crewtime 01/02/2014 (Thu) 12:07:14 #29478384
Happy new year, Parawatch. Over the countless years I've given up many a New Year's resolution but that doesn't stop me from continuing to try. This year's resolution is simple: to be less dismissive of others. Hopefully, this post is a good step toward that goal. For almost a decade now, many of you have been asking me to cover the Marco Polo Murders, and that's what I'm finally doing today.
The Marco Polo Murders have been a fascination for all sorts of internet denizens, and it's not hard to see why. It links over a dozen mysterious deaths together, and asks the tantalizing question: if you were on the right website at the right time, could you catch a serial killer?
The typical story goes like this: from the year 2000 up to the present day, there has been a serial killer that has gone completely undetected by modern law enforcement. Eighteen victims across seven countries, all seemingly random, connected only by two calling cards: an announcement prior to the death (usually an internet post) reading "Marco," and the response of "Polo" left at the scene of the crime. If enough people learn of the signs, we might be able to catch the killer in the act and lock them away for good.
So why have I never covered it? Simply put, I've never thought there's been enough evidence for this theory.
crewtime 01/02/2014 (Thu) 12:21:02 #48376623
The strongest case for the existence of the Marco Polo Murders comes from the first case ever connected to it. On March 27th at 9:37 AM Central Standard Time, a forum post was made on birdsrus.net, an amateur bird watching and ornithology website from user ATadSettling. While ATadSettling had been a member of the site for years and remained relatively active up to the point that post was made, the post itself had interrupted a discussion thread where users were discussing different kinds of starlings they had spotted and seemed benign and short, but completely unrelated to the discussion. The IP address of the post indicated it had been posted from Waukesha, Minnesota, the same as the rest of ATadSettling's posts. The contents of the post simply read, "Marco!"
Less than twelve hours later, at 8:58 PM, Waukesha police responded to reports of gunshots and discovered the body of Benedict Polo, a 38 year old resident of Waukesha. Polo had been killed by a single bullet to the head, delivered at point blank range. It was unclear why he had been killed. Though the official story the cops settled on is that his death was part of a robbery gone wrong, nothing had been disturbed in his home, there were no signs of a struggle, and it didn't even seem like anyone had broken in.
Evidence at the scene quickly pointed to Thaddeus "Tad" Sedlak as the killer, but that only confused matters further, as it was unclear if Polo and Sedlak had ever met each other. The closest anyone ever came to a connection was that both Sedlak and Polo frequented the Stoneface Pub, a bar on the East side of town, but Polo's relatives claimed that he vastly preferred other establishments to Stoneface, and to this day it's unclear if the two had ever even been at the Stoneface on the same day. Furthermore, friends and family of Sedlak expressed confusion for why he had even committed the murder; even if he had known Tad, he wasn't the kind to hold a grudge. To this day, they dispute the robbery interpretation, as he was well off financially, and many still don't believe he could have committed such a violent act. Some have suggested Tad was into something illegal, perhaps Benedict owed him money, but there has been no evidence in the slightest to support this hypothesis. As you have probably guessed by now, Tad Sedlak was the man behind ATadSettling, and thus the author of that post. Proponents of the Marco Polo Murders argue that the post had been made to announce Sedlak's intent to kill Benedict Polo.
However, this direct connection between the "Marco" and the "Polo," the most direct connection discovered thus far, is also what damns the Marco Polo Murders interpretation for me. The "evidence at the scene" I mentioned last paragraph was the body of Sedlak himself, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the same bullet, the same gun which was still in his hands. For me, this has been where the theory ends; you can't have a serial killer if he's dead after his first kill.
For whatever it's worth, this doesn't make the actual murder any less confusing. If this had been a bungled robbery attempt, why kill himself after? Police proposed he could have been suicidal, but friends and family again refuted this, saying Tad was content in his life, even chipper in the days leading up to his death. If this had been a planned murder-suicide, what was the motive, why Benedict Polo? And police didn't ignore the "Marco," it seems to have been the last message Tad ever shared with the world, but it's not enough to explain anything about the murder. In fact it seems to be the only connection between the two men. Compounding matters further, a local paper claimed an inside source with the police had told them both corpses were found to be smiling. There is something strange going on with this case, there's no doubt about that, but it seems unlikely to be connected to any other crime.
Still, Marco Polo truthers are undeterred. Some believe this killing was merely the inspiration for the others, which I doubt for reasons I'll explain soon. Some claim Sedlak faked his death and managed to escape (the main source of this claim seeming to be that Sedlak's funeral was never publicly announced). Others still suggest that Sedlak's account was hacked, and that he was in fact another victim of the Marco Polo Murders, his death was simply covered up to look like a suicide, to which I argue: why? If this is the start of a serial killer with such a distinct calling card, why try to hide one of your victims?
The murder-suicide was the strongest evidence people had for the longest time.
crewtime 01/02/2014 (Thu) 12:29:14 #74839841
The next incident most people point to as a Marco Polo Murder is the death of Machteld Van Laren, a student at the University of Antwerp. The "Marco" came from the personal computer of Hendrikje Baaiman, a professor at the University, posted in the comment section of a news article from the Associated Press on January 12th 2001 at 12:22 PM, and the "Polo" was the Volkswagon car Machteld was found in the morning after. Baaiman wasn't immediately connected with Machteld, she had never even taught her, and authorities never connected her to Machteld for good reason: Machteld's death was an open and shut suicide. She had driven the VW Polo, a car registered to her, into a shallow region of the Scheldt, where she drowned. There was no evidence to suggest she had suddenly veered off the road as if trying to avoid something, and the car seemed to have been in perfect working order prior to the drowning. Although the news came as a shock to Van Laren's parents, they recognized in hindsight that Machteld was a quiet and reserved person who didn't have many friends or hobbies. A note was discovered in her apartment, taken by local authorities to be her suicide note that read:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand the rules.
The only suspicious behavior discovered in relation to this death was Baaiman's "Marco" comment on an unrelated news article. When later asked about this, she claimed to have no memory of making the comment, and Marco Polo Truthers use this as evidence of their theory. However, this claim was obtained years after Machteld's death, and why would anyone remember a one word comment they made on a long outdated news article?
crewtime 01/02/2014 (Thu) 12:35:56 #74839841
From here, the evidence gets flimsier. You can probably guess where this is going: a random "Marco" post is made, and shortly after a death in the area the post was made has some "Polo" connection: a stick and ball, a breath mint, a golf tee, the music, the last dinner the victim had. The "Marco" posts are often confusing, being left in the most random places, without the poster knowing why they posted that or even claiming they didn't, but only Tad has ever been connected to a victim; often the posters are completely unaware of the death in question (the closest since Tad was in fact, Baaiman, since at least she worked at the same institution Van Laren attended). In fact, because of the nature of the "Marco" posts, many of these incidents are connected and lumped in with the narrative after the fact.
The posts may be just hours before the connected deaths or weeks, and the death may be in the same neighborhood or several towns over. Furthermore, the method of death has never been the same. Of the eighteen supposed "victims," four were declared suicides, at least one was of natural causes, and two were inconclusive. Of the remaining eleven, five have suspects in custody and proven and two more have ongoing searches for suspected killers, notably two different people in two different countries. Guns have only been used twice, the murders were all of different styles, some quick and some slow, and the deaths not labeled murders have an equally wide range of causes. There's the occasional oddity, occasional notes that are difficult to interpret left at the scene, and in particular the suicides all came as a surprise to the communities, but when you dig into these cases, there doesn't seem to be anything overwhelmingly strange about these cases, either individually or collectively. Nevertheless, proponents of the theory will consistently lump all of these deaths together, treating them as though they're all clearly murders despite any evidence to the contrary.
When presented with these inconsistencies, Marco Polo Truthers sometimes pivot. Maybe this is a string of copycats. Maybe it's some kind of secret society ritual. Maybe its not all the same person, but they're still clearly connected. Others dig in their heels: this is the same person, Tad Sedlak was a rube, and the inconsistencies in the deaths actually further prove their theory. It's not hard to understand the obsession, everyone's a little morbidly curious. And maybe they can do something about these deaths, if they just find the right post.
The one time Marco Polo Truthers ever thought they found a Marco before the death occurred, they were almost a week late to finding the post, which had come from Rochelle, Illinois. The closest Polo connection they could make? The town of Polo, Illinois, thirty miles away. Despite attempts to warn officials, there had been no death in Polo since the post, and the next death didn't occur for several more weeks: a man whose heart attack was witnessed by his entire family. Despite their best efforts, they still had nothing to show for it. And they still had not convinced me.
crewtime 01/02/2014 (Thu) 12:50:10 #56741210
At least, that was the case until December 19th, 2013. For the first time ever, one of them found a "Marco" mere seconds after it was posted. This time, the comment was under a video a popular letsplayer had just uploaded on YouTube. The account name was 小泉 美穂 (Koizumi Miho) which had posted "マルコ！" (unsurprisingly, "Maruko!") at 2:44 PM JST and came from Kameoka, a city in the Kyoto prefecture of Japan. Attempts were made to alert local authorities of the danger, but due to the language barrier and lack of knowledge about the apparently impending crime, these attempts were not taken seriously. The "Marco" was quickly spread amongst the believers in the community, who rushed to try and figure out what the "Polo" could be to give something, anything of value to the authorities.
At 11:31 PM JST, the body of Fujimura Souta was discovered, having been killed less than an hour prior. At time of writing, there are no suspects for this grisly murder. In the coming days, Fujimura's loved ones began talking about his sudden change in demeanor prior to his murder. They noted that for the most part, he acted the same, but seemed extra giddy and prone to random bouts of laughter. One friend described the laughter as being "like a trouble-making child who knows they're about to be caught." It was the laughter that led to the discovery of his body, locals reported hearing loud, manic sounding laughter from the alley he was discovered shortly before his time of death. But more disturbing was the manner of death. Fujimura was stabbed and died from blood loss. But simply saying he was stabbed is an understatement; a message was carved into his skin, from his neck to his pelvis. I don't recommend looking up the image, but having seen it myself, it's hard to argue with the clear fact that the message carved into Fujimura's body was "Polo."
Authorities were tipped of about Koizumi Miho's possible involvement, but she had a solid alibi for the murder: she was out with friends doing karaoke at the time of the murder, something confirmed by multiple eyewitnesses and even security cameras. She doesn't remember commenting under the youtube video, doesn't even remember watching it; the streamer spoke English and by her own admission she prefers Japanese content creators. But the "Marco" was not the only comment made under her account that afternoon. Someone replied to her comment (in English) "Why are you doing this?" This was the response from the 小泉 美穂 account:
We're just having fun! If you want to join, we could always use another player