It has now been almost two months since Dr. Teleka Patrick, a resident of Western Michigan University's medical program, mysteriously disappeared. Her car was found abandoned nearly 100 miles west of Kalamazoo in a ditch along I-94 in Indiana and she hasn't been seen or heard from since. What started out as a simple missing person case quickly evolved into a bizarre soap opera involving You-Tube videos, tweets, a pastor who apparently is well-known in gospel music circles, and possible mental illness on Dr. Patrick's part.
In short, Dr. Patrick's private life has now been displayed to the world. I'm not going to repeat the whole sordid story as I personally do not think it had anything to do with her disappearance. Like everyone else, I have no clue why she was on that highway at that time, but I think that it is very possible that she either was abducted by someone who was posing as a Good Samaritan or has wandered away and gotten lost--and with the bitterly cold temperatures we have experienced lately, it is very unlikely that she is still alive unless she found shelter. So far searches of the area around the freeway have shown no trace of the doctor. There are other scenarios, but those are the two I find most likely.
What is especially disturbing is that shortly after she disappeared, You-Tube videos and tweets (some deleted) started appearing on the news. It seemed that almost daily we were subjected to a barrage of material she never intended to make public. Where was this material coming from? Not the FBI. Not the NSA. From amateur sleuth-hunters who managed to dig up stuff that she posted under other names. This is what I find frightening.
We come here to Aspies Central and similar forums because we feel that this is a safe place to talk about stuff we can't talk about anywhere else. We may not always say the right things to each other, we may not always get along, but this is where we can hang out and be ourselves, especially the members-only forums. I always figured that since we all use "screen names", our privacy is assured. Not so.
What the Teleka Patrick case has revealed is that there is no place online that is safe from prying eyes. None. And it's not the government doing it. Her "dirty laundry" is out there for all the world to see, and it cannot be crammed back into the washing machine and made clean. We talk about some pretty sensitive stuff on some of the threads, personal details, especially about sexual matters. But what if one of us goes missing and that stuff gets released to the media?
In short, Dr. Patrick's private life has now been displayed to the world. I'm not going to repeat the whole sordid story as I personally do not think it had anything to do with her disappearance. Like everyone else, I have no clue why she was on that highway at that time, but I think that it is very possible that she either was abducted by someone who was posing as a Good Samaritan or has wandered away and gotten lost--and with the bitterly cold temperatures we have experienced lately, it is very unlikely that she is still alive unless she found shelter. So far searches of the area around the freeway have shown no trace of the doctor. There are other scenarios, but those are the two I find most likely.
What is especially disturbing is that shortly after she disappeared, You-Tube videos and tweets (some deleted) started appearing on the news. It seemed that almost daily we were subjected to a barrage of material she never intended to make public. Where was this material coming from? Not the FBI. Not the NSA. From amateur sleuth-hunters who managed to dig up stuff that she posted under other names. This is what I find frightening.
We come here to Aspies Central and similar forums because we feel that this is a safe place to talk about stuff we can't talk about anywhere else. We may not always say the right things to each other, we may not always get along, but this is where we can hang out and be ourselves, especially the members-only forums. I always figured that since we all use "screen names", our privacy is assured. Not so.
What the Teleka Patrick case has revealed is that there is no place online that is safe from prying eyes. None. And it's not the government doing it. Her "dirty laundry" is out there for all the world to see, and it cannot be crammed back into the washing machine and made clean. We talk about some pretty sensitive stuff on some of the threads, personal details, especially about sexual matters. But what if one of us goes missing and that stuff gets released to the media?
