I don't know if any of you have been following the sad tale of University of Wisconsin-Madison student Audrey Seiler. I first encountered the story on Fark; the Farkers were suspicious because her story seemed very, very strange. As it turns out, the Farkers were right.
Long story short: Audrey faked her own kidnapping. She was missing for five days, after walking out of her apartment at 2:30 am. Ultimately, she was found in a marsh a couple of miles away. A huge force of police and volunteers mobilized to hunt for her during the entire time she was missing. After her discovery, Madison police listened to her story, and then discovered that she had previously purchased the knife, duct tape, rope and cold medicine that she claimed her assailant used. Someone had used her computer while she was "missing," and Audrey was also spotted around town during that time. The result is that she has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of obstructing officers, as the Madison police force has officially concluded that her kidnapping was a hoax.
There's no denying she has some mental problems. But I think this sends the wrong message:
A college student who staged her own disappearance last month will try to reach a plea agreement and avoid trial on charges she obstructed officers, her attorney said Thursday. Audrey Seiler, 20, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sophomore from Rockford, Minn., faces up to nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine for each of two misdemeanor charges. Her attorney, Randy Hopper, appeared on her behalf Thursday in Dane County Circuit Court...
"She obviously is dealing with a lot of trauma related to this, she's going through a very difficult time. She's having both some emotional and some physical problems to deal with as you might expect somebody who's gone through something like this," Hopper said after appearing in court.
Somebody who's "gone through something like this"?! Excuse me, but Audrey put herself through this. Her actions, while wacky, appear not only deliberate but premeditated, and she lied to the police afterwards. Why shouldn't she be charged with obstructing? Since when does "having a difficult time" absolve one of responsibility?
Oh, and the great "crisis" that allegedly triggered this?
The criminal complaint depicts Seiler as a young woman upset by a fading relationship with her boyfriend, Ryan Fisher. Friends said the two had been fighting, and Seiler's roommate, Heather Thue, told officers that Fisher did not pay as much attention to Seiler as she wanted. Seiler's mother told police her daughter had not been herself lately and was "extremely needy" of Fisher.
Three days before she disappeared, her laptop was used to log onto Fisher's e-mail account and read exchanges "with romantic overtones" between him and another woman, according to the complaint.
Audrey was getting dumped, so she snooped through her boyfriend's email. And the result was a five-day search that cost Madison about $96,000. Please explain to me why leniency should be the approach here. Plenty of college women get dumped every year. Plenty of students are under stress. But that's almost $100K of taxpayer money wasted because Audrey deliberately made all of Madison worry for several days.
She needs help, all right, and jail time may not be the best option for her, but neither is a slap on the wrist. Some local residents feel sorry for "the little lost soul," but I don't, and neither did one resident of Audrey's hometown, who put it best:
Lisa Wangstad wasn't as forgiving, and noted that police say Seiler bought duct tape and rope just before disappearing.
"She just made a fool of us," said Wangstad, a bartender at The Red Vest.
Wangstad, whose daughter attended high school gym class with Seiler, said the hoax would make it harder in the future for real kidnapping victims. And she predicted a difficult time for Seiler's parents.
Presumably as they begin to realize that their daughter doesn't understand that it's wrong to fake your own kidnapping after being dumped.
Posted by kswygert at April 15, 2004 04:31 PM