Google Searches and Serial Killers: How Daniel Stani-Reginald’s Google Searches Told a Story

Today I learned about the chilling 'suitcase murder' that happened in a place eight hours away, by car, and since the moment I read the article and watched the CCTV footage of the murderer casually hauling away the suitcase, I have had an upset stomach.

The most interesting thing about this case is the things the murderer, Daniel Stani-Reginald had searched up on Google before and after the murder. In fact, his search history pretty much tells the story of his inner, deranged rape-addicted self:

'Milwaukee cannibal'
'Jeffrey Dahmer'
'Anthony Sowell'
'Peter Sutcliffe'
'teen rape'
'serial rape'
'gang rape'
'body found in suitcase'

At this point, Tosha had locked herself accidentally out of her room, so Daniel offers to help by breaking in from the roof, and opening the door on the inside. After he had done this good deed, he went back to his room and for ninety minutes, began to do some more Google searching:

'rape neighbour'
'how to clean up a crime scene'
'first 48 hours of a crime scene investigation'
'legal defences of serial killers'
'chokehold diagrams'
'grappling hold'
'hardcore doggy style in the bathroom'

After that search, he had raped and murdered Tosha Thakkar, squeezed her little body into a suitcase, taken it into the taxi he called, had help getting it into the boot from the taxi driver, told him that it weighs that much because it is filled with electronics such as laptops, and is driven to Meadowbank Park to dump the suitcase in the canal. After he returns to his apartment, he concludes his Google searching with:

'beginnings of a serial killer'
'true sociopath'

Altogether, when the police confiscated Daniel's laptop as a form of evidence, they found nine-thousand serial killer related searches in a course of over six months. These searches also revolved around rape, how to rid himself of forensic evidence, multiple murder court cases, strangulation ligature patterns analyses, and maps of the canals in the park which he dumped Tosha's body, Meadowbank Park. 

Apart from his Google searches, another interesting thing was that they found bottles lined up on a shelf in his room filled with his urine. Upon researching through the internet about urine-filled bottles and their collectors, I have not only created a deranged Google search history for myself, but also found that people claim collectors of their own urine in bottles to be deranged, or to have fetishes. 

The fact that Daniel hoarded his urine might have some sort of psychological meaning, one that I cannot point out simply due to my lack of psychological knowledge. I have gained an interest in psychology recently, but due to my majoring in English and Art, I have found it seemingly difficult to pursue that interest at the moment. Perhaps as I move on in the university world, I will have more opportunities to study psychological behaviours, and when I do I will take into account this strange urine collecting behaviour.

Back to my point, Daniel's research on Google does indeed show a pattern, his thorough research through the infamously acclaimed serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer indicated his interest in some aspect of them - it is safe to say at this point, given his crime record, that his interest did not lie in their motives but rather in how they went about their murders, thus his interest was somewhat role-model based. 

His next set of searches, all related to 'rape' were indicative of dominance over females in rape, the fact that he typed 'serial' and 'gang' before 'rape' shows this. Perhaps, alternatively, he was exploring individuals' behaviours in gang rape situations, and perhaps he further studied, if so briefly, the type of person that initiated the rape and the type that took it so far as to killing the victim or ways of dumping the body, which then leads us to his next search - 'body found in suitcase'. 

His next search determined his primary method of bodily disposal. Though he was interested in Jeffrey Dahmer, is was certainly not going to consume parts of Tosha's body, nor throw others in acid. He was to get rid of her entirely, so as to avoid any leads coming back to him if an investigation was to ever take place. 

He then typed 'rape neighbour' after having helped Tosha get back into her room. Perhaps he was seeking others' experiences in doing such a horrid thing. He must have read a few news articles, a few thoughts, and then proceeded to researching 'how to clean up a crime scene' in the event that things would have gotten messy, he searched what the next two days would be like after a crime occurs in terms of investigations so as to possibly run and hide, and looked up the 'legal defences of serial killers' perhaps after possibly realising that being caught was inevitable - he had to have had some sort of defence if that ever was the case.

Now that he found the method of ridding himself of all evidence including the body and after having had a glimpse into the crime scene world, Daniel then acquainted himself with methods of strangulation, researching both the 'chokehold' and the 'grappling hold', in order to create the very crime scene that Tosha would find herself in. Depending on the strength of his 'Indian fetish', I am assuming that at this point of the researching, Daniel would have found himself rather excitable, thus began looking at 'hardcore' pornography videos, preparing his sexual state for what was to come.

The most interesting aspect of this entire case, however, is the development of Daniel through his Google searches, especially through the last two searches: 'beginnings of a serial killer' and 'true sociopath' - perhaps his act in raping and killing Tosha had allowed him to finally view himself as one of them, as another Jeffrey Dahmer or Anthony Sowell. Perhaps he had collected his urine as a way in manifesting himself in the idea of him being a sociopath, and by raping and killing Tosha he was finally a 'true sociopath'. Either way, Daniel's consistent Google searching indeed told us a story about his inner psyche, revealed his innermost motives and showed us a glimpse into the thought processes of a serial killer. 

At only nineteen years old at the time, I am beginning to also wonder if this was Daniel's first kill. He seemed to have planned it awfully well, and had it not been for the four curious labour men who saw Daniel throw the suitcase into the canal, Daniel might have not been caught. What shocks me is that six months before he raped and murdered Tosha, he holds two women at knife point in Meadowbank Park and attempted to rape them, but fails. He is jailed for nine months, and the case is then dropped because the women he almost raped were too scared to endure a court hearing. 

Now, Daniel is sentenced to a maximum forty-five years in jail, with a chance that he might be released before he turns fifty. The judge who sentenced him claimed that despite the very high chance that he would commit more crimes in the future, he did not "deserve to spend the rest of his life in jail". When Daniel was just nine years old, his father had killed his mother - perhaps this initiated his desire to kill women? 

Whatever reason Daniel had in mind whilst wanting to rape, the fact remains that he intended to rape, and probably will again when he is released. Tosha did not know that Daniel was prosecuted for intending to rape two women, had she have known, I think that she might have moved away earlier than she had planned, and not have been murdered in the first place. I think that all offenders revolving around murderous intents or such should be revealed to all those in their vicinity - I would like to know who researches these things on Google, even if their research was innocent and for self-interest or for school purposes, within which the researcher must provide evidence for such. It would make the community that the killer is in safer, and the detectives' jobs easier.

Rest in peace, Tosha Thakkar.



                                                                                                                                                                                         

References:

'My Neighbour, My Killer' article:
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/my-neighbour-my-killer-20140303-33ul6.html

Knives in Kiosks

A while ago, while at a shopping centre with my mother, she deserted me in front of a kiosk to enter the female shoe shop in front of it. I decided it was not all that bad, that I would innocently stand in front of the kiosk and pretend as though I was busy with something so that I would not look like a hopeless sop waiting for my mother to pick some more unaffordable shoes that would be stored in a place where there isn’t enough room for more shoes, that she would later not wear to any event because of my family’s lack of attending events hence lack of invitation.

There I stood, looking as seemingly normal as the status quo permits, when suddenly a thought which would eliminate all sources of my conformity appeared in my mind and filled my eyes with fear. At the back of the kiosk was a magnetic kitchenware board, and attached to it were over five knives, one more bigger and stronger than the other. No security camera nor employee guarded them. They remained there in public sight, capable of great harm.

After this sight I approached the front counter, and told an employee about it. She looked back at it in fear, her look suggested that she did not predict a psychopath with a mind and thought process like mine could come near the otherwise peaceful kiosk in which she worked at. She took another look at me, and nodded her head, claiming she will speak to her manager about it. I returned a week later, and the magnetic board was still in the same spot, with knives waiting for a criminal who forgot their weapons at home.

Now it has been several months since this crazy confrontation that scared an employee at the realization that her workplace makes murder easy. Today I visited the same shopping centre, and was shocked to find out that my words of precaution may have reached that kiosk which I did not visit, but it certainly did not reach the other kiosks in the centre, for as I was lining up to purchase a large carrot juice drink, the Asian lady serving me, who was using a large machete to slice a pineapple, had left the machete, at an easy reaching distance I might add, to move far away from it and clean the juicer. She did not pay any attention to the machete or the fact that she left it in front of me. In fact, nobody in the entire shopping centre for three consecutive minutes had paid attention to the fact that right in front of me, a stranger, was an easily accessible weapon of mass flesh penetration.

I stood there in awe. I stared from the machete to the lady, and to the machete again and back to the lady. In that moment of time, I could have grabbed the machete and threatened her for the contents of her cash register and left the complex without the carrot juice I had paid for – what a disaster.

In all seriousness, though, if you, my fellow reader, or any of your friends work at places where knives are easily accessible by customers, then please do not hesitate to keep them from us, and our reach. Knives are potential weapons and shopping centres are not restricted to mentally sane people. People of all sorts can access any public domain, and trouble is not usually attempted to be halted unless it already happens.

Remain aware, and refrain from making a psychopathic person’s endeavours blatantly simple. And really, if you hate your job and feel you are unsafe then do not leave machetes lying around so that strangers may publically decapitate you. Quit. Find another job that you enjoy, like making YouTube vlogs and monetizing your videos, thus earning roughly fifty cents to twelve dollars a month, depending on your video popularity. Be sure to talk about genitals, particularly female ones, and include pictures of them in your video thumbnail images. You’re welcome.