Once upon a time, there was a happy-go-lucky poster by the name of MLGaines who found the ABeeC.com boards and decided to post to her unrestrained heart's content about her favorite soap operas. Ahhh, life was good until MLGaines became a frequent target of a certain group of posters early in the Summer of 1998. MLGaines became quite perplexed as to what could possibly be motivating these "posters" to batter, belittle and berate to such an extreme over a silly soap opera, for she had never seen anything quite like it!
Believe it or not, even personal aspects of MLGaines' life, religion, morals and personal beliefs were drawn into the frays by these simplistic morons. Eventually, other posters on the board were singled out and targeted, some of which were close friends to MLGaines. While they were all scratching their heads in puzzlement over the seemingly hopeless situation, MLGaines became intent on finding out who the culprit was.
In the meantime, the assaults upon innocent posters was only becoming more intense, vicious to the extreme. A long time poster named "Heather" was even emailed a DEATH THREAT and wishes for harm to come to her unborn baby.
Keep in mind, ISP numbers were not visible on the ABeeC.com boards, so MLGaines could only rely on grammatical and pure posting evidence, which consists of taking certain patterns and tendancies into consideration. Many people's posting styles become very comparable to their signatures, and can almost be detected without even looking at their name after a considerable amount of time and familiarness. Alas, this is what MLGaines did to expose the terrorizer of the ABeeC.com board.
A poster by the name of "Satinandsh!t" was using various alters to viciously slew other posters...complete with racist, bigoted and sexually-explicit assaults. MLGaines busted her through her incorrect grammatical usage of the word "rather." The alters that this poster used to perpetuate her reign of terror were: Lovebooty, misconception, SlimeyJoe, Milhous and various "anonymous" posting names. An example of one of her slip-ups with the word "rather" can be found in the following post:
"I have learned from my father (who is a head shrinker) that when people take comments personally RATHER their name is mentioned or not, it usually means they see that in themselves." The poor fool continued to make this grammatical error with the word "rather" over and over again, even AFTER MLGaines busted her with it. It was speculated among the board patrons that this person was either really STUPID or was perhaps suffering from a genuine case of DID and didn't realize the mistakes that her alter identities were making.
Amidst all this ruckus, was the alter named "Milhous." She claimed to be a "child prodigy," supposedly graduating from high school at age 12 (your average Doogie Howser, M.D.) and then spent 9-years becoming a psychologist. Needless to say, Dr. Milhous raised more than just a few eyebrows on the board with this claim, as she was highly combative and couldn't spell worth a damn! While it's true most doctors' writing is illegible, it is rarely incorrectly spelled! The �Good� Doctor Milhous would continually involve herself in board wars and throw about harsh condemnations, mostly towards MLGaines. It was under the very identity of Dr. Milhous that she emailed the death threat and wish for harm to Heather and her unborn baby. Does this sound like the behavior of a psychologist to you? MLGaines subsequently became suspicious of her and thus the focus of the "investigation" began centering in on Milhous.
Satinandsh!t was long gone by this time after MLGaines had publically exposed her on the ABeeC board. However, MLG began to look more closely at Milhous after Milhous claimed that she was still communicating with Satinandsh!t off the boards, via email. Milhous would frequently relay messages to all of the ABeeC board patrons about how sorry Satin was for causing all of that trouble and that she was just a poor, disturbed teenager. Milhous said that Satin was asking to be forgiven. Many of the more kind-hearted posters thought that they could find forgiveness in their hearts and did in fact, forgive Satin, thus giving into the farce, only to be disappointed (and even hurt) to find out that Milhous was actually Satin!
"What?!" you may ask, "how can this be?" 'Tis true, as the not-so-wise doctor flubbed up with the same grammatical error that Satin and the rest of the alters did. Milhous even used the exact same phrase that Satin did..."vultures picking at people until there's nothing left."
In the time period between exposing Satin and exposing Milhous to actually BE Satin, MLGaines began some undercover work by corresponding with Milhous via e-mail, where Milhous proceeded to share some horrific, unimaginable recollections of child abuse (emotional, physical AND sexual!) Milhous even shared a twisted tale about her mother kidnapping her from her father as a young girl and breaking both of her ankles. MLGaines is a person that does not take the subject matter of abuse lightly and of course, developed some compassion for this terrorizing monster known as Milhous. Therefore, MLG struggled with inner-thoughts, battling her conscience, about whether or not to expose Milhous for the fraud that she knew her to be. After all, compounding another's mental illness is certainly NOT something one wants on their shoulders. However, so many posters at ABeeC.com were screaming for vengeance, wanting justice to prevail and right their wrongs, that MLGaines went ahead and revealed the truth...very painfully. The following is a series of posts from the ABeeC.com board that depicts MLGaines' genuine struggle with revealing the demented Milhous. Also featured are several other posters' comments that exhibit the overall mood/impression of MLGaines' fellow posters:
Date: November 12, 1998 03:02 PM
Author: mlgaines
Subject: Crime & Punishment
I ask that anyone who is familiar with Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' to please reflect on the position that the lead detective on that case was placed in. He had suspicions, he even had overwhelming evidence, yet because he had begun to like the guilty murderer for his controversial views on crime and punishment, he felt hesitant about bringing the murderer in and convicting him for his heinous crime.
What in the hell does this have to do with OLTL, you may ask? Before reading any further, let me tell you, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! So, if that bothers you, do not read on.
This has to do with the Board War and the fact that I have solved the mystery of the infamous satinandsh!t poster. I know who is behind the "mask." I regretfully know it with all of my heart and I am deeply saddened. In fact, all of you know her, and to a lot of us, she has been a friend. For several long hours this afternoon, I have wrestled with my emotions as to what to do about my unnerving revelation. Do I expose her along with the undeniable evidence, right here and now on the board? Do I just keep quiet and still pretend not to know and continue to watch other friends of mine be hurt and threatened by this person? JUST WHAT DO I DO??? To this person whom I am speaking of...you have my email address. Please contact me and let's figure out how you would prefer to resolve this mess. If you think I am just bullsh!tting about knowing who is really the "evil culprit" then consider this mis-spelling..."aggrivation."
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Date: November 13, 1998 10:54 AM
Author: Heather
Subject: Crime & Punishment
I understand your position completely, however do not forget that it was Miranda (the victim in The Collector) who paid the ultimate price for the "mild-mannered psychotic's" need for "love" and "attention." As it is us, the board users here, that are paying the ultimate price now.
You do what you feel is best. I support whatever decision you end up making. After all, it is you that has to live with any decision you make. Just don't forget that Fred Clegg got away with what he did because no one else knew about it and could protect themselves. The victims are always the last to know. And many times it is too late when they find out.
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Date: November 13, 1998 10:32 AM
Author: dondale56
Subject: Crime & Punishment
Mlgaines, do as you must about the culprit. Things have been pretty sad around here again and I hope and pray that it will all end soon. You must some day relieve to me your secret for remembering things as well as you do.
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Date: November 13, 1998 12:09 PM
Author: BluMoose
Subject: It's Time
Mlgaines: Let's just do this. Both Heather and I concur with your findings. It really IS sad, but this "person" has done a LOT of damage and hurt a LOT of people, myself included. It's time to end it. Blu
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Date: November 13, 1998 12:53 PM
Author: Heather
Subject: It's Time. Yes it is.
BluMoose is absolutely right. It is time. For us to remain silent is to make ourselves accessories after the fact. It's like helping a murderer hide the body and then providing a false alibi.
As hard as this is for you, you need to realize that this person will not stop. However, if the rest of the board knows this person's modus operandi, they can take steps to protect their privacy (not to mention computers). And I don't think they will take this seriously until they know WHO this person is, WHAT this person has done and how easily we trusted her.
Let's face it, the culprit in question obviously has little or no conscience. She has not been above lying, making extremely hurtful comments to ALL of us under one name or another, and "playing" each one of us against the other. Why should we care about how she will feel once she is exposed? She obviously does not care how she makes others feel (unless it's to PURPOSELY make them feel bad). To protect her is like protecting a wolf in a pasture of sheep.
Please think about this.
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And so, MLGaines did "think about it" and finally came to the conclusion that it was the right thing to do, the ONLY thing to do...EXPOSE MILHOUS! After the 2nd exposure, Milhous slinked off of the ABeeC boards, but not without e-mailing several people, finally admitting her twisted game and threatened to come back someday, stating that they would never know who she befriended next. Milhous delighted in feeding off of the negative energy she created and even after her so-called "existence" was gone, she still reaped the benefits of being able to "feed" off of others because she was still VERY MUCH in the backs of everyone's minds. Unfortunately, paranoia swept over the ABeeC boards and nothing was ever again the same.