also ask them to pass this on. He has been on Yahoo — Aol — Excite so far. This is no Joke!!!!! You can check it out on Aol’s news.
This is one urban legend that we know the root of. The “SlaveMaster” was a real person named John Robinson. He was arrested by police in 2000 in connection with the disappearence of 8 women and one child. He was later convicted of murdering three women, and is now in jail.
His alleged body count isn’t nearly has high as the fictional SlaveMaster’s, who presumably had his numbers bolstered to increase the scariness of the threat. The original e-mail circulated for years before mutating, and its not hard to see the similarities between the original and its latest iterations (especially in the number of victims: 56)
Unfortunately, its hard to definitively debunk this legend because it offers so few concrete details — note how it says it is a “warning from the state police”, but never identifies the state. I checked the state police home pages for New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and neither one had any warnings about such a killer lurking online. Similarly, searches on the net for “Monkey935” turn up nothing but hoax debunkings.
While lack of proof is not itself proof, in a case like this one has to assume that if such a serial killer was around, we’d know about it (as we did with the “SlaveMaster”). In the aftermath of the sniper killings in the greater Washington, D.C. area, as well as America’s ongoing facination with serial killers, its impossible for me to fathom one that’s managed to kill 56 people, and is well known via e-mail, but who has managed to evade the attention of the murder-hungry mainstream press.
Given the non-existent evidence for this e-mail, I’m confident in declaring it a hoax. For more information about this hoax, check out these sources:
- About.com: Monkeyman935 – State Police Warning: An overview of this hoax, as well as its earlier variations.
- Snopes.com: Slavemaster: Details the original e-mail, plus the mutations